Lionel
I thought of this while looking at all the long boring lines painted on the road driving up to our grandparents.
Once upon a very long and boring time, there was a very long and boring motorway. All the way along it, from the start to the finish, were boring white lines. They were all exactly the same size and all did exactly the same thing, which was nothing – they just sat there showing the cars where to drive.
All except one line, called Lionel. Lionel was fed up of being just another boring old line. He wanted to travel, to see the world, to be something.
“This is so boring!” he said to the lines next to him (who were too boring even to have names).
“What do you mean?” replied the next line.
“Lying here all the time, being driven over by fast cars and fat lorries. There must be more to life than this!”
“But we're just white lines on the motorway. What else could there be?”
Just then, a truck drove past. On the side was a picture of a football pitch with nice neat white lines marking out the playing areas. The writing on the truck said “ACME Pitch Marking”.
“There, you see!” shouted Lionel. “I could be a white line at a famous football pitch.”
So he jumped up and ran after the truck. He caught up with it and stuck himself to the side. When the truck reached the football ground, Lionel jumped off and went and laid down on the pitch's halfway line.
“Wow!” he thought to himself. “This is going to be so exciting!”
He waited patiently until the time came for the next football match. It was exciting, but Lionel found that the studs on the player's boots kept treading through him, which really hurt. After the match, someone came and cut the grass with a big tractor with spinning blades. That really hurt too.
“This is no good. I won't last long out here.” And sadly he made his way back to the motorway.
“How did it go?” the other lines asked him. He explained what had happened sadly.
“Never mind,” his friends said, “we're glad to have you back.”
Yet Lionel was still restless. The next day, a circus lorry went past. On the back were cages with animals in them. Lionel spotted a zebra.
“Look!” he said, “There's an animal completely covered in white lines! It would be great fun at the circus, watching all the exciting shows!”
Up he leapt and chased after the lorry. He clambered through the bars of the zebra's cage and stuck himself to the side of the zebra.
The problem was, though, that he was not the right sort of line and could not fit in with the zebra's pattern. The next time the circus did a show, the circus master looked at the zebra with the big fat stripe on its side and thought it did not look right, so the zebra (and Lionel) spent the entire time hidden away in a tent at the back.
“This is even more boring than being on the road,” he moaned, and sadly made his way back to the motorway.
“How did it go?” the other lines asked him. He told them.
“Maybe you should just settle down here with us,” they said.
“Okay then,” he sighed, and settled back into his old position.
Just then, a van went past, painted with lots of interesting stripes. The writing on the van said “Super School Playground Patterns”.
“That's it!” shouted Lionel. “There is somewhere I can be myself and have fun!”
He jumped up, ran after the van and found his way into the back. The van drove all the way to a school playground, where the driver started to paint lots of fun games and patterns on the ground. Lionel sneaked out and shaped himself into a snakes and ladders game.
The next time the school children came out to play, they were delighted, and started playing on Lionel straight away. Lionel was very exited; he thought the game was great fun and the children's little feet were light and gentle.
That night, he changed his shape into a hopscotch pattern. The following day, the children were amazed to find this new game. So Lionel kept changing, giving the children different games every day (the teachers did not notice this, they never bothered looking closely at the lines).
Lionel lived there happily ever after. Next time you go to a playground, look carefully at the lines – one of them could be Lionel.