The height of Elián’s disruptions came late in August, on the day when the goats got loose.
I was in the dairy making cheeses with Xie, Atta, and Thandi. Han and Grego were showing Elián how to milk goats. When they all left, Elián didn’t shut the gate properly. You would think a farm-raised lad would know better, but perhaps sheep were not as clever as goats. Or perhaps that was what Spartacus would have done, if his every move had been watched, if his body had been weakened by electrical battering. Perhaps Spartacus would have fumbled with a latch, turned his back, and freed the goats.
Come to think of it, Spartacus the gladiator would probably have freed the lions. And then tied torches to their tails and burned down Rome a century early.
Anyone who thinks goats are less destructive than lions on fire does not know goats well.
In any case. We inside the dairy shed knew nothing of it until the shouting started. It turned out the nanny goats had nosed the gate open and were heading for the melon patch. Now, among the Children of Peace, melons are almost everyone’s favorite, because of the way they have to be eaten as fast as they come in. There is no rationing of sweetness in melon season. So everyone who was out was keen to protect the patch. They were shouting and shooing. The cohort of fourteen-and fifteen-year-olds, who’d been waging war with the quackweed in the newly planted kale beds, picked up their hoes and headed over at the quick march, as orderly as a Roman legion.
Unfortunately for the might of Rome, it was at that point that Bonnie Prince Charlie, the school’s lone and indescribably smelly billy goat, up in his pen by the induction spire, got it into his head to join his harem.
Even Rome never conquered Scotland, and there is no stopping Charlie when he’s motivated. The nannies were out, the melons were waiting, people were shouting—what was a billy to do? He butted at the old gate until it splintered, and then he scrambled over the wreck and loped down the hill toward us.
And then—
It was hard to keep track. The billy goat came down like a wolf on the fold. Elián dashed sideways to the melon patch to cut him off. He scooped up a green watermelon that must have weighed as much as a cannon ball, hoisted it over his head, and, with a wild rebel yell, threw it at Bonnie Prince Charlie. The projectile had deadly accuracy and speeds approaching escape velocity. It hit Charlie between the eyes. The goat made a rude blart, paused to consider the matter, and then keeled over.
Cheers erupted. One of the fourteen-year-olds threw an overripe cantaloupe at a nanny goat. There was an orange splat.
At that point things started to get out of hand.
Someone—several someones—began throwing melons at the nannies. Charlie staggered to his feet, and a dozen more melons, two zucchini, and a tomato converged on him.
The tomato, it turned out, was from Elián. He’d moved through the melons and was standing in the patchy shade of the tomato trellises, where late-season tomatoes were falling from the vines faster than we could harvest them. I saw him pick one up, juices dripping down his white sleeves. I saw him aim it at me. I saw him throw.
If I had pigtails, he’d probably pull them, I thought, instead of ducking. The tomato splatted into my ear.
There came, then, a moment like a hinge.
It was not that a hush fell. There was plenty of chaos, and plenty of noise from the goats. Elián himself was holding on to one of the trellis uprights, bent over with what I hoped was laughter, and not pain. Nevertheless I was aware of eyes on me. Aware, though I hardly had time to think it, that I was being asked by my colleagues to make a decision.
Da-Xia caught my eye—the goddess of the mountain, spreading joy and destruction, was hefting a zucchini. She threw it at me. I threw up a hand, shouting, “Xie!” And the zucchini hit my hand and broke into pieces, which rained down all over me. By instinct I grabbed a hunk and threw it back at her.
And with that, the famous dignity of the Children of Peace broke like a gate before goats. I chucked a bit of zucchini at Elián. It hit him between the eyes, and I laughed and laughed.
Is there any point in describing a food fight? We fought, using food. It was like the War Storms: intense small battles that deteriorated into hand-to-hand grappling, or spread into massive strategic engagements that took up half our population, most of our ammunition, and all of our dignity. I myself led the assault on the dairy, a doomed glory of a military set piece that would have done my Stuart ancestors proud. After all, they are more famous for losing battles than winning them.
In the end, though, none of it mattered. As they had during the War Storms, the machine intelligences decided it was time to save us from ourselves. The proctors came out.