Glothin Dothin and the Articles of Faith
an excerpt

The whole world was the colour of the wing of a dove, trembling under the new light of dawn. Grass, trees, birds and buildings, all were dustings of grey against the paler grey of the dew-filled sky. Single strands of the dawn chorus poured through the air to gather together in a dome of sound, like springs of clear, sweet water swelling up from the rock and mud beneath to tumble down the hillsides in a growing tide of sparkling light.
Glothin Dothin sniffed with his eyes still shut - it was going to be a sunny day - then slowly opened them and yawned. His lips curled back to show a set of huge yellowing teeth, as square as chisels, and a tongue that stretched right out into the still-damp air. A whistling donkey sound came out, full of breath and spit, a sigh of sorts, before he closed his mouth again, one soft lip against another, as soft as a drift of talcum powder, were you to touch. Then he shook himself, as he always did, allowing the waves of motion to run through his skin, down his neck to his shoulders and along his back, until they finally wore out and stopped. The most pleasurable way in the world to wake up, he thought.
‘Morning Glothin,’ came a small voice from somewhere high up. 'Gonna be a lovely day, don't you think?'
Glothin looked up.
‘Oh!’ he said, with the beginning of a smile, ‘Morning, Harold. How'd you sleep?’
A small bird hopped on one leg in the pear tree just to Glothin's left. It was an old tree, quite covered in grey scales of scratchy lichen and, at this time of year, a froth of pure white blossom. The bird replied:
‘Yeah, not too bad, thanks Gloth. Another one of my funny dreams, but nothing worse.’ He paused and tipped his head on one side. Mind if I hop onto your shoulder, Gloth? You’ve got a lovely crop of fleas down there and they'd make a really smashing breakfast.’
‘Harold,’ Glothin said with a mock bow of his head, ‘you’d be doing me the favour. Hop on!’
The bird flew down and started to peck among Glothin’s hairs while beneath him, Glothin continued to talk.
‘Have you any idea how much these pesky things bite and itch? They've been driving me right royally nuts of late. What I really need is a nice cool dollop of calamine lotion, rubbed on with a bit of cotton wool. You know that's what humans do?’
‘Really?’ said Harold, only half listening as he spotted a particularly juicy flea at the root of one of Glothin’s hairs.
‘Yes, really.’ said Glothin, ignoring the slightly vacant tone. ‘I watched Mrs McNulty through the window once when Faith was all covered in those big red spots. Do you remember?’
Harold withdrew his head from Glothin’s coat just long enough to say ‘mm’ distractedly, before plunging back into his breakfast fray.
‘It must have been a year or so ago, just after that enormous storm when the banks of the Rother burst. Chicken pox, they said, though when I asked the chickens what it was, they said it was nothing to do with them and got all huffy, you know how they do, fluffing up their feathers and clucking more than was necessary. Anyway, Faith had to stay off school for a whole two weeks and every morning and evening, Mrs McNulty dabbed this pink stuff onto Faith’s spots till she looked like some strange kind of girly camouflage.’
Harold did a sparrow burp.
‘Ah! Thanks for that, Glothin’ he said, flying over to a fence post in front of his friend. ‘A nice bit of protein’ll really do me good. Gloss up my feathers real nice, ready for the missus to take note.’ There was a pause as he settled himself and flicked his feathers just right, then he spoke again. ‘That pink stuff, Glothin, how’d you know what it was called? Calbaline, or whatever it was?’
‘Calamine’ Glothin said. ‘I read it on the label one time when she left the bottle on the windowsill.’
‘Oh!’ Harold said, in a long slow drawl, as though he had suddenly become wise. ‘Calamine.’ he added with distinct gravity, before burping again and starting his morning preen.
Glothin dropped his head to the wet grass to hide his smile and started to munch, tasting the sweet greenness of spring on his long pink tongue. Together, amidst the sounds of grass being torn and feathers dryly fluttering against each other, the two friends quietly got on with their morning.

Glothin Dothin had sunk deep into thought, lulled, as he usually was, by the rhythmic sounds of his own chomping teeth. He couldn’t have said what he was thinking about, not exactly, they were just things that flitted through his mind like dandelion seed on a summer breeze. He’d started off remembering the ice cream he’d had that had last summer when he and Faith had gone on their first ever trip – a day at the sea side, just what we need! – she’d said, so they’d set out early to walk along the summer lanes that were lined with the off-white fizz of cow-parsley all the way to Hastings. And when they arrived she’d bought his first ever ice cream, strawberry with a thin fan of wafer stuck in the top. He could still see her face, freckled and smiling, as she held his cone up to his lips, anticipating what he’d make of his very first lick. The sky had been full of wind and salt and the sound of gulls and the ice cream had been so cold and sweet and the wafer so delicate, that he’d only dared to eat with the tips of teeth.
He shut his eyes just as he had back then, the better to savour the memory. The way she gave him his ice cream first, not wanting him to wait a second more for his first taste. They’d stayed for an hour or so, walking up and down the beach between deckchairs and wind barriers, eyeing up the various picnics spread out on tartan blankets. They’d watched kites slicing through the air on thin black lines and people paddling in canoes, heard music wafting off the end of the pier. And then they’d walked back home with salt-sticky hair through the gathering dusk and Faith had sat on his back singing to him until she’d finally rocked right off to sleep.
‘Hold on.’ he’d said, as he felt her sway, and she’d gently wrapped her arms around his neck and sighed, allowing Glothin to carry her, through the night beneath a sea of stars, all the way back home.
He was deep in the quiet of that journey home, hearing his own unshod hooves clop softly on the tarmac and feeling the whirr of moths against his face when Harold did a fly by, swishing as close and as fast to Glothin Dothin’s head as he could and landing on a nearby twig.
‘Watch out Gloth!’ he said, jumping nervously about on his twig, ‘The Donkeys are on their way and they’re looking pretty mean.’
It was true. All three of Mrs McNulty’s donkeys were walking up the hill towards the orchard where Glothin was. He didn’t like what he saw at all: their heads were up high and their ears were back and they were walking with a worrying degree of purpose. He took a few slow steps towards them, aiming for a polite and unruffled approach.
‘Hello’ he said, before they had got too close or crossed the open gateway into the orchard where he stood. Then he greeted each one by name, gracefully bowing his head to each in turn. ‘Hoaty… Pedro… Seraphina… I wish you all good morning.’
Seraphina snorted and showed her teeth. ‘We haven’t come here for civilities’ she said, ‘we’ve come here to give you a nice big message.’
‘Yes,’ said Pedro in his haughtiest voice ‘a nice big message.’
‘Oh shut up, Pedro’ she said rolling her eyes until the whites shone, ‘and grab his neck!’
Pedro walked up to Glothin, baring his teeth.
‘Aaand it’s show time!’ he said before grabbing the ridge of flesh beneath Glothin’s mane. Pedro never could resist playing his mobster part to the full. Down by the pond, when he thought no one was looking, he’d spend hours practising his American accent and watching himself swagger in the shining black water.
Glothin’s nostril’s flared a little, but he still didn’t speak. He just braced his front legs against the weight of Pedro and stood quite still. Over the months he’d found that the less he resisted, the less they seemed to want to fight. So he stood his ground and kept his eyes firmly trained on the other two, waiting for their next move.
He took his time, but eventually Hoaty sauntered up past Seraphina until his forehead was pressed hard against Glothin’s and he was breathing right up his nose. With a sudden whirr of wings, Harold retreated to the prickly depths of the hawthorn bush.
Seraphina jumped at the sound then twitched her ears with irritation ‘Just a little bird,’ she thought to herself with a sniff ‘how stupid can I be?’
Hoaty, on the other hand, didn’t even notice. He was enjoying pushing Glothin about far too much, enjoying the way he could drive him down into silence, just like that.
‘Are you listening to me, Mule?’ he finally said, still pressing down on Glothin’s nose and speaking in his most imperious voice.
When Glothin didn’t answer, Pedro clamped his teeth a little harder and pulled down a bit. It was just enough to make Glothin’s neck twist uncomfortably, no more, and was just the way that Hoaty had taught him to do it. Don’t draw blood, he’d said, go for a bruise instead. He’d winked then and explained: They take longer to heal, you know, and under all that fur they hardly show. Pedro took pride in his technique, perfecting it in his own time on stray branches of trees and once, even, on Seraphina herself, though, admittedly, never again. He liked to think of it as a stealth weapon, like in the movies when they chose garrotting to avoid the noise of guns. Sneaking up in the darkness to deal a silent death, yes, that was an idea he really liked. Pedro tightened his grip on Glothin’s neck and brought his focus back onto what Hoaty was saying.
‘Mule!’ Hoaty tried again, not quite managing to mask the irritation in his voice, ‘I strongly advise you to listen to me.’ He paused and cleared his throat, realising that he’d dropped his poise, ready to continue in his chilling tone. ‘I thought I told you to keep to this corner of the orchard.’ he said. ‘I thought I made it clear that you were to keep yourself to yourself.’
He paused and took a step back to give Glothin one of his stares. ‘You seem to forget that you are only a mule. A mutant, a freak of nature, an ugly brute of a half-breed thing! You are an aberration, Mule, and aberration!’ he said, raising his voice and giving it an actorish quiver. ‘Why Mrs McNulty brought you onto the farm, I will never know, and frankly, I find it hard to forgive her. But she did, so tolerate you, we must.’
He’d gone into his noble mode, Glothin noted, and concentrated on stifling a sigh.
‘But let me make one thing clear’ Hoaty continued, ‘The likes of you are not welcome around here, not welcome at all. And us three are going to make sure that you stay in your corner and do not mix.’
He paused again, breathing hard for effect. ‘Do I make myself clear?’ he said.
Glothin remained quiet under the clamp of Pedro’s teeth, letting the words, for the most part at least, wash over him. It was nothing new, he thought, nothing that he hadn’t heard before. It was just the usual empty threats and posturing, the prejudice and ignorance that he’d encountered throughout most of his life.
‘Pedro!’ Hoaty ordered.
And Pedro tightened his grip once more, forcing Glothin to come out of his trance and hear Hoaty’s taunting repetition:
‘Do-you-un-der-stand? I said’
Glothin sighed, acknowledging the question with a weary ‘yes’, leaving Hoaty to snot and beckon Pedro away with a shake of his head.
‘Be seeing you.’ he said as the three of them sauntered away.

‘And there I was thinking that “the law is an ass” was just a saying’, Glothin began muttering to himself, but he stopped half way through as a smudge of shadow flashed at the edge of his field of vision. For a moment he frowned in confusion, but with a wave of realisation a smile spread across his face and he found himself whispering ‘Good old Harold! Go for it!’
As he spoke, the sparrow was just beginning his plunge. He’d started high and a fair bit behind the donkeys and was now hurtling through the air like a mini Spitfire towards them. He’d flattened his wings against his body for maximum speed and pointed his head right at Hoaty’s eye. At the last second, no more than a foot above Hoaty’s head, Harold let fall his bomb and swooped away.
‘Bull’s eye!’ Glothin said, as he watched Hoaty bray in horror and not a little pain as the ball of white exploded in his eye and slowly ran down his hairy face.
Seraphina whirled round, ready to catch Glothin in some terrible act, but she saw nothing other than his haunches turned against her and his head hanging low towards the grass, appropriately ashamed, or so she thought.
‘What on earth was that?’ she said to Pedro before taking a proper look and turning to the job of sorting Hoaty. ‘Oh come on!’ she said, ‘It’s only a bird dropping. There’s no need to make such a fuss. Just rub it off with something. The grass is still wet, why don’t you try rubbing your face on that?’
Hoaty bristled in silence for a second or two. ‘You want me to do what?’ he finally said, outraged at the very idea. ‘Are you serious? You actually want me to rub my eye on the bleeding grass?’
He looked her, bird-dropping an all, straight in the eye. ‘For starters’, he began in his best teacher’s voice, ‘it’s almost certainly not wet enough. And for another thing, what if there’s a stick hidden in there? I might poke out my eye, and then what kind of a leader would I be? No, Seraphina, there is no way that I’m rubbing my eye on that grass. You need to lick it out with your tongue, forthwith!’
Seraphina merely laughed and showed her teeth before turning her back to walk down the hill.
‘You must be joking,’ and racket of hoarse laughter carried back towards him on the wind.
He turned angrily towards Pedro. ‘You! Pedro! You’ll have to do it instead’
‘Oh, boss!’ Pedro replied with the nearest thing to a whine that a donkey can make ‘Don’t you know where that stuff’s been? There’s no way I’m letting that anywhere near my mouth! Why don’t you just do as Seraphina says and I’m sure it’ll be all right.’ And Pedro also turned and walked away, making puking noises as he went.
Meanwhile, Harold was sitting on his friend’s shoulder once more and the two of them watched the scene, stifling their giggles as Hoaty bent his head and started to wipe his bespattered face on the dewy grass.