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Neopia's Fill in the Blank News Source | 15th day of Relaxing, Yr 27
The Neopian Times Week 139 > Short Stories > The Great Race

The Great Race

by white_jungle_tiger

There once lived a little Quiggle who always felt somewhat left out. His name was Hopper, he was a very nice Quiggle, with a great sense of humor, and was also very talented in athletics. He had an amazing aptitude for Lily Pad Racing, he was one of the best racers in the pond. Although no one was aware that he even knew how to race since he had never told them, he knew that they would have just made fun of him. He was a lot smaller then all the other Quiggles, but he was better at almost everything than the larger Quiggles. The other Quiggles didn’t like to have smaller Quiggles do things better than them, so they did not really like Hopper that much. Whenever Hopper did something impressive they always ignored him, since they knew that they couldn’t do it as well as he could.

     Every year the Quiggles had the annual “Great Lily Pad Race.” The Lily pad race is a race in which eleven Quiggles can compete. Before the race, if you want to compete, you must go to tryouts. Then the judges of the tryout choose the twenty best athletes for the race. Then there is a campaign where all the Quiggles in the pond get to vote for the Quiggles that they think should be in the race. After the campaign is over, the eleven Quiggles chosen are the ones who will be in the race.

     At the start of the race there are eleven lily pads all lined up in a line. Each competitor gets on their assigned lily pad, and when the referee of the race waves his flag to indicate the start of the race, all eleven Quiggles leap off their lily pads either into the water or onto another lily pad if one is in jumping distance. The object of the race is to be the first Quiggle to the other side of the pond and on the correct lily pad. The prize is a medal, trophy and the pride of knowing, that out of all the Quiggles in the pond, you got chosen and won.

     Hopper was speculating about the Great Lily Pad Race, which was coming up soon. He pictured himself winning the race, and disproving all the Quiggles that made fun of him, and thought that he would never be able to compete in let alone win the race. He really wanted to compete in the race, but he knew all the other young Quiggles would just make even more fun of him if he tried out. Besides he didn’t think he could get enough votes anyway.

     It was dark out as Hopper was hopping home from the pond. Ahead he saw three dark shapes sitting by the tree. He tried to discern the dark shapes to see whether they were Quiggles or some other kind of neopet. As he hopped closer he saw it was three of the Quiggles that always made fun of him. Their names were Leap, Skimmer, and Webs. To avert them from seeing him and starting to insult him, he decided to try to sneak past them without being noticed. He had almost made it past them when they turned around and saw him.

     “So, Hopper, are you going to try out for the race, since you think your sooo good, or are you too chicken to try out,” said Leap cruelly. Hopper did not reply.

     “I bet he’s going to try out and make a fool of himself in front of the judges,” said Skimmer insultingly.

     Hopper still made no reply, he was deciding whether to say something or just leave and go home. He didn’t want to hear anymore insults and he couldn’t think of something mean to say back, so he took a huge leap away from the Quiggles and hopped home as fast as he could. He could hear them laughing at him for running away. Determination permeated him, he decided that he was going to go to the tryouts, that he would be chosen for the campaign, and he that was going to win the race and disprove the Quiggles that teased him. Hopper went home and got a good night sleep, so he would be well rested for the tryouts, which were tomorrow afternoon.

     The next day Hopper went to the tryout, still determined to be chosen. There were about fifty Quiggles at the tryout. The coaches put them through all of the tests and obstacles, while the judges observed and chose the best ones. Sure enough, there were Leap, Skimmer, and Webs, standing at the edge of the field to yell BOOO! at the end of Hoppers obstacle courses. There was one obstacle course that caused quite an adversity for all the other Quiggles, but for Hopper it was no problem at all. At the end of the tryouts the judges gave a speech about the obstacles that they had watched the Quiggles deal with. It wasn’t one of those long, boring speeches, it was concise, it only took about five minutes and Hopper actually enjoyed listening to the feedback of the tryout. Then they read out the list of the twenty chosen Quiggles Hopper was one of them. He was overjoyed when he heard the judges call his name.

     It was the end of the campaigns and the votes were being counted, everyone was waiting for the final list of competitors to discover who would be competing. Hopper was confident that he would be one of the eleven. It had been relatively easy to get Quiggles to vote for him, for some reason that he didn’t know of. The final results were posted, and Hopper was on the list, first on the list actually, he had been the most voted for out of all twenty of them. Hopper could not believe that he had actually qualified for the real race. He could not wait for the day of the race, which was two days away.

     The day of the race finally came. Hopper was on lily pad number four. All the Quiggles were positioned on there lily pad, waiting for the referee to begin the race. The referee waved his flag and Hopper dove into the cold refreshing water. He searched for a lily pad to climb onto, but didn’t see any. He swiftly swam forward in the water, but came to a sudden, jolting stop. Oh no! Hopper thought frantically as he looked down at his webbed feet. One of his feet was caught in some kind of plant. He saw all the other Quiggles pass him. He was losing his lead. He struggled to pull his foot loose, but couldn’t. I need a knife or something thought Hopper, who was starting to panic. I can’t loose the race, not after all this work, I’ll be the laughing stock of the pond. Hopper thought. He looked at the bottom of the pond and saw some sharp looking rocks. He improvised a crude knife out of one of the really sharp stones, and managed to cut his foot loose.

     He swam as fast as he could, while frantically searching for a lily pad to leap onto. He saw a lily pad up ahead and leaped out of the water onto it. He was ahead of eight Quiggles, but he was still behind two. Third place wasn’t good enough for him. He leaped across the lily pads as fast as he could, he was catching up to the Quiggle in second place. He dove under the water again so he could swim under the Quiggle in front of him and then resurface in second place. His plan worked, but now he still had one more Quiggle to get in front of.

     Once he had resurfaced in second place he tried to figure out how to get in front of the Quiggle ahead of him. He noticed that the Quiggle was only jumping about half as high as Hopper was, meaning that if Hopper jumped a little higher than he was now he could jump over the Quiggle in front of him. He was going to have to jump over the him because he couldn’t find another way past him and they were almost to the finish. Hopper leaped a little bit closer to the Quiggle and prepared to jump. He pushed off the lily pad as hard as he could, and he went soaring over the Quiggle in front of him, who was stunned. He landed gracefully on a lily pad, once again in first place. He dashed across the pond to the line of lily pads that marked the finish. He turned to the right and leapt onto lily pad number four. Hopper couldn’t believe it, he had just won the race! He could hear the crowd cheering, and he saw Leap standing in the crowd looking upset that Hopper had won the race.

     He had to wait until all the others were through with the race before he could get his trophy. Once everyone was finished, Hopper was placed on the podium and given his medal and trophy. Hopper had never been happier in all his life, and to think he owed it all to Leap and Skimmer who had made him angry enough to go to the tryouts. Leap, Skimmer, and Webs pretty much stopped bullying Hopper after that, and some of the other Quiggles even wanted to be his friend, which made him extremely happy. So in the end he owed it all to his enemies.

The End


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