In a green savanna, a snail walks slowly. He looks so sad. The snail feels unhappy because most of animals in the savanna where he lives often mock him. They always say bad thing about the snail. They are happy when they succeed to make the snail sad and hopeless.
“What are you doing, Mr. Snail? Where are you going to?” ask a mouse.
“I am running to the river” answers the snail.
“Hah, you are running, I think you are not going to anywhere” mocks the mouse “look at me. This is what you have to call “running” the mouse runs very fast and away from the snail. After that, the snail meets a snail.
“Hey, why are you walking so slowly, Mr. Snail? Can you walk faster? How poor you are. You are the slowest animal in the world, ha ha ha?” says Mr. Snake. The snake is so famous for his speed; he is able to crawl on land so fast and swim on water in high speed, much faster than fishes swim in water.
The snail says nothing. He just looks down. He doesn’t answer the snakes because he knows that what the snake says about him is correct. He goes to a river alone to get some water, because of thirsty. Suddenly he meets some young rabbits when he is in the riverbank to drink.
“Gosh, I am meeting Mr. lazy again” says the biggest rabbit.
“Let’s stay away. If we get close to Mr. Snail, we may be impacted, to be lazy and slow like Mr. Snail” says another rabbit. The others rabbits just laugh and they jump and jump as high as they can to mock the snail. It is impossible for snail to jump, even put up his body.
“Watch out, don’t jump to the river Mr. Snail when you drink. You may fall into the river. Remember, you can’t swim. Ha ha. And we wont help you” says a mouse deer. The other animals laugh and the snail get sadder and sadder; his tear starts dropping.
Suddenly an old and wise lion appears from a bush. He hears all what the animals say about the snail. He wants to help the snail. Then he thinks about how to solve the snail problem, and finally he gets one idea. He stands up in a big stone and roars loudly. All animals around, the rivers including Mr. Snail, are shocked, and they look at the lion, they want to hear something from him, they want to know why the lion roars loudly, because the lion is the most respected animal. All animals pay respect to him and scared of him.
“All animals in here, I have an announcement for you. All of you mock the snail, you say that Mr. Snail is lazy, and always walks slowly. Today I announce that Mr. Snail is the strongest animal in this savanna. No one of you is stronger than Mr. Snail” says the lion loudly. all animals are shocked when hear that, including Mr. snail. All animals want to protest, but they just keep silent, waiting for the next speech from the lion.
“Starting today, you may not mock or disturb Mr. Snail again, If you do that anymore. I wail punish you” says the lion. Some big animals, like cow, buffalo, deer, etc, start grumble. They wonder why the lion stands for the slow snail.
“It is horrible. Snail is not the strongest animal. Look at me, I have big body, I am so powerful.” A buffalo says.
“I am the biggest animal in here.” An elephant says.
“I am the fastest animal” a horse says.
“Yeah, Snail is not the strongest animal. It is impossible” the crowd says.
“I have one proof to prove that snail is the strongest animal among you” exclaim the lion to the crowd of animal.
“What is the proof?” ask the animals.
“The proof is, snail is able to bring his house wherever he goes. No one of you except the snail, able to do that, bringing your own house over your head or body” The lion says. All animals look ate the snail angrily.
“It doesn’t prove that snail is the strongest animal.” The elephant protests; he doesn’t agree with that proof.” I can take things that thousand times heavier than snail’s shell”.
“Yes, that is true. I can step the snail’s shell and destroy it into pieces” says a goat.
“Okay, okay. The snail can do something that all of you will never can do that” replies the lion.
“Do what?” ask a zebra.
“Can you climb?” ask the lion.
“I can’t, but monkey can climb up” a dog persists.
“But the snail can climb higher than a monkey” the lion persists too. The atmosphere gets hotter.
“The snail has to prove it” says a giraffe.
“Yes, he will. Mr. Snail and Mr. Monkey will climb up the same tree, that palm tree. They have to climb until the top of that palm tree” says the lion again “Mr. Snail and Mr. Monkey please you climb up the tree, as high as you can. The winner is who reach the top or the highest point. It is fair or not?”
“Okay it fair, I will defeat the snail. The snail may climb up first” says the monkey. He is sure that he will win easily.
The snail hesitates to do that. He is not sure. But he thinks that it is the only chance to prove to all animals that he is not as weak as the think. He must meet the challenge. Then he gets close to the palm tree. He looks to all animals, and so the animals look at him too. It is so noisy; all animals mock him, saying that it is impossible the snail win the climbing competition.
The snail starts climbing, but it is too slow. It takes much time to reach half of the palm tree. All animals say “ho, ho, you will never reach the top”.
The snail is tired, but he keeps climbing. Not long time after that, he almost reaches the first palm leaf. Then the monkey starts climbing up. The monkey just takes no more than one minute to reach the same point as the snail gets.
“Hurrah, hurrah” says the animals when the monkeys almost gets the top of the tree.
The snail feels hopeless. “I must be lost” says the snail. The he stops climbing for a while. Suddenly a miracle happens. The monkey can’t climb up higher anymore; the twig of palm tree is too fragile to bear the monkey’s body. He always fails to get the top of the tree.
The snail sees that, and then he gets more spirit and climb up again. The snail is small and light; he can climb the top of the palm tree easily without worrying to fall down.
Finally the snail succeeds to reach the top, and the monkey fails. All animals are shocked knowing that the winner is the snail.
“Look, the winner is the snail. He is so small, but he can reach the top of that tree. All of you can’t do that, even the monkey, who lives on tree, can’t defeat him in climbing tree. Starting this time, you must be good, no mocking the snail anymore” the lion says loudly.
All animals just keep silent, no voice; they are ashamed. After that day, no more animals dare to mock the snail. They make a friend with the snail. And the snail is happy, because no one say bad thing about him anymore.
All animals live in harmony and peace in the savanna.
