Tales from the Great Green Lake: Green Lake Stories, #1

By J.R.Croft

Mole is a mole who is afflicted with a parasite, and he's close to losing his position as bass player for the Fresh Kickers, the most popular musical group in the world of the Great Green Lake. His body is ballooning, and something must change...or else.

Three raccoons are making their way to the trading post in the Dark Island Terminal, inside an enormous sunken tree hollowed out by generations of resident animals in the lake world. They manage to survive a blizzard high in the Phinnae Mountaines, only to encounter a feral cat, who threatens their lives unless it gets what it wants.

Two fish decide they're the smartest fish in the lake, because they've never been hooked by a fisherman, and hunt for prey as a team, unlike the rest of the fish in the lake. They find out they're not as smart as they thought when Jake gets hooked by a fishing lure and is pulled through the ceiling of their world, into the Great Beyond. 

A traveler finds himself in a perilous place with the other passengers in a ferry submarine. A serpent fish attacks the sub, determined to crack it open and devour them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.R.Croft
• Release date: Mar 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386444121

Book preview

CHAPTER  ONE

Mole of the Mountaines

©2018 J.R.Croft

––––––––

The biggest concert of his life was coming, and Mole couldn't have been more excited. The Hall of Fame Ball was only a few days away, and every spare moment he had, he practiced his low stringer. Mole loved playing the low notes, and he wanted every one to be perfect, because it was going to be the biggest concert the Fresh Kickers had ever played.

The problem was, Mole was so preoccupied that he couldn't stay focused. He was nervous and twitchy, and he kept making mistakes at his job. The other problem was, Mole had been growing in size—and he was already full-grown.

Because Mole was a mole, he dug tunnels for the Lake Operations Group, and the L.O.G. was busy. The giants were on the attack; rabbits were dying everywhere, drowned in their own homes, killed by poison carrots, or worse, attacked by ferrets and ripped to pieces. The giants had had enough of their digging. They declared war on all of the rabbits that, for generations, had lived in the forest and on the slopes of the Phinnae Mountaines.  The L.O.G. had asked a huge team of moles to dig the tunnels that would connect the forest burrows to the Great Hall, the main underground passageway circling the lake.

For a mole, digging a tunnel should have been a simple enough order: dig it straight to the Great Hall as quick and orderly as possible, but for Mole, that part about digging straight to the Great Hall had been a problem. To be sure, there were many tree roots that got in the way, so the tunnels weren't always exactly straight, and sometimes they went up and over or down and under, but at least they were headed in the right direction.

Many rabbits had already fled and moved into underwater cabins scattered across the lake, but still, there were many who had stayed in the forest, hoping the giants would be more forgiving as time went by. The giants were cold-hearted, and the killing continued.

Mole usually had no problem keeping on course, but ever since he learned about the concert, his sense of direction stopped working, and his boss, Sun Dunny Baba, was less and less happy with him every day that went by.

Mole! Sun Dunny would say, Your tunnels make me dizzy! Pay attention and dig straight!

One day, Mole was at full speed, digging like a crazymole, scaring every worm and underground bug in the area, certain he was setting some kind of new speed record, which he needed, because he was falling so far behind. Suddenly—Bam! Mole hit something hard. Stars flashed in his head. He turned toward the surface and popped his head out of the ground.

Ouch! Mole shouted. "Wow that smarts!" He strained to pull himself out of the ground, grunting and growling. He finally extracted himself from the hole, stood up and rubbed his head. He looked fat as a toad.

"Mole! Better watch