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   CLUB SANDWICH 73

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THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY
(or THE CRATE ESCAPE)

A true fairy story, told by Geoff Baker. Are you sitting comfortably? Then he'll begin.

            Once upon a time, not that very long ago, there lived a young bull in a land known as Kent.
            Like all the young bulls who were his pals, he liked to wander in his paddock by the water meadows, munching at the lush green grass and slurping at the old water trough with his large pink spongy tongue.
            All was well in the paddock until one day a big grey truck arrived, coughing clouds of thick black exhaust that made the little bull shy away into a corner of the field, where he huddled with all his pals. The truck was not like anything they had seen before. It had no windows in its sides, just slits to let only a very little light in, and at the back of it there was a large ramp that sealed it up like a cofEn box.
            As the little bull watched with unblinking big brown eyes, two men sprang from the truck, lowered the ramp and began marching towards the huddle of pals, waving sticks and shouting loudly. The little bulls cowered back into the corner of the field, trying to make themselves as small as they could be. But the men kept marching forward, still shouting and scaring them.
            Waving their sticks and shouting even more loudly, the men began to herd and push the bulls into the back of the truck, smacking them with the sticks when they hesitated. Club Sandwich 73
            But the little bull didn't want to go into the truck. He could smell the truck and it smelled of fear. He could smell that other bulls had been inside the truck before, and he knew that they'd never come home again. So when one of the men lunged at him, cursing and yelling, the little bull ran off towards the prickly hedge that hemmed the paddock. The man ran after him, shouting louder then ever now and brandishing the stick that smacked.
            Suddenly the little bull knew what he had to do. He had to get away from the men and their big grey smelly truck. And so, with a big heave, he forced himself through the prickly hedge, too frightened to care that it hurt, and out onto the lane that ran alongside. Then, kicking his little hooves against the ground that was much harder than the meadow had ever been, he ran and ran like he'd never run before.
            The little bull ran down the lane until it came to a wide, wide road with cars racing up and down it. The cars honked and beeped at him, much louder and more scarier than the man in the meadow yelled, and although the cars frightened him as they swerved and honked and braked and screeched, he kept running and running as far and as fast as he could from the men with the big grey truck.
            Suddenly, as he ran down c quieter lane, the little bull felt there was something following behind him. He stopped and turned and there was a big blue car driving slowly behind him. The little bull ran off again, trying to lose the blue car, but it kept following him, driving slowly, although - the little bull realised - not peeping or honking like all the other cars.
            The little bull tried to hide from the blue car and ran off the road into the driveway of a nearby house. But, when he turned to see if the blue car had driven past, he saw that it had parked across the driveway, so that he couldn't run away again.
            The little bull grew frightened once more, worrying whether the shouting men with the smacking sticks were in the blue car. But when the car door opened and a man stepped out he saw that this man wasn't like the shouting men. He realised this because the man didn't shout. This man talked to him in a soft, warm voice, the sort of voice that he'd never heard before. And when this man put out his hand, it was to pat the little bull and not to smack him with a stick.
            The next minute a lady appeared. She looked at the little bull in the driveway, so the man with the soft, warm voice asked if the little bull belonged to her. The little bull knew he didn't and heard the lady say so. She also told the man that she'd been trying to catch the little bull because she was worried that he might get hurt running in front of cars.
            "Well, I'm late for work," said the man with the soft, warm voice. "I'm very late for work. But I can't leave him here all alone. So I'll wait with him a while."
            Just then, another car drove up and a man like the men in the field with the sticks that smacked got out. The little bull tensed, as this man had a loud voice like the men from the big grey truck.
            "He's a bloody stupid beast," said the new man, loudly. "He's escaped from his paddock. He's burst through every hedge and fence for three miles. He was meant to be going the market and now I'm going to take him back there."
            The little bull didn't know where market was, but he knew he didn't want to go there in the big grey truck. He didn't want to go anywhere in the big grey truck and he grew afraid again.
            Then he heard the man with the soft, warm voice - whose name was Paul - speak again.
            "I'm not so sure that he's stupid at all," said Paul.
            "I don't think he's stupid because he's crashed through all these fences and run all this way and out of all the people in the country that he could meet, he's bumped into me. No, he's not stupid.
            "And because he's bumped into me, I want to buy him. I want to rescue him."
            "Oh, you'll never hold him in a paddock," snorted the man who knew the men from the big grey truck. "I'm not so sure about that," Paul. "I don't think he'll be a problem ever again."
            And the little bull knew he was right. So he went with the man with the soft, warm voice whose name was Paul. He went to a paddock in a new place where there were no smells like the smell of the big grey truck and where there were no men with sticks that smacked. And there he was a good little bull, as docile as a baby. He didn't try to burst through fences or run away. Instead, he let Paul lead him around like the pet he'd become.
            And Paul called him Ferdinand, not "beast", and said he was the luckiest, pluckiest bull in Britain today.
            And he is.
            And this is all true. It happened just before Christmas 1994.