Null Pointer
A Goat Named Nancy ...As Told By a goat named Nancy

For those not as familiar with goat-dom as Nancy the following terminology is provided for your reference:
- Trip - a group of goats
- Billy - a male goat
- Nanny - a female goat
- Kid - a young goat
I hear from the milker boy that you’re all retelling the story – my story – from everyone else’s point of view, and let me tell you, you are doing it wrong. It’s right there, staring you in the face! I saw that with my own two eyes. Before I ate it. The page that said, in big block letters, “A Goat Named Nancy” – I ate that, because paper is yummy. Not my eyes. I didn’t eat those. What do you take me for, a carnivore? But, seriously, folks, if you’re trying to tell a story about a goat named Nancy, shouldn’t a goat named Nancy tell it?
I swear, your kind loses all rationality when you grow up. Only the kids make any sense. I mean, take milking me, for example. The men I live with are just awful at it, and they get busy and forget, if I don’t keep after them. It’s not like it’s hard. A newborn kid can do it! Good fortune for me, two of your kind’s kids came along at this work site. The bigger one milked me, and he actually seemed to have a clue how to do it properly! The smaller one stayed out of sight, mostly, but I heard the kid fussing, bleating, and carrying on. They need so much attention at that age! They haven’t learned yet that a goat’s got to eat; grasses and bushes, stems and leaves. A nanny’s got to earn her keep, and not just with milk, at least with these men. It takes effort and dedication to eat all the brush in sight and turn it into milk for a suckling kid.
Not that either of those kids were my kid, neither of them being goats for a start, but I don’t mind helping out, especially if the bigger one milking me meant the men didn’t have to fumble their way through it.
So, there we were, the men, the kids, and me, and things were good. We could have just kept on, eating and milking and sleeping and bleating, but with your kind, everything’s got to change, like the weather. Fickle creatures.
I was doing my work, eating up all the scrub brush on the lot when the bigger kid came around at last. I stopped eating and ambled over, thinking he’d milk me, but no, he grabbed up one of the men’s removable furs that had been left lying about, and then went straight back to that rascal of a pony and the smaller kid.
And when the man couldn’t find his removable furs? He asked me, “Did you eat my shirt, Nancy?” All suspicious, like I had done it. Crazy, right? Aside from the fact that removable furs taste disgusting, and I do know from having to grab the things to get the men’s attention when they need to milk me, do you know what removable furs are made of? Eating them would only be a step away from outright cannibalism! Does he think I have no standards?!
The worst of it was that was the last I saw of those two kids or the pony. I don’ know why. Things are different with your kind, I know, but the small kid seemed awfully young to be weaned and, based on the bleating I heard, I can’t imagine he’s a runt where it’d be reasonable to stop feeding a kid that can’t thrive. The bigger kid is no nanny, to be producing his own milk for the kid, and I’ve got milk to spare with all this brush to eat and no kid of my own to nurture. I don’t see any logical reason why they would have left, but like I said, your kind loses all rationality the older they get. The bigger kid must have started reaching the age where you all lose the good sense you were born with.
I can’t change the way you all grow up, so I did the only thing I could and returned to eating a particularly tough pinecone. I did hope the bigger one at least would come back, and my ears perked a few days later when I heard young voices again, thinking maybe the kids had gone off to find their trip and all come back together, but no, it was a trip of completely different kids, some of them nearly men, none of them seeming the least bit interested in milking me, though I heard them talk about me and milk and milking quite a bit before they went off again.
They came back the next day, too, and I thought for a moment maybe the two kids from before would eventually find their way back as these kids did, but after the man accused me again of eating his removable furs to the trip of kids they, too, went off and never came back.
Kids, much more than mature creatures, need a trip, so whether all these kids have nannies and billies or not, I hope they at least have a trip with each other. Your kind needs the comfort of a trip, especially while young, just the same as my kind, even if your kind is less dependent on the safety of a trip than my wild kindred.
Anyway, if you see any of the kids, especially the first two, while you’re off gathering your story from the point of view of everyone except the obviously most important point of view you should have started with and saved yourselves all a lot of trouble, let them know they’re welcome to come back any time. There will be milk as long as there’s brush, and, since no one but me seems to be making any effort to chomp down this mess, there’s likely to be brush for a good long while, despite my best efforts.
🐐
Author's Notes:
I debated about when to post this story, because Nancy is a rather judgmental goat where the fabulous rewrite a number of other writers around Jix submitted chapters for. At the time of posting I have not read any of the chapters of the final rewrite, especially not the chapters that concern Nancy. The header image and color scheme for this page are adopted from MaryN's beautiful design for the rewrite in an attempt to be on theme.