Being down a mole hole is fine if you are a mole, but if you are a bear, that is a different kettle of fish. Precious time was needed to widen the hole and others would have given up, but not Browny Bear.

 Browny collected fossils, and dinosaur fossils were rare indeed. He had the jaw of a whale that he'd found beside the beach, moose ribs and pig's feet; but he didn't have a dinosaur anything.

 It was Marvin Mole who had told him about the giant bone that was in the centre of his new home. Marvin said, "It looks like a tyrannosaurus fossil."

 Browny had one sneaker to show for his digging, and a pair of purple with yellow polka-dot underwear that obviously belonged to mole.

 Browny worked and worked as the sweat rolled down his face and onto his T-shirt. As he got deeper and deeper into the hole, he thought he could hear digging from inside.

 Suddenly, Browny heard a tap as his shovel hit something that filled the entire hole. This had to be the largest fossil that he had ever seen. Another tap sounded from the other side, and as the dust cleared away, Browny came face to face with Blacky Raccoon.

 "Hey! This is my bone," said Browny.

 "Mole told me about it and I've been digging from his other entrance," said Blacky.

 "This tyrannosaurus fossil will look great in my collection," said Browny.

 "Let's look at this bone closely. I believe mole might have been wrong. It looks like a dog bone to me," said the raccoon.

 "I think you might be right," said Browny, looking closer.

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 Both had done a lot of work to get to this fossil, and would have left for home, but suddenly the earth around them collapsed. A small air pocket was created by the large bone.

 "Does anyone know you are down here?" asked Blacky.

 "No," said Browny, seeing the same answer in Blacky's eyes.

 Marvin Mole returned home from his swimming lesson to see a large mound of earth around his hole.

 "What happened here?" asked the surprised mole.

 Peering down into the hole, he could see where the earth had caved in. Did someone go down into that hole and get stuck?

 Marvin sounded the alarm, bringing animals scurrying to his hole.

 "I think someone is trapped down there," said Marvin frantically.

 "There may be two. I saw the other entrance when I passed and it looks exactly like this," said Benjamin Wildcat.

 The animals dug and pawed at the earth. Marvin inserted a pipe down into the hole and yelled into it.

 "Is anyone there?" he called.

 "Yes," came two voices in reply.

 Marvin put a small flashlight down the rod to send light into the hole, and inserted another pipe for an airway. The animals worked into the night, finally rescuing the bear and the raccoon.

 "What were a bear and a raccoon doing down your hole?" asked Myrtle Crow.

 "Trying to become fossils if we hadn't gotten them out," replied Marvin, turning to look at his destroyed home.

 Question about the story: What colour was mole's underwear?

 Winner:  Kelsey Smith of Port Mouton received her prize through the mail.

 Send answers to Storytime, c/o Verna Dunlop RR#1 Moser River, NS BOJ 2KO or e-mail the answer to the question to vernadunlop@yahoo.com. Prizes will be sent to those sending in the answers.

posted on 08/11/09