Hare, There and Everywhere: Episode Eight – Finale
by Martin Smith
Previous Episode
At the 40K marker, Hare reached the top of the last incline and looked down upon a sleepy valley. In the distance he saw a long, long stretch of green bordered by stands, and at its end, a marquee and a throng of dotted bodies. The home straight! Within his sight and his grasp. He looked back and saw neither Tortoise nor his lorried nephews. Just daylight. Oh God! He was going to win. He’d talked the talk. He’d walked the walk. And now he was going to get to dance the dance. The Victory Dance. He allowed himself a fist pump.
‘Still 2.2K to go, champ,’ Hare said. ‘Focus!’ He picked up his pace and surged down the hill. ‘Just need to round that bend up ahead, and I’ll be on the home straight.’ Hare raised his triple chins, pumped his arms and lifted his knees as he sped towards the bend and victory.
Ahead, an engine groaned and changing gears clunked, and a truck swung around the corner and, with a couple more clunky gear changes, accelerated towards him. Hare hopped to the left to allow the truck to pass on his right, but the truck veered towards him and, with another grinding gear change, surged forward. Hare jumped to the right, but again the truck swerved so that its path realigned with Hare. ‘What the hell’s this idiot’s game?’ Hare said. He raised his arms and waved to get the driver’s attention. And then he saw them. Four masked teenage tortoises sitting across the bench seat of the truck, all leaning forward with mischievous grins of murderous intent.
‘Holy Lepus shit!’ Hare said, closing his eyes and bracing himself for impact and death. ‘This is it. Death Day. My parents always said I’d end up roadkill, pancaked to the bitumen on a busy highway. Oh God! To think I was so close to vic—’
A screech of brakes and a squeal of tyres drowned out his last words. He braced and waited and … well, nothing came.
He opened his left eye and looked around him, and his eye and gaping mouth filled with dust. Beyond the dust storm came the rev of an engine and a grinding of gears, and a quartet of voices shouted, ‘Cowabunga, you conceited coward! Bet you shit yourself.’ And the truck roared away.
Hare waved a clenched fist and shouted, ‘Fuck you, you little shits! After I’ve won, I’ll make sure you never, ever, ever work in the removalist industry again.’
As the dust settled, Hare checked himself for bumps and bruises and soilage, and relieved he had emerged unscathed and unsoiled, he turned and started hopping forward again. An arrowed sign signalled the bend ahead, and Hare put his head down, gritted his teeth and leant forward and right as he swung into the home straight. ‘Easy as—’
Bang!
Hare came to a sudden stop and crumpled to the ground. ‘What the hell?’ he said as he held his head. The dust settled, and he looked up and before him stood a bricked barrier.
‘Oh God! I’ve hit the wall,’ he said. ‘What idiot builds a brick wall in the middle of a road?’
A glint of light caught Hare’s eye, and he crawled over to the wall and knelt before a small brass plaque and read: Brick Wall. Another facility proudly sponsored and constructed by Testudinal House Removalists.
‘Those little shits. I bet their uncle put them up to this.’
Hare scrambled to his feet, and grunting and groaning and huffing and puffing, he scaled the brick wall, jumped down the other side and began his sprint down the final straight.
He reached the stands filled with cheering spectators. ‘Hare! Hare!’ they chanted. Clap, clap. ‘Hare! Hare!’ Clap, clap. Amidst all the adulation, Hare smiled and waved and blew kisses. He stopped, signed autograph books, kissed kits and posed for selfies. And the crowd roared and—
Bang!
A truck struck Hare from behind and knocked him to the ground. Crrruuunnnccchhh! Hare’s left leg flattened as the truck’s front wheel rolled over it. Crrraaaccckkk! Hare’s left arm snapped as the rear wheel followed. Oh God! Hare thought, I’m hit. With the finish line just twenty metres away. Using his good arm and leg, he dragged himself to his good foot, and with his left arm hanging by his side and his left leg dragging behind him, Hare put his head down and limped on with grim determination towards the finish line.
‘Stop! Stop!’ a voice from within the truck said. ‘I think we ran over someone.’
The truck stopped.
‘I don’t think so,’ another voice said.
‘I’m pretty sure we did,’ a third voice said.
‘We’d better go back and check,’ a fourth voice said.
Gears clunked, and the engine revved, and with a groan, the truck reversed and—
Bang!
The truck struck Hare from in front and knocked him to the ground. Crrruuunnnccchhh! Hare’s right leg flattened as the truck’s back wheel rolled over it. Crrraaaccckkk! Hare’s right arm snapped as the front wheel followed. Oh God! Hare thought, I’m paralysed. I can’t move my arms and legs. He looked up and saw the finish line. Just ten metres ahead. Move! he willed himself. He was still in the lead. Surely he could drag himself across the finish line. Let the salve of victory heal his wounds.
Hare raised his head, opened his mouth and brought his head down so his buck teeth gripped the moist turf of the final straight. He writhed his body and dragged himself forward. Again! he willed himself. Raise, open, grip, drag. Again, he inched forward.
As Hare raised his head for a third time, a voice from inside the truck said, ‘See, there’s nothing there.’ Gears clunked, and the engine revved, and with a groan, the truck moved forward. Towards Hare. And—given the alignment of its wheels—certain to complete its roadkill.
But Hare completed a full roll to his right, and as the truck passed over him, he lifted his head and attached his buck teeth to the undercarriage. And the truck dragged him forward. Towards the finish line. Towards victory.
Five metres to go. Tears welled in Hare’s eyes. He was going to win! Four metres. Three. Two. One. Oh God! Eternal glory was his.
The truck stopped.
Oh God! No! Hare thought. Not here. Not now. Not less than a millimetre from the finish line. Not less than the skin of his buck teeth. Indeed, not a hare’s breath from victory.
The truck door creaked open, and with much grunting and groaning, a grey, stumpy, scaly leg stepped down. Three other legs and a shell joined it. Tortoise.
‘Thanks for the lift, boys. You’ve been a great help today.’ The truck door slammed shut.
Tortoise squatted and looked under the truck and into the whites of Hare’s disbelieving eyes. ‘You all right there, champ?’
‘Cheat!’ Hare said.
‘As I said at the starting line, all’s fair in love and war and competitive road racing, you obtuse oaf.’ And Tortoise gave Hare a wink, rose on his hind legs, pirouetted several times until his back faced the finish line, and with an outlandish moonwalk, he backed through the finish tape.
Victory!
The crowd roared. Cameras clicked and flashed. A band fanfared. Confetti, balloons and streamers dropped from the sky. Officials rushed forward and draped a medal around the victor’s neck. A flushed-faced Doe cosied up to Tortoise’s side and whispered sweet nothings in his ear. And four ninja tortoises raised their uncle on their shoulders, and Tortoise waved to the crowd and blew kisses and thumped his clenched fist to his chest.
‘Nooooooooo!’ Hare said. ‘I should be the winner.’
A pot bellied man with a misshapen head and a snub nose and swarthy, dwarfish, bandy legs and short, flabby arms and a squint-eyed, liver-lipped face stood at a podium and raised a megaphone to his mouth, and after the crowd hushed to silence, he said, ‘What a day! What a race! What a loser! I think we can all agree on the moral of today’s event: Better to savour the present than seek to redress the past.’
‘Bastard,’ Hare gurgled with his last breath, and he closed his eyes and the race of his life was run.
THE END
Stay tuned for Martin Smith's hilarious new serial beginning Sunday 19 July!
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