But first I must tell you about my beautiful mango tree in my garden. Animals love their gardens; it is our homes. Those humans moved onto our property without asking us and built their house. Now they want to eat our mangos. My mango tree has the biggest juicy mangos hanging in almost every branch. Those dreaded humans think it is their tree and garden. They build their house in my garden. I mean, I was here first. It is my mango tree.
The humans cannot mind their own business. I was chewing on a delicious juicy mango when those humans come out of their house and promptly stood under my tree again, speaking about my sister and me. They were saying we were horrible for throwing mango seeds on their tin shed. I lost it! I mean, I really lost it. They criticise us, so with all my force, I threw a mango seed at them. I lost my grip and slid down the tree.
My sister Holly could not stop laughing at me. It was not funny.
Down the tree I went, trying to grab one branch after another, till finally I hit a large branch and bounced off it and got stuck in the fork of two branches.
Stop laughing Holly, sisters can be so aggravating sometimes.
Holly: Well, Percy, I told you not to throw the mango seeds at the humans.
Percy: Anyway, I am not seriously hurt. I just got some scratches, and a bit of fur came off on my left leg.
Holly and I are trying to be strategic about how we get on with the humans in our backyard. We are going to teach these humans how to get along with us. They can live on our property if they are peaceful and treat us well. Let me be quite clear here, it is possum property! Not human property.
Now the word strategic means we need a good plan to achieve our goals. Our goal is to make the humans understand us and treat us nicely.
Holly: I’m not sure you can be strategic, Percy. You have a nasty temper; you need to fix that first.
Percy: I only get angry with humans when they are not sensitive to our needs.
Holly: I am glad you looked up the meaning of strategic. Now we can discuss our plan. The problem is that the humans are overpopulating our land, taking our property.
Percy: I know, we will cull the humans.
Holy: You can’t cull other species because you find them inconvenient to be around.
I suppose not, grumbled Percy.
Holly: Stop thinking like a human, Percy. You must be more strategic than that, a decent plan. That is what we want. We need to look at our future, the human’s future, and how we can all live together harmoniously.
Percy: Work with humans? Now that is a challenge!
The Plan
Holly: Firstly, we need to stop the humans from kicking us out of our home.
Secondly, we need to decide which humans are prepared to advocate for us Possums.
Percy: The humans will not agree with what we say.
Holly: Yes, I know some of them won’t agree, but you know the other neighbours like us, so we will have some support, they will be our advocates.
Percy: Our what?
Holly: Look the word up Percy, the word is advocates. Anyway, before you look at what that word means, Percy, I want to say one more thing to you.
Percy: What’s that?
Holly: We have to work strategically to get these humans working with us. They are not as clever as possums.
Percy: I’ll ask around and see which humans will help us stay in our homes and check out the word advocate. I will try not to throw any more mango seeds at the nasty neighbours until then.
Holly: Good idea Percy, and I will work on our plan a bit more to see what we can come up with, so those neighbours stop annoying us.
Holly: Excellent! It is a plan.
Holly: Bye for now Percy, try to control your temper and not get so upset with the humans.
Percy walked away, grumbling.
Remember Kids, whatever you do today, think strategically, and make it safe and fun!
Holly, Percy, and Delece Ford July 2022
