Greedy Groundhogs Read online

  “I do too,” said Mary Beth.

  One thing was for certain. No one wanted to be the only Pee Wee without that furry animal badge. Not even Lisa.

  CHAPTER 3

  Soap Talk

  On the way home Molly and Mary Beth stopped at the library for some books about groundhogs. Molly wanted to read all about them. Especially where you had to go to see one come out of its hole.

  But when they got to the library all the Pee Wees were there. And all the groundhog books were gone.

  Sonny and Roger were fighting over a big book with a groundhog on the cover.

  “I saw it first!” shouted Sonny.

  “Did not!” said Roger, pulling harder.

  “Give me that book!” said Sonny, giving Roger a big shove. Roger got angry and gave the book a big pull and Sonny a harder shove. Sonny let go and went toppling over. He fell into a tall wooden stand that had a fern on top of it.

  Molly ran to try to catch the fern, but it was too late. It sailed off the stand and came down right on Sonny’s head, spilling dirt in all directions.

  The crash of Sonny, the pot, and the stand falling made such a racket that everyone in the library stared.

  The librarian, whose name was Mrs. Winkle, did more than stare. She came marching over to Sonny, and her face did not look as friendly as a librarian’s face should look.

  She helped Sonny up and brushed him off. Then she took Sonny and Roger into her little office. As Molly and Mary Beth listened they could hear a few words like “A library is no place to wrestle,” and “… come here to read quietly,” and “… notify your teacher and parents if this happens again.”

  “Pee Wees aren’t supposed to get into trouble,” said Mary Beth in disgust. “Roger and Sonny could give us all a bad name.”

  Mrs. Winkle came out of her office. Her face was red and she announced to the Pee Wees that there were not very many books about groundhogs.

  “You will just have to share them,” she said. “Some of you can read them here, and the others can take them home.”

  The Pee Wees sat down at a big table and read. Molly shared a book with Mary Beth.

  Rachel announced that she was going to the adult section to get a nature book.

  The girls read their book, but did not learn much more than Mrs. Peters had told them.

  “Let’s go,” said Mary Beth. “It doesn’t tell where to watch for them. It’s up to us to find out for ourselves.”

  The girls said good-bye at the corner, and Molly went home to her room and hung up her picture of the groundhog. Then she sat down at the little desk her father had built, to make a list of things she could do for her unbadge. For the house. It made Molly feel good to make lists.

  But this time she couldn’t think of a thing to write. She ate dinner and got ready for bed and still she had nothing on her list.

  The next afternoon after school Molly and Mary Beth walked up one street and down another, looking for the groundhog.

  “We have no idea where he lives,” groaned Mary Beth. “And if we did, we still wouldn’t know when he’s coming out.”

  “We just have to keep looking,” said Molly.

  Up and down. Up and down.

  Up one alley. Down two streets.

  Behind the school. In the front yard of the courthouse.

  “I don’t think groundhogs live downtown,” said Molly. “There are too many stores and not enough ground like lawns and gardens.”

  “They probably live in the country,” said Molly. “Mrs. Peters said they like cornfields, and there are no cornfields in town.”

  The girls walked to the edge of town. The houses grew farther and farther apart. There was more grass. There were more trees. But there were no cornfields.

  “Let’s look for holes,” said Mary Beth. “Mrs. Peters says his hole is a foot across.”

  “Whose foot?” said Molly. “Ours, or Roger’s?”

  “Or our dads’,” said Mary Beth. “My dad wears size fourteen shoes. That’s huge!” She showed Molly with her hands.

  The girls walked up and down, up and down, looking for big holes. Up one hill. Down the other side.

  Across one field. Back across another.

  Eyes to the ground.

  “Here is a hole!” called Molly, pointing.

  Mary Beth scrambled over.

  “That’s a hole some machine made,” she said. “Or the wheel of a car where it got stuck. It’s not a groundhog hole.”

  Farther on was another hole.

  “That’s where someone was walking,” said Molly. “It’s the shape of a boot. Groundhogs don’t wear boots!”

  Sure enough, nearby the girls found the old boot that someone had lost when it got stuck in the mud.

  Soon the sky got dark and the girls started for home.

  “What a wasted afternoon,” grumbled Mary Beth. “We could have been working on our unbadge thing.”

  Molly felt like crying. She couldn’t find a groundhog. And she couldn’t think of anything to make for her house.

  “I’m going to make a soap dish for our bathroom,” said Mary Beth. “Out of clay. I have to make it and bake it and glaze it. It takes a lot of time.”

  “Rat’s knees!” said Molly. “I wish I could think of something.”

  “Make a soap dish like mine,” said Mary Beth.

  It was tempting to work with her best friend. But Molly wanted something different. Something of her own that no one else was making. She didn’t like to be a copycat.

  “Maybe I could make soap to put in it,” said Molly. “My grandma used to make soap.”

  Molly’s mother liked to put fancy little bars of soap in the guest bathroom. Soap in the shape of little shells. Maybe Molly could make those little shells and her mother wouldn’t have to buy them!

  “What goes in soap?” she asked Mary Beth.

  “I don’t know,” said her friend. “But you could collect all those old little pieces of soap that are left in the dish, that your mom throws out. We could melt them down.”

  Molly liked the sound of the word “we.”

  “Would it be cheating to use old soap to make new?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Mary Beth. “Everything starts with something. You can’t make soap out of air.”

  That made sense. Mary Beth was always sensible.

  Molly began to get excited about this project. Once she had some little soaps to show Mrs. Peters, she’d have her unbadge behind her. Then she could spend all the time on groundhogs!

  “When can we start?” she asked her friend.

  “How about Saturday morning?” said Mary Beth.

  “Fine,” said Molly. “I’ll get the soap by then.”

  After Molly’s bath that evening, her mother put a new bar of soap in the soap dish and Molly took the little used one and popped it into a bag in her closet.

  The next day at school Mary Beth handed her three more.

  “I got them from the girls’ lavatory,” she said.

  By Saturday Molly had plenty. She went to Mary Beth’s garage, where she found her friend painting her soap dish.

  Mary Beth looked into the bag. “You can’t carve it into shells like it is,” she said. “We’ll have to melt it down with some hot water.”

  What a smart friend! And what a big help! The girls ran in and got a pot of hot water. They dumped the old soap in and stirred it.

  “It’s still there,” said Molly, looking in.

  “We have to stir it harder,” said Mary Beth.

  The girls got sticks from a shelf in the garage and stirred and stirred. Faster and faster and faster. As they stirred, bubbles began to form. The faster they stirred, the faster the bubbles rose in the pot! Pretty soon the bubbles ran over the top and out onto the floor!

  Underneath the bubbles was soapy water.

  “This doesn’t look like something we can carve into shells,” said Molly, looking deep into the pot.

  “We have to leave it to g
et hard,” said Mary Beth. “It has to set like jelly.”

  The girls went for a walk. They stopped to visit Sonny, who was giving one of the young twins a bottle of juice.

  And they stopped at Lisa’s, where she was trying to decide on an unbadge project.

  At Rachel’s they looked at her little rows of seeds planted in milk cartons filled with soil.

  “Now the soap will be hard,” said Molly as they ran back to the garage.

  But it wasn’t. “What makes stuff hard?” asked Molly.

  “My mom makes salads hard with Jell-O,” Mary Beth said.

  “And it will make it a better color too!” said Molly. “Jell-O will do both things!”

  Molly ran home and took a package of cherry Jell-O from the pantry shelf. She would tell her mom later, after she saw the soap.

  The girls poured the Jell-O into the pot and stirred it. “It says it takes an hour to set,” said Molly.

  Molly helped Mary Beth paint her soap dish. Then they went into the house and watched cartoons on TV. After that they played Monopoly in Mary Beth’s room. By the time they finished, two hours had gone by.

  “Now!” said Molly. “I hope the soap isn’t too hard!”

  It wasn’t. It was the same as before, only bright pink.

  “Rat’s knees,” said Molly sadly. “We can’t carve this.”

  The girls stared into the pink soup with bubbles.

  “We can’t waste it,” said Mary Beth. “Maybe you can give it to your mom to wash clothes in instead. Like liquid detergent.”

  “Not with Jell-O in it,” said Molly. “It would make the clothes pink.”

  Mary Beth poured the pink soup into the garden in the backyard. Molly’s project was gone.

  CHAPTER 4

  No Groundhog Yet

  “There are better things than making soap,” said Mary Beth sensibly.

  “Like what?” asked Molly.

  Mary Beth thought. “Well, just about anything,” she said. “You’ll think of something good. You’re creative.”

  It was true. Molly’s parents often told her she had a wild imagination. But a wild imagination was a lot of work.

  Tuesday was coming again, and it would be time for the next Pee Wee Scout meeting. Molly hated to go. She had no groundhog and no home project.

  On Tuesday when Molly got to Mrs. Peters’s house, she saw Sonny dragging a long pole down the sidewalk. Well, at least Sonny had a project. She would not have to worry about helping him. She had to help herself instead.

  Inside, Rachel was setting her tiny plants on the table. Kenny Baker had carved his family name into a piece of wood to hang over the mailbox.

  Mary Beth had her soap dish and Roger had a knife holder. Mrs. Peters was admiring the unbadge things.

  Sonny picked up his long pole to tell about it. It was so long that it hit the ceiling light in their leaders basement.

  Crash! went the pole.

  “You broke the light!” yelled Roger.

  The Pee Wees all looked at Mrs. Peters. She looked upset but not angry. Their leader did not get angry with her scouts. Not very often.

  “It was an accident,” she said, getting a broom and dustpan to sweep up the glass. “All of you stay seated so you don’t get cut.”

  “Sonny made a light breaker,” said Roger. “Ho, ho, ho, that’s a good thing to have around the house, Stone!”

  “It’s not a light breaker,” said Sonny. “You put a rag on the end of this pole and you can wash high-up windows. Or roofs.”

  “Or light bulbs!” said Rachel, smiling.

  Soon everything was in order again, and Mrs. Peters took Sonny’s pole outside.

  “Just in case,” she said.

  Kevin came in later with the best unbadge thing so far. It was a sewing box for his mother. It had a little door that opened and shut with a click.

  “Now, how many of you have seen a groundhog?” asked Mrs. Peters.

  Several hands waved.

  “They’re lying,” said Mary Beth. “Molly and I looked and looked and didn’t see one.”

  “Well, it could have been a beaver,” admitted Roger. “It was building a dam in the creek by my house.”

  “Groundhogs don’t build dams,” said Rachel.

  “Well, keep an eye out,” said Mrs. Peters, laughing. “Remember, the groundhog likes sun. He will come out during the day, when his nest feels too warm. You should be ready to watch him.

  “Maybe you can put some food out in the yard to attract him. He would like to have a fine ear of corn.”

  After the meeting, when the scouts got outside, Sonny said, “I saw my groundhog. I’ll get my badge right off.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Mrs. Peters? And where did you see a groundhog?” asked Tracy.

  “I’m not telling,” said Sonny. “He’s mine. You find your own.”

  “You can’t own a groundhog, dummy,” said Tracy. “He belongs to all of us. Where is he?”

  “He lives in my yard, so he’s my groundhog,” said Sonny.

  The Pee Wees raced over to Sonny’s house. They looked all over the yard.

  “There he is, eating that old acorn,” said Sonny.

  The Pee Wees looked. Sure enough, there on the branch of an oak tree was something eating an acorn. But it was no groundhog.

  “That’s a squirrel!” cried Molly. “Don’t you know a squirrel from a groundhog?”

  “What a baby,” said Mary Beth.

  “Maybe Sonny needs glasses,” said Molly. She wondered if she should mention this to his mother. She hated to see everyone make fun of Sonny.

  “We’ll find our own groundhog,” said Tracy. “And he won’t be a squirrel.”

  Pretty soon all the Pee Wees had left Sonny’s except Molly, Rachel, and Tim.

  “Can you come and look for a groundhog with me?” Molly asked Rachel. Lately she did everything with Mary Beth. Maybe it was time to change her habits.

  “I saw my groundhog,” said Rachel. “At least I think it was a groundhog. It was in my aunt’s backyard. It was gray and it came out of a hole. My aunt said it was close enough.”

  “You mean you aren’t sure either?” said Molly. “Maybe you saw a squirrel, like Sonny.”

  “Well, it could have been a mouse, I guess, but it was pretty big for a mouse.”

  Rat’s knees. Molly didn’t want a mouse that looked like a groundhog. She didn’t want a squirrel that looked like a groundhog. She wanted a real groundhog! If she got a badge she wanted to get it fair and square.

  Rachel said good-bye and started home. Sonny was in the house watching TV.

  “I know where groundhogs live,” said Tim to Molly. “There are woods in my backyard, and I’m going to dig a great big hole way down to the tunnels.”

  “I don’t think that’s very nice,” said Molly, “to dig his house up.”

  “It’s the only way to find the thing,” said Tim.

  Maybe Tim was right.

  “You can help me if you want,” he said. “It’s a lot of digging for one person. Then we can both get our badges when we find him.”

  Molly thought about it. She didn’t have any better ideas.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll come over after school tomorrow.”

  “Come alone,” warned Tim. “This is our groundhog.”

  On the way home Molly remembered that Mrs. Peters had not asked her about her unbadge project. She was safe until the next meeting. By that time she’d think of something. Meanwhile, she and Tim would dig.

  The next afternoon when school was out, Tim whispered, “Don’t walk with me! I don’t want anyone to know we are working together.”

  Molly sighed. Here she was helping Tim out and he didn’t even appreciate it. She took a shortcut to Tim’s and was there before he was.

  They went through the yard and behind an old garage and past some tall trees.

  Tim pointed. “He’s under there,” he said. He handed Molly a shovel from the garage and took one himself. “L
et’s get going,” he said. “We have a lot to do.”

  “Does your mother know what you’re doing?” asked Molly.

  “Not if you don’t tell her,” he replied. “No one comes back here behind these trees.”

  The dirt was hard. The shovel was crooked. It took ages to dig even a little hole. After they had been digging for a half hour Molly said, “We need more help.”

  “No way,” said Tim.

  “Then I’m going home,” said Molly.

  Tim must have realized he could not dig a deep hole alone, so he said, “Okay. Who should we ask?”

  “The more people the better,” said Molly.

  She went home and called the other Pee Wees. Tracy had an allergist’s appointment. Lisa had a piano lesson. Sonny said no.

  But some of the others came over right away. They all were anxious to dig for groundhogs. Each brought a shovel, and before long there was a bigger hole in Tim’s backyard.

  “Be careful you don’t hit my groundhog on the head,” yelled Tim.

  “Mrs. Peters said their tunnels are as long as her basement,” sighed Rachel. “This could take forever.”

  The Pee Wees dug and dug. And then they dug some more.

  They did not see a tunnel. They did not see a nest. They did not see a groundhog.

  “This is the hardest badge we’ve ever earned,” said Mary Beth, collapsing on the brown grass to rest.

  “This is a big hole, and I don’t see a groundhog yet,” said Kenny.

  “Maybe he won’t come out because he sees us,” said Rachel. “He is probably just going deeper and deeper to get away from us.”

  If Rachel was right (and she usually was) it was silly to keep digging.

  “Maybe we should leave some food out to try to tempt him,” said Kevin. “That’s what Mrs. Peters told us to do.”

  That did make more sense than digging, thought Molly.

  “Have you got any groundhog food?” Kevin asked Tim.

  Tim ran into the house and came out with a banana, a Twinkie, and part of a doughnut.

  The others rushed home and found some cereal and pizza and one piece of fudge. Patty came back with some ginger ale in a paper cup.

  “In case he’s thirsty,” she said.