It only took only a split second to process this question.
"HES!" she said, then thundered down the tile hallway to her bedroom like a pony to a barrel full of carrots.
"You'd better find a dress to wear," I said.
"Hes, dess, dess," I heard her say. I helped her pick out the new one her auntie made for her. Since she'd never worn it before, I tried to take a few photos with my phone. She obliged for a minute, but then got impatient: What were we doing, just hanging around? There were pigs and horses and cows to be seen.
Rio de Janeiro has Carnival. Boise has the Western Idaho State Fair.
We went through the fair entrance and ran straight into the petting zoo. There were pens and pens full of goats and sheep. Baby goats, pygmy goats, baby pygmy goats. There was a big cow getting milked. Clara couldn't believe how huge the cow's head was. One of the cow's long-lashed eyes was just inches from her face. She giggled, but she also seemed a little afraid.
We petted the cow together and the cow sniffed our hands, looking for treats. Simon bought a dixie cupful of generic animal feed. I put some on my palm and brazenly put it out for the cow to lick, just to show Clara it was okay. The cow's huge tongue enveloped my hand, leaving a layer of slime and saliva. The edges of the spit path on my palm were all frothy.
"Oh...that's...really gross," I said.
"Down!" Clara ordered.
I put her down and she made her way to a pen that held ducks, three or four different kinds of chickens, and a turkey. She put her fingers through the loops in the fence, squatted and spoke to them in a high-pitched voice. Two ducks were bathing each other in a container of water. This was the silliest thing Clara had ever seen.
Across the way was another goat--a big, old goat that looked like Uncle Sam from the war posters. He was very insistent that we feed him. Clara seemed to find him funny, with his long, scraggly goatee and darting eyes.
"Does Daddy want to feed the goat?" I asked. Simon looked at me askance.
"Here," I said, taking Clara's hand and holding it out with a small bit of feed on it. She giggled at first, but as her soft, dimpled little hand approached the goat's chewing mouth, I felt her stiffen. Her hand turned into a fist. Unfazed, the goat reached his neck out and enveloped her fist with his worrying grey-ish lips. I panicked and tried to pull her hand back. The goat tried to pry open her hand with his big, blunt teeth. Clara started to shriek. In retrospect, I could have told that old goat he was out of luck trying to get Clara's fist open. Many a time I've tried and failed to retrieve from her clutch old raisins or scraps of dried cheese that she's mined from the crevasses of her car-seat.
I finally got her hand back from the goat. It was still in a fist. She buried her head in my neck, big crocodile tears dripping down her cheeks. I could tell she was hurt and scared. I hugged her and kissed her and stroked her back.
We looked at her hand and saw the goat had left what might become a small welt on her little ring finger, but hadn't broken the skin.
"I feel so bad! It's all my fault! I should have taken it down a notch!" I lamented. What if she gets a weird goat infection? I thought. One that makes her lose her hand? What if I've psychologically damaged her? I had a vision of her at thirty, sitting in a support group for people afraid of hoofed animals.
Simon, I could tell, was inwardly rolling his eyes.
"She's fine. She's already forgotten about it." It was true. She was more interested in the pedal-operated faucets with antibacterial soap that we'd been directed to after leaving the petting zoo. And the little mark we thought would become a welt had already disappeared.
The awful feeling that I'd maimed my baby wouldn't leave me. The fair's mish-mash of booths, crazy carnival rides and frenzied music always make me feel like I have post-traumatic stress disorder anyway. Next to the petting zoo, we paid fifty cents to see a pig that weighed 1100 pounds. He was a mountain of a pig. I thought, "What if I woke up one day and were suddenly stuck inside a pig-- THIS pig?" I pictured myself putting my front hooves up on the fence, half-grunting, half-squealing to Simon, "Simon, can you still love me even though I eat 25 pounds of pig feed a day?"
Clara thought the pig was supremely interesting, and would have climbed inside his pen to pet him were she able to. We also saw a tiny horse. The booth operator told us the horse only weighed ten pounds when she was born.
"Oh, hi doggie," Clara said to the horse in a breathy, sing-song voice.
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