Well, the big day had finally arrived. We were going to work sheep today and you could tell that everybody was really excited about it, because suddenly they remembered things that they had to get done.

                Max and I tried to sneak out the door but we were narced off by his sister the Gargoyle. We were captured and nothing we said or did got us turned loose. We had to help. 

                We had rounded up all the sheep the night before and had them in the corral. They were his moms’ sheep, a project that she did every year and every year they had to be worked like we’re getting ready to do today. It was a tremendous herd, twenty or thirty head at least.   We were to catch them and paint a brand on them and then sort the mothers from the lambs.

                It didn’t take long to do and would have taken less time if his sister hadn’t shown up to help.  The sheep took one look at her and the stampede was on. Those sheep panicked and were trying to crawl over the fence as well as trying to dig under the fence. We finally got her covered up with a blanket and the sheep calmed down. 

                We were down to the sorting and we had his sister working the gate to let ewes out and keep the lambs in. Everything was going good and then it happened.

                The sheep that were left all and I mean all of them turned and looked at her. One put its head down and charged. It managed to get by her and then another tried and did and the stampede was on, but one ran between her legs and carried her off. When those sheep stampeded they were gone like ice cream on a hot Fourth of July. 

                We just looked at the gate and the dust as it settled and we couldn’t see her anywhere. We then looked at each other and smiled with sadistic glee, maybe she was gone. Hope springs eternal anyway. Just as we were turning around to leave and return to the house we heard a noise behind us that made our hair stand straight up.

                We looked over our shoulders with fear in our eyes and the sight that was there only made it worse. There she stood looking more like a Gargoyle than ever. It was the scariest thing I had ever seen and in my few short years I had seen some scary things. She looked like a wild woman, hair was a mess and standing up, clothes were torn and she was covered in dirt with just the whites of her eyes showing. 

                The way she was looking at us was not pleasant and did not look like it was going to improve. She was also holding a piece of board in one hand and was swinging it into the palm of her other hand with practiced ease, well practiced ease, with a smack and every time it smacked our eyes got bigger and bigger. I think she had something in mind with that board and us, not good.

                We tried in vain to tell her it was not our fault, we couldn’t help it if the sheep didn’t stop while we were behind them yelling and hollering. That was no reason to blame us.

                We looked at her and we looked at each other and we were GONE. I mean we left there like our pants were on fire, and she was right behind us gaining every step of the way. It was a good thing our clubhouse was close because we just managed to get in it and shut the door when she hit it. The whole place shook like an earthquake but it held. When we looked out she was circling us like a band of wild Indians on the war path. It looked like we were in for a long siege. She was yelling and saying things she was going to do to us and it was not pretty. We were getting worried when Max’s mom came out and dragged her off to the house. 

                We came out after a while and looked all around to make sure it was safe. You can never be too careful.  We looked up at the roof of the house where she usually perched, but we didn’t see her.  It was going to be a long rest of the day, our eyes were darting everywhere and our ears were rotating like radar picking up every sound. 

 Tomorrow would bring new things to do, for today we had lived, barely.

 

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