My name is Mary and it all started one night when I couldn’t fall asleep. I tried everything: warm milk, reading in bed, I even tried to sneak into my parents room, crawling silently between the sheets until I get swatted out by a giant hairy leg. So I decided to try counting sheep. First just a couple. One big, black legged one with beady bitter eyes and one little baby ball of fluff so covered in fur it could almost be mistaken for a pillow. I carefully put a big black cursive number on each of their backs being sure not to stain too much of their pretty, soft fleece. By then I was more awake then ever so I started to create more. Sheep can be pretty large and I started running out of room. So I pushed a couple of the smaller ones under my creaky wooden bed and tried to squeeze one with a particularly large rear behind the carefully hung school uniforms in the closet. But I kept making them- and numbering them of course, that was the whole point after all. Soon there was so many of them that their bodies were pushed so close together that when I stood on top of my bed I felt like an angel peering over a cloud. Finally, I fell asleep, wedged between two lambs with fleece so buttery that I couldn’t help but start to slumber. The next morning, I quickly opened my eyes ready to play on my new personal farm but they were all gone. Every last one- just call be Lil’ Bo Peep I guess. I was devasted as I threw on my uniform and marched to school with silent tears streaming down my cheeks. In fact, I was so distraught over losing my herd that I didn’t even notice one lone little lamb trailing along right behind me.

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