Jerry was a Squirrel. Jerry was also an inventor. Quite a good one, as a matter of fact. He could design and build just about anything. The problem was, Jerry's inventions rarely worked the way he wanted them to work.

Jerry opened his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment before turning his head and looking around. It was too early to get up, but he was awake. Once he was awake, he just had to get up.

He pulled back the covers on his little Squirrel bed and swung his legs around. He looked down at the floor and groaned to himself. The floor was always so cold in the morning, and he always forgot to leave his slippers by the bed. Looking around the room, Jerry spied them over by his workbench. He did not want to step on the cold floor without his slippers, but the slippers were so far away.

He looked at the walls around his room. In his bedroom, there was the bed, a dresser with no clothes in it (Squirrels do not wear clothing) and his work desk where he worked on his inventions. There were two windows in the room showing the cool, beautiful morning outside. He realized he could jump to the dresser, then from there to a window ledge. From there, if he could turn just right, he thought he might be able to swing over to his desk, reach down to the floor and grab his slippers. Then he could put them on before stepping down on the cold, cold floor.

Jerry crawled to the end of his bed and took a look at the distance between the end of his bed and the edge of his dresser. It wasn't too far, but he was afraid of missing, so he threw his pillow down on the floor... just in case. He bent his legs to jump and opened his hands to grab the dresser. He had to put a lot of strength in this jump. It was a long way, and he didn't want to miss.

He readied himself and then leapt with all his might toward the dresser! He knew right away that he had jumped hard enough. His legs were far more powerful than he had realized. He also realized that with this much power, he had jumped much harder than he needed to.

He slammed nose first into the wall, well above the dresser, and rolled back. Unfortunately, he missed the pillow on the way down and landed right on the cold floor. This day was turning out pretty normal. He didn't understand why he couldn't get that jump just right. He had tried it every morning for months!

He stood up. His feet were already cold, and he hopped over to his slippers. Picking them up, he put them on one at a time before heading to the kitchen for some breakfast.

His kitchen was much like his bedroom. It also had a cold floor. He didn't like that, but at least he had his slippers on.

The room had a table with two chairs, one for himself and one for a guest. There was a large barrel beside the table, filled with water for drinking. Beside the barrel was a giant box where he kept the nuts for everyday eating. The nuts he had collected for winter were down below in his basement. He walked to the nut box and grabbed a couple of nuts.

Something was on his mind, but he couldn't figure it out. There was something he had to do. He had to invent. But what? What should he invent today?

He looked down at his cold floor. He could come up with some way of heating the floor, but he was sure that the rest of the village would not be happy. Chances were, whatever he invented to heat his floor would burn half the village down.

He could invent slippers that could keep his feet warm, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that his slippers were always far away from his bed in the morning.

He continued to think through his problem as he chewed a few more nuts in his mouth and took a big drink from the water barrel.

Maybe he could solve the slipper problem. His floor was cold, but what if he always had warm slippers? He could invent a machine which made new slippers for him every morning. He thought about that for a moment before giving up on the idea. He realized that idea was ridiculous. If he tried to make new slippers every morning, where would he get enough warm fuzzy material?

He had an idea! Maybe... just maybe he could create slippers that would come to his bed when he called! He started to think this idea through.

Jerry ran back into his bedroom and sat down at his desk. He grabbed all the papers and books and drawings on his desk and threw them aside. He grabbed a large piece of paper, spread it out before himself and went to work on the designs for his new invention.

After about an hour, he sat back and looked at his design. He had designed the ultimate slippers. They weren't built yet, but the plans were all laid out on paper. The slippers would be warm and fuzzy and would look great on him in the morning. They would also have a microphone built into them to receive commands from him. He could speak commands such as, "Come here!" and "Stop chewing on the dog!" to control the slippers. He had also designed little wheels on the bottom so the slippers could move. They could drive forward and backward. They could turn left and right. He had even given them treads, so they had some traction in case the floor was slippery.

He set to work on building his slipper invention. He found designing a new invention was always the easy part. Building the new gadget, on the other hand, was usually much harder. He worked all morning, right through the afternoon and into the evening before stopping for a break.

Around supper time, he stopped for a moment to go into the kitchen and grab some nuts and water before he quickly returned to his desk. The slippers were nearly built. He only needed to install the wheels and program the microphone to receive his commands. He set to work again, and within a couple more hours he was done. He stepped back and stared at his creation.

They were red slippers with white fuzzy material on the inside and sticking out the top. They were well padded, so they would be comfortable. The wheels on the bottom were solid and made of a black rubber material. On the top was a small microphone. It could hardly be seen, but it would work just fine.

Jerry was exhausted. Every invention was so much work, and he couldn't wait to try out the slippers. He was just about to see if they would work, but he realized it wouldn't do to try them out that night. The time to try them out was in the morning.

He carefully set the slippers down on the floor by his desk, a long way away from his bed. He walked away and prepared himself to go to bed. He brushed and flossed all twenty of his teeth and combed his hair. It always stuck up in strange places. He liked that. He always felt bad for those poor Squirrels who had smooth, well-combed hair. Poor things.

He crawled into bed. After a long day of inventing, he was so tired. He was sound asleep in minutes!

He woke up the next morning and stared at the ceiling. It was a cool morning, and he was already feeling a little chilly.

Jerry sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked down at the floor and groaned. The floor was always so cold in the mornings. He looked around his room, and his eyes landed on his slippers. They were all the way over by his desk. He was about to jump over to his dresser when he remembered that he had invented Automatic Slippers! He didn't need to go anywhere! They would come to him.

He looked back at the slippers on the floor by his desk and smiled. He opened his mouth and hollered out, "Slippers! Come here!"

He was thrilled to see the slippers instantly respond by turning toward him and rolling smoothly to the bed. As they arrived at the foot of the bed, they turned around neatly, so Jerry was able to easily slide his feet into each of the slippers. They were warm and cozy. He smiled to himself, thinking he might never again have to feel the cold floor on his poor toes in the morning. He had solved his cold floor problem!

He stood up and hollered out his next command, "Slippers, take me to the kitchen!"

Nothing happened at first. He was worried he would have to go back to the drawing board. Maybe the mic wasn't working properly, or the command was too much for the slippers to understand. He breathed a sigh of relief when they finally did start to move. They turned and began to roll toward the kitchen.

As he rolled into the kitchen, he hollered out, "Slippers, take me to my food!"

This time, there was no pause. The slippers rolled him right to the food, and he was able to get a drink from the barrel and grab a few nuts to eat to start out his morning! Jerry was thrilled! His invention was turning out just as he had hoped.

He thought he would try something a little more difficult. "Slippers, take me for a walk around the neighborhood!"

He didn't think this would work, but he wanted to try it. He wanted to see what the slippers could do.

He cheered out loud the instant his slippers made for the door. As soon as he was within reach of the door, he stretched out his hand to grab the door handle.

The slippers, however, had another plan. He was shocked to find that the slipper on his right foot, with his right foot still in it, leapt into the air, kicked his hand out of the way and grabbed the doorknob. Within seconds, the door was open, and Jerry was rolling out the door, rubbing his hand in pain.

He wasn't too pleased with the kick but was happy to know that the slippers could figure out how to open doors on their own. This would mean if they were ever stuck in a closet, they could get themselves out so they could come to him and warm his feet.

He rolled forward just a little bit before the same slipper, the one on his right foot, shot out behind him. It grabbed the door handle and pulled the door shut behind him. He nearly fell over on his face when it happened, but just managed to keep himself upright. It did, however, hurt a lot. His leg wasn't used to twisting like that.

As he rolled around the neighborhood, the other Squirrels stared at him in shock. His feet and legs weren't moving, but he was rolling along. No one was able to figure out what could be moving him along.

None of the other Squirrels like to invent. Jerry was a bit of an odd one that way. They put up with him because they liked some of his inventions, but they just didn't understand the whole 'inventing thing.'

Jerry thought he would give his neighbors a bit of a show. It was fun to let them watch as he slowly rolled around the neighborhood, but maybe if he were going a bit faster, it would be better.

"Slippers, go faster!" Jerry yelled.

Instantly he picked up speed. He hadn't told the slippers how fast they should go so he worried they would move too fast, but instead, they seemed to know exactly how fast he wanted to go!

He zoomed around the neighborhood as the other Squirrels watched in fascination. Many of them waved, and the Squirrel children squeaked with joy. He looked up ahead and saw the house belonging to Mary the Squirrel. She had a nice little flower garden out front which stood up a little higher than everyone else's flower garden. He often thought that it looked just like a ramp.

He hollered out, "Slippers, jump Mary's garden ramp!"

The slippers turned and picked up speed. Jerry bent his knees and leaned forward. This was going to be good. He was sure he would get some good air on this one.

Mary seemed to sense what Jerry was up to and came screaming out of her house. "NO!" she yelled. "Not my petunias!"

She was too slow. She couldn't make it to the garden in time. Jerry hit the edge of the garden moving so fast the rest of the world was a blur. He didn't think the slippers could go this fast, but it was happening. He raced up the side of the garden and off the top, taking most of Mary's flowers with him. He looked down and realized he was soaring above all the Squirrel houses. This... was... awesome!

He then realized the problem. It wasn't the launch that was dangerous, it was the landing. He had not figured out ahead of time how to land without hurting himself. He stopped yelling out in joy and began to yell out in terror. The Squirrels below couldn't tell the difference and all of them, aside from Mary, cheered him on.

He came down and landed hard on the slippers, but they survived the landing. He wasn't hurt, but the slippers were now making funny noises. He decided to ignore the funny noises for the time being.

"Slippers, stop!" he yelled as hundreds of Squirrels came up to him. They all had looks of amazement on their faces, and each one began to beg Jerry to make them a pair as well.

He told them a price of how much each would cost and started taking orders. In the end, over one hundred Squirrels wanted a pair!

When he had all the orders, he yelled out, "Slippers, take me home!"

His slippers began to move, but he was sure he heard them make a funny noise. It sounded almost like the slippers were upset.

To be continued...

I hope you enjoyed this first part of this series of stories on Jerry the Squirrel.  Keep your eye out for more.

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