Grandma vs. Gerald

Grandma had grown sunflowers for forty years and never once lost the war. Then came Gerald.

An ordinary squirrel takes a seed and runs. Gerald took a seed, looked directly at Grandma through the kitchen window, and ate it slowly, maintaining eye contact the entire time. Grandma set down her tea. "Oh," she said quietly. "It's like that, is it."

The scarecrow went up first. Gerald sat on its shoulder and used the hat as a picnic table. Next came a decoy seed pile, placed far from the sunflowers as a peace offering. Gerald ate the sunflowers as his main course and the decoy for dessert. A tiny fence: hurdled like an Olympian. A motion-activated sprinkler: Gerald learned to set it off on purpose on hot afternoons and stood in the spray, visibly smiling.

The grandchildren kept score on the refrigerator. By Thursday it was Gerald 6, Grandma 0, and Grandma had started muttering strategy in her sleep.

"You've got to think like the squirrel," offered Grandpa from behind his newspaper.

"I have BEEN thinking like the squirrel," said Grandma. "That's what worries me."

On Saturday, defeated and dignified, she walked out with a single seed on her open palm and sat down on the grass. Gerald circled twice, sniffed, and then — because even a professional appreciates being treated as an equal — took the seed gently and sat beside her to eat it. "Truce," said Grandma. Gerald flicked his tail, which in squirrel means many things, one of which is "truce."

There's an arrangement now. Grandma plants a small extra sunflower patch at the garden's edge — the grandchildren call it Gerald's Acre — and Gerald leaves the main bed alone and chases off any squirrel who gets ideas, patrolling the fence like a tiny furry security guard who finally found honest work. Every summer, when the sunflowers come up tall and gold, one squirrel sits proudly among them: the only creature ever to fight Grandma to a draw, and the only one smart enough to settle.