The Sheep Who Counted Children

Shona was a sheep who could not sleep.

This was embarrassing. Sheep are supposed to be good at sleep. Children all over the world lie in bed and count sheep, because sheep are the sleepiest thing anyone can think of.

"So what do sheep count?" Shona asked the oldest ewe.

The oldest ewe thought about it for a long time, which is how old ewes think.

"Children," she said finally. "Obviously."

So Shona lay down in the straw, closed her eyes, and imagined a fence. Then she imagined a child jumping over it.

"One," said Shona.

The child was small, with a striped jumper, and she jumped the fence beautifully, both feet together, and landed, and looked back at Shona, and said, "Again?"

"No, that's fine," said Shona. "Next child, please."

"Two." This one had wellies on. He ran at the fence, stopped, went back, ran at it again, stopped again, and then climbed over it very carefully one leg at a time.

"That's not jumping," said Shona.

"I don't like jumping," said the child.

"Fine. Three."

Three was a girl with a kite, and the kite got caught on the fence, and it took four whole minutes to untangle, and Shona had to help.

Four would not jump until she had had a drink of water.

Five jumped the fence, then jumped back, then jumped it again, then said he was a frog now and sat down in the middle of the field being a frog.

Six asked where the toilet was.

Seven and eight were twins and insisted on jumping together, holding hands, which meant that neither of them cleared the fence and both of them sat on it, swinging their legs, and started a conversation about whether a dog could be a sheep if it really wanted to.

Shona opened her eyes. The barn was dark. The other sheep were snoring in a soft woolly row. And she was wider awake than when she had started.

"This isn't working," she said.

"Shh," said the oldest ewe, without waking up. "Keep going. You're nearly there."

"Nearly where?"

But the oldest ewe was asleep again.

Shona closed her eyes. Nine was already at the fence. Nine was very small, in a sleepsuit with feet, and did not jump at all. Nine sat down on Shona's side of the fence, leaned against her woolly flank, and yawned the biggest yawn a small person can do.

Shona felt it. The yawn went right through her wool.

"Ten," she said, but her voice had gone slow and soft.

Ten had a blanket. Ten lay down next to nine. Eleven arrived and did not even look at the fence, just curled up at Shona's other side. Twelve was already asleep when she got there and had to be carried by seven and eight, who had finally agreed that a dog could be anything it liked.

The field filled up with sleeping children, all along Shona's warm, woolly sides, and none of them jumping anything, and Shona understood at last what sheep count.

Not children jumping. Children settling. One by one, until there is nobody left to count.

"Thirteen," she whispered, and never found out who thirteen was.