A Donkey Called Whip

There was once a donkey called Whip. He was lonely because he stayed on a farm with 12 horses. Horses are more popular than donkeys because they are prettier and stronger. Donkeys tend to be ignored when there are horses to be patted and given carrots to. Whip liked carrots too, but nobody would give him carrots.

Whip had one friend though, a sparrow called Caw, who used to come and sit on Whip and eat his ticks. Whip didn’t like having his ticks eaten, but the affection shown by this little animal was all the love he received and so he never shook Caw off. 

But Whip wanted more affection than just having his ticks eaten, and so one day he decided to change. He waited until all the horses were asleep and then he crept up to the most popular horse, Stirrup. Whip took out a pair of scissors and slowly cut Stirrup out of his skin. Although this sounds painful, horses actually shed their skin regularly and so Stirrup was quite used to losing his skin and didn’t wake up.

In the morning Whip stood clothed as a horse in Stirrup’s skin. All the other horses thought the farmer had bought a new steed, and they began to make friends with the newling. When Whip introduced himself he used a Spanish accent and changed his name to El Gracias so that they wouldn’t know it was Whip.

El Gracias became quite the popular horse and quickly had all the lady horses swooning. They used to come over to his part of the field for milk tart and good laughs, but whenever El Gracias looked over to the part of the field where he used to stand, he saw Caw sitting all by himself. Caw waited for Whip from morning ‘til night for 64 straight days. Eventually Caw feared the worst and came to the conclusion that his friend was dead. He made a little memorial for Whip out of stones, ticks and one of his own feathers. 

El Gracias felt really sad that he’d left his only friend to think that he was dead. All of his new friends only liked him because he was good looking and from Spain. They didn’t know the real El Gracias. He decided to take off Stirrup’s skin. He’d rather live as a donkey with a tick eating friend, than pretend to be El Gracias. 

When Whip, without the cloak of Stirrup, went up to Caw who was grieving by the memorial, Caw thought it was a ghost and started attacking Whip. “Ow, stop it you stupid sparrow,” cried Whip “it’s me, I’m not a ghost … owww”. These were the last words Whip would ever bray.

THE END