Story of town raccoon

Let me introduce myself, my name is Mousny, I’m a raccoon of only a few days old. I have a brother, his name is Ousnym and a sister, her name is Ynsoum.
I like sleeping, all snuggled up with them because I am not one of the most legendary furry animals at this time, if you see what I mean…
I don’t really have a life plan but as my Mommy says “You don’t have to know everything right now because for the moment, I’m watching over you and I dedicate my life to you for this next year, in order to feed you and to teach you.

For now, you must drink every hour so I must not run out of milk, I love you so!”
My Mommy is the best mother in all the world. We drank a lot and now we are sleepy...What a joy to have a nice round belly full of warm milk! Yummm! Now we can snuggle up close for a good nap!
During this time while we are in the land of dreams, well satiated, Mommy, she goes to work. She must eat in order to produce her precious milk, so she sneaks out of our nest and is off to conquer the... containers, she calls them?
We don’t know our father, only what Mommy tells us about him. She said that he was a handsome raccoon in good shape with nice love handles and lots of vitality! He is well known in the neighbourhood as the backyard bandit by the city folk but he is well bread, very quiet, very effective and very smart! Daddy is a gentleman and a bit of a bohemian, as she says. Her soft-hearted rocker, hehehe…Mommy says we are too young to understand, but one day…

Mommy tells us lots of things, even if our ears are still closed, we understand her by the vibrations she makes with her throat. We learned quickly to respond to her messages. Mommy is a genious!

Mommy should be back soon because now we are awake and our tummies are shrinking... oupsss...We can’t wait for her to touch us and guide us to her nice warm milk! We have the good life, but her, she is in danger every time she leaves the nest.

Time sure does fly!! We are 3 weeks-old now and our ears and eyes are slowly opening!
Soon we will be able to see Mommy’s beautiful and bright face! All these days without seeing her, it was long! Our Mommy is the most beautiful of mommies!

Mommy leaves us alone in the nest for longer periods now because we don’t need to be fed as often, she can leave for at least 2 hours. During this time, my siblings and I discover each other, I find my brother and sister pretty funny! They think I’m funny too!

For the first time, at one month-old, we hear strange sounds and we see shadows around us...that frighten us! Mommy is at work and we remembered she said: “If you hear sounds, it’s normal because we live in a city under a shed. But if you see animals with 2 legs who make weird sounds, don’t move, don’t make a sound and especially, remember that I will be back once the 2-legs are gone, or during the night. Sometimes, it might take longer but be patient, I love you so much!”

That day, a very sad day, the 2-legs destroyed our home. We were so scared, famished and sad, that we couldn’t help but cry...and the 2-legs found us!Ousnym is like Daddy, I think...he’s got character! So he showed the 2-legs they weren’t a match for him! Ynsoum and I were really scared and we were looking for Mommy. One of the 2-legs made noises in a flat object that has pictures and makes other noises. Wow, they are tall these 2-legs, just like Mommy told us! She said that many 2-legs are kind but others can be really mean.

It was time to test the teachings Mommy transmitted to us in the beginning. OK, I remember, we must keep our heads lower than our backs, we must spread our front paws really wide, we must smell the ground under us and we must move forward just a bit, then backup, raising our backs to become round like a ball. We must also keep our eyes open and notice everything around us. Then, we can also make growling noises with our mouth, to show them we can be mean too! Wow! Ousnym is better than me at growling and I think Ynsoum didn’t pay attention too much because she’s lost in her thoughts! Mommy says that Ynsoum has a little attention deficit, she’s funny when she’s “on the moon”, as Mommy says, hehe!

OK, now the 2-legs are coming close and Ynsoum is making funny sounds now, she’s making the “ Mouk Mouk mouk” noises. Ohhh, those are sharp noises, she is scared! I team up with Ousnym and we growl together but Oupsss, I just made a Mouk sound...don’t laugh, ok? Another 2-legs arrives…Oupss, he’s got bigger hands and they are of a different colour. He also has a square thing, a box Mommy called it, like the one we have in our nest under the shed, which Mommy had a lot of trouble installingl, as she explained to us. OH NO!!! The 2-legs with the big green hands just grabbed Ynsoum and me and put us in the box. We are really really scared now! He just grabbed our sister who put her paws in front of her eyes and she’s not moving.

Mommy also explained to us that when a raccoon is frightened, his reflex is to hide his eyes, as if to say “Oh no, I don’t want to see this!” Now, all three of us are in the box, and they are closing it. Oooh, we are being moved around and the box is being lifted up off the ground. Where are the 2-legs taking us? But...but….Mommy! MOMMY!!

Oh...we stopped moving...listen...ssshhttt! The 2-legs are going away?

Silence...we can hear our hearts beating and we are thinking of Mommy but we must not cry because the 2-legs will come back...We huddle and cuddle together, and fall asleep even though we are nervous...We wake up often, we have a restless sleep. Mommy! Mommy! We are alone without our Mommy, we miss her so much!

Night falls and we listen to the sounds around us. Ynsoum has very fine ears and she hears footsteps…someone is sniffing the box in which we are hidden, we don’t make a sound. We feel the box moving and….all of a sudden, we see Mommy’s nose!! You are here!!

Mommy, take us with you!! She grabs Ynsoum by the scruff of the neck and POUF! she’s out of the box! We hear Mommy moving away from the box...and we don’t move.

What seems like a long time after, she came back! Yeah! Now she grabs Ousnym and goes away with him...oh no, I’m alone in the box and I’m really scared!! What if Mommy doesn’t come back? What if she has an accident? NO! I must not think of that!! I miss Mommy, and Ousnym and Ynsoum too! Family is important! It’s hard to wait, and I don’t like being alone in the box. But wait.... is it? I hear footsteps...Mommy! She came back!! Yeah!!

She grabs me and POUF! Up in the air I go! She takes me far away from the box, very far away because she found us a new home! She explains that the 2-legs who found us were nice 2-legs. They didn’t want to harm us so when they took us from our home, they hid us in the box to show Mommy that she could find us and bring us to safety in our new home.

Mommy explained to us that it is very hard for raccoons to live in peace with the 2-legs because they don’t like us very much. But we are still too young to understand why.

Once Mommy fed us, we cuddled together and cherished this magical moment of our reunion. Our Mommy is the best Mommy ever! She says she will teach us life, one day at a time and soon, she will tell us stories of the legendary raccoon named NYMOUS!

To be continued...