Choose from these exciting, original kids’ audio stories.

Clem the Detective Dog
Ralphie The Gopher
Sheriff Daisy & Deputy Bud
Rainbow of the Sioux
The Monotonia Chronicles
Tibbodnock Stories
Fiona the Smart Ghost
Ivan the Not-So-Terrible
Nikki the Invisible Girl
Sarabel to the Rescue

Ralphie the Gopher: The Pizza Episode

Ralphie was a gopher with a difference. He loved books. All kinds of books.

Ralphie especially loved books about faraway places. He loved to read about China and Alaska and Timbuktu because Ralphie didn’t get out much. Mainly Ralphie traveled back and forth and then up and down and then back and forth and then up and down and back-and-forth-and--up-and-down-and-back-and forth-and-up-and-down the twenty tunnels he had built for himself near the schoolyard. That was as much as Ralphie got to travel.

Ralphie also loved books about food. He loved looking at pictures of pie and cake and ice cream because—except for pizza that he found in the nearby schoolyard—all that Ralphie ate was lettuce, carrots, and apples.

So Ralphie loved books about faraway places and books about food.

Even though he was a gopher, Ralphie didn’t like books about gophers. They didn’t get it right. For one thing, none of the gophers in the books could read. Ralphie could read. And none of the gophers in the book ate pizza. And Ralphie loved pizza.

But Ralphie liked one of the gopher books because it had picture of a girl gopher with big eyes and very big teeth. Every once in a while, when he was lonely—and he was lonely just about all the time because like most gophers he lived alone—Ralphie would get out the book and look at her picture and imagine what it might be like if she were his friend … if she lived nearby.

Ralphie also liked to read books so he could learn about people. Don’t get confused about this, though. Ralphie did not like people.

As far as he was concerned, people were no good. People were the problem. People were always trying to kill him, hunt him and hurt him.

Imagine if you were living in your home and somebody shoved poison in your windows hoping you would eat it and die. Imagine if you were at home and somebody stuck a hose in your front door until it filled up your house with water and you drowned. Sounds pretty crummy, huh? Well, that’s what people tried to do to Ralphie.

You may wonder why people did horrible things to Ralphie. What’s up with that? We’ll get to that in a while, but the thing to remember for now is that Ralphie did not trust people. And that was two times – no, ten times -- as true for the Lady in Blue who worked at the school and carried a pail and shovel.

Imagine someone who really hated you and wanted you to go away forever. That was the Lady in Blue.

Once, Ralphie got a good look at the Lady in Blue’s face. She was staring down the hole—one of the many entrances to Ralphie’s tunnels—and she had a big spoon and a large jar and she was spooning some white powder –it looked like sugar—into the tunnel. Her hair was black and oily and the sides of her face were big and wide like a gopher’s as if she was carrying a lot of food in her cheeks.

She was talking into the hole. Of course, she didn’t know that Ralphie could see her or that Ralphie understood what she was saying—how could she—but anyway you didn’t need to understand words to tell that she was saying something mean. She spoke the way that the bullies in the schoolyard talked to little kids. Loud and hard in a way that was meant to scare you.

What she was saying was this: “My sugar is sweet. My sugar is great. Eat it up and you’ll co-ag-u-late.” And she laughed a horrible laugh that reverberated all the way through the twenty tunnels that Ralphie had built. Then she spooned out more powder and said, “Welcome to the last day of your life!”

Ralphie didn’t know what the word co-ag-u-late meant. But he had a book of words – a dictionary – that he stored in his private gopher library and he looked up.

And this is what he learned: when something co-ag-ulates, it turns from a liquid into some thicker like when you make jello out of water. If Ralphie ate that powder his blood would thicken and it would stop moving and he might even turn into stone. Not a good thing for a gopher.

So, of course, Ralphie did not eat the powder. The books had saved his life – and it wasn’t the first time.
Ralphie had dug a tunnel that connected to the bottom of a storm grate—one of those things with iron bars where rain water drains. He could hide in the grate and look outside the bars. One day, he had poked his nose through the bars and it was almost clobbered by a large flying object.

THUD

He ducked down.

A girl, maybe eight or nine had thrown a textbook onto the iron bars of the storm drain.

Now, normally, Ralphie got his books by accident -- a boy or girl forgot to close their backpack and a book dropped to the ground. In all his years of collecting books, he had never seen someone deliberately throw a book. Why would someone do that? It made no sense to Ralphie. But, then again, people rarely made sense to Ralphie.

Ralphie could read the spine of the book, “Exploring the North Pole.” On the cover was a picture of a polar bear.

When the girl had turned away, Ralphie grabbed the edge of the book with one paw, tipped it slightly, and then grabbed it with his teeth and dragged it downwards through the bars.

The book was almost all the way inside when he felt something tug at the other end.

Suddenly the book was rising, being pulled upwards and Ralphie was being pulled up, too.

Ralphie was now dangling in the drain. His teeth were locked on the corner of the book and he had to make a decision. Give up the book and avoid getting hurt … or risk hanging on and maybe the book. He really, really wanted to read about the South Pole.

So he hung on and when the book reached the edge of the grating to the drain, he locked his paws around the bars of the grate.
Ralphie could see now that it was the girl who had thrown the book away. And the girl could see that Ralphie was hanging on. Back and forth they tugged until Ralphie said through his clenched teeth, “If you wanted the book so bad, why’d you throw it away?”

Suddenly, the girl’s face turned white and she let go of the book sending Ralphie and the book crashing backwards down the drain.

The girl tried to talk but was speechless. She sputtered and stammered and for the longest time nothing could come out of his mouth. Finally she spit out the words, “You can talk?”

“Either that you’re hearing things,” said Ralphie, annoyed.

The girl looked down the hole and then seemed to get woozy and turn white and then she stood suddenly and she toppled over and fainted. Ralphie watched from his hole as other students, then an adult and then a woman in a white uniform arrived. Soon the girl sat up and they took her away. And as was carried away, the girl looked back and stared at the storm drain.

The next day, after Ralphie had attended to his chores, cleaned out all of his twenty tunnels, and eaten a breakfast of lettuce leaves and leftover pizza scraps, he checked his drain pipe to see what the students were up to. But when he got there, he couldn’t see out. So he slowly pushed at whatever was blocking the sunlight.  

It was a book.

And that’s when he saw her.

It was the girl ... the one who fainted. Her face seemed so large peering down the drainpipe grate. It wasn’t a scary face like the Lady in Blue. It was a long sad face surrounded by lots of long brown hair. Her eyes were nice.  

“Hey you,” whispered the girl.

Ralphie didn’t say anything. He stepped back into the darkness of the hole under the grate.

“I see you,” said the girl.

Ralphie didn’t say anything.

“I know you can talk. I heard you.”

Ralphie inched further back and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

“Don’t you want this book,” she said. She began to push it through the grate. “It’s Harry Potter.”

Just as it was about to fall on him, Ralphie shouted, “No!”

The girl’s expression changed to shock. “Omigod! You really CAN talk.”

“Yes,” said Ralphie, “And I hate Harry Potter.”

The girl stared with the same expression, believing but not really believing that Ralphie was talking.

Then she spoke, “I thought everyone liked Harry Potter.”

Ralphie spoke. “I read the first one. It’s all made up. It’s make believe. I only like true stories about real things.”

Then there was more staring. She stared at him and Ralphie studied her face and sniffed the air. He did not have a good sense of smell but he got a whiff of the girls’ breath and it smelled like milk or cheese. He flexed his whiskers back and forth.

“How come you can read?” she asked.

“My whole family could read. But I’m the only one left.”

“How do you know how to talk?”

 “See that window over there, behind the drain. That’s the first grade class and when the teacher reads aloud, I follow along in the books. After a while you can tell what each word sounds like. It’s easy really.”

The girl’s eyes were wide and she swallowed several times, still unsure she was really listening to this chubby fuzzy animal?

“But you’re a groundhog.”

“Groundhog?”  Ralphie moved closer to the grate so she had a full view of him. “Do I look like a groundhog? I’m a gopher.”

The girl took in a breath. “Sorry. What’s the difference?”

“What’s the difference? What’s the difference between you and a gorilla? A groundhog is a woodchuck. A woodchuck is smaller … it looks like a fat squirrel. And by the way ‘groundhog’ is a very stupid name to give the woodchuck since it is not a hog. And the name woodchuck is equally stupid since it has nothing to do with wood. It’s derived from an Indian term ‘wuchak.’ And don’t tell me that business about how much wood a wood chuck could chuck because a woodchuck doesn’t chuck any wood,” said Ralphie, still angry.

“Okay, sorry … how do you know all that stuff, anyway?”

“Books. It’s all in the books. And you could know it too if you didn’t throw your books away.”

She was silent for a few seconds. “I hate books,” she said, finally.

“How can you hate a book? It’s just words on paper.”

“I hate them” said the girl.

“Great,” said Ralphie, “have a nice stupid life.”

“Books don’t make you smart,” said the girl. “My brother reads books and he’s a dumbass.”

“It all depends on which ones you read,“ said Ralphie. “If you read a book about Britney Spears—then  all you’re going to know about is … well, Britney Spears. And I can tell you, there’s not that much to know. I’ve read a couple of books about her and …” Ralphie stopped talking and stood on his back legs so he could get a closer look at the girl.

“Why are you crying?”

“None of your business,” she said

Neither one spoke. Instead, Ralphie watched her face and her hair which was swaying back and forth over the grate making shadows.

“I think I know what your problem is,” Ralphie said. “You can’t read, can you?”

“I can read fine,” said the girl, now angry.

“No you can’t. That’s why you hate books and that’s why you throw them away. Am I right? Or am I right?” The girl was silent.

Then after a few moments she said. “I can read some stuff but I have trouble … I don’t know why.”

“Tough break,” said Ralphie. “Books are fun. They’re the best things invented by people. Well, except maybe for pizza.” He turned his back on her and started running away. The girl called after him. “Wait,” she said, “don’t go … wait.”

“Wait for what?”

 “Can you show me how to read  … better?”

“Me? I’m very busy … very busy … go ask you teacher?”

“I can’t …”

“Why not …” asked Ralphie.

“It’s …  I can’t.”

“Embarrassed?” asked Ralphie

“Maybe”

“Why should I do anything for you?” asked Ralphie. “What’s in it for me?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I could be your friend.”

“No thanks.”

“You can trust me.”

“Right!” said Ralphie knowing that he could never trust any person. People always wanted to kill Ralphie.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing. I’ve got everything I want right here,” said Ralphie.

“But there must be something you don’t have … something you can’t get.”

Ralphie thought about it and yes, he would like to read a book about cats. If he knew more about cats, his life might be a little easier.

But Ralphie didn’t ask the girl for the book about cats. She was, after all, a person. And Ralphie could never trust people. That would be a big mistake. He remembered when his parents were killed and he had vowed. Never trust people. Because people were crazy.

“Nope, don’t need a thing,” said Ralphie and began to scurry away for good her when the girl called back.

“If you don’t help,” she said. “I’ll tell everyone there’s a talking gopher down there.”

Ralphie returned to the grate. “If you could read books, then you’d know that gophers can’t talk. Everybody knows that. So if you start telling people a gopher can talk, everyone will think you’re crazy and they’ll put you in a strait jacket and cart you off to the loony bin.” And with that he ran away into one of his twenty different gopher holes.

Every day after that – even on Saturdays and Sundays when there was no school, the girl with the brown hair would wait by the grate sometimes for an hour or more. This went on for weeks. Often she brought pizza and left a piece or two by the grate.

Ralphie never talked to her. Instead, he hid in his hole and watched her. She would talk into the grate and call his name and she would say things like, “Hey little guy,” or  “please come out and say hello.” Ralphie began to wish he’d kept his big mouth shut and never talked to her. Though he did enjoy the pizza she was leaving behind.

Then one day, she was talking into the grate and Ralphie saw two giant shoes cast a big dark shadow over the grate. He recognized those shoes. It was the Lady in Blue. She was talking to the girl. He hunched down so nobody could see him.

“Who are you talking to?” the Lady asked the girl.

“Nobody,” said the girl.

“Nobody? So you’re talking to yourself?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“What business is it of yours?” asked the girl.

“I’ve been watching you. I’ve been watching you for weeks. You know what I think? I think you’re a gopher-lover.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the girl.

The Lady in Blue peered down into the grate and blocked all the sunlight making it like nighttime for Ralphie.

“Let me tell you something about gophers,” the Lady in Blue told the girl. “They’re rodents—do you know what that means—they are no different than a giant rat and they’ll just as soon bite your face off as be your friend. They carry disease and ruin people’s property.” She folded her arms.

“I don’t know anything about any gopher.”

The Lady in Blue leaned over the grate and peered inside. “Well, if you keep talking to yourself, I’ll have to report that. We’ll have to tell your parents. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

After that, the girl stopped coming to the grate. Days passed, then weeks. And Ralphie had mixed feelings. He felt a little funny about not seeing the girl. He didn’t know why but he missed her. But he also felt good that his contact with people was over.  He could relax about that.

But Ralphie shouldn’t have relaxed.

No, he should not have relaxed at all. Because while Ralphie was busy spending his days going back and forth and up and down his twenty tunnels. The Lady in Blue had come up with the best plan she had ever come up with to kill Ralphie the Gopher.

One day, the sun rose just like it always did on the schoolyard and Ralphie was surprised to see that the girl with brown hair was sitting by the grate. He watched her without saying anything. She was facing the opposite direction she usually did, looking towards the school with her back to the grate. So all Ralphie could see was her brown hair.

She sat there for a few moments tapping on the grate.

And then, from out of a nowhere came the two big shoes and the dark shadow of the Lady in Blue. “I thought I told you to stop hanging around here,” the Lady in Blue told the girl.

And the girl, meekly stood and walked away but not before quickly sneaking a slice of pizza into the grate.

The pizza slice fell to the ground by Ralphie. He sniffed it. Hmmm. It had onions and olives and green peppers. He inhaled the aroma. Ahh. Ralphie loved pizza. He absolutely loved it.

Too bad for the little girl, he thought, but good for me.

He was a little suspicious --- after all – you could never really trust people but he also loved pizza and the smell was so wonderful..

Suddenly the girl reappeared. But now – and this was confusing – she was wearing different clothing.

“Get away from there,” the Lady in Blue yelled.

And the girl ran away quickly but not before pushing a piece of cardboard down into the grate. Ralphie looked at it … it was a piece of cardboard from the top of a pizza box and the girl had drawn a circle around the pizza and marked a line through it – like those signs that told you not to do something. Like a line through a skateboard that meant no skateboarding.
Ralph looked at the sign.

No Pizza? He thought.

No Pizza?

He peeked up through the grate. He looked across the schoolyard and he could see the Lady in Blue yelling at the girl with brown hair. And nearby, was the other girl with the brown hair. The one who had left the pizza. Two girls with brown hair?

And that’s when Ralphie figured it out. He looked at the pizza in the sunlight and saw the white powder on it. He recognized that powder. It was the coagulating powder. The Lady in Blue must had gotten another girl with brown hair to leave the pizza.

He began to dig and dig and made a hole to bury the pizza. He didn’t want anybody else eating that poisoned pizza. No way, he thought.

Later that day, after school was out. The girl with brown hair – the real girl – showed up at the grate.

She looked at Ralphie and he looked at her. He didn’t say anything. For once words failed him. Finally he spoke. “Thanks.”

“If I could write better,” she said, “then I could have written you a real note.”

“Yeah,” said Ralphie. “if you could write better.”

“And if I could read better?” she said.

“Yeah,” said Ralphie. “Well maybe I could make some time to teach you a few things,” he said.

And that’s the day when Ralphie’s life changed. Because that’s the day Ralphie learned that of all the millions of people in the world … there was one person he could finally trust.

The End