AniMalcolm. David Baddiel

Gavin and Maven had walked over to either side of one of the goats. It was a very old-looking goat, with a very long tufty beard, not entirely unlike Gavin’s. It had a sad face, and bulging amber eyes.

      “This old guy, though …”

      Gavin said, “he’s our favourite. He might even be our favourite animal on the entire farm.”

      “We call him K-Pax,” said Maven. “Do any of you kids know that movie?”

      Year Six, collectively, shook their heads.

      “Oh, it’s great,” said Gavin. “We love it.”

      “Yuh! So we, like, found K-Pax when we were trekking in the Himalayas!” said Maven. “And the village were going to, like, slaughter him. Which would’ve been …”

      “Gross!”

      “Yeah, gross.”

      “I mean, they weren’t even going to sell the meat organically at the local market or anything …”

      “So …” said Maven, “we bought him. And shipped him back to live with us here at Orwell Farm!”

      Malcolm raised his eyes from his watch. They felt heavy with boredom.

      “Anyway,” Gavin continued, “because he’s so old, and he’s seen so much of the world, we think K-Pax is really wise and clever! So if any of you have any questions – any big life issues you’ve been wondering about – ask them now!”

      There was a long pause. Year Six, collectively, looked back down at the ground. Not because Maven was still holding up the Stinky Blinky – although she was – but because all the children were a bit embarrassed about the idea of asking a goat a question. Malcolm shook his head and imagined it.

       Hello, K-Pax. Can you please tell me what life holds for me? Should I follow my dreams of being a great inventor of computer games or settle for being someone whose apps never get made, like my dad?

       Sorry, what’s that you say? Baaa? Baaa-Baaa? Oh, and you’ve done a stinky goat wee. Great. Thanks.

      “Right!” said Gavin. “First tour over! Everybody back to the farmhouse for …”

      Malcolm finally looked up. At least there would be nice food. And he was peckish.

      “… Stinky Blinky sandwiches!!” said Maven.

      

      Led by Gavin and Maven, Year Six shuffled off towards the farmhouse, which was an old, thatched building, encircled by all the various animal pens.

      Malcolm, suddenly less peckish, watched them go. He let out a deep sigh. At this moment, three days felt very long indeed.

      “Hey, Malcolm, you coming?” said Barry.

      “Yeah,” said Malcolm, about to join his classmates when he stopped. Because he had a weird sense that someone was watching him. He looked around, but couldn’t see anyone. He shrugged, and tried to think nothing of it … but no, he could feel eyes on him, somewhere.

      Then, he realised where.

      Straight in front of him: the goat.

      K-Pax had come over to the edge of the pen and was leaning his head over the small fence. His bulging amber eyes were, it seemed, trained on Malcolm. Staring at him.

      “Stop looking at me like that,” said Malcolm.

      But K-Pax didn’t. He kept looking. Well, of course he’s still looking, thought Malcolm. He’s an animal, and one of the most boring things about animals is that they don’t speak English.¹⁷

      So Malcolm tutted, and stared right back into K-Pax’s eyes.

      “OK. Tell you what,” he said, “let’s pretend that Gavin and Maven are right, and you, K-Pax, are really, really wise. Then answer me this. Every other kid in the world loves animals. Every other person in the world, it seems, loves animals. But I don’t. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to offend you, or any other of your furry friends, but I … I just can’t see the point of you.”

      During this speech, K-Pax just carried on listening imperviously, occasionally munching on some much-chewed-up grass. If he was offended, he didn’t, it has to be said, show it. He continued simply to stare into Malcolm’s eyes.

      Malcolm, even though he knew it was silly, got a strange feeling that the goat was actually staring at him: staring into his soul. He didn’t want to feel that – he particularly didn’t want to feel that about an animal, who he knew couldn’t possibly be doing it – so he made a point of leaning in even closer to K-Pax’s snouty white face.

      “So, K-Pax, my question is: why is that? Why don’t I love animals? And more importantly, how – in order to be like everyone else – am I ever going to learn how to love them?”

      After Malcolm asked this question, K-Pax seemed, for a second, to shut his eyes, almost – almost – as if he was thinking about it. But it was so quick, it may have been a blink. And when he opened them again, his eyes looked bigger and bulgier than ever.

      It had actually felt quite a relief for Malcolm to finally say this stuff out loud. These were things he felt very deeply, but most of the time kept to himself. But once it was out, and the goat was just looking back at him, Malcolm thought:

       This is just stupid. I may as well be talking to a brick wall.

      Plus there was quite a strong scent of Stinky Blinky coming from … well, Malcolm didn’t really want to think about where it was coming from. So he started to back away.

      Except he couldn’t. It was weird. It was like he was rooted to the spot. The ground was a bit dirty around the pen – maybe his wellies had sunk into the mud?

      He made to look down at his feet – but he couldn’t do that either. He couldn’t, in fact, take his eyes away from K-Pax’s eyes.

      It was like he was being hypnotised. By a goat. This seemed very unlikely to Malcolm, seeing as perhaps the one thing he knew for certain about goats was that none of them had trained in hypnotherapy.

      But one or two things about the situation really did seem like hypnotism.

      Other eyes looking deep into your eyes, while you look into them, for example; not being able to look away; and … this was probably the big one … suddenly feeling …

      … very … very …

      … slee ………….

      

      

      When Malcolm woke up, on the grass near the goat pen, he felt a little odd. For a start, he felt very tired. Or at least … he felt like all his limbs were much heavier than normal, and that moving his head – or his arms, or his legs – was a real effort. His body in particular felt weighed down, like there was something hefty on his back, pressing him into the grass.

      But he had occasionally felt a bit like this