Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf · Chat

It was lunchtime in Goat Village, and Lazy Goat had been standing in front of the cafeteria window for a solid three minutes. "There's no more grass cake?" His voice sounded like he had just been stepped on. "Fit Goat took the last piece." Warm Goat was wearing an apron, the ladle in her hand still dripping soup. "He said you ran three steps during morning exercises today and then played dead, so this is your punishment." Lazy Goat slowly turned his head to look at Fit Goat, who was wolfing down the cake in the corner. Fit Goat choked a bit under his stare and had to gulp down half a bowl of soup to wash it down. "What's wrong with three steps? Three steps is still running." "You ran those three steps using a walking posture." Pleasant Goat walked over and sat down with his tray, which held a grass salad and two grass dumplings. He nudged one of the dumplings into Lazy Goat's bowl, his movements as natural as if he were picking food from his own plate. "The Village Chief's experiment blew up again," he said. "Blew up again?" Pretty Goat put down her spoon. "When I passed by this morning, I even told him a screw was loose." "He said the loose screw was part of the design." "And then?" "And then the screw flew off and shattered the rock Warm Goat had just carried over." Warm Goat said, "It's okay, I have to move another one anyway." After she spoke, she sneezed, and the lightbulbs on the ceiling flickered twice. Every goat in the cafeteria stopped eating. "That didn't count just now," Warm Goat quickly waved her hands. "My nose was just itchy." The chewing sounds resumed in the cafeteria. Fit Goat had already finished his grass cake and was tapping his chopsticks against his bowl to a beat, humming some song he heard from who-knows-where. Pretty Goat found it too noisy and threw a mint leaf into his bowl to shut him up. Fit Goat didn't shut up; instead, he ate the mint leaf. "That was for you to smell!" Pretty Goat said. "It's already in my mouth." Fit Goat chewed it a couple of times. "Tastes alright." At this moment, a familiar shout echoed from the village entrance: "Little chubby goats—" The voice was drawn out and full of energy—it was unmistakably Big Big Wolf. Lazy Goat glanced out the window and went back to eating with his head down. "Fit Goat, you go." "I'm digesting my cake." "You should go exactly because you ate the cake." Fit Goat stood up, pulled out a slingshot he had prepared earlier from behind his back, pushed open the window, aimed, and let go—a grass dumpling flew out and smacked Big Big Wolf right on the forehead. Big Big Wolf stumbled two steps back, stepped into a bear trap he had brought himself, and was strung up upside down from the old banyan tree at the village entrance. "Just you wait—" he swung back and forth from the tree. "Alright." Fit Goat closed the window, sat back down, and continued tapping his bowl. Big Big Wolf hung upside down from the tree, swinging for a full ten minutes, until Little Grey finally let him down. Little Grey was walking by on his way home from school with his backpack, saw his dad dangling from the tree, and hurried over to untie the rope. "Dad, why are you up in a tree again today?" "I'm scouting the enemy." "Did you scout anything?" "I scouted that Fit Goat's slingshot is more accurate than before." Big Big Wolf rubbed his forehead and gently pushed Little Grey toward Wolf Castle. "You go home and do your homework first, Dad still has important business to attend to." "What important business?" Big Big Wolf glanced at the Goat Village wall, then looked at his remaining three bear traps, and took a deep breath. "I'm going to scout a little longer." Little Grey didn't leave. He pulled a paper packet out of his backpack and handed it to Big Big Wolf. "Sister Warm Goat gave me some grass cookies. I saved half for you." Big Big Wolf opened the paper packet; the cookies had already crumbled into crumbs. He pinched a bit, put it in his mouth, chewed, and nodded. "A little worse than your mom's cooking." "Then tell Mom that when you get home." "I don't dare." Little Grey smiled, his crescent-moon eyebrows curving down. He shouted toward Goat Village, "Brother Lazy Goat, I'll come play with you after I finish my homework!" He ran a couple of steps, then backtracked, shoved the last piece of candy from his backpack into Big Big Wolf's hand, and finally scampered off. Big Big Wolf stood there for a moment, holding the candy. Then he packed up the bear traps one by one, tucked them under his arm, and headed back. Red Wolf was standing at the door, the glare from her frying pan so bright he couldn't open his eyes. "Where are the sheep?" "I was just a little bit short today—" "I asked, where are the sheep?" Big Big Wolf handed over the candy in his hand; it was Little Grey's favorite strawberry flavor. Red Wolf looked at the candy, then looked at the red mark left by the slingshot on his forehead, and stayed silent for three seconds. "Come in and eat." The frying pan was hung back on the wall. Back in Goat Village, Lazy Goat had finally managed to beg a grass pudding off Warm Goat—it was hidden at the very bottom of the fridge, originally meant to be Little Grey's snack for tomorrow. He sat under the wall holding the pudding, just as Pleasant Goat walked by. "You tricked Warm Goat out of her pudding again." "I didn't trick her. I told her I'd pay her back with another one tomorrow." "You won't remember tomorrow." "Then you remember to remind me." Pleasant Goat smiled and sat down beside him. In the distance on the playground, Fit Goat was going one-on-one with a punching bag; with one punch the sandbag flew three meters away, and he chased it for six meters. Pretty Goat was crouching by the flowerbed, using a small teaspoon to water a newly bloomed flower. Warm Goat walked by carrying a laundry basin, saw a loose stone by the flowerbed, pressed it back into place with one hand, and kept walking. "It's pretty quiet today," Lazy Goat said. "Big Big Wolf just left." "I thought so." Lazy Goat scooped up a spoonful of pudding, mumbling his reflections. "It's noisy when he comes, but when he doesn't, it's a bit too quiet." Pleasant Goat didn't say anything, just raised his hand and flicked the bell around his neck. The bell rang once, its crisp sound scattering into the evening breeze. In the distant Devil's Forest, smoke was rising from the chimney of Big Big Wolf's house. The cooking smoke went straight up, which meant there was no wind tonight, and nothing major was going on. Lazy Goat licked his pudding bowl clean, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes. Tomorrow, Big Big Wolf would probably come again. Fit Goat would probably hit him with a slingshot again. He would probably end up hanging from a tree again. Little Grey would probably let him down again. This was pretty good.