Pat had no brothers or sisters, and there were very few children of similar age living in his village. This suited him, however: by and large he preferred his own company and spent much of his free time roaming the fields and woodlands on his own.

The creature which he was studying intently had - literally - fallen into his lap while he'd been sitting under a large beech tree, watching an aerial hazelnut battle between two groups of feuding squirrels.

About an inch long, and quite slim. Bluey-green shell, covering a body which was pinkish-grey: the shell divided in the middle, and seemed to
double as wings, but he hadn't actually seen it fly, yet, and had no intention of allowing it to escape that easily.

What intrigued him most was the arrangement of legs: four, as far as he could tell, but laid out in a diamond formation, and the two ‘side legs' appeared to end in tiny, perfectly formed wheels .........  
A phrase he'd read somewhere "Neither fish nor fowl ... " ran through his mind. Certainly neither of the above, but no insect either .....
"I'll call it: a Rarie!" he decided. 
"If nobody else has ever discovered one, I could become a famous scientist, or maybe a showman in a Circus .... "

****

What Pat hadn't expected, however, was the Rarie's insatiable appetite. It didn't seem to matter what he fed it (as long as it was organic): everything disappeared, and quite often the packaging and/or the serving pan followed as dessert!
When he could no longer keep it as an indoor pet, it was banished to an unused barn on his uncle's farm. It seemed to grow alarmingly even from one day to the next, and when it turned aggressive and seemed on the point of devouring three Health and Safety officials who'd been alerted by a concerned neighbour Pat had to admit defeat and allow a posse of vets (including a silent man with a clipboard from the Ministry of Defence) to take it off his hands.

Feeding it had become impossibly expensive, anyway: but he insisted on visiting rights, as the one who had originally found the Rarie and given it a name.

The Rarie had by now become a hot news item in the national papers, and Pat's first taste of fame came when he was interviewed on Tomorrow's World. By now, of course, the Rarie was too big to bring it to the studio, and could only be shown to a disbelieving nation by live Outside Broadcast cameras. Unfortunately, the Rarie took exception to being observed in such a manner, and several thousand pounds' worth of BBC equipment was trashed beyond recognition in the process.

The supposedly ‘secret, secure MoD location' where they then attempted to keep the Rarie under observation proved woefully inadequate. It broke out of the compound as soon as darkness fell on the first night, shrugging off all the heavy armoury and artillery as if they were mere pinpricks or flea bites.
Questions were asked (but, as usual, not satisfactorily answered) in the House of Commons. The possible use of a tactical nuclear warhead was hotly debated, and the vote against this ultimate deterrent was very close.

The Army and the RAF tracked the behemoth Rarie as it ravaged across the Kentish countryside, and could only watch in horror as it devoured everything in its path. Everything was consumed: cornfields devastated, hops mashed and consumed, orchards left fruitless. Cattle and sheep, horses and houses, a small brewery or two to slake its thirst: nothing was left once the Rarie had passed.
The Navy was alerted when it became clear that the Rarie was heading directly for Dover. Then, as it reached the very edge of the famous cliffs
which had been a welcome sight for countless generations of seafarers, the Rarie turned and faced its pursuers.

A hundred Army bulldozers started to inch towards it.
A dead silence settled over the scene.
A strange light appeared over the White Cliffs of Dover.
Pat screamed ................
"It's a Long Way to Tip a Rarie ................. !!"