Barney the Baby Hedgehog (3 page)

Chapter Five

“Stand still, Mickey!” Annie pleaded with the donkey, brush in hand. “How can I groom you if you keep on prancing about?”

Mickey raised his head and gave an
earsplitting
bray.

“Ouch!” In the stable next door, Eva was taking off Guinevere’s bridle, ready for her pamper session. “That hurt my ears!”

“That’s better.” At last Annie managed to corner Mickey. “You want to look smart,
don’t you? That’s it, good boy.”

“OK, Merlin, it’ll soon be your turn,” Eva laughed as the foal nudged her arm, then nuzzled her pocket. “Oh, I see – you want an apple, but those are for later. You’ll have to wait until we’ve finished grooming, before Linda takes you back into your field.”

Disappointed, Merlin stuck his head over the stable door and whinnied at Rosie, who was being led across Animal Magic’s yard by Linda Brooks.

“Here we are!” Linda sang out. She waved at Mark and Karl.

“Hi, Linda. Nice afternoon!” Mark called from the back door of the old farmhouse.

“Perfect.” Linda waited for Mark to join her. “I was wondering – is Heidi around?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Will I do instead?” 

Patting Rosie’s neck, Linda smiled awkwardly. “No thanks, Mark. It’s something I wanted to discuss with Heidi.”

Eva listened to the conversation. “What’s that about?” she muttered to Annie.

“Search me. Mickey, stand still.” Annie thought for a moment. “She probably wants some advice about Gwinnie’s teeth. I heard her tell dad she needed the phone number of a good horse dentist.”

“You hear that?” Eva asked the grey mare. “You’re going to get your teeth filed, you lucky thing!”

Linda brought Rosie over to the stables, and led her into the corner stall.

“If it’s a horse dentist you want, I know where Mum keeps the phone numbers,” Eva offered, brushing away at Gwinnie’s mane until it shone.

Linda shook her head. “Actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to Heidi about.”

“Steady!” Annie warned Mickey as he stomped his feet. She leaned out of the donkey’s stable. “Mum, what’s the mystery?
You’re blushing! What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Linda said quietly.

“Yes, it is!” Annie knew her mum only too well. She left Mickey to fidget and went over. “Come on, Mum. What are you up to?”

“Not now, Annie. Let me talk to Heidi first.” With a shake of her head, Linda bolted Rosie’s door.

The little Shetland went straight to her hay-net and began to eat.
Munch-munch
– her strong teeth ground away at the sweet hay.

“Mum, tell me!” Annie insisted. Suddenly a glint came into her eye. “If it isn’t about Gwinnie, is it Merlin?”

“No. Don’t pester me.” With her back turned, Linda set about brushing Rosie.

“Or Rosie?” Annie said, sounding excited.

Eva could sense something important in
the air. She stopped grooming Gwinnie and waited to hear more.

Annie wouldn’t let her mum off the hook. “It
is
– it’s Rosie, isn’t it?”

Linda sighed. She crouched down and put her arm around the sturdy little Shetland’s neck. “Oh all right, I give in. I’ll tell you girls what you want to know.”

Eva and Annie nodded eagerly.

“I’ve developed a real soft spot for this young lady,” Linda confessed. “And I think she likes me.”

Rosie turned her head and nuzzled Linda’s cheek.

Annie and Eva held their breath.

“So, I’ve decided to ask Heidi if she’ll let me adopt Rosie!” Linda announced. “I want her to come and live with us permanently!”

“So we broke out the apples and celebrated!” Eva told Heidi and Jen later that afternoon. “Of course we gave Rosie the biggest and juiciest one.”

“It’s fantastic news,” Heidi agreed. “Annie must have been so pleased.”

“Yes,
well
excited.” Eva watched as her mum lifted the patient on to the surgery
table. It was a stray dog, painfully thin, which Jen had discovered trapped in an empty lock-up garage in town. She’d phoned Mark and he’d driven into town and brought the stray back to Animal Magic.

“From what we can gather, it seems like someone dumped the poor thing in a garage and locked the door.” Heidi listened to the dog’s heartbeat, then examined her eyes and mouth.

“She’s dehydrated and she only weighs about half of what would be her normal weight, but given time and some TLC she should be OK.”

Eva sighed as the smooth-haired white dog tried to raise her head, then let it loll back on the table. “I’ll get Karl to take a picture. Do you know where he is?”

“In the small animals unit, the last I knew.”

Quickly Eva went to find her brother, but he wasn’t where she expected him to be. The unit was all quiet and Eva found herself drawn to Barney’s cage. She peered in to see how her little friend was doing. “And how are you? Are you hungry? Shall I give you some food?”

For once Barney didn’t curl into a ball at the sound of Eva’s approach. Instead he shuffled to the wire mesh door and
snuffled in his short-sighted way.

“Yes, it’s me,” Eva whispered. “I’m the one who feeds you, remember!”

Little Barney poked his long nose through the mesh while Eva prepared his food. When she opened the door he stuck his nose straight into the dish.

“Better than beetles and toads, huh?” Eva grinned. Like Eva, Karl had been on the hedgehog website and discovered all about their diet. He’d told Eva that morning over breakfast.

“Maggots, worms, insects, beetles, earwigs, slugs, caterpillars, toads and dead mice!” he’d announced, making Eva spit out her cornflakes.

Barney looked too cute to have dead mice on his menu. But then, as Heidi had pointed out, hedgehogs probably turned their noses up at human treats like cream
cakes and chocolate cookies.

In any case, Barney was tucking in to his cat food, happily piling on the pounds.

Or grams
, Eva thought. Then she got to thinking about Barney’s family.
I wonder how many brothers and sisters you’ve got. And if your mum misses you. Or if she’ll come back to Mr Ingleby’s farm to look for you, in spite of what Mum thinks.

Ignoring her, Barney guzzled his way through his supper.

“OK, so your mum might reject you because we’ve handled you and left our scent. And I’m totally cool with
hand-rearing
you because you’re gorgeous. But that’s not the point…”

Suddenly Karl burst in with a huge grin on his face. “Smidge and Smudge have been adopted by the Scaife family. They seemed really nice.”

“Cool.” Eva pretended she hadn’t been deep in conversation with Barney. “Can you go into the surgery and photograph a new stray dog?” she asked.

Karl nodded. “So what’s not the point?” he asked, picking up from where Eva had left off with Barney. “It’s OK, you can drop the act. I heard you doing your Doctor Doolittle talking to the animals thing!”

Eva tutted. “I just thought – what if Barney isn’t the only baby hedgehog who got lost in Mr Ingleby’s barn? What if he’s got brothers and sisters?”

“And no mum?” Karl nodded slowly. “It’s possible.”

“More than possible!” Eva insisted. “I checked the website and it says there are usually three or four babies in one litter. They’re called hoglets! Isn’t that cute?”

Karl rolled his eyes. “Cute? I hope you’re
not getting too attached, Eva. And remember – you’re only guessing that the mum isn’t still around.” Karl was being logical as usual.

“I know.” Eva bit her lip. “But what
if
?”

“OK, say you’re right,” Karl argued, walking out of the unit with Eva following. “Say there are more orphan babies out there. What do you plan to do about it?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to carry on thinking,” she replied, closing the door behind her. “But, Karl, I’ll tell you one thing for sure – I’m not going to forget about it!”

Chapter Six

“So I was wondering, Annie, if you’d like to camp out in Mr Ingleby’s barn?”

Annie stood at the front door, her mouth gaping open in surprise. “Just run through that again,” she begged Eva. “You want to find out if there are any more baby hedgehogs like Barney, and the way you plan to do it is to have a sleepover in the barn at High Trees Farm. Did I get that right?”

Eagerly Eva nodded. The idea had come to her at teatime. In a second she’d jumped up and started to organize.

“Uh-oh, Eva’s just had one of her eureka moments!” Mark had laughed.

“More hoglets … probably lost … camp out … Annie!” she’d gabbled.

In the end, her mum and dad had agreed to the barn sleepover, but only as long as Linda let Annie go along too, and provided Tom Ingleby didn’t mind.

“But don’t be disappointed if no other hoglets show up,” Heidi had warned. “You two could be out there all night and see absolutely nothing!”

“Mad!” Karl had said, retreating to his computer. “I’m going to email Joel and tell him that my sister is as nutty as a fruitcake!”

Eva had gone ahead anyway and dug
out her sleeping bag, a fleece and a thick pair of socks. Now she was at Annie’s door, desperate to get on with her plan.

“Quick – ask your mum!” she urged Annie. “Remind her we’re still on summer holidays, so there’s no school tomorrow. Promise her we’ll be careful, and say Mr and Mrs Ingleby will keep an eye on us.”

“I heard all that,” Linda said, coming out from the lounge. Luckily, she was still in a good mood over Rosie. In fact, she’d been busily looking through a Build-Your-
Own-Stable
catalogue when Eva had knocked at the door. “So, Eva – this is Operation Baby Hedgehog, is it?”

Eva nodded. “Can Annie sleep out with me, please?”

“If she wants to – yes, she can.”

“Of course you want to, don’t you?” Eva didn’t give Annie chance to object.
“You need to pack a sleeping bag and a bottle of water, plus snacks…”

“Whoa!” Annie cut Eva off mid-flow. She stood in her flowery top with cut-off white trousers and smart new trainers. “Do I look as if I’m dressed to sleep out in a mucky old barn?”

“Oh!” Eva’s face fell. “Are you saying you don’t want to?”

For a split second Annie kept Eva in suspense. Then she broke out in a wide grin. “Course I do! Give me five minutes to change, and I’ll be round at your place.”

Eva breathed a sigh of relief. “
So
not funny,” she muttered, scooting back to Animal Magic, where she made a couple of doorstep cheese sandwiches and packed them in her school rucksack.

“Apples?” Mark suggested, putting them in the bag for her. “Flapjacks? And by the way, your mum rang Tom Ingleby and he says it’s OK to do your sleepover there.”

Soon Eva was packed and ready, her bag stuffed with goodies, plus two strong torches with new batteries and a pair of thick gloves just in case.

“Here comes Annie now,” Heidi said, looking through the window. “Your dad is going to drive you over to High Trees.” Giving Eva a quick hug, she saw her on her way. “I’ve put a pet carrier and a tin of cat food in the back of the van,” she reminded her. “And remember – don’t handle any hedgehogs without gloves – those prickles are sharp!”

“Bye, Mum!” Eva called. “Bye, Mickey!” she yelled as the donkey brayed from his stable. “Bye, Karl!” She waved at her brother sitting by his bedroom window. “Take care of Barney for me. Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow!”

“I hope you don’t mind – we’ve made a den in the barn,” Eva told Mrs Ingleby, who was just back from her early evening
church service. Eva’s dad had already gone into the house to chat with Tom.

As soon as Annie and Eva had arrived at the farm, they’d started shifting bales of straw to build a shelter from the wind that blew through the open-sided barn. Then they’d laid out the pet carrier and cat food, plus their sleeping bags and other belongings.

Mrs Ingleby smiled. “I hope you’ll be nice and cosy in there. If you need anything, just knock at our door.”

Eva thanked her then went with Annie to check out the view from their den.

“We can see the whole farmyard from here,” Annie confirmed. “And a bit of the lane, plus that jumble of stones and the cement mixer over there…”

“That’s where the Inglebys are building a new house for Adam.” Eva climbed to the top of the stack to look round the back of the barn. “Just trees, fields and hedges,” she reported, sliding back down. “Hey, this is exciting, isn’t it?”

Annie nodded. “Better than camping.”

“Better than anything!” Eva insisted, nestling into the straw den. And the best thing of all was that they were out to rescue more baby hedgehogs!

“What was that noise?” Annie gasped.

It was eleven o’clock and the farmyard was pitch black.

“An owl,” Eva told her. “Nothing to worry about.”

Annie sat huddled in her sleeping bag. “What was that?” she asked again.

“What? Where?”

“Down there – something moved!”

“Probably a mouse.”

“Or a rat!” Annie sounded scared. Sleeping out was turning into a nightmare of eerie hoots, beating wings, soft shuffles and quick scurries.

“I’m sure it’s not!” Eva insisted, though her own nerves were a bit on edge. It was so dark! Clouds hid the moon. The world lay in deep shadow.

“We haven’t even seen a sign of any hedgehogs,” Annie complained. “And we’ve been here for hours!”

“Wait a bit longer. The lights in the house have only just gone off. Now’s the time when everything comes out of hiding.”

“Such as?” Annie asked, her voice quavering.

“Such as badgers,” Eva replied. “And foxes. Owls. Bats. Hedgehogs.” She shone her torch out across the farmyard and spotted Missie disappearing through the cat flap into the farmhouse. Then she saw another creature – something the size of a big dog, with a long nose and bushy tail. “Fox!” she whispered, aiming the torch.

The fox turned to stare up into the beam of light. His yellow eyes flashed.

“Spooky!” Annie whispered. 

The fox flicked the white tip of his tail and loped off down the lane, out of sight.

Just then Eva spotted something else that deserved a closer look – small movements in the Inglebys’ flower border, and when she listened closely, the high, piping sound of animals in distress. “Annie, listen – this could be it!”

Annie flicked on her own torch. Two beams raked the flower bed. The high cries came to a sudden stop.

“I’m going to take a closer look,” Eva decided, getting up and creeping forwards.

Annie didn’t want to be left alone. “Wait, I’m coming too!” she hissed.

Soon the two girls stood at the barn entrance, deciding on their next move.

“Let’s switch off the torches,” Eva suggested. “If there are baby hedgehogs
hiding among the plants, they won’t come out if we leave them on.”

With the flick of two switches, the girls were pitched into total darkness.

“It’s giving me goosebumps!” Annie whispered. The wind blew across the fields and through the tall ash trees behind the barn.

Eva waited for her eyes to get used to the dark. Gradually, she made out the shape of the farmhouse across the yard, and then an animal coming around the corner. Maybe it was Missie out on the prowl after mice again, or perhaps something bigger and more dangerous…

“The fox is back!” Annie gasped. She too had seen the intruder.

The fox crept towards the flower border, ignoring Eva and Annie. He seemed to have his mind fixed on something else,
head low and sniffing the ground. He was following a trail!

“Oh no you don’t!” Eva muttered. She flashed on her torch and dashed forward, just as the fox pounced and three baby hedgehogs broke cover and ran in all directions across Tom Ingleby’s yard.