has a strong tradition of prize-winning. Your mama and I won Best Breeding Pair for more years than I care to remember. We have every confidence that Lewie will win Best Guard Llama this year and maybe one of you will bring home the other big prize: Best Llama in Show.”
This immediately brought out the competitive streak in Leo, Lamar and Latisha. They each privately promised themselves, in addition to winning their own events, to grab the big prize too. Mama Llama beamed at her children, but then gave Liberty a pleading look.
Liberty felt a twinge of guilt. She hated to upset her mama, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do – and escaping was in her blood. Surely Mama Llama must have known that all those years ago, or why would she have given her daughter a name that means freedom?
Later, when Liberty slipped out of the llama enclosure to see Lewie, she found him still feeling a little anxious.
“It’s just cold feet,” she reminded him.
Even if it were just cold feet, Lewie didn’t want to feel like this for days to come. The Best Guard Llama event wouldn’t be held until Saturday – the last day of the fair. That was five days away. Lewie loved his flock and he had faith in them, but if the sheep didn’t start working together soon, and if the lambs did not conquer their nerves, he really couldn’t see how they would ever win the prize.
For Lewie, who loved to perform and had always thrived on it, this felt like the most important performance of his life.
At that moment, unbeknown to him, Lewie was being discussed around the coyotes’ campfire. Not that any of the coyotes had met Lewie yet, apart from Captain and his nephew, Cupcake. And Captain still felt uneasy when he remembered his past experience with Lewie, so he was keeping quiet on the subject.
The conversation had started with a general discussion about the famous Guard Llamas in the county. Certain names were mentioned, like the mighty Hadrian, Farmer Hardman’s Guard Llama. Hadrian was a huge, powerful animal – and pretty fierce. Coyotes for miles around knew to give him a wide berth.
“He snapped my old dad’s tail clean off,” Clutterbuck told the others as the coyotes shared stories of encounters with Hadrian and other Guard Llamas like him.
Crazycoot had lost half his tail too, but that had been shot off by Farmer Blunkett’s gun. His Guard Llama, Blunderbuss, might be getting old, but he was another llama the coyotes tried to avoid.
Clutterbuck asked if anyone had had a run-in yet with Farmer Palmer’s new one. But the coyotes shook their heads.
“Well, he won’t be as fierce as The Terminator, that’s for certain,” Clutterbuck said firmly.
And everyone agreed.
“Don’t be too sure about that,” Captain muttered. The coyotes looked up, expecting more information, but Captain went quiet.
“What’s up? Llama got your tongue?” laughed Clutterbuck.
“Yeah, got the jitters, Grandpa?” asked Crazycoot nastily. “Don’t worry, you stay back behind us. We’ll protect you, won’t we, lads?”
The younger ones laughed openly at the old coyote.
Captain took a deep breath and counted to ten. Let them laugh at him all they liked. He who laughs last, he reminded himself, laughs longest. Yes, siree.
Mama Llama’s chest swelled with emotion: partly pride, but a little envy too. She wished she could have gone and seen her children take part in their events. But she had to accept that her own and Papa Llama’s show days were over.
By mid-morning all the animals were in their pens at the County Fair. A chorus of bleating and baaa-ing and braying and honking could be heard as a huge wave of excitement spread throughout the livestock yard.
Lewie was relieved to see that he wasn’t housed too far away from his family although, as Guard Llama, he was on the opposite side of the yard with all the other Guard Llamas, each with his own flock of sheep.
In the next pen, Lewie was rather nervous to see a huge, powerfully built llama who looked much older than him. Lewie bravely tried to introduce himself. “Hello, my name’s Lewie …” he began. But the big llama lifted his nose and turned away, refusing even to acknowledge him. Lewie felt a little crushed.
Throughout the morning, the llama continued to ignore Lewie, although he talked happily to the two llamas on his other side. They were clearly all old friends. Lewie soon discovered that the huge llama was called Hadrian, but his nickname was The Wall
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