The Pizza Problem

Nutty Nutwobble first noticed the pizza emergency because Mrs. Hedgehog was yelling at a bush.

"Where is my mushroom-and-extra-cheese?" she demanded. "I ordered it before my nap, and I have already finished being asleep!"

The bush did not answer.

Nutty hung upside down from his favorite branch and peered along Walnut Way. Mr. Rabbit was pacing on his porch. Mayor Buttersworth was staring sadly at an empty plate. Mrs. Oakley had set out a tiny vase, a tiny napkin, and a tiny fork, but no pizza.

This was not one hungry neighbor.

This was a townwide cheese delay.

Nutty scampered down the trunk so fast his tail arrived half a second after the rest of him. At the bottom of the hill, Tony the Delivery Fox was climbing toward them with six pizza boxes stacked under his chin.

"Tony!" Nutty called. "Your pizzas are moving slower than Grandpa's gravy."

"Tell me about it," Tony puffed. "Nutville has hills, stairs, tree houses, balcony orders, and one customer who lives in a birdhouse for reasons I am not prepared to discuss."

The top box slid sideways.

Nutty caught it with both paws. The pizza inside was still warm, but only just.

"By the time I reach the far oak," Tony said, "the cheese has gone from melty to thoughtful."

Nutty gasped. "Nobody wants thoughtful cheese."

"Exactly."

Nutty's ears stood up. His whiskers twitched. Somewhere deep inside his brain, a very small warning bell rang once and then gave up.

"I know what Nutville needs," he said.

Tony narrowed his eyes. "A second fox?"

"Better."

"A tunnel?"

"Warmer."

"A sensible pulley system designed by a qualified adult?"

"Colder. Much colder."

Nutty shot up the oak tree and burst into the workshop clearing, where Mama Nutwobble was tightening a bolt on a wagon wheel and Papa Nutwobble was trying to juggle acorns without admitting he could not juggle acorns.

"Family meeting!" Nutty shouted. "Also possibly business meeting. Also probably helmet meeting."

Papa dropped all three acorns. "Why helmets?"

"Because," Nutty said, pulling a crumpled magazine from the recycling pile, "pizza should fly."

The magazine showed a person wearing a jetpack, zooming bravely over a canyon. The person did not have a pizza strapped to their back, which Nutty considered a missed opportunity.

Mama read the headline. "Jetpacks of Tomorrow." Then she looked at Nutty. Then she looked at Papa. Then she looked at the magazine again, as if hoping it had turned into a pamphlet about walking carefully.

"Squirrels glide," she said. "We do not rocket."

"Not yet," Nutty said.

Papa rubbed his chin. "A flying pizza service would help Tony."

"It would help the whole town," Nutty said. "No more cold crusts. No more tragic balconies. No more cheese becoming thoughtful."

Mama tried to keep a serious face. It did not hold.

"We would need safety straps," she said.

"And goggles," Papa added.

"And a name," Nutty said.

They all stared at the magazine, at the sky, and at the stack of pizza boxes wobbling up the hill in Tony's tired paws.

Then Mama picked up her wrench.

"Fine," she said. "Tomorrow we build one small test jetpack."

Nutty grinned.

Papa grinned.

Even the warning bell in Nutty's brain seemed interested.

Building Bottle Jetpacks

By breakfast, Nutty had already drawn seven jetpack plans on napkins, one on a leaf, and one on Papa's tail by mistake.

"This one has wings," he explained.

Papa turned his tail around to look. "Why does it say EXTRA ZOOM next to my spine?"

"Because that is where the extra zoom goes."

Mama took away the marker.

Their first stop was the Nutville Recycling Center, where empty soda bottles glittered in the morning sun.

"We need bottles with strong walls," Mama said. "Good corks. Tight straps. No mystery liquids."

"And style," Papa said, holding up a purple bottle shaped like a trumpet.

"Style is not a structural material."

"It could be if people believed hard enough."

By lunch, the workshop clearing looked as if a science fair had crashed into a picnic. Bottles were sorted by size. Corks sat in neat rows. Straps hung from branches. A chalkboard listed important engineering words:

PRESSURE
BALANCE
DIRECTION
DO NOT POINT AT FACE

Papa's jetpack used two orange soda bottles and a harness made from jump ropes. Mama's used three green bottles, carefully braced with popsicle sticks. Nutty's used five bottles in different colors because, according to Nutty, "rainbow power is probably a real thing."

Then came helmets.

Mama found three proper bike helmets in the lost-and-found box.

Nutty found a colander, a bright yellow rain hat with a plastic duck on top, and a fuzzy winter hat with enormous ear flaps.

"We should wear the bike helmets," Mama said.

"Obviously," Nutty said.

So they put on the bike helmets.

Then Nutty put the colander over his bike helmet.

Papa put the duck hat over his bike helmet.

Mama sighed for a full five seconds, then put the fuzzy ear-flap hat over her bike helmet too.

"It is important for customers to recognize us from far away," Papa said.

"Customers will recognize you from the moon," Mama said.

The fuel was simple: baking soda, vinegar, and confidence. The confidence did not fizz, but Nutty added plenty anyway.

Their first test was supposed to be a tiny hop.

"Tiny," Mama reminded him.

"Responsible," Papa added.

"Pizza-adjacent," Nutty said.

He pressed the red launch button made from a bottle cap.

His jetpack burped.

Then it sneezed.

Then it made a long squealing noise like a kettle learning opera.

WHOOOOSH!

Nutty shot three feet into the air, spun exactly one and a half circles, clipped a laundry basket, and landed bottom-first in Mrs. Owl's birdbath.

"My begonias!" Mrs. Owl cried from her porch.

"Sorry!" Nutty called, dripping from his colander. "Also good news!"

Mama hurried over with a towel. "The good news had better not be that my son is waterproof."

"The good news," Nutty said, beaming, "is that it works."

Papa looked at the birdbath. Then at the smoking bottles. Then at Mrs. Owl, who was now rescuing a very confused garden snail.

"It works," he said carefully, "in the way a sneeze works."

"Exactly," Nutty said. "Now we just need to teach the sneeze where to go."

Crash Landing Chronicles

"One pizza," Tony the Delivery Fox said the next morning.

He held the box with both paws, as if handing over a baby made of crust.

"One small pepperoni. Mrs. Badger. Across town. If it arrives hot, flat, and not wearing leaves, we will discuss more orders."

"What if it is wearing one leaf?" Papa asked.

"No leaves."

"A decorative petal?"

Tony pointed at him. "No garden toppings."

Nutty saluted with one paw and strapped the pizza carrier to his back. Mama checked the clips. Papa checked the corks. Nutty checked whether he looked heroic in a shop window.

He did, if heroic meant "squirrel saucepan."

"Pizza flight one," Nutty called. "Launch!"

WHOOOOSH!

For four glorious seconds, everything worked.

Nutty rose above Walnut Way. The pizza stayed level. The wind ruffled his whiskers. Mrs. Hedgehog looked up from her porch and clapped.

Then the jetpack remembered it had never learned to steer.

"Incoming laundry!" Nutty yelled.

He zoomed straight into Mrs. Raccoon's clothesline, vanished inside a bed sheet, bounced off three shirts, and burst out wearing a sock on one ear.

The pizza stayed flat.

"Still good!" Mama called, chasing him.

Mama's jetpack flew beautifully, but her fuzzy ear flaps kept sliding over her eyes. She traveled in a perfectly straight line toward anything directly in front of her, including a mailbox, a scarecrow, and one duck who strongly objected.

"Duck!" Papa shouted.

"I am ducking!" Mama shouted back.

"No, the duck!"

Papa had the opposite problem. He could steer, but his jetpack believed altitude was a suggestion.

Whoosh - up ten feet. Sputter - down five feet. WHOOSH - up fifteen feet. Pop - straight into Mr. Possum's empty trash cans.

"I'm fine!" Papa called from inside a can. "The duck hat protected my dignity!"

The duck disagreed from a safe distance.

After twenty minutes, three squirrels crash-landed in Mrs. Badger's rose garden. Nutty had a sock on his ear. Mama had a twig in her helmet. Papa had a trash-can lid around his waist like a shiny skirt.

Mrs. Badger opened the door.

"Are you my pizza?"

"We are not the pizza," Nutty wheezed. "But we brought it."

He opened the carrier.

The pizza was hot.

The pizza was flat.

The pizza was wearing exactly one rose petal.

Nutty plucked it off before Tony could ever know.

Mrs. Badger took a bite and closed her eyes. "Still melty."

The three squirrels stood taller.

"Same time tomorrow?" she asked.

Mama looked at Papa. Papa looked at Nutty. Nutty looked at the jetpack, which gave a tiny burp of leftover fizz.

"Tomorrow," Mama said, "we add steering."

Water Gun Wake-Up Calls

By Friday, Nutville had learned two important facts.

First, flying pizza could arrive hot.

Second, flying pizza sometimes arrived with a squirrel stuck in a shrub nearby.

Orders kept coming anyway.

The problem was not heat anymore. It was tiredness.

"I fell asleep over Maple Street," Papa admitted, leaning against the workbench. "I woke up in the fire station bell."

"I delivered a pizza to myself," Mama said. "I signed for it and everything."

Nutty yawned so wide his colander slid down over his eyes. "We need emergency wake-up equipment."

That was how the Silly Squirrels ended up outside the toy store, staring at three purple water blasters with shoulder straps and extra-large tanks.

"Absolutely not," Mama said.

"For safety," Nutty said.

"For science," Papa said.

"For soaking your father in public," Mama said.

Ten minutes later, each squirrel wore a water blaster across the chest.

"For safety," Mama repeated, in the voice grown-ups use when they are losing an argument to themselves.

Their first test came during a delivery to the lighthouse keeper. Halfway there, Papa's duck hat drooped. His eyelids drooped. His jetpack drooped.

"Drowsy pilot!" Nutty shouted. "Wake-up protocol!"

SQUIRT!

Mama hit Papa directly in the cheek with cold water.

Papa woke up very thoroughly.

"I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE AWAKE!" he cried, accidentally squeezing his launch button.

He shot forward like a furry bottle rocket.

"Follow Papa!" Nutty shouted.

What followed was the fastest, wettest delivery Nutville had ever seen. Papa zigzagged between chimneys with pizza boxes trailing behind him. Nutty chased Papa. Mama chased Nutty. All three accidentally sprayed Mr. Rabbit's laundry, Mayor Buttersworth's hat, and a cloud that probably deserved it.

"Turn left!" Mama called.

"Which left?" Papa called back.

"The dry one!"

Papa finally ran out of fizz above the town fountain and drifted down with a grand splash.

The lighthouse keeper, watching from his porch, applauded politely.

"My pizza?" he asked.

Nutty opened the boxes.

Three pizzas. Hot. Flat. Damp around the edges, but mostly from fountain mist.

"Next time," the lighthouse keeper said, "could I get extra napkins?"

That night, the Nutwobbles hung the water blasters on hooks beside the jetpacks.

"The wake-up system works," Papa said.

"Too well," Mama said.

Nutty wrote on the chalkboard:

NEW RULE: ONLY SQUIRT PILOTS BEFORE THEY BECOME MISSILES

Then he added:

ALSO PACK NAPKINS

Pizza Heroes Take Flight

Two weeks later, the Silly Squirrels had rules.

Rule One: Pizza stays flat.

Rule Two: Customers stay dry unless they request extra napkins.

Rule Three: Do not race weather vanes. They cheat.

The rules helped. So did Mama's steering fins, Papa's better cork valves, and Nutty's invention of the Emergency Cheese Level, which was just a shelf, but a very important shelf.

They still crashed sometimes. Nutville did not mind. Crashing squirrels had become part of the delivery experience, like free entertainment with breadsticks.

Then came the Kite Festival.

Three neighboring towns arrived with picnic blankets, ribbon tails, and appetites. By noon, Tony's Pizza Palace had orders stacked from the counter to the ceiling.

"I need help!" Tony cried. "I have fifty-seven pizzas, a broken delivery cart, and one customer who ordered 'whatever is fastest.'"

Nutty dropped from the rafters, where he had been absolutely not spying for emergencies.

"Did someone say Pizza Emergency?"

Mama appeared in the doorway with her helmet already buckled. Papa rolled in a cart of fueled jetpacks. The duck on his hat looked ready for destiny.

"Operation Mozzarella," Papa said, "is a go."

The next hour became Nutville legend.

Nutty delivered two cheese pizzas to the mayor's balcony while flying backward, which he insisted was on purpose.

Mama swooped between kite strings, dropped a veggie pizza onto Mrs. Oakley's picnic blanket, and used one ear flap to salute.

Papa cooled an overheated bottle with his water blaster, rescued a kite from a maple branch, and delivered "whatever is fastest," which turned out to be a small pizza with every topping Tony could reach in seven seconds.

By sunset, every pizza had arrived hot. No mailboxes had been harmed. Only two customers had been lightly misted, and both said it was refreshing.

Tony leaned against the counter, exhausted and smiling. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Nutville's pizza delivery belongs in the sky."

The town cheered. Someone started chanting, "Pizza heroes!" and soon everyone joined in, even Harold the Groundhog, who did not usually chant before dinner.

That night, the Nutwobbles sat on their favorite branch with three slices of victory pizza between them.

"You know what the best part is?" Nutty asked.

"Helping Tony?" Mama guessed.

"The flying?" Papa guessed.

"The helmets," Nutty said.

Mama laughed. Papa laughed. The duck hat, being a hat, remained dignified.

Down below, Tony locked up the pizza shop. Across the street, the ice cream parlor owner was staring at a very long line and looking worried.

Nutty saw it.

His ears stood up.

Mama pointed one paw at him. "No."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your ears did."

Nutty tried to push them down.

They popped right back up.