Free Boy on the Edge by Fridrik Erlings Page B

a joke, and John had understood it.
    In his whole life, that had never happened before.

It was a sunny day with a warm breeze coming in from the south, and the time had come to put the cows out to pasture. They had been growing more irritable with each day and wouldn’t lie down in their stalls. Their moos had acquired a different tone, agitated, impatient, demanding. They sniffed the air, breathed heavily, and frowned.
    Noah, on the other hand, had become sadder with each day, resting his head on the stall fence, rolling his eyes, whimpering like a puppy.
    After breakfast Emily had told the little ones with an excited smile that today would be great fun, but the boys froze with terror. Their love of the little lambs was directly proportionate to their terror of the big cows. They couldn’t understand why they had to be set free. Some ran straight to their rooms and locked the doors. Others stood tight together on a cart, trembling with fear and excitement.
    Henry limped from stall to stall and untied the cows’ collars one by one and watched as they stumbled to the door, toward the bright sunlight outside.
    Old Red, usually so calm, composed, and gentle, was the first to go. Her legs trembled as she staggered impatiently toward the door. She hesitated for a moment, expanding her nostrils and shuddering. Then she mooed and jumped over the threshold. One foot touched the soil, and the wet mud pressed up through her cloven hoof. It was as if the heavy burden of the long winter had rested on that one leg. She pulled it free from the mud with a long-drawn sucking sound — and summer had arrived.
    Old Red rushed out of the door, heaving heavily, with gawking eyes, her ears pricked up, saliva dripping from her mouth. She mooed again, galloped forward, raised her tail high in the air, and a fountain of shit streamed out, dotting her course.
    The others followed: Little Gray, Spotty with her large horns, Brandy and Belle, Jenny, Maggy, and Nelly. They all ran in surprised excitement, bumping into everything in their path, thrusting their backsides into the air, mooing and shitting. It was like watching a silly cartoon.
    Then, finally, the little ones laughed.
    But inside the dark cowshed, Noah kicked the fence and grumbled.
    Henry was scraping the shit off the stalls when John entered and looked around him. Outside, the cows were running wild and the boys screamed.
    “Why does he have to stay in?” John asked.
    Henry didn’t reply straightaway, because he didn’t want to stutter. He became a little shy, but also happy that John had entered his little world, the cowshed, to have a talk. And he didn’t seem to be in any hurry, but waited patiently while Henry gathered his thoughts.
    “He would kill,” he finally replied.
    John nodded and glanced at the bull. “Where do the cows go to pasture?” he asked.
    “East,” Henry said.
    “East? Where’s east?”
    “That way,” Henry said, pointing with the shovel.
    “And north?” John asked. “Which way is that?”
    “That way,” Henry replied after a while, pointing at the wall.
    Then John asked no more questions, but simply nodded and walked out.
    Henry fetched a whip that hung on a nail above the door, made from the broken wooden handle of a rake with a black nylon string attached to it. Wiping off dust and grime, he swung it in the air and cracked it at the floor a few times, just for fun. He had spoken with John, and it hadn’t been that difficult; no, not at all.
    When Henry left the cowshed, Noah growled and banged his head against the fence in protest. Emily had given him directions where to herd the cows but told him not to worry; they’d know the way, she’d said.
    The cows had finished their happy running around and stood panting at the gate. Old Red had calmed herself and rolled her tongue around the fresh green straws by the roadside. She led the group through the gate, and the others pushed behind her, rolling their eyes and butting one another in the