Week 2 Story: The Selfish, Brazen Rabbit

This story is also on my portfolio if you would like to read it there: The Selfish, Brazen Rabbit

Once upon a time, there was a young man named Rabbit. He was the most handsome guy in all the land and knew it as well. He was the favorite of all the others students in town, and even his teachers favored him. He was also smart and a very talented in seemingly every sport. Everyone seemed to envy him and try to follow after him. If he bought a certain style of clothing, soon the entire school would have it. This constant fanfare began to go to his head though. As he got older, his ability to do no wrong made him mean in his soul. He began to toy with the younger students because he could. No matter what he did, he breezed through it. If he skipped an assignment, the teachers gave him an extension. If he was accused of bullying, he claimed to be misunderstood. Somehow life seemed to be perfect for Rabbit. By the time he was a senior, he was the most popular student with anything anyone could ever ask for.

The same cannot be said for a girl named Lion who was a year younger than Rabbit. She was quiet and faded into the shadows easily. She did not have many friends. She had lived a hard life, and growing up this way enabled her to see through Rabbit’s façade. She was all too aware that him tripping another student wasn’t an accident and his good grades came from cheating off of the other students. It all seemed so unfair to her that he got away with everything and had such a great life that he took for granted.

One day, Rabbit got too cocky though and decided to steal Jaguar’s car. It was cooler than the one he had and he thought he deserved it more than Jaguar. He was only going to go buy a snack at the gas station but when bringing it back he hit another car in the parking lot. He knew that even he could not get out of this, so he decided to just leave it. Jaguar was called when it was found and he was in serious trouble. The principal thought Jaguar not only wrecked his car but was lying about it as well. Jaguar was obviously confused but Rabbit claimed that he saw Jaguar leave the wrecked vehicle. Rabbit was such a great student and so well liked that Principal Deer immediately believed him over Jaguar.

Jaguar was expelled and the whole school was talking about it. Soon the rumor mill had fabricated a story that said Jaguar not only ran someone over, but then left them for dead. The whole school had turned on Jaguar for doing such a terrible thing. He lost all his friends, his parents were furious, and he had been expelled.

When Lion heard this story, she knew it could not be true. Jaguar had always been nice to Lion and she just knew he wasn’t capable of something like this. To get to the bottom of the story she went to her friend Elephant to figure out what was going on, but Elephant had just heard the story from Fox, but Fox had just heard it from someone else, and so on and so forth. Finally Lion realized that she just needed to talk to Principal Deer because it was unfair that Jaguar was going through all this, but before she could talk to her, she ran into Rabbit. Rabbit was hanging out with his friends in the hallway bragging about how he saw Jaguar do the whole thing. Now knowing that Rabbit was involved, Lion was all the more convinced of Jaguar’s innocence. Lion went to Principal Deer to plead for Jaguar’s innocence, but Principal Deer said without evidence, there was nothing she could do. Then Lion remembered that the gas station across the street had a security camera. Principal Deer and Lion got the tape and saw Rabbit stealing Jaguar’s car.

Now that Rabbit had been caught red handed, everyone else saw through all the terrible things he had done. Slowly all the rumors and drama he had caused unrolled. Jaguar was brought back to school and Rabbit paid for his car to be fixed. Lion having investigated and uncovered the whole ordeal found herself at the center of attention and was now the most popular girl in school. Although it seemed from the outside that Lion was receiving all the same treatment that lead to Rabbit turning bad, she had a good heart and used her newfound popularity and power to bring people together and to show everyone that in the end it is important to not follow blindly.

Author's Note: This is an adaptation of a story in which a Rabbit starts a stampede because it is scared that the world is crumbling. Its hysteria sparks other animals to run along with it in fear until the Lion stops them to ask why they are running. After going down the line to find the Rabbit started it, the Lion takes the Rabbit to where it thought it heard the world start to fall apart and learns that the sound was just a coconut falling. I changed this story to be set in a high school and instead of the Rabbit being a timid animal, it is a egotistical boy who starts a rumor instead of a stampede. I did not like that in the original story the Rabbit was a good guy who just made a mistake and the Lion called him foolish for it. So I changed some personalities and settings, but kept the theme that following a situation blindly is usually a bad thing. 

Bibliography: "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" from the Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt. Original Story

Image Information: School Hallway, Wikimedia Commons, Source