Inky and Tonks Find the Perfect Hiding Place

The squirrels of the western meadow were different from other squirrels. While other squirrels spent their days gathering food and chasing each other, the squirrels of the western meadow loved the game of hide and seek. Every day they would rise up early in the morning and spend a few hours gathering food. When they had gathered the food they wanted, they would spend the rest of the day playing hide and seek. On any given afternoon you could see some squirrels scurrying about looking for a place to hide, while other squirrels bounded from place to place seeking their friends out.
Among the squirrels there were two who were the best hide and seek players in the meadow, Inky and Tonks. Inky was a black squirrel, whose coat was so shiny and black that it reflected the blue of the sky. Tonks’ parents name him Tonks because, when he was born, they made his bed in an old yellow Tonka truck.

One of the reasons that Inky and Tonks were so good at the game was because when they weren’t gathering food or playing hide and seek, they were thinking and talking about hide and seek. They would often talk long into the night about the game and how it was, or ought to be, played. On one such night, Inky asked Tonks, “where is the perfect hiding place in the western meadow?” They talked about this for a very long time, naming a spot and then talking about why it was or was not a perfect hiding place. The time had come for them to go home and to bed, but they still hadn’t discovered the perfect hiding place.