Lotus Blossom: The Talking Goat

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This is a short story about a young goat named Lotus Blossom. She has been kept in the backyard chained to a pole all of her life. Her only shelter is a dog house. She is treated and ignored like some dogs are ignored by their masters. Lotus Blossom has a gift. She can talk, and she uses her voice to make her life better and have the home she has always wanted. 

Betsy and Jane live almost next door to each other. In between their houses is another house where Lotus Blossom, a pet goat lives. Lotus Blossom belongs to a man we call Uncle Don. There is something about Lotus Blossom that Uncle Don doesn’t know and won’t believe. Lotus can talk! Yes, she can!

Betsy and Jane often played in Uncle Don’s yard where Lotus Blossom lived. She was chained to a pole and had a dog house to live in. She was happy as she could be since she was chained up and couldn’t really go anywhere. 

One day when the two girls were out playing with Lotus Blossom, the girls had petted her and turned their backs on her to get ready to leave. They had spoken a few words about where they wanted to go next, because it was a boring Saturday. Just then Lotus Blossom butted Jane in the behind. That got Jane’s attention and she whipped herself around so that she wouldn’t get butted with Lotus Blossom’s hard head again. 

“Baaaaa I don’t want to be chained up. Baaaa! Unhook me please?” Lotus said.

Startled beyond belief, the girls looked at each other and Jane said, “Did you hear what I heard?”

“I sure did! Lotus can talk!” Betsy said.

“Uncle Don! Uncle Don!” Betsy yelled as she ran up to the house. She climbed up on the porch and knocked on the screen door. Uncle Don came to the door and opened it so that Betsy could come in.

“Hi Betsy, what are you and your sidekick up to today?” said Uncle Don.

Out of breath, Betsy said, “Uncle Don, Lotus can talk! She can really talk!”

“Balderdash!” said Uncle Don. “Goats can’t talk. Now stop telling stories and take yourself home.”

Dejected, Betsy left Uncle Don’s house and told Jane that he told them to go home. 

“Not until we unchain Lotus and take her with us. She doesn’t like being chained up and in the heat all the time.” Jane said. 

Betsy and Jane looked up towards the house and they didn’t see Uncle Don anywhere near the windows looking out. Boldly Betsy unhooked the heavy chain from Lotus Blossom’s collar. 

“Baaaa! Thank you! I am free!” Lotus said.

Lotus Blossom followed Betsy and Jane around like a puppy. Everywhere they went that day, Lotus was right along beside them. Lotus never even thought of running off, because she liked these girls. 

In the meantime, Uncle Don comes outside to check on his strawberry garden and he sees that Lotus Blossom is missing. He becomes extremely angry that someone had let her off her chain. 

“I bet you your bottom dollar those girls, Betsy and Jane took off with that blasted goat!” Uncle Don said to nobody in particular. “I’ll fix their wagons!” Uncle Don left his yard and turn to the left and he saw Jane’s mother and told her to keep Jane off his property. “Your girl, Jane, and that Betsy next door to me have let Lotus Blossom off her chain and no0w I don’t know where she is!” he fumed. 

Then he went to the right and went to Betsy’s parents’ house and found her parents. By that time Uncle Don was in a dither. The more he thought about his goat missing the madder he got. “Your Betsy and that girl next door to me, Jane, have taken off with my goat! I don’t want either one of those two in my yard anymore!” Uncle Don said. 

Betsy’s mom said, “Don, you are the one that invited the girls to come into your yard and play with Lotus Blossom. You know they have loved that goat since she was the tiny baby that you brought home. Betsy says that Lotus can talk. Did you know that?” Betsy’s mom said.

“You know dang well that no goat can talk! It’s about time you parents stop filling those girls head with all this fairytale nonsense!” Uncle Don said. Betsy’s mom, Louise, walked Don to the door. He was a nice man, a bit cantankerous at times, but good all the same. He was so good that all the kids in the neighborhood called him “Uncle Don.” 

Betsy, Jane and Lotus Blossom were sitting up in the park where the road forked into the main highway. The road made a Y and the park was right in the middle of the two prongs of the Y. The girls were eating M & M’s and they bought Lotus Blossom some marshmallows. 

“Baaaaaa! These Marshmallows are good! Yummmmm! Baaaaa.” Said Lotus Blossom. 

The girls finished their candy and they fed Lotus a few more bites of the big marshmallows. “It’s time we better start heading home. We’ve got to get you back to Uncle Don’s before he notices you are gone.” Betsy said. 

“Baaaaa! Nooooo! I don’t want to go home. He will just chain me up and I don’t want to be a prisoner anymore in a dog house. I want to go home with you!”

“I know!” Jane said. “Let’s go ask your mom if you can keep Lotus Blossom.”

“That’s not going to work. She will just tell me that I took her without asking for permission and she will make me take Lotus back to Uncle Don’s.” Betsy said. 

“Baaaaaaaa! Betttttsy! Don’t take me home to be chained up again. I’ll run away!” Lotus said.

“I’ve got an idea, Betsy said. Have you got your iPhone on you?”

“You know I don’t go anywhere without it.” Jane said. 

“Let’s just have this conversation and record it on your phone. We can play it for my parents, your mom and even Uncle Don! We will prove that Lotus can talk.” Betsy said.

Jane held the phone and put it on record so she could make a video of Lotus Blossom talking. Lotus talked and talked and talked. She said how if felt being kept prisoner being on a chain all the time and never getting out to walk. She talked about how it felt to never get any treats. She said how much she loved the marshmallows. She also said she wanted to go live with Betsy or Jane.

When the video was completed, all three watched it. Lotus was just as interested as the two girls were. She was bobbing her white head up and down as if she agreed with every word she spoke. 

Louise, Betsy’s mom was pacing the floor worried about where her daughter was and did she have that goat, Lotus Blossom, with her. She did and both girls and the goat came through the back door of the house. They tried to sneak Lotus into Betsy’s bedroom, but Louise caught sight of the girls and said “Stop right there! What do you think you are doing with that goat? Get her back over to Don’s before he has a cow!” she said. 

“But Mom!” 

“Don’t but Mom me young lady. March!” Louise said sternly to her daughter. 

“Mom, hear us out. Lotus can talk! She doesn’t like being chained up at Uncle Don’s and held prisoner. She won’t run off. She likes to hang out with Jane and Me. That’s all. Look! We took a video of Lotus talking to us.”

Louise watched the video and her mouth dropped almost down to her knees. “Well, I’ll be! That goat can really talk and make sense too! It’s like it’s human!” Louise said. 

“Mom, please help us talk to Uncle Don. Ask him if we can have her!”

“Noooooo! I’m not having a goat in my house. I don’t care if Lotus can recite the Gettysburg address, she isn’t coming to live with us.”

“Baaaaa! Pleeeeaaaase? I promise I won’t mess in the house. I’m better housetrained than a dog, and I’ve never lived in a house before! I don’t even stink? Here, smell.” Lotus approached Louise and let her pet her and get close enough to smell her coat. 

Louise had to admit that the goat didn’t have a smell like most livestock do. She is very clean. Louise put her hands down on her knees and struggled to get on her feet. “Well, girls and I mean you too Lotus, let’s go over to your house and see what Uncle Don has to say.”

Uncle Don heard people talking outside in his driveway. It sounded like they were getting closer. “Is that Lotus I hear bleating?” Uncle Don thought to himself. He came to the door just as Betsy, her mom, Jane and Lotus came traipsing up in his yard. “Ahh Hal! There you all are with my goat. Betsy, you chain her back up since you are the one who took Lotus off her chain.”

“Uncle Don, Lotus Blossom doesn’t like being chained up! Look, we took a video, see?” Jane opened up the video so that Uncle Don could watch the video. 

“Well, tarnation! Will you look at that? I’ve never heard Lotus talk before! She sure is a special goat, isn’t she?”

“Uncle Don, since Lotus has never talked around you, and because she hates being chained up because she feels like a prisoner, can we keep her?”

“What do you mean, Betsy? You want to keep my Lotus Blossom? The goat I’ve had since she was a baby?”

“Yes, the goat you have had chained up since she was a baby. She doesn’t like it! How would you like being in her place? Try it just for a day and see how you would like to wear a tight collar around your neck with a heavy chain attached?”

Louise tried to stifle her daughter’s outpouring of emotion, but she couldn’t. She was adamant that she could give Lotus Blossom a better home.”

“I’ll tell you what, girls. If it is okay with your mother, Betsy, I’ll let you foster Lotus blossom out for the summer. If you still want her after the summer is up, then I will gladly let you have her. She does seem very happy with you.”

“Yayyyyy!” Betsy exclaimed. “Can we Mom? Can we Huh?”

“Well, I guess so. On a trial basis. The first time Lotus has an accident and makes a mess on the floor, she is out of the house and back at Uncle Don’s.”

“Baaaaa. I told you I have good manners. Baaaa! I won’t mess. I promise. 

That night Lotus Blossom slept in a bed for the first time in her life. She laid next to Betsy and snuggled. Betsy, smiled in her sleep and put her arm aro9und Lotus and hugged her even tighter. All was right with Lotus Blossom’s world.