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said in his early duck-herding days.
     
    "I suppose you'd say," she remarked, "that those dogs just weren't polite enough?"
     
    "That's right," said Babe.
     
     
     

Chapter 8
     
    "Oh Ma!"
     
    Fly's suspicions about what the farmer was up to grew rapidly over the next weeks. It soon became obvious to her that he was constructing, on his own land, a practice course. From the top of the field where the rustlers had come, the circuit which he laid out ran all round the farm, studded with hazards to be negotiated. Some were existing gateways or gaps. Some he made, with hurdles, or lines of posts between which the sheep had to be driven. Some were extremely difficult. One, for example, a plank bridge over a stream, was so narrow that it could only be crossed in single file, and the most honeyed words were needed from Babe to persuade the animals to cross.
     
    Then, in the home paddock, Hogget made a rough shedding-ring with a circle of large stones, and beyond it, a final pen, a small hurdle enclosure no bigger than a tiny room, with a gate to close its mouth when he pulled on a rope.
     
    Every day the farmer would send Fly to cut out five sheep from the flock, and take them to the top of the hill, and hold them there. Then, starting Babe from the gate at the lower end of the farmyard, Hogget would send him away to run them through the course.
     
    "Away to me, Pig!" he would say, or "Come by, Pig!" and off Babe would scamper as fast as his trotters could carry him, as the farmer pulled out his big old pocket watch and noted the time. There was only one problem. His trotters wouldn't carry him all that fast.
     
    Here at home, Fly realised, his lack of speed didn't matter much. Whichever five sheep were selected were only too anxious to oblige Babe, and would huury eagerly to do whatevere he wanted. But with strange sheep it will be different, thought Fly. If the boss really does intend to run him in a trial. Which it looks as though he does! She watched his tubby pinky-white shape as he crested the hill.
     
    That evening at suppertime she watched again as he tucked into his food. Up till now it had never worried her how much he ate. He's a growing boy, she had thought fondly. Now she thought, he's a greedy boy too.
     
    "Babe," she said, as with a grunt of content he licked the last morsels off the end of his snout. His little tin trough was as shiningly clean as though Mrs Hogget had washed it in her sink, and his tummy was as tight as a drum.
     
    "Yes, Mum?"
     
    "You like being a ... sheep-pig, don't you?"
     
    "Oh yes, Mum!"
     
    "And you'd like to be really good at it, wouldn't you? The greatest? Better than any other sheep-pig?"
     
    "D'you think there are any others?"
     
    "Well, no. Better than any sheep-dog, then?"
     
    "Oh yes, I'd love to be! But I don't really think that's possible. You see, although sheep do seem to go very well for me, and do what I ask ... I mean, do what I tell them, I'm nothing like as fast as a dog and never could be."
     
    "No. But you could be a jolly sight faster than you are."
     
    "How?"
     
    "Well, there are two things you'd have to do, dear," said Fly.
     
    "First, you'd have to go into proper training. One little run around a day's not enough. You'd have to practise hard--jogging, cross-country running, sprinting, distance work. I'd help you of course."
     
    It all sounded fun to Babe.
     
    "Great!" he said. "But you said "two things". What's the second?"
     
    "Eat less," said Fly. "You'd have to go on a diet."
     
    Any ordinary pig would have rebelled at this point. Pigs enjoy eating, and they also enjoy lying around most of the day thinking about eating again. But Babe was no ordinary pig, and he set out enthusiastically to do what Fly suggested.
     
    Under her watchful eye he ate wisely but not too well, and every afternoon he trained, to a programme which she had worked out, trotting right round the boundaries of the farm perhaps, or running up to the top of the hill and