WHAT THE NANNY GOAT TOLD KIDS (CHAPTER 12)

CHAPTER 12

 

EVENING ARRIVED AND THE ROOSTERS all over crowed to say goodbye to a day already spent and welcome the unpredictability sneaking in with the gloom. As Mr Ransom quietly untied the ends of the ropes and the goats rushed into the stalls with the dogs hanging around and monitoring them, Grace resolved with what she would implant into her kids’ minds that night, the tale of goats by tomorrow would take a resplendent twist.

When their door was locked and they huddled together, Grace knew there was no room for any excuse anymore. She had to reveal the true make-up of a free life to her kids.

She listened to the familiar sounds. In the other stalls, the goats and fowls thumped the planks and rustled their feathers seeking comfortable positions that would afford them excellent night rest.

The Ransoms were banging doors, chopping wood, sweeping the floors and letting water gurgle into containers; Mr Ransom was calling out to someone this way and Mrs Ransom the other way was telling another what to do.

The motorcycles roared in the neighbourhood as those who left their beds early in the morning to chase money were now returning to them after their diverse tales of how they were able, after much sweating or not, to trap money or how it slipped from them and bounded off.

Earnestly, the tales woven daily around money are of diverse genres and hues. It has the elements of realism, fable, humour, epic, satire and the list goes on and on. In the Ransoms’ home tonight, it was more like a satire.

Grace thought if Mr Ransom could for once get angry because people ill-treated him, then it was high time for her too to get angry over a barb carelessly thrown around by Mrs Ransom after they had milked money from her offspring year after year but she, Mrs Ransom of course, had the effrontery to point her daughter to her teats and asked her not to be like them.

Public electricity was not on so the Ransoms started the generator which roared and blocked the other sounds from Grace’s ears. But she knew the Ransoms when this happened were all in the living room, eating and watching television. Even with all the noise around, the imprisoned goats had no option but to browse the small bunches of leaves they had been given for the night or huddle, chew the cud or doze.

After feeding her kids, Grace allowed them to huddle close to her and dozed. She knew they could rest innocently for the next few hours in the room slightly brightened by a bulb which shone in through cracks in the doors and windows.

Immediately the generator stopped, this would occur around midnight if there was no public power, she would wait for Mr Ransom or his eldest son to bang the door close for the last time, slide the bolts into position and turn the key in the lock. As soon as he pattered his feet to his room and shut the door, she would wait for the brown dove to coo before she would wake her kids up and tell them the way forward.

Unlike her, the new generation of goats would not toil while humans kept exploiting and insulting them. The new dawn would take them to the land of the truly free goats.

When the generator eventually stopped, the first sound (after those of the Ransoms’ ritual of hugging their beds) to greet Grace’s ears was the hoot of an owl. What happened to the dove? Grace asked herself. An owl’s hoot sounded like a bad omen.

But the nanny goat quickly rebuked and asked herself what was her business with those who refused at the appointed time to carry out their duties or like humans, did the dove chase things for his body and became weary and could not wake on time to carry out his assigned task?

‘Poor dove!’ Grace thought and not to be found wanting, roused her kids. Though they had sprung up thinking they were meant to eat, Grace said: ‘Halt. Lie down. There’s plenty of food ahead but for now, you’re about to hear a tale that would usher you to a place of laughter and endless feast. First get to know where we are is nothing but a prison.’

‘But ma, where we are, we’re free,’ said the young billy goat.

‘If we’re free, why do I always have a rope around my neck in the pen?’

‘But we don’t have,’ the young nanny goat quickly noted.

‘And the reason for this tale of mine is so you’d not have it at all. Mr Ransom early tomorrow would put the ropes on your necks,’ Grace lied, just as some humans before had done to spark a revolution, ‘so you either do what I’d tell you now to be truly free or leave it and be roped to your own stakes from the morning.’

‘We’d do it, ma,’ the two kids said in unison and were in rapt attention.

‘Have you eaten or seen any goat in the pen eat from a plate?’

‘No,’ the kids replied. ‘I’d wanted to ask about it,’ added the young nanny goat.

‘Have the Ransoms cooked and passed to you any food before?’

The two kids made the same refrain: ‘No.’

‘Is it because the dogs are better-looking than you?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Well, they are not. The Ransoms in their heads don’t think we’re good enough. Worst, they would make you end as meat for the dogs!’

‘That’s a big lie, ma,’ said the billy goat. ‘We haven’t seen any of us get killed for the dogs yet.’

‘I hope you’d do what I ask you two to and not wait to see it happen. I’d seen more than ten billy goats since I first arrived here but right now, outside you, only one is left.’

‘The others were all killed?’ asked the young billy goat.

‘You would witness another killed if you’d not take my words seriously just before the New Year.’

‘Well, we’re listening. We didn’t know the Ransoms were that wicked. Tell us what to do,’ said the young nanny goat.

‘As that door is opened by Mr Ransom or anyone he sends to let us out, rush out and stand a good distance from the door. As soon as I come out and he turns around to follow, you two get ready to leap and strike Mr Ransom or whosoever it is across the face and chest. I’d turn and butt him where he’d be crippled for a long time. As I take off, don’t linger, just follow as we race for the wild for our total freedom.’

The kids nodded at the idea of the coup their mother put into their young minds.

‘So when we race off and grab our freedom, we’d be better off like the dogs?’ asked the young nanny goat.

‘When we’re truly free, we’d have all that we desire; our lives would be far better than the dogs for the idiots from time to time still have chains on their necks.’

‘Then, we wait for morning and we’d do just as you say, ma,’ the young billy goat said blithely.

The nanny goat happily stood and asked the kids to feed to their fill as they would need the energy to aid her in carrying out the crucial task.

Done with the feeding, the nanny goat and her kids huddled together to rest and wait for dawn to strike Mr Ransom or whoever would get stupidly close and then escape to embrace their freedom. But soon afterwards, the dogs started with their nonsense, ferociously barking. Grace startled, opened her eyes and wondered when the fools would stop. She thought: ‘It looks like they got overfed so why won’t they exercise to get the excess food burnt down to enable them to sleep?’

The animals and humans were confounded when a gun went off in the distance.

Muscle and Bone were now barking from different directions, running up and down the sides of the Ransoms’ bungalow.

Grace strained, caught the Ransoms speaking in muffled tones and then heard doors click open and close again. She knew someone certainly had tiptoed outside. Soon the dogs became quiet and Grace knew one or two Ransoms were with them.

‘There are dogs inside here,’ a voice said at the frontage.

‘And what are you holding that gun for?’ another replied. ‘Let’s watch our backs. Mow down any silly dog!’

A bark went out, then another, and then another bark and a gun rang out.

‘Kill any bastard who challenges us, dog or man. The gun is mightier than them all!’

Grace was glad they did not mention the goats; she was glad the humans and dogs were being forced to vomit all they stole from the goats or were they?