Everyone Is Looking for a Lucky Clover

It all started with a lion.

His name was Ah-roar, and he was the most majestic霸主 of the savanna — at least in his own opinion. That morning, when Ah-roar woke up, he discovered that his mane had been tied into a bow.

“WHO DID THIS?!” he roared.

No one answered. But at his feet lay a three-leaf clover.

Ah-roar narrowed his eyes. He remembered an old legend: “Whoever finds a four-leaf lucky clover may make one wish.”

“My wish is simple,” he told himself. “I wish my mane would never tangle again.”

So he lowered his head and began searching for the lucky clover.

He searched very seriously, his nose almost touching the ground. Just as his rear end stuck up in the air and his tail swayed like an antenna —

A rhinoceros crashed into him from behind.

BAM!

The lion flew forward, face-first into the dirt. The bow in his mane twisted into a knotty pretzel.

“Are you blind?!” Ah-roar scrambled up and roared at the rhino.

The rhino’s name was Little Dull. His eyesight really wasn’t great. But he was also irritable today, because he’d had a dream the night before — a talking lucky clover had told him: “If you don’t find me, your horn will turn into a spiral.”

When Little Dull woke up, he checked the mirror — his horn was still straight. But he wasn’t about to take any chances.

“I’m looking for a lucky clover!” said Little Dull. “You’re in my way!”

“I’m looking for a lucky clover too!” said Ah-roar. “You crashed into me!”

“You blocked the way!”

“You rammed me!”

“Your butt’s too high!”

“Your eyes are too blind!”

Halfway through their argument, a meerkat popped its head out of a burrow. “Can you two keep it down? I’m looking for a lucky clover. I need focus!”

The lion and the rhino both looked down at the meerkat.

“You’re looking for a lucky clover too?” asked Ah-roar.

“Yeah,” said the meerkat. “I heard that finding one will make my tail grow longer. My tail’s too short. Whenever I’m on sentry duty, my comrades can’t see my tail and think I’m not standing guard.”

“…That’s your reason?”

“You don’t understand the tragedy of a short tail.”

Before they could continue, a rumbling sound came from afar. A herd of zebras — but not ordinary zebras. Every single one wore a hard hat and carried a metal detector. They advanced across the savanna in a straight line, like a mine-sweeping operation.

“What are YOU doing?!” asked Ah-roar.

The lead zebra stopped and pushed up his goggles. “We are the ‘Lucky Clover Reconnaissance Strike Team’ — L.C.R.S.T. for short. According to our big data analysis, the probability of a four-leaf lucky clover existing on this savanna is 0.00037%. We must find it using scientific methods before anyone else does.”

“0.00037%?” Little Dull frowned (though when a rhino frowns, it just looks angry). “What’s the difference between that and zero?”

“The difference,” said the zebra captain, pulling out a tablet, “is that if it were zero, we wouldn’t deploy. But 0.00037% is greater than zero, so we must deploy. That’s science.”

“That’s insane,” said the meerkat.

The zebras ignored him and continued scanning the ground with their metal detectors. The detectors went beep beep beep — but that was because of bottle caps on the ground. The zebras excitedly picked up the bottle caps and examined them closely. “This isn’t a lucky clover… but it’s a lucky bottle cap! Save it!”

Lion Ah-roar watched all this and felt his head about to explode. His mane had now gone from a pretzel twist to a French braid — heaven knows how that happened.

“I don’t care about any of you!” Ah-roar declared. “I’m going to search over there!” He pointed to a particularly thick patch of grass.

He ran over, looked down —

And there was an entire patch of four-leaf clovers.

No, not four leaves. Five leaves. Six leaves. Seven leaves. One even looked like a starfish — twelve leaves.

“I FOUND IT!” Ah-roar shouted.

All the animals charged toward him. Little Dull the rhino was fastest — he rammed straight into the lion’s rear end again. The lion flew once more, this time landing in a mud puddle. The zebras aimed their metal detectors at the strange clovers and beep-beep-beeped wildly. The meerkat stood on tiptoes, straining to see.

“What IS this?” Little Dull stared at the bizarre clovers. “Aren’t lucky clovers supposed to have four leaves?”

One of the twelve-leaf clovers suddenly spoke. “We are genetically modified lucky clovers from the Supernatural Agricultural Modification Laboratory. Four leaves are so outdated. Twelve leaves are the new trend. Twelve times the luck, twelve times the price.”

“…You can talk?”

“I can sing. Want to hear?”

“NO!”

But the clover had already begun: “You are my little, little lucky star~ Twelve times the luck I’ll send you from afar~”

All the animals covered their ears at once.

“SHUT UP!!”

Just as chaos reached its peak, the sky darkened.

Everyone looked up — it wasn’t clouds. It was a giant, flying chameleon in a suit, riding a hoverboard and holding a megaphone.

“Attention, all animals. Attention, all animals,” the chameleon’s voice echoed across the savanna. “I am an inspector from the Universal Lucky Clover Administration Bureau. The multi-leaf clovers beneath your feet are unauthorized, illegal genetically modified products. They must now be completely destroyed.”

“DESTROYED?!” Ah-roar crawled out of the mud puddle. “I was going to use one to wish that my mane would never tangle!”

“Your wish cannot be granted,” said the chameleon, pushing up his sunglasses, “because these GMO lucky clovers have a side effect — whoever finds them will grow a mushroom on their head.”

No sooner had he spoken than —

A small white mushroom sprouted on Lion Ah-roar’s head.

Another mushroom sprouted on Rhino Little Dull’s head — right between his two horns, looking like a very strange hair bun.

The meerkat screamed and felt his own head. “Do I have one? Do I have one?!”

“You do not,” said the chameleon, “because you’re too short. You never actually touched those clovers.”

The meerkat didn’t know whether to be happy or sad.

The zebra captain took off his hard hat. There was a mushroom on his head too. He was silent for three seconds, then said, “This is a victory for science.”

“HOW is that science?!”

The zebra captain pointed to his mushroom. “This proves we indeed located the illegal GMO crop. I can write my report now.”

Lion Ah-roar now had a mushroom on his head, a French braid in his mane, and mud all over his body. He looked at Rhino Little Dull. Little Dull looked back at him.

The two arch-enemies sighed at the same time.

“Were you going to make a wish too?” asked Ah-roar.

“I just want to get rid of this mushroom,” said Little Dull. “My horn is already ugly enough.”

“I’ll pull it off for you?”

Little Dull nodded. Ah-roar reached for the mushroom on the rhino’s head — but it was growing very tight. He pulled. The rhino lifted off the ground.

“PUT ME DOWN!!”

“I’m not using any force!”

The mushroom went pop and came loose. The rhino fell to the ground, leaving a small dent on his head. Then the mushroom bounced a few times, grew legs, and ran off on its own.

“…It ran away,” said the meerkat.

“Let it run,” said Ah-roar. “I never want to see another mushroom again.”

The chameleon inspector pulled out a tablet and typed a few words: “Case closed. Illegal GMO lucky clovers destroyed. Note: Some animals grew mushrooms on their heads; mushrooms detached spontaneously. Case closed.”

Then he hovered away on his board.

But before leaving, he tossed back: “Oh, by the way — the real four-leaf lucky clover is over here.” He pointed to a completely unremarkable corner. “But it has no superpowers. It’s just an ordinary clover. Goodbye.”

All the animals looked at that corner.

There really was a tiny, ordinary, silent four-leaf clover.

A long silence followed.

“So…” the meerkat spoke up. “Who’s going to take it?”

No one moved.

“Didn’t you all want one?”

Lion Ah-roar looked at the mark left by his mushroom, then at the dent on the rhino’s head, then at the neat row of mushrooms on the zebras’ heads — the zebras now looked like a mushroom farm.

“I don’t want it anymore,” said Ah-roar. “If my mane tangles, it tangles.”

“I don’t want it either,” said Little Dull. “If my horn turns spiral, so be it.”

“Then I’ll take it!” The meerkat hopped over, grabbed the four-leaf clover in his mouth. “My tail can finally grow longer!”

He waited thirty seconds.

His tail didn’t change at all.

“…”

The chameleon’s voice drifted from afar: “Like I said — it has no superpowers.”

The meerkat spat out the clover and stomped on it twice.

“I HATE THIS WORLD.”

That night, Lion Ah-roar returned to his den and found that his mane had untangled itself. Not because of any lucky clover — but because the dried mud had cracked and fallen off.

Rhino Little Dull went home and checked the mirror. His horn hadn’t turned spiral — because that dream was just a bad stomachache.

The zebras cooked the mushrooms on their heads into a soup. Apparently it tasted pretty good.

And the meerkat’s tail… remained short.

But he later became the savanna’s best bottle-cap finder, because he swore he would find a real magical item that could make his tail grow longer. Current progress: zero.

As for that singing twelve-leaf clover? It later auditioned for a talent show. All the judges hit the buzzer.

“Your pitch is off,” said a judge.

“But I have twelve times the luck — ”

“Next.”

The savanna returned to peace. Until the next morning, when the lion woke up to find his mane tied into a single braid again, and at the end of the braid was tied — you guessed it — a mushroom.

He looked at the mushroom.

The mushroom looked at him.

“You’re back,” said the lion.

The mushroom said: “Baa.”

…Wait. Why would a mushroom say “Baa”?

No one knows.

That’s the savanna.

THE END

Let me know if you’d like a version with simpler vocabulary (for younger readers) or a more polished literary style.