“Let me go! Let me go!” It was a wail, a holler of complete distress. “Please, I beg of you, let me go!” No matter how much noise she made, the captor continued to pull and half drag the unfortunate Kitty across the field. “My poor little babe! What shall happen to Meringue?” One of the captors quickly showed the hollering goat doe her wee little lass. She continued to scream. The two terrorists did everything they could to quiet her down, but not even oats would work.
“How dare you! You …”she stammered, “I thought of all people you would be my friend. I trusted you.” The doe resisted being dragged further, but the humans were too strong. She demanded that they let her go, she pleaded for them to let her have rest, she groveled for them to bring her back to her pen, but the captors continued to ignore her cries.
They tied her up in a green pasture that was lacking a fence, that had trees and weeds and berries and so many other good things, but Kitty knew that all these were meant to torment her. Kitty knew that these two humans only wanted to keep her quiet long enough, so that no one would know her whereabouts. Kitty remembered that if you ever find yourself caught, you must make lots of noise. She did her best and let out a banshee cry. Then she paused for a second, getting ready to make another yell, but she heard her two captors talking quietly with each other.
“I told you she would holler if you didn’t bring Maybelle along.”
“Yes, but you know how strong and smart Maybelle is, she would probably eat whatever we tied her to, and then we would have to catch her.”
“Hmmm. Quite. That would be a bit of a problem then, if she escaped.”
“Exactly, you remember how much she hates being tied up.”
“Then do we let her scream?” The captor known as Farmer R. pointed to Kitty.
“I suppose that is the only thing for it, but I must say, I thought having Meringue beside her would calm her down a bit.”
“You thought, but it didn’t work.”
Kitty again let out a noise that would have startled a lion should one have heard her.
Now, the humans left. A short time later, one returned with a bucket of water, and showed Kitty that it did indeed contain water. “How dare you think that I am so simple that you could get away with poisoning my water?” she screamed again. “And how dare you kidnap the daughter of Queen Maybelle (for she is queen now after her coronation), and the granddaughter of the queen as well?” Then she said with an air of authority, “If you should but let me go, I am sure that my mother would be quite happy to pay the ransom.”
Farmer R. spoke up. “You think we are keeping you for ransom? Silly thing, I just brought you here so that you would have lots of fresh weeds and things to eat.”
A long and piercing shriek came out of Kitty. “How foolish you must think I am, if you suppose that I can be so easily tricked into thinking that I have not been kidnapped, when I have most certainly been treated with such discourtesy, that I realize can only mean that I have been kidnapped.”
Princess Kitty’s wails, cries, pleas, begs and all other manner of loud noises proceeded from deep within her vocal chords. Meringue at this point fell asleep to escape such awful sounds. She lay there curled in a ball on a fresh lot of soft grassy stuff dreaming about playing on pallets with Eclair. Farmer R. got up off her tuffet, a patch of grass at the base of a tree, and walked away.
Kitty rejoiced. Her walking away could only mean one thing. She was going to ask her mother to pay the ransom. She thought about this for a bit. After some calculating, she decided that she would probably be worth a hundred yellow flowers or fifty mouthfuls of barley. Her mother would easily be able to pay such a sum, because they keep a very full treasury of stores in case a disaster like this should occur. Soon Farmer R. returned.
“Do I get to go free?” asked Kitty. “I am sure my mother wishes to have me released without further delay.” Without a word, Farmer R. plopped a chair on the ground and sat down. She placed a glass with water in a cup holder and pulled out three books. “Which would you prefer to hear?” Farmer R. asked. Kitty was determined not to be so easily won over, and sniffed at the three books and walked as far away as she could, but she was tied down, so she ended up only a hundred feet or so away.
Farmer R. poked Meringue and coaxed her into waking. Kitty saw her touching her child and panicked. Running back over to where Meringue was, she had to make sure that the petting and pats from Farmer R. left no mark or smell that could show, even to a very well trained nose, that a human had ever touched her precious Meringue. The human looked at the three books in her lap and decided to start reading aloud a hardcover book that had a wolf-looking thing on the front. She began, “The Call of the Wild by Jack London.”
Kitty wished she could cover her ears with her hoofs in the same way she saw the humans do with their hands, when they did not wish to hear something. She realized that this special ability belonged solely to humans (and something called a monkey). Thus, she had no choice but to listen to “And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born.” Kitty scowled, thinking how she used to live among the place that she was born. She thought, I never had to put up with being kidnapped and placed on a lead around super green grass. She took another look at the grass.
When she was quite certain that no human from near or afar was looking, she bit off a huge mouthful of delectable greens. Farmer R. had just finished a paragraph of the book, and looked to see if Meringue was enjoying the story. She saw Kitty eating the grass, and Kitty spat out the grass as though it were some foul, bitter thing. Her captor continued to read her story about a sweet dog changed by a series of actions, which finally led him to kill for his own food. She read “The End” and looked up.
Looking at the sky, it was getting late. Kitty figured that Farmer R. would soon be making camp in a place where nobody would be able to find them. She was right. That human untied her and started to drag her around again. However, Kitty was not going anywhere without a fight. She sat down, so that she had to be practically carried for at least ten feet. Kitty finally managed to comprehend that she was beaten.
Therefore, she reluctantly followed Farmer R. There was not anything else for it. She was either going to get many grass stains on her beautiful coat or have a sore neck and head. Kitty had made up her mind that she did not like halters. The way that they were walking seemed familiar to Kitty, but she did not know where they were heading. It was a treacherous journey. They passed a wire that could fry a bug if it touched it, and the propane tank that looked like a beached whale. All these difficult obstacles were easy to avoid compared to THE SWAMP.
The swamp is a terrible evil that makes itself known after a rain storm. It is a low part in the cow pasture where water collects. Among the goats, they considered it something that you should avoid at all times. If you step in it, the drowned bugs of many years past will look up from the water and steal your soul. When this happens, you get a cold feeling on your hoof (or foot), as though you had stepped in snow. Right through this horrid swamp, Kitty, Meringue and their captors walked.
The stories they told before bed on a thundering night brought all their horror back to Kitty. She kept her eyes fixed closely upon the ground. This is why it was quite a surprise when she almost bumped into the gate to the goat pasture. “Mother! Mother!” Kitty cried. “I am here. Mother, turn around!” Maybelle turned around and bounded over to Kitty and Meringue. The gate was opened, and the goat family was reunited.
THE END!
