He sat regally, long neck arched, wings circling his body in a glorious display of long white feathers. And he could glide without a ripple along the surface of the water.
SHELBY GOES SWIMMING
It was finally full summer again. The whole world seemed to buzz with activity. Green and yellow fields lay under the smiling sun, and the days were so much longer it was no trouble at all finding time to play. On a lazy afternoon, Shelby and Marvin had gone searching for mushrooms in the woods, and found themselves on the far side where they had gone tobogganing not so very long ago.
They tumbled down the hill and raced across the flat field at the bottom, then stopped in their tracks as a tall white bird came running at them, wings flapping furiously.
“Shoo!” it shrieked in a honky voice. “Go away!” Then it proceeded to actually hiss at them, so they backed up a little and sat down in a bit of a shock.
The creature stopped hissing and waving and stood looking down at them. It stood on quite sturdy black legs and its feet were flat. The smallish head sat on the top of a long gracefully curving neck. Beady eyes, above a narrow orange beak, glared down at the two helpless friends.
“You better not stay around here!” the thing admonished them, “You’re nothing but trouble for us!”
“Please, Mr Bird, we were only having fun! Why can’t we play here?” Marvin got the nerve to speak up first.
“Bird? Bird?? I’m no ordinary bird. I will have you know I am a swan! Try to remember that. Swans are not ordinary birds, let me tell you!”
“Will you tell us about swans?” Shelby asked, finally finding his tongue. “We want to learn and we aren’t any trouble at all, honest!” And before he could stop himself he blurted, “You have the strangest feet I’ve ever seen!”
Mollified by the honest curiosity, the swan said in a much more civilized tone, “They’re for swimming, you silly thing! Don’t you know anything?” And with that he turned and strutted awkwardly away. It really seemed he was inviting them to follow so that’s what they did.
Through a few small shrubs the swan pushed, and went straight into the pond that sparkled on the other side. Instantly, he was transformed into the most beautiful sight either Shelby or Marvin had ever set eyes on. He sat regally, long neck arched, wings circling his body in a glorious display of long white feathers. And he could glide without a ripple along the surface of the water.
Shelby was so awed, he forgot to stop at the pond’s edge and he found himself suddenly in the water! He started to panic and splashed wildly around, only to succeed in getting more wet and further from the shore. Marvin stood watching with his heart in his mouth, not knowing what to do.
Shelby had swallowed a few mouthfuls and gone completely under by the time two swans nudged him toward the shore where he found his feet on the bottom and scrambled out spraying water everywhere. He sat down, shaking off the last drops and looked around for Marvin.
“If you want to swim,” he heard from nearby, “you need to calm down when you are in the water! You’ll float along just fine if you stop behaving like a windmill!”
Actually, the water had felt wonderfully cool after running in the heat of the day. So Shelby thought it over. He was still sitting on the bank when Marvin splashed toward him, laughing with glee. “Come on in! It’s easy, it really is!” and darted easily away toward the centre of the pond.
Shamed now, Shelby had to do something to show he was no coward. He stuck one foot in and then another and waded carefully forward. Marvin called out, “Just keep your feet moving and your nose up!” and to his utter surprise, Shelby found he was swimming. Not as gracefully as the swans but he was swimming nonetheless.
The two swans had gone off a short distance and now they were back with a whole long string of miniature swans behind them. The little ones were covered with fluffy gray down, but in every other way they were as beautiful as their courtly parents.
Soon, they had all made friends and spent the rest of the afternoon splashing in and out of the pond. Then Marvin and Shelby lay in the sun to let their fur dry off, and before very long drifted off to sleep. They were awakened by a hubbub of flapping and hissing. The two adult swans were out of the water facing a new animal. It was covered in a thick white coat, had a black face, small quivering ears and rather mild eyes that were looking none too happy.
“Baa-aa-a!” it bleated piteously at the swans, “it’s OK, please quiet down! I just got here today, so I don’t know my way around!” and the poor thing continued to shake under their haughty wrath.
Shelby jumped up and shouted, “Why don’t you try saying hello first? Maybe you can make a friend instead of scaring everyone off without knowing anything about them!” at which the swans looked a little surprised and stood together facing the new arrival.
“Well, then, hello and who are you?” the mother swan wanted to know.
“I’m a sheep! Well, actually, more like a lamb, and they call me Olive. I just came to this farm on a truck today with some other lambs. I don’t know how I got lost, but here I am, just trying to find the rest of the group I came with.” and she looked from side to side to wait for a reply.
The slightly embarrassed swans apologized for over-reacting and wished Olive a good day, then hastily made their way back to the pond where their babies were cowering together waiting.
Shelby said to Olive, “If you need to go to where the barn is we can help. We’ve lived here for almost a year now, so we know most of the animals too.”
They set off together, heading back towards the barn. Marvin hopped on Shelby’s back for a while, but was quite content to jog along on his own too. Olive wasn’t in a particular hurry. She took her time explaining that her coat would be growing all the next winter and it would be sheared in the spring for making wool.
Soon they were joined by three more young sheep, who had been turned loose in the orchard, and were contentedly grazing on the lush grass, in company with Billy and his two ladies, Nanny and Capra. Olive was so happy to be back with the others, she fairly leaped with joy.
She called after Shelby, “I hope you will come to talk soon! Thanks for helping.”
And Shelby knew he had grown up a bit more because he was just happy to do something nice for no reason at all.
Eleanor Lawrie, Author 