Peter Shirbrown, age 11, of Coon Rapids, Iowa, for his question:

 Why do sheep follow a goat?

Lambs, as everybody knows, are charming little fellows, full of playfulness and awareness. But for some reason, they lose their frisky, juvenile perception and seem to grow duller as they grow older. Their minds are too lazy, even to make sensible decisions about which way to go. For ages domesticated flocks have followed the shepherd out to pasture and back home to the fold. When no shepherd is there to lead them, they aimlessly follow whoever seems to be going in a definite direction.

Sometimes this is an older sheep, maybe a ram. But the flock does not bother to distinguish between sheep and goats    and sometimes the leader is a goat. This fellow, of course, is by no means a dull character. As a kid he was just as frisky and smart as a lamb    and usually smarter when it came to mischief. A goat gets smarter as he grows older, and certainly he always knows where he's going. And because the sheep don't care where they're going, they often follow his lead.