In a small town there are many sneaky people trying to do sneaky things. None, however, are quite as sneaky as a middle aged red fox named Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox is a lot like other foxes because he loves to eat. In fact eating is his favorite thing in the world, and the reason he is so sneaky. The only problem is that Mr. Fox isn’t very fast. When you’re a fox you have to be fast in order to catch your food. When Mr. Fox was in fox college he was often made fun of for being as slow as he was. After being teased he would always say, “I am who I am and that’s good enough for me.” Saying that always made him feel much better about himself.

Mr. Fox lives in a box that lies in the alley behind the town’s bakery. It used to be a meat shop. The owner of the former meat shop was very nice. Unlike the owners of the new bakery, he would give Mr. Fox one and some times two juicy hunks of raw steak. The owner had to sell his beloved meat shop to pay for his new home. That’s when Mr. Fox had to learn how to be sneaky because from then on he would have to catch his own food.

The story begins at Mr. Fox’s home. Mr. Fox had just woken up when his stomach began to hurt. He recognized the feeling immediately and set off in search for food.

He wasn’t any good at hunting though. It’s probably because he has only been hunting since the meat shop closed a few months back.

Anyway, it was getting late and the only thing he came close to catching was a squirrel, but it ran up a tree and got away. He was very disappointed that he couldn’t catch any thing all day, so he rummaged through some trashcans on his way home.

The next morning, before Mr. Fox had wakened up; there was a loud Clank. It was so loud he stood up from his state of sleep and turned around. A trashcan had tipped over. Just as he was wondering what could have tipped over the trashcan he was brought to the ground due to another sharp pain in his stomach. The pain from the morning before had doubled from the lack of food. I guess thrown away pizza and a banana peel just weren’t enough to fill me up, thought Mr. Fox.

Right when he was thinking he would be this hungry for the rest of his life, out of the trashcan came a large cat. It was almost as big as he was. “This will fill me up,” thought Mr. Fox. Just then the large cat spotted him and took off. Mr. Fox hopped out of his box and ran after him. The large cat was much faster than him, but he did not care. He was too hungry.

He chased the unusually large cat left and right and across a busy street, but he was falling future and future behind.

They were running through the park when Mr. Fox had a flashback to his younger days. He was at fox school again. He was running laps in an open meadow, his heart beating fast and his tongue was hanging out. He could hardly breathe. He was the only one that had not finished.

He finally made it to the flower patch where all of the other foxes stood. They were laughing at him and calling him names. One of the said he was the slowest fox that ever lived.

He felt a tier trickle down his furry cheek. “No!” growled Mr. Fox. “I’ll show all of you. I’ll…” His eyes closed and reopened again.

He was in the park again and still running after the large cat. There was a surge of energy that rushed through his entire body. He was gaining now and just getting started. They ran across train tracks and through several back yards. Mr. Fox was feet away from the greatest achievement of his life when the cat turned into an alley, leaped onto a dumpster and jumped over the wall. He was so upset he began to cry.

He had only been crying for a moment when he noticed a rat coming out of a hole in the wall. Then out came another and another and another. Mr. Fox knew that it was time now to be sneaky, so he stopped crying and moved into the darker parts of the alley. He slowly crept behind the dumpster located next to the rats. Then he snuck up behind them AND… A couple minuets later he was full.

After a well-deserved meal Mr. Fox decided to go home. He had only just left the alley when he found to his surprise he did not recognize the area he was in. He must have chased the large cat all the way across town.

Mr. Fox had never gone this far from home. He searched every where for familiar places. Unfortunately he had no luck finding any. It was getting pretty dark and there was no one around to give him directions, so he went looking for a safe, comfortable place to rest for the night.