Bhutan is a unique little country, largely and deliberately locked off from the rest of the world. A year or two up there was a great opportunity that I had to forego.

I managed a few short walks out into Calcutta from the small hotel where I stayed. Abject poverty and significant wealth cheek by jowl. On one occasion I was approached by a personable young Indian man. ‘Please give me some money for Mother Teresa. She’s got no money for breakfast.’ Who could resist such entreaty?

Miserable, sick, and feeling very stupid I returned to Ohakune, some 10 kilograms lighter than when I had left not too long before.

The flight home was penance in itself. Calcutta to Bangkok. Bangkok to Perth. Perth to Adelaide. Adelaide to Melbourne. Melbourne to Sydney, and so on home after several hours’ stopover in each. I spent each leg of the flight and associated stopovers doing two things: making frequent trips to toilets and restrooms, and coming to grips with what was to be the story of Agnes the Sheep.

Old Mrs Carpenter was eighty-nine years of age when she died. She left behind for her nearest and not-too-dearest relatives her large house on Gladstone Road, everything inside the house and the land the house stood on. Mrs Carpenter died peacefully in her sleep at the end of a full life and with few regrets about leaving this world.

Mrs Carpenter also left behind Agnes, her pet sheep. ‘I want you to promise me something,’ she had said to Belinda and Joe not too long before she died. ‘I’ll be going soon.’

‘Where to?’ asked Belinda.

‘Heaven,’ said Mrs Carpenter firmly. ‘I am charging you two with looking after Agnes for the rest of her natural life.’

‘Hey! That doesn’t seem too fair to me,’ said Joe.

‘Why not, pray?’ said Mrs Carpenter. ‘You’ve had your money’s worth out of me since first we met. If I remember rightly, it was you who wanted something from me back then. If poor, dear Agnes suffers the misfortune of falling into the hands of my great-nephew, Derek, I would doubt that her life would be extended one little bit.’

‘But why charge us to do it?’ asked Joe. ‘I don’t mind looking after the old sheep but I don’t think it’s very fair we’ve got to pay you to do it.’

Old Mrs Carpenter looked at him over the top of her rimless glasses. ‘Keep your mouth shut, boy! That way you sound more intelligent.’

I have since considered those last two lines as probably the best bit of writing I have ever done. I certainly didn’t think so at the time of writing. Full of self-pity and feeling very sick—I remember one day when I had to crawl around the house because I felt so bad. In all honesty, I was leaking from every orifice! Little feeling was left over for any empathy with my story or its characters. Also, it was highly uncomfortable to sit down and actually write: I had lost so much condition off my bum that I was virtually perching on skin-covered bones. Of course things started to improve, but even when I sent the completed manuscript off I considered it highly likely that rejection would be its fate.

I sent Agnes off to Scholastic feeling dissatisfied with the product and with little hope that it would be accepted. I was wrong, and the very prompt acceptance most decidedly helped me out of my overdose of self-pity and, I feel sure, also helped my physical recovery, although I would be in hospital a few months later with the ‘unspecified hepatitis’. But that was a little time away and much was to happen in the interim.

Agnes did very well for me—and for Scholastic. It won awards.