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The Woesome Tale of Horace
or
The day a snail tricked some gods

Sept 2008, by FE

Once there was a snail. His name was Horace. Horace the snail was the fastest snail on earth. He could go an amazing 1 mph! One day Horace went out for a walk. Unfortunately for Horace,he forgot to check the weather channel that morning. So he didn't know that the terrible hurricane Ike was coming in that day. Convinced that it was going to be a great sunny day, Horace decided to be risky and went out to a big field with very little cover.

It was an hour later, while Horace was munching on a blade of grass, that the first gray rain cloud arrived. Soon after that, the storm began. Horace found himself drowning in the massive raindrops. Furious, he began cursing the rain, the clouds, and the thunder.

Then out of nowhere appeared: Thor, Norwegian god of thunder; Zeus, the Greek god of thunder; Jupiter, the Roman god of thunder; Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea; Neptune, the Roman god of the sea; Ægir, the Norwegian god of the sea; as well as various other gods of rain and thunder and water, all from various different cultures.

The gods were all very angry at the previously atheist snail. They did not take the cursing of their creations kindly. Horace, thinking quickly immediately pleaded for their mercy. The gods, who had been feeling quite jolly not counting the whole cursing business, decided to forgive Horace if he accepted and won a challenge they gave him. The gods all loved free entertainment.

Quick thinking Horace, wasted no time and suggested a challenge right away.
“ How 'bout a race? Select the fastest snail you can find and I'll race 'im!” said Horace. The gods, not knowing about Horace's impressive speediness agreed to having a snail race and if Horace did not win he would be punished.

The gods searched far and wide for a snail that they could deem as the fastest. Eventually they found one named Steve. Steve was the quickest snail in his grass patch, he could go a speedy .6 mph!

The gods were flabbergasted by Steve's speed and thought that this was as fast as any snail could ever possibly go. But then again, they didn't know much about things as trivial as the speed of a snail.

They created a flat rock 21 inches long (about the length of two pieces of paper), and put a finish line at one of the ends. Steve and Horace were lined up in front of the starting line. Thor threw a mighty thunderbolt into the sky, and the race began!

Horace slimed across the rock as fast as he could, he was so full of adrenaline he went a .2mph faster than usual, an astonishing 1.2 mph! Being so amazingly fast he easily passed Steve and won the race. The gods then realized they had been duped.

The gods, even more upset than before knew they had to let Horace go unpunished. But they were furious, not only had this puny snail cursed them, but he also tricked them! Now more than before they wanted to punish the little snail. Sadly they knew the could not inflict any harm on the snail without going back on their word, or at least that's what they thought.

One young god, however, had a plan. Splish, was the god of puddles. He was fairly new and mainly worshiped by young children, though there was the occasional childish adult. Splish, though very young, was very clever. Splish decided to confront Horace.

“Horace,”he said, “ the gods and I have been quite impressed by your speed and intelligence! We wish to grant you one wish.”

Horace was shocked.

Horace took a few moments to think and then decided on his wish.
“ I wish to be remembered forever, as the fastest snail on earth who tricked the mighty storm gods.”

“Well then, let your wish be granted!” said Splish, as he snapped his fingers.

A puff of smoke appeared around Horace; and before any one realized what had happened it disappeared. Where Horace the snail had once stood was a small statue of a snail with an alarmed look on it's face. On the base of the statue there was a message engraved.

“ This is Horace. May he be forever remembered as the foolish snail who tricked the gods with his ridiculous speed.”

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See, I said I would post it!

I wish you could indent in the posts it would save space instead of having a huge space between each paragraph.