Samantha the Otter: Dilemmas Galore!
Wesley the weasel was watching Sammy. He glared at her in envy. She was 5 foot 6 inches and her sleek dark brown fur glistened in the water as she glided in the water with the simplest of ease. “I will defeat her in this year’s swimming contest, or my name isn’t Wesley!” Stomping away, he grumbled to himself. Sammy (Samantha) the otter was a 17 year old girl that always beat him at everything…even when she didn’t mean to. Wesley was known for being a big loser, while Sammy was known as a winner. The odd thing was, they were friends 3 years ago…until Sammy started to win everything that Wesley competed in. Wesley always came in second while Sammy came in first. Normally, one or two competitions per month aren’t good enough to ruin a friendship…but 20 per month? That’s enough to get on anyone’s nerves.
While Wesley was just about to storm away when he heard her sing. Sammy had an amazing voice, even to Wesley’s cold heart, so he stopped and listened to her sing a song. The melody and pitch were harmonious and everything seemed to slow down.
Wesley started to calm down, but then he got jealous at her again, wondering why she was better at everything. Suddenly, she stopped singing and started to frantically swim away from where she was. His interest spiked as there appeared to be absolutely nothing…nothing but a tiny yellow flower that fell inside the water…
Samantha, who surfaced in the water 2 miles away, gave a rapid-fire sneeze attack. “Hipchu! Hichu! Hacho! Hi…HICHOO! Hi…ha…ah…HATCHOO!” Her small blue eyes watered as the smell of that flower had gotten straight up her nose while she was singing her song and her nose didn’t react until the smell was all over her skin. Being underwater most of her life, that didn’t help the urge to sneeze too much because she was so used to being underwater. Still, she was glad that the sneezes were over…”Hipchoo!” Well, now they were over.
Sam was the kind of girl that an otter should be: athletic, graceful, quick, and pretty. Her fur always glistened when she was above water and she could swim just as well as any fish. Tomorrow was the big group swim race and she was sure that she would win. (She was also confident about her abilities too)…the only thing that worried her was her allergy.
Sam had the unfortunate allergy of being allergic to nearly 5 different flowers that formed on the riverbeds and grasses right near the river. Normally, they didn’t bother her, but this year those 5 flowers seemed to grow way more than normal and were just tall enough so that any wind that blew could carry the flower’s scent right into the river…or right into Sam’s nose. Her nose gave a twitch at just the thought of these flowers…one of them was that small yellow flower that had fallen into the river. Still, nothing would keep her from competing…nothing.
Wesley had followed Sam. He knew well enough what her shadowy body looked like when it was swimming, so he quickly kept up with her while she was swimming…or tried to. The otter swam a good fast pace…ok, a REALLY fast pace, and the weasel had only been able to run about 2/3rds of the distance before he had to slow down. Still, he heard her little allergy attack…and it got him an idea.
Looking like the evil cartoon Grinch as he smiled, he knew just what to do. Wesley was a good swimmer, but no land animal could keep up with an otter…especially like Sam…but someone could outsmart her. “Muhahaha…I know just what to do…” Slinking away, he got to the starting line of the race that was going to happen tomorrow. Frusturated that there were no flowers anywhere near the starting line, he looked around and noticed flowers all over the place 500 feet in front of him…but there were so many flowers there, around 30 kinds, that he didn’t know which one made her have that sneezing fit. This is a delimma…oh well. I’ll just take them all! One of these has got to make that winning, overachieving, too often a goody-good girl sneeze…and just to make sure…
Wesley gathered every flower his 4 foot body could hold and shook the crap out of them near the starting line. The wind somehow seemed like it wanted his plan to succeed, so the wind took all the shaken pollen and scattered it all over the whole river near this starting line, the pollen landed all over the water. Unlike most flowers, these riverside plants have unique pollen that doesn’t sink or loose its smell when it touches the river just because the plants have learned to adapt to surviving. If they didn’t have this adaptation, then no plants would grow near the sides of the river…and this played into the hands of the jealous weasel just perfectly…
Wesley wanted to be absolutely sure that there was no way that Samantha could win this competition, so he gathered more of the plants he found and scattered them across 3 more areas of the water that was within the race limits…one about 60 feet from the finish line. “Muhahaha…I’ll be sure to beat Sammy now. Just wait…I don’t care about winning…I care that I make YOU lose!!!!” Finally, his crazy eyes returned to normal and he went back home, getting ready for the swimming competition.
See you round Sammy…too bad I’ll be seeing you BEHIND me! I can’t wait to see the look on your face as you are helpless to stop the outcome…who knew that sneezing would come so handy?
Finally, the start of the race seemed to happen in a short blink. Every animal you can think of: bear, elephant, rhino, hippo, weasel, mink, mountain lion, otter, snake, anything, was there at the start of this race. The river wasn’t too big…only about 2/3rd a mile long, so groups of 10 were lined up at a time…and Wesley made absolutely sure that Sammy was in the first group. Letting her go later might screw up the pollen in the water…so he sabotaged the drawing so Sammy’s name was drawn exactly 5th.
Sammy was estatic. She loved the idea of going first. Happily wishing her competition luck, and at the same time enjoying the look on their faces when they realized that it was her they were facing, she grinned and took her position.
She realized that something smelled…sweet. Not wanting to be distracted, she brushed off the smell as something one of the other girls were wearing. Getting lower into the water, she remembered one of the rules of this competition: you couldn’t go completely underwater. If your head ducked underwater, you were disqualified. Sammy shuddered at the thought of losing by disqualification…but now wasn’t the time to get worked up about that. The smell grew stronger the closer her nose got to the water…and her nose began to tingle.
Taking a deep sniff to stop this weird sensation, the smell became way more stronger with that one sniff…and then her eyes looked on the water and she instantly realized why. “P…Pollen? O…oh no!” Her eyes began to water and her nose started to swish back and forth, not just a twitch but a full blown movement, desperately trying to shake the pollen smell out. She knew that she couldn’t go underwater to get most of the pollen out, and the tickles grew stronger with every passing second.
Wesley grinned. YES! It’s working…it can’t be long now.
Both of them were startled when the horn call sounded. They were both so preoccupied with the growing sneezing fit (both for obvious different reasons) but Sammy quickly snapped back in the race…but this force of movement caused the pollen in the water to be sucked up in her nose, making the itch intensify. Stopping completely, she released her sneezes.
“Hitchoo! Hi…HATCHIEW! ITCHEW! Hih…HICHOO!” She shook off the water that got on her face with each sneeze and then got back in the race. Wesley grinned…and then that grin faded. Every other contestant that got picked in the first round were the worst swimmers of the 120 people that showed up…Sammy caught then in the next 20 seconds and went past them…all except for the hippo. The hippo was still out in front, him being an average swimmer, the rest being incredibly not used to the water. Sammy swam faster, the itch returning in her nose but not powerful enough to cause her to slow down…and then her nose caught another wave of the sweet scent of the flowers.
Wesley grinned again. Yes…it was a great idea to put 2 more areas of pollen in th water after all. Take that Sammy…considering that you sneezed because of one measly flower, how will your sensitive nose take over 30 different flowers?
The answer was... not very well. Her nose begged her to stop, and that’s what she did. The smell became so overpowering that even the slightest wind from her swimming caused her nose to feel like it was on fire, the smell swirling around. Sammy’s eyes watered again and her body rose closer to the surface until she was completely above water…except her tail.
“Hi…hih…heeh…HITCHOOOO!” This first sneeze was so powerful it sent her body backwards 10 feet, making the distance between her and the hippo greater. Sniffing, she sucked up more of the pollen and had another sneeze build up in her trembling wet nose.
“Ha…ah…AH…AACHOO! Achoo! Hichiew! Itchu! Hi…HIchew!”
Each sneeze sent her backwards farther and farther, making the others catch up to her. She was in dead last by the time her sneezes ended, and now that the itch was completely gone, she focused and swam harder than she ever had before, forcing her body to become sleeker, take up less space, and working her muscles to the point of them screaming in protest. She didn’t care…she absolutely hated the fact (she just realized) that someone had sabotaged this race…and her mind was boiling mad. She blew by people, not caring that more pollen got in her nose (she went backwards, so she had to swim through the pollen water again). Her nose was twitching, the wind making the tickles worse, but she didn’t care. She was focused on winning so much any desire to sneeze at this time was overpowered. She could see the hippo now, and the hippo had 300 feet left compared to her 650 feet.
She sped up even faster, catching up to the hippo in a hurry. The hippo, not working hard and was basically just doing this for fun and not actually caring who won or not, saw a “thing” speeding up to him and he thought that it was a dangerous fish. He sped up, his fat body slowly gaining speed, they were neck and neck with only 100 feet to go…and both of them were going fast (the hippo from fear, the otter from determination). Finally, the finish line was so close in reach…and then the last wave of pollen slammed up inside Samantha’s nose.
Her nose had been twitching ever since the last sneezing fit, but now that this new wave of pollen rushed into her sineses, it made her nose beg for her to stop. She sniffed, keeping her fast pace, but this made it worse. She stopped 15 feet from the finish line…and the hippo went past her. The crowd cheered for the hippo, not realizing their previous 7 time champion was desperately trying to hold back her sneezes.
“h…hih…hiih…HA…AH….AAAHH…WATICHIEW!!! HICHIEW! ATCHOO! H…HECHOO! A…Ah…ACHOO! Hitcho…itchu…” Each sneeze grew softer and softer until no one could hear her sneeze anymore. She sneezed so quietly her last 5 sneezes that only a quick head bob showed the puzzled crowd that she was still sneezing. She must’ve sneezed a good 20 times before her nose finally died down, the quivering nostrils stopped and her trembling nose calmed down to only a few twitches. Sniffing happily, she got up out of the river, accepted her 2nd place trophy without any complaint, and went home.
The crowd knew someone was behind this…they just didn’t know who. Wesley, at the back of the crowd, was grinning from ear to ear. Finally!!! After all these years, SHE FINALLY FEELS THE PAIN OF 2nd PLACE!!!
Later that day, the hippo came into her home and tried to give her the trophy. Samantha grinned but shook her head. “Oh no thanks…haven’t you realized? Tha…that trophy…it…it’s different…thi…this…HITCHOO! HICHIEW! Sniff…I looked at it and thought abo…about…ITCHU! Sniff…making a fuss…but then I saw that trophy is covered in the flo…flowers…sniff sniff…that I’m aller…gic…to…ACHOO! ACHIEW! Sniff...” The hippo understood and took the trophy with him. Samantha learned a valuable lesson that day…sometimes winning isn’t everything…especially when the prize is something you are allergic to.
