“The ground didn’t just shake,” Buttercup said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. “It groaned.
For a heartbeat, Zamba stood frozen, the same fear that had hampered him at the lantern returning with a vengeance. But as he looked into the glowing throat of the earth, he realised the truth.
There was no beast. No fur, no claws, no malice.”
The LooGawoo wasn’t a monster at all. It was the mountain itself.
The ‘red eyes’ the villagers feared were vents of molten rock, glowing through the mist. The ‘moan’ was the sound of ancient gas escaping through stone. It was a volcano, silent for a thousand years, and it was finally restless.
Every now and then, the earth would heave, and a spray of thick, orange lava would splutter out of the crack like a boiling pot, hissing as it hit the cool night air.
“Wait,” Aster interrupted, his ears twitching. “If it wasn’t a monster, why did it sound like it was howling? Rocks don’t have voices, do they?”
Buttercup smiled, with a soft, knowing look. “When the earth moves like that, Aster, the air screams as it’s pushed through the cracks in the stone. To a goat who has never heard such a thing, a whistling wind sounds exactly like a hungry throat.”
“And did he run?” Clover asked, her eyes wide. “If I saw fire coming out of the floor, I’d run all the way to the sea!”
“He did,” Buttercup admitted. “He bolted. He remembered Willow, waiting there in the smoke, keeping her side of the promise. He knew that if the herd kept sleeping, there was a chance no one would make it out.”
He raced straight back, taking Willow’s hand as he flew by. He burst into the main barn, his lungs burning from the sulfurous mist.
“Wake up!” he bellowed. “The LooGawoo is no ghost! The mountain is burning from the inside! We have to move, now!”
The goats stirred, confused and bleary-eyed. Old Silas scoffed, “The mist has turned your head, Zamba.”
Just then, the earth gave a sickening lurch. The ground shook. Zamba didn’t wait for them to agree. He hoisted kids and elderly onto a wheelbarrow and nudged the others.
They ran all night from the mountain.
By the early hours of the morning, they had settled in a new meadow. In the distance, a massive fountain of orange fire shot into the sky. The volcano was finally clearing its throat.
Willow turned to Zamba
“You came back,” she whispered as the herd looked at the volcano, mesmerized.
“I promised,” Zamba replied.
The ground gave one final, violent heave. A river of lava finally crested the ridge, a slow, unstoppable wall of liquid fire.
“So Zamba didn’t kill the monster?” Aster asked, sounding a little disappointed.
“There was no monster to kill, little one,” Buttercup said, reaching out to pat Aster’s head. “Zamba learned that having courage doesn’t come with having muscles. It doesn’t mean never being afraid.
Having courage is staying when you want to run. It’s in keeping a promise when the world is falling apart. And having loved ones is a source of great strength”.
“Loved ones like Willow?” Clover asked, leaning her head against her father’s shoulder.
Buttercup smiled and looked toward the kids’ mother. She had the same steady spirit as the Willow in the story.
“Indeed. She believed in him, and so he was able to surpass himself”. Buttercup whispered.
Leave a Reply