burbubble

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.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 10:10 am and is filed under The Special Olympics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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