The Sheep Who Didn't Want to Be Counted

Every night, in a field that stretched out beneath a sky full of stars, the sheep lined up at the fence.

One by one, they jumped over.

One... two... three... four...

And somewhere, a child would yawn, pull up the covers, and fall fast asleep.

All the sheep were proud of this. All the sheep except one.

Berta.

"Here we go again," Berta muttered, shuffling into line behind Sheep Number Fourteen. Ahead of her, Sheep Number Twelve sailed over the fence with a perfect little leap. Then Sheep Number Thirteen floated over, soft and quiet as a cloud.

"Next!" called Gerald, the old ram who kept the count.

Sheep Number Fourteen jumped. Nice and easy. Nice and boring.

"Number Fifteen! That's you, Berta!"

Berta did not jump.

"Berta," Gerald said, tapping his hoof. "We've been over this."

"That's the problem," Berta said. "We go over this fence every single night, and every single night, somebody falls asleep because of us. Don't you ever want to be... I don't know... interesting?"

Gerald blinked. "Interesting?"

"Yes! Like the elephants! Nobody falls asleep counting elephants. Or what about the dolphins? They get to do flips and splash around in people's imaginations. We just jump a fence. The same fence. The same jump. Every. Single. Night."

Gerald looked at the fence, then back at Berta. "It's a perfectly good fence."

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Berta said.

The sheep behind her started to grumble. "Come on, Berta, just jump!" called Sheep Number Sixteen. "There's a kid in Portland who has a math test tomorrow. He needs his sleep!"

But Berta had already made up her mind. She stepped out of line, shook the wool out of her eyes, and marched away across the field.

"Where are you going?" Gerald called after her.

"To be interesting!" Berta called back.

First, Berta tried being a detective.

She found a magnifying glass in the barn, put on a serious face, and went looking for clues. She investigated a suspicious mud puddle. She interrogated a chicken.

"Where were you on the night of last Tuesday?" Berta asked, holding up the magnifying glass.

The chicken stared at her.

"I was in the coop," said the chicken. "I'm always in the coop."

"Aha!" said Berta. "Or... were you?"

"Yes," said the chicken. "I was." The chicken walked away.

Berta put down the magnifying glass. Detective work was harder when nobody had actually done anything wrong.

Next, Berta tried being a rock star.

She borrowed a guitar from the goat — don't ask why the goat had a guitar, he just did — and climbed up on a hay bale.

"Hello, FIELD!" Berta shouted. "Are you ready to ROCK?"

The field was not ready to rock. The cows looked up for a moment, then went back to chewing. A crow flew away.

Berta strummed the guitar.

It made a sound like a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel rolling down a bumpy hill.

"BAAAA-BY, YOU LIGHT UP MY BAAA-ARN!" Berta sang at the top of her lungs.

The goat climbed up and gently took his guitar back. "Maybe... maybe singing isn't your thing," he said kindly.

Berta's ears drooped. "Yeah," she said. "Maybe not."

Then Berta tried being an explorer. She packed a little knapsack and marched to the edge of the field, where the tall grass grew thick and tangled and nobody ever went.

"This is it," she whispered. "Uncharted territory. I'll discover something amazing. A hidden waterfall! A secret cave! A lost city of hamsters!"

She pushed through the tall grass for what felt like a very long time.

She emerged on the other side and found... the road. Just the regular old road where the milk truck came every morning.

Berta sat down on a rock.

The stars were out now, thick and bright. Somewhere out there, children were trying to fall asleep, and the sheep were jumping without her. She could picture the line, the steady rhythm — one, two, three, four — all the way up to fourteen, then a gap, then sixteen.

A gap where she was supposed to be.

Berta felt a small, heavy feeling settle in her chest. Not because she missed jumping. But because she had tried three whole interesting things, and none of them had worked, and now she was sitting alone by a road with a knapsack full of crackers and nothing to show for it.

"Hey," said a small voice.

Berta looked up. A little lamb was standing in the grass, eyes wide and shiny in the moonlight.

"Are you Berta?" the lamb asked. "The one who left the line?"

"That's me," Berta sighed. "The boring sheep who wanted to be interesting."

The lamb sat down next to her. "I don't think you're boring."

"You don't?"

"No way. You tried to be a detective! And a rock star! And an explorer! Gerald told us all about it. Sheep Number Twenty-Two laughed so hard at the guitar part that she fell over before she got to the fence."

Berta blinked. "She did?"

"And the kid in Portland? He couldn't fall asleep for the longest time because he kept wondering what happened to Sheep Number Fifteen. His mom had to read him three extra books."

"Oh no," Berta said. "That's terrible."

"Are you kidding? He loved it. He told his mom there was a sheep out there having adventures. He wanted to know if you found the lost city of hamsters."

Berta's mouth fell open. "He was thinking about me?"

The lamb nodded. "You're all anyone's talking about. The sheep who jumped out of line." The lamb paused. "I think that's pretty interesting."

Berta sat quietly for a moment. The wind blew across the field, soft and sweet, carrying the smell of clover and hay.

"But I didn't actually do anything amazing," Berta said. "I was a terrible detective. My singing scared a crow. And my big exploration led to... a road."

The lamb shrugged. "So? You tried. That's the part everyone likes."

Berta walked back to the field with the lamb trotting beside her. When she got to the fence, the other sheep were still at it, jumping one by one under the stars. Gerald saw her coming and raised an eyebrow.

"Back so soon?" he said.

"I'm ready to jump," Berta said.

"Good. You're Number Fifteen. Get in line."

Berta walked toward her spot. Then she stopped.

"Gerald?"

"What now?"

"What if I don't jump the regular way?"

Gerald sighed the longest sigh a ram has ever sighed. "What do you mean?"

Berta backed up a few steps. Then a few more. She pawed the ground. The other sheep turned to watch.

Berta ran.

She ran straight at the fence, leaped into the air, and did a huge, ridiculous, woolly SPIN — legs flying everywhere, ears flapping — and landed on the other side with a thud and a tumble and a mouthful of grass.

Every sheep in the field stared.

Then Sheep Number Twenty-Two started laughing. Then Number Eight. Then the lamb. Then all of them, baaing and giggling under the big bright moon.

And far away, in a bedroom in Portland, a boy with a math test tomorrow smiled in his almost-sleep, because he could have sworn Sheep Number Fifteen just did a flip.

"Same time tomorrow?" Gerald asked, trying very hard not to smile.

Berta spit out the grass and grinned.

"Same time tomorrow. But I'm thinking... cartwheel."

And from that night on, children all around the world agreed: Sheep Number Fifteen was the hardest one to fall asleep on.

But somehow, with a smile still on their faces, they always did.