A butterfly flew past Romper, the squirrel, as he stood holding a pine nut, nibbling away. It was colorful and very pretty. He dropped the nut and chased the butterfly.

 

He wasn’t watching where he was going and bumped right into a gingerbread boy. “Be careful,” the boy mumbled. “You nearly broke off one of my arms. I’m very crumbly.”

            Romper looked at the gingerbread boy. “You’ve got frosting for eyes and buttons. You look delicious. I might just gobble you up.”

The gingerbread boy didn’t want to be eaten, so he ran away. The butterfly fluttered past. Should Romper chase the pretty butterfly or the delicious gingerbread boy?

        He decided to chase the gingerbread boy because he was feeling hungry and gingerbread sounded delicious to him. He chased the boy past the oak tree. He chased him down to the stream and over a pile of stones.

The gingerbread boy climbed to the top of the highest pine tree he could see. “Ha ha ha, Romper. You’ll never catch me. I’m way up here.”

What the gingerbread boy didn’t know was that Romper could climb trees better than any other animal in the forest.

Romper stood at the bottom and saw the gingerbread boy sticking out his tongue at him and tossing pine cones at him. Romper jumped onto the tree trunk and ran up as fast as he could. He stopped right in front of the gingerbread boy.

“You’re not going to eat me, are you?” The gingerbread boy was afraid.