Writing Randomness

Short Story - The Tortoise vs. The Hare vs. The Rat

There was much tension between the three contenders the morning of the race. They all wanted to win so bad, but knew only one could come out on top. They all had a reason to win, a motivation that will keep them moving throughout the race. They wanted it so bad.

The reason the race even got started was because Jack and Hopper were hanging out one night, reminiscing their first race and having a good laugh over it. Neither won because the path was so messed up and none of them knew where the finish line was. But being so tired after it, they never wanted to do it again. Until Phil approached them.

"Hey, which one do you think is faster? You or Hopper?" Phil, the plump grey rat asked the green and brown tortoise.

"We already had this discussion. We don't know and we'll never know." Jack stated, trying to ignore the rat. None of them were really friends with him, anyway. He was sneaky and a liar; nobody would want to be friends with someone so evil.

"But I know you two want to know. I can see it in your eyes." Phil stated, looking back and forth between the two.

"We're not going to race each other." Hopper declared, and they turned away from the rat, carrying on their own conversation. Phil, however, was not going to give up that easy.  

"Well, I know I'm faster than both of you." Phil smirked as he said it; his plan was going to happen.

"We all know that's not true." Hopper stated, and Jack nodded his head. "We all know rabbits are faster then rats."

"Oh, you're so sure of yourself then?" Phil was trying to be serious, and the smirk disappeared. "Prove it."

"You're on." Jack and Hopper said together, shaking claws/legs with each other. They worked out the details and they would meet in three days to stock up on fuel and get ready.

Today was the day of the race.

The course itself was made of mostly hilly grassland, but around the area where they got lost, there was a lake they had to cross at twelve hundred and twenty five feet, ninety-five feet before the finish line. They all had goggles so swimming would be doable, but Hopper and Phil couldn't swim well. Only Jack could.

They all met up at noon. The race markings had still been there from before, so they all just went to the starting line.

"Jack, you go and start ahead. I know you're a turtle. so you're considerably slower." Hopper told him, and he nodded. This wasn't the race between Jack and anyone else; only Hopper and Phil. But Jack went ahead a thousand feet and waited for the whistle. He wanted to finish this race since he got lost the first time.

When Hopper was watching Jack go ahead, he lost track of Phil. But he assumed he was hiding behind a bush to come out and scare him; it'd be his typical self. But what he didn't expect was for him to sneak ahead of them all and start all the way at twelve hundred feet ahead of him.

When Phil passed Jack before the race started, he had to be extra careful to make sure he didn't hear him. One wrong step could pull the cheater flag from him, and nobody wanted that drama from Jack.

Phil got passed and ran another two hundred feet, waiting for the whistle. He gave them a whole one hundred and twenty feet to get past him. Seems fair, right? No. But the joke was on him when he realized he left goggles at the start. And right when he started to run back, he heard the whistle sound. The race had begun, and he was going backwards.

Jack was running at three-fourths a foot per second, going faster than he ever did before. He felt so sure he was going to win, because nobody had past him yet. But he knew something was up when he saw Phil come into view.

"How are you ahead of me?" Jack asked angrily, but Phil zoomed past him, going the other way. Jack looked back for a quick second, but gave up on a logical response because there was none. At that moment of the race, the crossing of the two was at seventy-three seconds and one thousand and fifty five feet.

However, Phil knew he was screwed when he saw Hopper come into view. He was going at four feet a second, faster than Phil could go forward.

"You cheater!" Hopper accused, yelling from afar. "You were supposed to start with me!"

"But I didn't!" Phil laughed at how he deceived him; but he was the one running backwards. There was a death glare between the two of them as they passed each other. The very spot of that was at two hundred seconds and eight hundred feet. Now Phil only had a lonely road until the start, hopefully to find his goggles to somehow teleport and still win.

After what seemed like forever, Hopper finally was in vision of Jack. He smiled as he put his goggles over his eyes, jumping into the water and swimming. He caught up to him, looking back with a smirk on his face at the point of three-hundred and eight seconds and twelve hundred and thirty-one feet. They were in the middle of the lake at the time, but because of Jack's exhaustion, couldn't go any faster, but kept the same pace.

Hopper won the race at three hundred and thirty seconds. He was happy for Jack though, as he finished ninety-four seconds later. They left before Phil even finished, going off on their own and celebrating their victory against him. Why should they wait for a cheater?

Phil finally got back to the starting line at six hundred seconds. He found his goggles behind the bush he had used to sneak away from Hopper, but by the time he finally got them in his hand, he realized there wasn't a point in trying to finish. He slumped away sadly, hoping to get out of there and avoid them for a while. It wouldn't be fun the next time he encountered them.