The Collecting Little Squirrel
The little squirrel Kami lived in a tree hole deep in the forest. A few months ago, she left her mother and siblings to start living on her own. Kami had a deep fascination with the beautiful forest. On sunny days, she loved to jump between the branches, capturing the shadows of sunlight filtering through the leaves. She also loved the sweet and sour taste of berries and enjoyed swinging leisurely on long morning glory vines. The forest provided her with endless delicious food: hazelnuts, acorns, mushrooms, cranberries, and the most delicious red pine nuts. She loved this forest so much!
As autumn approached, Kami spent a lot of time every day collecting food for the winter. She dried the mushrooms, pine nuts, and other food she gathered on flat spots in the trees and then transported them to safe places to store them, a few or a dozen in a pile, buried underground as winter food reserves. No matter where she buried them, she could always find them. Of course, sometimes she would forget. The forgotten pine nuts eventually grew into small pine trees.
One day, while searching for food, Kami found a small piece of red cloth on the ground. It was a scrap left by hunters as a marker. Kami thought it was beautiful and took it home. She remembered that she could give it to her little sister as a bow for the New Year. So she turned the red cloth into a beautiful bow.
Another time, she found a plastic bottle cap and thought it could be made into a badge for her little brother. From then on, whenever she went out to find food, she would also look for other good things. She found pretty cigarette boxes, sequins from girls’ clothes, face cream lids, pins, buttons…
In the evenings, she would sit under the light, studying how to transform these treasures into cute gifts. Gradually, Kami’s home accumulated many things, like a small museum. Kami’s life became more interesting. She began to look forward to the New Year.
Finally, after several snowfalls, the New Year arrived. Kami even found a small cart discarded by a child. She loaded all the gifts into the cart and headed to her mother and siblings’ home. When Kami saw the big tree of her mother’s house from a distance, her siblings cheered and ran to welcome her. They were even more surprised that their sister had brought so many good things. Kami put the bow on her little sister’s head, gave the badge to her little brother, gave her mother the cigarette box turned into a sewing kit, and her cousins received hair clips decorated with sequins…
The sun came out, and Kami and her siblings climbed up the tall trunk of their mother’s house, sitting on the branches, facing the warm sunlight, savoring the pine nut cookies their mother had prepared. In the time of reunion with her family, Kami, who had lived independently for the first year, felt infinite happiness.
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
