How the Hare Resented The Tortoise

Hare was born in a small mound of dirt on the edge of the woods where the only thing that grew was thistles, nettles, and borage.

The Hares were the garbage of the forest, just straight up trash. They kept to themselves and whenever they saw someone coming would run off because the eyes of society had affected their self-esteem something awful.

But Hare was different, he was born brave in a family that cowered out of habit. He was full of natural energy, and the impetus to win. He ran about the forest quicker than anyone. He ran about the forest like he owned it.

In the early years most hated Hare for this.

The upper classes — the Tortoise with his rich green, well polished shell sniffed at Hare running by and ignored him, the Partridges and Peacocks and their wives would tut-tut when Hare sped past, and the snakes would slide down their private paths and declare no hare should disturb them. Yes, definitely, the upper classes hated the young upstart Hare.

The solid forest middle classes…

The fox, whose law practice supported the tortoise’s respectable empire with every dirty trick in the book

The woodpecker with it’s up and coming messaging business

The owls and the squirrels and the brown bear.

The solid forest middle classes looked forward to the day that reality would teach the little upstart a lesson.

The Lower classes from which Hare sprung, and took off like a lightning bolt shot from a longbow, well, the adults of the lower classes echoed the solid middle class opinions they aspired to.

The stoat and the hedgehog were adamant that they did not appreciate that high octane fuel Hare was bringing to the table, the badger growled that everyone had their place and the rabbit would be put in his soon enough,

But the poor youths told a different story.

They said how Hare was gonna take on big Tortoise.

They said how nobody could stop the Hare. Hell, nobody could even slow him down.

They said how one time he ran over the rotting log that bridged the cold brook in the mossy side of town so fast the hummingbirds stopped humming for a short span of time, and the youngest racoon called that short span of time a “longHare” and that name stuck.

Now nobody is ever really better than everybody at everything, but there are those who do seem close, and when you’re one of those that seem close and you were born at the bottom, then looking up life seems full of unfair obstacles, snares and traps, and the undeserving lording over it all.

But Hare never seemed to let it get to him. He just jumped about and bragged and held sway over the younger animals with his charisma and great unfulfilled promise that someday he would do something so great that the unfair world might right for a second and seem justified.

That Tuesday Night — The Meadow

The cubs and pups and grubs and fledglings and yearlings and all them was hanging out in the meadow, as they do.

Hare was holding court. He looked something. Had a rose nip stuck behind his ear and parsley all across his back. The muskrat boys looked with admiration at that parsley, everyone knew there was only one place you could get that much parsley without paying for it in the whole wide woods, Hare, he for sure had some brass balls on him.

Skunk sidled in with his usual attitude, nobody ever wanted to be near the skunk but Hare paw-bumped him and they stood laughing about something nobody else was close enough to hear. Everybody wished they could be cool as Hare and Skunk.

So little Brown Bear, he spoke up and say “Hey Hare,” and “Hey hare!”

Skunk looked sideeye at the upstart bear but not mean, and Hare answered him “Yeahhh, br’er Bear?”

“Hey Hare!” said Brown Bear, and then looked confused at not needing to have said it again and then, because he want to seem smart “My pops says you should stop,” Skunk looked super-annoyed “bu-bu-but I don’t think so. I think you ain’t never gonna stop!” declared little Brown bear proudly, and stood up on its hind legs and pawed the air to show support.

Skunk grunted, and then chuckled. The raccoons whistled and laughed and hopped about at the idea of Hare ever stopping, and also cause they knew he never would.

Hare smiled and stepped more into the meadow center, the moonlight shone on his pelt, and he hopped onto the tree trunk, the wildflowers seemed to bend in to hear him, though maybe the sweet breeze just blew them that way.

Hare looked about him and he chuckled “Now how I’m gonna stop? You know I’ve got to keep on..”

the many-colored fireflies lit up the backdrop, tinseling the dropping branches of the weeping willows with reflected luminasticity, as the assembled beasts leaned in for the song of their hero.

Keep on pushing Keep on pushing I’ve got to keep on pushing (mmm-hmm) I can’t stop now Move up a little higher Some way, somehow Cause I’ve got my strength And it don’t make sense Not to keep on pushin’

the Beaver kids, who were from the wealthy side, but liked to hang with the tough kids, caught up in the moment, lent their voices to chorus.

Hallelujah, hallelujah Keep on pushin’

Hare accepted the chorus as his natural right, and kept on.

Now maybe some day I’ll reach that higher goal I know that I can make it With just a little bit of soul Cause I’ve got my strength And it don’t make sense Not to keep on pushin’

Now look-a look (look-a look) A-look-a yonder What’s that I see A great big stone wall Stands there ahead of me But I’ve got my pride And I’ll move on aside And keep on pushin’

That was a hell of a thing for Hare to sing right there. For the stone wall, that ran through the northern edge of the wood, and was full of lichen wort, and had about a hundred birds nests in it, and the best most delicious mushrooms along it’s length, that stone wall was owned by the Tortoise.

The news went out from that night — the rabbit had laid a claim against the Tortoise.

Such a sensation. And he claimed he would keep on pushing. Miss Pelican by the marsh said to Mr. Crocodile “I heard he’s gonna keep on pushin” and Mr. Crocodile said back “I spect he will”, and over by the edge of the pasture it was rumored among the wild pigs and crows that Hare had his pride, that he intended to move the stone wall aside.

Oh the stories went about, and the story was sent by the woodpecker to the office of the fox who read the reports and then went to call on the Tortoise. The Tortoise owned many companies, the stone wall was perhaps his pride but even if it had been knocked down by rampaging bulls it would not seriously have harmed his finances.

One company he owned was Toad’s Holes and Hovels. A dirty little company that provided housing to the lower classes at extortionate rates and didn’t ever do any work to keep that housing up for what little money it took in. And Toad’s Holes and Hovels owned the poor Hare family home, such as it was.

So when Hare’s parents received an eviction notice Hare was angry and thought the time was ripe to call the tortoise out.

Hare ran up and down the meadow first, gathering dandelion fluff on his coat, and then he ran along the stone wall and shaking the fluff out of his coat so it went all over the wall. And the mice that lived in the wall, the snails, and the robins and all sorts of well to do folks got sneezy from the fluff and were put out by the rude little hare who nobody could stop.

Then he jumped up and stood on the very edge of the wall, where the wall ended and the broken down gate hung off a metal pole.

Then Hare spoke “Now I have all your attention, I challenge Mr. Tortoise to a race — the loser gotta leave this wood and never return. Come by the big road tomorrow if you’re tough enough, and if you ain’t crawl outa here alone!”

Well that threw a monkey into the trenches, as the saying goes, and that next morning most all the population was gathered there by the big road, where the turn goes out from the smaller dirt road and you can see the thick wood to the left and the long swaying grasses to the right and way back in the background the main body of the wall running back and behind the patch of woods that comes out to block the continuing view.

Hare was standing in the middle of the smaller dirt road and a bunch of the kids were gathered on the trench of weeds that ran beside the dirt road. It was getting near noon time and Mr. Tortoise had not yet shown, people were starting to think maybe Big Tortoise would back down. The middle classes started to have their opinion change of the Hare, they thought if he could stand up to Tortoise maybe they could too. They also started to feel in a small way somehow that the Hare was some sort of hero.

But then from far off down the road a cloud of smoke could be seen, smoke and dust, as it came those with good hearing could hear the growling of some irritable hungry bear, Hare for sure heard it but he didn’t look worried done — and why should he — there weren’t a bear in the woods he could not outrun.

The dust cloud and smoke kept approaching and among the smoke it could be seen that there was a shiny red and gold box made out of metal, and then it could be seen that sitting in that box on one side was the Fox, with his gray top hat, white gloves and velvet topcoat,

Folks now was not so rowdy, they stood back a ways as the big metal box, more a cylinder really, came rolling up with 4 black circles where its legs should be, there was a strong and deep humming coming from its snout.

Inside the box the Tortoise was seated opposite the Fox, holding onto a circular form that looked like a knobby branch bent and grown into itslef and that was attached to the interior of the box by a large and thick black bough of some disturbing material nobody could recognize. It looked absolutely ridiculous and strange and disturbing and frightening, whatever could the Tortoise mean to be seated in something like that!

Had the stress of being called out by a young upstart punk-hare unraveled his mind?

Wilbur Woodchuck, the youngest of the woodchucks, who was so young and cute and little that he couldn’t even chuck wood yet said what everybody was thinking “What the heck is that?!”

“This, my young friend” announced the Fox as he opened a door on his side of the metal box and got out “is a car!”

Everybody had a great laugh at that, because everybody knew what a car was. A car was an old pile of rusted over metal with mushrooms growing on the seats sitting out by the edge of the corn fields beneath the big tree with the beehive in it. It sure weren’t this bright and loud thing before them.

The fox smiled that way he would when he wanted to bite somebody but the moment wasn’t right for it, and so he just sort of sneered and then forced a smile at the end to make it seem he weren’t upset.

The Tortoise remained seated in the “car”, on top of a couple of leather bound books, his tan scarf blowing in the wind and his goggles a bit misty. “I am here to race” he announced.

“Well come down from there then” said Hare.

“No he won’t be coming down…” began the Fox, but stopped as the Tortoise was talking as well, and the help does not speak when the boss speaks.

“No I shan’t be coming down, I will race in this thing, and you I suppose shall run along the dirty ground — as is the way of your kind”

“Alright hardshell, let’s see what you got!” Hare went out to the real road and laid a stick in the middle of it.

“We’ll race from here, all the way to the big windmill, then double back by frontedge, take the long switch to Brandersen’s creek, over the creek bridge, and then coming back to the main road end up back here. Take your mark”

The tortoise moved some sticks that sat in the floor of his fancy box, and the “car” slowly moved forward to its starting point to the right of the stick Hare had laid on the ground. The Beaver boys snickered, how in hell was that slow thing ever gonna compete with almighty Hare!

Hare could have called it himself, or could have handed it over to anybody else but he wanted to beat the Tortoise so hard and good that everybody would know Tortoise got beat, so he said “You say the time, I’m ready”

Tortoise did some things nobody rightly understood but the car started to make an excited vrrrm-vrrmm sound like a cat readying up to pounce.

Then Tortoise said “Now”

Hare was off lickety-split, but so was Tortoise, and it was a wonder to people that Tortoise in the car pulled even with Hare, or really slightly ahead. Hare was running as hard he could and looked over at Tortoise. Tortoise in turn looked at Hare.

Tortoise looked at Hare and then the car began to pull slightly ahead, Hare tried to run as fast he could but not matter that car was just slightly ahead, than a little longer ahead, and then it sped away leaving Hare in the dust, blinking at the car disappearing in the distance.

Hare stopped, he was hot and dusty and knew, now, that he could not beat the car.

But maybe he could cheat that damn car.

Now it gave Hare some pause to think about cheating, but then the whole idea from the start had not been fair, obviously Tortoise could never outrun him on foot and so Tortoise with his money had cheated his way to a car and now Hare just had to cheat some to get ahead of that.

Hare struck across the fields, he knew is was a 15 minute run straight through the field that would take him to frontedge road that would put him nearly an hour and a half ahead of the car — at least that much! Then it would take him another hour to get back to the finish line. It sure would look weird him having run that in such a short time but he could explain it as pure excitement giving him wings.

In 14 minutes 10 seconds he came out on frontedge, he paused a moment to get his breath and looked to the left at the road he still had to run and then he turned and looked to the right and saw what he couldn’t believe, a small cloud of dust off in the distance — coming up fast.

Hare turned left and ran with all his might, his lungs were burning and the muscles that led to his forelegs and backlegs got all taut with the strain, but he ran still harder, but he could hear behind him coming up the car and there was still 50 minutes left to run, maybe 45. As fast the car was going who knew though, so Hare then went to the side of the road that was away from where Tortoise was seated, the right side of the road, and he grabbed himself some dandelions from the road and put them in his mouth while he was running and the car rumbled past him, Tortoise raising one scaly claw at him from the front seat as he drove by.

Hare sped up somehow as the car went by so that he could near match its speed for a couple seconds, but that time was enough for him to jump and land on the very back end of the car where there was a little black ledge, and a metal knob, and one of the round legs of the car tied up on the back which he caught on to just barely.

He sat there for 5 minutes to catch his breath, but it wasn’t that helpful given the smoke and dust, so then he put the second part of his plan in motion.

Hare crawled slowly along the outer rim of the car, on the side away from where the Tortoise was sitting, crawling from the back of the car to the front.

The car was going fast, and it would soon be turning to the bridge, Hare had crawled past the rear door and was halfway past the front door when the damn thing flew open and nearly knocked him off the car. As it was he fell down halfway so that his rear paws were padding on the road, getting buffeted cut up something awful cause of how fast the car was going.

“Get the hell off my car, you miscreant!” It was Tortoise, yelling from the driver’s seat, who had figured out Hare’s ploy and kicked open the door at the right moment to dislodge him.

“No can do, Pus-pus” said Hare (the most insulting thing one can call a Tortoise), struggling back up and too the side. But Tortoise did not intend to allow him to remain there. From somewhere in the car he lifted out a long cane and began to smash the side where Hare hung on for dear life, while recklessly careening back and forth on the rode.

The Bridge came into view and there were some young ‘uns out there to watch, and a murder of crows in the sky cawing their exultations. Wallace Woodchuck, Wilbur’s elder brother was there and yelled hella loud “Holey-moley, Hare is wrasslin the car!”

As they came over the bridge Tortoise swerved the car from side to side, while standing dangerously up and hitting at Hare with his cane. Hare knew Tortoise would stop at nothing, because sure wasn’t he just the same? So he let go of his perch by the rounded shield over the front right leg of the car and slid forward along the snout. Tortoise yanked the wheel of the car so hard it spun around a couple times and the car jumped and clattered. With this Hare lost his hold and flew down over the snout of the car and would have gone right under the belly but that he caught on to the silvery pole that muzzled the front of the snout of the car, and he hung on for dear life.

Immediately the car zig-zagged and as luck would have it the car bumped on the road up and down, like it was going over a stone or perhaps a body “Hah, die you rascal!” shouted Tortoise, after which the car slowed down and drove at a more leisurely speed.

Hare climbed up on to the silvery pole and then stuck his face all the way out before the car, so that wherever the car went Hare should get there first by a nose. He made sure not to let Tortoise know he was still alive.

As Tortoise drove at a medium pace toward the finish line many animals both young and old could be seen to jump up and down happily and point and wave at the front of the car and Tortoise, appreciative of his public, waved back.

As they came up to the finish line Hare could see Fox standing, and waving his own silver handled cane about, to try to tell Tortoise to stop, which was just silly, at this point if the car stopped Hare could jump off and run over the finish line before the car could even start again! The best solution would have been to turn the car around and run over the finish backwards, if such a thing could be done.

But Tortoise waved back at Fox with the same haughty grandeur he displayed to the other lower and middle class animals, so that Fox in desperation jumped forward and attempted to strike Hare on his head just as the car came across the finish line.

“Watch it, you fool” bellowed Tortoise. Hare in his turn ducked and jumped to escape the cane, and as a result came across the finish line a good body length before the car. The car swerved and nearly ran over Fox’s foot, Fox jumped back and fell over into the muddy ditch by the side of the road. Everybody laughed.

Tortoise stood up in the car to receive the applause of the crowd, but then saw Hare standing ahead of the car. “How..” he said but then did not say any more, it didn’t matter how, it just mattered how it was.

And Hare he was hopping about loud and laughing, making fun “I won, I beat you, I beat you with all your money! You ain’t all that! You ain’t nothing”

Fox snarled out “You Cheated! You..”

“Shut up Fox” commanded Tortoise, and Fox was quiet. He knew which side his bread was buttered on.

“Indeed you have won the race my young friend, and deserve my heartiest congratulations! Three Cheers for the rabbit” announced the Tortoise, and people was all so busy cheering they scarce noticed the insult. “I admit it has been a tiring day, with great sport. I must admit I thought I had you a few times, but you did manage to get in ahead of me. Amazing fun! To Celebrate our sport — I have made some fizzy drinks and cheese available” The Tortoise gestured munificently towards a number of picnic baskets that were set up among some moss covered stones that nobody had laid a mark to before, that being I suppose the magic of money at work, that things just creep in outside the story and then when you notice them you think well of course it’s there.

The other animals ooohed and ahhhed, to think, fizzy drinks and cheeses were available. Why that Tortoise he was a class act from his head to his toe no two ways about it. Somebody shouted “Fizzy Drinks and Cheeses! Three Cheers for the Tortoise” and everybody cheered the Tortoise even louder than the Hare, and so that day became remembered as the day everybody cheered very loud for Tortoise.

Well everybody agreed it was a fine day and a wonderful race. Everybody also said it was a miracle that Hare had won because after some talk and cogitation it became apparent that the time for that race was run quicker than even Hare had ever run in his life. Hare he left early, the party wasn’t too much to his liking, nor the fizzy drinks and cheeses, even though there was 12 different colors of fizzy drink! Badger and the younger Fox took turns giving people rides in the car and everybody got a real good understanding of just how fast the car was.

By and by people started to say that Hare cheated, others said that Tortoise cheated to bring a car but that was poo-pooed by Fox right quick who pointed out sure that it was not fair for Tortoise to race Hare if he couldn’t use his money, any more than it would not be fair for them to compete on collecting expensive jeweled eggs if Hare weren’t to steal them. That was a good argument.

Tortoise though, being the class act all the way he was, would hear nothing of Hare cheating and saying only it was a good race and it was clever of Hare to jump up on his car and hold on to win it.

Some nights after the party a pack of Weasels broke into the Hare family warren, and killed everyone they found. It was a big tragedy and some people said it was Tortoise getting even, but others said that didn’t make any sense, why would Tortoise be upset when everyone knew he really won the race with his super fast car, so some other people said maybe it wasn’t Tortoise but maybe Fox and then others said but why would Fox care and anyway you know how Weasels are.

Three days after the deaths at the warren Skunk went and stunk up almost all the Wall, and spray painted Hare & Skunk 4 Life on the wall, so people said he probably knew where Hare had gone away to, and when he was coming back.

Shortly after that Skunk went missing too, and nothing of his was ever found excepting a bloody hat with some white and black hairs in it.

As far as Tortoise, it took a while, six months, because he had to wind up some affairs, before he did leave the wood, for a 3 week vacation. He came back and gave a speech about how although he had only slightly lost he was a Tortoise of his word but so many had sent him letters urging his return that he could not in good conscience stay away. So he had returned and it did not seem fair that everybody should suffer for a wager unilaterally set by a young fellow with high spirits and a bad tendency to keep company with Weasels, not to speak ill of the dead.

Folks saw that there was a lot of sense in this, and it wouldn’t have been fair.

Everybody was tremendously moved by this speech. Fox, who was standing close to Tortoise at the time might have cried, at least he dabbed his monogrammed handkerchief about his expressive eyes.

And that was the end of that matter, although there are some folks say Hare didn’t get killed in the warren, that he got out and away and that some day he would return to take his vengeance on Tortoise and Fox and free up the woods.

But Tortoise and Fox don’t rightly seem too concerned about this possibility.

This article was written by IG Agents 6 and 71.

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Agent 6 is also the author of The Vaults of Fug, available for Amazon Kindle

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