[Rocket Sheep]

However the poor little self-effacing sheep, with no confidence in her own ability, sickened by her own behaviour and completely unaware how close she was to success, caught the first cryo-freeze vessel to the new galaxies. Once thawed she lived out her days drooling over the feet of the almighty Flurst who took advantage of her fluffy back to wipe his feet occasionally.

MacDonald and Goosna were surprised by this sudden addition to their smoothly running realm but with 36 little ones and a hit song to worry about, neither had time to question a little drooling sheep.

[Hereford Eye]

Time Warp: January 2004. The New Year’s celebrations concluded, survived, and recovered from, we see NZ’s little lost sheep entering Brisbane. She is bedraggled but sheep always look as if they just rose from bed or from the grave or something. She is also uncertain, timid, shy, and sorely afraid of entering the facility – no, not that facility, she is adept at using the outdoors for that. She is first and foremost a sheep and these traits are her birthright.
She carries her writing materials, her stories, her soul, in a little carryall stuffed with composition books, old pages loosely held together by a warped gigantic paper clip, and a Royal portable typewriter. (Someone told her to bring her own writing materials.)
In the lobby, standing in line at the registration table, she must fend off the advances of certain Australian writers who evidently conclude she is part of the entertainment package. Sheepie is saved by the female panelists, all of whom understand that men are the enemy. The stick-on name tag presents a problem as posting same to Sheepie’s chest doesn’t make for outstanding visibility. The organizers break their own rules and post it to Sheepie’s left ear.
The other major event of the day occurs when Sheepie, at last comfortable in her room, orders a bottle of Shiraz. The bellman takes much persuading that Sheepie is of age to consume same. She is forever forced to cope with the fact that all sheep look the same to bellmen and not one of them thinks a sheep can live past two years. Two year olds cannot purchase Shiraz in Brisbane.

[Rocket Sheep]

But still the Shiraz doesn't arrive.

Flicking her ear and the annoying name tag irritably, Sheepie realises she has to go get it herself. Of course, the only outlets open at that time of night are those wonderful oxymorons... the drive thru off licence... and not owning a car, sheepie is forced to mug several young university students. One, because he is holding a skateboard... the rest because they might tell.

Now with her own set of wheels and clutching her holdall, empty of all but her tiny quivering soul, she fires up her motor and blasts down the roads to the offy. Several parking meter ladies lose their gold bikinis in the rush of air as she passes but Sheepie is oblivious to their gasps... the name tag flapping in her ear has temporarily deafened her.

All goes smoothly until Sheepie returns to the gates of the University to find them shut. No amount of bleating will rouse the guards and so the poor sheep sits down to wait it out... and drinks a bottle of Shiraz to pass the time... and that was so nice she has another... and another and so the morning of the first class arrives. The fabulous writers who are internationally respected arrive. The other students, all very sober mature people arrive... to find a poor little Sheep sucking out of a brown paper bag because she missed breakfast, bedraggled if she just rose from bed or from the grave or a driveway or something, singing in a mornful voice 'bin smokin' too long'.

She is immediately removed from the presence of those internationally respected and those sober and mature and for 6 long weeks, no one particularly notices the empty seat at the back of the class.

[Hereford Eye]

Time Warp: January 2054: The University of Brisbane Modern Literature Department, Room 666, Sixth Floor, Building 3000, The Stacks.
An ovine of curious nature, eight times removed from her most famous forebear – not counting Smokie the Sheep used by the government of New Zealand as its mascot in its anti-marijuana campaigns – examines the records of the very first Clarion South. Yes, Auntie Rockets had been invited. That, at least, conforms to family legend. Yes, she disappeared after registration and, yes, it was right about that time a new form of provocative wool mini-skirt hit the market, called SheerAz for its innuendo effect as well as for its aroma.
But another appeared to fill her place in the workshop. This other, a woman named Burr Ended Son-of-a-Dinkum, a curious name by any standards, presented stories in the same vein, as if an alter ego of the Sheep. She had one about a moaning goose or a mossy gander or something like that, and one about a woman isolated in space who treats men as they ought to be treated, and others, each and everyone exhibiting scorn and disgust with the bodice ripping space operas common to that era.
There is a footnote stating the panelists required Burr Ended to attempt a love scene, filling in the ooh’s and aah’s, the sweat and the tears, the defeats and the victories, but Burr Ended went running from the room screaming “Scarlett, Holbrook, it’s your fault; it must be you. How did you manage to corrupt these people?”
Burr Ended was never seen again. Her stories were published in the Clarion’s journal, still available today in used booked stores selling at ridiculously low prices for this legendary author.