She, who was dear
She, who gave light
Suddenly gone
I’m left with just night
But days never stop
And still I grow older
One day, I pray
Let me grow bolder
Time flies. It did for me, anyway. In the blink of an eye, a couple of months had passed. But even still, a lot happened. I didn’t forget about Mother, whom I continued to miss and think of every single day. And I didn’t ever forget what Madge had told me, not for a second.
When I look back at that period, it makes me smile, because I really hadn’t understood how the world worked yet. Eddie and I truly thought that the truck could come for me at any moment and that my plan for escape had to happen as soon as possible. I was a desperate cow. We searched the farm’s border fences looking for any weaknesses, gaps or loose posts that might give way to a shove. The only one worth trying to knock over ended up giving me a painful sliver, and poor Eddie was required to pull it out with his teeth. It was not pleasant. Eddie was what you might call a jumpy surgeon.
Then I suddenly remembered an important detail from the Yvonne of Bavaria story that I had overlooked. Before slipping into the forest, Yvonne needed to jump over a fence. I relayed this detail to Eddie, suggesting that perhaps I should concentrate on learning how to fling myself over an obstacle, rather than through it or under it. Eddie didn’t share my optimism, and I admit that I am not the most athletic of animals, being more graceful with a turn of phrase than a turn of body. However, when you take into account our long friendship and Eddie’s gentle soul, I really didn’t expect him to fall on his back laughing at my idea for quite so long a time.
Aw, I confess, it wasn’t very swell of me. But Audrey is a cow, and cows are … well, jeepers, cows are big! When she was a calf, Audrey could move a bit, and we would even chase each other for short spurts. But I’ve never seen one of the adult cows hold a leg up without wondering if they would topple over the next moment. Trying to picture Audrey flying through the air like Middle Boy Lester on his outdoor trampoline was too funny. Audrey doing belly flops and back flips, munching on clover between bounces? No, I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did. The situation was serious. Maybe that’s why I laughed—to get rid of all the nervousness and fear I had scampering around inside me.
Ridiculous or not, I had to try. And truthfully, it wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t a young calf anymore, and trying to push off with my back legs required more physical effort than I was used to, not to mention my natural lack of coordination. Seen from Eddie’s perspective, I’d probably be laughing too. So, far from any prying eyes, I practiced and practiced for days and eventually could manage a leap over a fallen log. Perhaps leap is too dramatic a word, but I did get over it, and even Eddie was impressed. But we both realized that a log was nothing like a border fence, and I was no closer to escaping Abbot’s War with this newly acquired ability.
Then I had an inspiration! I said to Audrey, “If jumping over a fence is out of the question, then how about walking over it?” She didn’t understand, so I had to demonstrate. See, Middle Boy Lester had been teaching me what he called “circus tricks.” Back behind Farmer’s house, he would place a wooden plank between two ladders. I would climb up the rungs of one ladder, balance my way across the plank, and go down the other ladder. Gosh, what I’ll do for a treat sometimes—it’s embarrassing! But anyway, I dragged a plank out into the field to show Audrey what I was thinking. I put one end of it on top of the log that she was learning to jump over, see, to create a sloped walkway. Then I simply made my way up the plank to the top and jumped down the other side. Ta-da!
Eddie thought that if we could find a plank big and strong enough to hold my weight, we could lean it against the top of the border fence, and I could do basically that same “trick.” Instead of learning to jump higher, I’d need to practice maintaining my poise on an incline, which still wasn’t easy, and still required much practice, but in the balance, so to speak, seemed more doable. Oh, how I practiced, practiced and failed, failed and practiced, over and over. And that was not even putting the wood at an angle yet! Just walking across it flat on the ground was challenge enough. Then we tried spanning it over a gap so I’d get over any fear of heights. That was Eddie’s concern, which was never my concern until he put that fear into my head, and even now, to this day, I still have a fear of heights.
I don’t know if the plan would have worked. Everything felt so urgent, and there were so many uncertainties. How would we get a plank long enough to reach the top of the fence at an angle I could manage? Who would help us lift it? Where would we put it so no one could see? But it was the best plan we had at the time, so I kept at it, trying to stay positive, trying to get better, practicing from sunrise to sundown. And then Eddie’s dad changed everything.
Right, you’re here about that Audrey story. Fine. One minute, understood? I’ll give your question one minute and we’re through. Have I made myself clear? (hmph) So … I put in a solid day’s work, and when I’m done, I expect to be done. The last thing I want, once I finish getting the sheep to where they’re supposed to be, is to have Farmer tell me to run off to the far end of the farm to fetch a wayward cow. This was going on day after day with Audrey. I wasn’t sure why at first, but then I saw Audrey doing stuff that a cow shouldn’t be doing, and risking a broken leg by doing it. I could see where it was all heading, and I knew that Farmer would not be pleased. I suspected Eddie might have had something to do with it too, because he and Audrey had been close since birth. (hmph!) Children. They can be so darn … childish. This girl really hadn’t a clue.
When I’d finally had enough of her nonsense, the day that I caught her balancing along some board across an irrigation ditch, I said to her, “You’re not fat enough.” I remember that she looked at me with her head slightly tilted and replied, “Excuse me?” I repeated myself. “I said that you’re not fat enough to worry about being taken to Abbot’s War. I know for a fact that every cow that’s gone there has been older than you and fatter than you.”
I’ll give Audrey her due. She didn’t waste time pretending that she wasn’t up to some sneaky business. She didn’t claim that she had no idea what I was talking about, in some la-di-da voice like Norma or Greta would use. No, not her. You could see her brain whirling, taking in the information and figuring out her next move. Without skipping a beat, she asks me, “How much time do you figure I have?” “A year,” I said. She nodded. Then she asked, “And weight? How much heavier would I have to get?” “I’d say two hundred pounds, at least.” And that was that. Okay, we’re done.
Max’s information was invaluable. I felt as if I had been granted a temporary pardon; as if I had been sentenced to hang, and at the last moment it was put on hold. I still had the noose around my neck, but now it was looser, and I could breathe more easily. I had time on my hooves. Of course, I couldn’t do anything about getting older, but I did have some say in how much bigger I would get.
“Change in plan,” she said. “I’m going on a diet.” Uh-huh. You want to run that by me again, Audrey? Once she explained, I could see her point. It made sense, right? But jeepers creepers, for a cow that’s easier said than done. Audrey loved to eat. All cows love to eat! But Audrey, she really enjoyed every bit. Gosh, dieting took a whole lot of self-control on her part. Sometimes I’d see her hesitate next to a patch of clover. She’d stare at it forever, smelling it and licking it a bit. Hard? Darn tootin’ it was hard! You could see the pain in her eyes. This went on for a while. At first no one noticed, but then it must have been brought to Farmer’s attention, because suddenly Audrey was being weighed every week, and after that, the vet was called in.
I told Daddy. I said, “Audrey isn’t feeling good.” Daddy saw that I was right … but he didn’t understand.
Yes, I was called down to Bittersweet Farm to check on their Charolais. There was some concern about whether this young cow had a stomach ailment that was preventing her from eating properly and gaining the weight appropriate for her age. I found nothing wrong with her physically; no worms or infections—a bit of a mystery.
They didn’t understand. Audrey was sad because her mommy was gone away. I would be sad too.
Hmm? Well, yes, Glenn did mention that this cow’s mother had been sent to the abattoir about four months earlier. There is evidence that animals can suffer from grief upon the loss of a family member. I could only speculate whether that was the case with this particular Charolais.
As hard as it was to resist indulging in the sweet, sweet flavors of grass and flower, my plan was working; attention was now drawn to how drawn I looked. To add to my image as a wan and withered cow barely worth the gas money to drive to Abbot’s War, I would suck in my four stomachs whenever Farmer was nearby. I daresay I looked haggard and hardly appetizing. My performance was convincing to the point that a certain cow, namely Greta, took it as a challenge to her reputation.
Who did she think she vas, ya? Vat did she know of life’s slings and arrows? Does a bit of skinniness compare to how I have suffered in this cruel vorld? I try to be brave, ya, and strong, ya, not for myself, but for all animals on this farm, yet no vun could see my sacrifice anymore! It hurts to remember such a difficult time.
There is such a thing as too good a performance, I learned. I was drawing the wrong kind of attention from Farmer. One evening, Roy approached me. He said, “L’il Audrey, you’d best be strappin’ on the feedbag. There’s been talk around the dinner table that if you don’t improve your weight soon, they will be forced to consider drastic measures.” I didn’t need to ask Roy to clarify what he meant by “drastic measures” because the tone in his voice said it all. Too fat or too skinny, the truck to Abbot’s War had my name on it.
So I took Roy’s advice. I started to eat with gusto. Not too challenging a task, as you can imagine. And I suppose that the routine of eating, and the pleasure of it, made the worry of being sent to Abbot’s War lessen. It’s hard to stay anxious about something, day after day, even something horrible, when it’s so far away in the future. When the world continues to be filled with splendor? When beauty is splashed across the landscape or detailed on the feathers of a perched flicker? I couldn’t help but be lulled into a sense of wonder and joy, for wasn’t that what I feared losing in the first place?
Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Life went on, as they say. It wasn’t as if Max’s warning had been completely forgotten. The words “fatter” and “older” continued to hover around my head like bothersome mosquitos. I just grew better and better at ignoring them.
Mother was never too far from my heart. I spoke to her in whispers when among others. But when I was alone on Viewing Hill, I talked to her out loud, making note of the changes in season that she herself would have pointed out for my benefit. I cherished those times to be close, even though there was a lump of sorrow stuck in my throat. “Mother,” I’d say, “the leaves are turning. See? There are some streaks of yellow and orange on the slopes behind Sky View Farms.” I felt extra joy sharing these observations with her. “Snowflakes, Mother! Look, I can catch them on my tongue!” Seasons passed in bliss. And then one day, Roy came by while I was communing with Mother. “It’s time,” he said.
I heard it at Farmer family’s chow-down the evenin’ before. Farmer’s announcement didn’t go well. Little Girl Elspeth done had herself a tantrum and was sent up to her room without dessert. But the decision still stuck. Audrey was going. By rights, I should have talked to Audrey straightaway, as is my custom. But I dilly-dallied because … well, because I did not trust that I could keep my emotions close to my chest. By golly, I was the farm newspaper, and I had an obligation to give the news steady and without feeling. If I peppered it with fear and sadness, then how was a young cow like Audrey to accept it? So I waited until the next day. When I saw her up on Viewing Hill all by her lonesome, I figured now would be the opportune moment. “It’s time, Audrey,” I said. “They’ve made the arrangements.”
Shoot. Never had I felt so guilty about bein’ the messenger as I did at that moment. I could see the shock in her sweet face. She fought like a polecat to keep herself from unraveling, forcing herself not to shy away. “When?” she asked. “Three days from now,” I told her. “Truck’s expected at noon.” Her legs were tremblin’, but she held her ground, Audrey did. Her eyes did not break contact with mine, and in the long seconds that passed, I watched them change like the weather, from moist and sorrowful to steely hard like ice on Artificial Lake. “I’m not going gently, Roy,” she said. “You hear me?” She had spunk, that Audrey, there was no denying it. I certainly was not going to tell her to do otherwise. I gave her a respectful nod before leaving. “You do what you need to, Miss Audrey. And if help is required, I hope you will not hesitate to call upon old Roy.”
I was coming back to the barns with Dad and the sheep when we saw Roy heading up Viewing Hill. I already knew that Audrey was there. I’d caught her scent downwind an hour earlier. I always left Audrey alone when she was on Viewing Hill, because that was her private time with her memories of her mom. But jeepers, seeing Roy going up to meet her made my heart skip a beat! We all stopped; sheep and cows, even Dad, yes sirree. Audrey and Roy were squared off, two figures alone on the hill. No one could hear what they were saying, but we all knew just the same. When Roy turned away, I turned to Dad. He gave me a nod and I left him with the sheep, running as fast as my four legs could take me. See, I hadn’t forgotten about Abbot’s War, and I’d been doing some pretty serious thinking. Aw, heck, I didn’t have a plan or nothing. But I did have a plan about getting a plan!
I don’t know if you have been as fortunate in your life to have as good a friend as I’ve had in Eddie. Mother said that Eddie and I used to cozy up to each other for afternoon naps soon after I came into the world. Eddie never really had a chance to get to know his mother because he was brought to the farm as a little pup. Mother said Eddie was there when I was born, fascinated with the whole birthing process and wide-eyed in surprise at seeing how tall I was when I finally stood up. Eddie swears he can still remember snuggling up with me against Mother’s flank, content in the envelope of warmth but always a bit wary that I might crush him one day. Dear Eddie, how I miss you. What is a good friend? A good friend is one that takes the lead to help you, even when they know that by helping you, they will lose you. That’s a good friend. That was Eddie.
Gosh, I stood across from Audrey at the exact same spot where Roy had just been. And at first, we didn’t say a thing! I swear I had a million yaps inside me wanting to come out, but nothing did; we just stood silent. I don’t know why. Maybe ’cause there was too much to say and we didn’t know where to start.
Maybe it was the knowing that things would never be the same again, that Eddie and I had reached a turning point, chosen not by us but dictated by circumstances out of our control. Suddenly, we seemed older, not children anymore. Just like that. It was what Mother might call a solemn moment. So we gave it the respect it rightly deserved. Those moments are like the dog-eared creases that Middle Boy Lester bends into the top corners of the pages of his favorite books. They are the bookmarks of all the significant bits in the stories of our lives. But when the urgency of the situation demanded our full focus, Eddie said—
“We need help, Audrey,” is what I said. “Jeepers, we’re trying to figure this out on our own, but we’re not up for the task. We need someone smarter.” Audrey nodded slowly. “Who did you have in mind?”
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Well, I like solving puzzles, yes, yes, I do. Been like that all my life. Riddles and math problems, brain teasers, memory games, and uh, yes, yes, pattern recognition. Interesting story, I once came across a partly filled Sudoku puzzle on a piece of newspaper that blew right into my sty! And I, uh, I finished the rest of it in my head, yes, yes, I did. Way too soon, though. I wish I could have made it last longer. My brain is, uh, yes, yes, pretty big, you understand. It needs stimulation and exercise. Agnes comes around, yes, every so often to ask me a question. Things that keep her up at night, like, uh, oh my, well, mainly about space aliens. But other than that, no one is interested in my brain. Oh, no, no, no. No one is much interested in me, period. So I was, uh, quite, yes, quite surprised when Eddie and Audrey dropped by.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it earlier! Buster is the go-to pig for figuring things out. Gosh, he can stare at a bucket of animal feed and tell you what percentage is fish meal, corn kernels, alfalfa pellets or sunflower seeds! Dad told me that when Buster was a piglet, he not only figured out how to get into Farmer’s house, but he managed to open their fridge and get at a strawberry pie. And Dad said that was just the time Buster got caught! Jeepers, which means he was probably doing it a whole bunch of times before that. But the thing about Buster is that his confidence isn’t so great anymore, so you have to appeal to his self-esteem, otherwise fear can make him freeze up.
I forgot how much Eddie got around on the farm, and I really didn’t give him credit for the relationships he’d forged with all the animals, four-legged and otherwise. I would not have considered Buster as a source of expertise in the escape department. He always struck me as the nervous type, and a loner, and way more concerned about his next meal than even myself. Which only goes to show that I too have my blind spots.
I followed Eddie to Buster’s pen. I kept quiet because it was clear that Eddie had been giving this meeting some thought. So as not to alarm him, Eddie casually said, “Buster, suppose, just for fun, that an animal wanted to escape Bittersweet Farm. Is it possible?” Nevertheless, Buster started hyperventilating on the spot. “W-w-why would an animal do that? Is s-s-something wrong with Farmer? Is he sick? Did he go broke? Are the food deliveries being canceled?” We needed ten full minutes to calm Buster down and reassure him that he’d still get fed. Eddie tried again, “Jeepers, it’s just a riddle. Everything’s fine. You’re brilliant at riddles, right, Buster? Now, I say it’s impossible to escape, but Audrey thinks it can be done. What do you think?”
Buster didn’t even pause to consider. “Of course it’s possible. Can’t go through the fences, though, oh, no, no, no. Farmer checks them every year. Latches are easy to open, yes. The best bet would be to go, uh, yes, to go right through the front entrance. But it would be useless to do that, on account of all the fences separating the farms in the area. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, you’re sure to get caught out on the road in no time.”
Buster turned toward his food trough to focus on what was left of his slop while Eddie and I shared a look of hopelessness. From what Mother had tried to tell me, I understood that I needed to find a way to reach the forest. Yet how could I reach it if the whole area is sectioned off with one fence after another, preventing me from going anywhere other than the road? It was so discouraging. But after a few mouthfuls, Buster said, “If an animal really wanted to escape for good, they’d have to do it while in transport.”
Audrey’s ears perked up, and darn tootin’, I knew why! See, Audrey’s mom had told her a story about two cows who tried to get away while being transported on a truck. But the confusing thing was that those cows got caught, so we weren’t sure what Buster meant. So Audrey asked him, “Would you agree that the forest is the best place to aim for?” Buster said, “Obviously. It offers camouflage and, uh, yes, yes, lots of hiding places.” Then Audrey said, “But it would be too dangerous to jump off a moving truck, and it would be pointless to wait for it to stop, so what do you mean, Buster? How could I—I mean, how could someone get the truck to stop by a forest?”
“Flat tire,” is what I said, yes, yes, I did. I would have thought that was obvious, but I, uh, no, no, I shouldn’t assume that everyone’s brain is as big as mine. They still couldn’t follow my thinking. I had to walk them through it. I said, “If you puncture a front tire beforehand, you can, uh, yes, yes, you can time the leak so that the tire flattens out right beside a forest. Get me a map, and I can do the calculations.”
Gosh, I’m thinking two things now. First, jeepers creepers, we just hit the jackpot! And second, where in the world are we going to get ourselves a map? But Buster is looking up at the position of the sun and telling me that there should be a map by the phone in Farmer’s kitchen and that it can be accessed through the open window over the sink. And if I go in exactly fifteen minutes, the Farmer children will still be in school, Farmer lady will be in the office doing the accounting, and Farmer will just be heading to the milking station.
Buster turned out to be a master strategist. At the designated time, Eddie jumped through the kitchen window and retrieved the map unseen, just as Buster predicted. Eddie rushed back to the pen and unfolded the map, and we both watched Buster study it carefully. Finally, he stuck his snout on a spot on a line next to a big patch of green. “Here,” he said. “That would be the best place to stop a truck if it was heading to Abbot’s War.” Those last two words took my breath away. Eddie didn’t catch on, but I was fully aware that we had never once mentioned Abbot’s War when we posed our escape riddle to Buster. I didn’t say anything, though. Meanwhile, Buster is making all these calculations in his head involving the pound per square inch pressure of a truck tire, the average speed a truck would be going, and the required size of hole needed to release enough air to cause a flat tire and make the driver stop on the road beside the forest. As Eddie would say, gosh! and jeepers creepers!
You don’t want to use a nail, no, no, no, because the air will go out too quickly. A screw is best for a delayed leak. Interesting fact: I have a collection of items I keep hidden away in the corner of my sty, yes, yes, I do. You never know when a piece of metal might come in handy.
He had pocketknives, bottle caps, saw blades, a flashlight, two license plates and even a tube of lipstick! From among all that, Buster roots out a six-inch screw and says that will do the job. Then it suddenly dawned on me—he was treating this pretend riddle as the real situation that it was. Which meant one of two things: he was either too caught up in the exercise to stop, or he knew what we were up to and was making himself an accomplice. In any case, we still had a problem. The screw needed to be mounted on a thin piece of wood so it could stand straight up, with the pointy part in the air. That’s where being a human with arms, hands and thumbs has its advantages. Fortunately, Audrey came up with a solution.
Heh, heh, heh. Oh, I reckon a carpenter would have approached the design with more grace, and certainly by using a screwdriver as well. But I appreciate that Miss Audrey came to me for assistance. Nothin’ like the strong clomp of a horseshoe to drive a screw through a piece of pine. I didn’t ask questions, by golly, even though only a few hours earlier, I’d spotted Eddie leaping in and out of the same window where I do my best carrot-mooching. But my interest was most definitely piqued.
One winter, I watched Middle Boy Lester make a ball of snow at the top of Viewing Hill. Once it reached the size of a curled-up lamb, he pushed it over the side. That ball of snow grew larger and larger as it picked up speed. That’s the best way I can explain how it felt to be caught up in Buster’s planning—things kept getting bigger and moving faster.
Well, time was a factor, and, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, there were still a lot more details to make this plan work. For example, I had to teach Audrey how to open a slide latch from the inside of the truck, yes, yes, I did. I have a similar one on my pen. When I was not so big as I am now, and not so nervous, no, no, no, I would take this twisty hook, which has a little doughnut hole lasso, that I could use to snag the bulb at the end of the bolt. Then I’d, yes, yes, pull it upward to get the bolt free so that I could take it out of the latch and then open the gate. Twelve seconds is my all-time best record.
Easier said than done, I’m afraid. Besides which, I had to learn how to keep that little contraption hidden in my mouth without swallowing it. So with only two days left until the truck arrived, whenever Farmer family was out of sight, I’d sneak into Buster’s pen and practice. Buster would motivate me with the egg timer he had borrowed from Farmer’s kitchen many years ago. Eventually I could do it, although not nearly as fast as General Buster would have preferred. I could only hope that the latch on the Abbot’s War truck would be no more difficult than the one I was already struggling with. Meanwhile, Eddie had to work on all the other parts of Buster’s plan.
Buster pointed out that the tire had to be punctured with the screw while the truck was in the farmyard. First we’d have to place the screw under the tire. Then, up in the cab, the gear needed to be shifted into neutral so we could roll the truck on top of the screw. “Jeepers!” I cried. “Pushing a truck is no easy business. Why the heck can’t we just let the driver drive the truck over the screw?” Pretty good thinking on my part, if I do say so myself. Buster simply sighed and rolled his little eyes and then explained that when the truck left Bittersweet Farm, the driver backed up fifty-two percent of the time, and drove forward forty-eight percent.… Gosh, some of the stuff Buster keeps in his head is a bit weird.
In any case, the odds were too close to take a chance on putting the screw in front of the tire or behind, so pushing the truck ourselves was the only option. Obviously we couldn’t do that right under Farmer’s nose. Therefore a distraction would be required to keep all the humans busy while we performed the operation. What kind of distraction? One that I could scramble up in less than thirty-six hours!
Before we answer your question, let me be clear: we are a terribly misjudged group. What has been understood as random movement in which one of us changes position and the rest then follow brainlessly is untrue. Take the time to listen to our passionate bleats and you will see that a shift from one location to another has everything to do with the force of the argument being brought by a member of the flock. Sheep speak eloquently and are very convincing. If we all follow a ram one way, and then follow a ewe somewhere else, you can be sure it’s because we weighed the arguments and came to a hard-earned decision. There are much more weak-minded things to be in the world than a herd of sheep.
Well said, Clark, well said. Ahem … the request was brought forward during one of our evening scrums. That is when the herd votes on the issues that need attention before we all retire for the night. We sleep on the decisions and then re-vote in the morning.
Unless, of course, a member wakes up and demands a debate prior to sunrise. Then, according to Rule 463-B of the Sheep Constitution, the herd is required to get up and hash out the concerns of that member to her or his satisfaction.
Yes, good point, Brigit. Now, on the night in question, Eddie interrupted our meeting. He requested that we create a distraction at a certain place and time. This brought up an issue right away. We sheep are not in the habit of including any other animal, especially a sheep-dog, in our meeting. Max and his son, Eddie, are tolerated but not embraced. They are what we consider necessary evils.
What Lionel means is that we acknowledge that the sheep-dog does protect us from dangerous predators like wolves, foxes, etcetera, for which we are grateful. But we also point out that the sheep-dog’s duty is primarily to Farmer, and the rights of us sheep come second. Ultimately, the dog orders where we sheep are to go and how long we are allowed to stay there. Until sheep are granted full power to decide where on the farm we will graze, our sheep dignity is being denied, and we will be forever at odds with dogs such as Max and Eddie.
Hear, hear, Brigit, well put. However, when Eddie approached us with his request, he was speaking on behalf of Audrey, which made the issue, well, less an issue.
Let it be known that we sheep wholeheartedly recognized and sympathized with Audrey’s plight as a food cow. If we hesitated in helping our sister in her time of need, it was because she did not seek us out first, but instead looked elsewhere.
Uh … no, the sheep weren’t our first choice. I figured that being, as they say, a sheep-dog, maybe … you know, maybe they wouldn’t take me seriously, asking them for something. They don’t really like my dad. They’re probably not thrilled with me either. But that’s not the only reason. You’ve heard how sheep talk, right? As a group, it takes sheep forever to make up their minds about anything. They just talk and talk and talk, and we really didn’t have that kind of time to spare. We only had a day and a half left! So first we went somewhere else for help.
Who’s asking? I’m just saying, who wants to know? Why do I want to know who wants to know? Listen, Bub, and you listen good. Loretta is not in the habit of blabbing her beak off to any stranger who comes snooping around with a load of questions. You got that? Loretta would prefer to know the purpose for this line of inquiry before she decides to cooperate. Am I getting through to you? Do I look like some pushover? Is there a sign hung on my tail feathers that reads “CHUMP”? No, there isn’t, is there? So let me repeat the follow-up question to the question asked of me: What is this all about, huh? … Oh, it’s about Audrey. Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place! Yeah, we did business with her.
Oh, my. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Dear interviewer, please do not be put off by Loretta. Her speech might be a tad crude, but her heart is golden, I assure you. Yes, it is true that a certain business meeting was conducted between the goose family and one Audrey the cow and one Eddie the dog. Let us not be coy here. We are all adults, are we not, and all of us are aware of the situation pertaining to Audrey, her predicament and her plan to remedy it. She needed a distraction to take place close to the Abbot’s War truck. We listened to her request, which is not a crime as far as I know. And let the record show that they approached us and not vice versa. We were minding our own business. As I recall, at the time, Loretta and I were discussing whether to take a stroll toward Artificial Lake.
Yeah, right. As I recall, we were discussing the fact that Cyd waddles like she’s wearing Little Girl Elspeth’s old baby diapers. Ha!
Pardon-moi? Loretta said what about me? She did? She mentioned the diaper comment? Really? Oh, my, I … I … I so wish that dear Loretta could hold her tongue. What I mean is, I would so, so appreciate it if my oldest and dearest friend could just shut her fat, blabby bill for one merciful second. Do you think that might be possible? Hmm? Do you think that maybe, perhaps, that annoying fowl might shut her stupid, ugly bill?
Cyd said that? Sounds like someone’s got her diapers twisted in a knot. Ha!
Aghhh! You tell Loretta that I will wring her neck! You tell her that if it’s the last thing I do, with my dying breath, I will wring her scrawny, stupid neck!
So, no, that didn’t work out. And that’s when I decided we should try the sheep instead. They discussed it all evening, and then they slept on it, and then they woke up and discussed it some more. And then they agreed to do it. And then they didn’t. But then they absolutely agreed, and then they discussed how they would do it, which took another couple of hours, and jeepers creepers, I think I would rather bite off my own tail than go through that again! We were down to less than a day, but in the end, the sheep settled on a distraction that involved a move rarely done. Gosh, they wouldn’t even tell me what it was. So …
It was done. Eddie had managed to organize all the elements of Buster’s plan. Now we just had to wait until noon of the next day to put it all in motion. The quiet before the storm, as they say. Mother’s spirit seemed to hover beside me, guiding my heart to a slow, steady rhythm and my mind to an inner peace.
I could finally catch my breath. And that’s when it really hit me that no matter whether the plan worked and Audrey escaped, or the plan failed and Audrey … didn’t escape, the one thing that would be the same either way was that I’d never see her again. Just understanding that made me hurt so much inside. I couldn’t imagine a day when I wouldn’t see Audrey or catch a scent of her on the wind. That last night, I went over to the barn and we lay together for a while. Heck, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t whimper. I was losing her. Even if it was for the best, it didn’t make the hurt any less painful.
When I headed over to Farmer’s house, Dad was waiting for me. “You’re breaking all the rules,” he said. “Everyone has their place; everyone plays their part. What you’re doing is going against the natural order.” I looked over at Dad, but I didn’t say anything.
Gossip spreads through Bittersweet Farm like brush fire. It’s a small community. I suppose that within a few hours, everyone other than Farmer family knew that something was up. In the cowshed, it was quiet that evening. Eddie came and stayed a while. We didn’t speak. I just gave him some licks around the ears; that’s what calms him when he’s upset. In my heart, I was sending him all my good wishes, trying not to dwell on our separation.
After he left, I made the rounds of all the ladies. I said good-bye to each of them and wished them nothing but happiness in their lives. I meant it. They were my family, after all. Greta started wailing with big, inconsolable sobs. Agnes became confused and asked if she could just stick to saying good night like she usually did at bedtime. Norma couldn’t look me in the eye, but I did hear a quiet “good-bye, child” just as she turned away.
The hardest was saying farewell to Madge. I think for her it brought up memories of her son, Lon. “Mother always felt closest to you,” I told her. “She said you were like a walnut fresh off the tree.” That got Madge’s attention. “Why would she say something like that, Audrey?” she asked. I explained, “Mother said you were hard on the outside, but inside, you were soft and sweet.” Madge’s eyes got all watery and she came close. “I so want to help you, child, but I can’t. I couldn’t help my boy either.” I was touched that in that moment Madge put me on the same level as her son and that maybe she saw me as a daughter. “It’s okay,” I said. “Just wish me luck.”
