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Chapter 1
A Possum's Tale
Who would have ever thought that a ten-inch tail could cause such a stir?
Well, it’s true. And by the following morning, our home was a buzz in a whirl of excitement as news vans swarmed and reporters zeroed in to cover my story. Well-wishers, radio talk-show hosts, and camera crews all filed in to pay their respects. Their reports hailed me as an “unlikely hero” and the new “it” kid in town. I had suddenly become the “possum poster child,” the “flavor of the month,” and the next “big thing”!
You get the picture. Right?
Anyway, it was really a hoot.
Grams said if she had known company was coming, she would have baked a cake.
And talk about excitement! Why, it was possummania that lasted way into the evening. The photography crew clamored around us, taking our pictures standing up, sitting down, and even at the dinner table while we were eating! Just before snapping our pictures, they told us to say “It’s the cheese!” on the count of three.
Do you know how hard it is to say “It’s the cheese!” with a full mouth?
I do. So I didn’t say it. I just sat very still and tried to look my best as the cameras flashed around us.
I really didn’t know what all the fuss was about. I mean, it wasn’t as if I’d invented the cure for the common cold or anything like that. I was just trying to protect the people that had come to mean so much to me and, in some small way, repay them for their kindness and their love.
Hey, wait a minute. You don’t know the whole story, do you?
My life wasn’t always like this. I guess you could say, I’ve moved up in the world.
Let me just backtrack a bit and fill you in on what you’ve missed.
By the way, my name is Baby Grumbles.
And guess what?
I’m a possum.
Chapter 2
Dead Possums Tell No Tales
Do you believe in ghosts?
Have you ever walked down the street on a dark, deserted night, and seen something creepy suddenly appear in front of you? And you said to yourself, “Self—I think I’ve made contact with something not from this world.” Call it crazy if you want to, but that’s what happened to me one strange night five months ago, and it has changed my life forever.
The night started out lousy. I had overslept, and my stomach was growling from hunger. And, in my haste to make up for lost eating time, I just wasn’t paying attention.
I darted out onto the dark roadway without looking, and before I knew it, I could hear the sound of an engine growing louder.
I stopped and turned to where I thought I heard the noise—at first, I couldn’t see anything.
Then, a blinding flash exploded in my face.
My eyes were open, but all I could see were bursts of yellow, blue, and green spots dancing before me. I blinked several times and then rubbed my eyes. When I squinted back into the light, I was unable to take my eyes off the terrifying sight.
I was smack dab in the path of pulverization, and I couldn’t move.
A panicked cry escaped my lips, “Hey—! Can’t you see me? Stop!”
At that instance, I sensed that even if the driver had seen me, he wasn’t planning on stopping.
Yeah, that’s right; he was aiming for me—trying to kill me!
What am I standing here for? I wondered.
Then recalling to my mind a tactic that I was very familiar with, I frantically exclaimed, “Run for your life!”
But I hesitated, thinking if I closed my eyes and squeezed them nice and tight, really long and really hard, and hoped and hoped, and wished and wished, that maybe—just maybe––it might be a bad dream. Well, I had news for myself . . . I was awake, and it was real.
Stricken with panic, I tried taking a step, but it felt like something was holding me back—there was some kind of strange presence around me.
While thinking this, an unexplained icy chill swept over me, causing me to shift my gaze away from the blinding light.
“Oh!” I cried out, staring as a filmy figure floated toward me, blocking my path.
I could see right through it!
“Who are you?!” I called out in a choked, terrified whisper.
No reply.
Confused and petrified, I thought—what should I do? Stay? Run? What?
I looked back at the car. It was so close.
I turned back toward the ghost and thought, where would I run to anyway?
I was trapped between the two and about a whisker away from becoming a road pizza.
“Go away! Leave me alone!” I shrieked. But the ghostly figure in the white, hooded jogging suit continued its silent advance toward me.
“Wh-what do you want?” I stammered in a teensy voice. Then I wondered if the spirit was trying to tell me something as it raised its claw-like hand.
I turned to see what it was pointing at, but it was only the car. Annoyed, I thought, duh, I know there’s a car coming. What do you want me to do about it?
As if reading my mind, the ghost’s still, frail voice whispered in my ear, “Take no step further!”
Then . . . poof! Like a vision in the night, the filmy figure dissolved into the blackness of the unknown.
I hesitatingly obeyed its weak command and froze in absolute horror as four thousand pounds of German engineering steered its way in my direction.
The car horn blasted. I heard the driver shout in a slurred voice, “Get outta my way, you filthy vermin!” followed by the crash of a glass bottle shattering across the roadway.
My heart was pounding out of my fur.
I felt something warm trickle down the side of my furry face.
Am I bleeding? I wondered, licking the side of my mouth.
No . . . just drooling.
I swallowed hard, choking back tears of fright, as the sound of the engine grew deafening and the smell of exhaust fumes stung my nose.
My muscles tensed.
“I can’t bear to look,” I cried, burying my head in my hands.
By now, my body was shaking like a ten on the Richter scale. And for a split second I was sure I was going to die. Then I remembered something my mom had once told me, “Before you die, your whole life will flash before your eyes.”
So far this hadn’t happened. But it still didn’t make me feel any better as I felt the hot breath of the beast loom powerfully and menacingly over me, knocking me on my back and spinning me wildly out of control. My snout and tail must have appeared to be joined as one as I rotated, twirled, and bounced over the asphalt.
“Noooo!” I shouted in fear.
Everything looked like a big, gray blur of motion as I continued to spin faster and faster across the hard ground.
Time was running out. I knew I had just a split second to come up with a plan or I’d be rendered into roadkill by the beast’s steel-belted radials.
But what should I do?
I sucked in a quick breath of hot air. Then, reacting on pure gut instinct, I curled myself into a tight, hairy ball. As the metal beast roared onward, I somehow managed to break free from its hold and roll out from under it.
“Ow! Woo, Wooo!” I howled, bouncing and tumbling over the asphalt.
Everything was topsy-turvy. First, I was looking at the ground. Then the sky. Then the ground. Then the sky. Then I spotted the wax-leaf privet hedge.
Thuoomp!
I crashed through the dense, green bushes, hitting bare earth.
Dried leaves whirled everywhere. Some dogs nearby began to bark furiously. A cat hissed.
I watched bright lights shoot across my eyes like falling stars, then everything faded to black.
I must have laid there motionless and dazed for several minutes before I remembered what happened. And then it hit me . . . I’m alive! I survived!
I was dizzy. My head pounded like it was a “hold onto your head, I think my brain is going to explode” blinding headache.
I tried moving my legs but couldn’t.
Am I paralyzed?
Okay! Don’t freak out! Wiggle your toes. Okay. Now move your legs. Now your tail. Good, doing good.
Rolling over, I managed to grasp a branch with my tail, helping me to upright and stabilize myself.
“Ow!” I cried out, feeling an unbearable pain shoot through my legs. Curious and worried, I glanced down at them and was soon relieved. “Just a road rash, that’s all. No biggie.” Hey, I could handle that. I mean, c’mon, I was glad to feel the pain and thankful to be alive.
Well, anyway, I did my best trying to ignore the pain, concentrating instead on that filmy thing that I had seen. It was really spooky. I had never seen anything like it before. Maybe it was an optical illusion. You know . . . with the lights and all.
But optical illusions don’t speak . . . do they?
As I continued thinking about the ghost, I couldn’t shake the thought that bad things always happen in threes. I am very superstitious, after all.
Just then, a coyote in my “too-close-for-comfort” zone let out a sharp, shrill yip, sounding like a mournful death wail. When I heard its call of the wild, I decided, if he was making that scary sound for my benefit, it worked! “I’m outta here!” I told myself, struggling to my feet, my heart racing once again.