Tuckett the Tidy

Tuckett had not always finished tidily.

When he was small, he'd get all his pieces home, feel like he'd won, and then get sloppy — yanking pieces off any old way, wasting rolls, leaving gaps — and again and again he'd stumble right at the finish, let the other player slip past, and lose a race he'd already all but won. He'd roll into a prickly ball, sure it wasn't fair, that he HAD won, really, right up until the end.

An old hedgehog, neat and unhurried, tidied beside him one evening. "You do all that hard work to get home," she said, "and then you throw it away being sloppy at the finish." She slid pieces off, smooth and even. "See? Careful, all the way off. No wasted rolls, no gaps, everything tidy. The end of a thing matters as much as the middle. You got home — good. Now finish it PROPERLY, one careful piece at a time, right down to the last. Don't get sloppy just because you're nearly done. That's exactly when the careless ones stumble."

Tuckett learned to finish tidily — to take his pieces off smoothly, wasting no rolls, leaving no gaps, careful right to the last — and the stumbles at the finish line stopped. The sloppy, so-close feeling settled into a neat, satisfied calm. He'd never been robbed at the end. He'd only been getting careless just when care mattered most.

He walked to PipQuest when he was old enough, because it was a place for voyagers who finished what they started, tidily.

Peg, the mentor, met him at the dock and asked him to show what he knew.

Tuckett didn't say clever things. He got his pieces home, and then, without rushing, took them off one by one — smooth, even, wasting no roll, leaving no gap — all the way down to the very last piece, clean.

"You finished tidy," Peg said.

"Home isn't the end," Tuckett said. "Taking them all off, carefully, IS. I don't get sloppy just because I'm nearly done."

Peg smiled. "You belong here."

A young vole came to Tuckett one afternoon, frustrated.

"I keep losing right at the END!" she said. "I get all my pieces home, I'm basically winning, and then somehow I mess it up and lose! It's SO unfair!"

Tuckett knew that so-close feeling all the way down. He'd stumbled at the finish for years.

"Show me your finish," he said. She got her pieces home, then yanked them off fast and careless, wasting rolls and leaving a gap. "There," Tuckett said gently. "You got home — that's great. But then you got sloppy, and see? You wasted that roll, and left this gap, and it slowed you down just enough for her to catch you." He showed her a tidier way — smooth, even, no waste, no gaps. "Try finishing careful instead of fast." The vole took her pieces off tidily, one by one, and finished clean, well ahead.

"I won!" she said. "I just... didn't get sloppy at the end!"

"That's the whole thing," Tuckett said warmly. "Getting home is only most of the way. The finish counts too. Careful all the way off — waste no roll, leave no gap — and the win you worked for stays yours."

The vole finished her next race tidy and clean, and her frustrated feeling turned into a neat, proud smile.