WHAT THE NANNY GOAT TOLD HER KIDS (CHAPTER 15)

 

CHAPTER 15

 

THE GOATS’ BLEATS gradually became weaker as the hours went by and there was not one Ransom in sight who could help sort out their problems. Grace herself had become weak from hunger and at a point when her kids had tried to feed, she had unconsciously butted them aside.

‘But ma you said Mr Ransom is a bad man?’ the irascible young he-goat had said.

‘Do you still ask? Can’t you see he is?’ Grace replied to the kid hotly.

‘I have doubt if he truly is. When he was around we were eating round the clock!’ said the same he-goat.

‘If only we could break the door, we’d have food in surplus in the wild and eat it without ropes on our necks,’ Grace asserted.

‘And where we’re going is far, isn’t it?’ asked the young nanny goat.

‘It is,’ Grace replied and curiously looked at her.

‘We’re hungry and weak. Won’t it be punishment dragging us on such a long journey?’ asked the young nanny goat again.

‘Well, whosoever thinks of achieving a great feat must consider hunger and death as part of the equation and should not get intimidated by the distance they would trek to the destination,’ Grace replied.

‘I’m hungry and weak and I’m fighting to run away to an unknown place to have my freedom? Ma, we’re simply committing suicide. I want to eat and live!’ As the young he-goat rushed in to suck the nearest teat, Grace jumped to one side and sent the kid to the other side with a serious headbutt.

The kid smacked its lips and blabbered: ‘Ma, your saga is a big lie. Mr Ransom is a nice man!’

 

*

 

It was midday when Mr Ransom on the back of his son-in-law’s motorcycle returned to his home and the first person he called out for as he walked into an empty compound was Merit.

‘Merit! Merit! Merit o!’ Mr Ransom had screamed and not hearing any sound in the form of a reply had commented with great disappointment: ‘I don’t know what this girl is turning to. I’m sure she thought I’d died and decided to rush into her freedom. Let her come back and I’d show her the other side of me!’

‘My in-law, please relax. Maybe mummy sent her somewhere,’ the son-in-law said.

‘I’d know when they all return. Come and sit down, I only wanted to send her to help buy something for you.’

‘I’m still on duty. I asked my boss to spare me a couple of minutes so I could drop you here at home. I’d come back with my wife in the evening to see you again.’

Father-in-law and son-in-law shook hands and the laboratory assistant powered his motorcycle and returned to his place of work. Mr Ransom traipsed to the rear of the house hearing the bleating goats, opened the door into the courtyard and the dogs rushed to welcome him. He stood and stared long at the stalls and said: ‘Just one day I’m away – in fact, half a day I’m away and everything is looking so, so disorganized? I think I’m too lenient with Merit. She’s not amounting to anything good!’

Mr Ransom quickly opened the doors and let the goats out. They all rushed outside and strayed inside the farm to grab and tear the leaves from the plants before heading to the pen.

The kids were too ecstatic that their mother had started eating and would soon let them have their milk. Meanwhile, they nibbled the leaves to see if they could be palatable enough. Neither the kids nor the mother, following the dazing blows hunger gave them and the heated argument that followed, did think again of leaving for the wild.

Mr Ransom came out of the courtyard with a bale of leaves on his head and as he stepped into the pen, all the goats were snapping bits from it before it was properly tied in position for them to reach. One by one the ropes went around their necks and they all were voraciously browsing the leaves.

Grace got well-fed and as the milk returned to her teats, called on her kids to feed and they stampeded to get as much as they could.

Mr Ransom, who showed signs of being hurt around the waist, traipsed all over the place, cleaning this, lifting that and throwing away others in one part of the compound or another.

He soon returned the building and its surroundings to normalcy. His sons had also returned and were talking of the wounded criminals being caught and they turned out a part of a gang who robbed different spots in the village that same night. Those caught had mentioned their members still at large and the police were now on their trail. It became clear the house rat had invited the bush rat home. Some suspects were said to be from the Ransoms’ neighbourhood.

When Mr Ransom waited till the chickens were returning home and Merit was not seen, he made a special cane from the branch of a guava tree and even though his lower back still badly hurt, he was ready to show her he was not happy with the way she was flying her kite.

When Merit returned, Mr Ransom shouted from the veranda at her right at the entry into the compound to stop, got up and walked painfully with his cane to meet her. But Merit was smiling and coming towards her father, saying: ‘Dad, we’d all need some really big canes to go flog the buffaloes which have levelled our big farm down.’

Mr Ransom froze and the cane instantly dropped from his hand. He asked his daughter to repeat what she was saying.

‘Daddy, Oga Perempe said if not that those four-one-nine people came with their confusion, that the two of you would have been going there hunting and that the fire you would’ve made in the tent and the smoke from the wood would have driven the buffaloes away.’

Mr Ransom loudly cursed the bringers of ‘Western goodies’ for ruining him.

 

*

 

Meanwhile, after taking their milk, the young billy goat had strayed to the veranda where on a sack peeled melon seeds were spread and nibbled some. Mr Ransom had limped, grabbed it and then carried it to the pen, saying: ‘I won’t have you destroy my things!’ He had extracted a rope from the rafters of the shed and put it around its neck. Then he chased the young nanny goat, caught it and brought her to the pen too to do to her the same thing he did to the male kid. And the two kids turned to look at the dogs still freely romping about.

When Mr Ransom left for the veranda, the young billy goat looked at its mother and said: ‘Ma, so you were right. Mr Ransom is a bad man!’

Grace, grinning, quickly replied: ‘No. I lied. Mr Ransom is a nice man.’

‘No, he’s not. We need a revolution. We need to be treated better than the dogs!’

‘You heard what the dogs did last night?’ Grace asked its kids, the other goats silent and listening hard.

‘What did they do?’ the young nanny goat curiously asked.

‘They did not only bark but also bite. If we can’t do exactly or better than them, then let us just forget about any damned revolution!’

 

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