At first I thought I was being awakened by raindrops on the window. But when I looked out, the sky was full of stars. Maybe it’s a moth caught under the storm window propped open to let in the cool night air.
I lay back, appreciating the breeze off the river. The light tapping was now scurrying — a mouse in the wall: clickclickclick, silence. Clickclickclick, silence. It was close to my bed.
I turned on the light. It was 1:15 a.m. Clickclickclick. I got out of bed. It scurried across the floor. I screamed. It was not a mouse. It was bigger with a furry gray tail.
Where did it go? I shook the rack of blankets in the corner where it had scurried.
Nothing.
Oh no! Did it go down the hall? If it escaped the bedroom, I’d never find it. I looked around upstairs. Listened. Silence. I closed all the other storm windows I had propped open. My visitor must have crept into my bedroom over the windowsill from the roof.
I went back to the bedroom. Clickclickclick. Thank God it was still there. I slammed the door and picked up a little wicker wastebasket. I shook the blanket rack again. It scurried out. I plopped the basket over it, covering the thing with used dental floss.
Now what? I could hear it scratching under the basket.
A pile of plastic-covered matted photographs lay on the bed in the next bedroom. I selected one I didn’t particularly like. It looked big enough. I slipped it under the basket.
The animal scratched.
I ran downstairs, opened the front door, turned on the porch light and unhitched the spring holding the screen door. I did not want to fumble this maneuver.
I returned to the bedroom, slipped one hand under the photo mat with my other hand tight on the top (really the bottom) of the basket. I carefully lifted my prey, carried it down the stairs and out the front door.
There! Scram! I threw the basket off the porch.
No action. I peered into the basket. It was clinging there — my first good look at the petrified little creature — a gray baby, perhaps an orphan, not yet red like its six elders I recently transported to my favorite squirrel relocation haven on the dump road.
Go. You’re free now. Have a nice night.
Slowly it crept out of the basket into the herb garden and sat there, staring at me looming over it in my nightgown, backlit by the porch light.
I picked up the basket and waited until it slowly made its way into the front yard where it disappeared into the darkness.
It really was cute.
Kathryn Olmstead is a former University of Maine associate dean and associate professor of journalism living in Aroostook County, where she publishes the quarterly magazine Echoes. Her column appears in this space every other Friday. She can be reached at kathryn.olmstead@umit.maine.edu or P.O. Box 626, Caribou, ME 04736.
In my highschool years my Sisters girlfriends use to vist me in the noctunal hours.. I was only scared one time. after that I left my door unlocked to incourage the creatures.
Most likely this was a flying squirrel which are abundant here near conifer forests.
They are smaller than red squirrels, gray, and will sometimes enter houses …. but the giveaway is the time of day. They are purely nocturnal.
A pack of 7 visits the suet feeders on my deck nightly, always furtive, always carousing.
A pack of 7 flying squirrels sounds delightful; unlike the pack of over a 100 which inhabited the attic of a Brunswick home (ever seen the show “Infested”?). My friend complained to her husband about them; they came out at night to eat from the cat’s dish and attempted to snuggle in her son’s hair. Whenever she called a pest control; her husband cancelled. Eventually, she and the children moved out; the flying squirrels being the last straw. When her ex-husband sold the house, the new owners replaced wiring, insulation, etc. The pest control company would’ve charged about $1,500 at the beginning of the infestation – vs over $16,000 later.
There are more 2-legged variety of vermin in Brunswick (some town staff; much less cute and fuzzy; and very greed, corrupt). Hopefully, you have none of those where you live; we’ve been unable to find pest control for those.
Woooooo…How can they be furtive and carousing at the same time?
Kathy–Squirrels are rats with bushy tails—when I lived in Brewer, I was home alone, upstairs when I heard a crash downstairs. Went to investigate, found 3 squirrels running around the family room where they had climbed down the chimney. Managed to get them all outside–next day I bought a Have a Heart trap—caught 9 squirrels that fall which I released in the Bangor City Forest—about 10 miles from my house—they also liked to visit my car parked in the drive way—I had to clean out 10 pinecones they wedged into a crevice in the engine.
After a long and exhausting hunt – our late night visitor ended up in the toilet – husband closed the lid, ran downstairs, came back up with bbq tongs and a black sack. Don’t know how he did it, but many splashes later – the squirrel was set free – outside.