Tiny Goat in Trouble

by Mary Kelly

  Harry swung his binoculars round so they were trained on the goat. She was still standing on the edge of the cliff, and her bleating was growing louder and louder. Harry lowered his vision so he was looking at the cliffs, just like the goat. That was when he saw it – something small and dark on a cliff ledge far below.

  “Oh no!” he cried.

  “What is it?” asked Aunt Judy, running to his side. A moment later, Charlie was with them, too. “I think. . . Yes, it is. . .” said Harry, as he focused on the spot once more. “There’s a baby goat all the way down there. Can you see it?”

  Aunt Judy and Charlie looked where Harry was pointing.

  “You’re right,” said Charlie. “That must be her kid.” He took a pair of powerful-looking binoculars out of his bag and trained them on the same spot as Harry.

  “This is going to be tricky,” he admitted. “That kid is clearly stuck, and it’s going to need help to make it back on to safe ground.”

  Harry looked at the small black dot far below the cliff top. Then he looked at the mother goat, calling to her kid. They had to get the kid to safety. But how?

  Charlie lowered the binoculars and turned back to look at Aunt Judy and Harry. “One thing’s for sure, we’re not going to be able to do this on our own,” he said. “We’ll need a specially trained rope team.”

  “But how will we get one?” asked Harry.

  “With a little bit of help from the RSPCA,” said Charlie, smiling at him. “They have a rope rescue team made up of specially trained inspectors who have been taught how to rescue animals from tricky situations like this one. They’ll be able to abseil down the cliff to reach the kid. I’ll give them a call and get a team assembled.

  “Will they come straightaway?” asked Harry.

  Charlie shook his head. “Not immediately,” he said. “It will take some time to get them together, as all the inspectors will need to be excused from their usual duties. I think the best thing would be for you to head home for the night and then we’ll regroup in the morning.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” said Aunt Judy. She could see that Harry was looking worried, so she came over, putting her arm around his shoulders.

  “There’s no point us waiting here any longer, Harry,” she said gently. “We need to go home, have some supper and get some sleep. Then we can come back first thing tomorrow.”

  Harry looked up at the darkening sky, and knew Aunt Judy was right. The sun was hidden behind the clouds now and it was already getting hard to see the tiny goat on the cliff. He wouldn’t be much help to it, even if he waited out here all night. The mother goat didn’t look like she was going to go far though, and Harry realized that at least if she kept calling, the kid would know its mother was nearby.

  He looked over at Charlie. “Do you really think the baby goat will be OK in the night?” he asked. “It’s not going to fall or anything, is it?”

  Charlie shook his head. “I really don’t think that’s going to happen, Harry,” he said, packing up his rucksack and zipping up his jacket against the wind. “These goats aren’t like domestic ones. They’re used to being outside in all weathers, and they’re made for clambering about on rocks. It’ll most likely be sheltering against the cliff wall now.”

  “OK,” said Harry, summoning up a smile.

  “Charlie’s an expert on goats,” added Aunt Judy. “He knows what he’s talking about, so there’s no need to worry.”

  “And the overnight wait might even help the rescue,” Charlie went on. “The kid will be weaker so it’ll be easier to handle. Otherwise it can be tricky trying to get a reluctant goat up a cliff!”

  “I can imagine that,” said Harry, smiling. He felt a bit happier now. They waved goodbye to Charlie and set off back down the path to home.

  The walk home seemed different under the cloudy skies. Turning around for one last peek, Harry couldn’t pick out the gleam of the goats’ white coats, just their dark shapes, silhouetted against the skyline. They could still hear the sound of the mother goat’s bleating being carried on the wind, and Harry guiltily thought of the warm log fire waiting for him back at the farmhouse.

  “Hopefully Uncle Martin will have made our tea by now,” said Aunt Judy. “And he’s a much better cook than me.”

  Harry’s tummy rumbled at the mention of food, and they both laughed. They had reached the farmyard by now, flooded by the welcoming lights of the farmhouse kitchen. They passed the chicken coop, and Harry could see that the chickens had already been shut up for the night. The hens were murmuring to each other inside as they settled down on their perches.

  “What’s the time?” asked Harry, realizing they’d been out much longer than he thought.

  Aunt Judy looked at her watch. “It’s half six,” she replied, “so Uncle Martin will have finished the afternoon milking.”

  She opened the back door and Harry kicked off his mud-caked wellies, putting them in the cloakroom next to Aunt Judy’s. Then he hung up his coat on the peg along with all the others and came through to the kitchen. It was deliciously warm after the windy cliff tops.

  Uncle Martin was standing by the cooker and looked up as they came in. “How’s the goat?” he asked.

  “She managed to climb up by herself,” said Harry. “But then we discovered there’s a kid down there, too, and it’s still stuck on the cliff.”

  Uncle Martin looked concerned and Aunt Judy quickly filled him in on the rescue plan. Harry was momentarily distracted by the delicious smells from the frying pan. “Yum!” he said, sniffing the air. “I smell sausages!”

  “You’re right!” said Uncle Martin. “Sausages, creamy mashed potato and carrots glazed with honey. Only the best for the goat rescue team. So,” he went on, “they’re going to rescue the baby goat in the morning?”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “Charlie said they need a specially trained rope team to abseil down the cliff and reach the kid.”

  “It sounds very dramatic, doesn’t it?” said Aunt Judy.

  “It does,” agreed Harry. “I just wish we could be sure the baby goat is going to be OK.”

  “How are they going to get the kid back up again?” Uncle Martin wondered.

  “I’m not sure,” said Aunt Judy. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Then she caught sight of Harry’s anxious glance. “The RSPCA will have done this lots of times before, though. They’ll know exactly how to manage. Why don’t you feed the dogs, Harry?” she went on. “I think you’ll feel much better about the goat if you keep busy.”

  Patch gave an encouraging bark as Harry stood up, obviously understanding he was about to be fed.

  “Come on then,” said Harry, calling over to Tilly as well. Aunt Judy was right – he felt much better now he had a job to do.

  “Oh, and your mum rang while you were out,” Uncle Martin called through to the dogs’ room.

  “About the baby?” asked Harry excitedly, rushing back in as soon as he’d fed Patch and Tilly.

  “It hasn’t started coming yet,” replied Uncle Martin. “She just wanted to see how you were getting on, so I told her you were out on the cliffs, keeping an eye on a stranded goat.”

  “Mum will think I’m mad, being this worried about a goat,” said Harry grinning. Although his mum liked animals, she was much more interested in things like art and fashion. “Is it OK if I give her a ring?”

  “Of course it is,” said Aunt Judy. “Give her my love, too.”

  Harry went through to the sitting room. He was glad it was still quite early, as his mum had started going to bed earlier and earlier. She said the baby kept her awake in the night now, it was kicking so much.

  “How’s the goat?” she asked, as soon as she answered the phone. “Did you manage to get it to safety?”

  Harry filled her in on the latest drama, and how they were leaving the baby goat out on the cliff overnight.
<
br />   “But there’s a specialist rescue team coming tomorrow to get it,” Harry finished. “They’re going to abseil down the cliff, and Aunt Judy and I are going to watch it happen.”

  “Oh!” said his mum. “I do hope the baby goat is all right. I’d like to come along and see the rescue, too, but I don’t want to risk having this baby on the cliff top!”

  “Do you think it’s going to come soon, then?” Harry asked eagerly. His mum’s due date was today, but before he’d left for the farm, she’d said it could still be a couple of weeks’ wait.

  “Well, it’s always hard to tell, but I hope so! I don’t want to be the size of a house for much longer. I’d better go now, love, but I know what you’re like, and I don’t want you waiting up all night worrying about the baby goat.”

  “I won’t, I promise,” said Harry. “I hope the baby lets you get some sleep.”

  “Me, too!” laughed his mum.

  Harry went early to bed, wanting to have lots of energy for the goat rescue in the morning. But first he stood for a while, looking out of his bedroom window. It was a beautifully clear night, with no clouds to block the stars. Moonlight flooded on to the farm below. Harry could make out the shapes of the cows in the fields and the rooks roosting in the big ash tree. He thought of the duck by the pond, sitting on her clutch of eggs, and the chickens all cosy in their coop. He thought of his mum, too, safe at home, with her baby still cosily tucked up in her belly. He could only hope it was this still and quiet out on the cliffs. He didn’t like to think of the little kid without the warmth of its mother to cuddle up to.

  “At least it’s not raining,” he told himself. “So the kid won’t be getting wet.” He wondered where the mother goat was, and if she was going to spend all night keeping watch on the cliff top.

  “Be safe, little goat,” he whispered from his window. Then he climbed into bed, willing the wind and rain to keep away, and for the morning to come quickly.

  Harry was woken again by Strut the cockerel, his loud crow carrying across the farmyard and right in through his bedroom window. He leaped out of bed, wanting to be in time to meet the RSPCA crew on the cliff top. He didn’t want to miss any of the action. And more than anything, he wanted to make sure the baby goat was OK after its night on the cliff face.

  He looked around his room, trying to think of all the things he’d need. “Warm clothes,” he decided, especially if the rescue was going to take a long time. He put on his thickest trousers, two long-sleeved T-shirts and his big fleecy jumper. Then he pulled his rucksack out from under his bed and put in his woolly hat, scarves, gloves and the binoculars Uncle Martin had lent him yesterday.

  As he made his way down the stairs, he could smell toast coming from the kitchen.

  “I was just about to check you were up,” said Aunt Judy, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Now, what would you like to eat?”

  “Toast, please,” said Harry, helping himself to a couple of slices. “Have you spoken to Charlie yet?”

  “He just rang,” said Aunt Judy. “The RSPCA crew are meeting at seven, so you’ve still got time for breakfast.”

  Harry was about to sit down when he realized his chair was occupied by a large, one-eyed tabby cat.

  “Oh! Sorry!” laughed Aunt Judy. “That’s Felix’s favourite chair. I’ll make him move.”

  Harry gave Felix a stroke and sat down in the chair next to him. “I don’t mind,” said Harry. “It’s nice to see him again.” Felix was famous for keeping his own hours. Sometimes he’d spend days snoozing in the warmth of the kitchen, then he’d disappear for a month, only to return when he was least expected.

  “I wonder what he gets up to when he’s away,” said Harry, helping himself to a spoonful of Aunt Judy’s home-made jam.

  “I think he has homes all over the countryside,” said Aunt Judy. “He always comes back looking very well fed.”

  As Harry crunched down his toast, Patch and Tilly came racing in from the garden, leaving muddy paw marks all over the kitchen floor. Aunt Judy got up to close the back door, while Harry gave the dogs a morning tummy rub.

  “Just what I need – muddy paw prints on the floor. This kitchen is a mess!”

  Harry looked around at the higgledy-piggledy kitchen and decided he liked it just the way it was. It looked cosy and lived in.

  “Do we need to do anything else before we leave?” asked Harry, clearing away the breakfast things.

  “I don’t think so,” said Aunt Judy. “I’ve done the chickens already, and your uncle is seeing to everything else.”

  “Great,” said Harry. “I can’t wait to get back to the baby goat. I really hope it’s been OK in the night.” Harry slung on his rucksack, while Aunt Judy packed some biscuits and a thermos of sweet tea in her bag.

  “Let’s go!” she said. Together they put on their wellies and started out across the farmyard.

  Uncle Martin emerged from the milking parlour as they walked past. “Good luck!” he called. “Let me know how it goes.”

  “We will,” said Harry, waving as they let themselves out of the farm gate. “And will you call if you hear anything from my mum?”

  “Of course I will,” Uncle Martin reassured him. “Bye now.”

  It didn’t take long to reach the cliff tops, but Harry was amazed by how different the weather felt compared to the farmhouse. It was much windier and colder and he thought again of the baby goat, out in the open all night. White wisps of cloud were scudding across the sky, carried fast by the brisk wind.

  The RSPCA team were already assembled at the spot where they’d first seen the mother goat. Harry spotted three men and two women besides Charlie. They all seemed to be very busy. Two of them were handling ropes and harnesses, while another was holding what looked like a stash of metal stakes and a hammer. It all looked very serious.

  “Hi!” said Charlie, as they approached the group. “Let me introduce you to everyone. This is Paul and Maya. They’re the ones who are going to abseil down the cliff.”

  Harry smiled shyly at them. Paul, he noticed, was the tallest of them all, his brown hair streaked with grey. Maya had twinkly dark eyes and wasn’t that much taller than Harry, but he guessed she must be pretty strong if she was going to abseil down the cliff.

  “And this is Helen, Nathan and Ben,” Charlie went on. “It’s their job to coordinate the rescue from the cliff top. They’re all experts when it comes to animal rescue.”

  Harry smiled again, trying to remember everyone’s names. At first they’d all looked very similar in their dark, waterproof clothes and yellow harnesses. Ben, he noticed, had russet red hair, just like a fox, and Helen looked like the youngest, her long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.

  “And,” Charlie went on, “everyone, this is Judy and her nephew, Harry. Judy lives at Willowbrook Farm, just east of here. She’s been helping out with the goats for a few years now, so she’s very familiar with the herd. And Harry is the one who spotted the baby goat on the cliff.”

  “Good job,” said Paul, shaking him by the hand. “If it hadn’t been for you and your eagle eyes we wouldn’t have known the goat was down there.”

  “Is the kid OK?” Harry asked him. “Have you spotted it?”

  Paul turned around to point to the mother goat who was standing near the cliff path. Harry recognized the small white diamond between her eyes and her lovely rich brown coat, flecked with white.

  “We’re hoping she’s going to guide us to it,” said Paul. “We can’t see the kid, but the mother goat keeps calling to it, so we’re sure her baby must be down there somewhere.”

  As he spoke, Harry noticed that Maya had her binoculars trained on the cliff, following the gaze of the mother goat. “I can see it!” she said suddenly.

  “Where?” asked Charlie. Harry and Aunt Judy moved closer to Maya, who was pointing down the cliff face.

  “
Yes, there it is,” said Maya. “You can just see it without the binoculars. It looks as though the kid is hiding in a little hole on the ledge.”

  “I can see it now!” said Harry, relief flooding through him that the baby goat was still there. He quickly pulled his binoculars out of his rucksack and trained them on the kid. Only its head was visible, peering out of the hole on the ledge.

  “It’s so far down,” said Aunt Judy. “If it weren’t for the mother goat, we’d have had a lot of trouble spotting it.”

  “What happens now?” asked Harry. “Is the kid going to be hard to reach?”

  “It’s not going to be easy,” admitted Charlie. “We still need to work out the best strategy. So far, we know we’re going to need two abseilers, one on either side of the kid, in case it moves. We’re then going to try and get it back up in this bag.”

  Charlie held up the bag for Harry to see. It was made out of a dark green canvas and it looked very sturdy. “We’re going to attach the bag to an abseiler’s harness on the way down, then on the way back up we’ll attach it to a pulley system, which Nathan is putting in at the top of the cliffs.”

  “It’s the coming back up that’s the hardest part,” Maya added. “You’re less in control as you’re being pulled up. And we’ll have to be extra careful if we’ve got a baby goat in tow.” As she spoke she put a hard hat over her short brown hair, then she and Paul tightened their harnesses and made sure all the rope knots were secure. The rest of the RSPCA crew stood in a huddle, talking and pointing, and clearly trying to work out the best route down the rocks to the kid.

  Harry and Aunt Judy could only watch and wait while the team talked everything over, but it wasn’t long before Charlie came over to explain their action plan.

  “Right,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “We’re going to use a rope anchor system. That means Paul and Maya will each be attached by two ropes to those metal stakes at the top of the crag.” Harry looked over to see Nathan pounding in some metal stakes at the top of the cliff with a sturdy-looking hammer. “The first rope is the abseil rope, so they’ll use that to get down.”