The Thief

(This is a story I wrote and sent in to the Story Makers Program For Young Writers. It did not win....)

Squbb scowled with anger. His uncle uncle had no right to accuse him of that. Why would his uncle accuse him of taking the golden food dish? Squbb clenched his paw and pounded it on the breakfast table. He never would have taken his uncle's favorite dish. He was outraged that he would even consider accusing him of taking it. Why did everybody blame him for things?

Pushing back his chair, he stomped over to the large round mirror that was hanging by the desk. Gazing at himself, he fluffed up his short squirrel hair with his little paws, preened his eagle wings and thoughtfully stroked his lion tail. Squirrffins don't like being accused of things, he thought. He banged his head against the wall and the mirror fell down and shattered. I'm a bad person, he thought. Or am I a good person? No, I am a bad person I just broke a mirror. I have NEVER heard of a good person braking a mirror, only bad people. He picked up the pieces of shattered glass and walked to his other mirror. When he was done preening he walked away.

Looking at the sunrise he decided he'd better hurry up and get to Grandma's house. Not wanting to be late, he half-jumped half-flew to her tree. When he got inside he found her laying in her bed and she looked very sick. He walked over to her and sat down on the edge of the bed. And she told him "Our family is so rich because we have all been thieves since the dawn of time." He stared at her with an open mouth. Then his grandma said, "There is a rumor that across the river in the woods somewhere there is a hiding spot with treasure in it. It belongs to and is guarded by a python. I'm telling you this because we are running out of money." He stomped out of the tree and this time half-stomped, half-flew back to his drey in his tree.

A week later, when he had no more money, he decided to go look for that treasure. He invited two friends on a hike, but didn't tell them why he was going. He did this because he had decided that he was bad. Once they got across the river they saw a wild horse. It is a known fact that griffins HATE horses, so like their ancestors would have, the squirrffins chased it away. Then Squbb searched around for the python hole and found what looked like one. They camped near the hole that night. When he thought his friends were asleep Squbb slipped away and went into the python hole. And he saw lots of sparkling jewels at the end of the tunnel. But there lay the snake in front of him and he couldn't get through.

Shaking all over, he looked at the jewels, then back at the snake. It wasn't moving. He was pretty sure it was asleep. He crept over, flicking his wings with fear. Since he forgot his knife, he bit the snake on the neck. Even with his immense strength it didn't do very much because his squirrel mouth was so small. The python squirmed and flipped Squbb over. Squbb kicked him hard with his powerful large rear lion foot. He ducked as the snake flicked it's tail at his head. He ducked and pushed the snake against the wall, pressing his foot against the snake's head. With the other rear foot he extended his sharp lion claws and swiped at it's neck. He felt his paw hit it's neck, it felt soft and wet as the blood soaked his paw. He panted as the snake flopped onto the ground.

He jumped over the snake and ran to the treasure. He saw a large wooden chest with a gold sword next to it, with jewels spilling onto the floor. He saw a rainbow of colored jewels, and he really liked the pearls, the creamy white pearls. But he liked the gold most of all. He gazed around the room at the treasure. He had just decided to go get his friends to help him with the jewels when he noticed four baby squeezels sitting down with wide eyes. It was a known fact that pythons like to keep sqeezels so they can eat them. Squbb knew that he should just leave them there because they always end up being evil. He should just take the treasure. Grabbing a beautiful white diamond, he climbed out of the hole and woke up his friends.

Waking them up was harder then he had thought it would be. It took him half an hour to wake them up, and then they acted really grumpy. When he told them about what he did, they didn't believe him. Once he showed them the diamond his friends followed him, surprised, back into the hole and gathered up the treasure. He couldn't decide what to do about the squeezels. Squeezels would grow up to be destructive vermin. Should he leave them here? Or take them? Both his friends said he should leave them there. "We aren't bad", said one of them, "if we saved these squeezels then they would grow up to be bad." But why then, he thought, would he be so unhappy to leave them behind? Then he realized that people aren't just good or just bad, everybody has some good side and some bad side. I NEED to leave them behind, he thought. No, I CAN bring them. The question is WILL I?

Squbb never regretted his decision to adopt the squeezels