The team was very talented, but their coach didn't have any running experience. He was the school's biology teacher and volunteered to coach, more like supervise, the boys cross country team after school.
"Okay, boys, great run today. I will see everyone after school on Monday. Enjoy your weekend!" said Coach.
Coach left and the boys stood around the water jugs, discussing their weekend plans. The team always got along really well, but since their coach didn't know anything about running nor competing, they had to coach and lead themselves.
"I propose we name a team captain," said Chuck. Chuck had always had a bold and outgoing personality and wasn't afraid to speak up.
"I agree. We don't have any type of leadership. I think our team could become even more successful if someone was our captain," said Dan.
All the other boys nodded their heads and said yes.
"But... how will we decide who is team captain?" asked Nate. All the boys were great runners, students, and friends. The decision would be hard but would have to be unanimous.
"I nominate Chuck," suggested Eric.
"Chuck is too fierce," said Dan. The team all agreed and Chuck stood there with a smirk on his face.
"How about Jonathan?" suggested Nate.
"No, not Jonathan," said Erick. Erick had served as vice president of the student body last year under Jonathan as president. He claimed that Jonathan was very unforgiving if someone made him mad. Jonathan glared at Erick and Erick quickly looked away.
"How about we go to the 10K in the city tomorrow and whoever finishes the race first from our team will be named team captain?" said Aaron. "The team captain should be the fastest runner on the team anyway."
The team all unanimously agreed and went home to get a good night's rest before their 6.2 mile run tomorrow.
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| 10K |
The boys stood at the start line, waiting for the start of the race. Joe walked up to the line last minute. Joe was last year's high-school State Champion cross country runner. Everyone knew that Joe was the fastest on the team. Joe was quiet, kept to himself, and was very humble for how talented he was.
"If only I could beat Joe somehow," Chuck murmured under his breath. Nate, overhearing Chuck's comment, thought of a brilliant idea. Nate knew that no one could ever truly beat Joe. It was impossible! Joe was always at least a quarter of a mile ahead of his teammates during cross-country meets and practices.
"I'm going to the little Nate's room before the race starts," said Nate.
"Don't be too long. The race starts in 15," replied Dan.
Nate walked toward the restrooms until his teammates were out of sight. Nate then slipped away to his car.
Having already received a map of the course, Nate drove towards the finish line and parked his car a mile away. Nate pretended to be a spectator handing out water, standing along the rope that blocked off the course.
Nate waited. He finally spotted Joe in the distance, about a quarter of mile away from the finish line. Nate jumped out of the spectator crowd and into the course. He sprinted to the finish line and crossed it with a feeling of exhilaration. A minute later, Joe crossed the finish line.
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| Joe in the lead |
Completely breathless and exhausted, Joe fell to his knees. He checked his Garmin GPS watch. He had just run his personal best time for 6.2 miles. His legs were numb and weak, but he smiled with a sense of accomplishment and joy. That is, until he looked up and saw Nate standing in front of him.
"What...what are...you... doing... here?" Joe asked breathlessly.
"I finished the marathon before you did. That makes me team captain," smirked Nate.
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| Teammates finishing |
Joe, in complete shock, couldn't find the words to say back to him. Joe did not see Nate ONCE during the 26.2 mile race and knew for a fact that Nate cheated his way to winning. Before Joe could gain the strength in his legs again to get up and punch Nate in the face, his teammates crossed the finish line one by one. All were exhausted and surprised to see Nate all chipper at the finish line.
"Congrats, Nate," said Chuck. "We all know this was a true win."
"See you in practice Monday, team captain," said Eric.
The rest of the team glared at Nate with looks of disgust. They knew he didn't actually run the race, but they were all to exhausted to put up a fight.
Nate was at first happy about his brilliant plan to achieve team captain status. That is until Monday at school, when his team ignored him all day. After school, the team didn't wait for Nate to finish changing in locker room. They started their Monday run without him and continued to avoid him the rest of the week. Ashamed and embarrassed, Nate quit the cross country team at CHS and decided to transfer high schools.
A team captain is no leader without a team to lead.
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| post run feeling |
Author's Note
This story was based off the original story, King Chameleon and the Animals, from the West African Folktale Unit. In the original story, animals in the kingdom got along so well that there was no need for a King. One day the animals decided to name a king, but could not agree on one animal. The lion was too fierce and the wolf's nomination was refused by the sheep and goats. To solve this dispute, the animals decided to run a race and whoever reached the tree stump and sat down first was to be named king. The hare, the obvious fast one, was predicted to win. When the race started, a chameleon decided to hop on the back of the hare to "catch a ride." When the hare reached the tree stump, the chameleon jumped off and landed on the stool. The hare knew that the chameleon cheated but couldn't do anything about it when the rest of the animals reached the finish line. None of the animals were happy with the chameleon being named king. So they ignored him and the chameleon felt ashamed and decided to move away to the kingdom.
In my story, Nate resembles the chameleon, Joey resembles the hare, Chuck resembles the lion, and Jonathan resembles the wolf. I changed the kingdom of animals to a cross country team and decided to make the race a marathon. Of course, Nate being the chameleon cheated and his teammates were not happy with it and decided to ignore him. The chameleon was ashamed and moved away to the top of a hilltop.
At the end of the original story, the closing line is ,"A king without subjects is no king." I decided to create a similar line at the end of my story to create a parallel to the original. I had fun writing this story and recreating the characters as high school boys.
West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).
The Chameleon King was also one of the stories I read last week and I thought it had a great moral to it. You did an awesome job of taking that original story and trading around the characters and the setting to make it still the same plot and lesson. I was sad in the original story because all the chameleon wanted was friends but he went about it the wrong way and therefore ending up with no friends or a following at all.
ReplyDeleteI think it is quite impressive for a high school team to want to run a marathon for a competition to be team captain.
ReplyDeleteOne part of your story that initially confused me was when Nate "merged into the pack of exhausted runners". If Joe was at least a quarter mile in front of the other runners, then there wouldn't be a pack to merge into. The I realized he was just the fastest on the team, not the fastest in the marathon. Giving an idea of how many runners and spectators this race had could help with this.
Bailey,
ReplyDeleteThe layout for this blog is very fun. The alternating shades of pink really make it feel lively. I like the font style. It is very easy to read.
I really liked this story being told in now times with the track team. It definitely made the story more fun and light. I felt like the dialog was natural for the most part and flowed well. The narrative had a definite end, and the characters had a true goal to work toward. I feel like we could have cut out a lot of the beginning with the coach and just left that out as it didn’t drive the story forward.
I did like the idea of Nate cheating. I feel like simply saying he quit the team after they all congratulated him for winning though rings hollow. Someone here should have confronted him and then ostracized him.
The author’s note really helped me to understand the story. I am in the Indian Epics class so I was curious to see where this story originated from.
I liked this story a lot! It cool how you related the animals to high school boys, to kind of put it into a real life situation. Your picture was hilarious too. Im glad all the boys knew who the real winner was because it would be really upsetting if Nate for captain. I also liked how all the runners wanted to fight Nate, but were too exhausted. I was a swimmer and after a race like that, its hard to even move. I felt bad he left the team, but he deserved it.
ReplyDeleteHey Bailey,
ReplyDeleteThis was a really good story! You did a great job of building and creating this story. I think it was very creative and brilliant how you were able to relate the animals from the original source of your story to high school boys, which helped put it all into a real life situation for me to relate to. Also, I really enjoyed the picture, it was very funny. It was comforting for me as the reader to know that all of the boys knew and understood who the real winner was. I can’t believe that all of the other runners wanted to fight Nate, but good thing they were all a little too tired to do it. I wouldn’t be able to think to do that after competing in a sporting event, you barely feel like doing anything. He deserved to leave the team, but it was till upsetting.
Hey Bay I really liked your story!! It was such a fun and easy read. I thought you did a great job changing this into a story that was really realistic and people could relate to. I always like stories that have a moral so I loved that you put that quote at the end to tie it all together. The original stories seemed like a good story as well, you did a great job taking the themes of that story and relating them to a real life scenario. Your authors note did a great job of summing up the original story and explaining to us the inspiration you had behind creating this one. The way you broke up your story with narrative and dialog went perfectly and created a great flow. It also made the story easy to read and entertaining. I'm sure you would have been the fastest one on the cross country team to (; Keep up the great work!
ReplyDelete