Gary and Morris and the Secret Tunnel

It was a wet day in Alberta. Almost the entire province saw a blanket of heavy rain move in and make itself comfortable, raining all yesterday, throughout the night, and again in the morning.

Gary and Morris were disappointed they couldn’t go out and spend time with their friends.

“This sure is a bummer,” said Morris. “I hope our woodland friends are okay!”

“I am sure they are fine,” Gary replied. “They wouldn’t be ‘woodland friends’ if they couldn’t handle a little rain.”

“Not just a little,” said Morris. “Look!”

He gestured to the window and to Gary’s dismay, large balls of hail were now failing alongside the rain.

The roof of the shelter started making a ton of noise – like a symphony of icy pellets all hitting the shingles in succession. The other cats inside seemed to have mixed reactions. The younger ones were alert and looking all around while the older ones seemed not to care.

“Not my first rodeo,” said Wilbur, a 15-year-old kitty sitting on the arm of the couch.

Gary and Morris stuck around the front window until the hail eased up, then they jumped down onto the floor and decided to go sniff around the basement.

“Nothing else to do,” said Morris.

“Yeah, why not?” Gary replied.

The two cats passed through the kitchen on their way downstairs and had a bite of kibble. While eating, their buddy Turbo walked in and greeted them.

“Top of the morning to you boys!” he said.

“Hey Turbo,” replied Gary. “What brings you to the kitchen on this fine day?”

Turbo chuckled and said, “Oh, you know me. I can’t get enough of the fine food served in this lovely establishment. I find myself coming back every day.”

The three cats laughed and then Gary and Morris told him they were headed to the basement.

“Too dark and humid for me down there,” he said. “I’ll leave it to the experts… you two.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Morris. “We’ll map the whole place out and send any interesting information your way.”

“I like the sound of that,” Turbo replied. “Now if the two of you don’t mind, I am going to shove my entire face into that bowl of dry food and slowly inhale the smell.”

Gary and Morris gave Turbo a nod then headed for the stairs.

The basement at The Hervey Foundation for Cats is a place of wonder and mystery for cats. There are lots of storage bins stacked upon each other, a bunch of boxes, and some of the shelter’s food and litter supplies are stored down there.

For Gary and Morris, the basement is a great place to play hide and seek, sniff things that have been in storage for a long time, and rip a small hole into the odd bag of cat food for some ‘off-the-record’ snacks.

Once at the bottom of the stairs, the kitties surveyed their surroundings. It was indeed humid, as mentioned by Turbo, and the lights weren’t on, so it was also dark.

“Turbo called it,” said Morris.

“Of course he did,” said Gary. “The basement is always humid and dark.”

“At least the windows down here give us some light,” Morris replied.

“True, though the rain has made it darker outside,” said Gary.

As they looked around, they saw the stacks of storage bins, the boxes, and the supplies. They did notice, however, a large bag of cat food that was strangely positioned on one of the walls. It appeared to have been pulled off the shelf and just left there.

“Weird,” said Gary. “Mom doesn’t usually leave bags of food on the floor.”

Morris looked at the bag and thought about it.

“It almost looks like it was dragged across the floor – not carried and put down by a human – look!”

He gestured to the bag and then ran over to inspect the floor.

“See? There is a trail of dust here, and some very tiny footprints!”

Gary looked it all over and agreed with Morris.

“Something definitely moved this here, and I agree, I don’t think it was a human,” he said.

The cats walked over to the bag, which was slouched over itself as if the top was heavier than the bottom. They looked it over and sniffed all the corners and edges.

“Seems okay to me, just a bit out of place,” said Gary.

Morris used his snout to push the bag away from the wall and as he did, it fell straight forward, like it had a head and that head was too heavy.

There was a hole in the bottom of the bag where an animal had clearly ripped it open to take food, but more importantly, there was a small- to medium-sized hole in the wall!

“What on Earth?” said Gary.

“Whoa! That looks like a tunnel!” said Morris, who then stuck his head right into the hole.

“Gary!” he said. “Gary! You gotta see this!”

Morris’ muffled voice could barely be heard on the other side of the wall since his big bum was plugging the hole.

“What’s that?” Gary asked.

Morris backed himself out, his head covered in dirt and spider webs.

“It’s a tunnel!” he said.

“A tunnel…” Gary replied.

“Yes! And it’s pretty much our size,” Morris added.

Gary stuck his head in and looked around. It was dark, damp, and mostly dirt. Morris was right though; it was big enough for them to crawl through if they wanted to.

Gary pulled the rest of himself into the tunnel and then stuck his head back through the opening.

“What do you want to do?” he asked.

“Are you kidding?” said Morris. “Let’s go!”

Gary’s head disappeared back into the tunnel and Morris watched his back leg, then tail, cross the opening.

“Room for me?” Morris asked.

“Giver!” said Gary.

In a matter of seconds, both cats were now in there, slowly crawling through the dirt towards… what? They weren’t even sure.

“So far this has been incredibly boring,” said Morris. “I wonder who dug it?”

“I have no idea,” said Gary. What would build a tunnel of this size?”

The cats kept crawling in the dark for a few minutes until they saw a bit of light start to appear towards the end.

“Almost there!” Gary shouted back at Morris.

“Finally,” he replied. “I am coated in dirt.”

As they reached the tunnel, the cats could feel the wet air from the rain outside mixed with the smell of wet dirt filling their lungs.

“Here we go!” said Gary. “And we are… in the middle of the valley by the riverbank.”

“Hmm…” said Morris. “I don’t see anyone’s home or den nearby.”

Just then they heard some rustling and a twig or two snapping, then a big fat prairie dog fell into a puddle right in front of them.

It was Pete the Prairie Dog!

“Well, hello there Pete!” said Morris.

“Hello gentlemen!” he replied. “Lovely day out.”

The cats laughed.

“Where are you two off to?” asked Pete.

“It’s not so much where we are headed to but where we came from,” said Gary. “We came across a tunnel that goes-”

Pete cut him off.

“Back to your shelter?” he said.

“Yes… How’d you know that?” asked Morris.

“It’s my tunnel,” said Pete. “Well, sort of.”

Gary and Morris were eager to hear more. They sat down in the wet rain and asked Pete to continue.

“Let’s stand under this tree, fellas,” Pete suggested. “Try to at least get out of the rain.”

“Tell us about the tunnel, Pete!” Gary said.

“I was burrowing around this area to try and set up a new place for myself and my family. I wanted just the right consistency of soil and clay, so I kept going and going until I hit the shelter wall.”

“Oh, well that makes sense,” said Gary.

“How’d you put that big hole in it?” asked Morris.

“That wasn’t me!” said Pete. “But that’s not even the most interesting part!”

The prairie dog sat up and puffed up his chest.

“You guys ready to hear this one?”

Gary and Morris were on the edge of their seat and told Pete to get on with it.

“Alright, alright. Just trying to inject a little theatre… Anyway, as I was digging the tunnel, I started to feel something hard under my feet – like wood. You know, from a tree?”

“Yes, yes,” said Morris.

“So, I decided to dig around the wood and see what the deal was right? So, I kept digging and digging then the dirt gave out underneath me and I fell into this weird cave or chamber or something.”

“What?!” said an impatient Gary.

“Yeah!” said Pete. “It had all these weird drawings and things all over the place. Looked like the humans must have made it a long time ago.”

“You have to take us there now, Pete!” demanded Morris.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I filled it in, but I remember where. Hope you two can dig. This will go a lot faster.”

The cats followed the prairie dog into the tunnel and through the darkness to a point about halfway back to the shelter. Once there, they all started to dig into the dirt until they felt the wood board. That got them really excited.

“Almost there!” said Pete.

They dug and dug until suddenly there was nothing underneath them and they were able to start walking down a sloped wall towards the centre of something far beyond their comprehension.

There were eight large wood columns holding up long beams across the ceiling. It was completely dark, save for a single beam of sunlight coming through the top.

“What is this place?” asked Morris.

“I thought it was some kind of human burial ground but there aren’t any bones,” said Pete.

The walls were a mixture of different elements. Some were solid rock, others were clay and dirt. Some were perfectly vertical, and a few sloped up to the ceiling.

The rock walls had some incredible primitive drawings on them. Things like large swirls, horses, and people. It looked like someone was recording the many things that had happened over the years in this area – only they were alive thousands of years ago.

The cats looked at the walls, then they sniffed around the floor and some of the objects there. It looked like they had found someone’s secret buried treasure, like out of an old pirate story.

“This is remarkable, Pete,” Gary said. “This is like the find of a lifetime.”

“Yeah, maybe if I was a human,” said Pete.

The three of them laughed.

“That is so true,” said Gary. “This stuff is very cool, but we don’t need any of it.”

“I think we should leave it the way we found it,” Morris added.

“That’s exactly what Terrance said!” said Pete.

“Terrance was in here?” asked Morris.

“When I found the place, I decided to get his opinion on it. After all, he is the top engineer along the river, here,” said the prairie dog. “That’s why the tunnel is so big! I had to widen it out for him to fit.”

“That totally tracks,” said Gary. “I couldn’t figure out why you would make such a large space just for yourself. It wasn’t adding up.”

Pete giggled and said, “You’ll like this, too. I couldn’t remember where we were going at first, so we ended up at the part of the tunnel beside your shelter. Terrance was so big he could barely turn around, so I had to dig around him, then he tried to move too early, got stuck again, and swung his huge tail into the wall of your place. I guess it was already a little weak and he broke right through it!”

“Oh, my goodness! I hope he is okay!” said Gary.

“He’s fine. I crawled through the hole he made and saw that bag of cat food, so I dragged it over to cover the thing and then we took off,” said Pete.

“I wonder who is eating the food then?” asked Morris.

“Honestly, I see mice coming and going around here all the time. “Perhaps one of them?” said Pete. “I’m a grass man.”

“Well, this is just amazing, buddy,” said Gary. “We should get out of here and try to seal it back up so it stays this way forever.”

They all agreed and started to climb out of the space. Once at the top, they moved dirt back on the opening and patted it down nice and tight.

“That ought to keep the mice out!” said Morris.

“Yeah right…” said Pete. “Anyway, it was nice seeing you guys! Hope we can hang out again sometime soon!”

“You, too!” said Morris. “Talk soon, Pete!”

Gary and Morris crawled back through the dirt tunnel and into the basement of the house. While their adventure had been one for the history books, they hadn’t paid attention to one important detail. They were soaking wet and covered in mud.

“Mom isn’t going to love this,” said Gary, as he looked himself over.

“Maybe we can sneak out onto the porch and get the mud off. Then we’ll just be wet!” said Morris.

“It’s worth a try,” said Gary.

The cats ran up the stairs, past Turbo, who was bathing himself at the top. He watched them run by at full speed and turned his head to follow them. Just as they left his field of view, he heard Marjorie yell aloud.

“What on Earth happened to you two?!”

Turbo laughed and said, “That’s why I don’t go in the basement.”