One summer day, Curly and Twirly waddled up to the school. They flatterned their round bodies, took a deep breath, and inched their way under the art room door.
“What a wonderful place to live!” exclaimed Curly. A large bookshelf held piles of colored paper. The faucet over the wide, deep sink dripped drops of water.
Using his tail, Curly opened a cupboard door. Stacked on the bottom shelf were bags of beans and flour. Using his strong teeth and paws, he dragged a sack of beans off the shelf and tore it open. Twirly kicked a bag of flour. It teetered over the edge and fell onto the floor. The cupboard’s latch tore a whole in the side.
Flour, flour, flour flew everywhere. It dusted the chairs and low table like a frosting of snow. The squirrels nibbled some flour. They cracked some beans in their jaws. They jumped up to the chairs and slid across the table. As they hurried back and forth, their paws made prints in the flour.
Curly noticed the footprints first. He stood up on his hind legs and turned all around for a better look. “Look, Twirly, our footprints make a design!” he said.
Curly stepped into the flour with both feet and made a four leaf clover. Twirly used his big toe to trace a footprint daisy. They drew straight lines and wiggly lines. They outlined pictures of all the animals that lived in the forest beside the school. They danced, they pounced, they skated all over the floor. Finally, they grew tied and fell asleep under the table.
The next morning, Curly and Twirly awoke; their back were stiff from lying on the hard floor.
“We need beds,” said Curly.
“Let’s make pretty beds, said Twirly. They chose green construction paperr that reminded them of unripe nuts in the spring. They ripped up yellow paper that looked like buttercups. The red paper was as deep as the poppies they had seen in the fields. The blue paper looked like the summer sky. Soon, inside the corner of the cupboard, they each had a rainbow-colored bed of construction paper.
The squirrels spent every day exploring the art room. One morning, Twirly reached for the handle of another cupboard and swung on it until it opened. On the top shelves, he saw row of colored liquid in jars. Inside them was the most beautiful thick dew Twirly had ever seen.
“Look Curly, delicious dew!” said Twirly. Twirly crawled onto the bottom shelf, pulled himself up onto boxes until he reached the jars of dew. His paws were too small to turn the wide, white covers. He squirmed in behind a bottle and pushed it with his two feet. It landed on the floor with a crack. Thick, yellow dew oozed from its side.
Curly climbed up and inched his body behind a red bottle and pushed. Twirly squirmed behind a green bottle and pushed. The green bottle hit the side of the table on its way to the floor and splattered green-colored dew from one end of the room to the other.
The squirrels climbed down to taste. Twirly dipped his paw into green dew, stuck it into his mouth, and slurped. “Yuck, it tastes like dirt!”
“It makes the sides of my mouth stick together,” grimaced Curly, who was trying to wipe paint off his tongue. He waved his paws in the air, flicking it off his furry paws. A pattern of dots settle all over the floor.
“Whee!” exclaimed Curly. “Wow!” yelled Twirly when they saw the dots on the floor. Curly thought hard for a minute. “The children don’t drink this dew,” he said. “They decorate with it.”
“Let’s do that, too,” replied Twirly.
Curly and Twirly spent the rest of the summer decorating their new home with colored dew, paper, and flour. Curly painted dots on the cupboard doors. Twirly created a carpet of patterns with flour and footprints. They had never been happier.
One morning, when the squirrels were still fast asleep inside their bedroom cupboard, a key turned in the lock.
“What happened here?” a lady’s voice exclaimed. Curly and Twirly rubbed their eyes and knelt behind a crack in the cupboard door to see who it was. A woman, wearing an artist’s apron, stood in the doorway. A group of children ran in behind her.
“Are you teaching us art today?” one child asked, her eyes bright and shining.
The woman didn’t answer. Her eyes opened wide as she gazed around the room. The children’s eyes glistened as they, too, noticed all of Curly’s and Twirly’s art work.
“It must have taken someone all summer,” said another little girl, “to make the art room look so beautiful.”
Curly and Twirly smiled, then hid behind a cardboard box until everyone left.
The squirrels knew they ahd to leave their comfortable home now that the children were back. They had to find new beds and more food.
As Curly and Twirly slipped under the art room door, they grinned at each other. This time, they didn’t have to leave everything behind. Curly now knew how to paint dots anywhere he lived. Twirly would always remember how to make a footprint carpet.
“I’ll paint lines on our pillow,” said Curly.
“I’ll draw zigzags on our blankets,” Twirly exclaimed.
By the time they reach the flagpole, they had thought of dozens of new ways to decorate their new home. What a beautiful home it would be.
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