Don’t Stay Up So Late

“You must never play again!” exclaimed the man. Everyone gathered in the park for the championship finale. Flats and the man hid in their most secret spots. Flats clung to a tree trunk and turned brown. The man cleverly cloaked himself with a machine he had invented. The searchers commenced seeking. At first, they were off-track. Then they started wandering closer to the hiding spots.

Flats was nervous when a seeker passed him. The man tried not to sweat so they couldn’t hear him.

Thirty minutes passed, the tension grew, the crowd mellowed, the hiders nearly panicked. Then, finally—

“Found you!” shouted the seekers. Nervously, Flats looked up, afraid the seekers referred to him.

But no! The man was the one found when his machine ran out of diesel.

“I won! I won!” shouted Flats.

“Our boy won!” shouted Mr. and Mrs. TwoDimension.

“No! I can’t lose!” shouted the man in demise. “But I’m a man of my word. You’re the World Champion.”

The man moved back to Scotland and Flats returned home to rest as the World Champion of Hideand-Seek.