Geese can fly - Ray Wilkins (great book club books txt) 📗

They all stood around the goose, dead, lying on the bare ground.
“Why did he die Fred?” Asked Wilhemine wiping the tears from her eyes with her wing feathers.
“He was too fat, thats all, like we all are, too fat!”
“Well, why dont we just remove ourselves from this place?” Asked Jonathan, a black and white african wild goose who could not speak Goossese very well.
“Because we cant fly Jonathan thats why!” Answered Benjamin.
“And why cant we fly? “Asked Wilhemine
Fred said, “Because we are all too fat. Just Like I said before. When they put us on the feed machine we are forced to swallow all that food that makes us fat. And that is exactly what they want us to be. We cannot run, we cannot jump and we cannot fly, because we are much too heavy. “
Benjamin cried “I do not want to be lying here like James, in the dust, dead as a nail just because I cannot fly. Why dont we do something? why dont we learn how to fly? then we could remove ourselves from this place just like Jonathan said.”
“Yeah escape, fly over the fence, break out!” they all shouted, excitedly, flapping their wings, everybody of course except James.
The next day they all sat beneath the shade of a Beech tree, in fact the only tree in their world.
“We have to practise every night when its dark and the feeders are asleep.” said Fred
“But theres no room, theres too many cages on the floor.”
“Wilhemine, why do you always have to make things harder than they already are?” said Betty rubbing her tail feathers against her new boyfriend, Jonathan.”
“We have to move the cages to the wall, then we have a clear runway.”
That night when the Featherless ones were all gone the geese gathered together in the middle of the barn. Jonathan found some string used to tie the straw bales and together with Wilhemine they platted ropes that could be used to tow the cages over to the far wall. They all worked for a long time, losing many feathers until the middle of the barn was a long runway, running the whole length of the building.
Fred wanted to be the first one to try to fly. He backed up to the far wall, then with his eyes on the other end of the barn he ran as fast as his fat legs could carry him, faster and faster, flapping his wings, causing a small dust storm, lifted his legs off the concrete floor and fell on his beak.
“Its harder than I thought!” He wheezed, out of breath
“Let me try!” shouted Benjamin
And he too backed up to the wall, ran as fast as he could, flapping his wings like mad, jumped into the air to fall to the ground in a cloud of feathers.
Everybody practised hard, but not one of the geese was able to stay in the air. When the first sign of dawn could be seen through the small barn windows they all quickly towed the heavy cages back into place and nestled down into their straw boxes falling instantly asleep.
The next day they met once again beneath the Beech tree.
Benjamin said “Well we all know that Jonathan and I are actually the only geese who could fly before we were made fat. You others are normal household geese and everybody knows household geese cannot fly even when they are not fat!”
“Who are you calling a “normal household goose” Benjamin? Betty, Meredith and I do not classify ourselves as normal or is it just because we are girls?”
“Wait, wait!” shouted Fred “Lets not start arguing. Ben is right, I never learned how to fly and I have never met another house goose who can fly, our job is to watch and protect and not fly. But I think that if we keep on practising and dont give up then we will all be able to fly over the fence, even David over there, who is the fattest of all of us.”
“I CAN fly! Shouted David “I know I can, because I believe that I can do it, and if I believe in something it will happen!”
” Right David, is there anybody here who does not believe that he or SHE can fly?” asked Wilhemine staring hard at Benjamin.
Every goose standing under that lonely Beech tree remained silent ,and every head turned up to look at the morning sun shining bright in the endless blue sky.
The brave flock of geese trained every night until the sun rose. For weeks and weeks but still not one goose left the ground. Everybody was starting to lose hope, and then one fateful night a goose did fly from one end of the barn to the other for the first time, and this goose was none other than David the fattest goose of them all.
They all cheered and flapped their wings. Wilhemine said “We need to find out why the fattest goose is the only one that can fly?”
“I have an idea,” said Fred “a few weeks ago Wilhemine asked if you all believed that we can fly, right?”
“Right” shouted everybody.
“And when you all said yes did you really believe that you could fly?” Only David answered
“Yes”
“Thats the answer! David is the only goose who really believed that he could fly, the rest of us were not sure, believing absolutly 100 percent that you can fly is the secret to leaving the ground” said Betty getting so excited that she started crying, but of course Jonathan comforted her.
“Yes thats it, thanks to David we now know how to do it!”
If goose feathers could turn red with embarassment David would now look like a two legged tomato.
“Yeah, thanks Fred but all I did was to believe in myself.”
They practised every night until dawn and then one day as the sun touched the corrugated iron roof of the barn making it blink into the semi - darkness. One of the Featherless ones opened the door to the barn, at that moment 14 geese ran as fast as they could towards the man standing at the barn door. They flapped their wings strong and controlled as if in slow motion and as one their feet lifted of the ground and they flew over his head, over the fence and then turned as one to fly into the rising sun.

Publication Date: 07-13-2011

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