WHAT THE NANNY GOAT TOLD KIDS (CHAPTER 12) - A

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.’