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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