Two men, however, had not been asleep in warm B&B beds beneath seizure-inducing floral-print comforters, but neither were they out and about, eager with anticipation.

These two men had been assigned the very important task of keeping an eye on the very important Murray - now known to the city and its tens of weekend visitors as Mississauga Murray, the soon-to-be famous, rare red-furred, almost-as-rare weather-prognosticating groundhog. It was of the utmost importance to the city and its revenues for all future Februaries that Mississauga Murray perform spectacularly on the morning of Candlemas, February 2nd, the day the old wives' tale tells a groundhog will peep out of its burrow and, if it sees its shadow, it will scurry back inside, thus predicting that another six weeks of winter weather is on the way.

There were many old sayings and poems about this legend. The city of Mississauga (now) had its own:

Of course, in these modern times, a groundhog is less than necessary for predicting the weather, but that didn't mean people didn't love the spectacle. And so Bob and Doug McBurtinnerny sat in the small room that had been built beneath the knoll on which the festivities would be held and, at the appropriate time, they would remove Mississauga Murray from its cage and thrust the groundhog up through the hole of this faux burrow into view of the city officials and the surrounding crowd.

But it had been a long night for the pair and, before the start of their shift, the waitress at the diner had mistakenly filled Doug's thermos with decaffeinated coffee, so the two Canadian brothers didn't so much watch over Murray, they more snoozed beside him. And, when a slight shuffling noise sounded outside the door of the room beneath the faux knoll, neither man heard it. But Murray did. The groundhog stirred, blinked its eyes open in its red-fur-covered face, sat up, and looked around.

The door was slowly pushed open. And in crept a bald-headed man dressed in tattered, mis-matched clothing that might once have been colorful but was now mostly faded to gray and dirtied to brown.

"Hehe," Screed said quietly to himself as he stretched out his bicycle-glove-covered hands and wiggled his fingers. Three strong heart beats in one place - he'd hit the ruddy jackpot, he had! And he was so  hungry - with all them Forever Knight fans up in Hogtown mucking about, the ratsies what weren't tagging along after Libratsie had all scurried far away. He saw the odd pink glowing one every now and again, but even he knew enough not to suck on one of those.

Still, he'd always had a taste for the out-of-the-ordinary. Sometimes it got him into trouble, like that one white rat did all them years back, but usually he was rewarded with a taste sensation and, besides, Screed liked to live a bit dangerously. "Only life fer a vampire, livin' dangerously," he said to himself and then nodded his agreement.

He snuck further into the small room, first noticing the two be-toqued men, one's head resting (and drooling) on the other's shoulder. They weren't particularly appealing to Screed, but if nothing better came along, he wouldn't count them out as viable options.

But then his eyes fell on a wonder. A beautiful, plump, ginger rat! A really big rat. With a furry tail... so maybe not actually a rat after all. More like a really big ginger squirrel of some kind. And Screed had sucked on squirrel before - it had a bit of a nutty after-taste, but all-in-all not a bad little snack.

He rubbed his hands together as he approached the sawdust-lined cage. "Come ta the nice Screedy, ya red-haired beauty, you. Oy just wants a wee lil taste. Oy promise, there'll just be a tiny prink an' then ya won't feels nothin'." He quietly opened the door of the metal cage and reached inside.

Murray the groundhog sniffed at him and immediately knew something wasn't right. It shook its furry head and backed away. But the cage was small compared to the length of a man's - or a carouche's - arms and Murray was quickly, but gently snatched up. Screed pulled the critter from its cage while looking deep into its eyes singing, "Soft squirrelly, warm squirrelly, little furry squirrel, happy squirrelly, sleepy squirrelly---"

Slurpy, slurpy, slurp.

"Ah!" Screed said and licked his lips once he finished draining the groundhog. He placed it gently and respectfully back in its cage, closed the door, and then patted his satisfied tummy as he quietly exited the building.

Not much later, a cell phone in one of the men's pockets rang. Doug and Bob woke up, rubbed their eyes, stretched. The phone continued to ring and Doug finally rummaged into his pocket, pulled out the phone and answered it. "Good day, eh? ... Yes, sir. Wide awake. Have been all night ... Yes, sir. Murray is eager and waiting, sir. We'll be ready to pop him up through the burrow hole in five minutes exactly."

"Who was that?" Bob asked.

"Come on, eh. Let's get the little groundhog ready for his big debut performance," Doug told his brother, elbowing him in the side as he stood up from his chair. Doug stuffed the phone back into his pocket and put the lid back on the thermos, while Bob went over to Murray's cage.

"Uh, Doug?"

"What is it, Bob?"

"I think we're hosed."

"Why, what--- Oh, no. Is the little feller...."

"Yup. Passed out drunk, you know. I told you not to give him that left over beer."

"No, Bob, I think this groundhog is no more."

"What do you mean, eh?"

"This groundhog has ceased to be. Gone to meet his maker, you know. He's bereft of life. He's kicked the bucket. Shuffled off this mortal coil. This is an ex-groundhog."

"Are you saying he'd dead, Doug?"

"As a doornail."

Bob pulled his woolen toque off his head and held it over his heart. Doug followed suit.

"That's not good, you know."

"It's really not good, Bob, because in just under four minutes, old Murray here is expected to pop up outta that there hole" - Doug pointed to the hole in the ceiling above a tall step-ladder - "and, if he don't, I'm pretty sure they're not gonna pay us, eh."

"They gotta pay us, Doug. We need beer money, for beer and back-bacon, you know."

"And I need a new pair of long johns, eh. And beer."

Just then, the floor in front of them erupted in a spray of dirt and out swarmed a mass of rats carrying a woman wearing a leather aviator cap. "Cow-ee-bunga!" she cried, like she was riding the wave pool over at the water park in Brampton. She spilled onto the floor and the rats all scurried off. She was laughing as she rolled onto her back. Then she noticed the two men standing over her, staring.

"Howdy doody," she said, touching her aviator cap left-handed in a mock salute. Then she said "doody" again and laughed. The two brothers laughed as well. "That's a relief," she said. "Thought ya were gonna smack ol' Libratsie wif a rolled up newspaper fer wreckin' yur floor."

"Libratsie?" Bob asked.

"Yeah, cuz Oy'm Libby an' Oy 'ang out wif me wee lil ratsie mates. Lib-ratsie."

Then Doug got a really spectacular idea and Bob got a really bad idea - and it was the very same idea. "We won't smack ya with a rolled up newspaper, if  you'll do us a favor, eh."

"A favor?"

"Yeah, in exchange for us not smacking you."

"So, that's kinda loike gettin' paid, ain't it? OK, Oy'll do it," Libratsie said. She stood up and the three of them made the rounds shaking hands with each other. Then Libby asked, "What da ya wants me ta do?"

"See that there hole up there?" Bob pointed to the ceiling.

"We need you to crawl up through it---" Doug said.

Libratsie nodded. "Oy'm real good a crawlin' thru holes, Oy am."

"We noticed, you know," Bob said, looking at the big hole in the floor that they would have to deal with, but later, after they saved their jobs at least long enough to get paid.

"So, Oy jus' crawl up thru that there hole?"

"Yup," Doug said. "Then when you get top-side, you know, look at the ground and see if you're casting a shadow. If you are---"

"--act all scared and then jump back down the hole, eh," Bob continued for his brother. "But if you don't see your shadow---"

"--then act all happy. Yell some stuff like 'Spring is on the way' and then, you know, you can stay for the pancake breakfast, eh."

"Pancakes? I lurves me some pancakes. So, whens do we do this?"

Just then Doug's phone rang again. "Now, sir? Okay, sir," he spoke into the phone, and then he turned to Libby and said, "Right now."

Libratise scrambled up the ladder, stood on her tippy-tip toes, grabbed a hold of the edge of the hole, and then pulled herself up while Bob and Doug helped push her up from below. Libgroundhogsie crawled out and onto the fake grass of the faux burrow and looked around at the surprisingly small crowd that was gathered around - all of them gaping at her. She remembered what her new friends had told her and she quickly looked down at the ground. She looked and looked, but there was no shadow - which probably was because it was overcast this morning in Ontario.

Then Libgroundhogsie looked back up at the crowd and said in a loud, commanding voice, "The knight is dark and full of terriers! ... no, wait, that's not it. The Cannisters do not pay their debts! ... no. Oh, wait, Oy gots it," she said with a snap of her fingers. She stood up straight and looked over the crowd and declared, "Spring is coming!"

The crowed stared at her for a moment, but then suddenly cheered and surged forward. They scooped Libby up and crowd-surfed her over to the picnic tables where the pancake breakfast was about to be served.