The Competition. A story for children by Virginia Hainsworth

Leon is a very special boy.  Now, I know that everyone is special in their own way, but shall I tell you why Leon is so special?  Well, certain parts of his body can talk to each other.  Now that is special.

 One day, some parts of Leon had a competition to decide who was best.  His lungs were the ones who started it.

‘Do you know that if our surface area was stretched out, we would cover the size of a tennis court?’ they boasted. 

‘A tennis court?’ replied Leon’s blood vessels.  ‘That’s nothing.  In Leon’s body, we are 96,000 km long.  That’s a distance of more than twice around the world.’

 ‘Twice around the world?’  laughed the muscles.  ‘Leon cannot take a single step without 200 of us working together.  That’s a huge number, you know.’

 ‘200?  That’s not a huge number,’ scoffed Leon’s skin.  ‘6 million.  Now there’s a huge number.  I shed 6 million particles every hour.’

 At this point, the bacteria who live on Leon’s skin piped up.  ‘6 million is not really a big number, you know.  There are more than 32 million of us who live on his skin.  Most of us are harmless and some of us are even helpful to Leon.’

Then every cell in Leon’s body decided to join in. 

‘So, you think 32 million is an impressive number, do you?  Well, in Leon’s body, 300 million of us die every minute.  And he doesn’t even notice.  Yes, that’s right.  300 million.’

There was a short silence before one – just one –of Leon’s brain cells announced in a very tiny voice, ‘Well, all on my own, I can hold five times more information than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.’

And all the other body parts went very quiet at this point.  Not because they were amazed by the one brain cell, but because they didn’t know what the Encyclopaedia Britannica was!

Do you know?  And which of Leon’s parts do you think won the competition to be the best?