Ant and the Flood

Ant plays a joke on Rabbit that changes everything.

Once there was an anthill. It was a great big one. Inside of the anthill were probably thousands of little ants, a queen ant, lots of ant eggs, and one special ant.

This one special ant was, well, special. See, ants really just do work for the anthill. They pick up food and bring it into the anthill, move the eggs to birthing rooms deep inside the anthill and repair cave-ins and tunnels.

Well, this one special ant didn’t really like doing all that stuff. Sure, he did what he needed to, but if he had a choice, he was out of the anthill visiting his friends.

His friends were Cow, Rabbit and Beaver. They lived fairly close by. Well, for an ant, just a few feet takes a long time, but this ant was willing to make the sacrifice.

One day, he decided to see what Rabbit was doing.

When he finally got to Rabbit’s house, it was lunchtime. Rabbit’s mom had made a wonderful meal, and the crumbs were wonderful.

After lunch, they went outside to hang out.

“What are you doing this weekend?” asked Rabbit.

Well, Ant was tired of telling everyone the same thing, that he would be “working on the hill.” So he decided to make something up.

You should also know that Ant was known for pulling pranks on his fellow anthill workers, as well as his friends outside the hill.

Once, the red team and the black team were playing capture the flag, and our special little ant thought it would be funny to hide his own team’s flag in his pocket. No one thought it was funny. Well, some of his own teammates thought it was funny, but the other team didn’t.

Another time, he happened to have really stinky toots, and he thought it would be funny to “let them go” really close to people, and say something like, “Did someone bring in burrito today?” or “Smells like someone found a potato chip.”

Needless to say, he was full of crazy ideas. He was very clever. And he did not like letting on that all he did was work on the anthill. Every day, all day.

So, back to Rabbit’s question.

“Well,” he said sneakily, “I heard it was going to rain so much this weekend that the whole area was going to flood.”

“Really?” asked Rabbit.

Rabbit was really easy to pull pranks on.

“Yes. So I’m going to build myself a tree house as high off the ground as possible.” Added Ant.

Rabbit’s ears perked up.

“Well,” he stammered, “I had better go and warn my family.”

And he hopped off before Ant could stop him.

Ant was a bit surprised it had gone so well. He never thought his ideas were as convincing as they seemed to Rabbit.

So, Ant went back to the anthill. Business as usual.

Meanwhile, Rabbit had told his family and they frantically we packing up suitcases and boxing up food and stuffing their pockets and putting on extra clothes.

“Let’s go, let’s go,” yelled out Rabbit. “We’ve got to get to the top of the Hill.”

Well, the top of the hill was where they used to live, that is, before the cows came to live there.

The cows were friendly enough, they just kept stepping on the openings to the rabbit holes, and the rabbits would constantly be digging new openings to their tunnels.

So, they moved down hill where they wouldn’t be stepped on. They remained friends, of course, no hard feelings.

Cow was surprised to see Rabbit.

“Hello Rabbit,” said Cow. “What are you doing way up here?”

“Well, I heard it was going to rain super hard and flood the whole area,” said Rabbit.

“It is?” said Cow. “I hadn’t heard that.”

“So we had to come up here in case the flood waters rise above the level where our home is,” said Rabbit.

“Yes, that makes sense,” said Cow. “But now I have a problem. I can’t swim, and if the flood waters get as high as your home, then I’ll be stuck at the top of this hill and I need to eat more grass that is on the top of this hill. I’ll starve.”

“Oh, no,” said Rabbit.

“I’ve got to go,” exclaimed Cow.

“Where are you going?” asked Rabbit.

“I need to go up river,” said Cow, “to higher ground.”

And he left as quickly as his thin legs could carry him.

When he got to the river, he walked along it until he came to Beaver’s dam.

“What are you doing here?” beaver wondered aloud.

“Well, I heard it was going to rain like crazy and the whole area was going to flood,” said Cow.

Beaver just looked at him. He was thinking about something, but he wasn’t saying anything. Cow started to feel a little uncomfortable.

He began to move away, when Beaver suddenly leaped in the air speaking as quick as he could.

“I’ve got to do something. The dam. It’s got to come down. The flood. If not, it will flood the high lands, and then overflow. I’ve got to get this thing down.”

He hopped down to the bottom.

“Cow, go to the other side of the river quickly,” said Beaver grabbing hold of one of the sticks at the bottom of the dam.

Cow moved as quickly as he could.

When cow was at a safe distance, beaver yanked and yanked at the bottom stick that seemed to be the stick that was holding everything together.

With a rumble and a shake and a loud crunching sound, the sticks from the top began to tumble down and water leaks began to spring out.

Beaver hopped quickly off the dam and grabbed a tree branch just in time.

The water and sticks and rocks and fish and plants all rushed down the river.

A few days later, Beaver, finally realizing that it wasn’t going to rain, decided to find out why cow thought the area was going to flood.

He walked over to the hill where Cow usually hung out, and there he was, eating as usual.

“Hello Beaver,” said Cow through a mouthful of grass.

“Hello Cow,” said Beaver.

“Well, I guess it didn’t rain after all. That’s strange,” said Cow.

“Yes,” said Beaver. “About that, why did you think it was going to rain? You know, it’s not the rainy season yet.”

“Oh, well, Rabbit told me,” said Cow matter-of-factly.

“Rabbit, huh?” said Beaver. “I want to talk to him.”

“OK!” said Cow. “I’ll go with you.”

So they walked down the hill toward Rabbit’s home below.

Rabbit was outside tending to his garden.

“Oh, hello Beaver, hello Cow,” said Rabbit. “Nice day isn’t it?”

“Hi Rabbit,” said Cow.

“Um, hello,” stammered Beaver. “Rabbit, have you noticed that it hasn’t rained like you told Cow it would.”

“Oh, well, now that you mention it,” said Rabbit holding his hand out as if waiting for a drop of water.

“Who told you that it was going to rain, Rabbit?” asked Beaver while Cow took a little nibble from some of Rabbit’s garden greens.

“Let’s see,” Rabbit thought about it for a second. “It was ant. Yeah, it was ant.”

Cow choked on some collard greens. Beaver sighed.

“Oh,” said Beaver, “I see.”

Then he turned to Cow.

“Well, I’m going home,” he said.

“Me too,” said Cow.

“Wait,” said Rabbit, “You guys are not making sense. You come here with a question, and then you all of a sudden decide to leave? You just got here.”

“Rabbit,” said Cow, “Ant lied to you, and you believed him.”

“And Cow believed you,” said Beaver, “and I believed Cow.”

“No,” said Rabbit. “Ant doesn’t lie.”

Beaver and cow looked at each other in disbelief.

“Rabbit,” said Beaver, “Ant likes to play tricks on you, and you believe him every time.”

“Well, the area flooded, didn’t it?” stated Rabbit. “Look at this mess. It’s taken me this long to fix up my garden again and get all the water out of my house.”

“Well, yes it did,” said Cow. “But it wasn’t because it rained really super hard. Beaver let the dam out after I told him that it was going to rain after you told me that it was going to rain.”

“Oh.” sighed Rabbit. “But Ant said…”

“When are you going to learn to not believe Ant when he tells you these crazy things?” asked Beaver.

“You need to stop hanging around him,” said Cow. “He’s just mean to you. Look at all the trouble he’s caused all of us.”

“No,” said Rabbit. “I’m not gonna stop hanging out with him. He’s my friend.”

Beaver and Cow felt uncomfortable.

“Well,” said Beaver, “I’m going home.”

“Me too,” said Cow. “See you later Rabbit.”

“Bye,” said Rabbit.

He stood there for a little while, just thinking.

“I’m gonna go talk to Ant,” he said to himself.

So he hopped over to the anthill.

He was not prepared for what he found there. The floodwaters had swept away much of the hill. There were ants all over the place trying to organize and clean up. There were pieces of food and twigs and leaves scattered all over the area. And worst of all, there were little tiny ant eggs dotting the landscape like stars in the sky. This is what most of the ants were doing, carefully picking up ant eggs and taking them back in to the anthill. There were so many.

“Excuse me,” came a little voice from behind Rabbit.

“Ant?” wondered Rabbit. “Is that you?”

Ant’s face lit up.

“Rabbit,” he said. “I’m so glad to see you. I your family OK?”

“Yes,” said Rabbit, “Everyone is fine.”

“That was a crazy flood,” said Ant. “And it didn’t even rain.”

Ant looked up at the sky. Rabbit looked up at the sky too.

“I don’t understand,” said Ant. “It’s not even the rainy season.”

Rabbit just stood there, unable to say anything.

Suddenly, an announcement came from the anthill.

“We need all the eggs accounted for. This is the new priority. If you are not searching and collecting, stop what you are doing. Your new task is to find those eggs. And be careful,” said the announcer.

“Rabbit,” said Ant, “I need to get back to work.”

“Hey,” said Rabbit, “Can I help?”

And so Rabbit and Ant looked high and low, mostly low, for ant eggs. They found most of them, but they lost quite a few.

Ant started to be a little more careful about what he said.

The End