BOOK ONE:
Forgotten

Chapter One:
The Wild

The voice of Daddy Dale, the strongest chipmunk ever. His tough arms around her. The smell of a crackling campfire and pine needles. Silly backwoods songs and terrible dad jokes echoing through the woods. Feel of laughter and fun.

Daddy didn't just make her strong. He made her unbreakable.

Three years since Mamma died of sickness. Four since we were born. Daddy never cried. Daddy taught us everything. He made us everything. He was everything.

I never knew that he could bleed.

Seven years since we were born. Six since Mamma died. Three since the fox took Daddy away, too. And now, it's just us. It will always be just us. And that's the way I like it.

I never have to watch them bleed again.

The rugged Australian outback stirred beneath an early summer sky, bright and blue save the few lonely wisps of cloud that drifted high above. A warm breeze brought with it the bold scent of sunbaked dirt. The unforgiving wilderness spread as far as the eye could see, halting only for the occasional winding stream or rocky ledge. Down in the brush, beneath the shady cover of a small grove, the tiniest of lives and the largest of stories had begun.

A very young female chipmunk stood outside of an unfinished burrow, standing no taller than an open human hand. Her fur was dark as a coffee bean, while her face, belly, and stripes were the color of white sand. A messy, lopsided bun was piled on top of her head, barely held back by a grass hair tie.

"Uh, Brittany?" she called into the burrow in a timid and naturally high-pitched voice, ducking her head as a wad of dirt flew from the hole, "Are you sure you don't need any help? I could throw together a shovel or something if you want me to."

"I've got it, Jeanette," an equally high-pitched voice called back as more dirt flew from the burrow's interior, "I promised us a new home before this winter and that's what we're getting!"

"But wouldn't it be easier with a, you know, tool, or-"

Jeanette was cut short as a clump of dirt thumped into her tiny face. She stumbled around, spitting and wiping her eyes.

"Pth! Blegh! Brittany!"

The showers of dirt stopped and an equally tiny head, the size of a ping-pong ball, popped out of the burrow. It was Brittany, the older sister of the two chipmunks, with short-cropped hair and fur the color of an orange tulip in spring, and stripes that matched her sister's. She was stained and darkened from head to toe with dirt. Her sharp ice-blue eyes blinked the dust away as she scrubbed her paws on the ground to clean her claws.

"Oh wow, sorry, Jeanette," she said, guiding her blinded sister to a nearby rain puddle to clean up, "I got carried away again. Hey, what do you think about decorations? I've almost got the living room done, but there's a big root in the way of our bedroom."

"A root, hm?" Jeanette said, splashing some water on her face, "Just dig under it, that'll give us a stable roof, if anything. Decorations? Maybe some ivy, or we can clear out some grass to plant flowers."

"I thought about some river stones to put around the entrance, too!" Brittany exclaimed, flicking her bushy tail to fling a clod of dirt away, "Oh Jenny, this is exciting! I've been wanting a new home since that wallaby uh…moved into our last one."

"He really didn't care about paying rent," Jeanette muttered, "Or using the restroom in the right place."

"It's better than the one before that, when we ended up with a scorpion in the dining room."

"Or the time we were besieged by a caiman."

"Oooor the time we had to fight off a tarantula with sticks."

"Or the time a capybara decided to use our burrow for-"

"Don't talk about that!" Brittany squeaked, "Do you think we can do it this time?"

"With resolve, Brittany," Jeanette smiled with a twinkle in her soft green eyes, "Faith makes anything possible. Determination makes it happen."

Brittany giggled and shoved her sister over. "Oh that's so lame, Jenny. Lame but true. De…term…in…ation. That word is longer than you are tall!"

After cleaning up, both chipmunks turned and scurried over to a flat area of soft grayish clay by the water's edge. This was where they planned and created designs to one day bring to life. Brittany took a little twig and began scratching lines into the clay as she laid out her ideas to her sister, drawing lines for walls and circles for furniture.

"Let's see…entrance here, see? Really tight and stable so we can get in and out okay, but any big baddies can't. We can just dig it out bigger as we grow. This rock right here? That's the door, no snakes and spiders for us! The burrow goes right to the living room, with pretty twig couches and some seasonal flowers to brighten it up."

Jeanette studied the precise lines etched onto the ground, her tiny green eyes aglow with focus. Brittany allowed her sister to think. Clumsy as she was, Jeanette was brilliant when it came to bringing little ideas to life in big ways.

"You've always been wonderful at weaving some twigs together to make pretty things. We could…fish some smooth pebbles from the river and push them into the walls, make them strong and pretty," Jeanette began after a couple moments of silence, "If we can find enough clear rocks, maybe…halite, mica, even some quartz, I could tie them up in some bark fibers and make us a sunroof. A great big elephant ear leaf could cover it during rainy time."

"A sunroof?!" Brittany squeaked loudly enough to make Jeanette jump back and fall on her bottom, "You're amazing at this, you know?"

"Well, uh, I…" Jeanette stammered, crawling back to her feet, "I wouldn't be half as good without your well-laid plans getting me started, Brit."

"Let's do this, Jeanette," Brittany murmured, reaching up to wipe some stray dirt off from around Jeanette's eyelid, "You and me, sis. It's been a long time since I could sleep without dreaming of snakes creeping in on me or spiders living under my bed."

"Can we do it this time? Really?" Jeanette whispered, glancing down at her sister's clay drawing.

Brittany hugged Jeanette tightly.

"Yes, really."

The blazing summer heat was slow to surrender to the timid Australian fall. Working tirelessly through rain and shine, through scorching days and dangerous nights, they came together to turn a meager dirt home into a place of real artistic beauty. The tiny clearing had been cleared of tall grass, and Brittany had lined the edges with wild daisies and goldenrods. There were tiny picnic tables made of bark, evergreen garlands stretched through the branches overhead, and even a wind-chime Jeanette had fashioned from scrap metal found in the river. Bathed in twinkling sunlight filtering through the fall colors overhead, it was a home any creature would be proud of.

Inside the burrow, the walls were pressed with smooth stones and the floor was comfortably littered with old moss. Jeanette held true to her idea for a sunroof, so the living room was lit from above by twinkling clear stones expertly pushed through the ceiling to the surface ground. There were tiny rooms filled with nuts and dried berries, as the sisters prepared for the coming winter. Their bedroom held two little beds, with strips of canvas filled with wood chips as a mattress and pieces of denim used as blankets, taken from bits of old blue jeans they had found in the river. It was a lovely and humble home, and it grew better and better as the days went by.

Brittany was down by the river digging up dandelions to add to her pine garlands. The tiny chipmunk stumbled around with a pile of bright yellow blossoms three times her size balanced on her head. With a heave, she tossed the big pile on the ground by the water, spitting and sputtering as dirt rained onto her face.

"Pth! Pthew!" she winced, "Dirt still tastes the same as it always has. Terrible!"

The sisters had named the little stream the River Giddy, as it was always bouncing and bubbling excitedly along. Clear and cold, it was the favorite place for Brittany and Jeanette to bathe, as the coolness was a relief from the summer heat, and predators such as the caiman and water snake hated the shallow, glassy water.

Climbing down the bank to the river's edge, Brittany sat on the end of a flat rock. She dipped her head under the surface of River Giddy, gasping happily from the refreshing chill. Brittany had just sat down to sink her tired feet in the water when she heard a loud crunching from the bank.

A big, fat wombat was chewing on her dandelions! The chubby gray creature was eight times her size, with rough fur and a stubby tail, much like a giant hamster with a piggish nose. The wombat took another mouthful of Brittany's flowers as the chipmunk came running up the bank, waving her tiny arms and squealing angrily at the fat creature.

"What are you doing, you oversized hairball!? I've been collecting those all day, you fat palooka, and I didn't do it for your lunch!"

The chubby wombat flicked his ears at the annoying little voice but otherwise ignored Brittany, taking another mouthful of dandelions from her pile. Brittany growled under her breath, grabbing the big rodent by his stumpy tail and pulling on it. She dug her tiny paws into the ground and tugged as hard as she could, but the chubby creature kept eating away.

"I…said…stop! Don't ignore me when I'm talking to you! We have real food back at the burrow! I'd be happy to share! Just drag your fat butt to our home and you can have all the nuts you want!"

She grabbed a big twig taller than herself and started swinging it at the wombat's rump, squeaking away the entire time. The little stick bounced harmlessly off the fat rodent's bottom.

"Bad chubby thing! Bad! Shoo! Be gone, foul beast!"

Suddenly, the bushes shivered loudly, and a figure came running out of the woods. The monster was big and green, covered in branches that sounded like an angry locust as they shook wildly around. Huge twiggy arms stretched to either side as the scary-looking thing ran right at Brittany and the wombat!

The wombat squeaked and ran away faster than anyone would expect such a hefty, stumpy-legged animal to move. It disappeared into the bushes, leaving Brittany and her twig to face the freakish monster. Brittany let out a yell and smacked the big monster around with her stick in a panicked frenzy.

"Ah! Go away! You won't have me and my sister!"

Thwack! Smack!

"Ow! Brittany! I am your sister!"

The leafy monster crumpled over and the branches fell apart. Jeanette's face appeared from the cover of green. She rubbed her little head and winced as she pulled the rest of the twigs off, tossing them down the bank.

"Oh, Jeanette!" Brittany exclaimed as she helped her sister undress from the shoddy disguise, "You scared me!"

"And you have quite an arm," Jeanette retorted, rubbing her shoulder, "And an amazing volume, too. I heard that noise all the way from the burrow, and just had to come see if you were alright. I thought that chubby thing was attacking you!"

"Uhhh," Brittany sheepishly replied, "Yeah, attacking! I think I almost fended it off. See how scared it was? I had it so afraid, it ran away from your bunch of leaves…and stuff."

Jeanette rubbed her shoulder again and narrowed her little green eyes.

"Alright," Brittany mumbled, "It ate my flowers and I got mad. Happy?"

Staring at the pile of ruined dandelions, Jeanette put an arm around her sister. "Don't worry about it, Brit. There'll be plenty of late blooms to decorate with soon. Fall is such a pretty time of year."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"And if all else fails, we can open a restaurant. 'Le Wombat Magnifico!"

Brittany shoved her giggling sister away and huffed, stomping away as hard as a tiny chipmunk could stomp, which wasn't very hard at all.

"Maybe I'll open a diner that serves little sisters!" Brittany spat, "On a bed of dandelions!"

Jeanette's giggling followed Brittany all the way home.

And that concludes our little introduction!
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