Willoughby

Willoughby was an agouti and white smooth haired boar who lived in an apartment in New York. And he was a ninja.

He lived with Uncle Wayne and Auntie Dawn, and with Saku, and then with Atticus. Dawn called him the Loaf pig. I don’t know why, except he used to make himself comfortable on Uncle Wayne’s chest when he was lying on the sofa. I’ve met Uncle Wayne and I’d do that too, if I was there.

He got up to all sorts of things but one of his favourites was tossing his pigloo and then complaining he couldn’t sit on it. His Momma used to laugh at him for that. He was very good at sitting on his pigloo, even when he grew far too big for it. That was his ninja training.

Willoughby and Saku (D)

Willoughby’s patches

Who flipped my pigloo?

Willoughby n top of the world

Willoughby Loaf

Willoughby

Willyoube my Valentine

Momma’s loaf

He died suddenly in January and we were all very shocked. Mummy had already started writing his story, which is the next book in the Princelings seres, but he’s in The Talent Seekers and a lot of short stories too, because he’s Willoughby the Narrator. And a ninja. He’s a very exciting person to know!

2 thoughts on “Willoughby”

Thanks for this wonderful tribute, Kev.

I called him the Loaf, Lord Loafsalot, Loafasaurus, etc., because he would loaf anywhere he could, including on me! You can see that in the last photo. When he was young, he had too much nervous energy to loaf on me for long, but later he became quite snuggly. I miss that so much. His little brother Atticus, and even young Roland, have taken over where he left off. I think they sense the void, both figurative and literal, left by Will’s passing and want to do their best to cheer up Momma.

He had more personality than could be summed up in a few paragraphs. I think he was even nosier than Mariusz, if you can believe that. I called him the Buttinsky Pig because he would butt in whenever something even mildly interesting was happening — a cage cleaning, e.g. He would butt in on his big brother, his little brother, his dad, and me, and was constantly underfoot. I could almost hear his internal monologue: “What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?”

He was an acrobat, putting his ninja training to good use. He would make jumps that in theory a pig shouldn’t be able to make. And he was strong! If he didn’t want to be held, he wasn’t going to be held, and that was that.

But for all his mischievousness and strength, he was sweet and easy going. He may have bit his dad once or twice, but never bit me, even when he was in a Mood. He was my Gentle Giant.

I’m looking forward to his story. I say “his” story: I know Momma wrote it, technically, but I think he dictated it to her, as they say Allah dictated the Koran to Mohammed.

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April 27, 2015 at 3:53 pm