“Henrietta, Henrietta,” he called. Henrietta just ignored him and kept swimming, she thought it was her fans cheering from the riverbank.
“Henrietta, Henrietta, stop a while, this is important.” he shouted. She stopped.
“Billy, whatever is the matter?” she asked.
“Ozzy Otter and Berty Badger are cheating, they´ve already attacked Jimmy and Steven. I think I can take care of them but before I do why don´t I give you a head start, sit on my head and I´ll swim you further on down the river.” said Billy.
“You most certainly will not. They may cheat but I won´t lower myself to their standards. I´m going to win this race fair and square.” said Henrietta indignantly.
“But can´t you see they already have something planned, if we don´t cheat they will attack you like they attacked Steven Stoat and Jimmy Jackdaw.” pleaded Billy.
“Forget it son, I´ll win this race my way.” and with those words she swam off. Billy knew what he had to do. He wiggled around a bit in the water and waited for Ozzy and Berty.
They caught up soon enough and easily enough because both of them were riding jet skis. “Oh for the love of god”, said Billy when he saw the cut of them. They were even wearing diving suits and goggles. How was he going to stop those machines. He had no choice but to follow them until they caught up with Henrietta and wait until they disembarked and were vulnerable.
Finally they caught up to within inches of Henrietta. They abandoned their jetskiis and diving suits and swam as fast as they could. But not fast enough. Another thing I think you should know about Billy is that he was a big snake for one good reason. He wasn´t a snake at all. Henrietta and her friends had never been to the zoo and I´m almost certain they had never seen a boa constrictor. Billy the snake was really Billy the boa and he knew exactly what had to be done to stop the two villains. Just as they were about to swim to either side of Henrietta, Billy coiled around both of them and gave each one a bit of a squeeze.
The roaring and screaming out of the pair of them was deafening, so, afraid his mum would turn around, he swallowed them both, goggles and all. Then he swam to the river bank where he threw both of them up. They were so scared they ran off home abandoning the race to the other woodland creatures.
Now it just happened that Henrietta did hear the screams of the cheats. She did turn around and she did see Billy swallow the rotten pair and she was not happy. She swam to river bank to where Billy was rubbing his tummy.
“Billy,” she started, “did I or did I not distinctly ask you not to cheat on my behalf?” she growled.
“I´m sorry,” apologised Billy. “Maybe it´s time you went back to the zoo.” said Henrietta. “The zoo? why the zoo?” inquired Billy. Henrietta didn´t answer she just returned to the race.
She crossed the finishing line with ease. The crowd cheered happily. She searched the faces in the crowd for Billy, he was nowhere to be seen. “Oh dear, he´s sulking.” she said to herself.
She strolled triumphantly to where they were giving out the prizes.
Henrietta always suspected them of cheating but as it had never been proved she could say nothing. However rumour has it that Sally Stout and Mickey Mink had given up on sports after competing with those two. Maybe they were rotten cheats but Henrietta felt sure that today she was going to prove to everyone that you don´t have to cheat to come out on top. She was sure that her persistent training would at last be worthwhile.
They lined up for the race after their warm up session and when Philip Fox blew the whistle they dashed off as if Philip himself were chasing them. Big Billy slithered alongside them. He wasn´t in the race but he knew Ozzy and Berty had a bad reputation and he wanted to keep an eye on everyone. Luckily with all the training he had done with Henrietta he was fit enough to keep up.
The running part of the race was difficult and after the first few minutes it was plain to see that Henrietta Hedgehog, Ozzy Otter, Berty Badger, Steven Stoat, Lilly Lizard and Jimmy Jackdaw were leaving the other competitors far behind.
After some time a gap was forming between Ozzy Otter, Berty Badger, Steven Stoat and the leaders of the race Lily Lizard, Jimmy Jackdaw and Henrietta. As they were slagging behind Ozzy and Berty decided to take advantage of their position and eliminate Steven. They both ran to either side of him and then they put a brown paper bag over his head and ran him into the ditch where they carefully tied him to a gate. “Say nothing,” they said, “and you´ll come to no harm.”
Then the wicked pair dragged out from a nearby field a motorbike and side-car. It didn´t take them long to catch up with the leader group. They ditched the motorbike before anyone could see them cheat and they ran again as if the race was very difficult.
Well because Henrietta was a nimble hedgehog she was the first in the running race. Jimmy Jackdaw came second and Lily Lizard third. Ozzy and Berty were next and they were surprisingly fresh looking. The next race was the cycle. They set off in a cloud off dust. Once again Henrietta and Lily Lizard took the lead. Jimmy Jackdaw was itching to fly but as it was in the rules that you couldn´t leave the ground or the water at any time his legs were starting to feel the pain. He was slowing down. Ozzy and Berty were speeding up. Together they cycled to either side of jimmy, put a brown paper bag over his head and cycled him into the nearest ditch where they tied him to a gate and said, “Say nothing and you´ll come to no harm.”
Then they fetched out from a barn a helicopter and took the lead without anyone realising. They landed in a field, not too far from the finishing line, out with their bikes, then off they shot toward the finishing line. Lily and Henrietta were fast and soon they were biting the heels of the two cheats. Henrietta, being a nimble sort of hedgehog shot out past Ozzy and Berty and came first. Lily came fourth.
The next competition was the swimming race. This was a tough one for Henrietta but thanks to Billy she had a good chance of winning. They set off.
Now while all this was going on Billy was doing his best to keep up with the competitors. He passed Steven Stoat and set him free. He passed Jimmy Jackdaw and set him free too. He arrived at the start of the swimming race. Another thing I think you should know about Billy is that he was by far the strongest swimmer in the wood. In fact he was a better swimmer than any of the competitors. So without anyone knowing he took caught up with Henrietta in no time at all.
In an old rickety house by an old rickety bridge there lived a nimble hedgehog. Hedgehogs by their very nature are far from nimble so this hedgehog was by normal hedgehog standards, something of an enigma and a legend.
One day our legendary hedgehog whose name happened to be Henrietta, was outside training for the Special Olympics. They were regarded as special because only woodland creatures were allowed participate. Domesticated animals, zoo creatures and farm prisoners had their own sports day event.
She was stretching and jumping when she heard a rustle in the bushes on the other side of the bridge. She sprinted over to take a look. There hidden in the bushes was a basket and in the basket moving quietly was what appeared to be a baby snake.
There was a note attached. It said,
PLEASE LOOK AFTER OUR LITTLE ONE. WE ARE
A FAMILY THAT HAVE JUST ESCAPED FROM THE
ZOO. WE THINK THE ZOO KEEPER WILL FIND US
SOON BUT WE WOULD LIKE OUR BABY TO HAVE
CHANCE TO LIVE IN FREEDOM LIKE YOU DO.
PLEASE LOOK AFTER HIM UNTIL WE CAN RETURN
FOR HIM. WE WOULD BE VERY GRATEFUL IF YOU
COULD LOOK AFTER HIM AS ONE OF YOUR OWN.
Henrietta hedgehog thought to herself for a moment. “What a load of baloney. Who ever heard of a hedgehog looking after a snake. And what was this rubbish about living in freedom and escaping from the zoo. It was common knowledge in these parts that living in the zoo was like living in paradise. There were no predators, you were encouraged to breed and meals were regular and nutritious. What a load of rubbish”
She began to walk away from the baby when suddenly she thought, “but out here there are predators, how can I leave this poor defenceless ugly thing in the bushes, whatever were his parents thinking.”
Maybe it was the parental irresponsibility that did it but without stopping she ran back and picked up the basket in her arms. The baby snake wiggled in happiness.
Months passed and the new family were getting on fine. Henrietta knew very little about bringing up baby snakes and everyone was impressed with how big and strong the baby snake was getting. She called him Billy and as time passed the neighbours called him big Billy because he was turning into the biggest snake anyone had ever seen.
Finally the big day arrived – the Special Olympics- Henrietta was so excited. She had been training hard for this day. Billy had been an enormous help to her. When he was little he enjoyed pretending to be a skipping rope and now as he was so big and a keen swimmer he gave Henrietta swimming lessons. Swimming came naturally to him, but Henrietta had no talent for it. Still it helped her keep fit and they both enjoyed it.
The first race was the triathlon. There was a marathon then a cycle and then a swim that had to be completed in order to win. Henrietta was extremely excited but she was also nervous. Two of the woodland creature champions were also taking part, Ozzy Otter and Berty Badger.
“Hey, if you were hunting Ms. Bunny and it´s true what I heard about Ms. Bunny´s sleep-eating that means I´m the winner,” said a joyful Ms. Frog.
“Well, yes, Ms. Bunny has been eating her greens all along but I wasn´t hunting Ms. Bunny, I was trying to make her realise what she was doing. Technically you can only be the winner if you kill one of us and eat us,” reasoned Ms. Fox.
Ms. Frog pulled a disgusted face. “Maybe the rat was right, I should leave killing to the professionals.”
Ms. Fox climbed out of the hole lifting Ms. Bunny out by the back of her neck. The hole was ridiculously small. Any animal, even a small rat could easily have got out of it.
“Great,” said the fox, “that means I´m the real winner because I´m the only one that managed to only eat vegetables and fruit in all this time. Where´s my prize?”
“There is no prize, it was just an experiment,” said Ms. Frog.
But Ms. Fox wasn´t listening to Ms. Frog´s jibber jabber. She was too busy tucking into a hen that just happened to be tied to the tree in front of the hole.
“My you are a star, this is my favourite meat, thank you so much.” said a contented fox.
Ms. Frog hugged Ms. bunny who was shaking in her enormous boots at the sight of such violence. She never really trusted Ms. Fox and was amazed she was still alive.
“Come on Ms. Bunny, I think it´s time for tea and lettuce sandwiches. You can stay in my home tonight, I think you are still in shock,” comforted Ms. Frog.
Off they bounced together. Ms. Frog stopped now and again to catch a random fly for lunch.
Ms. fox looked up after them and smiled.”What a nice pair of friends,” she thought, “and what a great feast they´ve given me. I´ll see to it that no fox ever eats them or their families.”
I wonder if she kept her promise.
What do you think?
The End
Then one day Ms. Frog got an idea while standing by the river watching some fishermen. Their bodies were not really equipped for catching fish but they were using a worm on a hook to lure the fish into a trap. Their tools caught the fish for them.
“How clever,” thought Ms. Frog.
That is how she got the plan to build a trap. She dug a hole in the ground with the help of some mice and covered it with leaves and twigs. Then she jumped to the nearest farm and lured a stupid hen to the hole with a worm. Now when I saw what she did next I just thought the hunger had made her crazy, but now I know it was a mixture of pride and greed that made her tie the hen to a nearby tree and wait for bigger prey. If I had been her I would simply have tried eating the hen.
It was well into week two now and their tempers and behaviour was getting quite edgy. Of course Ms. Bunny´s nocturnal visits to the vegetable gardens were more frequent than ever and unknown to herself she was eating all the plants around her. She looked healthy and fat but a little tired.
Ms. Fox was also visiting vegetable gardens and while she had laughed at Ms. Bunny´s sleep-eating before, now it irritated her.
“I´m going to give that rabbit a good fright. I´m going to wake her up and show her what´s what,” she whispered bitterly.
She crept over and placed a red paw one the rabbit´s grey shoulder. Ms. Bunny almost choked on a bit of carrot when she opened her eyes and saw the fox grinning at her. Ms. Fox licked her lips. Ms. Bunny pissed on the cabbages.
“Got you,” barked the fox.
Ms. Bunny jumped out of Ms. Fox´s grasp. “Hey wait,” roared Ms. fox. The rabbit ran, the fox ran after her. The chase felt good. Ms. Fox nearly forgot it was her friend Ms. Bunny she was chasing and not some other random small animal. She had to stop herself from going into hunting mode.
They ran and ran and they ran straight into Ms. Frog´s trap.
“Hurray, Yippee!” shouted the frog. She bounded over and looked into the hole.
“But…it´s….YOU TWO!” shouted the disappointed frog.
“It´s not what it looks like,” said the fox while trying to comfort a distraught bunny and convince her she wasn´t dinner.
The first week was a pure nightmare and I, the narrator am surprised that none of them gave up. Each of them was prouder than the other and I suppose that is what maintained it.
Ms. Bunny thought she had got the best deal until she got a bad case of the runs. I guess it was due to the fact that she wasn´t used to only eating insects and her body flushed out the overdose of proteins. She dreamed of carrots at night and sometimes she even woke up with a lettuce leaf sticking out of her mouth. She must have been sleepwalking and sleep-eating by the look of things. She didn´t tell the others this.
Ms. Fox was in agony. Strawberries gave her some satisfaction as the colour of them reminded her of meat but the sweetness turned her stomach. She was hungry all the time. Being nocturnal she couldn´t break the habit of eating at night so she would creep into the farmer´s vegetable fields at night and try to fill her tummy. She was surprised once or twice to see Ms. Bunny there too, nibbling away on something green. She often mocked her for her lack of willpower. Ms. Bunny just ignored her.
Then one night in the vegetable patch Ms. Fox realised, after mocking Ms. Bunny that she ignored her because she was asleep. It dawned on her that she could easily have eaten Ms. Bunny right then and there, but she wasn´t in the habit of eating little animals she was on friendly terms with. She liked Ms. Bunny´s silliness.
The start of the second week was worse than the first. Ms. Fox got the runs too. Her body never ever had to try and digest so much fruit and so many vegetables. She was still hungry. Meanwhile Ms. Frog was wasting away. Hers was the most difficult task. She didn´t get the runs because she just didn´t eat. At first she had thought she had the easiest task. Catching flies couldn´t be more difficult than catching small animals. She started with small vermin such as shrews and mice. She would jump near them wait and then throw her tongue at them, trying to drag them towards her mouth. The response was humiliating.
“Hey, stop licking me!” yelled one shrew. “Get that slimy tongue of yours away!” shouted a mouse. They proved to be very contrary creatures.
She jumped on them and tried biting them with her toothless mouth. They just got annoyed and one or two even bit her rubbery legs.
“Leave murder to the professionals, even if you got classes from Ms. Fox you still couldn´t kill us.” said an old rat.
“Oh, they can feel alright. I read somewhere that some plants produce a mild toxin when humans touch them. It´s rubbish defence system because it´s pretty harmless but the tannin in tea leaves is an example.”said Ms. Fox in an effort to get science on her side.
She really hadn´t much of a clue of what she was on about but as the other two were afraid of her it didn´t matter. They wouldn´t believe her anyway so she could say what she liked.
“Oh, I like tea,” said Ms. Frog, “especially on a cold wintry night.”
Ms. Fox relaxed a bit, not only did they not believe her but it seemed they weren´t even listening.
“I just eat sheep and little animals for the same reason you eat flies and small insects, they give us the proteins our bodies need. Although I must admit I haven´t the foggiest idea why Ms. Bunny loves lettuce.” announced Ms. Fox.
“I have an idea,” said Ms. Frog. “It´s obvious that we don´t understand each other´s behaviour and because of this we don´t understand each other. So let´s put each other in the other one´s shoes and try to live like that”
“What?” asked Ms. Bunny
“Yeah, I didn´t get that either, Ms. Bunny,” said the fox.
“Swap shoes, swap behaviour,” said Ms. Frog.
“Alright, why not,” said Ms. Bunny, “although my shoes are curiously bigger than Ms. Fox´s feet, and way bigger than yours so I´m not sure how we´ll manage.”
“No, no it´s a metaphor,” cried Ms. Frog. “Wearing somebody´s shoes just means you understand how that being feels. We are not going to swap shoes really. Anyway I don´t like the smell of Ms. Fox´s feet.”
Ms. Fox raised an eyebrow. “I think the whole idea is ridiculous.”
Ms. Bunny just jumped around repeating the word “Metaphor, metaphor.”
“I think it´s just the experience we need.” said Ms. Frog “Ms. Fox, you must live on plants and vegetables. Ms. Bunny, you must live on flies and insects and I must kill animals that are bigger than myself.” said Ms. Frog confidently.
” Call me conservative, but I think this is a whole lot of horse excrement,” said Ms. Fox, “and it´s hardly fair, I think Ms. Bunny eats little insects anyway on leaves when she´s grazing. I´ve never seen her separate the insects from the leaves with her front paws.”
“I do so,” said the bouncing rabbit.
“Come on, I think we could manage it for two weeks,” proposed Ms. Frog.
“I think we´ll be dead in two weeks, so see you in heaven.” said Ms. Fox.
“Not likely, I´m going to bunny heaven, fox heaven is no place for me!” said Ms. Bunny in a wise tone.
“Stop your fooling and get hunting!” said Ms. Frog as she painted her face with the mud from the splashing river floor.
Ms. Frog and Ms. Bunny were huddled together having a great old chin wag about the various scandalous goings on in the forest.
“You don´t say…”
“She did what…?”
“Well I never…..”
were just some of the little comments you could hear over their callous whispers. They were just about to get into some juicy news about Ms. Hedgehog when out of nowhere crept Ms. Fox.
“Good day fellow woodland creatures.” barked the sly redhead.
“Good day.” answered Ms. Frog. “I hear you´ve been particularly busy these days. We heard some sheep in the district had disappeared. Had you anything to do with that?”
Ms. Fox shrugged her shoulders and played with the seam of her apron.
“Well I am carnivorous, I suppose you do know what that means.”
“Is it that you like stones and pebbles?” asked Ms. Bunny from behind a tree.
“No, I like meat Ms. Bunny and you´re lot, if I could catch them would make a fine meal.”
Ms. Bunny ran into the nearest burrow and peered out trembling. Ms. Frog stood her ground but she was overly confident as she knew that with one leap she would be safely in the river.
“Why are you so afraid of me?”complained the fox.
“You could eat me right now if you wanted, in fact you are a scourge to all my kind,” replied the shaking bunny.
“You eat flies Ms. Frog and you eat plants and vegetables Ms. Bunny, don´t you think they have feelings too!”
“I wasn´t aware they could feel anything,” said Ms. Bunny.
The Alloy Wheeled Scooter with Power Steering.
or simply, The Scooter.
“Where the hell is he,” growled Mrs. Spencer. Out skipped the goat.
“Well hello there Mrs. Spencer are you ready for your third and final test drive, oh and that´ll be fifty euros more to pay for the damages to the tricycle.”
“Here you are and I´m more than ready for my final test drive,” retorted a calm Mrs. Spencer. Her one good eye twitched. “Bring it on.”
The goat was a little taken aback by her sudden calm acceptance of the situation but thought no more of it. He pushed out the giant wonder.
“All aboard,” cried the goat. “Well actually no, just yourself Mrs. Spencer.”
“Oh no, this time you´re coming too,” she replied. She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and held on to him as she jumped up onto the scooter. “Take it easy now won´t you?” whispered the goat to the scooter. “I´m on board too.”
The scooter winked at no one in particular.
Mrs. Spencer had a great strong grip on the struggling goat. With her free hand she reached into her handbag, rummaged a bit and pulled out a stapler. She proceeded to staple him to the green leather seat of the scooter, then she rooted around a bit more in her handbag until she found some explosives. She strapped them keenly under the scooter with some sellotape.
As the scooter took off she jumped off, dived and rolled under the nearest tree.
The scooter shot straight into the garage doors.
The goat roared.
The garage exploded.
The money from the goat´s waistcoat pocket flew around in flitters and floated to the ground. Mrs. Spencer got up and once more rummaged around in her handbag. She fished out the sellotape and set about sticking the bits of money together.
The police arrived, followed by the journalists.
As the police lead her away she had this to say to the story hungry journalists.
“I´d give another eye and my remaining leg to do all that again.”
Then she smiled for the cameras.
The end.
The Tri-coloured Tricycle.
When Mrs. Spencer arrived at the garage the goat trotted out to meet her. The first sentence he uttered was.
“That´ll be fifty euros more, please.”
“You must be kidding, I lost my eye and I almost lost my life in that trial run.”
The goat slid in real close to her ear. “Maybe we´ll take a little trip down to the police station then, I happen to know who robbed the local piggy bank.”
“How did you find out?” began Mrs. Spencer but then she thought again and answered quietly, “o.k. here you are, and I´m sorry about the balloon but I still have to try out all three vehicles, deal?”
“Fair enough, it´s a deal.” replied the goat.
The goat disappeared for point five of a second wheeling out what he thought was a classy old bone shaker. “It need´s a bit of three in one oil but overall it´s the best tricycle you´ll get in these parts.”
“Is it really?” sneered a sceptical Mrs. Spencer.
She hopped on. Her bottom was a little big for the seat so she had to balance herself carefully. “This is only fit for a child.” she grumbled to herself.
The poor bicycle groaned under the weight of her then winked at the grinning goat and flew off down the road into a very dangerous neighbourhood. “This is altogether too fast for me.” came the distant voice of Mrs. Spencer to the ears of a happy but mean little goat as he shoved his ill gotten gains into his waistcoat pocket.
Well whatever way the tricycle was travelling it took a ferocious turn which sent Mrs. Spencer´s leg cocking out to one side. A doberman pincher caught hold of her leg and ripped it right out of it´s socket, just before the tricycle smashed itself and Mrs. Specser into a thorny rose bush.
Up popped Mrs. Spenser´s shabby head smelling a freshly plucked rose.
“Well that takes the biscuit!” she roared, but she wasn´t too upset over her leg as it was her old wooden leg and not the good one she kept for special occasions.
So with that the tri-coloured bicycle wobbled and Mrs. Spencer hobbled back to the garage.