Emily knew that danger was near. She had never been in a place like this before--a little shed with a five-foot gate behind her. All of her companions had gone through the swinging doors in front of her, and not one had returned. The men who had locked the gate at Frank Arena's slaughterhouse in Hopkinton, Mass., were now off having lunch. Emily saw her chance, and she took it.

When she made her move, jaws dropped and workers stared in amazement. Suddenly, Emily--all 1,600 pounds of her was airborne, sailing over the gate and out of the building. "A cow just can't do that," Meg Randa told me.

As residents of this rural area west of Boston were to discover, Emily, a three-year-old Holstein, can do many things cows aren't supposed to do.

Frank Arena and his workers took off after their runaway animal, but she disappeared into the woods and eluded them all day. It was November, 1995, the beginning of an odyssey that would capture the imagination of the entire community. Slaughterhouse workers scoured the woods, leaving out bales of hay to entice Emily back into their grasp. She would have none of it.

Instead, people reported seeing her running with a herd of deer, learning from them how to forage in the woods. Soon the local paper was running updates on Emily sightings. Meg Randa read the first one. "The wheels started turning," she told me. "I said, "There's got to be some way we can purchase her and let her live in peace."

We were in the former town hall in Sherborn, Mass., near Hopkinton. Meg and her husband, Lewis, acquired the building 12 years ago. Here, they run a school for children with special needs. Activist Quakers, they also operate The Peace Abbey, where seminars and conferences on peace have attracted participants like Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. Surely, if they could bring Mother Teresa to a little school in New England, they could do something for a desperate cow.

The Randas had the children and staff at their school and local residents as coconspirators. Emily sightings suddenly dried up--it seemed that nobody wanted to see her captured. Local farmers started leaving out bales of hay for her to eat.

Meg called Frank Arena at the slaughterhouse and was touched by his willingness to help. His granddaughter, Angela, had given Emily her name, and even Frank (who died unexpectedly in January) seemed impressed by her pluck. At first he offered to let the Randas have Emily for the bargain price of $350; then, after consulting his granddaughter, he changed the price to $1. "He liked the idea of Emily being at the school," Lewis Randa explained.

A blizzard hit, and Emily's food sources were covered by snow. The Randas and others brought grain, hay, and water to places where they thought Emily might be found; the food was eaten after they left, but Emily wasn't ready to reveal herself.

Finally, one December day after they spread out some food, the Randas along with fellow staff and students saw Emily. "We looked over our shoulder, and she was right there looking at us," Meg recalled. Emily had lost 500 pounds and needed veterinary treatment after her 40-day ordeal, but the loving care of the students at the school has brought her back to her full weight.

And now she has company. Last December, a neighbor approached the Randas and asked if they could take in a calf that might otherwise be sent to a slaughterhouse. The day I visited, little Gabriel stood patiently while Emily groomed and licked him as fastidiously as any loving mom. They have been joined by a pair of turkeys, a mother goat and her two kids, and three rabbits--all of them rescued from inhumane conditions and all of them now tended by students from the school.

But Emily's biggest test is yet to come. Ellen Little, producer of 1995's film Richard III, has started work on a film version of Emily's saga. Emily will not have to leave her happy home for the lights of Hollywood, though. She will be played by another Holstein--and that should give another cow a chance to become a star.