Village Shepherd

Cyril wormed his way through the soil to his brother Toby's side. "Toby," he pleaded, "tell me again what it's like out there."

Toby settled himself more comfortably against the inside glass of the jam jar and began to regale his young brother with his tales of the adventure and excitement of the days before they were caught. Cyril listened with rapt attention. Earthworms have short memories, so young Cyril couldn't remember any other life before the jam jar. But he longed to be free, to be inching through real soil which went on forever and didn't always end at a glass wall.

Toby glanced at Cyril and sighed. "It's not all fun," he warned. "There are all sorts of dangers in gardens. We could try an escape plan, but it's safe and warm and comfortable here in our jar, and there's plenty to eat. You need to consider very carefully before you make up your mind to enter the big world."

But Cyril wasn't listening. "How, Toby, how?" he cried, bunching up his body and then stretching right out, which was the nearest thing to a jump he could manage.

"All right," said Toby wearily. "Just eat. Eat as much as you can so you get really fat. With any luck young Suzie will decide we're too big for the jam jar and will set us free. She might set us down gently in the garden. But," he warned, "it might not be as much fun as you think."

But Cyril had made up his mind in the first sentence and hadn't heard. He was already stuffing himself as fast as he could.

It was Suzie's mother who picked up the jam jar a day or two later. "Ugh!" she exclaimed, "these worms are quite disgusting! Fat and horrible! Suzie, I'm throwing them out. You're too big to keep worms anymore."

With that, she tossed the jam jar onto the rubbish heap in the garden. Fortunately, it fell on its side, so Toby and Cyril crawled out as quickly as they could. They buried themselves deep in the compost in case Suzie or her Mum changed their minds.

It was a wonderful new experience for Cyril. The warmth and smell of the compost, the tiny insects darting to and fro, and the huge area of this new world all thrilled him. He lost his brother very quickly, but it didn't matter. Cyril felt as if he was in paradise. He kept burrowing and inching and worming his way through the compost, eating soil all the time, and feeling rather proud of all the good he was doing to the soil as it passed through his body.

But after a few days, Cyril began to feel lonely. He'd never been on his own before, and he began to long for some worm company. As luck would have it, he discovered a wormery right there in the compost heap. There were dozens of worms of all different sizes and ages. Cyril dived in, but came up against a very large worm blocking his way.

"Clear off!" snarled the very large worm.

"Why?" asked Cyril. "I want to come and live with you all. I'm all alone, you see. This is my first visit to your home."

"And your last," sneered the very large worm. "Go away. We don't want you here. You're not part of our family. You don't belong. Get lost."

Poor Cyril was very upset. He couldn't understand why the other worms didn't like him when they didn't even know him. He hadn't done anything to deserve their nastiness. Then he felt angry. He'd like to have stamped all over their silly wormery and crush it - only he didn't have any feet. So he slithered off towards the open garden.

This was better. Cyril set to work passing soil through his body, for that's the job of earthworms. He worked steadily and well, when suddenly four huge prongs of a garden fork nearly pierced him. Before he could collect himself, he was tossed up on a clod of earth.

"Oh!" said an unknown voice. "A lovely fat, juicy earthworm! Just right for the blackbird who lives in the tree." And the unknown voice began to whistle a kind of bird song, calling the tame blackbird. Cyril was terrified. Why did everyone hate him so much? All he was doing was his work, yet now someone wanted to feed him - alive - to a blackbird!

He burrowed into the soil and out of sight as quickly as he could. He began to long for his safe jam jar home again. It might have been boring, but at least it was safe. Only Toby had lived there with him, but at least Toby didn't hate him, and it hadn't been lonely.

Cyril was feeling very sorry for himself when he heard a terrible noise. A huge shovel came slicing through the soil, lifting and turning it. The next thing Cyril felt was an agonising pain, as the shovel sliced him in half. Cyril lay winded, in two pieces, feeling horribly sick. This must be the end. His enemies had killed him.

Then he wiggled a bit, and to his astonishment, discovered he could move. He was only half his former length, but he was alive and moving. And to his surprise, he spotted his other half also wiggling and moving. He slid over to his other half.

"Hello?" he said tentatively.

"Hello yourself," came the reply. "Hey, it's good to meet you. Do you know, I feel like we belong together. I feel like I've known you all my life."

Cyril grinned an earthworm grin. Suddenly, his life had changed. He was no longer alone, and not everybody hated him. How good it was to live in freedom in the garden, with all its adventures and even its dangers. Cyril knew now he'd never go back to the jam jar. For life and work in the garden was very, very good.