He was hungry and he was hurrying to his favourite carrot patch. Suddenly, the world around the hare started to shake and tremble. Apples from the trees started to fall everywhere. A pile of stones, which had been in the same place every day, collapsed and the stones began to roll everywhere, squashing everything in their path. The ground began to crack. A massive tree made a horrible, groaning noise and began to fall!
The hare was very scared and hurried into a small cave. It was as though Mother Nature had become very angry. It was an earthquake. After a few frightening minutes, things calmed down.
The hare was grateful that he was alive and unhurt in spite of all the chaos around him. That’s when out of the darkness of the cave came the voice of his friend, the tortoise.
The tortoise told the hare that he had also taken shelter inside the cave, scared that he would be killed by the heaving earth. But, his little brother had gone out to play in the woods and hadn’t yet returned. He begged the hare for help to locate his little brother as the hare could run much faster than he ever could.
The hare agreed to help the tortoise and set off. After three hours of rooting about everywhere in the deep jungle, he found a very young and very scared tortoise stuck between two big stones.
The young tortoise was in tears. The hare tried very hard to dislodge the stones and release the little tortoise, in vain. He saw two of his friends near a cabbage patch and called out to them for help. The three of them heaved with all their might, but the stubborn stones refused to budge an inch.
The tortoise soon found his way to the scene. He managed to heave himself under the stones and create a small gap. This is just what his friends needed to dislodge the stones. Everyone cheered loudly as the little tortoise inched his way out of danger.
The hare told the tortoise, “My friend, this adventure has taught me that each of us have our special strengths. You may not have the speed that I have, but I do not have the wisdom and the strength that you possess. This teaches us to respect and value our differences, doesn’t it?”.
