Free And Did Those Feet ... by Ted Dawe

was an exciting menu with a variety of items to tempt his taste buds. For a pig, an exciting menu means kitchen scraps.
    Pimpernel was a smart little fulla and he and I found an easy understanding. As soon as I closed the back door of the house with the scrap bucket in my hand he spotted me and came running over making soft grunting noises. It was nice this, made me feel wanted. It may have just been thefood but it seemed like more.
    Pimpernel wasn’t just a pretty face though, he did other things, which maybe indicated high intelligence. He used to follow me round. Whenever I was climbing on the tractor, or maybe fiddling with the tools in the shed, there he was, watching my every move. He had this special look on his face like he wanted to tell me something, but he couldn’t because he was locked into a pig’s body. It reminded me of those stories I had read when I was really little about people being turned into animals by witches. What a nightmare it must have been, having to watch life go by while you were stuck in the body of some dumb animal. Perhaps that was why I got into the habit of talking to him. Ordinary stuff, things that had gone down, problems that were bugging me, all sorts really. Sounds a bit weird I know but there was something about this pig that said “I understand”. And because he was a pig he was unable to tell anyone else what I had said.
    I told Pimpernel about all the things I couldn’t tell anyone . About Mum. About certain bits of Dad’s behaviour, and how I felt about them. About living with these people. I know they were my relatives and that they were really nice but they were also strange. How they were a family, but they weren’t my family. I had so much stuff going round and round inside my head. It was a pile that seemed to do nothing but grow and it got in the way of my thinking. Stopped me from being my normal self. So in some ways it was like I had this spell placed on me too. I stared out of the body of this normal looking boy but I was hopelessly trapped andno one could do a thing. I guess this might sound a bit farfetched to you but that is the only way I can really describe it.
    Anyway Pimpernel was like my shrink. My psychiatrist. He would stop eating and listen, making these little grunts after each thing I said. Like “aha” and “huh?” and sometimes a long “nnnnngh”, which is like “far out” in pig language. Of course I never did this when any of the other boys were nearby, I didn’t want them thinking I had gone completely round the twist. They probably thought I was weird enough anyway.
    There were other dealings with the animal kingdom that weren’t quite as much fun. One of these was moving the goat. Now you might think that this was an easy task but I tell you it wasn’t. The goat – Uncle Frank called him Satan – was chained to a little goat house mounted on sleds. You had to drag the whole thing along the grass. Satan was a tall billy-goat with big horns, long black hair and an impressive beard. Not the sort of beast to mess with. He had these golden eyes that really gave me the heebie jeebies. They were evil. Cold, unblinking, they seemed to bore right into you.
    Iain and Jamie claimed he was a good sort, fed him handfuls of grass. I was told that Ewan would even jump on his back. I would believe that when I saw it: none of this cut much ice with me. Just like with me and Pimpernel, me and the goat had an understanding too. And it was that was he was the boss, and that I better watch myself.
    Whenever I was around, especially by myself, this Satan hadone thing in his head: mounting me. I don’t know whether it was personal or whether the same would have gone for anyone else but every time I tried to move the shed this thing happened. Maybe it was a territory thing, he thought I was trying to mess with his patch, who knows, but every time I moved the goat house it went like this.
    I was straining at the back of the hut trying to push the thing a