The Trespassing Crew by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 6
Again the two woke up right around sunrise, next to their improved mother.
Apple: “Hi, mom. Are you better today?”
Annabelle: “I feel as good as ever.”
Pablo: “Great, maybe you can come play with us today.”
Annabelle: “Well, I’m not feeling that good. But, I can come with you and watch. Wait until after we eat.”
They all stayed still, silently, watching the sun rise and feeling the immediate warmth it brought. Joe and Mary showed up on schedule, first stopping to see Annabelle. Both bent down and rubbed her all over.
Joe: “My favorite girl looks good.”
Mary: “She’s always been quite a girl.”
Apple and Pablo: “Hey, how about us. We like belly rubs too.” Of course this sounded like “ney, ney, ney” to Joe and Mary, but they knew what they meant and furiously started rubbing their little bellies. They kicked up their legs and squiggled all over, laughing. Joe and Mary got up to get everyone’s food. The rest of the animals saw what was going on and they too, rose, so as not to miss breakfast. The chickens busied themselves eating the corn Joe threw on the ground. The goats got large baskets of leaves. The dogs got some kind of
meaty slop in dishes and the horses got hay bales. The little ones would soon see that this pleasant routine would repeat daily. After eating Pablo’s curiosity got the better of him and he was compelled to question his mother.
Pablo: “Were you ever outside of here?”
Annabelle: “No. I was born here, just like you. But, Joe and Mary are very good to all of the animals here and they bring over somebody to fix us when we need it, just like yesterday.”
Apple: “That sounds good. But, don’t you ever get tired of being ONLY here?”
Annabelle: “I have you two to keep me busy and happy here.
What could possibly be better out there?”
Pablo closed his eyes and snuggled up to his mother, as did Apple, rubbing faces. He said; “Feels good to me, too, Mom.”
Annabelle smiled at them and trotted away, to test her pain level. She felt good.
The two little ones made a trip over to their captive audience, Efscot and Zelda. Zelda saw the two coming and greeted them.
Zelda: “Have you figured out the world yet?”
Pablo: “Maybe, in a week or so.”
Apple: “And maybe we don’t have to. Mom says this is a good place to be.”
Zelda: “It might be for you, but we’re stuck in these stalls most of the time. And maybe you’re not all that adventurous.”
Pablo: “I don’t think we know yet. You can get hurt on an adventure, right?”
Efscot: “That’s probably part of the definition of adventure. Sure, you might get hurt, but you might also see and feel things you’ve never before imagined.”
Apple widely opened her eyes, made a mock-scared shrug and said; “I don’t want to see or feel it if it’s anything like a gorilla.”
Everyone laughed and that was the end of this morning’s questions. Gunther and Hilda waddled over to the stalls.
Gunther: “Your mom’s looking fine today.”
Apple: “Yes, she says she is, though she’s not yet up to running. No more pain, everything’s fine again.”
Hilda: “So let’s enjoy the day. See if you can catch me.”
She started to quickly move away, though it was more of a fast waddle than a run. Pablo and Apple were learning to use their legs better and better and in about 50 feet, they had Hilda surrounded. She tried to go left, then tried to go right, but was hopelessly blocked in. She finally fell down laughing.
Hilda: “You guys are too fast for me, already. I’ll have to think of some new game where I have some chance.”
Pablo and Apple licked her belly while Gunther came running over, amused at the sight. Charlie and Charlene were laughing and scooted over to get a closer look. They jumped onto Hilda’s belly. Hilda screamed and got up. She was just startled and wanted to continue to play. So, she got her nose right under Charlie’s behind and tried to flip him over. Charlie managed to stay on his feet. Charlene couldn’t stop laughing. When Pablo saw this he put his nose right under Charlene’s behind and tried to flip her, to no avail. She looked at him, somewhat indignantly. Vanessa and Dominick walked over cautiously, not knowing exactly what was going on, but suspecting a ruckus.
When they got there, it looked like fun and they started running around in circles, seeing who they would be able to sneak up on.
Annabelle was standing there watching, sometimes directing traffic. This was to be the typical happy day that they all would have regularly on the farm. Pablo and Apple would continue to talk to Efscot and Zelda daily, but didn’t come up with any difficult questions. In fact, most times they didn’t have any questions at all. But, they always thought that it was very unfair that Efscot and Zelda had to spend so much time in prison, having committed no crime, at least by animal standards.