“He grows it,” answered Gobo. “Whatever he wants, he grows it, and when he wants it it’s there for him!”
Faline continued asking questions. “Weren’t you afraid, Gobo, all the time you were with him?”
Gobo thought himself very clever and grinned. “My dear Faline, I wasn’t afraid, not any more. After all, I knew He didn’t want to do anything to hurt me. Why should I have been afraid? You all think He’s very nasty, but He’s not nasty. When He likes anyone, when anyone does something for Him, He’s nice. Lovely and nice. There’s no-one in the whole wide world who could be as nice as He is ...”
Suddenly, as Gobo was speaking in this way, an elder emerged silently from the bushes.
Gobo did not notice him and continued speaking, but all the others had seen the elder and held their breath in awe of him.
The elder stood there without moving and watched Gobo with deep and serious eyes.
Gobo said, “And it wasn’t just Him, it was His children, they loved me too, and His wife and everyone. They stroked me, gave me food and played with me ...” He broke off. He had seen the elder.
Everyone became silent.
Then the elder, in his calm and authoritative voice, asked, “What’s that stripe on your neck?”
Everyone looked at him and became aware, for the first time, of the dark stripe made up of compressed and eroded hair that went round Gobo’s neck.