We were just about to put the oat-filled top hat over the fire (some distance away, so it wouldn’t singe) when we realised we were still missing the main ingredient: milk.
And there wasn’t a milkman anywhere to be seen in the crowd.
“How are we going to make lovely oats soup without any milk?” I asked, desperate.
“I think I saw a cow out there somewhere,” said Granddad.
“Yes, I saw one too,” added my brother Roberto.
“Where, where?” we all asked, scanning the horizon, shading our eyes with our hands.
Finally waaaaaaay off in the distance I thought I could see some horns.
“There’s one!” I shouted.
“Get her!” ordered Granddad, grabbing hold of his butterfly net.
“Milk her!” bellowed my brother Roberto, who hadn’t the slightest idea of how one milks a cow.
And off the three of us ran.
After, like, a mile of running, the three of us had to turn right around again because we realised we hadn’t brought the container for the milk.
We came back for the top hat, then raced off again, fast as the devil.
We approached the cow slowly, really slowly, the three of us hand in hand, absolutely terrified.
I elbowed Granddad and said:
“You talk to her, Granddad, you’re the biggest. She won’t pay any attention to me.”
Granddad elbowed my brother Roberto and said:
“You talk to her, you’re the youngest.”
And my brother elbowed me and said:
“You talk to her, you’re a woman.”
So there we were, the three of us, hand in hand, looking at the cow, the cow looking at us (with great curiosity), and no one getting up the nerve to ask permission to milk her, so that we’d have a little bit of milk for preparing Dailan Kifki’s soup.
No one!
Finally I summoned up my courage, cleared my throat, straightened out my dress and, showing I was the bravest of the three, I said to the cow:
“Good afternoon, Mrs Cow.”
The cow looked at me, very alert, and replied:
“Moo.”
I tried to make a bit of small talk to distract her, because of course you can’t simply come along expecting to milk a cow just like that.
And so I said:
“What a lovely day, isn’t it, Mrs Cow?”
And she—very alert—nodded and said again insistently:
“Moo.”
Granddad elbowed me and muttered:
“Get on with it then, we’ve got to start the milking.”
So I scratched the cow’s ear, just a bit, and asked sweetly:
“I wonder whether you might permit us, oh noble Mrs Cow, to take a nice little bit of milk from you?”
The cow, still very alert, nodded and said again:
“Moo.”
“I’ll handle this,” said Granddad.
And he started to milk her, while my brother Roberto held the top hat and I went on stroking behind her ear, so she wouldn’t get scared.
Once we had filled the top hat, we thanked her, bowing low, and the cow replied with a wave of her little tail.
When we put the soup back on the fire, Granddad kept himself busy telling half the world that all on his own he’d tamed a ferocious wild cow in the forests of Ituzaingó.
What do you say to that!