Goato

Goato was stuck on the roof. Sometimes he'd be on the left slope, sometimes he'd be on the right slope. Sometimes he'd stare at the sky, sometimes he'd glare at the floor. But he was always stuck on the roof. 

No one quite remembered how Goato got stuck on the roof. Some said he climbed a ladder and the wind blew it away. Others said he floated there on a balloon. Still others said he jumped. But what everyone agreed on was that he was stuck.

One day a new kid walked into town. He had that look of the strangely familiar, a swagger that hadn't been seen, and little horns that glinted in the noon like a star in the desert. 

What's that goat doing on that roof, he asked Sammo the barkeep. 

That's Goato, said Sammo, he stuck.

Stuck?

Yep, he be stuck for some fo' year now.

Hey, Goato, the kid shouted, Why you stuck on that roof?

Goato blinked and turned around so he was facing the ground.

What? said Goato

He said, why you be stuck on that roof, said Sammo.

I- I- I don't know, mumbled Goato.

And the thing was, he didn't know. You see he'd gone up to that roof all in a huff. In a huff because someone had said something, something so huffable that Goato got all the way up on the roof just to prove his point. And once he was up there he felt even more huffy, that he decided to stay the whole night, just to teach whoever it was a lesson. And after he'd taught him a lesson, one of his friends walked past and saw him on the roof and said, hey Goato, what you doing on that roof? So he got huffy with that friend and decided to teach him a lesson too. And as time went on, and more and more of his friends laughed at him, he got huffier and huffier with so many of his friends, that he forgot who he was originally huffy with, so he decided to stay where he was, one great big huff, until one of them apologised.

That don't sound like a good reason to be on a roof now does it? Said the kid.

 Well, no, said Goato, no, it doesn't.

Maybe I fetch you a ladder? Said the kid.

No, said Goato, I could probably jump.

And he could, and he did, and once he was on the ground he trotted round in a couple of circles and remembered he actually quite liked it on the ground.

Hey, said the kid, I know it's been a while, but I'm sorry for telling you you couldn't jump on that roof. I was just a kid.

And suddenly Goato remembered exactly why he had got on that roof.

- for dogby and his mother -