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CHAPTER FIVE – BACKYARD BABYSITTING
The serial story “Fly-In Fox Tales” continues each Monday
in the Accent section. It’s written by local author Marian
Strong Tomblin and illustrated by local artist Tom Bull.
The story so far: Wildfires force a family of humans and a
family of foxes from their homes in Central Florida. Rico
and Kit discover a mysterious man living in the Preserve.
It began to rain. After enduring a week of ashy, smokefilled days, Kit twitched his nose happily in the clean air.
He padded uphill from the streambed into the residential
neighborhood. At the edge of a yard, something caught his
eye. He paused and peered through the chain link fence.
What was that perched on top of a
lichen-covered tree stump? He crept
closer for a better look.
Rico stood in his aunt’s front yard
and welcomed the storm. He lifted his
chin to let the first fat raindrops plop
gently onto his face. Maybe the rain
will extinguish the wildfires, he
thought. As if in reply, the wind
gusted; the raindrops began to sting
his skin. Rico opened his aunt’s front
door and stepped into her living room.
His sister Marisol stood at the dining
room window, her nose pressed
against the glass. “Whatcha doin’?”
Rico called over to her.
Marisol kept her nose anchored to
the glass. “Babysitting,” she replied.
Her breath fogged up the pane when
she spoke. She reached up with a
chubby hand and wiped the glass
clean.
Rico grabbed a handful of paper towels and mopped his
muddy footprints from his aunt’s white, tiled floor.
“Babysitting what?” he asked. “Barbies?”
Marisol tapped her finger on the window to indicate the
backyard. “No, babies.”
Rico nodded to the rain that was now falling harder.
“Wet babies.”
“Yeah,” Marisol replied. “That’s why I’m worried about
them.”
Rico frowned at his sister. He walked over to her. “What
wet babies?”
Marisol tapped the window again. “Those.”
Rico put his face next to his sister’s and squinted through
the rain. Just before his breath fogged up the pane too
thickly to see, he saw what she was watching inside the
fence: two tiny raccoons huddled together on a tree stump,
one perched directly on top of the other. “How long have
they been out there?” he asked.
“Most of the day,” his sister replied.
“Where’s their mother?”
Marisol shrugged. Her nose remained on the window.
Señor Rodriguez entered the room. He walked over to
his children. “¿Qué pasa?”
“Marisol’s found some baby raccoons,” Rico replied.
“And I don’t see their mom anyplace.”
Marisol finally turned away from the window. She gazed
up at her father. “Can we keep them?”
Señor Rodriguez gently tweaked the end of his
daughter’s cold nose. “No, they’re wild animals. We should
not take them from their homes. Besides,” he added,
“Mama’s not gone far.”
Marisol’s large brown eyes brimmed with tears. Rico felt
his throat tighten, too. “How do you know?” the little girl
asked. “Why would she leave them alone in the rain?”
Señor Rodriguez pointed to a cluster
of orange palm berries strewn across
his sister-in-law’s otherwise pristine
pool deck. “See that fruit?” His
children nodded. “Every year, right
about this time, it ripens. Ferments.”
In answer to his daughter’s puzzled
look, he explained, “It turns to
alcohol. And this fruit, well, it tastes
muy bueno to animals – birds,
raccoons, possums. They eat so much
of it that, next thing you know, they
start doing silly things. Then they
have to take a nap to sleep it off.”
Rico rolled his eyes. “No way,” he
said.
Señor Rodriguez smiled. “You
watch. I bet mama raccoon will be
waking up soon. When she does,
she’ll come and get her niños.”
Sure enough, within the hour, a large, shaggy raccoon
emerged from the woods and lumbered over to the chain
link fence. She cocked her masked head to study the
obstacle separating her from her offspring. Reaching out,
she carefully placed her paws on the metal links and
climbed the fence like a ladder. After a slight bobble at the
top, she dropped heavily into Carmen Lopez’ yard.
Crossing over to the tree stump, she twitched her
whiskers. The top baby hopped down onto the wet grass.
Then the bottom one.
While the Rodriguez family watched in amazement, the
raccoon family formed a line and proceeded toward the
creek.
Kit decided it would be fun to practice his tracking
skills, and shadowed them into the Preserve.
Next Week: Living With Danger
Author Marian Strong Tomblin has also written The Mystery at Hotel
Ormond, Where’s Capone’s Cash? and Manatee Moon, all selected for
community-wide literacy campaigns. Award-winning illustrator Tom
Bull currently teaches art at Mainland High School; his artwork is
exhibited by Very Special Arts Volusia. “Fly-In Fox Tales” is presented
by The News-Journal’s Newspapers in Education program.
Newspaper activities – things to think about and do
1. Look though the weekly TV Journal or daily TV guide and identify at least 5 animal-themed
programs that are interesting to you. With family members, select at least one to watch and then
write 5 facts you learned. Have classmates try to guess which program you watched as you
reveal the facts one at a time. (SC.G.1.2.2)
2. From The News-Journal clip stories about animals in distress. Make a chart illustrating the
causes of the problems. With family, friends and/or classmates discuss what could have been done
to eliminate or lessen the effect of the causes. Consider how much of the problem was created or
made worse by humans. Using the photos, make a poster telling others how to help those animals
in distress. (SC.4.3.2.4)
For more information and fun activities, go to www.nieworld.com
Hear the author on a
podcast interview.
Go To:
www.nieworld.com/special/
FoxTales/author_interview.htm