My Friend Cazaux

At the farm in France, I had one good friend, an older donkey called Cazaux. He was kind to me and looked after me.

He didn't know why he was there either. He had been a good donkey all his life, tried his best, and in the past he had known people who liked him and treated him kindly.

Something happened and he found himself like me, in this funny place, with all the other horses and ponies. He tried to keep his spirits up by braying a lot, and telling me funny stories, but a lot of the time I could see that he wanted to cry. He couldn't understand why the people he had cared about didn't want him anymore and why they hadn't taken care of him forever.

Me, well I've never had any human to love, they just ignored me so I don't understand what he meant when he said 'they betrayed my trust - I worked for them, did my best all the time, tried to be good and always work hard, why did they do this to me?' He used to have quiet moments sometimes when I swear I could see a tear in his sad brown eyes.

I think a lot of the time he was brave so that I wouldn't be frightened as he was older than me and bigger and stronger. He tried to make me eat and keep up my strength, even when I wanted to give up and lie down and not get up again.

But even Cazaux was frightened when we went on the lorry. He rubbed my nose and said Adieu - I didn't understand this, was he not going to be my friend any more, why such a final goodbye not see you later. This made me all the more scared, if Cazaux thought we were going on the bad lorry, what hope did I have?