Story Hour
Gordie and the Skunk
Written by Gene B. Williams
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This issue is about Gordie the Social Tortie and an adventure he had recently.
Quite a few have been asking about Gordie the Social Tortie. Audrey wanted to know if he brushes his teeth. Billy wondered if Gordie ever goes for rides on Nicker’s back. Marci, John, Cindy, Parker, Betty … well, quite a few wanted to know if he bites.
Let me tell you a little about Gordie before you read the story.
Gordie is a sulcata (sool-kaw-taw) tortoise. They are native to the Sahara Desert in Africa. You would like Gordie – but I don’t think you would want to have one. Why?
Gordie is already 50 pounds, and he is still young. He will get to be at least 150 pounds, maybe 200 pounds.
Most turtles and tortoises hibernate. That means go to sleep in the winter. Gordie doesn’t. This might sound like a good thing, but … the reason animals hibernate is because it gets very cold where they live. Gordie can’t hibernate, just like you can’t hibernate. He has to be somewhere warm, or be kept warm.
Here in Arizona, he does okay. Where do you live? I used to live in Minnesota. (That’s where Lake Edie is.) I could live there with lots of warms clothes. Gordie couldn’t. He wears a great big shell, but he doesn’t wear clothes. He would have to come inside.
Imagine having a 200 pound tortoise in your living room!
Sounds like fun except … just like you, they want to eat. Then comes … well, that … other part. No one has invented a tortoise toilet yet. You know what I mean?
And the sulcata eat a LOT!!! (That means a lot of … well, that other stuff that … comes out.) And they don’t like to just sit down to dinner. They want to eat a little here, walk there, eat a little more, walk more …. They graze, like a horse or cow.
And they want to dig. BOY, do they want to dig!
Gordie has dug himself a cavern there in Gordie’s Garden of Grazing.. It goes underground about 3 feet down and is about 30 feet long. He has made the opening bigger so that he can scoot inside fast. You could put your couch into that opening.
Gordie is powerful. It didn’t take him long to dig that cavern. If something is in his way, he is more likely to go through it or push it aside than to go around.
He is powerful in another way. His shell is very thick. So are the scales on his skin. Then look at his legs! His legs are covered with thorns.
His jaws are also powerful. If he bit your finger, you wouldn’t have much of a finger left.
Here’s the thing. He doesn’t. Gordie isn’t mean. He gets mad, but even then doesn’t get mean. That’s what happens in this story. I’ll give you a hint about the story you are going to read.
It was dark. Night. A particular animal came into the yard. My dogs went after it. Big Gus lost that battle, even with Mabel’s help. (No, they weren’t hurt.)
This particular animal wanted to hide and not fight those big dogs again. It saw the opening to Gordie’s Cavern. Down it went. And down there … it met Gordie.
I want you to know, no one got hurt Not the dogs, not the skunk, not Gordie.. Gordie isn’t mean. He simply didn’t want that animal in HIS cave. So, he pushed it out – a little like a bulldozer.
Gordie and the Skunk
Have you ever smelled a skunk? Gus and Mabel did that night. They’d never smelled one before, but the odor made them more cautious. They slowed down.
Gus is a big dog. His jaws are powerful. His teeth are sharp, white and very strong. He moved in on the skunk. Mabel was making her frantic circles behind, and also was racing to the sides.
Imagine yourself being that skunk!
The skunk sprayed another warning. It moved along the fence, trying to get deeper into the bushes, away from those sharp white teeth. It wished that it had never come into this yard. The opening in the fence had been a tight squeeze. Now it couldn’t find that opening. In fact, the opening in the fence was far away. Gus and Mabel were in coming at it from that direction – driving it farther from safety.
Gus crept in closer and closer. Mabel was running around at the edges, getting ready to come in from the back. The battle had now become quiet. No more barking. It would have been over in a few more moments … but then the skunk saw something there in the dark. It saw a hole in the ground.
As it made a dash for the safety of that hole, Gus and Mabel made a dash for the skunk. They nearly got the skunk … but didn’t. Instead what they got was a very large squirt from a very frightened skunk.
PHEW!!! Gus got squirted so badly that it was dripping off his shoulder. Thank goodness it didn’t get into his eyes! The air was filled with that awful smell. You sure wouldn’t have wanted to be there.
The dogs ran to get away from that horrible smell.
The skunk, still frightened, went farther into the hole, looking for safety. The hole was deep and long. For a moment it seemed to be a good hiding place. It was a tunnel. A cave. Perfect for a skunk being chased by two big dogs.
Or so it seemed.
Until ….
Something was already in that cave. What was it?
The skunk had seen rocks and boulders before. He saw one now, there in the cave, underground – but this one was moving. It was moving toward him. The skunk hissed. The boulder kept moving toward him. The skunk snarled and bared its teeth. It threatened. It reached out with its sharp claws. Biting or scratching a rock doesn’t do a whole lot. And this rock kept coming.
The skunk had used up most of its spray to escape the dogs. What little it had left didn’t bother this walking boulder even a little. There was nothing to do but back up. There was nowhere else to go. What had seemed to be a very nice hiding place from the dogs above no longer seemed large. It was filled with something the skunk had never seen before – and whatever it was gave just one direction for the skunk to go.
Up and out.
The walking boulder kept coming up the tunnel. It wasn’t biting at the skunk, but there were occasional horrifying hisses from it. And then it just kept coming. On the boulder came until the skunk was back at the opening to a tunnel it had thought was safety, and still that moving rock kept coming toward the skunk – pushing it out, giving it nowhere to go but out.
Where could it go? Just a little above might be those sharp white teeth. Would you want to go back up there? But the big rock was still coming, and nothing the skunk tried had any effect at all. It kept coming.
And coming.
And coming.
The skunk dug its paws into the dirt of the opening that minutes before had seemed to be safety. It ran along the bushes. It found the tiny opening in the fence. The big black dog and the smaller brown dog heard this and raced noisily for that spot.
The skunk barely made it through, with dog teeth snapping just behind. Skunk fur was left on the opening in the fence. The skunk ran off into the night.
Gus and Mabel trotted back to the house, happy that the smelly invader was gone – but needing a bath. (They spent the night in the laundry room, OUT of the house!)
Gordie the Tortie calmly brushed clean the slope that went into his tunnel, then turned around and went back into his cave.
The skunk got away unharmed. As you know, Gus and Mabel had to spend the night in the laundry room then had to get a bath the next day.
Gordie the Tortie?
He came out the next day, ate grass, a piece of squash, some grapes, wanted me to pet his head and neck, tried to climb into my lap … then went calmly back to his cavern – as though nothing at all had happened. At the top were the paw prints of dogs and skunk. In the opening to Gordie’s Cavern, not one track remained – not even a tortoise track.
Gordie had cleaned it.
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