After about five hours, they stopped for supper. Jerry looked back with frustration and stared at the village. It was just about a two-minute run away. Two minutes, that is, if Jerry had been able to go on his own.

Sherry pulled out a plate of cookies. They looked quite tasty, and Jerry was about to grab one and bite into it, but she pulled them away.

"No, my dear, cookies should be warm when they are eaten. They always taste better that way." With that, she sat on the plate.

Jerry spent a few minutes trying to convince her he preferred un-sat-upon cookies, but she would not hear of it. She insisted this was the only way to eat cookies.

Ten minutes later, as Jerry munched on the last of the butt-warmed snacks, he thought about the journey ahead. He wondered how he could manage to get to the Beetle Birds and save the harvest when they were moving at such a slow speed.

When they settled down for the night, Jerry found that Sherry wanted to tuck him in. He didn't mind at first as the thought made him think back to his mom when he was a little Squirrel. She covered him up with a warm blanket. He tried not to think about how she had warmed the blanket. She then leaned in and gave him a goodnight kiss on the forehead.

Jerry was shocked to find that she drooled terribly. After such a little kiss on his forehead, he felt like his entire head was wet. He could feel the drool slide down into his ear. It wasn't a nice feeling.

She smiled down at him and said, "Goodnight, dear. Don't let the Nut Beetles bite."

The next morning, Jerry awoke to find Sherry at work on the invention. She looked like she was fixing it.

"I didn't know you knew how to do that kind of thing," Jerry said.

"Oh, I learned how to fix broken inventions when I was working as a mercenary for the Mudmen king way back before you were born, dear," Sherry explained.

"A mercenary?" Jerry asked, a little shocked.

"Never mind that, dear. I know you don't really know how to build things all that well. You try, but obviously, from how slow this drives, you must not know how to build a proper super-scooter. I figured I'd better help you out."

Jerry grumbled to himself. "It worked fine till Gary sat on it."

"Yes, dear, I'm sure it did. You keep telling yourself that, but in the meantime, I will make it work properly."

She worked for a few more minutes and then closed it up again. "That should just about do it. Let's get going, dear."

Jerry quickly packed up. When he was ready, she started up the super-scooter.

Unfortunately, Jerry blinked at the moment of take-off. Because he blinked, he lost sight of her almost immediately. When his eyes focused again after her take-off, there was nothing but a trail of smoke off into the distance. It took him a moment or two before he realized she was gone. She had not just fixed the super-scooter, she had super-charged it!

He raced off in the direction he was sure she had gone, but could only find a deep rut in the ground where she had been driving. In a few moments, he began to see signs of her travel. There were bushes knocked down flat, tracks going through the dirt in other spots and even a small tree had been entirely ripped out by the roots and tossed to the side. There was even a tree that Jerry figured she must have hit straight on. Right in the middle of the trunk of the tree, there was a shape of an old-lady-Squirrel riding a super-scooter cane. The old-lady-Squirrel shape was drilled right through the center of the tree. From the way the hole in the trunk of the tree showed her arms sticking out and her head off to the side with her mouth open, Jerry figured she must be terrified.

He knew he had to catch up quickly. He rushed after her. After a few minutes, he saw her. She was screaming wildly and driving straight up the trunk of a large oak tree.

He raced to the bottom of the tree, but by this point, she was driving down a large tree branch. When she reached the end of the branch, she jumped through the air from that branch to a branch on another tree.

He ran over to the other tree and climbed up the trunk. His heart was beating wildly as he thought about how scared she must be... that was, until he managed to get close to her. He could hear her screams, but they were screams of joy. She was having fun!

"Whhhheeeeeeee!!!!!" Sherry screamed. "Jerry! This is the most fun I've had since I fought against the Chimpanzee army back when I was just a young Squirrel like you! I just about have control of this cane... just another second..." With that, Sherry managed to turn the cane and drive down the side of a trunk. She came to a stop at the bottom.

When Jerry found her at the foot of the tree, she had a big smile on her face and looked pleased with herself. "Grab hold, Jerry!"

"What? Grab hold?" Jerry asked, quite confused.

"Grab hold! We have some Beetle Birds to find!"

Jerry came up behind her and reached for the cane. As soon as his hand wrapped around it, Sherry took off again with a scream of joy.

They moved so fast, Jerry's entire body stretched out behind the cane. He had to grip the cane like his life depended on it. Jerry wondered if it really did.

At the speeds at which they were traveling, it didn't take long to reach Beetle Bird Territory. Jerry called up to her, "We need to stop and talk to them. The Beetle Birds can be really grumpy. We have to be very polite."

"No time!" Sherry hollered back as they continued to race along. "We have to move. The Nut Beetles are doing a lot of damage. There's no time for chit-chat."

"But if we don't talk to them, how are we going to get them to go back with us?" Jerry hollered as they continued to drive.

"This is how!" Sherry yelled back.

She turned the super-scooter toward a large tree. Jerry looked up and could see a huge number of Beetle Birds resting in the tree above, but watching the two of them carefully.

When they came to the bottom of the tree, Sherry drove the cane directly up the side of the tree, dragging poor Jerry behind her. He could see the birds were starting to look a little nervous and some of them were starting to look angry.

This, however, did not stop Sherry. She made for a large group of birds on one of the large branches, closer to the ground and drove straight into the middle of them. Before Jerry could do anything to stop her, she ran right into one of the birds.

Feathers flew in every direction, and Jerry looked back to see the bird she had hit. He had a bare stretch of skin showing along its back where the feathers had been ripped off. The Beetle Bird did not look happy. The rest of the Beetle Birds did not look happy either. Jerry looked up at Sherry. Sherry turned and looked down at Jerry. Sherry did look happy.

"I think it's going to work!" she shouted above the wind and the growing sound of angry birds behind them.

"What have you done? What's going to work?" Jerry yelled back.

"Watch and see!" she replied.

Sherry then drove the cane off the end of the branch and landed down on the ground, still traveling at breakneck speeds. She turned the cane around, so they were traveling back in the direction of Erry-Ville.

Jerry looked over his shoulder in fear. The entire flock of Beetle Birds, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands, were flying up into the sky and turning down toward Jerry and Sherry.

"They're coming after us!" screamed Jerry.

"Perfect," Sherry replied. "It did work!"

With that, she yelled out a "yeeeehaaww" and drove off away from the birds.

Jerry looked back and immediately wished he had not. The birds were just about to grab him, but at the last second, Sherry turned a little to the left, then to the right, then back to the left again to evade the birds.

"We'll have to be quick to get away," Sherry explained as they drove down the path back toward Erry-Ville. "If not, they'll get us both and eat us. This was such a good idea!"

"What about this seems like a good idea to you, Sherry?" Jerry asked as he continued to hold on with his legs and body trailing behind the cane.

"No time for chit-chat, Jerry. We have some birds to avoid! I think the best thing to do is to drive through that thorn patch up ahead. That'll slow the birds down!"

"Thorns? No! Wait, Sherry! Let's talk this through," Jerry said in a panic.

"No time for thinking! We must act," Sherry yelled back as she drove straight into the thorns.

Jerry thought to himself that Sherry was somehow managing to hit each and every thorn imaginable in that patch. He found himself saying, "Ouch" so many times he finally grew bored with it and just took each thorn in turn. When they drove out the other side, Jerry noticed that Sherry did not have a single thorn stuck in her, but he could barely see his own fur through all the thorns stuck in his side.

The trip back to Erry-Ville continued like this the rest of way. The birds continued to chase them and every time they grew close, Sherry would drive into another thorn patch to slow the birds down. Jerry didn't think the thorns were actually slowing the birds down, but they sure hurt.

After about what felt like a week, but was probably only a few minutes, Jerry could see Erry-Ville up ahead. It wasn't much farther, but the birds were still right on his tail. If he and Sherry weren't quick, they wouldn't make it back even the last little bit.

He looked up into the trees and, sure enough, the Nut Beetles were all still there. They had eaten a lot of the nuts, but there would still be enough left if the Beetle Birds drove the Nut Beetles away.

"Flerry!" Jerry yelled. He had trouble speaking since he had about eighteen thorns stuck in his lips and tongue. "Wha' ahhh you gow-ing chtoo thdo thnow?"

"Now that the Beetle Birds are angry, I think we should introduce them to the Nut Beetles, don't you think?" Sherry yelled back to Jerry.

"Thure," Jerry said through the thorns.

Sherry then drove the cane right into the middle of Erry-Ville. Squirrels dove for cover, trying to protect themselves from the crazy cane driver. Sherry drove the cane up the side of one of the largest nut-producing trees in Erry-Ville.

Jerry could hear the sound of the Nut Beetles, buzzing away. None of them seemed to notice what was happening, but as Sherry arrived at the top, she drove right into the middle of a swarm of Nut Beetles.

The Beetles scattered every which way. At first, they were only trying to avoid Sherry and Jerry, but then the birds arrived.

The Nut Beetles were surprised. They were suddenly faced with their greatest enemy—the Beetle Birds. The Beetle Birds were surprised because they had not realized until that point that it was lunchtime.

The Beetle Birds went right for the Nut Beetles and immediately started to eat them all up. The Nut Beetles scattered every which way they could.

Sherry drove the cane down the side of the tree and came to a stop. She looked around with a big smile on her face.

Jerry let go of the super-scooter and rolled on the ground. The thorns were stuck in everywhere. There were so many, he really was just an unrecognizable ball of thorns. He did not enjoy that.

"Sherry!" Hat Squirrel called out. "Welcome back! I see you have saved the day. I'm so glad you saved us, and I'm kind of glad that you lost Jerry along the way. He's always causing so much trouble."

"No, he's right inside that ball of thorns right there," Sherry explained.

"Oh," Hat Squirrel said, looking at the ball of thorns and trying to see if he could spot Jerry in there. "Well, you can't have everything. Thanks again for saving the town. I would give you a medal or something, but I just don't want to. Bye!"

With that, Hat Squirrel walked away. All the Squirrels quickly smiled at Sherry and then just went back to what they were doing before the Nut Beetles showed up. Sherry reached down, pulled Jerry's invention off the bottom of her cane and slowly began to make her way back to her apartment.

"Help," Jerry whimpered. "Is anyone there? Oh no, help!" he cried out as he started to roll away down the hill in his thorn ball.

I hope you enjoyed this tenth part of this series of stories on Jerry the Squirrel. Keep your eye out for more (there are 10 stories in this series, plus a chapter from another book).  Make sure you check out the next chapter.  It's an intro to another story, and it's been a LOT of fun to write and edit!

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