A Handful of Happiness

by Massimo Vacchetta

  One of the patients of the center before his release into the wild. (Photo by Claudio Coccino)

  Two little orphans saved by the center. (Photo by Claudio Coccino)

  Three little brothers near weaning. (Photo by Claudio Coccino)

  A baby of about two months. (Photo by Enrico Chiavassa)

  Sissi, a disabled hedgehog who lives at the center. (Photo by Enrico Chiavassa)

  Part of the La Ninna center, equipped for our tiny guests. (Photo by Bruno Murialdo)

  A bit of relaxation after a good dinner at the center. (Photo by Enrico Chiavassa)

  A hoglet: a bout of sleep after eating. (Photo by Esther Amrein)

  A post-porridge belly massage. (Photo by Esther Amrein)

  Lisa, a piece of my heart. (Photo by Enrico Chiavassa)

  One of two disabled sisters in the center. (Photo by Esther Amrein)

  The tenderness of Ninno. (Photo by Massimo Vacchètta)

  17

  Ninna was eating less than usual. And at night, she was very restless. Agitated.

  Once I went over to calm her down. I held out my hand to her. “Ninna, for goodness’ sake, calm down!” She stopped for an instant and then tried to attack me. She tried to bite the hand I was holding out to her. I hadn’t expected that sort of reaction. It hurt me. But I took her in my arms. I got her to relax, and she seemed to go back to her usual self. However, the same thing happened again several times over the following nights.

  She was regaining her natural instincts. She wanted to leave. The song of her sirens was calling her. And she wanted to follow that ancient voice. But by now, it was too late to release her.

  Full of pity and guilt: that’s how I felt during those drizzly, leaden days…

  The weather was getting cooler and the nights longer. Fall was ending, and winter was drawing closer. Little by little, Ninna became less active. I reinforced the roof of her house, creating a sort of cavity wall that I insulated with hay. I wanted her to be well sheltered. Ninno, on the other hand, would stay in his cage in my mother’s garage. The ideal temperature for him was about sixty degrees. I would keep putting food out for him. He needed to reach a weight of six hundred fifty grams before going into hibernation.

  Giulia had written me:

  But Ninna should stay outside. Don’t bring her into the house. Temperature changes aren’t good for her. You’ll see her fall asleep. You shouldn’t wake her up. You’ll make her waste energy. Hibernation is necessary for hedgehogs. Leave her in peace. You’ll see her again in April. Trust her. She knows what to do.

  For several days, I thought I really needed to go home. I was happy at my mother’s, really. But it didn’t seem right to linger. I didn’t have an outdoor pen, however, so Ninna and Ninno would stay at her place.

  One morning, while we were drinking tea, my mom gave me a speech: “You can’t keep sleeping on that couch. You can’t get a decent night’s sleep that way. You know what? I’ll get a bed. A nice one, a queen. I’ll put it in the room next to the living room, and it can be your room.” She was radiant, her green eyes shining.

  I hated to put out that fire in her eyes, but the time had come. “I have to go back to my place. I went a couple days ago. It was like an abandoned house. I need to turn on the heat and clean up a little.” A shadow of sadness was cast over the room.

  “Houses fall into disrepair if you’re never there,” I added in a low voice. I was whispering, I felt like it hurt less that way.

  “Massimo, at least come over for dinner. Sometimes,” she said, after a long pause filled with lost looks and waves of thoughts. She was pretending not to be so dejected. She put on a cheerful mask and rattled off the dishes and treats she was going to prepare. “Sure, I’ll come for dinner. For a while,” I stated.

  I went to work, leaving my mother to tackle her errands. As if in a hall of mirrors, we left each other with identical little grins, both trying to hide the sadness that had overtaken us.

  The next day, Lilly, Jack, and I went home.

  Every night, I went to eat at my mother’s and diligently tended to Ninna and Ninno. This coming and going was tough on me, though. In the end, I made a decision: I would take the hedgehogs to my place and just go to my mother’s a couple of times a week. However, as I mentioned, I didn’t have an outdoor pen, only a small enclosure I’d built awhile back that wasn’t suitable for the season and their current needs. So I set up two big pens in my attic. It was a large open space with no heat and no furniture. It seemed ideal. I’d take Ninna and Ninno there.

  I knew Giulia wouldn’t agree. I was sure she’d get mad at me. Thus I didn’t write her about the move. I knew I was wrong, so I didn’t dare.

  Around then, it struck me to put the two hedgehogs together. I wanted them to meet. I was curious to see how they’d act. I hoped they’d become friends and, who knows, maybe fall in love. So I took Ninno and put him in Ninna’s pen. I sat for a while and observed them. She took the initiative and started sniffing at him. Then he sniffed, too. They blew puffs of air at each other a few times. She was much more aggressive than he. A shy one, he tried to curl up, roll into a ball, close himself off. She, arrogant and curious, circled him.

  After a long time of seeing this scene repeat itself monotonously, I left them to continue their meeting alone and went downstairs to take care of some other things. After a couple of phone calls and a few minutes on the computer to check my e-mail, I distinctly heard one of the hedgehogs huffing very loudly and repeatedly: fffoo, fffoo, fffoo. I’d never heard them breathe so forcefully. Were they fighting? I rushed up the stairs and reached the mansard with my heart in my mouth.

  I was dumbstruck. I’d been ready for anything, but not that.

  No, they weren’t fighting.

  Nor had romance blossomed between them.

  Quite the opposite.

  Before my unblinking, incredulous eyes was a sight that makes me laugh again now just thinking of it. A number straight out of Cirque du Soleil! Ninno was completely closed up like…a la hedgehog, let’s say. A perfect, stiff ball. Ninna, all serious and concentrated, was agilely, gingerly sliding her nose underneath him and then jerking him up, flipping him in the air. And so, she spun the Ninno-ball left and right, up and down, all over the pen. Hilarious! I burst out laughing. I was waiting for her at any moment to add to the performance and jump on top of the ball with an acrobatic bounce and land on tiptoe.

  To keep him from getting hurt, I took poor Ninno and put him back in his own pen. There was no love lost between those two. It probably wasn’t the season for romance anyway. Later, I discovered that hedgehogs don’t couple randomly, but go where their “attractions” pull them. Naturally, boys don’t pay so much attention to the details. Girls, on the other hand, seem to be a little more choosy.

  Winter dragged on. One night in December, there was a huge snowfall. The next day, everything was buried under a sizable layer of snow. From the attic window, I looked out at that endless white and was happy to have my hedgehogs here with me. Safe. Yes, I know, Ninna probably would have survived regardless. But I was much calmer this way. Ninno ate well and reached a weight of eight hundred grams. At that point, he ate less and started to sleep.

  Technically, my two hedgehogs weren’t in full-on hibernation, but a proto-hibernation. In actual hibernation, their physiological functions slow down to minimize energy consumption. Their heartbeat and breathing are drastically reduced. In nature, hedgehogs wake up only sporadically and never leave their nest; they just stay there and fall back asleep. Mine only slept for a few days at a time, then woke up and ate a little before resuming interrupted slumber. I checked on them now and then. I was afraid they were dead. So I’d touch Ninna. Irritated, she’d huff at me.

  Okay, she was alive.

  18

  Late February. A gorgeous nigh
t, though cold. I was driving fast. Traffic was scarce. I was heading back home from visiting two dear friends, Ezio and Daniela. They were part of the group I’d traveled with to Australia awhile back. In fact, Daniela, who is from Australia, had organized the trip. I was thinking about them and our conversation when I caught sight of something in the middle of the street, lit up by my brights. It took me the tiniest fraction of a second to realize that it was a hedgehog.

  What was a hedgehog doing in the middle of the road during hibernation season?

  Yet there it was.

  I braked hard, but I knew I didn’t have enough room to stop. So I tried to keep my wheels straight so that the hedgehog would be in the middle.

  If the hedgehog didn’t move, I’d go over without hitting it.

  If it didn’t move.

  There was nothing else I could do.

  I drove over the spot where the hedgehog was and turned around. Had I been able to avoid it? I turned on my emergency lights and backed up. When I got closer to that dark spot on the road, I stopped and leapt out of the car. I went over to the hedgehog. I hadn’t run it over. Thank heavens! It had stayed there without moving while my wheels passed alongside it. It was very thin—a stripe, a dark rectangle on the asphalt. For a second, I thought that it had been trying to die.

  In the distance, I glimpsed the lights of a truck that was rapidly approaching. There was no time to lose. I grabbed the hedgehog with my bare hands and felt its spines pierce my skin. But I paid no attention. I had to get it out of the roadway as fast as possible. I was just in time. The big rig’s driver honked madly, a drawn-out explosion that shattered the silent night. It passed me and the hedgehog and then my car. As he and his rage and incessant blaring faded into the distance, I realized I had to move the car. You couldn’t stop on the road. There was no shoulder; it was dangerous.

  More headlights, still small and far away, headed toward us. I certainly didn’t want to cause an accident. I jumped in the car, placed the hedgehog on my legs, and sped away. With one bleeding hand, I held the steering wheel; with the other, just as scraped, I softly pet the hedgehog. As I drove, I glanced down at him from time to time. I felt immensely bad for him.

  As soon as I got home, I weighed him. Three hundred eighty grams. Small. I’d expected as much. Then I put him in a cage with an old wool sweater on the bottom so he’d be warmer and more comfortable. Next to it, I left some food in a little bowl. Later, I went to check on him. Unfortunately, he hadn’t eaten: Everything was exactly as I’d left it. The hedgehog also hadn’t moved an inch. I wrote to Giulia. She replied:

  It’s almost certainly had a collapse. Don’t give it food. You need to warm it up and rehydrate it first.

  As soon as I read her message, I set a hot water bottle next to the hedgehog. Then I set up an IV with equal parts 5 percent glucose and Ringer’s solution. I took a pair of tweezers and lifted some of the spines in his lumbar region, and grabbed a fold of skin. Then I injected the liquid. The hedgehog had no reaction. Its expression was sad and defeated. I was worried. I took the cage and put it in my room next to my bed.

  Awhile later, I was awakened by a strange sound. What was that? My sleep-dulled senses couldn’t tell at first. But a few seconds later, it was clear. Coughing. Again. Close by. The hedgehog was coughing like a child. A baby. The coughs started out soft, then grew louder until they faded into a long, exhausted cry. A silent pause and then it started all over again, painfully identical. Besides the cough, sometimes the poor thing would vomit. I quickly wrote Giulia, who passed me on to Gérard. He recommended antibiotics. He told me the cough could be due to lungworm. I should have him checked out as soon as possible.

  The following morning, I took the hedgehog to my friend Gianni, and his microscopic examination revealed a large quantity of the parasite’s larvae. Transmission usually occurs by ingesting infected slugs or snails. Host and parasite can live in equilibrium, but if the hedgehog gets sick or weak, the lungworm can start to take over and cause serious respiratory illness.

  So that was why the hedgehog hadn’t gone into hibernation. Or maybe he had, but then woke up due to the cough or, in any case, because he didn’t feel well. I quickly began treatment, but he still wasn’t eating. Someone suggested I call him Trilly. I don’t remember who, but this time it wasn’t Greta. I liked “Trilly.” It made me think of sweet sounds, fairy tales. I thought it was lovely.

  It was Saturday night, and I had plans to go out with friends. Instead, I sat down with the hedgehog and started talking to him. “Trilly, everyone’s going out tonight and having fun. Whereas I’m going to stay with you and keep you company, try and help you. Okay? But in return you need to do me a favor. You have to eat. Okay?” He looked at me. When I asked “Okay?” he seemed to pay more attention. Maybe it was the change in tone that made him more alert.

  I prepared a special mix. I soaked a handful of kitten chow in water. Then I added a teaspoon of wet cat food. I blended it all together, watering it down a little to make a soft puree, and added a few drops of vitamin B. I drew the mixture up into a syringe. The hedgehog had his back to me. I put the syringe next to his mouth; he promptly turned the other way. I brought the syringe toward his mouth again. This back and forth between his little head and my syringe happened at least twenty times. Left, right, left, right.

  Until…

  During this relay of turns, without meaning to, I squirted some of the food on his nose. At that, Trilly stopped moving his head and started licking his whiskers, his tongue smacking with a rhythmic slurp. He liked my stew. He still had his back to me, but his face was turned in my direction. His eyes were brighter. He seemed to be asking for the food. I slowly depressed the plunger, and Trilly ate. And ate. I didn’t force him, I just followed his lead. Had my little speech about Saturday night done the trick, or did he just appreciate my efforts as a five-star chef for hedgehogs? All kidding aside, it was probably the antibiotics starting to take effect, but—if you’ll grant me the indulgence—the dish I’d made was still worthy of note!

  From then on, Trilly always ate. As soon as he saw me with the syringe of food in my hand, he went wild with joy. Then he started eating on his own from a bowl. The cough and lungworm proved hard to eradicate, but ultimately they were defeated. Trilly started to fill out and put on weight. At the beginning of summer, he got to one and a half kilos!

  Rescuing a little creature in a pitiful state and watching him come back to life was amazing for me. I knew that I’d found my true calling: helping hedgehogs, those little animals that normally don’t generate much interest. Helping out, giving. On a Web site for hedgehog fans, I found a reflection that described my state of mind perfectly. I don’t remember every word of it, but the gist was this: “None of your days is fully lived until you’ve done something for someone who can never pay you back.” There. That was exactly what I wanted. And what I still want today.

  19

  The cold season was ending. I spent the long winter nights trying to understand the hedgehog world a little better. I wanted to learn, to understand. I devoured Pat Morris’s manual, Hedgehogs; Marina Setti’s The Hedgehog: I’m Here Too; and Hedgehogs in Veterinary Practice, the manual put out by the German association Pro Igel. And also Hedgehog Rehabilitation by Kate Bullen, and A Prickly Affair: My Life with Hedgehogs by Hugh Warwick.

  Surfing the Internet, I came upon some very interesting sites: the British Hedgehog Preservation Society; Vale Wildlife Hospital, one of the largest wild animal rescue centers in Europe; Hedgehog Bottom, an English hedgehog rescue center; Pro Igel, the primary German hedgehog association; and Friends of the Hedgehog, a Swiss organization. I started to interact, participating in their forum discussions, posting question after question. I met Toni and Dorthe, well-known hedgehog experts, the former English and the latter Danish.

  Dorthe. Our first encounter was unique. I’d just asked a question on an American hedgehog forum, and right away I received
a friend request on Facebook. From Denmark. It was Dorthe. I immediately accepted, and we began to chat, exchanging impressions and notes on hedgehogs. After a lengthy exchange of messages over the course of several days, I received a strange question. Dorthe asked:

  Are you a man?

  I replied:

  Yes, of course.

  She typed in response:

  Oh God, I’ve written you a hundred times thinking you were a woman!!! :)

  Simultaneously, we burst out laughing, she in Denmark and I in Italy. I wrote:

  Does it make a difference?

  Nooo!!! It’s just funny! I mean, it’s not funny that you’re a guy! It’s funny that I got it wrong! :)

  And thus, with ease and a smile, a precious friendship was born. It grew stronger in time and remains today—a friendship made of sharing advice about hedgehogs, of understanding that provides shelter and comfort, of pleasant banter and constructive comparison.

  Meanwhile, taking advantage of the nice weather, my cousin Francesco and I set up a large, ten-by-five-meter enclosure in my yard, with a sturdy fence around the perimeter. Inside there was an imposing century-old olive tree that would supply the necessary shade during the warm months. Plus the bushes. And a large rosemary plant. I was satisfied. It was really a nice, functional space. I also dug a few little holes—like mini-burrows—next to the olive tree.

  At the beginning of March, I put Ninna and Ninno and their houses in the new enclosure. They seemed happy. When I called Ninna, she came running. Ninno, on the other hand, grew increasingly standoffish and timid, often hiding. I’d find him later in a hole or under the rosemary bush. He’d even climb up it. One time I saw him right on top, perched on one of the highest branches. He seemed like a sparrow. He just sat there all calm and collected, king of the world.