Chapter 15

It was the night of the new moon, a time of month that made many wolves feel uneasy, and Boro was no exception. Tonight, to make matters worse, the sky was thick with clouds that prevented even the faintest wisps of starlight from slipping through. Boro and most of the other six wolves he was with had to strain their eyes to avoid walking into a tree, but Lala led them confidently forward as though the darkness were nothing to her.

“Do I really need to be a part of this?” Gururi said for possibly the forth time since they left Baku Baku Valley.

“It’s not far now,” Lala said cheerfully. “Remember, these goats are under my protection. The punishment for harming one of them will be beyond severe.”

The forest was uncharacteristically silent for this time of night. The only sounds to be heard as they picked their way through the darkness were the crunching of twigs, the rustling of leaves, and Gururi’s not infrequent complaints. When they reached the river, they crossed over it and into the south side of the forest.

“Where are we going, exactly?” Lili said.

“To the barn where Gabu met that goat a couple of years ago,” Lala said.

“They met in that old barn?” Lulu said. “I’ve never even dared go inside.”

“It’s going to be even darker in there than it is out here,” Gururi said. “Are you sure all of this is necessary?”

Beach giggled. “Gururi’s scared.”

“Shut up!” Gururi snapped.

Before they could even see the barn, Boro smelled goats nearby. He recognised Grandma and Mii’s scents, as well as those of several other goats he didn’t recognise. “We’ve arrived,” he said.

“Greetings, your Elderliness,” Lala said.

Boro, straining his eyes, could just make out the silhouettes of a group of goats standing outside the barn, several of them huddled close together in the way that goats did when they were nervous.

“Thank you for coming,” Grandma said. “If you wouldn’t mind, we would appreciate it if you and your companions went inside first.”

“By all means,” Lala said. She led the six other wolves into the barn, the interior of which was indeed pitch black.

Boro walked forward until he smelled the long dead wood right in front of his nose, at which point he turned around to face the entrance. Some distance away, there was a short yelp as someone walked into a wall.

Outside, they heard Grandma say, “I’ll go in first. Children, please stay by your mothers’ sides.”

There was the sound of hooves on wood as goats began filing into the barn. Two sets of hoofsteps—Grandma and Mii, Boro guessed—made their way deep into the barn, while the others stayed close to the entrance.

“Please feel free to spread out,” Grandma said from somewhere to Boro’s right. “No one will come to any harm.”

The sound of a few more tentative hoofsteps followed. One goat gave a bleat of alarm, and another said, “That’s me, Bima.”

“Shall we get started?” Lala said from Boro’s left.

“Indeed,” Grandma said. “Mii, please could you tell everyone a little about why we chose this place?”

“Two years ago, one stormy night,” Mii’s voice said, echoing off the ancient wooden planks, “a goat called Mei and a wolf called Gabu took shelter here. In the darkness, Mei mistook Gabu for a goat, and Gabu mistook Mei for a wolf. Both of them were terrified by the storm outside, but took comfort in talking with one another. They quickly found they had a lot in common, not least in that they both enjoyed the food at Fuka Fuka Valley.” One of the wolves snorted at that. “Both of their mothers had passed away, in Mei’s case when he was very young. Both of them had a hard time fitting in with the people around them as children—in Gabu’s case, this continued into adulthood. It truly seemed like they were exactly alike. By the time the storm had passed, they were friends for life. When they met up again the next day and discovered they were a goat and a wolf, they refused to let that one difference destroy their friendship.”

“The lesson we can take from this,” Grandma said, “is that while we may look different from one another, what’s in our hearts may be the same.” Grandma paused. “Tonight is the new moon, a time of change and uncertainty. If you will indulge me, consider how things might be different if each of our own species were similarly uncertain, unknown even to ourselves. Whether each of us entered here as a goat or a wolf, how would we feel if, when we leave this place, we might find ourselves as either predator or prey, according to the whim of fate?”

“Stop talking!” Gururi shouted suddenly, making Boro jump.

“Gururi?” Zack said.

There was the sound of panicked movement in the direction Gururi’s voice had come from. “This is some kind of trick, some evil goat magic or something. I won’t be a part of this!”

Several sounds then happened all at once. There was the scraping of claws on wood, followed by several alarmed bleats from near the entrance. There was a harsh creak, and a dim haze of light drifted in through the newly opened doorway, silhouetting Gururi for an instant as he bolted out into the night. The door closed again, and the barn was plunged once again into the pitch darkness they were now accustomed to.

There was a pause.

“Poor guy,” Zack said.

“Please continue,” Lala said impassively.

“As I was saying,” Grandma said, “please imagine that we in this barn must negotiate the rules for a society encompassing both goats and wolves. When each of us leaves this barn, we will find ourselves living in the world that we create as either a goat or a wolf, and we cannot know in advance which species each of us will be. We must therefore build a world that both goats and wolves would be happy to live in, a world that each of us could happily enjoy regardless of which form we or our children may find ourselves in.

“Forgive me if this all sounds overly fanciful. It was an idea I heard about in a discussion by a philosophy group that my grandchild was once part of, when I visited them last year. I believe the moral of the story, if you can call it that, is that each of us should always take the needs of others into consideration when making decisions, even if those needs conflict with our own. Although I am a goat, I respect that you as wolves must take the lives of others in order to live. I hope that you, in kind, will respect that we as goats need to feel some degree of safety while living our lives. By acknowledging these things, I believe that we can learn to see each other not as enemies, but as fellow living creatures with needs that must be met. In circumstances where our needs are not in conflict, we may even count ourselves as friends.”

“Thank you, Elder,” Lala said. “You have given us much to think about, and I hope that everyone here will give your words due consideration. For now, though, all of us will spend the night here. When we wake up in the morning, hopefully all in the same shapes that we started out in, we will take the time to get to know our new acquaintances. The Elder and I will keep watch. The rest of you, get some sleep.”

Boro opened his eyes to see rays of sunlight streaming in through the window. His five fellow wolves remained asleep, scattered in random places throughout the floor of the barn. Lala, perhaps by chance, was lying directly in front of the entrance, so that no one could leave without waking her.

All seven goats were awake. All of them except Grandma and Mii were trying to stand as far from the sleeping wolves as possible, without much success due to how the wolves were spread out. Both of the child goats were with their mothers. One mother and child were standing between Zack and Beach, while the other pair was in the opposite corner of the barn, near Lili and Lulu. The other adult goat, who looked almost as elderly as Grandma, stood in the middle of the barn, closest to Boro. Grandma and Mii, standing near Lala, were the only ones who looked comfortable in this space full of wolves.

The elderly goat watched Boro with trepidation, and perhaps a hint of curiosity.

“Hello,” Boro said to him. “My name’s Boro. What’s yours?”

“My name is Rōjin. It’s, ah, a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

At the sound of talking, more wolves started to wake up, opening their eyes and looking up in surprise at the goats standing around them.

“Don’t be shy now,” Lala said, and Boro realised she’d been awake all this time. “Talk amongst yourselves.”

“Do you…like grass?” Zack said to the child nearest him.

The child slowly nodded their head.

“What kind of grass is your favourite?”

The child glanced to their mother, who nodded her head encouragingly. “Fuka Fuka Valley,” they said at last.

“That’s cool,” Zack said. “I’m quite fond of the, um, rabbits there myself.”

“You look very young,” Rōjin said. “How old are you?”

“I’m two and a half years old,” Boro said. “How old are you?”

He smiled. “Much, much older.”

Slowly and awkwardly, the goats and wolves started to talk. They had a little trouble finding safe conversation topics—food was out of the question—but everyone tried their best and after a few minutes, all of the goats appeared significantly more relaxed than they had been before.

“Aiju has something she wants to ask you,” Grandma said after a while.

The child who had been talking with Lili and Lulu looked at Grandma, and then turned nervously to face the rest of the barn. “Please… please could all of you stop eating goats? I don’t want to be eaten when I grow up. It makes me scared.”

“Hmm,” Lala said, smiling, “I don’t know. Goats have always been an important part of our diet, but I think we could get by just fine hunting other animals instead. Still, it’s a difficult decision. How about we wolves vote on the idea? Who here is in favour of us giving up goat meat to make this little child feel more safe?”

Zack glanced at Boro, and then to the child he’d been talking to. “Hei,” he said decisively. Beach followed suit a moment later.

“Hei,” Boro said.

Lili and Lulu looked at each other. “Is this part of the secret plan?” Lili said. Boro groaned inwardly.

Lala’s smile became fixed. “I have absolutely no idea what you mean.”

“Hei,” Lili and Lulu said in unison.

“Then it’s decided,” Lala said. “From now own, the six of us will refrain from eating goats. As for the rest of the pack, we’ll have to wait and see what they decide.”

“Thank you,” Aiju said. The young goat trotted her way across the barn and rubbed her face affectionately into Lala.

The leader’s face softened as her confident façade dropped away for just a moment. “It’s no trouble,” she said, and Aiju returned to her mother’s side.

“We may come from opposite sides of the river,” Grandma said, “but we all live under the same sky.”

“That is the corniest thing I’ve ever heard,” Lala said.

“Yes,” Grandma said, “but it’s true.”

Lala led her wolves back towards Baku Baku Valley, pleased with herself at how well the night had gone.

“Are we really going to give up goat meat?” Lili said.

“I don’t know, Lili,” Lala said. “You promised that young goat that you would. Are you thinking of going back on your word?”

“I thought you wanted us to agree to that,” Lili said.

“What I want is immaterial,” Lala said. “What matters is whether you care enough about the promise you made to little Aiju to exclude goat meat from your diet.”

“I know they’re just goats,” Zack said, “but I kind of feel like I know them now. It wouldn’t feel right to eat one of them after that.”

“Do you mean all goats or just the ones we met?” Boro said.

“The ones we just met,” Zack clarified. “But I guess we should keep to our word. Giro wouldn’t have liked us being dishonest. What’s the rest of the pack going to think, though?”

“Let me worry about that,” Lala said.

As soon as they arrived at Baku Baku Valley, Lala sensed that something wasn’t right. The entire pack was gathered in the main communal area, and Gururi was standing by himself atop the raised platform, presiding over them as if he were their leader. All heads turned to stare at the six of them as they arrived. Gururi looked as if someone had caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to, which Lala suspected might be an accurate summary.

“Are we interrupting something?” Lala said.

Gururi hopped down from the raised platform and strode purposefully towards Lala, the other wolves deferentially making room for him as he passed by.

“I told everyone what you and those goats tried to do to me,” he said. He spun around suddenly to face the rest of the pack, who backed away in surprise. “It was the Elder Goat! It was casting some unnatural spell to turn us into goats. I barely managed to get away.” He gestured with a paw back at Lala. “She just stood there and let it happen!”

“I’m afraid there seems to have been a misunderstanding,” Lala said calmly. “As you can see, Gururi, neither I nor my companions have been transformed into goats. What the Elder Goat was employing was a metaphor, not a spell. You simply overre—”

“I’m not overreacting!” Gururi barked at her. “You’ve been conspiring with the goats for months now. All of us have seen it. I challenge you for leadership of the pack.”

Lala was almost taken aback. Gururi had always been something of a narcissist, but now he thought he could take away her pack after all she’d done to fight for it? He must be truly out of his mind. “I decline your challenge,” Lala said.

“What?! You can’t decline,” Gururi said. “Those are the rules. If someone challenges you, you’ve got to fight them or surrender the pack to them.”

“Thank you for explaining that, Gururi,” Lala said, “but I’m well aware. If you think you’re the right wolf to lead the Baku Baku pack, then I hereby relinquish my role as leader. Congratulations, Gururi, you’re in charge.”

Gururi glared at her. “Fine. Now get out of—”

“Incidentally,” Lala interrupted, “I happen to be starting a new pack of my own.” She gestured to encompass Boro, Zack, Beach, Lili and Lulu. “I welcome any and all members of the Baku Baku pack to join us.”

Gururi’s new pack glanced amongst themselves, each deciding whether they wanted to follow Lala or Gururi as their leader. With Gururi’s confused ranting about almost being turned into a goat fresh in their minds, it didn’t take them long to decide. One by one, wolves crossed over to stand behind Lala. Soon, only Gururi was left standing by himself.

“This isn’t fair!” he said. “You’re all just letting her avoid my challenge.”

“Ah, yes,” Lala said. “That brings me to my first order of business as leader of this newly formed, as of yet unnamed pack. We hereby challenge the Baku Baku pack for possession of Baku Baku Valley and the surrounding territory. If all members of the Baku Baku pack will kindly leave the area at once, I’m sure this can be resolved without any bloodshed.”

The new leader of the Baku Baku pack positively boiled with rage. For a moment, Lala thought he was going to fight back against the entire pack at once, but instead, he just slunk past them without another word, headed down towards the forest.

There was a long silence as everyone took in what had just happened.

“Good riddance,” Boro said.

Zack looked at him and sighed. “Yeah, I guess he was kind of an asshole.”

“How did your meeting with the goats go?” Lolo said, and the rest of the pack perked their ears in curiosity.

“Well, we certainly achieved our goal of establishing closer ties to the goats,” Lala said. “All in all, I’d say it was a complete success. The six of us—myself, Zack, Beach, Boro, Lili and Lulu—have voluntarily decided to stop eating goat meat for the foreseeable future.”

There was a collective gasp of surprise from the rest of the pack.

“We can’t eat goats at all now?” Lolo said.

“Everyone is free to do as they like,” Lala said. “A young goat we met asked us very nicely not to eat her or any of her friends when she grows up, so the six of us are giving abstinence a try to see how it goes. The rest of you are welcome to join us in this experiment, but you are under no obligation to. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are many plans and decisions to be made regarding our newly formed pack.”

Lala left the bemused wolf pack to question the five others about their decision not to eat goats, and made her way to her high pinnacle. From there, she looked down on her wolves talking animatedly amongst themselves and wondered whether she’d handled that the right way.

Even now, Lili and Lulu were no doubt relating the events of that night in all their detail, hopefully omitting any reference to a “secret plan.” Lala was still skeptical about whether any of Grandma’s rhetoric would influence the pack, especially when told second-paw, but it seemed to have had an impact on Zack, Beach, Lili and Lulu, at least. Perhaps with Lili and Lulu’s inability to keep their thoughts to themselves, some of the message would get across to the pack after all.

In the meantime, without her to plan attacks for them, the pack would have very little chance of successfully hunting goats regularly without breaking any of Grandma’s rules. She’d have to come up with some new ideas to hunt other animals more efficiently to make up for the reduction in food. She wondered if Ugui or some other bird would spy on deer herds for them. Crows might be willing to do it in exchange for a share of the meat.

It was true that she would miss goat meat, but it would be such a relief to no longer have to engage in a constant battle of wits with the Elder Goat, and all the while risk alienating their healer. She and the rest of the pack would adapt, as they always did. And after all, she thought to herself, there were always the Suzu Suzu and Para Para goat herds not too far away if they wanted the occasional goat as a rare treat.

The evening sun was low over the Emerald Forest, its rays shining into the den to illuminate its interior in gentle orange light. There, Gabu and Mei were resting together after a long and eventful day. Takkan had taken Kon-kon out for their evening walk, granting the other two parents some time to themselves.

It was Gabu who first spotted the olive brown warbler alighting at the entrance to their den. “Hello, Ugui,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re back so soon.”

Mei turned around and smiled when they saw the bird. “Oh, hello,” they said pleasantly. Mei had harboured mixed feelings towards Ugui ever since she’d told them about how she’d betrayed Grandma’s trust. Although Mei understood the reasons why Ugui had done what she did, he couldn’t put aside the feeling that the leader of the wolves was listening in on everything they said to Ugui.

“Good evening,” Ugui said. “I’ve got a message from Grandma. She sent it three days ago, on the same day that I gave her your last message.”

“Wow, you must be exhausted after flying for so long,” Gabu said.

“I’m fine. Are you ready to hear the message?”

“Go ahead,” Mei said.

“Dear Gabu and Mei,” Ugui recited. “Many things have happened in the few hours since I received your message this morning. I won’t go into all of the details just now, but I believe this marks a turning point in our relationship with the Baku Baku wolf pack.

“More importantly, I’m overjoyed to hear that the two of you are now able to come and visit us here. I cannot put into words how much I have missed you. Mii, Tapu and I would love to see you again, the sooner the better. I will ensure that no harm comes to either of you during your time at Sawa Sawa Mountain. Gabu, I believe there are some wolves here besides Boro who would appreciate seeing you again too.

“Please let me know as soon as you depart. I cannot wait to see you again. With all the love in the world, Grandma,” Ugui concluded.

“Thank you for delivering that,” Mei said. “Grandma must really want to see us again soon if she sent you back here on the same day that you arrived.”

“Things may be, uh, changing quite fast in the near future,” Ugui said. “If I were you, I would make arrangements to leave in the next few days. I can wait here until then and take a message back to Grandma when you’re ready to leave.”

Gabu blinked in confusion. “What do you mean? What happened on the day you arrived that Grandma didn’t tell us about?”

“Oh, that?” Ugui said. “I think Grandma wants that to be a surprise. Just, um, go and visit her soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Mei said. They glanced at Gabu. “I guess we can leave the day after tomorrow, maybe. We’ll have to talk to Takkan and Kon-kon about it.”