One day a little chipmunk found himself gazing into a dark, dark cave. He had never seen anything like this before, so he craned his neck upwards into the gaping hole. Suddenly, he felt several sharp stings move across the back of his neck.
"Oh no!! I've gotta get outta here!!" he quickly thought as he yanked his head out of the fox's mouth, getting scraped along the way. He took off like a bandit, not daring to look behind him even once to see how close the fox was.
Finally, he made it home just before he would have collapsed with exhaustion. He sat down among his brothers and sisters and breathlessly told them the story of the intriguing dark cave that turned out to be a trap made by a sneaky fox. His siblings listened to the story with full attention, their expressions ranging from disbelief to amazement to fear.
Suddenly appearing beside him, his mother asked sharply, "Did he follow you here?"
"I d...don't know" the little chipmunk muttered. His mother stood in front of him now with her hands on her hips. "Do you realize what you've done? If that fox has followed you here then he could by lying nearby right now waiting for the perfect moment to strike."
"TO STRIKE?!!" his siblings shrieked, huddling closer to their mother.
"I... I'm sorry momma. I was too scared to look behind me."
"If we end up dead due to your fear then maybe next time you won't be so afraid." His mom turned around and scurried deeper into the woods, his brothers and sisters staying close to her. The little chipmunk was the only one who stayed behind. He knew he wasn't wanted, so he curled up into a ball and spent the rest of the day feeling sorry for himself.
He awoke from a restless sleep to a noise he couldn't identify. He raised his head up slowly and glanced around the chipmunk den. It was twilight, so there wasn't enough light to get a good look at his surroundings. He moved closer to the strange noise, making sure he didn't call much attention to himself.
As he got closer, he saw a big fluffy tail poking through the shrubbery a little ways away. A chill went up the little chipmunk's spine. Fear gripped him and forced him to stay where he was. He didn't have a clue how long he sat there, while a feeling of dread had washed over him, leaving him waiting to run as far away as possible.
The noise had stopped, the animal with the busy tail ("It just had to have been that fox... it just HAD to have been!" the chipmunk thought), had left and the little chipmunk was now at a crossroads. Remembering his mother's words from earlier, he knew that there was no turning back.
He ran like the dickens, not caring where he was going. He stopped sometime before sunrise, curling up in a tree, despite never realizing he could climb trees because his mom always kept him and his siblings on the ground. "She must not have known she could do it, either," he thought to himself, silently pleased at his brave curiousity.
He awoke once again to a strange noise, but this time he wasn't afraid. He looked down at the trunk of the tree where a fox ("It just had to have been the same one!" he again thought) gazed back up at him.
"I'm not scared of you, Mr. Fox, for you can't eat me no matter how much you would like to." The little chipmunk sat up and started preening himself, rubbing it in the fox's face that he couldn't get him.
The sound of claws scraping against the bark reverberated throughout the forest as the fox gobbled up the fearless little chipmunk before he knew what was coming to him.
Moral of the story: It doesn't matter how fearful or calm you are, death comes knocking on your door when it's your time.
Alternate moral: Curiousity killed the chipmunk! :)
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