Free Lord Morgan's Cannon by MJ Walker

for a small pond in a dip. He made it to the water. Without making a ripple, he slid into it, submerging himself apart from his eyes and nose. He saw the hounds at the top of the river. They stopped in their tracks as others piled into their rear. The dogs looked about themselves, with some putting their noses to the forest floor once more, following the scent back towards the horses. Soon a rider appeared, pulling hard on the reins. The human too surveyed the forest as his horse stomped into the dirt. He waved his arm and rode back towards the forest’s edge, the dogs following him.
    The old leopard watched from the water as the last dog left. He noted how similar they all looked, with black, tan and white coats like Lord Morgan’s terrier. But their hair was short and smooth, like his own. Their ears flopped and their tails incessantly wagged. He knew he hated them and the humans driving them forward. He didn’t like this forest. He decided that tomorrow he would take a cow, and be wasteful.

Seeking The Circus

    After spending their second night free in the English countryside, the elephant, monkey, anteater and budgie came up with their first ever plan.
    It took them half the morning to agree it. But a plan it was. Edward the monkey took responsibility for keeping this plan inside his head. He could remember the locations of different fruit trees for months at a time, he told the others, so remembering a plan for a day or two shouldn’t be that hard. Doris countered that she could remember the locations of drinking wells for years at a time, so perhaps she should be the one to remember the plan instead. But then Edward said he had a more agile mind. And therefore he’d be able to remember both the plan, and the point of the plan, at the same time. Bear the anteater concurred, as did Bessie, so Edward was put in charge.
    The plan was complicated. It had two distinct parts; the plan itself was to find the circus, and the point of it was to then save the circus. The animals also differed in how they regarded this plan, and its point.
    Doris wanted to rejoin her herd of circus troupers, and help the Ring Master return the Big Top’s splendour. She was a faithful creature of habit and love, and she adored the humans that had cared for her since she arrived ashore in a crate suffering from sea sickness.
    Edward too wanted to find the circus, for he felt he owned it in some way. He harboured ambitions of one day running it himself, conducting proceedings within the ring, introducing new routines, perhaps delegating responsibility for stealing the audience’s money to another less capable monkey. Maybe a marmoset, he thought.
    Bessie just knew that a circus couldn’t be a circus without its animals and without her at its heart. Bessie had not been caught in the wild, and transported half around the world, before being sold to the highest bidder. She had been bred to show off, the only thing that weighed on her hollow bones.
    Bear the anteater had his doubts, however. He didn’t like his wagon and its hard wooden floor. He knew he wasn’t the star of any show and during his day away he’d begun to wonder why no human had named him. Did he not deserve one? He appreciated the routine of the circus, and the dog chum the circus boys gave him, but he had now eaten fresh ants and quite liked the taste. He’d enjoyed his wander through the field of rape and meadow. As he began to study his position, he realised, for the first time in his young adult life, that he had choices. But he was not yet confident enough to make them. So he took his directions from the others, and agreed with their thinking.
    As the four animals stood in the clearing full of wildflowers, within the small coppice at the top of the meadow, Edward repeated the plan.
    Bessie had seen the wagon on the path. But it was gone now, as was the circus, the hot air balloon and all the other wagons and humans. It was too dangerous for Bessie to fly up high to see if