Chapter preview book 1

Chapter one: Sticky notes, slime and slightly exploding thoughts.

Scribbles the squirrel woke up with too many ideas. Not just one or two — a whole parade of them, marching through his mind like nutcracker soldiers doing jazz hands. Should he paint tiny acorns today? Invent a snack sorter? Build a mini rollercoaster for ants? “Yes,” he whispered, eyes wide with possibility. “Yes to all of it.”
Then his tummy gave a tiny grumble. “Oh! I should eat something first,” he said thoughtfully. He even pictured the perfect breakfast: strawberry slices, a chunk of cheese, and one heroic almond.
Then he saw his glitter jar. And completely forgot he was hungry. He jumped out of bed (which was actually a pile of soft socks and a glittery cape) and landed in his burrow — a cozy cave of chaos. Sticky notes danced on the walls, trails of crayons lined the floor, and somewhere in the corner, the Nut Sorter 3000 purred like a machine waiting for a magnificent mistake.
“I will sort my snacks!” he declared. “No more peanut-in-the-pillow incidents!”
He tied on his sticky-note cape, adjusted his goggles, and got to work. For exactly three minutes. Then he saw a glitter jar… and forgot everything.
Just as Scribbles was attempting to pour trail mix into the machine while simultaneously taping a poem to a peanut, Hazel the Hedgehog arrived — clipboard in paw, skeptical eyebrow raised.
“Scribbles,” she said gently, stepping over a pile of jellybeans, “Did you try sorting snacks last Tuesday? And didn’t it end in a salsa flood?”
Scribbles paused. “Yes. But today I have goggles, which makes me more professional.” He gestured dramatically, knocking over a tower of teacups with a flourish.
Hazel sighed the kind of sigh one only learns after years of loving a distracted squirrel. “Okay. Let’s just make sure the Nut Sorter doesn’t explode this time.”
Hazel was halfway through her “Nut Sorter Safety Checklist” when Scribbles froze mid-salsa scoop.
“Wait… what was I doing?” he whispered, eyes wide.
Hazel didn’t even look up. “Sorting snacks. Again.”
“Oh right!” Scribbles nodded, then paused. “No wait… was I writing a peanut poem? Or inventing a jellybean parachute?”
Hazel gently closed her clipboard. “Scribbles, you forget things faster than a squirrel hiding his acorns.”
Scribbles gasped. “That’s it! I need to make something that’s going to help me remember!
“Something that I’m not going to lose might be a good thing”, laughed Scribbles, while Hazel just sighed.
“How about . . . Not forgetting water?” Scribbles asked Hazel while scratching his chin. Hazel rolled her eyes as she responded to Scribbles “that’s probably not a good idea, You would most likely just drink it because you’ve forgotten what it was for”.
Scribbles sat in silence for what felt like forever — which, in squirrel time, was approximately 47 seconds. His brain was doing cartwheels. No, backflips. No, synchronized swimming with glitter hats.
He thought about breakfast. Then about breakfast themed hats. Then about inventing a hat that reminds you to eat breakfast. Then about whether jellybeans could be trained to sing.
His tail twitched with possibility.
He remembered he forgot something. Then forgot what he remembered. Then remembered that he forgot to remember what he forgot.
“Ugh!” he groaned, flopping dramatically onto a pile of socks. “My brain is a bouncy castle full of squirrels!”
And that’s when it hit him not a literal acorn (this time), but an idea.
“I need… a Remembering Slime!” he gasped. “A squishy, glittery blob that holds my thoughts so they don’t bounce away!”
He leapt up, knocking over a tower of hats and a half-written poem titled Ode to a Cracker. Hazel peeked in from the hallway, already bracing for impact. “A what now?”
“A squishy, glittery blob that holds my ideas for me! I’ll whisper them into it and it’ll squelch them back when I forget!” He was already rummaging through a drawer labelled “Emergency Goo Ingredients.”
Hazel sighed. “This is going to involve glitter, isn’t it?”
“Only the memory-enhancing kind,” Scribbles said, dramatically sprinkling sparkle dust into a mixing bowl. “Also marshmallow fluff. For stickiness. And emotional support.”
Within minutes, the Remembering Slime was born. A wobbly, shimmering blob that burbled softly and occasionally hummed the alphabet. Scribbles whispered into it: “Nut Sorter. Poem. Snack parachute. Hazel’s birthday. Don’t eat glitter.”
The slime burped.
“Perfect,” Scribbles beamed. “Now I’m ready for anything.”
Just as Scribbles was about to declare the slime a total success, it burbled ominously. Then it wobbled. Then it launched a jellybean across the room.
Hazel ducked. “That’s not normal.”
The Remembering Slime began to glow — not gently, but like a disco ball having an existential crisis. It pulsed, hummed the alphabet backwards, and started bouncing toward the burrow’s leafy curtain.
Scribbles gasped. “It’s trying to lead us somewhere!”
Hazel narrowed her eyes. “Or escape.”
The slime bounced again, leaving a trail of sparkles and half-remembered snack ideas. Scribbles grabbed his goggles. “We have to follow it!”
Hazel sighed. “Of course we do.”
Hazel’s Clipboard Calm Technique
Step 1: Find your focus Sit like Hazel — paws steady, clipboard ready. Imagine your thoughts lining up like jellybeans in a neat little row.
Step 2: Breathe in through your nose Picture each breath as a checklist box being ticked. Scribbles once imagined his breath as sparkles, but Hazel prefers neat little squares.
Step 3: Hold for 4 jellybean beats Let your thoughts pause, like a clipboard waiting for its next brilliant idea. Hazel counts: “One. Two. Three. Four. Sorted.”
Step 4: Exhale slowly Imagine your breath organizing your brain — crayons in color order, socks by squishiness, ideas by sparkle level.
Step 5: Repeat until your brain feels less like a salsa flood and more like a well-labeled pantry