Roscoe laughed. “Dear fat Clementine, it’s a wonder you haven’t been caught by the farmers yet. Why, you’d put pork on their tables for a whole year!”

“Don’t be jealous of me because goat tastes like a rat’s rear-end!”

Roscoe glanced at the pig out of the corner of his eye. “Well at least I don’t root around in my own-”

“That’s enough, you two,” Paco barked. “If you’d been paying attention instead of bickering, you’d see that we’re here!”

Before them was a barnyard busy with farm animals. An old brown barn was the center of the unflattering scene. Long sheets of rusty tin overhung the roof. Behind it was a rundown farmhouse, swarming with chickens, and beside it, a horse stable with a small pond in front.

Clementine’s eyes lit up. “Mud!” he exclaimed, preparing to dash.

Paco blocked him. “No, Clementine. We’re not here to play; we’re here to talk to Roscoe’s father.” The pig looked guilty.

Roscoe led them up a gravel drive overgrown with grass, and under a barbed wire fence. As they passed the stable, a milk cow, wearing a bell around her neck and eating from a trough, glanced up and gasped. “Oh, my hooves! Roscoe? Is that you?”

“How are you, Daisy?”

“Bless my udders, it is you!”

“I guess I’m a lot bigger than the last time you saw me,” he said proudly.

Daisy looked him over. “Is your little problem under control yet, cutie pie?”

Roscoe glanced around nervously at the cows, chickens, and ducks looking on. “Oh yeah!” he gulped. “I whipped that a long time–”

“Boo!” Daisy thundered.

Thunk! Roscoe collapsed and lay as stiff as a board. All the animals laughed.

“Oh, Roscoe!” Daisy mooed. “You’re still a goofy little rascal.”

The frozen, embarrassed goat looked up at his mirthful audience. A gray donkey on the other side of the barnyard laughed and brayed through giant teeth.

“Nice to see you, too, Jack,” Roscoe said, followed by something under his breath that, fortunately, none of the others heard.

Paco was impatient. “Roscoe, let’s find your father.”

“Sure. As soon as I get some feeling back in my legs, I’ll be glad to help you.”

Clementine watched Roscoe’s tail. “Amazing! It keeps wagging while the rest of you is frozen!”

Roscoe rolled his eyes and tried to think of something witty to say, “…Shut up!”

The defeated goat got back on his feet and led them to the barn past the snickering animals. The voices of two old ladies came from the opening.

“Fellas, I wouldn’t risk it,” Roscoe said quietly. “If I get caught, they’ll kill me!”

“Do you know where your father is, Roscoe?” Paco whispered.

“He’s usually lying on a pile of hay in the back, but those old hags are-”