Phillip and Phyllis may have been twin gray squirrels, but they were those typical “look alike, act differently” kind of twins. Phillip would be the lazy joker who’d like to prank anyone, from a newborn baby to a sweet old lady. He ironically claimed to very mature and a ladies’ man much to others’ annoyance. Phyllis however, wasn’t much of a clown, but was a bit of a mischief-maker herself when others provoked her. Unlike her not-so-smart brother, Phyllis was clever, and could always get out of trouble as well as putting Phillip in her spot. Besides being “evil”, she had a happy-go-lucky side and loved to cheer and dance when not plotting against her brother.
But despite their none-so similar personalities, Phillip and Phyllis were as hyper as the next squirrel, and both unintentionally spoke in unison. As for appearance, the resemblance was indistinguishable, with their vivid blue eyes and soft brown hair. They had even dressed as each other one Halloween.
They were born identical, which baffled many seeing that it was impossible for identical twins to consist of a boy and a girl, but their parents decided it’d be better not to ask questions.

Like all squirrels, they lived up in a tree. It was a large, old oak tree their great-grandparents used to live in; according to their parents, it was mostly for the reason that buying a house was tough these days.

The twins have always gotten into many shenanigans that landed them in trouble, but what had happened last winter still devastates their father; despite it not being so shocking to anyone else.


One chilly November morning, Phillip snored and tossed around in his bed when he felt a chill on his fur. He woke up and peered out the window. It was snowing! Excited, Phillip jumped around in his bedroom like a frenzied monkey, and ran into his sister’s room.

Phyllis was happily ballroom dancing with Justin Beaver when all of a sudden he grabbed her head and started screaming in her face. “PHYLLIS, PHYLLIS, WAKE UP!” he hollered in her ear. Phyllis irritably awoke. “Do you HAVE to act like such a child every time it snows?!” she snapped crankily. “How did you-” “the draft” she interrupted “now, let’s get ready so we can run, and have fun, in the snow!” she said in a singsong voice. “Phyllis, that doesn’t even rhyme!” he told her blankly “shut up!” she retorted.

After a fight over who got to use the bathroom first, the twins geared up and rushed downstairs, when two paws suddenly grabbed their tails. Phillip and Phyllis turned around to see their dad, Nick, still dressed in his pajamas. Nick was a tall, but scrawny squirrel. He was a very cowardly guy and wasn’t any good at being an assertive father. “Hey you two, you can’t go out just yet,” he started, “it’s still early, and besides, you should have breakfast first. Like they say, breakfast is what helps you start a perfect-” before he could even finish, the two hyper squirrels broke free and raced into the kitchen.
There were pancakes for breakfast. Phillip stacked a whole bunch on his plate, devoured them in one bite, then burped loudly. Phyllis shot him a disgusted look. Precious giggled. “Phillip! Do NOT do that at the table!” scolded Sally, the twins’ mother. She was a young, lean squirrel who looked very sweet but had a short temper, and nagged a lot. The entire family was terrified of her.
After breakfast, everyone got dressed, piled into the minivan, and drove off to the park. The park was white with snow and large hills were good for sledding. A hare was renting snowboards and skis.
“I’m heading for the hills!” Phillip jokingly called out to his parents. He grabbed a snowboard and started climbing. There, he saw a red headed gray squirrel. He instantly knew it was his cousin, Patrick. Patrick was a year younger than the twins and was a flying squirrel. (From his dad) he was also at times bashful, and always followed his cousin’s lead, much to his parents’ dismay.
The boys were just about to race when Phyllis came along and demanded the boys to let her race with them. “Well then, I’ll tell mom you’re being sexist!” she warned. Not wanting to face the wrath of his wild mother, Phillip reluctantly agreed.

Meanwhile, Sally and her cousin, Sunny, were sledding down the hill with their children. Sunny was a Scottish red squirrel who owned a bakery and was Patrick’s mother. She loved to dress very fancily and wore a different outfit for each day. Today it was a huge blue fur coat and a matching Russian hat with a bow. The tot on her sled was her four-year-old son, Nathan.
When the two mothers reached the bottom of the hill, they walked off for some hot chocolate, but stopped when a lovely snowman Nick was building caught their eyes. It was a figure of him lying on his side, his head rested in his paw. It had eyes of charcoal, a pebble nose, and pinecones that were his ears. “What a fabulous snowman, Nicholas” Sunny complimented. Nick was flattered “thanks”. “We were going to get some cocoa, would you like to come with us, dear?” Sally offered “sure,” replied Nick “I needed a break anyway” and walked off with the two ladies.


On the hill, Phillip and Phyllis were coming down neck-in-neck. (With Patrick behind) They were slap fighting and shoving each other when the hill suddenly became very steep. The three of them lost their balance and tumbled down the hill. They crashed into a pile of snow.
Luckily, no one was hurt. “Is everyone okay?” Phyllis asked as she popped her head out the snow. “Yup” answered Phillip “never better” replied Patrick. He got up and brushed snow off his sweater when he saw something quite peculiar about the snow pile they just fell in. “Hey guys,” he asked “you think this was supposed to be a snowman or something?” the twins looked up from brushing snow off their clothes and gazed at the snow pile, then Phillip said, “Nah, looks more like a headless- oh wait you’re right, it probably was something” “we’ve got to fix it, what if somebody made that?” Patrick worriedly said. “Calm your tail, Pat. Now let’s-” just before she finished her sentence, Phyllis heard a voice.
She peeked over the little hill they fell behind and watched. Nick was headed their way, holding a thermos and conversing with Sally and Sunny. “So, what else are you adding to your creation, honey?” Sally asked “well, all I need is a tail, Sally. Pine branches with plenty of needles will do, I’ll get them as soon as I finish the snowman”.
Phyllis nearly let out a shriek. She ran down the mini hill to tell the boys, but came to see them jumping on what was left of the sculpture “WHAT ARE YOU TWO NUTHEADS DOING?!!” she yelled “uh, what do you think we’re doing? We’re having fun since we can’t race on the big hill anymore” said Phillip, pointing at their broken boards. Phyllis frowned upon them, knowing that they would have to deal with the hare later, and then explained to the boys how the snowman was made by Nick, and how they had to repair it before he came. “Now you two fix the snowman, while I’ll go distract dad” she ordered “Hey, how come you get the easy job? I want it!” Phillip complained “Because I’m a girl, jerk, I can’t do much physical labor, now quit whining and fix the darn sculpture!” Phillip muttered a curse, and then turned to help Patrick. As he wasn’t much of a worker, he made Patrick do the work. Since Patrick was very naive, he did what he was told.

Phyllis waited behind a bush until she saw Nick climb up the mini hill. She hopped out in front of him. “Hi dad!” she blurted out “you… err…wanna go sledding with me?” “I’d love to Phyllis, but I have to go finish my special snowman, would you like to come and help?” Nick asked. “No, let’s go and get the tail first” Phyllis suggested. Nick looked puzzled. “The tail? You mean for my snowman? How did- how did you know?” she tried to think of something quickly, but Nick was continuing his path down the hill. Improvising, Phyllis scooped up a pawful of snow, patted it into a ball, and then flung it at her father. Nick turned and gave her a stern look for a split second, but then smiled and threw a snowball back at her. The two of them laughed and enjoyed a snowball fight. As they played, Phyllis led Nick into the trees so they could find pine branches.


Patrick was still fixing the snowman, trying to make Phillip proud of him. Phillip, however didn’t notice, and was too busy complaining about nothing. “This stinks! I can hear Phyllis playing with my dad. Yeah, that’s a job!” he said sarcastically “Forget this, I’m outta here!” he started to storm off when Patrick grabbed his tail. “Phil, wait,” he said “if we leave, your dad’s gonna see what we did and we’ll be in big trouble” Philip scoffed “So? What’s my dad gonna do? Quietly yell at us?” Patrick looked puzzled “how would it be yelling if it’s quiet?” Phillip groaned “That-That’s not the point! The point is, I’m gonna give that rat sister of mine a piece of my mind!” he shoved his cousin off and continued walking. Patrick thought for a moment, than slyly said “Say, Phillip, wouldn’t your dad tell your mom?” Phillip froze. He turned as white as the snow, then pushed Patrick out the way and rapidly tried to restore the snowman.
They got to work; starting by forming the snow into a long shape for the body, and then making arms and legs. Phillip rolled a snowball head, and Patrick built the tail. They looked around for pebbles to make eyes and a nose and Patrick used a stick to draw a crooked looking mouth. The last thing was the ears. Since Phillip couldn’t make good snow ears, he took what was left of two pinecones and stuck them on the head.
They had completed their task, but the sculpture was dreadful. Its head and body were deformed and the limbs were all of different lengths and sizes. One arm was fat, another was too short, and a leg was caving in. Its tail was potholed and the face was the worst part, with it having one large eye and one small one and practically no nose. The ears on it were just as poor. One of them was flattened and pieces fell off, while the other ear was half broken. There was barely any of it left. “A little on the bad side but… I think its okay” said Phillip. “Are you sure? I-I don’t wanna get a spanking!” Patrick wasn’t too thrilled. He was just as afraid of Sally as Phillip was. “Relax, even if he does see the difference, dad’ll forgive us.” The two boys left the snowman to the frozen pond to play hockey.


After an hour and a half of playing in the snow, Phyllis helped her dad find a good pine branch. While Nick was torn between a cedar branch and a fir, Phyllis took this as an opportunity to sneak off and see if the boys were done. It was a very long walk to the small hill. Phyllis ran as fast as her footpaws could take her, but had to stop and rest every 10 minutes. Normally Phyllis was a fast runner, and would have bolted across the park, but she was so worn out from the snowball fight that she staggered the whole way. After almost an hour, Phyllis finally made it to the hill. She collapsed on it and looked over. She was glad that they had finished it but upset to see how hideous it was “My god! That’s worse than when Uncle Harry changed Precious!” she thought, and ran down to improve it.
When Phyllis had finished, it still had quite many flaws, but it was better than before. Exhausted, she was crawling up the hill when she bumped into Nick, who had finally made his decision and chose the cedar branch. “Well, I just went to see your statue, and it’s pretty nice, see ya!” Phyllis told him, and ran off nervously to join the boys.

The twins were watching Patrick soar gracefully across icy trees when they heard someone shriek. “HOLY ACORNS!!!” It was coming from Nick’s hill. Everyone came over. Phillip, Phyllis, and Patrick all had anxious looks on their faces.
“Oh my goodness, what happened to your snowman Nicholas?” Sunny asked. “I don’t know, someone just had to be a jerk and ruined it! I worked so hard!” Nick wailed, tears welling up in his eyes. (He tended to cry for nearly everything; everyone assumed he cried more than Precious, the baby) “I don’t know why someone would just go and vandalize like that.” Sally said. “But Nick, there’s no need to sob about it. Seriously, you’re NOT Precious” “but I’m an ARTISTE!” Nick bawled. Sally sighed, and then left with Sunny. The twins and Patrick quickly followed.
The sun was setting, and it was time to go. Nick had loosened up and rebuilt his snowman, but because he was still upset about his masterpiece being ruined, he plopped on the ground and refused to move, so the family had to drag him into the car. They then waved goodbye to Patrick and his family, and drove off.

“So, did you kids have a great time today?” Sally asked during dinner. “YES!” the twins replied sharply. “O-Kay,” Sally responded, puzzled.
After dinner, the squirrels sat in front of the television. Phillip whispered in his sister’s ear “You owe me BIG time for making me fix up that snowman!” “Oh like you did anything, I saw you, lazy bum!” Phyllis snapped. Sally, who as a mother apparently had “super hearing”, had inadvertently heard what they said. “You kids did WHAT?” “You’re the ones who ruined my snowman? How could I’ve been so blind?” Nick whimpered, starting to weep again. There was awkward silence for a moment, except for Nick’s incessant sobbing. “Err… Phillip did it?” Phyllis timidly spoke. Sally turned bright red and started growling. “RUN!!!” Phillip screeched and the two of them dashed.

THE END =)