How the Whale Became by Ted Hughes Page A

nowhere in sight.
    Suddenly he saw her – but not coming up his hill. No. There was a black hill on the skyline, muchfarther to the East, and she was just peeping silver over the top of that.
    ‘Ah!’ cried Hare. ‘I’ve been waiting on the wrong hill. I’ll miss her if I don’t hurry.’
    He set off towards her at a run. How he ran. Down into the dark valley, and up the hill to the top. But what a surprise he got there! The moon had gone. Ahead of him, across another valley, was another skyline, another black hill – and that was the hill the moon was climbing.
    ‘Wait for me! Wait!’ Hare cried, and set off again down into the valley.
    When he got to the top of that hill he groaned. And no wonder. Far ahead of him was another dark skyline, and another hill – and on top of that hill was the moon standing tiptoe, ready to fly off up the sky.
    Without a pause he set off again. His paws were like wings. He ran on the tops of the grass, he ran so fast.
    By the time he got to the top of this hill, he saw he was too late. The moon was well up into the sky above him.
    ‘I’ve missed her!’ he cried. ‘I’m too late! Oh, what will she think of me!’
    And he began leaping up towards her, calling:
    ‘Moon! Moon! I’m here! I’ve come to marry you.’
    But she sailed on up the black sky, round and bright, much too far away to hear. Hare jumped a somersault in pure vexation. Then he began to listen – he stretched up his ears. Perhaps she was saying terrible things about him – or perhaps, yes, perhaps flattering things. Perhaps she wanted to marry himmuch too much ever to think badly of him. After all, he was so handsome.
    All that night he gazed up at the moon and listened. Every minute she seemed more and more beautiful. He dreamed how it would be, living in her palace. He would become a king, of course, if she were a queen.
    All at once he noticed that she was beginning to come down the other side of the sky, towards a black hill in the West.
    ‘This time I’ll be waiting for her,’ he cried, and set off.
    But it was just the same. When he got to the top of the hill she was no longer there, but on the farther hill. And when he got to the top of that, she was on the next. And when he got to that, she had gone down behind the farthest hills.
    Hare was furious with himself.
    ‘It’s my own fault,’ he cried. ‘It’s because I’m so slow. I must be there on time, then I shan’t have to run after her. To miss the chance of marrying the moon, and becoming a king, all out of pure slowness!’
    That day he told the animals that he was courting the moon, but that the marriage day was not fixed yet. He strutted in front of them, and stroked his fur – after all, he was the creature who was going to marry the moon.
    He was so busy being vain, he never noticed how the other creatures smiled as they turned away. Hare had fallen for their trick completely
    That night Hare was out early, but it was just thesame. Again he found himself waiting on the wrong hill. The moon came over the black crest of a hill on the skyline far to the East of him. Hill by hill, he chased her into the East over four hills, but at last she was alone in the sky above him. Then, no matter how he leapt and called after her, she went sailing on up the sky. So he sat and listened and listened to hear what she was saying about him. He could hear nothing.
    ‘Her voice is so soft,’ Hare told himself.
    He set off in good time for the hill in the West where she had gone down the night before, but again he seemed to have misjudged it. She came down on the hilly skyline that was further again to the West of him, and again he was too late.
    Oh, how he longed to marry the moon. Night after night he waited for her, but never once could he hit on the right hill.
    Poor Hare! He didn’t know that when the moon seemed to be rising from the nearest hill in the East or falling on to the nearest hill in the West, she was really rising and falling over the