La petite princesse

My mother was in tears, my father was calling the local police every five minutes, my brothers were making me a flower crown to wear on my funeral and I was watching the birth of a calf. That was the first time I disappeared on vacation for a few hours.
My parents and the local police are not too fond of my disappearances, but I need those hours to get lost. I’ve been running away to watch the reflection of the sun on a glass mosaic of a mosque, or to play Uno with some local kids... After that and some other disappearances, they got used to it, my parents stopped panicking every time and my brothers already stopped making flower crowns years ago.
But the first time I disappeared I will never forget, because that was the first time I understood a bit of what travelling actually is about. I was seven and my family and I were spending a few days at the countryside in South-England. When exploring the area, I discovered this typical stable. It wasn't the first time I saw a stable, but for some reason I found a wooden stable in England that interesting that I wanted to take a look. But only a few seconds after I opened the rotten door, I ran out, screaming.
There was a cow inside and there was coming a leg out of it. There was a cow inside – and there was coming a leg out of it. I was sure the cow was dying and as the biggest animal I ever saw dying was a cat on the street, I was absolutely shocked. While panicking I ran straight into the arms of the farmer, and his calmness disgusted me. I got mad at him and dragged him inside the stable, where he started doing something that shocked me even more. He started pulling at the leg. He started pulling.
A few legs later, with a healthy calf laying on the hay, he had finally convinced me that he wasn’t a sadistic psychopath and I dared to come closer to the calf and its crazy legs. And although it cost me some more disappearances to fully get it, that leg was telling me something.
It told me that there is so much more to know than what people find important where I live, and that I would have found important if I had never entered that stable in South-England. Where I live, people praised me for knowing the times tables, but no one ever took the trouble to explain me that a leg coming out of a cow is not a sign of death, but of something beautiful and natural such as birth. And that leg is where I travel for, to always let new wonders remember me that what I’m occupied with in Belgium are just trivialities.