Throughout the recent snowstorms, and a full day of heavy rain, Mama Chipmunk’s littlest grandchild had stayed indoors, ensconced in her grandmother’s reading chair with a pile of fairytale books.

But when the morning after all the rain dawned bright and thick with fog, she bounced out of bed and bounced through breakfast, ready for an adventure, and anxious to get to the woods.

Since first discovering the large hole nestled among the roots of a hackberry tree, she had convinced herself — and her siblings — that it must be a secret tunnel to someplace magical. But they had found it on a foggy day, and so she had also convinced herself, and them, that they must wait for another foggy day to investigate; because that’s how magic works, she said.

(Early February 2024)

Story © Jennifer Singleton / Read+Purr

This is another vignette in my ongoing series of Tiny Garden Stories: peaceful 1-minute tales that let you read like a kid again. Click one of the first two buttons below to go to (or back to, if that’s where you fell down the rabbit hole) either the “Public Garden” archive page or (if you’re a Story Club member) to the members-only “Private Garden” page. Or click the third button to learn more about my Tiny Garden Stories. If you’re new to Tiny Garden Story-land and would like 10 days’ worth of stories from our first year, visit ReadPurrNewsletter.com.