note: this was an assignment in my 10^th grade English class that i re-discovered a few days ago. it amuses me.

Tonja Hickey English-3^rd period February 27, 1997

Sheep In Wolves' Clothes

There was a little chunk of earth some years ago. This particular piece happened to be one of the more lovely and all around nice places that had come into existence by this point and a number of animals lived on it, enjoying the rolling meadows (green, of course), bubbling brooks, and things of that sort. That's the way it was for a long time. The different species of animals knew that each other were around and they got along pretty well as long as everyone was allowed to do their own thing and not be interfered with by others who thought it was their place to tell someone else how to live. Actually, that never would have happened in the beginning, because the different animals just didn't intermingle enough. As time went on and the animals saw more of each other, many good things came about such as the learning and sharing of ideas and trading things like feathers or ready-made cud. Some bad things happened too, though.

The sheep had developed into a relatively powerful society, mainly due to sheer numbers, but also in part because of one leader (who was of course a ram, since equality of the sexes didn't develop properly until a little later) who was very proud of Sheepdom. This ram was sitting under a particularly nice oak tree near Goatburg one day with his advisor Crow (who agreed with everything the ram said) when he realized that he did not like the goats very much. They were a strange people who worshiped an obscure god (made obscure because it was not the One True Sheep), ate at unusual times of the day, and just did not behave in the proper Sheep fashion. The ram commented on this to Crow (who agreed) and decided that something must be done about the heathen goats before they started influencing unsuspecting sheep into veering from the correct path of life. As he traveled around more that day, the ram realized that he also did not like (in no particular order [except for the chickens, who were just downright stupid folk]) the ducks, cows, horses, pigs, or the Commune of Sparrows all that much either.

The ram set about trying to figure out how he could get rid of all these un-sheep-like creatures (or at least keep it so they did not do things like move about or talk very much) and since he was a smart animal (everyone knows [or should] that lack of wisdom does not imply lack of intelligence), he soon came up with a plan. The large majority of animals living in the aforementioned chunk of earth were fairly passive herbivore types, so obviously they would all fear one thing above all else. They were afraid of predators, especially wolves, which there were more of in that region than any other hunting animal. So, the ram had the sheep dress up in wolf skins and he set about terrorizing the neighboring people into proper submission. The chickens fell first because they were gullible enough to believe in an overnight explosion in the wolf population and the other animals believed because the chickens believed first and obviously would not have reacted the way they did had all the superfluous wolves not been, in fact, real. Anyway, the neighbors fell unknowingly under the influence of the sheep and had it all ended there, the situation would have been bad enough, but the ram started finding faults among the sheep themselves. He had the rebels (whose crimes ranged from questioning the wearing of wolf skins to having the wrong color fleece to thinking funny things on Tuesdays when it was raining) shaved, exiled to the chunk of earth to the south-southwest of Sheepia (a semi-arid climate with a rocks to rolling meadows ratio that was much too high), or even put to sleep. Things went on like this for a while with the sheep patrolling everywhere in their wolf suits imagining that they were strong and powerful, but still being, despite the show, merely sheep underneath. (which is not to say that being a sheep was a bad thing, only that they were not wolves, although some started to believe that they were) The most surprising thing is that the other animals, including most of the sheep, put up with it for so long. Finally, a group of humans found this nice area of land with many types of animals living there, but for some reason, all these wolf packs running around. So the humans shot the wolves because they seemed to be quite a bother to the other beings there. This is sad because they killed a great many sheep who were only doing what they had been told to do. They also killed a number of creatures who had become extremely cruel and bigoted by allowing a side of themselves to be in control that was never meant to be so. The remaining sheep, who understood that all the animals faced the same problems of real predators and occasional lack of good grazing areas and so on, helped rebuild the sheep reputation in the following years. Some animals, though, not just sheep, but a few members of all the species, for some reason still believe that acting like a wolf gives them power and this is an unfortunate fact, but they were there before the ram ever existed and they will always be somewhere. It is up to the other animals to be smart enough to realize that their belief in what the ignorant few say is these creatures' only true source of power.