“More! More! More!” the llamas brayed.
Mama Llama stamped her feet in appreciation too, but Papa Llama just shook his head, not exactly in despair, but something like it. He’d never known what to make of Lewie. The boy was a total mystery to his father.
Leo, Lamar and Latisha didn’t share their mama’s admiration either. They thought Lewie was a dis-as-ter. They’d always made fun of him, calling him Loopy Lewie and Lewie the Loser and, in Latisha’s case, Drama Llama. Not to mention other, even meaner, names at times.
Lewie was used to them ganging up on him. And he would be the first to admit that he was different. But he didn’t understand them any better than they understood him.
“Why would anyone want to fight?” he’d often asked Mama Llama. “Why would you try to hurt someone else?”
Mama Llama gently nuzzled Lewie’s neck. “That’s just how it is,” she told him. “That’s how we’ve always worked out who’s the strongest, who should be in charge. It’s called survival of the fittest, Lewie,” she explained.
But Lewie still didn’t get it. He point-blank refused to fight. Whenever he was challenged Lewie just walked away. It drove his brothers crazy.
“You are a coward and a disgrace,” Leo frequently told Lewie.
But Lewie didn’t care. He just wasn’t as competitive as his brothers. When they were younger and had played games, like dominoes or chess, Leo and Lamar always had to win. If they didn’t, they threw their pieces on the ground and trampled them, or tried to eat the board!
“It’s only a game,” he told his brothers.
“The trouble with you, Lewie,” they told him, “is that everything’s a game to you.”
What was wrong with that? Lewie wondered. Laughing, playing, having fun… Who wouldn’t choose those things over fighting?
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about anything, or want to be good at it. There were some things he was far better at than all the others put together. One was acting; another was making people laugh. Lewie would do almost anything to make people laugh. No matter how silly it made him look, he didn’t care. And that drove Lamar crazy too.
“You’re an insult to the whole Llama family,” he told Lewie, “an absolute embarrassment.”
Latisha agreed. After Lewie’s impressions of her, she was hopping mad. She contradicted herself, almost in the same breath, by telling him that he was an absolute joke and not in the least bit funny!
“No one takes you seriously,” she added.
“Who cares?” shrugged Lewie. He thought his brothers and Latisha took themselves far too seriously.
Lewie was now standing with his twin sister, Liberty, while the three others threw insults at him.
“You’re almost as bad as her,” Latisha told Lewie.
“You’re a disgrace,” Leo agreed. “Both of you.”
Lewie and Liberty didn’t try to argue back. They just rolled their eyes at each other and waited for the insults to end.
“At least we know the farmer won’t be choosing either of those two tomorrow,” Lamar said.
“Don’t make me yelp.” Leo honked with pretend laughter. “They couldn’t guard a pile of potatoes.”
“The Clown and the Disappearing Queen? I don’t think so,” agreed Latisha. “I just hope next time Her Majesty gets out they don’t bother bringing her back,” she added nastily.
“Come on, let’s go,” said Lewie. “We don’t have to listen to this rubbish.”
Lewie and Liberty ambled off together, trying to look as if it was all water off a llama’s back to them. But sometimes the insults did hit the mark and were harder to shrug off. Today felt like one of those days to Lewie.
Apart from Mama Llama, Liberty was the only member of his family that Lewie felt close to. Even though they were twins, and looked a lot like each other, they weren’t at all alike in other ways. Except that they were both odd ones out.
While nobody understood Lewie’s passion for acting, it was considered a pretty harmless pastime. Liberty’s wasn’t. Her passion got her into a lot more trouble, because Liberty liked to think of herself as an escape artist.
The smallest gap in the fence, the split second the gate was left unfastened, even the least likely opportunity, Liberty would turn into yet one more dash for freedom. She just couldn’t help herself. Her whole family despaired of her, not to mention the farmer.
Farmer Palmer had tried to increase the security round the field. As well as that, the llama family kept a constant watch on Liberty, but she continued to plan and execute the most unexpected and daring escapes. She really seemed unstoppable.
Lewie was curious about his twin sister. “Doesn’t it ever bother you,” he asked, “getting into so much trouble? And all the jokes about… you know… escaping?”
Liberty went on chewing grass perfectly happily. She shrugged and smiled at Lewie. “Of course it does. I’d like to be like everyone else,” she said. “Life would be a lot easier. But something drives me. I see a crack and I have to get through it. It’s just who I am, I guess.”
Lewie sighed heavily. It was still bothering him.
“Hey, we’re all different,” Liberty reminded him. “You’re a llama that makes everyone smile, and that’s not a small thing. You bring joy to others. It’s a gift, Lewie. You should be proud of it.”
At last Lewie felt cheered up by his sister’s words. Deep down he knew it was true. He started to sing and did a few more backflips. It wasn’t long before he was soon the centre of an admiring crowd again.
Mama and Papa Llama were watching. “You’ve got to love him,” Mama Llama told Papa Llama. “Everyone else does.”
There was no question that his father did love Lewie, but that didn’t stop him worrying about his son. “Everyone may love him, my dear, but does anyone take him seriously?”
“Of course not,” smiled Mama Llama, watching Lewie juggling with a pile of turnips. “Why would anyone want to? I mean, look at him.”
“But what if he were to get chosen tomorrow?” Papa Llama asked, genuinely anxious. “Lewie couldn’t look after himself, never mind a whole flock of sheep. Not to mention all those new lambs due any day now,” he added.
Hmmm, the lambs were a consideration, but Mama Llama suggested that maybe it was exactly what Lewie needed, to make him grow up.
Papa Llama shook his head. “And have you forgotten who he’d be taking over from?” he asked gravely.
The farmer’s previous Guard Llama, Livingstone, had been Papa Llama’s great uncle. He had recently retired to a refuge that sounded like llama heaven and it was well deserved.
Livingstone had been an almost mythological figure who’d seen off more coyotes than any other llama in history. A bigger, braver, bolder, scarier llama neither of them could imagine. He was so fierce and battle-scarred that on the farm he’d been given the nickname of The Terminator.
“Those are awfully big footsteps for any llama to fill,” said Papa Llama, “and I’m afraid to say, of all our children, Lewie would be the least likely to fill them.”
Mama Llama