Two Black Sheep

I woke to find my moth­er shak­ing my shoul­der. Open­ing my eyes, I blinked to focus in the morn­ing sun­shine which was stream­ing in my bed­room win­dow.

I didn’t wake peace­ful­ly at the best of times so to have mum shak­ing my arm until it felt like jel­ly was unusu­al to say the least. I groaned and peered at her with a look of bewil­der­ment on my face that became even more con­fused with her next state­ment.

“Get up and go and have a look at what your father bought home for you in the back­yard”. She mut­tered between grit­ted teeth as she pro­ceed­ed to throw my messy clothes around on the floor in a fit of tem­per.

A mil­lion pos­si­bil­i­ties raced though my head at once. I knew my father had returned from his lat­est out­back tour in the mid­dle of the night but I hadn’t got up to greet him as I was still steamed that he hadn’t tak­en me on the trip with him. It was a few weeks into my first high school year and so mum wouldn’t let me go and miss out on all impor­tant school­ing. Hence I wasn’t speak­ing to any­one, I hat­ed school.

I climbed out of bed and nar­rowed my choic­es down.

“Is it a pup­py mum”? I asked hope­ful­ly.

“No, it’s not”, Mum snapped back, already tear­ing into my bed and turn­ing my sheets into exact neat hos­pi­tal cor­ners. “Just go and have a look. He has out done his bloody self this time”.

I jumped, ooh Mum swore, it must be bad, she’s real pissed at dad. I almost ran through the house in my rush to go and see what this mys­tery was that had made my mum so mad. I banged open the back door and stopped dead in my tracks. My mouth dropped open.

There stand­ing in front of me, in my sub­ur­ban city back­yard, was a live sheep, a ful­ly grown wooly white Meri­no sheep, which turned, peered at me with rheumy red eyes, then Baaed bale­ful­ly and loud­ly before turn­ing its atten­tion back to the grass in front of my old swing set.

Mum appeared silent­ly behind me. She stood as stock still as me, hands on her hips with a look of com­plete dis­gust on her face. Of course by now, I had a look of com­plete awe on mine.

“It’s a lamb”. She said sar­cas­ti­cal­ly.

I turned and looked at her with an expres­sion of pure puz­zle­ment on my face.

“It’s a bit big for a lamb mum,” I said rather mat­ter of fact­ly, “and what the heck is it doing in our back­yard.”

The sheep con­tin­ued to munch the juicy lawn of my dad’s pic­ture per­fect back turf as we both con­tin­ued to stare in silence, lost in our own thoughts at this intru­sion into our lives. It baaed loud­ly again and I was shocked to hear an answer­ing baa in the dis­tance, com­ing from a few hous­es away.

I spun back to mum, even more curi­ous now. “What is going on mum, the neigh­bor­hood seems a lit­tle bit alive with the sound of sheep this morn­ing”. The baaing back and for­ward con­tin­ued as mum answered.

“Well your bloody father”, she start­ed on. “was on his way back home yes­ter­day and saw a sign out at Hard­en that said “Lambs for sale. $1 dol­lar each. So in his bril­liance, because he knew you were upset with him for not tak­ing you, he decid­ed to bring a lamb home for you.

I sat on the step and just burst out laugh­ing at the whole sit­u­a­tion. Poor dad, he was a real softy. Out West they were in the mid­dle of a huge drought, one of the worst on record. The bot­tom had fall­en out of the lamb meat and the wool mar­ket and the price of good qual­i­ty stock Meri­no lambs had fall­en to $1 per head.

So dad and his mates in their city bred glo­ry, bought four lambs for a total of four dol­lars and were soon rather stunned to find that they had pur­chased four ful­ly grown sheep, not four tiny bot­tle fed cute lambs that still had tails wag­ging behind them like in the fairy sto­ries. So the “lambs” were trussed up and tossed into the lug­gage bins of dad’s coach for their jour­ney east to the big city and their new homes.

Mum went on to explain that John Mar­tin, my school deputy prin­ci­pal who lived four doors down from us was also on the trip and the source of the answer­ing baa was from his new “lamb” that was busi­ly munch­ing the back turf down the road a bit.

Mum stomped inside at this point, leav­ing me sit­ting on the back step in my night­gown, watch­ing the sheep chew­ing away at the lush lawn quite indif­fer­ent to my pres­ence. I stood up slow­ly and approached the sheep. I had guessed by now that my new “pet” was a girl. As I walked towards her, she bolt­ed to the cor­ner of the yard and watched me war­i­ly out of one eye, con­tin­u­ing to oblit­er­ate anoth­er area of neat turf and drop­ping lit­tle green round pea shaped nuggets behind her.

I ran inside and hunt­ed around in mum’s cup­boards. Grab­bing the bread and hon­ey I smeared some hon­ey on a slice of bread and went back out­side. I approached her slow­ly again but stopped when I sensed she was get­ting read to bolt. I stayed still for a minute then slow­ly broke off a piece of bread and tossed it in front of her. She was straight on to it. I had found her weak­ness in one.

She loved bread and hon­ey.

The bread was gone in an instant and for the first time she turned her atten­tion to me, look­ing for more. By this time mum had called me in to get ready for school, so I regret­ful­ly left my new friend and went back in the house to get dressed for school.

For once that day I didn’t play up, I skipped last peri­od as usu­al to be the first over to the bus stop and I ran all the way home when I jumped off the bus around the cor­ner from my house. I went straight to the bread and grabbed half a loaf and the hon­ey and went out and sat on the back step. So began a rit­u­al that con­tin­ued for quite some days. I would smear the hon­ey on the bread and toss the pieces to the sheep, toss­ing them clos­er and clos­er to me each time. In the first few days, I just let her get used to me and wouldn’t touch her but by about day three she was eat­ing the bread straight out my hands, by day five she was wait­ing for me of an after­noon when I arrived home and by the time a week was up I could pat her and scratch her around her neck and she would fol­low me every­where, nudg­ing at my pock­ets for a tit­bit.

I loved her. She was mine. Of course no one else want­ed any­thing to do with her, my sis­ter hat­ed any­thing that slob­bered or was big­ger than a cat. Come to think of it, remem­ber­ing back to Cathy and her expe­ri­ences with mice, she hat­ed any­thing small­er than a cat too.

Mum just com­plained loud­ly every chance she could get. She would whinge about the her fast dimin­ish­ing lawn, stamp her foot about the amaz­ing pile of dark green peas that were mul­ti­ply­ing at a rapid rate and yell about her squashed gar­den and half chewed on veg­eta­bles.

I soon chris­tened my new pet. One after­noon I was play­ing with my lego on the floor of my room, when I heard mum scream loud­ly out the back yard. I dropped every­thing and ran to find out what was killing her, only to find mum stand­ing in the mid­dle of the yard shak­ing in fury and point­ing toward the veg­etable patch. There right smack bang in the mid­dle of the gar­den was my sheep, demol­ish­ing the final stalks of what was once mum’s pride and joy, the rhubarb.

Dad loved rhubarb and mum would pick the stalks fresh of an after­noon to cook up for his dessert at night after din­ner. Not any­more, the whole patch was now the con­tents of my sheep’s stom­ach. She baaed and looked around for more rhubarb. By this time mum had tak­en her slip­per off and she began chas­ing her, curs­ing and scream­ing at the sheep over the loss of her prize patch of juicy ripe rhubarb.

Of course I stood there and laughed, and laughed and couldn’t stop laugh­ing. It was such a sight. Mum had no chance of catch­ing the sheep in a pink fit and she seemed to get cranki­er every time she lunged at the sheep with her slip­per, to find the nim­ble foot­ed sheep jump side­ways out of reach and bolt off again.

Dad arrived home around this time and walked out the back only to burst into laugh­ter him­self at the spec­ta­cle in front of him. The sheep still had the last stalks in its mouth and was try­ing to get them chomped and swal­lowed at the same time as run­ning away from this scream­ing yelling mad woman that was chas­ing her around the yard with a  fluffy pink slip­per.

So the name stuck. Rhubarb she was from that moment onwards. It was apt.

“Rhubarb” is a stage whis­per or the word used for a crowd talk­ing in the back­ground. We had done a crowd scene in a school play and we all had to whis­per “rhubarb rhubarb” over and over as the crowd back­ground noise and talk­ing in faint con­ver­sa­tions.

Rhubarb and I became great mates at the same time she raised the wrath of both my sis­ter and my moth­er more and more as each day passed. She ate my sis­ters bra that was hang­ing on the clothes­line and then she ate all mum’s flow­ers. Rhubarb had a real thing for flow­ers. She would stand up the back out of sight of mum at the kitchen win­dow and chomp away on mum’s camel­lia flower heads and buds, only to skip mer­ri­ly away when mum came bull­doz­ing out of the house with the fluffy pink slip­per off the foot and raised to strike her wooly rump.

That year we had no flow­ers, no lawn but plen­ty of fer­til­iz­er and I had a friend.

I soon dis­cov­ered anoth­er of Rhubarb’s weak­ness­es. Of a morn­ing mum would dri­ve dad to work and I would use that time to feed rhubarb her bread and hon­ey. One morn­ing she fol­lowed me back in the house and I only half heart­ed­ly stopped her. I want­ed to see what she would do.

She walked in and slipped around the pol­ished kitchen floor before fol­low­ing me into the lounge­room where Cathy was watch­ing the morn­ing car­toons. Of course all I then heard was “Get that sheep out before mum gets home. You will be in real trou­ble this time”.

I shrugged. I was always in trou­ble, it was just the depth that var­ied.

Then the most amaz­ing thing hap­pened. Rhubarb spot­ted the TV. She turned, sat down on her back and hunch­es and just stared at it. So I sat down beside her, shocked at her reac­tion. She was mes­mer­ized and entranced by the TV. She nev­er took her eyes off it of moved an inch.

It wasn’t long before I heard mum’s car in the dri­ve­way, so it was a mad rush for Cathy and I to push the sheep out the back door and clean up the pea poops. We were both sit­ting qui­et­ly and inno­cent­ly watch­ing the car­toons when she walked in.

It became a dai­ly rit­u­al, as soon as mum drove off, Rhubarb would kick at the back door to be let in. I would open the door, stand aside and she would wan­der into the lounge, sit down on her hunch­es and just stare at the TV with us until we heard mum’s car arrive back home.

She caught us once. Rhubarb didn’t want to leave and even with both Cathy and I drag­ging her out we were not quite suc­cess­ful. Of course I was chased with the wood­en spoon and warned nev­er to do it again. The next morn­ing Rhubarb watched the car­toons with us again.

Life went on for a few months. Mum began com­plain­ing loud­er and would not go out­side with­out gum­boots on. Rhubarb kept eat­ing the flow­ers, chew­ing the under­wear on the line and leav­ing her pea poops all over the now torn up turf.

One after­noon I came home and there was no Rhubarb. She was gone. In great dis­tress I went scream­ing in to mum.

Mum informed me that she had to go, we couldn’t keep her in the back­yard in the mid­dle of the city. I stamped my foot and asked why not. Mum was adamant. I asked where she had been tak­en and I screamed loud­er at the response.

“Uncle Neville took her”.

I yelled at mum. “how could you”. Then I stormed off to my room to throw myself on the bed sob­bing.

Uncle Neville was my god­fa­ther, my parent’s best friend and dads fel­low church choir­boy who owned our local friend­ly neigh­bor­hood butch­er shop. I cried and cried. Rhubarb had been saved only to be giv­en to the butch­er.

Mum soon came in and gen­tly explained that Uncle Neville was tak­ing her to his house up the moun­tains, to feed on his spare pad­dock of grass and live out her life in peace and tran­quil­i­ty. I wiped my tears and looked up at her, for the first time hav­ing some hope that some­thing nice had hap­pened for my Rhubarb. I made mum take me straight up the moun­tain to their house that very after­noon, to check for myself that Rhubarb was indeed fat­ten­ing her­self up on the rich moun­tain grass and not hang­ing as a car­cass on a meat hook in Uncle Neville’s smelly cool­room that I was always explor­ing in fas­ci­na­tion.

I often vis­it­ed Rhubarb after that. Instead of being bored at the thought of vis­it­ing my god­par­ents I would excit­ed­ly jump in the car with my bread and hon­ey and when we arrived I would spend all my time down in the pad­dock with my Rhubarb. She always came run­ning up to me, every time she saw me and it mat­tered not if I didn’t have her treat of bread and hon­ey. She would stand beside me for hours and I would talk to her and pat her or we would just sit in silence and enjoy the views, perched high on the moun­tain pad­dock, look­ing down at the coal mines far below.

I would think about the cir­cum­stance thought bought us both here. Rhubarb from the dusty dry bar­ron pad­docks of drought rid­den out­back NSW, brought all the way to this lush moun­tain mead­ow. A life that had a price on it of $1, who shared so many adven­tures and fun times with me. We grew togeth­er and were bond­ed for life.

My wooly sheep was saved by a soft heart­ed city slick­er in a com­e­dy of errors. Just like me. Saved by that same city slick­er all those years before when they adopt­ed a lit­tle black sheep who had been born in a morgue.

She lived there in peace and tran­quil­i­ty for many years. About a year or so after she left the city for her moun­tain par­adise, I vis­it­ed to find her plump and round. She had been mat­ed with one of my Uncle’s friends Ram. Not long after my vis­it she gave birth to twins.

I was once again over­come with joy. One tiny lamb was fluffy white, just like Rhubarb and the dad­dy ram and all the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions of pure Aus­tralian Meri­no before it. But the twin was Black. A real live black sheep. Just like me.

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