How Steve Weinstein Sends Two Talking Squirrels Up the East Coast in Nuts To You
Two squirrels hitch a ride on a bus, memorize a train schedule, and find a luggage rack roomier than a two-bedroom condo.
That is the road trip nobody expects in Steve Weinstein’s comic novel Nuts To You. When spring break arrives at Golden Arches University, Smiley and Zina, the two squirrels who have gained human-level minds, overhear that Professor Ballnick is heading home to Queens, New York, and that two students are planning a surprise visit. After a little research and a few conversations with the squirrels in the neighborhood, Smiley concludes that they have distant relatives in Queens too. Then he asks Zina if she is thinking what he is thinking.
Some vacations begin with a single overheard sentence: What would you pack if you were leaving the only forest you had ever known?
The Overheard Conversation
The setup is pure Weinstein. In the ceiling above the desk of Joyce, an older administrative coordinator who taps her hearing aid whenever someone speaks to her, Smiley and Zina wait for the crowd to clear so they can start their lunch. Richard, trying to confirm his vacation dates, has to repeat that he is going to visit his parents in New York until he is almost shouting, and the entire room hears him. The squirrels are not the only eavesdroppers. Two students, Mia and Leanne, catch the words too.
“I’ve never been to NY either,” Zina says, her tail fluttering. “I wonder why they call it the Big Apple.” Smiley admits he does not know, but he is sure they will find out. The two scurry off to pack, which for squirrels is a short list, and Weinstein trades the campus for the open road, or in this case, the open rail.
A Ride on the Squirrel’s Mortal Enemy
The train terminal is not far away, especially if you can run on all fours. The pair hitches a ride on a slow-moving bus, which the narrator calls the mortal enemy of squirrels and the main contributor to their roadkill. They arrive in a confusing terminal where hundreds of people scurry in every direction without colliding, and they are amazed by the shops, by the large glass windows that somehow protect them from humans, and above all by the food. To creatures focused on survival, overstuffed garbage cans and open dumpsters are a once-in-a-lifetime culinary opportunity.
Smiley has memorized the entire train schedule, columns, rows, and footnotes included, and he cannot resist bragging. Zina points to a Chinese takeout because of a sign showing a man holding two sticks and trying to eat what looks like soft twigs, and she wonders why he does not just pick it up with his hands, as they would. Behind the restaurant, they find a partly opened Ziploc bag and stuff it with leftovers. With cheeks bulging with lo mein, they sneak through tunnels, cross the tracks, and find the train headed for New York City.
Home Sweet Luggage Rack
In the hollow walls and ceiling, they find an empty luggage compartment. For most people, it would hold an overnight bag or a briefcase, but for the squirrels it is like a two-bedroom condo. They find a blanket, snuggle under it, and let the rhythmic hum of the train lull them to sleep. About ten hours later, a loud announcement that the train is arriving in Virginia startles them awake, and they discover how deeply and how safely they slept.
After a night of overeating, Zina does what squirrels never, ever do. She gags at the thought of more food. Smiley, who has been reading about a remedy humans take when they overeat, sneaks past the hot food section, where they are, in fact, serving bagels, to a counter stocked like a mini-pharmacy and returns with Pepto-Bismol. Zina chews the pink pieces like candy and declares them not too bad. “Now I know why people overeat,” she says.
- Would you trust a squirrel to read the train schedule?
- What is the first human habit you would pick up on a long trip?
The Quiet Part of the Journey
Between the jokes, Weinstein adds a thoughtful note. Looking through the gap in the compartment, Zina imagines that every passenger has a story, the way characters do on her soap operas. Smiley, correcting her with the pompous attitude a human snob would be proud of, calls it gossip. She does not care what it is called. Reading histories and science books, she says, cannot explain everything, because sometimes things just happen.
Neither squirrel had ever needed to be socially aware, or self-reflective, before the serum, and the effort of it wears them out. Smiley wonders whether awareness is a wasted talent that does nothing to help a creature survive. In the end both fall asleep, Smiley, having watched the scenery change from mountains and farmland to buildings, cars, and people, and having decided that this is going to be a challenge, dreaming of forests and acorns dropping from the sky, Zina dreaming that she is the star of a romantic soap opera about a princess squirrel. Readers who want to catch the next train can do so on October 31, 2026, when Nuts To You becomes available, and find out what awaits two brilliant squirrels in a neighborhood full of long-lost relatives and one very angry human.
A sentence can start a journey…
A luggage rack can become a home…
A destination can be waiting with a surprise…
In Nuts To You, the smartest passengers on the train never bought a ticket!
Author Name: Steve Weinstein; Book Title: Nuts To You
Published By: Author Path Publishers
