{"id":248,"date":"2021-01-27T17:45:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/27\/king-of-the-schoolyard\/"},"modified":"2021-01-27T17:45:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:45:00","slug":"king-of-the-schoolyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2021\/01\/27\/king-of-the-schoolyard\/","title":{"rendered":"King of the Schoolyard"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of my baby turning 20…egads, I no longer have teenagers! How did that happen? Anyway, lol…I wanted to share another story from my upcoming book, Apo’s Army<\/i>. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
King of the Schoolyard<\/b><\/div>\n
\n

When we were young, we all knew that being King of the Hill
\nwas the highest honor that there was on the school\u2019s playground. Whoever was
\nking got to walk at the front of the line wherever we went. They decided which
\ngames we played at lunch. They were the unspoken ruler of our class. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Regal was just a small kitten when he started going to
\nschool. Like most kittens, he would watch the recess competitions to see who
\nwould win. King of the Hill didn\u2019t happen every recess. It only happened a few
\ntimes during the year, so whoever won would be king for at least three months.
\nIt was a very big deal at our school. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Every time there was a challenge, Regal would be there
\nwatching. He really wanted to be king, but you had to be at least a third
\ngrader before you were allowed. Third graders never won though. It was almost
\nalways a fifth grader. Regal didn\u2019t care though. He practiced whenever he had a
\nchance. Unless there was a competition happening, the hill was empty. Every
\nrecess we would watch Regal running up and down it. To become king, you had to
\nbe the first cat up the hill. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Regal did this for over a year. He grew bigger and all of
\nthe practicing made him really fast. He was so fast that he was the first
\nkitten chosen to be for any race. As soon as someone yelled go, he\u2019d be the
\nfirst kitten off of the starting line. It didn\u2019t matter if it was a regular
\nrace or one that had hurdles. He would fly down the track and always came in
\nfirst.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When he was in third grade, he knew that it would be his
\nchance to be king. He\u2019d trained for it. He\u2019d worked so hard. He knew that he
\nwas ready and that he could win. He just had to wait for lunchtime. The morning
\nseemed to go on forever. He had a hard time paying attention during math and
\ninstead was doodling pictures of him running up a big hill. Lunchtime was even
\nharder.  He didn\u2019t want to eat the turkey
\nand gravy that the cafeteria was serving. He just wanted to get outside to race
\nup that giant hill. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As soon as the bell rang to release us from the lunchroom,
\nRegal was the first of us out the door. He ran right to the bottom of the hill
\nand started stretching. Tons of other kittens joined him. A few of us climbed
\nup the hill so that we could judge who made it to the top first. Then, once
\neveryone was in place, a whistle was blown, and the kittens were off! <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some raced as fast as they could, but then slowed down about
\nhalfway up the hill. Others took off slowly and actually passed those who
\nslowed down. But, where was Regal? At first we didn\u2019t see him. Then, as the
\ncrowd thinned out, we saw him. He had passed those who gave up halfway up and
\nwas passing those who had taken off slowly at first. He was already almost to
\nthe top! <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then, just as we were all sure that Regal was going to win,
\na grey cat named Swiffer ran right past him and up to the top! Swiffer was a
\nfifth grader and had won King of the Hill the year before. When Regal got to
\nthe top, he was disappointed to see Swiffer there, but still clapped and
\ncheered for him. When I talked to him later, he said there would always be more
\nraces and he wasn\u2019t going to give up.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Except Regal didn\u2019t win any of the races that year. Swiffer
\nwon every single one of them. We all thought for sure that Regal would give up,
\nbut he never did. He kept training and he kept racing. The next year, he was
\nright there at the front of the pack when the whistle blew.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He took his time getting up the hardest part of the hill.
\nOnce he got past that though, he took off so fast! He was a cream blur as he
\nran past the other kittens. As he got to the top, he almost ran right past us
\nand back down the other side but came to a sliding stop just in time. Everyone
\nclapped and cheered for him. He had worked hard and now was king!<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In fact, he was the longest reigning king. He was king for
\nall of fourth grade and all of fifth grade. Nobody really minded though because
\nhe was always super nice. He listened to everyone and when he had to make a
\ndecision, he always thought about what everyone wanted to do. He may be the
\ngreatest king that we ever had at our school.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019re all much older, a lot of us still live near
\nthe school. Regal is now in charge of all of us who live in the area and I like
\nto think that he\u2019s such a good leader because of the kind of king of the hill
\nhe was all those years ago. Sometimes we sit around and we talk about those
\ndays, but mostly Regal is always looking for ways to make our lives better now. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nIf you like what you’ve read here, please share it with others using these buttons:<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of my baby turning 20…egads, I no longer have teenagers! How did that happen? Anyway, lol…I wanted to share another story from my upcoming book, Apo’s Army.  King…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}