Three Bags Full (24 page)

“It could work,” said Miss Maple.

They had woken up early, but stayed in the hay barn to keep Mopple company in his deep dormouse sleep. The morning sun fell through holes and cracks, painting shimmering golden signs on the sheep’s backs. They were in good spirits. “If they’re looking for that smartest sheep, they’re sure to be watching sheep closely.”

They liked the idea. Secretly, they had always been interested in the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest. There were rumors that the sheep who took part were fed shamrock and apples and admired by all the human beings. George had never let them join in. “That’s all I need,” he said once, when the conversation got around to the contest. “Those drunks on the jury sitting in judgment on my clever sheep.”

Now George was dead and couldn’t tell them what to do anymore. “We’ll do it,” bleated Sir Ritchfield. His eyes were sparkling as he looked forward to some action.

“But how?” asked Cloud. They put together all they’d heard about the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest.

“It’s total rubbish,” said Maude.

“It’s a tourist trap for when there’s nothing else on offer,” said Heather.

“It’s in the Mad Boar,” said Sara.

That was a start, anyway. The sheep knew the pub from their expeditions to the other pasture. They noticed the Mad Boar every time they passed because of the smell of whiskey and beer, and also because of the eyes that inevitably popped up on the other side of the windows, watching George until he and his sheep had disappeared around the bend in the main road.

“We’ll just go along,” said Zora boldly. “The others must get in somehow or other.”

The others! Other sheep! The whole place would be full of sheep—very clever sheep. They could learn a lot from those sheep. Perhaps they’d all join up into a particularly large flock afterward. Sara waggled her ears happily, Zora took deep, appreciative breaths of the cool morning air, and Cloud lay down on the straw with a contented sigh.

“But when is it?” asked Lane. They knew that the contest took place only once a year. And a year was a long time, from one winter till the next.

“The day after tomorrow,” said Mopple. Mopple the Whale had woken up and was looking at them bright-eyed again.

“How can you know?” asked Heather.

“Gabriel said so to the butcher when the butcher was trying to warn him about us,” said Mopple.

The day after tomorrow, then! Two sleeps, and it would be the day of the contest. Not much time to prepare.

Only Miss Maple looked skeptically at Mopple. “But we’ve already slept once since then. It’s not the day after tomorrow anymore. It’s tomorrow.”

“The day after tomorrow,” Mopple obstinately repeated.

“It’s changed,” Miss Maple explained. “It changed in our sleep. It’s only tomorrow now.”

“But I remembered,” said Mopple. “Once I’ve remembered something it doesn’t change.”

“Yes,” said Miss Maple. “Yes, it does.”

Mopple the Whale withdrew into a corner and began noisily chewing a mouthful of straw.

“We just need a trick,” said Heather enthusiastically. A sheep needed a trick to appear in the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest.

“What’s a trick?” asked a lamb.

Silence drifted down in the hay barn, gathering around their hooves like snow in winter. Somewhere, very far away, they could hear a cow mooing. A car hummed along the road, no louder than an insect. A little mouse scurried about in the hayloft, its feet pattering like raindrops on the rough dry wood. A large brown spider stole soundlessly through a forest of sheep’s legs.

“Perhaps there’s a trick in the toolshed,” said Cordelia after a while.

“Even if there is,” said Zora, “we wouldn’t know what the trick looks like.”

“We could take all the things we don’t recognize out of the shed,” said Heather, who was desperate to get to the contest at any price.

They trotted inquisitively off to the toolshed, and Lane pushed back the bolt with her muzzle.

The door swung open, and old air wafted out: aromas of oil, metal, plastic, and many other unpleasant smells. The sheep looked hopefully into the toolshed. It was a tiny place, so small that not even a single sheep would have fit into it entirely, but it was stuffed full of things.

The scythe. The shepherd’s crook. The shearing machine, a little can of oil, the toolbox, the rat traps, seeds for the vegetable garden. The seeds didn’t smell bad at all. A mug full of screws, a small rake, a flea collar for Tess. A tin of rat poison that George had bought once in a temper and then never used. The red and white rag, the chamois leather for the windows. All of them things that the sheep knew. They knew exactly what George had done with them—and it wasn’t tricks.

Lane, who was standing in front, turned to the other sheep.

“Nothing here,” she said.

Suddenly they heard a chuckle behind them. Melmoth. It was as if he had suddenly turned into a completely different animal. He was standing on his hind legs, marching up and down like a Two Legs. His movements were awkward, strange, pointless, and wrong.

“What’s that?” breathed Cordelia.

“That,” said Othello, who had got up on his own hind legs too, “is a trick.”

When the sun was high in the sky, and Rebecca came groping her way out of the shepherd’s caravan barefoot to stretch like a cat, the sheep were still discussing the matter.

Nothing they could do seemed to be a trick. Grazing, running, sitting on a rocky ledge, jumping, thinking, remembering, eating. None of those was a trick.

“What about listening?” asked Heather.

Othello shook his head impatiently. “It has to be totally pointless,” he explained for the hundredth time. “Pointless and obvious. Like walking on your hind legs. Or holding a cloth between your teeth and waving it. Or rolling a ball.”

“Why would a sheep want to roll a ball?” asked Maude.

“See what I mean?” said Othello.

“They think sheep are smart because they do pointless things?” Cloud flapped her ears, incredulous.

Othello snorted. “We don’t have to understand it. We just have to know about it.”

Melmoth nodded approvingly.

“We don’t have a ball,” said Lane, who was a very pragmatic sheep.

“I don’t think we know any tricks,” said Zora calmly. “Luckily.”

Some of the sheep hung their heads, but Miss Maple wasn’t to be discouraged.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “We only want them to pay attention to us. We don’t want to win.”

“I do,” said Heather.

Miss Maple ignored her. “If we can get in there, they’ll pay attention to us. And then perhaps we can get them to understand.”

“Understand what?” asked Maude.

“That Beth killed him with poison, and then she still wasn’t happy, she wanted his soul too. And she stuck the spade in him so that his ghost wouldn’t haunt her,” Rameses explained.

“They’ll never understand all that,” groaned Mopple.

“Make it simpler!” said Miss Maple.

“That Beth is George’s murderer. First with poison. Then with the spade,” said Heather.

“Simpler still!” said Miss Maple.

“Beth—murderer—George,” said Zora, feeling unnerved.

“That’s it,” said Miss Maple. “If we’re very lucky they might understand that.”

The sheep looked at one another. Three words, such simple words—and it would be difficult to make human beings understand them…

They looked round to Miss Maple for help, but she had disappeared. Instead, the sheep heard strange scratching noises from one corner of the hay barn. A moment later Miss Maple was back among them again, with a grubby nose and the butcher’s Thing between her teeth.

Miss Maple had a plan.

21

Fosco Knows His Way Around

Inspector Holmes stared into his Guinness, feeling frustrated. At any other time the sight of it would have cheered him, but not here. This was what you might call a duty Guinness, which spoiled any enjoyment of it. Here of all places, in this Godforsaken dump Glennkill! Here at this stupid sheep contest, jammed in between tourists and the locals in festive mood. He didn’t like the atmosphere. Relaxation was all very well, but the people here were too relaxed by half. Although probably it just seemed that way to him because he wasn’t having fun himself.

He never ought to have joined the police, not with a name like his. They had a Watson in Galway, and no one ever left him in peace either, but Holmes…Stupid remarks were the least of it. All the most hopeless cases landed on his desk.
With
stupid remarks. It wasn’t his fault that he had the worst success rate in the entire county, and no prospect of improving it. Not with cases like this one. George Glenn. Right at the start he’d known: if it wasn’t the family who did it, I’ll never find out the truth. The family consisted of that pretty plump redhead, who of course had an alibi. Then all that stuff about the legacies. He had made up his mind just to arrest the heirs. Better than no arrest at all, he’d told himself. He could always let them go again later.

But now! He could hardly arrest a flock of sheep. To be honest, by now he hated the sight of sheep. So of course the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest was no place for him.

A wooden platform had been erected in the middle of the big hall in the Mad Boar. No steps leading up to it, only ramps. All for those animals. Behind it stood the shepherds with their champion sheep, so worked up that it was hard to say which of them was giving off the most penetrating stink. Or perhaps that was the tourists: many of them had cycled here in the summer heat, and you could smell that, naturally. What was he doing here? Did he expect the murderer to give himself away while under the influence? Did he expect the sheep to supply the crucial clue? No, really he just didn’t want to be back in the office with a filing cabinet full of unsolved cases. Better to go on investigating a little longer.

Now all was quiet. Quieter, anyway—of course the sheep were still bleating merrily away. Not particularly smart of them. A thin man climbed up on the platform. If that was the landlord it didn’t say much for the food in this place; the inspector would sooner have bought a meal from the fat man in the wheelchair. Hadn’t the pair of them been among those who found the body? Yes, right. Baxter and Rackham.

Taciturn fellow, that Baxter, he’d thought when he questioned him. But now the landlord was holding forth to the spectators for minutes on end. St.Patrick…Yeats and Swift…tradition…tradition …Glennkill’s pride in its sheep. Enough to make you sick! And he’d finished his Guinness.

At last the skinny landlord had finished and the contest began. Now it was really quiet; even the sheep had stopped bleating.

In the midst of this silence, a knock on the front door was heard. A minute ago it wouldn’t have had the faintest effect, but now all eyes went to the door. There didn’t seem much point in knocking on the door of a pub. But no one in the hall moved. More knocking. In fact it really sounded more like someone thumping on the door with a hard object. Only at the third knock did the man with the big nose take pity on whoever was knocking. He’d talked to him too. Father…Father something or other, the parish priest.

The priest went to the door and opened it, smiling. Only priests knew how to smile that way: he’d never seen a smile like it on anyone else’s face. But even as the inspector was thinking this, the holy smile slipped. Froze. Twisted in amazement. The priest’s horrified face stared at what was waiting for him outside.

When the door finally opened they felt like running away again. They’d never have thought there were so many people in the world. More than had come to their meadow, even more than had come to the lime tree. And the stink! The smells of individual humans had merged into a vast, collective aroma, greasy and smoky, pungent, rancid, monstrously alien. The stink settled like oil around their nostrils, depriving them of the ability to scent anything.

In addition, dense cigarette smoke lay like fog over the human faces above them. Its acrid smell drifted into the sheep’s faces and made tears come to their eyes. They couldn’t rely on their hearing anymore either—it was as if some strange veil had come down over them. Somewhere music was playing, muted as if by the leaves of a hedge, and a few feet were tapping under the pub benches. Nothing else.

The people stared at them in silence. God, after opening the door, had taken a couple of steps back, his jaw dropping right open, then collapsed into a chair, and was now clutching his chest. Othello took a step forward into the middle of the narrow aisle between the rows of tables. The others kept close behind him. They would all have preferred to race away from this dreadful cavern at top speed—but it was the only thing they could think of to do. At first all the sheep had wanted to be in the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest, but most of the flock had stayed behind after the vote finally went to just four sheep—Miss Maple, Mopple the Whale, Zora, and Othello. By this time fear had obliterated all pride and anticipation in Mopple, in Zora, even in Miss Maple. Othello was their lead ram; all they could do now was let him lead them.

Head held high, he strode past the rows of tables, showing not the slightest sign of fear. Right behind him came Zora, then Miss Maple, and bringing up the rear, stout and nervous, Mopple the Whale, with the cloth firmly held between his clenched teeth. That stinking rag was their most important stage prop.

When they had gone halfway into the hall, one of the humans shouted something, and an infernal racket broke out. The human beings were clapping their hands, shouting, and roaring. The sheep moved even closer together, pushed along by Mopple the Whale, whose vulnerable position had filled him with panic. Mopple’s head was now resting on Maple’s rear end, Maple’s on Zora’s, and Zora was pushed right up to Othello.

“What’s that?” she whispered in fright.

“Applause,” said Othello calmly. “It means they like us.”

“That noise?” asked Zora, but Othello had already moved on, and Mopple was shoving Zora and Maple from behind.

The clapping and shouting didn’t stop. It pursued them right through the hall, and when Othello finally led them up onto the platform it became unbearable.

The black ram stopped and turned to the human beings. The sheep finally had a bit of room, but they were suddenly bathed in dazzling light. Mopple, Maple, and Zora took their chance to get Othello between them and the human hordes again. Shoulder to shoulder, they trotted round and stood in close formation behind him. Othello bowed his head down to the floor three times.

“I wish they’d stop it,” said Mopple indistinctly, through the cloth held in his teeth. “Make them stop it.”

But Othello did nothing at all. He just stood there, looking calmly out over the sea of human heads. The other sheep peered uneasily to all sides. There was a second ramp at the back of the platform which led down to a corner where the other sheep and their shepherds were waiting. It looked calm and peaceful, dark and safe. That was where they wanted to be. Othello showed no sign of moving yet. He was waiting for something. Gradually the volume of noise decreased, and then it died away altogether.

Othello got up on his hind legs.

The noise began again, louder than ever. The humans were roaring.

“See?” said Othello, without turning round. “It’s dead easy. When we do something they make a noise. When we don’t do anything, they don’t make any noise.”

“Then we’d better not do anything,” said Mopple the Whale.

“It’s not at all dangerous,” said Othello, when he was down on all four legs again. “They’re the audience.” So saying, he turned and led his miniflock down the second ramp and into the corner with the other sheep.

There was a low fence around this corner, with a small gate in it. Othello opened the gate with his front hoof, led his sheep through it, and closed the gate with his nose. The other sheep were tied up to the fence. Their shepherds were sitting at a table in the middle of the fenced area, staring open-mouthed at the newcomers.

“You were right,” Zora whispered to Miss Maple. “People really do pay a lot of attention to sheep here.”

They felt better again in the company of the other sheep. Othello led them to a quiet place between a stout gray ram and a brown ewe. They waited to see what would happen next.

The applause had gradually turned to an excited murmur. Compared with the racket just now it was almost refreshing. A strange man wearing glasses pushed his way through all the humans crowding curiously around the fenced-off shepherds’ corner. When the shepherds saw him they mobbed him.

“Against all the rules!” shouted one.

“Why didn’t anyone tell us? Why aren’t they listed on the program?”

“Get them out of here at once!”

“What’s the idea? You told us no one could enter more than one sheep. If I’d known I could have brought along Peggy and Molly and Sue—then you’d have seen something!”

“They haven’t been entered.” The bespectacled man smiled. “To be honest, I haven’t the faintest notion where they come from. Or where their shepherd is.”

The shepherds looked at one another in silence. Then one of them said, “Their shepherd won’t be coming.”

“How can you be so sure?” asked the bespectacled man.

“He’s dead,” said the shepherd. “Those are George Glenn’s sheep.”

“Oh.” The bespectacled man looked confused.

“They should be thrown out,” shouted a sturdy, red-faced farmer.

The sheep were horrified. All that trouble, just to be chased away from the pub when they were so close to achieving their aim?

“It’s not that simple,” said the bespectacled man. “Don’t you hear the audience? The tourists? They
like
those sheep. If we turn them out, what do you think will happen?”

“I couldn’t care less,” growled one of the shepherds. “Rules are rules.”

“No.” The bespectacled man shook his head. “Why should we deprive the audience of its fun?”

“Fun?” shouted the red-faced farmer angrily.

“Look, we’ll let them perform outside the contest,” said the bespectacled man soothingly. “At the end, when no one’s really watching anymore.”

The shepherds sat down at their table again in a bad temper, giving George’s sheep black looks.

Wide-eyed, Mopple, Maple, and Zora watched the strange things going on around them. Children’s hands pushed through the fence, offering them sweets, bread, cake, even ice cream. Not even Mopple dreamed of touching this fodder. For the first time in his life he had no appetite. Perhaps it was also because the rag he had put down on the straw beside him was still giving off its horrible smell.

The music was very loud now. This time it didn’t come from a small gray radio set but from a troop of people who had marched up onto the platform and were doing things with a strange set of tools. The music made the sheep’s hearts beat faster, as if they were galloping. The human beings gawping around the fence had taken out small box things and were aiming flashes of lightning at the sheep. Maple blinked. She was the cleverest sheep in all Glennkill, but at that moment she made up her mind that no one must ever find it out.

In search of help, Maple, Zora, and Mopple looked round at the other sheep. The brown ewe on their right was nervously munching a piece of straw. Maple was about to ask her a question when she noticed the stout gray ram scrutinizing her.

“You lot aren’t particularly clever,” said the ram, his eyes glittering. “Just walking in here, as if it were summer pasture. Taking part in this contest at all. I wouldn’t call that smart.” He winked at her mischievously.

“The others are taking part too,” said Mopple the Whale.

“The others aren’t particularly smart either,” said the stranger. The two rams looked hard at each other. Mopple had never before met a sheep who was fatter than he. He immediately felt respect for the gray ram.

“You’re taking part yourself,” said Miss Maple, offended. After all, coming to the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest had been her idea. “So I suppose that means you’re not particularly clever either.”

“Wrong,” said the gray ram. “I am Fosco. All the others are here for the first time—they’ve no idea what’s coming to them. Except for the dappled ram there: he’s been competing as long as I have. But he has no idea either. He forgets the whole thing again every year. It would be crazy to take part a second time.”

“Oh, you’re crazy, are you?” asked Miss Maple.

“Wrong,” said Fosco. “I am Fosco. The others take part. I
win
.”

Maple was about to ask another question when the music stopped. The bespectacled man had climbed up on the wooden platform. “Ladies and gentlemen, here we are at last. The traditional Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest will open in a few minutes’ time. One by one, the cleverest sheep in Glennkill will do their tricks for you, then you will use your voting papers to decide on the winner. And of course there’s a prize to be won as well. For you, it will be a week of culinary lamb specialities at the Mad Boar. For the sheep—well, it’ll be the same!”

The human beings roared their approval.

“Only joking,” the bespectacled man went on. “Of course the smartest sheep in Glennkill doesn’t go under the knife itself. There’s a pint of Guinness and a wreath of shamrock waiting for the winner. Then it will go on tour and show off its skills in all the pubs of Ballyshannon, Bundoran, and Ballintra.”

The bespectacled man didn’t do any spectacular tricks, but he was applauded all the same.

“The shepherd will receive a small mark of appreciation to the value of two hundred euros. So let’s have a round of applause, please! I now declare the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest open!”

The humans in the hall obediently made a lot of noise.