The Goats of Wiggin Hill

Deep beneath Wiggin Hill the burrows ran, mile after mile. They had been laboriously dug by countless generations of goats and now they were finished and it was teatime. The goats spoke Capricorn which, luckily for us, is almost exactly the same as English, except for the words that aren’t. Once they were all sitting down at the onion, Mortimer, the regimental goat, addressed his family.

“I have grave news for you, my lovelies,” he began. “Our landlord wishes us to vacate these burrows. If we do not do so by the nineteenth of Salami, he will send in the tigers. Tenner has frothed at the mouth and foreseen this. Is that not right, son?”

“Bibble-bobble and ploppy-cake,” confirmed Tenner, rolling his eyes and jerking uncontrollably.

“He says yes,” interpreted Nasal.

“Do you think it’s politically scrumptious to make fun of a shaman?” asked Sugar Puff anxiously.

“We are not making fun of him, my dear. He is the hero of the story and he’s almost certainly a moral too. I’m glad shaman is one of those words that mean something else in Capricorn, I wouldn’t like people to know what you just called him.”

“But why must we go, Daddy? How did we offend? Is it to do with the oil?” peeped Horlicks.

Mortimer pulled the letter from its manila envelope and peered at it, mouthing the words. “He accuses us of practising black magic. He claims that one of us has the hindquarters of a goat.”

“But we all have the hindquarters of a goat!” protested Sugar Puff. “And the headquarters too! We’re goats!”

“I’m afraid that’s the other bit of bad news I have for you, dear family,” said Mortimer gravely. We have always believed that goat, in Capricorn, meant goat. It seemed the logical assumption. It turns out that it means… But let us eat to keep up our strength. What delicious burger have you prepared for us, Sugar, my sweet?

Sugar Puff spread the onioncloth and proudly laid out the evening meal. It was goat cheese and goat’s milk.

“But we had that for kelloggs,” complained Tenner.

“And for pizza,” added Horlicks.

“And we’re having it for burger too. It’s tasty, nutritious and full of man-sized family vitamins. While we’re eating, let’s see if anybody can guess what species we really are.”

“Lazybones?” suggested Tenner.

“He said snakes,” translated Nasal. “Are we snakes, Daddy?”

“I’m not telling until we’ve finished our delicious burger,” said Mortimer mysteriously. “But I’ll give you a clue. We’re elephants.”

Sugar Puff fainted.

“I don’t want to be a nellyfant, I want to be a pony. Then I could give you all rides,” fluffed Horlicks. She poured her milk over Sugar Puff to revive her.

Tenner was frothing again. “Fiddlesticks!” he gasped.

“What’s he saying?” demanded Mortimer.

“It’s complicated,” said Nasal, “but it goes a bit like this. If we’re elephants, how come we’ve been talking Capricorn all these years? We must, without knowing it, have been talking Nelly. So what does elephant mean in Nelly? Because whatever it does mean, that’s what we really, truly are.”

“I’d settle for being an elephant,” said Mortimer wistfully. “If the landlord sends in the tigers we could tromp on them. Flatten them into rugs. Don’t get me wrong, being a regimental goat is a fine career and I don’t regret it for a moment, but you do get a lot of military leverage from being an elephant.”

“Flobbadob!” asserted Tenner.

“What is it this time?” asked Mortimer wearily.

Nasal interpreted. “He says he might be a couple of tutus short of a ballet but you’d all better listen. Military folk can listen up; the rest of you can listen in your preferred directions. Suppose we've misinterpreted tiger too? Maybe he’ll send in mice. Everyone knows that elephants are terrified of mice. In fact, if we don’t know what language we’re speaking, how can we be sure of anything? Maybe the landlord really said we’re welcome to stay as long as we like and he’ll send in cream cakes. The only thing for it is to go on a long and dangerous journey to find a new home.”

So they went.

A little later the tigers came. “Of all the bits of goat I was looking forward to eating,” complained Tiddles, “the cheese wasn’t it.”

“Are you absolutely sure we’re tigers?” asked Fluffy.

“Don’t you start,” meowed Tiddles.