Day 1 - The Start of GGoatapalooza
Gruffendale had never seen such excitement. The goats—fluffy, proud, paranoid—had gathered by the hundreds on the steep, mossy hillside for Gruffapalooza, the greatest concert festival the pasture had ever known. And tonight, none other than Shakira herself, the GOAT of pop music (according to The Hoofington Post), was performing live.
Bales of hay served as seating. The air buzzed with the scent of wildflowers and faint suspicion. Because the goats of Gruffendale were not ordinary goats. No, these goats were deeply distrustful - of outsiders, of each other, even of their own shadows on foggy mornings. And in Gruffendale, every morning was foggy.
As Shakira strutted onto the clover-covered stage wearing a dazzling sequined shawl woven from alpaca wool (the goats tolerated this blasphemy only because it sparkled), the crowd bleated in thunderous approval.
She launched into a reimagined version of her chart-topper, now titled:
“Goats Don't Lie"
The audience danced wildly, shaking their horns and stamping their hooves in rhythm. Even the elders tapped their weathered cloven feet. For a moment, unity hummed through the hills.
But that was when it happened.
A shriek pierced the music. One of the goats spun in a circle, eyes wide.
“Someone nibbled my backstage haystack snack!”
Gasps. Nostrils flared. The music halted mid-measure. Shakira froze in a dramatic goat pose.
“WHO DID THIS?” bellowed Chairman Billy, the self-appointed head of the Gruffendale Vigilance Committee. “We’re
voting.”
They formed a chaotic circle in the field, the stomping crowd quickly turning into a mob of whispering, paranoid bleaters. The candidates for suspicion were swiftly nominated, unnominated, renominated. It was a flurry too quick to keep up with. But gradually, the crowd's gaze turned toward none other than Muffinwump the Slightly Moist.
“Why am I even being considered?” Muffinwump cried, his damp wool glistening under the stage lights. “I was just dabbing my brow in the corner! You all know I get sweaty under pressure!”
“That’s what
someone guilty would say,” hissed a Doehemian goat, adjusting her flower crown.
Voting paddles were raised. Stomps counted. A mad flurry of accusations and bleats echoed across the valley.
“Three stomps for Muffinwump!”
“
IT’S MUFFINWUMP.”
The crowd turned. Muffinwump backed away, slipping slightly in his own unfortunate dew.
“You’re making me a scapegoat!” he wailed. “I didn’t touch the haystack! I don’t even like timothy! I’m an alfalfa goat!”
But it was too late. Tradition was tradition.
They paraded him down to the Lower Paddock of Shame (not dangerous, just slightly more humid), as Shakira solemnly resumed her performance.
Afterward, the missing snack was found in a patch of tall clover and stepped on. But it was too late. The decision had been made.
Muffinwump, meanwhile, became a cult hero in the Lower Paddock, writing memoirs titled
Dewy But Not Guilty.
The goats of Gruffendale, naturally, remained suspicious.
Because if there was one truth they clung to, one mantra they’d bleat through wind and storm, it was this:
Goats don’t lie.
But they
definitely judge.
Dead is...