How The Echidna Got Its Spikes

• Molly Flint, Grade 7, Diamond Valley College - Diamond Creek Campus
• Short Story
• 2018

Excellence Award in the 'Horizon of Dreams 2018' competition

Long, long ago in the place you now call home, there was a wombat, no bigger than your face, she shook her head, grumbled and very loudly stumbled across the Earth. This awoke Yorgeya, the sleeping possum. Yorgeya’s head shot up and she spun to see Mora the wombat under her tree. This put Yorgeya’s tail in a twist – this was HER tree, NOT Mora’s! So, she gave a fierce cry and gnawed the tree (her very own home) down to the ground in spite and threw the little pieces all over the Earth with as many as possible trying to hit Mora. But much to Yorgeya’s dismay, one or two of these little pieces had hit Okkah on the head. Okkah was a great beast, he was a dingo, he was gigantic, and he was mad! He dug his claws into the Earth, so all could hear the scratchmarks, he then rushed as quick as he could to catch the fool who had dared threaten him and his power. Within the sunset, he had found them and grabbed Mora by mistake but almost instantly after looking into her eyes, he knew that she could not possibly be the treacherous soul who disobeyed the God’s hierarchy! So, he let go of Mora and reached for Yorgeya, as soon as his hand had touched her fur he knew that she was the one, the one he had to punish. He screamed so all alive could hear; “How dare you?! I shall give you a punishment for betrayal of a God!” And with that, he vigorously threw her to the ground and grabbed his spear. He lifted it up high above his head as Yorgeya dared not move, as he would find her again if she ran away. He gave a ferocious roar and whoosh, the spear flew in circles around and around and around and just one second before what seemed to be Yorgeya’s inevitable death, Mora crawled as fast as her little legs would go – and saved her! Mora did in fact die shortly after, but her random act of courage and sacrifice persuaded the gods to turn Okkah’s spear into merely a few spikes, which were still highly dangerous, but every year, these spikes hurt a little less and less until one year they won’t hurt the bearer of them at all. All the other creatures decided to call Mora – Echidna, for the ‘e’ stood for ‘empathy’.
Every night Yorgeya would peer out from her home, swing her tail around the branch and look at the sky, there she would say a silent sorry and thank you, for this deed could never be repaid only by many, many, many nights of empathetic, “I’m sorrys.”