Whetū tore back to the cottage as fast as she could. Her ribs were still sore from being butted, and from falling on the hard ground. She charged through the back door and threw open the fridge. On the top shelf lay the sausages her mother was planning on cooking for dinner. Whetū wasn’t supposed to take food without asking, but she figured this was an emergency.
As she ran back to the farm with the sausages clutched in her hand, she couldn’t help but wonder what she was supposed to do in the future. A packet of sausages was all very well, but what about tomorrow? And the day after that? Perhaps she could persuade the cat to carry on feeding the lamb. She certainly couldn’t keep giving it their dinner.
Scraping and clanging echoed around the yard as the lamb gnawed at the bars, kicking at them with its front hooves. Ramses watched, an expression of disgust on his woolly face. Whetū quickly ripped off the plastic wrapping and threw a sausage into the cage. All the other sausages were still attached by a twist of skin, and they flew in like a long, meaty ribbon. The lamb pounced on one end and dragged the sausage string to the far side of its cage. It settled down and chewed, pausing every now and then to glare at Whetū and Ramses.
“The poor thing,” said Whetū. An idea struck her. “Perhaps if we put it in with some other sheep, it might learn how to eat grass?”
“We had a flock of sheep. The lamb ate them. Every single one. Including its own mother. Why do you think the field behind your cottage is empty?”
Whetū gasped and pressed a hand to her lips. Those poor sheep! She picked up the red silk cage cover and threw it over the top, tying the ribbons at the corners, trying to block out the grisly sounds of growling and chewing.
“Those sausages will keep it content for now,” said Ramses. “But you’d better have a word with the cat.”
“Yes, I will.”
“Of course, the best thing to do would be to put the lamb out of its misery altogether.”
“What do you mean?” Whetū was confused. The lamb hadn’t looked particularly miserable to her.
“Get rid of it,” said Ramses, ominously.
Whetū gasped. “You mean, kill it? Oh, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t! Errant will have to switch it back to being a normal lamb, and quickly! Didn’t The Mighty Mikaere notice when a whole flock of sheep went missing?”
“Errant said the sheep all jumped over the fence, and he fell asleep while he was counting them.”
“And the magician believed that?”
“Errant is his stage assistant. The magician trusts him implicitly.”
“Errant needs a good talking to,” said Whetū angrily. “But he’s off on tour with the magician for a whole week.”
“Then we shall just have to make the best of it in the meantime,” said Ramses.
Whetū followed the ram as he trotted off around the barn, his fleece glinting in the sunshine.
In the distance, the bull cried, “Oh! Oh! What’s that light? It hurts my eyes! You did it on purpose! Oh, boo hoo hoo!”
“I’ll be inside,” said the ram with a weary sigh. Whetū carefully shut the barn door behind him.
She pulled out her list of jobs. She still had to feed the chicken, clean out the coop and the yard, fetch oats and grain for the horses and find the cat.
Being an animal keeper was turning out to be more difficult than she’d thought.
Whetū worked hard all morning. The horses were nice enough, and were inclined to chat, but she had too much to do. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly unusual about the horses, apart from the fact that they could talk. They told her they enjoyed teasing the poor old bull, and would tiptoe up to the wire fence and shout loudly across the field to make him cry. Whetū didn’t think that was very kind, and said so.
“Oh, bull,” said one of the horses. “He’s just a big sooky la la.”
“You won’t make him any better by frightening him. Why don’t you try and be nice?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” said another horse, and all four took off at a canter around the field, kicking up their heels and laughing at the bull sitting in the corner of his field with his back to them, his big shoulders heaving with sobs.
Whetū eventually found the cat stretched out in the sun next to the sty. It was a rather superior looking ginger tabby whose main facial expression was bored. Whetū offered to provide the cat with proper tinned cat food, if it would keep the lamb happy with mice and rats and whatever else it could catch. The cat yawned and twitched its tail, and went off to sleep as soon as Whetū had shaken its paw to seal the bargain.
Then Whetū fed the chicken and scrubbed the coop clean. The chicken had laid a warm brown egg in a pile of hay, and Whetū put it carefully in her pocket to take back to the cottage.
Finally she pulled out her list and took one last look at it. Yes, she’d done everything she was supposed to. Her first day as animal keeper was over. She wondered how her mother had fared at the magician’s house. Time to go and find out.