A Handful of Happiness

by Massimo Vacchetta

  Then I spun around, turning my back to the badger, holding Ninna close to my chest to protect her. But not before I saw its jaws splayed in our direction. And the flash of its teeth. It didn’t attack me. Maybe it grunted again or snorted. But I don’t remember clearly. I’m not sure. It was too much of a shock. But it didn’t do anything to me. I just left. The night fell silent. The only audible sound was the beat of my heart. No…there was something else, too: Ninna’s little heart, next to mine, was just as strong and fast. In unison.

  Heart to heart. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

  Panting, I listened, listening to that frenetic rhythm, and I realized how much I loved that little creature. She and I, as our hearts quieted, returned home nice and slow. Ninna still in my arms. Above, the stars trembled.

  15

  My father and I had arranged to meet for coffee. We hadn’t seen each other for weeks. We sat at a small table next to a large window overlooking the street and started to talk. When we seemed to have caught each other up on everything, we turned to look outside, but without seeing. Then we resumed talking. It was raining. A day the color of the melancholy that had been weighing on me for some time. After staring at a burned-out streetlight on the corner for a while, he turned back to me and said, “You’ve lost weight.” He hesitated for a moment and then, in a worried tone, added, “You look tired. And sad. Is Ninna still with you?”

  Tears started to fall down my cheeks, beyond my control. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Yes, I still have Ninna. I should set her free, but I can’t do it,” I stammered, my voice breaking with emotion.

  “A wild animal needs to be free, be happy. You have to let her go.”

  “I tried, once. But she didn’t go. She waited for me. It’s just that I…I’ve gotten so attached to her.”

  “How can you be attached to a little wild animal? Ninna’s a hedgehog! She’s not a dog. Not even a cat.”

  “I don’t think it’s that weird to be attached to a hedgehog—”

  “Regardless, Massimo, you need to think about her well-being. Not just your own.”

  My father was right. And his words made me think twice. But I was still conflicted.

  Freedom.

  What a beautiful word. It has the scent of open fields and the color of the sky. You can breathe it in until it intoxicates you, that blue sky and vibrant grass and boundless space. You can soar in the arms of a soft wind.

  My little Ninna, on the other hand, was still in chains.

  What scared me about setting her free? That I’d never see her again. But also that she might not make it.

  The prison I kept her in was much safer.

  She was used to the yard and the surrounding fields. Plus, she had learned to hunt. But that wasn’t enough. According to the guidelines, both Italian and international, as Giulia told me, a hedgehog has to weigh at least six hundred fifty grams to be released in the fall. That way, for hibernation, it will have enough fat reserves to stay alive through the winter.

  I had read that if you release a hedgehog in spring, it can get by on a weight of five hundred grams, because it will have a long stretch with an abundant food supply, which it can tap into as needed. But that wasn’t the case for Ninna. At the end of August, she weighed six hundred grams—enough to free her?

  Giulia, at least, had written me:

  You can release her.

  Just a couple of words. Four, to be exact. But they made me feel like I’d been run over by a tractor.

  Still, my female hedgehog weighed fifty grams below the required weight. If the charts say six hundred fifty, there must be a reason, right? Fifty grams for such a small animal wasn’t nothing.

  Okay, I confess, I was all too happy to go along with this excuse. I tried to convince Giulia that my little one could actually be considered borderline.

  She wrote back:

  I understand your eagerness to protect Ninna…but you’re not meeting her needs this way.

  The message cut me like a knife. But my sadness was partially mitigated by her next two messages:

  Massimo, I also feel bad when I release a hedgehog because I know how much I’ll miss it. But at the same time I’m happy, because I know it will be happy. Every hedgehog has a right to its freedom.

  Massimo, okay, leave Ninna in her pen. She can hibernate there. Prepare yourself for that separation first. You’ll see her next spring…

  I burst into tears once again. I was happy that Giulia understood and that my hedgehog would still be staying with me. But not seeing her all winter triggered more anguish. It was one of those moments—one cry after another.

  Meanwhile, the autumn painted its colors across the yard, fields, and woods. One evening, on October 14, something happened that surprised me no small amount. My mother and I had just finished dinner. I went to the window to check on Ninna, who was outside in her pen. Jack and Lilly were also in the yard. He was devotedly working on moving a rock, she happily running in circles around him. Illuminated by the yellow lights by the flowerbeds, they were clearly visible.

  I turned to my mother to answer a question she’d asked me, and when I looked back outside, the two dogs were gone. It was unusual for Jack to leave a task unfinished. A few seconds later, they both started barking like crazy. I called them, but they didn’t come. It was the aggressive way they barked when a stranger entered the garden. A little worried, I thought I’d go and check. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside. Lilly and Jack, in the back by the fence, right in the darkest spot of the yard, were frantically protesting against something or someone. When I got to them, I noticed nothing out of the ordinary, yet their crazed barking didn’t cease. I pointed the flashlight all around, but everything seemed in place. Finally, I managed to quiet them down.

  I was about to go back inside when I distinctly heard a sound I knew very well. My heart skipped a beat. My ear, trained by then, had caught the unmistakable thump thump thump of a hedgehog’s heart beating like mad. “Oh God, Ninna escaped from her pen!” I yelled in the dark. I rushed to the part of the yard where my hedgie was. There she was, busy hunting.

  So whose frightened little heart was that, then?

  I ran back to where the dogs had resumed their nervous barking. I pushed some flowers aside and parted the bushes. And finally I saw it. It was a frightened hedgehog. I picked it up gently. It balled up, in self-defense. But then it opened a little, enough to show its nose. It was a beautiful creature. It had the sweetest eyes I’d ever seen. What to do? I called for my mother to come and asked her to close Lilly and Jack up somewhere. Then I started exchanging texts with Giulia.

  I found a hedgehog in the yard!

  Is it big or small?

  Smaller than Ninna. Looks like five hundred grams or so.

  It’s a little close to the weight limit for surviving hibernation, but there’s still time. Maybe it’ll make it if you feed it regularly.

  Giulia, it’s a boy!!! :)

  Ha! Guess word’s gotten around that a pretty lady lives there!!! :)

  I set the hedgehog on the ground right where I’d found him and rushed to get him some dry food—kitten chow, which hedgehogs also really like—and water.

  But the next night, the little guy was gone. The food and water remained, untouched.

  I changed the water so it would be fresh, and replaced the old food with some new.

  Several days went by. The hedgehog had vanished. However, sometimes some of the food was gone.

  I consulted Giulia once again:

  I can’t tell if it’s the hedgehog eating the food. It could be the neighbor’s cat or some other nocturnal animal.

  She suggested:

  Try putting out pine nuts with it. Cats don’t like them. So if they’re gone too, it’s probably the hedgehog. But also consider the possibility that you won’t see him again. He could have
just been passing through.

  I regretted not keeping him. I would have given him plenty of food to prepare him for the winter. Nevertheless, I kept leaving kitten chow with pine nuts in different spots across the yard. I found a small hole in the fence. Surely that’s where the hedgehog had come in. I always put out a little canned meat near it.

  On October 26, after dinner, I went to collect the old food and put out some more as usual. And next to the hole in the fence was the hedgehog! My heart leapt with joy. He looked up at me with his sweet little eyes. He didn’t move—he had the embarrassed look of someone who’d been caught red-handed. Or maybe he was simply blinded by the glare of my flashlight. Slowly, I reached out and picked him up. His tender, helpless gaze enchanted me.

  16

  I went back inside and weighed the hedgehog. Four hundred fifty grams. I examined him thoroughly to make sure he was all right. His breathing was fast. I thought it was probably due to fear, but I wasn’t sure. He had a few ticks stuck in his skin. I passed along this initial information to Giulia. She responded immediately:

  He’s a little small. Keep him under observation for a few days, just to figure out what’s best to do for him.

  The next day—Sunday—Greta came over. Lately, maybe in part because I was still at my mother’s, we saw each other a little less. I immediately showed her the new hedgehog.

  “You’re right, he has the sweetest expression. What a cute little guy! What have you named him?” she asked enthusiastically.

  “I found him last night. I haven’t thought of a name yet.”

  “What do you think of Angel Face?”

  “Nah, too long.”

  “Well, since we already have a Ninna, what about Ninno?”

  “We’re sure imaginative in our choice of names!” I replied, laughing.

  She laughed, too. “Oh, come on now. Ninna and Ninno. What a pair!”

  Well, after all, I did like the name Ninno.

  The hedgehog, or “hedgehoggle,” as Greta had cleverly dubbed him, ate the food I put in his cage with a fair appetite. I had carefully pulled off his ticks with tweezers and made sure to remove their heads as well. I didn’t use any products, because when a tick is disturbed it releases toxins into its host.

  I rechecked every last millimeter of his skin: all clear. So that was one problem solved. But I was concerned about his breathing. I sent Giulia a video.

  She replied:

  It’s not easy to tell from the video. To be safe, I’d recommend you x-ray his lungs. Ciao.

  PS: Even though you’ve gotten rid of the ticks, it might be good to give Ninno an anti-insect treatment. Choose one hedgehogs can tolerate.

  I decided to take the hedgehog to Gianni, a close friend of mine from Asti and a vet who specialized in cats and dogs. He examined him meticulously, inside and out. “In my opinion, he’s fine. I don’t see any progression of disease. He has no intestinal parasites. The x-rays will be ready in a minute, but they should be normal,” he said to me calmly.

  “Great! I’ll go put Ninno in the car and come back to see the x-rays.”

  I put him in a little cardboard box in the backseat, gave him a little blanket, and went back in the clinic. Gianni was spot-on: The x-rays proved him right. I told him good-bye and left, completely happy. Back at the car, I went to check on Ninno. His box was empty! I couldn’t figure out how it was possible. But he wasn’t there. I searched the whole car—backseat, front seat, trunk. And again. And again. Vanished! He couldn’t have just evaporated! And the car was locked, so no one could have taken him. I felt like I was in a nightmare. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

  What could I do? Well, Ninno was little, and he could have squeezed into who knows where. I would have to check every tiny nook. With mounting worry, I started pulling out all the things I kept in the car. My surgical tool case. The box with all the syringes. Then the metal detector—I use it to find metal foreign objects that animals have accidentally ingested—and the box of magnets. And the thermometer set. And the stethoscope. And the pack of IVs. Two plastic boxes of medications. Artificial insemination sheaths. Ultrasound machine. Esophageal probe. Vaginal probe. Speculum. Bucket. Boots. Can of liquid nitrogen for preserving sperm. Disinfectant. Long-sleeved gloves. Short-sleeved gloves. Plastic shoe covers. Plastic smocks. Exam coats. Extra shirts. Various headwear, including a cowboy hat. An overnight bag with forms for prescriptions and certificates. An iPod I hadn’t seen in years. A few dozen veterinary newspapers and magazines. Ninno’s empty box and useless blanket. And maybe some other things I don’t remember now.

  I cleared out the car and littered the ground. All that random stuff spilled onto the sidewalk and the square, undoubtedly creating a surreal scene. But Ninno was nowhere to be found. He couldn’t have gotten out of the car! Or could he? Dejected, I looked around, and only then did I realize that six or seven curious people had stopped to watch me. I was upset, but I was still able to see flashes of puzzlement in their eyes.

  So I said, “You’ll have to excuse me, I hope I haven’t created an inconvenience. I’m going to put everything back now. It’s just that I lost my hedgehog.” My apology garnered a few benevolent smiles. But at “lost hedgehog,” my audience suddenly split: One half thought it was an implausible excuse and shook their heads with disappointment; the other half questioned my mental health. A few, just to be safe, stepped away. Overwhelmed by worry, I didn’t mind them and instead began telling Ninno’s story. How I found him, removed his ticks, how he was too small, how I had taken him for x-rays. “I took everything out of the car, but he’s nowhere,” I concluded, discouraged.

  A girl in a red jacket pointed at a spot in the car and said, “There’s one more box back there.”

  “Yes, but it’s locked, he couldn’t have gotten in there,” I objected glumly.

  Nonetheless, I opened it and…there was Ninno! He was sleeping peacefully, nestled on top of my scrubs. How had he managed to get himself in there? Shifting things around, I saw the case had a little hole in the back. Happy, I took the hedgehog in my hand and, displaying him like a trophy, shouted at the bystanders: “Found him!” At that, the girl in the red jacket started clapping and cheering. The rest soon followed suit. Big smiles all around, and eyes full of wonder directed at Ninno.

  Meanwhile, he’d woken up and was looking up at me sleepily. After petting him gently for a moment, I put him back in his box. Some of the onlookers helped me load all the country veterinarian gear back into the car. When everything was in place, I thanked them and got in the car to return home. Some waved, others yelled good-bye. The girl in the red jacket blew Ninno a kiss.

  That same night, I told my cousin Francesco about our little adventure. We both cracked up at the image of me emptying out the car with an audience of onlookers. Well, all’s well that ends well.

  “I thought of an idea,” I said abruptly. “I want to make a park where hedgehogs and other wild animals can live safe and happy.”

  “Where do we start?” was his pleased response.

  I bought a hundred oak saplings, and Francesco and I planted them in a row on the hill near our house on a plot of land my mother owned. That was a step. If Ninna had inspired my dream to create a center for hedgehogs, Ninno had sparked the fantasy of a sanctuary devoted to them.

  It all started with my Ninna, seen here when she was a baby, sleeping peacefully. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Now fully grown and exploring in a meadow. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  The sweet and timid Ninno. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Jo, the hoglet without toes. In this photo she had just arrived at the center. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Trilly, on splendid form, around 1.5 kilos, on the day of his release into the wild. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Selina and Jo. Both are still at the La Ninna center, in a large outdoor enclosur
e. Their expressions here are very sweet. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Selina, our dear old woman. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Zoe. Elderly and missing an eye—which you can’t really see in this photo—and with a damaged limb, but despite this quite spry. He is very greedy when it comes to kitten food. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Taking care of the babies. (Photo by Esther Amrein)

  The sympathy of Zampa, a disabled hedgehog. (Photo by Claudio Coccino)

  Me with my adorable Lisa, the little woodland warrior. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  Carolina. She weighed less than a rosebud when she first arrived. She was so small, she stole my heart. (Photo by Massimo Vacchetta)

  A baby, only a few days old. (Photo by Enrico Chiavassa)

  A week-old hoglet drinking some milk. (Photo by Enrico Chiavassa)

  A baby of only 3–4 weeks of age. (Photo by Claudio Coccino)

  One of the last babies to arrive at the center. She’s a naughty little one who’s always hungry! (Photo by Claudio Coccino)