What Is A Quokka?

By Steven Barnes

In the middle of the night, just outside of the Furnace Creek Time Station, I had an even better question. What was Mark Quokka Raaka doing sitting down in the middle of a bicycle race? And where was his support crew? With so many burning questions, I stopped to investigate. Quokka was waiting in hopes that the crew would be able to recover his clear-lens glasses. It seemed that they had fallen from the roof of the team van, and a search was afoot – quite literally – to locate them. 

After a few minutes with my Levi's on the pavement and my shoes in the dirt, I did ask about the Quokka, which is a marsupial indigenous to Western Australia. Our Quokka likes the sound of his totem and last name together, which explains his choice.

Just then the crew showed up in the support van, brandishing the missing glasses as they sprang from the van to get Quokka rolling again.