Hello. My name is Speedy, and for good reason. I’ve got long, long legs and I can really go! You can catch me if you can – but I don’t think you will.
In a race, I come first. Always. I never, never lose. Well alright, there was that one time that I took the silver medal – but it only ever happened once. It’s so unfair that people keep going on about it. I blame that Aesop. He’s the one who wrote it all down.
It happened in March, and that’s the time of year that we hares go a bit crazy you know. We’re so busy springing in the Spring that sometimes our thoughts just can’t quite keep up with our legs. Look, I’ll tell you what happened – just so that you understand that it wasn’t really my fault. It could have happened to anyone.
Do you know that old tortoise who lives in the next field? He’s so slow, that the first time I saw him I thought he was a rock. In fact, I’ve seen rocks that move faster than he can. His head looks like, well, a cabbage, and his feet look like Brussels sprouts. Quite frankly, he’s a ridiculous creature.
One day I was leaping around the fields and he was just watching me, and nodding that cabbage-like head of his. I bounced up to him and said: “Come on you lazy old thing, is that all the exercise you take? Just nodding all day long? I’m surprised you don’t nod off to sleep.
The tortoise didn’t answer. His mouth was full of grass and he was chewing – very slowly.
Just then a fox popped out of the hedge-row. He scratched his flea bites and said: “Don’t you know that the tortoise hibernates?”
“Hiber-what’s?” I asked.
“Hibernates,” said the fox again. It means that he goes to sleep for the whole winter.”
“HA! Sleeps – For the whole winter!” I said. “That’s incredible. He must be the laziest creature alive. In fact, it’s hardly fair to say he is alive. If he was dead it would be hard to tell the difference.”
It was all too easy to mock the tortoise. He couldn’t be bothered even to stick up for himself. He just kept on munching, so slowly.
But the fox, who’s a big know-it-all, replied for him:
“Most likely he will be around after we are both long gone. Tortoises can live for over 100 years.”
“A hundred years!” I exclaimed. “Just nodding, chewing, and occasionally plodding. I’d get bored out of my mind. I have to run and jump and win races. If you’ve got speed, then you can really know that you’re alive!”
Then that wily old fox said: “I’ll lay a bet that the tortoise can beat you in a race. Not a quick dash of course. He’s hardly a sprinter – but a proper race over a good distance. Say, up to the top of that hill and back. I don’t believe you’ll beat him in a race like that.”
“Pah!” I said. “I’ll beat that old tortoise over any distance, any day, any time.”
That’s how I got myself into that infamous race with the tortoise. The fox arranged it all for us the next day at noon. The sun was high in the sky, and the heat was scorching. It was more like summer than spring.
All the local creatures came to see the fun. The crows cawed and the cows munched like they normally do. You could tell that something interesting was going to happen because they were swishing their tails, and not just to keep the flies off. It was the biggest thing to happen around these parts for ages.
Of course almost everyone was backing me to win. You only had to look at me -lean, fit, with a terrific bounce in my step. And then look at HIM – an old, cabbage head, with a great shell on his back. I was the clear favourite. Only the fox was backing the tortoise. He was taking bets off his cronies, the badger and the rat. If I won, he would do them a month of services and favours. And if the tortoise won, they would have to work for him for a whole month. The badger and the rat thought the fox must have gone soft in the head to make such a silly bet.
At last the fox called out: “Ready, Steady, Go!” I hung around for a moment to see the tortoise lumber off the starting line, but he was taking so long about it that I got bored and shot off towards the hill. I was flying across the field, but I must say, the hill was a long way
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