Strawberry

by Tiddler

Strawberry lived in a burrow in a hillside, she was a very hard working and fastidious groundhog. Last spring she had raised a family. Her mate, Screech, had come around, and left, soon after the cubs were born. Now the cubs had left to lead their own lives, they had gone to dig their own burrows and see what life had to offer them. There was something that had been worrying Strawberry since last winter, though. In the preceding summer and into early autumn, Strawberry had been gathering snacks that she could eat, if she were to awaken for a while during her hibernation. She had built up quite a good supply of nuts and twigs in the sleeping chamber of her burrow, although she would only gather them for a short time, and not every day. She would enjoy eating the nuts and she could gnaw the twigs, to sharpen her teeth. It was these snacks that she was looking forward to if she awoke during the cold weather, when there was nothing to eat outside. She had learned the pangs of hunger in previous years, when she had happened to wake a little early, and it had been hard to get back to sleep without thinking of the empty feeling in her insides. Strawberry had gone to sleep, that Autumn, with sweet dreams of the feast that she might have when she awoke later in the hibernation period (and she was sure that she was going to wake up, because she had done, so far, almost every year, about a month or two early). She would wake up, take a look outside, and if she didn’t think that the winter was over yet, she would go back inside and try to get back to sleep. Whilst she had been gathering these snacks, she had noticed that one or two of the other groundhogs had been watching her. These groundhogs were called Dandelion and Clover. They were lazy groundhogs, not like her, and spent the whole summer just playing around and having fun. Sometimes they would get into mischief and irritate the well behaved groundhogs, who would wish that Dandelion and Clover would leave the neighbourhood. The mean groundhogs knew that they were onto a good thing in this vicinity, though, and had no intention of moving elsewhere, although the rest of the groundhog neighbourhood made it quite clear that they were not welcome. Anyway, Strawberry had gone to sleep that Autumn and slept very soundly, without any worries. She dreamt of running around the trees and rolling on her back in the sunshine, which she loved to do. Sometimes she would dream of the feast that she was going to have, in her burrow, with the stockpile that she had gathered. At the beginning of February, she awoke. She stretched out and lay there, for a while, enjoying the warmth of her burrow and wondering what the weather was like. She could not get her mind off her lovely snacks, though, and soon arose to look at her cache. Strawberry was shocked and bewildered, as she looked at her larder. It had mostly disappeared. She had gathered a very beautiful nut, which she had placed right on top of the pile, like a cherry might be placed on a cake and it was gone. Not only had the most beautiful, and largest nut gone, but so had a large number of the rest of them. All that seemed to be left were the ones that were not so good to look at, which she had only left there because she could not stand to throw anything away that might be eaten. The remaining nuts and twigs had been left lying all around her burrow, and she had put them, very neatly, into one large pile. Strawberry said nothing to the other groundhogs about the theft of her winter hoard. She just kept it to herself and brooded over it. It gave her a very uneasy feeling, that someone had been into her burrow whilst she had been asleep and helped themselves to the snacks that she had been looking forward to so much. The next autumn approached and Strawberry, again, started to gather a stock of goodies to eat in the winter. She gathered all the spare nuts and twigs that she could. The fairly ordinary nuts, she took straight home and put into a pile at the back of her sleeping quarters, but the most beautiful, largest and most symmetrical of them, she left lying around until later. At the dead of night, Strawberry left her burrow and took them to the pond, on the other side of the hill, and left them there, in the water, to soak. The following night she would take them from the pond, back to her burrow, and put some more nuts in the pond, to soak. When Strawberry got back to her burrow, she would arrange the wet nuts, near the entrance to her burrow, so that they could dry in the sun, over the next few days. She put them just out of sight of any prying eyes, near the entrance of her burrow. Groundhogs are fairly solitary creatures and none of them believed in visiting each other, much, so there was little danger of her secret being discovered. When the nuts were dry, she put them into a pile of their own, interspersed with succulent twigs, right by her bed. The pile looked so good, that it made her mouth water, they looked absolutely delicious. Soon, the time came for Strawberry and the other groundhogs to hibernate. She was quite worried that some creature might come into her burrow, again, as they had done the previous winter, but she had gathered so much, this time, that she was sure that there would be plenty left for her to eat, should she awake, even if someone did creep in and steal some. Strawberry did not think that the intruder would harm her as she slept, as it would mean that they would not be able to steal any of her hoard in forthcoming winters. Early February came around again, and Strawberry awoke. The first thing that she checked out was her stock of nuts and twigs. The pile of the most beautiful nuts and twigs had completely gone, and the other pile was partially depleted. There were still enough of the second pile left that she would be able to have quite a good feed, though. They may not look very attractive, but to a starving groundhog she was sure that they would taste heavenly, and they did. Strawberry went to the front of her burrow and looked out. She could tell that winter was still not over. So, she went back to her bed, which was still warm, and was soon fast asleep, again. The snack that she had eaten gave her a warm feeling, inside. Eventually, she reawakened and knew, by a sniff of the air, as she approached the entrance to her burrow, that spring was now here, and she would not have to go straight back to her bed. Strawberry went outside and saw that there were a number of groundhogs around. "Where have you been, Strawberry?" Scratch asked (although he knew very well where she had been, really) "Most of us have been out of hibernation for a week." Strawberry explained that she had had a snack during hibernation, so she was, perhaps, not so eager to awaken and feed, as the rest of the groundhogs were. "Well," said Scratch, "you will never guess what we have discovered! You know Dandelion and Clover.....well, when we came out of hibernation, we found them dead, at the entrance to Dandelion’s burrow. Tansy went into the burrow to try to see what might have happened, and she found Heather’s stones. The stones that Heather had lost, last year, the ones she had been collecting for ages! The beautiful round shiny stones that she treasured so much! It looks as though the two groundhogs, who had died, had taken them for themselves. We all went to have a look, and some of us found things that we had lost long ago." "I am not surprised that those two had taken treasures that belonged to other groundhogs," said Strawberry, "I never did trust them. Did you find out what why they died?" "No," replied Scratch, "we didn’t, it is a mystery, but it looks like our possessions might be safer from now on. We put their bodies inside Dandelion’s burrow and blocked up the entrance, nobody wanted to go into that burrow again." Then Scratch left Strawberry, as he remembered that he would have to change some of the leaves and grass that made up his bed. Strawberry went back into her burrow and had another snack, eating up the rest of the nuts that she had left there the previous year. She sharpened her teeth on some of the twigs, too. After this she took a walk, over to the pond, on the other side of the hill. She looked around and saw the bones of the dead animals who had drank from the pond, in the past. It was well known, now, amongst the groundhogs, that the pond held a dangerous poison, and that it was fatal to taste the water there. Some animals had died immediately, when they drank the water, and others had taken a while to die. It looks like it had got to Clover and Dandelion pretty soon after they had eaten the nuts.