Skunk and Badger Read online

  “Rock or mineral?” Badger said.

  Yes, the beginning was one of Badger’s favorite moments.

  “Mineral or rock? . . . Rock? Mineral? Hmm . . .” Badger turned the rock over and over under the light. Minerals were made of one basic material—one element or “an elemental compound,” as the rock scientists said. There tended to be a sameness about a mineral. A rock, though, was a combination—a combination of minerals, or a combination of rocks and minerals. Two minerals stuck together? That would be a rock. Five minerals mixed up and a rock glommed together in a mass? Also, a rock.

  The object in front of Badger had a gray speckle. It also had a pink speckle. Additionally, there was that speckle that sparkled.

  Badger stood up and circled, his eye on the object in the pool of light on his rock table. He stopped mid-step. Then he hopped in front of the object, tapped a speckle—“Huh”—and stared. He circled again. He scratched his head and stopped. He stuck a claw in the air. “Ah!” He thought and then sighed, chuckled and shook his head. “No, no, no.”

  Suddenly, Badger rushed the table, grabbed hold of the object, and tossed it into the air.

  The object flew up.

  The object flew down.

  Badger caught it, and with all his might, he yelled out the answer: “ROCK!”

  Badger always answered the first question with a yell. This was usual. What was not usual was the pitter-patter of feet that followed.

  The door to the hallway burst open. “Are you okay? You yelled ‘rock’!”

  There stood Skunk.

  Badger groaned. He dropped to his rock stool.

  Skunk stepped into Badger’s rock room.

  Badger set the rock on the table. It clunked.

  “Badger? You yelled?” Skunk came closer.

  “Did I?” Badger mumbled, rubbing his face with his paws.

  “Yes, you did. You yelled ‘rock’ loudly!” Skunk walked up to his rock table, and pointed at the pink-and-gray rock. “Is this the rock? Yes, that is probably the rock. You were staring at that one.”

  “Rock or mineral,” Badger mumbled.

  Skunk blinked at him, and pointed again. “That is a pink-and-gray rock.”

  “A mineral is—” Badger started.

  “Something in breakfast cereal?” Skunk interrupted. “Yes, I know! There is a lot of breakfast cereal in the cupboard. I have learned that cereal boxes like to tell you about minerals—minerals, minerals, minerals! Why do they do that? Minerals do not sound tasty to me. Listen, if that is the troublesome rock, you should get rid of it. Troublesome rocks are not worth the trouble, if you do not mind me saying so. Rocks are hard.”

  Badger closed his eyes.

  “Badger?”

  Badger opened his eyes, sighed, and looked at Skunk. “Skunk, you must let me do my Important Rock Work. When these doors are closed, you must leave me alone. I must not see you. I must not hear you. Do you understand?”

  Skunk’s jaw dropped. “But you yelled ‘rock’! If you hear me yell ‘rock,’ I would appreciate it if you came quickly.”

  “If I yell ‘rock,’ leave me alone.”

  “That is concerning. But okay.”

  Skunk stood there. Instead of leaving, he leaned closer and frowned in concentration at Badger. “How about some chamomile tea? Chamomile is a soothing, smoothing tea. You look prickly, Badger.”

  “Goodbye,” said Badger.

  Skunk nodded to himself. “Yes, perhaps it is too late for chamomile.” He gave Badger a last look and finally said, “Goodbye.”

  The door to the hallway clicked shut.

  Badger sighed. He breathed in. I have made my point. He breathed out. I have said what needed to be said. He breathed in. Surely, there will be no more problems.

  The pocket doors popped open. An eyeball appeared!

  Badger jumped.

  Skunk stuck his head through. “What about lunch?”

  “No lunch!”

  Skunk looked worried. “You will be hungry. Lunch is the second-best meal of the day.”

  “I will not be hungry! Do not disturb me!”

  “Okay.” Skunk pulled his head back through the opening, and shoved the pocket doors closed.

  Badger’s head fell to his rock table and thunked.

  Many, many minutes passed.

  Finally, Badger sat up, rubbed his forehead, and picked up the pink-and-gray rock.

  “You are a rock,” he whispered to the rock.

  He glanced at the pocket doors separating his rock room from the kitchen. He glanced at the door to the hallway. He expected to hear footsteps coming closer and to see the slight jiggle of the door handle.

  Badger waited. The door handle did not jiggle. He heard no sounds. Awfully quiet out there, he thought.

  He stood up and went over to the bookcase to retrieve his hardness testing kit, and thought of Skunk. Always hopping, thumping, frolicking about. Badger set out his white porcelain tile, his penny, his chunk of glass, and the talc in a row and listened closely to the sounds in the brownstone. There was not a patter or a floorboard squeak, or the clatter of kitchen utensils. Where was Skunk? What was Skunk doing? Badger’s heartbeat sped up.

  Ukulele! Badger straightened. He imagined Skunk in his room, opening his closet, and finding the ukulele. Badger’s eyes grew large, then darted.

  Stop! he told himself firmly. Maybe it is quiet because Skunk is reading a book. There was an entire bookcase of books in Skunk’s room. Or perhaps Skunk is taking a nap.

  No—not possible! Skunk told animals to tuck napkins in here and sit there. With Skunk in the room, potatoes flew from pans and sheltered in corners. Peppers were set on fire—on fire! These were not the habits of the napping book reader.

  Badger stepped toward the hallway door. He needed to check his bedroom.

  Sit down—Important Rock Work! he told himself.

  Badger went back to his rock table and sat down.

  Ukulele! Badger thought and stood up.

  That was when the back door slammed. This was followed by a whistled tune and the crumple of a paper sack set on the counter.

  Skunk had gone out and returned.

  Oh, thought Badger.

  Then, clear as a bell, Badger heard Skunk whisper, “Badger is working. Must be quiet—shhh.”

  Badger sat down with a groan. He ran a paw through his stripe and thought, This cannot continue—enough is enough. Then he sharpened his favorite pencil, and opened his field notebook to a fresh page. He wrote:

  Dear Aunt Lula,

  Skunk has arrived. He is lively. He bounces. He skips. He whistles tunes and clangs pans.

  Unfortunately, concentration shatters when doors are knocked upon and proclamations are loudly delivered. When eyeballs appear unexpectedly between pocket doors, one jumps out of one’s seat!

  Therefore, after a short visit, Skunk will have to make his home elsewhere. I know you will understand, as you often speak glowingly of my Important Rock Work.

  On the precipice of an Important Rock Discovery,

  Badger

  Badger ripped the page from the notebook, and folded it into an envelope. He addressed the envelope, stuck on the United Pelican stamp, and set the letter on the corner of his rock table. Then he went back to work.

  With the letter on his table, Badger did not mind the noises coming from the kitchen when Skunk made his lunch and then later, his dinner. Badger’s stomach rumbled when something sizzled in a fry pan and a pleasing smell drifted through the pocket doors, but he patted the envelope and worked on.

  When he had solved his rock, Badger left the brownstone with the letter. He shut the front door noiselessly and then trotted down the front steps and along the sidewalk to the United Pelican mailbox. He opened the mailbox lid and dropped his letter inside.

  That takes care of that, Badger thought as the mailbox clanged shut.

  With a spring in his step, Badger turned and headed back to the brownstone.

  Chapter Five
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br />   Badger Found The Brownstone Quiet On His Return from mailing the letter. Skunk must be out, he thought.

  His stomach roared. He rushed to the kitchen. His left paw found the cereal cupboard, while the right one pulled open the utensil drawer. The cereal box hit the counter. The spoon clattered beside it. The milk landed (chunk), along with a bowl (clunk).

  Badger stood and ate. His spoon clinked the bowl, slid across the bottom, and rose to Badger’s mouth. Clink-slide-slurp, clink-slide-slurp, clink-slide-slurp.

  Eating ended, as cereal-eating always did, with Badger holding an empty box. Shake, shake? Shake? As cereal dust rained onto the puddle of milk in his bowl, words surfaced in Badger’s mind: Cold cereal in a cold bowl with cold milk. Badger tapped his spoon against the side of the bowl in time with the words: Cold cereal (tap) in a cold bowl (tap, tap) with cold milk (tap).

  Badger remembered the breakfast Skunk had prepared for him: breakfast hot chocolate, warm strawberry cinnamon muffins, eggs with roasted peppers.

  “Mmmm . . . mmm,” he mumbled.

  He held the empty cereal box in front of him and read, “Fruity-O’s Cereal! Fortified with minerals and vitamins!” Skunk was right. Minerals and vitamins did not sound tasty.

  Badger wrote “No more Fruity-O’s” on the refrigerator grocery list and decided he would go to bed early.

  On the way to his bedroom, Badger heard a sound coming from the old box room.

  The door was ajar. Badger pushed the door to peek in and inhaled sharply.

  In a spot of lamplight, Skunk sat curled in the green beanbag chair with an enormous book open on his lap. Light from a reading lamp pooled on the book’s pages. Across the room, moonlight streamed through the window onto a window seat lined with plump, mismatched pillows.

  Moon Room, thought Badger.

  The Moon Room

  Skunk rubbed his eyes. “Hello, Badger.”

  “You’re here.” Badger said this in not the nicest way. Then he realized that he had not even knocked.

  Skunk did not appear to notice. “Yes, I am here. It is Long Story Night. You sound like a polka when you eat cereal.” Skunk held up a big book. “Have you read this story? It is called Henry V. Henry V is a king with a short last name.”

  I sound like a polka when I eat cereal? Badger tried to look as if this did not bother him and stepped closer to read the big book’s cover. It read: Henry V by William Shakespeare.

  He shook his head. “No—that isn’t a book about rocks.”

  Skunk scooted to the edge of the beanbag chair and sat upright. “You should read this. Henry V is about two kings who are in a battle. It is an upsetting story, but a good one for Long Story Night, and King Henry says interesting things. For instance, King Henry says that the fastest way to win a kingdom is by being kind and gentle instead of using violence and cruelty. Do you think that is true? I do not know what I think at all. I am not even sure I trust Henry V! He is a king. He got everybody into a battle. Battles are not gentle and kind! But I would like to know what you think. What do you think, Badger?”

  Skunk waited.

  “Ah. Hmm,” Badger muttered. He was not used to this kind of question—especially at night after eating an entire box of cereal.

  Skunk ran his claw down the page, and tapped. “He actually says this: ‘. . . when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.’ Does that help?”

  Skunk looked up and waited.

  “Huh,” said Badger. He thought about it one way, and then another. His thoughts dead-ended, so he backed them out and tried another direction. “Maybe? I hope so?”

  Skunk sighed and nodded. “Yes, ‘hope’ seems right to me. Gentle and kind is the way I would like the world to be. I hope it will be that way. But Badger, if it were true that kindness and gentleness were the best way to win a kingdom—or win anything at all—wouldn’t everyone do it? Not everyone is gentle and kind. Even I myself find it hard to be kind and gentle. Sometimes I get mad. Also, I am a small animal, and being small is difficult. Sometimes I wish I had a grizzly bear arm to swat, or an alligator mouth to clack. But instead, I am a skunk.” He looked at his tail. “Even when no one is hurt, you get chased out of town. That does not feel like you are ‘the soonest winner.’”

  Badger looked at Skunk’s tail with some alarm. “You do not use that, ah, willy-nilly?”

  “Oh no, of course not. I would only spray in the direst of circumstances.” Skunk smiled. “Thank you, Badger. It helped to talk.” He put his paw in the book and closed it. “Did you figure out your troublesome rock?”

  Badger nodded. “Tourmaline pegmatite.”

  “Oh. Is that its name?”

  “Yes,” said Badger with a chuckle.

  “Well then, tomorrow I would like to hear the story of tourmaline pegmatite,” said Skunk. “I have not heard a lot of rock stories.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes, I would,” said Skunk. “Rocks are close-lipped, unlike oysters. Rocks do not speak much, except for the rocks in the rock shaker. Those rocks chatter, chatter, chatter, but that is because of the shaker. Also, I have not learned how to speak ‘rock.’”

  “Rock tumbler,” corrected Badger with a smile on his lips. “Tomorrow I will tell you a rock story.”

  “Good.” Then Skunk opened his big book and began again to read.

  That night, as Badger got into his pajamas and slipped into bed, he thought about Skunk and the letter he’d sent to Aunt Lula. He had to admit that talking to Skunk had been an enjoyable way to end the evening. It would never work out! But Skunk certainly has his moments.

  Head on the pillow with his eyes shut, Badger replayed the sounds he had made while eating cereal—clink-slide-slurp, clink-slide-slurp, clink-slide-slurp—and laughed, “Har!”

  I do sound like a polka!

  With a smile on his face, Badger fell asleep.

  The next morning Badger awoke to a yell: “Onion and mushroom omelets! Warm rhubarb muffins! Breakfast hot chocolate coming soon!”

  “Breakfast hot chocolate,” mumbled Badger. He rolled out of bed, stepped free of the covers, and bounded down the stairs.

  Skunk’s second breakfast was as delicious as the first one.

  “Mmmm . . . mm . . . Mahmahmah,” mumbled Badger as he chewed. Badger wrapped his paw around the last rhubarb muffin and offered to do the dishes.

  Skunk stopped cold. “Are you sure? Dirty dishes make you mad.”

  “You cook, I clean. Isn’t that the deal?” said Badger, ignoring the look Skunk was giving him.

  Skunk peered up at him. “It is a big job to make breakfast. It is fair. But there are a lot of dishes.” Skunk gestured at the countertop with an egg-covered whisk. The words teetering, heaped, and glop came to mind. Also, Badger noticed that Rocket Potato remained in Rocket Potato Corner.

  But none of this bothered Badger one whit. The letter had been mailed. What was done was done. Would it hurt him to clean the kitchen a couple more times?

  Badger shrugged casually. “It’s only fair.”

  Skunk looked at Badger sideways, blinked, then nodded. “Okay. But I will help. It is easier if someone dries.”

  “You will?”

  “I will.”

  So Badger washed and Skunk dried. They talked about things Skunk liked: good storybooks, a farmers’ market he’d found, and—spoken in a hush—“the Milky Way.” They talked about things Badger liked: rocks, minerals, and how agates formed in volcano gas bubbles. (“Lava bubbles!” said Skunk, with a hop. “Er . . . not exactly,” said Badger.)

  But then Skunk began to pace back and forth. He twiddled spoons, then forks. He flicked his dish towel against the kitchen cabinets (swap-swap-swap). He took a long look at Badger, opened his mouth, and closed it again.

  Finally he said, “Badger?”

  The bowl Badger held slipped from his paw, splashed into the soapy water, and clunked. “Sludge and slurry! What?”

  Skunk swatted the floor wi
th his towel (swap!), and said in a burst, “Sometimes I get excited and do things.” He looked up. “Badger, I am sorry about your box room. I should have asked before I stomped on boxes. I did think I was helping, and empty boxes remind me of bubble wrap. I never thought that maybe you liked your boxes puffy. I am sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Badger said.

  Skunk crossed his arms. “You were mad! I know I am right about that!”

  Badger tried to remember how he felt before he’d sent the letter to Aunt Lula. He frowned, then remembered: “Yes, I was mad. But now? I’m not mad.” Badger smiled and patted Skunk on the back.

  Skunk beamed. “That is good news!”

  Then Skunk pointed a claw at Badger. “You said you remembered Aunt Lula mentioning me, but it did not seem like you expected a skunk. It seemed like I was a shock. Is that true?”

  Badger sagged against the sink with a little smile. “I hadn’t read Aunt Lula’s letters.”

  “You said . . . !”

  “I did.”

  “You did not know I was coming!”

  Badger shook his head. “I did not know you were coming.”

  “That explains everything.” Skunk grinned. “You should read Aunt Lula’s letters!”

  “I will—believe me.”

  “Ha!”

  “Har!”

  Skunk plucked up a fork and they got back to work cleaning the kitchen.

  Kitchen cleaned and a successful morning’s rock work done—No interruptions! Rock identified! Finished early!—Badger joined Skunk for lunch.

  “You know,” said Skunk, poking the air with a pickled asparagus spear, “it is quite chickmopolitan here. I have seen a Blue Booted Bantam, two Silkies, three Javas walking with a Ko Shamo, and lots of chickens I did not even know. I met chickens from South America—real travelers! You are lucky to live here. The chickens said they did not know you, but you were probably tolerable as a roommate. They are hoping that if I am your roommate you will turn off the rock shaker. They think I will not like the rock shaker. Badger, the rock shaker is loud.”