Llama Drama - In It To Win It!. Rose Impey

Hardman’s Guard Llama. Hadrian was a huge, powerful animal – and pretty fierce. Coyotes for miles around knew to give him a wide berth.

      “He snapped my old dad’s tail clean off,” Clutterbuck told the others as the coyotes shared stories of encounters with Hadrian and other Guard Llamas like him.

      Crazycoot had lost half his tail too, but that had been shot off by Farmer Blunkett’s gun. His Guard Llama, Blunderbuss, might be getting old, but he was another llama the coyotes tried to avoid.

      Clutterbuck asked if anyone had had a run-in yet with Farmer Palmer’s new one. But the coyotes shook their heads.

      “Well, he won’t be as fierce as The Terminator, that’s for certain,” Clutterbuck said firmly.

      And everyone agreed.

      “Don’t be too sure about that,” Captain muttered. The coyotes looked up, expecting more information, but Captain went quiet.

      “What’s up? Llama got your tongue?” laughed Clutterbuck.

      “Yeah, got the jitters, Grandpa?” asked Crazycoot nastily. “Don’t worry, you stay back behind us. We’ll protect you, won’t we, lads?”

      The younger ones laughed openly at the old coyote.

      Captain took a deep breath and counted to ten. Let them laugh at him all they liked. He who laughs last, he reminded himself, laughs longest. Yes, siree.

      

      n Wednesday morning, as dawn was breaking, Farmer Palmer began to load his animals for the much anticipated County Fair. Truck by truck they set off in convoy. Mama and Papa Llama watched them go.

      Mama Llama’s chest swelled with emotion: partly pride, but a little envy too. She wished she could have gone and seen her children take part in their events. But she had to accept that her own and Papa Llama’s show days were over.

      By mid-morning all the animals were in their pens at the County Fair. A chorus of bleating and baaa-ing and braying and honking could be heard as a huge wave of excitement spread throughout the livestock yard.

      Lewie was relieved to see that he wasn’t housed too far away from his family although, as Guard Llama, he was on the opposite side of the yard with all the other Guard Llamas, each with his own flock of sheep.

      In the next pen, Lewie was rather nervous to see a huge, powerfully built llama who looked much older than him. Lewie bravely tried to introduce himself. “Hello, my name’s Lewie …” he began. But the big llama lifted his nose and turned away, refusing even to acknowledge him. Lewie felt a little crushed.

      Throughout the morning, the llama continued to ignore Lewie, although he talked happily to the two llamas on his other side. They were clearly all old friends. Lewie soon discovered that the huge llama was called Hadrian, but his nickname was The Wall