For Oliver

  H. P.

  For my lovely friend, Fee x

  E. S.

  “Here’s the bus!” said Jasmine, as the double-decker pulled in at the bus stop. She felt a glorious thrill of independence as she paid for her ticket and climbed the stairs to the top deck.

  “The front seat’s free!” said Tom.

  It was October half term, and their friend Marco was having a birthday party at the leisure centre in the nearby town. It had a huge pool, with a wave machine, inflatables and a massive water slide. The whole class had been invited. And, most exciting of all, Jasmine and her best friend Tom had been allowed to travel there by bus, on their own.

  The bus moved off with a jerk as they plonked themselves down, their bags on their laps. It was amazing to be on the top deck, high enough to see across the fields to Jasmine’s home, Oak Tree Farm. The autumn trees looked beautiful in shades of red, gold and orange.

  As the bus turned a corner, Jasmine noticed something in the middle of the road. At first she thought it was a lump of mud, but then it moved.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “It’s a baby hedgehog!”

  The little hedgehog was staggering along, and the bus was drawing closer.

  “Oh, no!” cried Jasmine.

  Tom leapt up and pressed the bell for the bus to stop. “Quick!” he said, and they lurched along the aisle and hurried down the stairs.

  “We’ll miss the party if we get off now,” said Tom. “There isn’t another bus for two hours.”

  “You go to the party,” said Jasmine. “I need to check the poor hedgehog.”

  All sorts of awful thoughts whirled around her head. What if the hoglet had been run over? What if it was injured and in pain?

  The bus came to a halt and the doors opened. Jasmine jumped out and started running back down the road. As the bus pulled away and the engine noise faded into the distance, she heard another set of footsteps behind her. She turned and saw Tom racing along the lane.

  “You came!” she said, waiting for him to catch up. “Thanks, Tom.”

  “I wouldn’t leave you on your own,” he said.

  They ran down the road together, casting their eyes across the tarmac, dreading what they might see.

  After a few minutes, Tom stopped by a farm gate. “I think it was around here where we saw it,” he said.

  The gateway led to a concrete yard surrounded by old farm buildings, with gaps in the roofs and half-open doors hanging off their hinges. Jasmine couldn’t see or hear any animals, or anything else to show that this was a working farm. It looked deserted.

  “Let’s look further down the road,” she said. “Just in case.”

  They ran on for a minute, but there was no sign of the hedgehog.

  “Looks like it got away from the bus,” said Tom. “That’s lucky. Shame we’ll miss Marco’s party though. Typical that no one’s around to give us a lift.”

  Tom’s parents were out for the day, and Jasmine’s parents were both working.

  “We couldn’t go to the party now anyway,” Jasmine said. “We need to find the hedgehog.”

  Tom looked puzzled. “Why? It’s probably back with its family.”

  Jasmine shook her head. “Hoglets don’t usually go out alone unless there’s a problem. So its mother’s probably died or abandoned it. Mother hedgehogs sometimes desert their babies if they’re disturbed.”

  Jasmine had been given a book about hedgehogs for her birthday, so she knew a lot about them.

  “Maybe the mother’s nearby,” said Tom, “and the baby was just exploring.”

  “They do sometimes wander from the nest and then go back,” said Jasmine, “but I’m sure this one was in trouble. Did you see how it was staggering?”

  “We’d better look for it then,” said Tom. “You look on this side, and I’ll do that side.” He crossed the road. “But I don’t know how we’ll find it. We can’t pick up every leaf.”

  “We need a stick each,” said Jasmine, picking up a hazel stick lying under the hedge. “Here, have this,” she said, fishing out another one. “We can move them about in the leaves – just gently, so we won’t harm the hoglet if it’s there. And we can listen out for squeaking. Hoglets sound like baby birds.”

  Tom sent a message to Marco, and they turned and walked back along the road, moving their sticks slowly among the leaf litter. Tom laughed. “We look like we’re playing at metal-detecting,” he said.

  A man approached from the other direction, with a Labrador on a lead. “You two lost something?” he asked.

  “We’re looking for a baby hedgehog,” Jasmine said. “Have you seen one?”

  “No,” he said. “You should leave hedgehogs alone anyway. Don’t go poking about disturbing them.”

  “But it didn’t look well,” said Jasmine. “It was staggering about in the road.”

  “Then call a rescue place. Don’t interfere with something you know nothing about. It’s illegal to pick up a wild animal yourself.”

  “No, it’s not,” said Jasmine. “It’s illegal to keep a wild animal in captivity, but it’s not illegal to rescue a hedgehog to rehabilitate it and release it back into the wild.”

  The man looked a bit surprised. He said nothing, but jerked his dog’s lead and walked off.

  Jasmine fixed her fiercest stare on his retreating back. “What an ignoramus,” she said. “He knows absolutely nothing.”

  She and Tom were planning to run an animal rescue centre when they grew up. They had already rescued many animals, so they had learned a lot about looking after them. Jasmine’s mum was a vet and her dad was a farmer, so they had expert help when they needed it, as well as space to house the creatures they cared for.

  They searched the whole stretch of verge, but there was no sign of the hoglet.

  “It’s probably gone into a field,” said Tom. “And if it has, we don’t have a hope of finding it.”

  “Let’s at least search the farmyard,” Jasmine said. “If we don’t find it there, we’ll just have to go home.”

  They climbed over the rusty metal gate into the yard, which had buildings on three sides. A big barn ran along the far side, opposite the gate. To the right stood a long low cowshed, and to the left was a row of stables. The rotting wooden doors stood half open, hanging crookedly off their hinges. The yard and the barn were full of junk: rusting bits of machinery, tangles of wire and baler twine, empty containers and piles of wood.

  “There’s so many hazards here for a baby hedgehog,” Jasmine said. “They can easily get tangled in stuff because of their spikes. And they fall into things too, because they don’t have any fear of falling.”

  “I’ll search the yard first, and you do the barn,” said Tom. “Then we’ll do the other sheds if we haven’t found it.”

  Jasmine searched the whole barn, listening for squeaking sounds, but she found nothing. Hopefully the hoglet had just been exploring and was now safely tucked up in the nest with its family. She tried not to think about how it had been staggering around in the road. Wasn’t that a sign of hypothermia?

  She heard footsteps, and turned to see Tom in the barn doorway. He was clutching something to his chest, wrapped in his swimming towel.

  “Have you found it?” she asked excitedly.

  Tom nodded. But he didn’t look excited. He looked as though he was about to cry.

  “Jasmine,” said Tom. “It’s so sad. I think it’s dead.”

  Jasmine turned cold with horror. “No! How? Let me see.”

  “It was floating in the water trough,” said Tom. “There’s a pile of junk next to it, so the hoglet must have climbed in and couldn’t get out. Look.”

  He lifted the towel. The hoglet’s eyes were closed and it was completely still.

  “That’s awful,” Jasmine said, blinking back tears. “The poor little thing.”

  She touched the hoglet’s skin. It was freezing cold.

  “Perhaps it has hypothermia,” she said hopefully. “I think they sometimes go unconscious if they get really cold. Let’s phone Mum and ask her.”

  They made a video call to Jasmine’s mum, Nadia, at her vets’ surgery. They didn’t expect her to answer, but luckily she was between appointments and picked up. She looked worried.

  “What’s happened?” she asked. “Why aren’t you at the party?”

  Jasmine quickly explained, and they showed Nadia the hoglet. Tom told her where he’d found it.

  “If it was just floating, then it’s drowned, I’m afraid,” she said. “But keep it wrapped up in the towel. I’ll need to report it and take it to the surgery for cremation. Poor little thing. I’ve got to go – my next client’s waiting – but I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  “OK, see you soon,” said Jasmine. They ended the call, and Tom put the towel bundle carefully in his bag.

  “If only I’d looked in the tank first, I might have been in time to save it,” he said.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Jasmine, trying not to cry. “We did our best.”

  They stood for a moment in a sad silence. Then Jasmine said, “We should carry on looking. Hedgehogs usually have four or five babies in a litter, so if that one was wandering about on its own, there are probably others close by.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Tom said. “I’ll search the stables and you do the cowshed.”

  The cowshed door was bolted shut, but there was a gap at the bottom plenty big enough for a hoglet to squeeze through. Jasmine jiggled the stiff bolt until it was loose enough to open. The door was hanging off its hinges, so she dragged it open just enough to slip inside.

  The shed was dark and gloomy, its windows covered with dust and cobwebs. Rusted tools and broken machine parts lay on the faded straw, along with plastic sacks and coils of wire.

  Jasmine gingerly lifted sacks, peered under ploughshares and dismantled piles of rubbish, very much hoping not to disturb a rats’ nest. But there were no signs of life at all.

  Finally she came to the last corner of the shed. A tractor wheel leaned against the wall, surrounded by empty feed containers and medicine bottles. Jasmine was looking under an upturned bucket when she suddenly heard a squeak.

  She froze, straining to listen. From behind the tractor wheel came rustling sounds, followed by more squeaking. Her heart raced. Was it a rat? Or could it be a baby hedgehog?

  Screwing up her courage, and praying that a family of rats wouldn’t race out and scrabble across her feet, Jasmine peered into the gap between the wheel and the wall. All she could see was a heap of junk. But suddenly a plastic tub at the bottom of the pile, right at the back, caught her eye. It was about the size of a baked bean tin, and it was wobbling about, all on its own.

  She drew in her breath. The squeaking came again, louder and more urgent, like the chirping of a baby bird. The tub wobbled again.

  Jasmine knelt down. One by one, she pulled out the empty containers until at last she could turn the white plastic tub. Sticking out of the open end was a rounded heap of spiky brown prickles.

  Jasmine hurried to the door and called Tom. He appeared in the stable doorway, covered in dust and cobwebs.

  “I’ve found another hoglet!” said Jasmine. “A live one!”

  Tom’s face lit up and he hurried over to the shed. “Oh, amazing!” he said, as he looked at the pot in Jasmine’s hands. “I didn’t think we were going to find any more. I’ve searched everywhere else.”

  “It’s stuck, poor thing,” Jasmine said. “We need to get it out without injuring it.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Tom.

  “I’ll try tipping up the pot gently into my hand. If that doesn’t work, we’ll call Mum and ask her.”

  Jasmine knelt on the dusty floor and pulled her gloves out of her coat pocket. She put them on and picked up the container, supporting the hoglet’s back end with one hand. The baby gave another desperate squeak and its spines bristled.

  “It’s OK, little one,” said Jasmine softly. “Everything’s going to be all right. We’re going to get you out.”

  Cradling the hedgehog’s back end, she gently tipped up the pot. The hoglet’s spines bristled further, sticking out in all directions.

  “Don’t do that,” Jasmine pleaded. “The more you stick out your prickles, the more trapped you’ll be.”

  She cradled the hoglet’s rear end in both hands, hoping it would relax. She knew hoglets always slept cuddled up together in the nest, so hopefully the warmth and closeness of her hands would reassure the baby and calm it down.

  “I can feel its skin underneath,” she said to Tom. “So it’s not fully curled up. It’s really cold though, poor thing.”

  Once the hoglet seemed slightly more relaxed, she tipped the tub up and, cradling the baby in her palm, shook the tub gently to encourage it to come out.

  Sure enough, more spines began to emerge. Jasmine held her breath as the back feet came out and she was slowly able to withdraw the hoglet. A pair of front feet appeared and finally a pointed furry face, with little round ears and beady black eyes.

  “Oh!” Tom murmured. “It’s so cute!”

  “You’re beautiful, aren’t you?” said Jasmine. But she had looked after a lot of baby animals, and she could tell the hoglet was in a bad state. Its eyes were dull and it lay still in her hand. She pulled off one glove with her teeth and pinched its skin. It took a few seconds to spring back into place.

  “It’s dehydrated,” she said. “And very cold. So it’s in real danger.” She set the hoglet on the ground to see if it would move. It took a few wobbly steps and then stopped. Jasmine scooped it up again.

  “Staggering about like that probably means it’s got hypothermia. We need to take it home and warm it up fast. Can you get my swimming towel to wrap it in?”

  “Do you think the towel will be warm enough?” asked Tom, as he rummaged in her bag for it.

  Jasmine suddenly had a brainwave. She pulled off her bobble hat. “I’ll pop it in my hat and then wrap it in the towel,” she said. “The hat will be like a woolly hoglet jumper.”

  Jasmine held the bundle close to her chest as they hurried down the lane. She knew baby mammals could die if they got too cold. They had to get the hoglet home as soon as possible.

  “Don’t worry, little one,” she said. “We’re going to look after you and make you better.”

  Tom held the bundled hoglet while Jasmine phoned her mum for advice.

  “Shall I put it in the Aga?” she asked, as they climbed over the stile to take the short cut across the fields.

  The Aga was the big stove in the farmhouse kitchen. It had four ovens, all at different temperatures. The bottom left-hand one gave off a very gentle heat, ideal for warming sick baby animals. Jasmine had revived a lamb, a piglet and even a fawn in this way, but she had never had a hedgehog in the Aga before.

  “Yes, the Aga will be perfect,” said Nadia. “So it’s got no obvious injuries?”

  “No, but it’s dehydrated and really cold.”

  “That’s not good,” said Nadia. “Put it straight in the Aga, and keep it wrapped up.”

  “Should we give it some milk?”

  “Not until it’s warmed up, or the body will take all the fluid from the vital organs to digest the food and the hoglet will collapse. You can put a jam-jar lid of water at body temperature in the box with it. If it’s learned to lap on its own, it might drink a bit of that. They don’t like tap water though – use rainwater from the water butt.”

  “When will you be home?” asked Jasmine.

  “I’m just finishing up here. I should be less than an hour. I’ll bring some rehydration fluid and kitten formula. Leave the hoglet in the Aga until I get there. It will be very stressed, poor thing, so the warmth and quiet will be just what it needs.”

  “Thanks, Mum,” said Jasmine. “See you soon.”

  “What’s wrong?” asked Tom, as she silently handed his phone back.

  “Mum thinks it’s going to die.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “No, but I could tell by her voice. That’s the voice she always uses when an animal’s going to die. But we won’t let it.”

  “We should give it a name,” said Tom. “What’s a good name for a baby hedgehog?”

  The hoglet made a little grunting sound.

  “Snuffle!” Jasmine said. “That’s your name, little hoglet. Do you like it?”

  Snuffle gave a squeak in reply.

  “I think that was a yes,” said Tom.

  “We’ll make you better, Snuffle,” said Jasmine. “We’ll look after you, don’t you worry.”

  When they got to Oak Tree Farm, Jasmine fetched a sturdy cardboard box from the garage and lined it with straw. Tom gently placed Snuffle in the box, snuggled in the bobble hat, with the towel for a blanket. Jasmine filled a jam-jar lid with rainwater from the water butt, placed it beside Snuffle and slid the box into the oven, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  “There you are, Snuffle,” she said. “That will warm you up.”

  She fetched the hedgehog book from her bedroom, where her cats, Toffee and Marmite, were curled up together on the bed.

  “Guess what?” she said to them. “There’s a baby hedgehog downstairs! I don’t know what you’ll think of him, so I won’t introduce you yet.”

  She and Tom sat at the kitchen table to read up on hedgehog care. They were looking at the chapter on feeding orphans when the back door opened.

  “Hello!” Nadia called from the scullery. They heard her taking off her coat and putting her bags down, and then she opened the kitchen door and smiled at them.

  “Well, you’ve had an eventful afternoon,” she said. “How are things? Is the hoglet safe in the Aga?”

 

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