A Day In The Park [Squirrel Girl]

[Jerry Carstairs]

Jerry froze up and turned to his left.
"... what?" He asked.

The squirrel sitting on the bench chirped and cocked its head to the left. Jerry glared, Squirrels annoyed him. Red squirrels were adorable, but grey ones just rubbed him the wrong way. Jerry turned away and the squirrel walked a little bit closer.
"Shoo," He muttered.
It chirped again and jumped onto the bench smelling his lunchobx. Jerry looked at it angrily.
"My lunch, shoo," Jack told the squirrel.

It looked up at him and for a moment the two were frozen in awe of each other. Then the squirrel jumped into his lunchbox and started nibbling on his sandwich. Jerry growled and looked around, no one over there, no one over here ...

"I said SHOO!"

The squirrel leapt out of his lunchbox and scampered away. Jerry chuckled a little and continued reading his paper.

[Demeter Chiato]

Demeter had skipped school because the day was just too perfect to waste inside a stuffy building with ignorant classmates and teachers. She much preferred the company of fresh air, shrubbery, and of course, the squirrels.
Demeter climbed up a tree, sitting on a branch near a squirrel's nest.
"Hey little guy!" Demeter patted his furry little head and he chirped happily. She smiled, taking a deep breath of the freshest air you could find in this city. Demeter hated that her mother lived here. She tried to persuade her mother to move to the woods or country, or somewhere less....unnatural, but her mom has a steady job here, and is more stubborn than Demeter's father.
Demeter experienced one of the many times where she wished she hadn't left her father. She is much closer to him than she ever was to her mother. But she was hurt that he would use her the way he did. He understood Demeter, and until she realized that he was using her for evil, she was Daddy's little girl.
Demeter stroked her companion, Toby as she thought about her father. He chirped, letting her know that he was hungry, so she smiled and let him scamper off to find some food. After a while, he came back, very upset.
"What's wrong, Toby?" Demeter asked, frowning. He chirped and chattered about a mean old man who had yelled at him. Demeter leapt down from the tree, glaring at the man, approaching him.
"If you wish to have your lunch in the park, you should respect the creatures who live here."

[Jerry Carstairs]

"If you wish to have your lunch in the park, you should respect the creatures who live here."
Jerry was just about to take a bite out of his sandwich when the girl addressed him. Jerry stopped eating and put the sandwich down on his lap.
"... Sorry ... what?" He asked, was this girl really expecting him to treat a squirrel nicely? Oh God, this was some hippy wasn't it? Jerry sighed "Look, kid, I've had a rough day, I'm a bit miffed at my boss and I'm under some considerable stress," He shooed her off "So you just run off, hug trees and talk to squirrels, okay kid?"

Was he being too harsh? Jerry looked the girl up and down, boring coloured clothes, grey eyes, kinda dull for a hippy. Jerry took his sandwich up and took a bite out of it. Checking up to see if she'd gone yet.

[Demeter Chiato]

Demeter crossed her arms, glaring at him. Who did he think he was?!
"You're under stress? What about them?" Demeter gestured toward a small gathering of squirrels who were watching curiously. Toby climbed up to her shoulder.
"They are under more stress than you! You have food, and you are free to eat it wherever you so please! But they have to go where humans deem worthy. We took away their home and replaced it with this horrible city, leaving them a shred of their home in this park. How many of them do you think had to die just so we could have our city?" Of course, not these exact squirrels, but their ancestors. "This place originally belonged to them. And I have talked to them. It is hard for them to raise a family here!"
The squirrels nodded in agreement, another joining, carrying an acorn in his tiny paws. Demeter nodded pointedly, still glaring.
"So don't tell me about stress when you have put them under more stress than you can imagine."

[Jerry Carstairs]

Okay so maybe she had a point the stress Jerry was under now was nothing compared to how he felt when he was going toe to toe with Doctor Colossus and his council of Fear, or how scared he'd been when he'd been creating a miniature earthquake to topple the hideout of the Golden Gun syndicate. But still!

Jerry sighed and was about to interject when he noticed the squirrels nodding in agreement ... weird. He glanced at the rather angry looking girl above him. He hadn't been paying her his full attention, something about talking to them? could she really talk to squirrels!?

Jack put his paper down and knelt down next to a squirrel that took a few steps backwards. Now was not only an opportunity to get a nice little story and see what kids did with their superpowers these days but (most importantly) shake off the awkward question he couldn't respond to.
"Is it just squirrels?" He asked "Can you just talk to squirrels or can you converse with other animals as well?"

[Demeter Chiato]

Demeter stared. She hadn't realized that he was actually paying attention to her. Usually, people like him didn't listen to what she said.
She didn't know how to respond. The squirrels all backed away from the man and scurried around so that they were behind her. Demeter hadn't told anyone about her powers. Anyone, that is, except her father. After what happened with him, she hadn't ever come across this type of situation. Should she keep her powers a secret?
"What are you talking about?" Demeter said finally, glancing back at the squirrels, especially at Toby. All the squirrels nodded in agreement. After all, they didn't want her to be found out. If she was, who knows what they would do to her?

[Jerry Carstairs]

"What are you talking about?" She said, the squirrels hiding behind her and shaking their heads in unison.

He briefly considered pointing out that the fact they were trying to deny that she could speak to them by communicating with him proved they were at the very least dim. But then realised that the fact they were shaking their heads proved that squirrels had similar communication methods to humans so he just let it float to the back of his mind and stood up.

"I'm talking about the squirrels," He told her "You can talk to them? Correct?"

[Demeter Chiato]

Demeter considered this for a moment.
"I guess just as much as a man can talk to his dog, then of course I can. After all, anyone can talk to anything."
This was true. Just because you talked to something, that didn't mean it understood what you were saying.
"Anyway, why do you care? Just a minute ago, you were busy shooing them away."

[Jerry Carstairs]

"I guess just as much as a man can talk to his dog, then of course I can. After all, anyone can talk to anything." The girl said, raising a good point.

Jerry began to have second thoughts she was trying to block the question, maybe he shouldn't pry into her private life. ... That was unlike him, was he ill or something? Anyway, onto pumping her for information.
"Okay, talking isn't the correct word, communication is a better one as you and ..." He could not believe he was trying to remember a squirrels name "Tony, can mutually interact with each other,"

"Anyway, why do you care? Just a minute ago, you were busy shooing them away." She pointed out.
Jerry smiled.
"Honestly? I genuinely don't care about Monkey-Joe, Tippy-Toe or whatever their names are, what I do care about is you," He was desperately hoping that he was coming off as "eccentric ex-crimefighter" and not "paedophile" "So tell me, how long have you been able to chat to squirrels,"

[Demeter Chiato]

(OOC: Haha, nice with the Monkey-Joe and Tippy-Toe)

"First of all, his name is Toby." Demeter frowned, Toby climbing onto her shoulder.
"And second, why do you think I would tell you about my personal life?" Demeter saw that there was no way around it. He had figured her out....
"But, since you won't let it go, I have been talking to squirrels since I was a little girl. I used to live out in the woods with my Dad."
She was trying to answer as vaguely as possible. Why would he have any interest in it anyway?

[Jerry Carstairs]

[OOC: I read GLA misassembled and the little brown scamp grew on me XD]

"First of all, his name is Toby." The girl informed him, the squirrel in question climbing on to her shoulder.
"I was a letter off ..." Jerry murmured under his breath
"And second, why do you think I would tell you about my personal life?" She asked, Jerry waited until she'd finished before answering "But, since you won't let it go, I have been talking to squirrels since I was a little girl. I used to live out in the woods with my Dad."

"Because," Jerry smiled at her "I've been able to create a loud sonic boom with my voice since I was in my early 20's," He gestured at the ever increasing crowd of squirrels around them "We both have gifts, but neither of us are out on the streets like Spiderman or Daredevil," He took out a dictaphone from his bag, he needed a story and "The life of an average super" might be a good human-interest angle "Care to say why?"

[Demeter Chiato]

Demeter looked to the dictaphone suspiciously.
"Are you some kind of reporter?" Even if he did have some kind of power, that didn't make him friendly. After all, people Venom and the Green Goblin have powers, too, and they were bad guys. He had mentioned them not being like Spider-Man. That didn't mean he wasn't like the other guys.
"I don't want everyone to know about me." Demeter crossed her arms, glaring slightly. The squirrels nodded in agreement.
"If you are so interested, why don't you plaster your powers all over the front pages? After all, you said that you weren't like Spider-Man, either." Once again, the squirrels nodded. Toby chattered a little, as if he was affirming Demeter's statement.

[Jerry Carstairs]

Jerry sighed, he was being unfair, he wouldn't give his powers away (wait ... ****! he just had!) So it was mean to ask this girl to tell him. Still he needed a good story and he might have an idea.

He had been about to drop the dictaphone into his bag when an idea struck him. He raised the dictaphone again and turned it on.
"Well, would you like to talk about how squirrels have equal rights to people instead of your ... gift, Miss ..." Had she introduced herself? He wasn't sure so he just paused hoping she'd fill in the gap.

[Demeter Chiato]

"Chiato. My name is Demeter Chiato." Hm, this was a great opportunity! It could really open up the eyes of the citizens to how horribly they treat the environment and especially the squirrels!
Demeter glanced back at her squirrel friends and they nodded their little squirrelly heads. She smiled and took a deep breath.
"People don't realize what the animals here have to deal with. Just like how you treated Toby, people are ignorant enough to not see that we came and intruded on their territory. If they were humans, they could easily call the police for trespassing."

[Jerry Carstairs]

"I see," Jerry said nodding. He was thinking it through in his head, was he going to make this story some sort of humorous satirical take on eco-hippy-whatchamacallits or actually portray it as a serious issue maybe he should put Demeter's name on it if it was serious? No it was probably easier to make it amusing.

Then he noticed the squirrels, they were all staring at him and there were about 40 or 50 of them now. He stared at them for a second and then turned back to Demeter. The squirrels probably wouldn't hurt him if he was serious about their ... plight.