5. Escape Farm

Kuku tried to draw the escape plan. It had taken days before she came up with that solution, and Harry was gone for a bit, which meant it was already Friday tomorrow.

For her first attempt, she dirtied her front paws and tried to paint on the bedroom floor. That was a mess. One of which Elize disapproved.

She kept repeating how wonderful it was that Kuku could think and tried to talk to her. She compared it, repeatedly, to a broccoli who suddenly had brains.

A while later, Elize shoved a pile of white rectangles in front of Kuku. She called it paper. She also pushed a pencil into her mouth.

Cows never communicated with symbols or drawings, dear reader. Not since the Babblebrothers. It’s now just a human invention, and a late one at that. Fortunately, Kuku had lived on this farm her whole live had had regularly studied the symbols on the walls and fences.

She drew and drew. Halfway through, Elize had to put the pencil into some sort of machine to sharpen it again. Then she continued.

Personally, she felt she’d drawn the plan pretty clearly on the paper.

“You want we me to … step inside a box?”

Elize scraped her chin. “And fly on the back of a chicken? And then throw two soccer balls at a fat—oh, that’s my dad. And the other one … are either blades of grass, or you’re trying to draw that woman Beatrix?”

She looked questioningly. Kuku sighed and adapted the drawing.

“Sorry, I don’t recognize that animal.”

Kuku wanted to ask if there was something wrong with Elize’s eyes. She refrained from mooing. Harry still walked around here somewhere looking for that “devilish cow”.

Her third attempt was much better.

“Oh! That is the gate. And that is a truck. And you … you …”

She patted Kuku on her head. “You are going to escape. Of course.”

Kuku recognized the noises of gate, truck and escape. She nodded.

Elize smiled. “You can understand me—or, well, a little bit. A little itty-bitty bit. You can understand me! Sorry I called you a stupid animal. Sorry, sorry.”

Kuku had no clue about all of that, but she smiled back.

Footsteps on the stairs. Had Kuku been drawing that long? She hastily jumped below the bedsheet.

Elize grabbed the papers and crumpled them. No, she wanted to save them! She shoved the pile inside one of her schoolbooks, then threw her bag in front of the bump created by Kuku.

The bedroom door opened.

“Elize, child, I worry about you.”

Harry walked to the edge of the bed. Elize lay down in an awkward position to block the space, her legs angled as if they were broken.

“Why? I am very normal, yes.”

Kuku sneezed. Elize tapped a rhythm with her hands to hide the sound.

Harry pushed her legs aside to sit down. “I heard you talk to yourself the past few days.”

“It helps me learn. For school. And I have so much to learn, dad, so I shouldn’t be interrupted!”

Harry’s belly scraped the schoolbag, pressing it deeper into Kuku’s skin. She could barely breathe. Her longs felled unable to attract new air and a panic settled on her body like a heavy cloak.

“I … I need you, child. Please make sure you take enough time to do your farm duties.”

“Why don’t you do what my school principal said? Hire other people?”

“We don’t have the money!”

Harry picked at the beginnings of a moustache. No wonder it never grew into a serious moustache, with the way he nervously stretched it.

“Nobody wants to work on a farm,” he said somberly. “They’d rather sit in an office, with their degrees, building … websites or whatever. As if … as if they think their food falls from the sky! As if they think you could grow eggs with a computer!”

He leaned forward. Kuku’s belly was squashed. Fresh air was a commodity.

“It’s just you and me, Elize. Just you and me—Farmer Elize!”

Kuku wriggled below the sheets. Her body screamed for air. She was about to jump out of there and kick way the covers, surfacing like a dolphin.

Elize quickly stood and grabbed her father’s hand.

“Well, if I want to keep my title Farmer Elize, then I should indeed help on the farm!”

Harry stood as well, dragged by Elize. Both he, the bed, and Kuku groaned.

They left the room; Kuku quickly left the suffocating sheets.

Friday morning, almost afternoon. Elize knew about the plan. Kuku wasn’t sure she fully understood, but she’d at least help out.

The days had been long. Long schooldays, then work on the farm until midnight. And so Elize had slept until it was almost afternoon. Until the moment the trucks would come again.

Harry had prepared a special breakfast for her.

Elize attacked the delicious foods on the table. She grabbed a large chicken wing and a fried egg larger than her schoolbooks.

Kuku watched. She stood on the stairs and spied through the half-open door.

Even in her excitement, Elize was surprised too.

“I thought we had no money for this?” she whispered. “Or did I forget my own birthday?”

“Child, I wanted to spoil you for once! After all you did for us. Our last shipment of eggs and milk sold very well!”

Her fork jabbed into the chicken meat. Then she dropped it.

“These are our own chickens,” she whispered softly. “Aren’t they?”

Harry looked away. He probably considered some excuse for ten seconds, but found nothing. He sighed.

“Then I’ll tell you the bad news now.”

“Don’t tell me you hurt the red one! With the sort-of-freckles and the black spot on her wings like a tattoo and—what bad news?”

Harry placed piles of paper on the table. Contracts, many numbers, and Beatrix’ list of requirements.

“I can’t renovate the farm, Elize, even if I wanted to. The only way to comply is by slaughtering half our animals.”

“DAD?”

Father’s hand slammed the table; he regretted it instantly.

“It is the only way, Elize.”

Elize stood, leaving the delicious food untouched. She ran outside; Harry followed.

Kuku could enter the kitchen unseen, then take a turn to the invisible shed. The other animals would stand at the ready there.

“Think about it,” yelled Harry in the distance. “We’d have less than fifty animals. We could just break down the other barn. We can finally give our animals enough space! The profit from that meat could be put into some small renovations. We could … we could buy a machine to do the milking for us!”

Elize calmed down. “A machine? No more milking with hands and …”

“Yes! They have machines for everything nowadays. Once we buy one, everything will be better. We could … we might even be able to take a night off every now and then.”

His daughter hesitated. Then she hugged Harry’s legs, until he caught her and lifted her from the ground for a proper hug.

“I miss mom,” she whispered.

“Me too, child, me too.”

Hand in hand, Harry led his daughter back to the kitchen. They enjoyed the delicious meal anyway.

Kuku stepped inside the shed. The animals were ready. Not all of them, but surely half the farm.

“You’re sure that witch will help us?” grunted a cow.

“This was a mistake,” said another cow.

“She’s eating chicken with the devil. This plan will fail.”

The other animals grunted their own complaint, but Kuku could not translate that.

“Mooh! She will help us. Believe me,” she said, though she wasn’t sure who wanted to hear it.

She needed Hess. Where was he? Oh, he’d already done his part. The trucks had already arrived.

The gate opened.

Hess pushed his massive body against them. She couldn’t see how he did it, but the gates stayed open. Maybe that’s why someone wanted to capture him. He was unbelievably big and strong, even in his … how old was he?

The trucks came to a halt amidst peeping and puffing. Harry ran outside, with Elize behind him, still chewing something.

Come on. Come on! Distract Harry. Give the signal. Had she understood she was supposed to give a signal?

Not long after the arrival of the trucks, however, suddenly a white van also raced through the open gates.