Chestnut Pie (part 1)

Once Summer left town and Fall came around to stay instead, a feeling of change seemed to drift in the air like the faint aroma of burning wood from somewhere quite far away. The nights were crisp, the days were fair and the wind blew through the in-between spaces that seemed to be everywhere.

Fall went out walking among the trees, hitting their trunks with his twisty stick so the leaves would know it was time to turn. They didn't begin right away the same day, but little by little, one by one, they gradually started to change. At first just a few streaks of yellow were seen, then suddenly golds and incredible reds appeared everywhere and the entire world was ablaze. There were so many trees it was sure to take weeks and weeks to do them all. But Fall didn't mind, he just kept on working, and his twisty stick went rap-tap-tap all day long and into the night.

His friend the White Squirrel liked to come along too. He followed Fall all throughout the woods. But whenever Michael and Megan came by, the White Squirrel scampered away to hide and they never quite managed to meet him at all. No matter how carefully they tried to sneak up, the White Squirrel was always gone from sight before they managed to finally arrive.

"Doesn't he like us?" Michael asked one day.

"Oh, he likes you," said Fall. "He's shy, that's all, and it takes him a while to feel okay about being around someone new."

"We wouldn't hurt him," Megan explained. "We want to be friends."

"I'm sure that he'd like to know you too," Fall replied. "He's just too shy to tell you himself, that's the way that he is."

"Maybe if we told him," Michael said.

"Yes," agreed Megan. "Call him for us, we'll try."

So Fall called the White Squirrel with a special song and Michael and Megan learned it themselves so they could sing along too: