Hello all, If you haven’t read the children’s book I wrote I wanted to give you a chance to check it out before the movie Racing Stripes comes out on Saturday…my book happens to have a very similar plot so I think you’ll enjoy this one…:-)<\/p>\n
The Painted Zebra<\/p>\n
By Willie Chambers<\/p>\n
(For sample color pages at williechambers.com click on the star that says “writing”)<\/p>\n
Zoey the Zebra and Alley the girl
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Were the two bestest friends in the whole widest world.
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They rode on the beach, and they played in the sun
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From morning to evening through dusk until dawn.<\/p>\n
They swam in blue lakes and ran through green hills
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Found faces in clouds and picked daffodils.
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All was quite well in their nice peaceful place
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Until that one day when along came THE RACE.<\/p>\n
Excited at first when they both saw the sign,
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But sad when they read the last small frightful line…<\/p>\n
THE BIG RACE IS HERE SO COME JOIN THE CROWD!
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ALL HORSES MAY ENTER (NO ZEBRAS ALLOWED.)<\/p>\n
Alley and Zoey were shocked in despair.
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This couldn’t be true it was just plain unfair.
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They both were quite stunned as they stopped and they stared.
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‘Cause “Who can say who is allowed to go where?”<\/p>\n
They sort of felt bad, even felt down right mad
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Just seconds ago they were happy and glad.
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They wanted to race and they wanted to win.
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They needed a plan but where to begin?<\/p>\n
They thought and they thought,
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\u00e2\u20ac\u009dHow can we win first prize?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
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Said Alley, “I’ve got it! We need a disguise.”
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So they thought, and they thought, and they thought up some more.
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They thought until both of their heads got quite sore.<\/p>\n
They walked and they thought up so hard they felt faint<\/p>\n
Alley thought to herself, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What we need is brown paint.<\/p>\n
This is the answer! We know what we need!<\/p>\n
But we need to be secret, just between you and me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So they found paint and loaded it into the cart<\/p>\n
And they knew in their hearts they could win with their smarts.<\/p>\n
They went to their top-secret place in the trees<\/p>\n
Where no one could see them through all the thick leaves
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They painted and painted all through the clear night<\/p>\n
And slowly but surely covered up all the stripes<\/p>\n
You look like a horse now We can’t see your stripes<\/p>\n
And no one would know now, what’s on the inside<\/p>\n
There’s nothing to hide here We’ve changed your whole type<\/p>\n
And tomorrow, we’ll show them the ride of our lives!<\/p>\n
Now we are ready,but we need to rest<\/p>\n
We need a good sleep so that we’ll do our best<\/p>\n
They slept feeling happy & very aware,<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcCause no one could tell them where who can go where.<\/p>\n
The next morning they went and they entered the race,
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As everyone came from all over the place.
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(They sneakily entered the race as a horse,
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‘Cause no one could tell a brown zebra of course).
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The horses and jockeys lined up at the gate,
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All hoping a win would determine their fate.<\/p>\n
The crowd’s eager eyes stared with anticipation,
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As feelings swept through them with nervous emotions.
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The track was all set. Everyone placed their bets,
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But the zebra’s disguise wasn’t noticed quite yet.<\/p>\n
Then the crowd got real quiet, as wind then did blow.
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And the sun became covered, shading all down below.
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The horses were ready all ten in a row,
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And then it all started, with “READY, SET, GO!”<\/p>\n
They were all off like lightning, a chase to the end.
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Alley whispered to Zoey, “Let’s win this best friend!”
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They rushed down the track, zebra painted in brown,
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Hoping to prove that they should wear the crown.<\/p>\n
The sky became dark and it started to sprinkle.
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Wet paint on the zebra then started to trickle.
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The wind and the rain washed the paint off her nose,
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Until finally leaving the zebra exposed.<\/p>\n
“That’s not a horse!” said a face in the crowd.
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“Don’t they know zebras were never allowed?”
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“But look at it run! It’s setting the pace!
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It shows that they know, zebras CAN run the race.”<\/p>\n
They ran neck and neck speeding straight down the stretch.
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These horses were fast, just as fast as they get.
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They came to the finish, the crowd held their breath,
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But Zoey was fastest, and too hard to catch.<\/p>\n
They crossed the line first and won the whole race.
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They felt the great feeling of feeling so great.
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The crowd stood up smiling with thundering cheers.
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THE FIRST ZEBRA TO WIN IN ALL RACING YEARS!<\/p>\n
And the crowd was all smiles when down came the sign.
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That race was the day, that they all changed their minds.
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We don’t care about stripes. We’re all one of a kind.
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And now zebras can race any place, any time.<\/p>\n
The End.<\/p>\n
Original story written by Willie Chambers in 1985.<\/p>\n
Rewritten and illustrated in 2002.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2002.<\/p>\n
If you would like to see some sample pages with color illustrations go to williechambers.com and click the star that says:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Writing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a movie that is coming out this weekend similar to the story I wrote called Racing Stripes starring Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg,David Spade, Snoop Dog, and more so I thought you might like it.<\/p>\n
Thanks for reading the story! Hope you liked it!<\/p>\n
:-)Willie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hello all, If you haven’t read the children’s book I wrote I wanted to give you a chance to check it out before the movie Racing Stripes comes out on Saturday…my book happens to have a very similar plot so I think you’ll enjoy this one…:-) The Painted Zebra By Willie Chambers (For sample color […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/williechambers.com\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}