The Backyard Animal Show

by Sharon M. Draper

  “So what do we do now?” Jerome asked.

  “We’ll take him to my house, mon,” Ziggy replied. “My mum won’t mind.”

  “Yeah, right,” Rico said. “Mothers always mind that kind of stuff!”

  “Jerome, can we use your sweatshirt?” Ziggy asked.

  “Sure.” Jerome stripped off the shirt, which was still warm from his body, and gave it to Ziggy. He shivered a little because he had on only a T-shirt under it.

  Ziggy carefully placed the shirt on the fawn’s back. It didn’t try to move or get away, so Ziggy wrapped the shirt around as much of the fawn’s body as he could reach. “Rashawn, you’re the strongest of us, I think. Can you lift him?”

  Rashawn flexed his muscles, reached down, and gently lifted the baby deer from its nest. They made sure it was completely blanketed by Jerome’s shirt, then, very carefully, the four boys hurried out of the woods with the red-shirted fawn nestled snugly in Rashawn’s arms and headed to Ziggy’s house.

  “LET’S TAKE IT UP TO MY BEDROOM, MON,” ZIGGY SAID AS THEY GOT CLOSE TO HIS HOUSE.

  “Why not just hide it in the clubhouse?” Rico asked.

  “This is a baby, mon! It needs to be inside, where it’s warm,” Ziggy insisted.

  Rico shook his head and laughed. “Your bedroom may never be the same, Ziggy,” he warned.

  Ziggy ignored Rico. “If we go in the back door by the deck, maybe my mum won’t see us.”

  “Mothers see everything,” Jerome said with a grin. The others nodded in agreement. “We need to distract her somehow.”

  “I have an idea,” Rico said. “Me and Ziggy will ask her for something to eat, while Rashawn and Jerome take the fawn upstairs.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Rashawn said. “Let’s hurry. This little deer is heavier than it looks.”

  Ziggy opened the back door to his house and looked inside. His mother, as he had expected, was in the kitchen, but she was looking in the refrigerator for something on the bottom shelf and didn’t immediately turn around. Ziggy motioned to Rashawn and Jerome to tiptoe onto the deck, through the kitchen, and up the steps. They moved as quickly as they could, considering Rashawn was clutching a live deer.

  “Did you boys enjoy watching the builders and the trucks?” Ziggy’s mom asked as she closed the refrigerator door, a head of lettuce in her hand.

  “Oh yes, Mum,” Ziggy replied. “It was awesome!”

  “Vroom! Vroom!” Rico said, making more noise than necessary and moving around the kitchen as if he were driving a bulldozer. “Biggest engines in the world!”

  “Are you boys hungry?” Mrs. Colwin asked as she reached in a cupboard for some instant noodles.

  “Starving, Mum!” Ziggy replied. “Can you fix some for the four of us? Don’t forget to put jelly and lemons in mine. I like my pasta sweet and sour.”

  “Ziggy, you’re a mess,” Rico said, laughing. “How do you eat all that weird stuff?” Both boys talked just a little bit louder than they had to, and laughed a little more than really necessary, but they kept Mrs. Colwin busy with their chatter. Rico and Ziggy glanced toward the stairs every few minutes.

  Ziggy’s mom made four steaming bowls of instant noodles: one vegetarian for Rashawn; two chicken-favored servings for Jerome and Rico; and Ziggy’s specially spiced jelly- and lemon-flavored dish. “Well, my young adventurers,” she said as she put the bowls on the kitchen table, “lunch is ready. Call Rashawn and Jerome down here and tell them to come and eat.”

  “Uh, they’re working on a secret project for the Black Dinosaurs, Mum,” Ziggy said. “Can we eat upstairs?” He looked at her with his brightest smile.

  She looked at her son and smiled back at him, touching his face gently. “You think I’m fooled by your noisy truck sounds and your giggles and your stomping around my kitchen?” She folded her arms across her chest, but she didn’t look angry.

  “What do you mean, Mrs. Colwin?” Rico asked, although he was pretty sure he knew what she would say. He shifted from one foot to the other. He and Ziggy looked at each other guiltily.

  “So tell me, what do you plan to do with the fawn?”

  Ziggy started to say, “What fawn?” but it was too late. “How did you know, Mum?”

  “I watched you from the upstairs window as you walked down the street heading here. It’s very hard to overlook four boys carrying a deer wrapped in a red shirt.” She chuckled.

  “So why didn’t you say something when we came in?” Ziggy asked.

  “I wanted to see what you would do, so I purposely pretended to look in the other direction as you came in. You can’t fool a mom, you know.”

  “We didn’t know what else to do, Mum,” Ziggy wailed.

  “We couldn’t just let it die, Mrs. Colwin,” Rico explained. “The poor little thing’s mother got hit by a truck at the construction site, and it was all alone.”

  Just then Jerome and Rashawn, after noisily stomping down the steps, came back into the kitchen. They glanced at Ziggy and Rico, who looked down at the floor.

  “Oh, you fixed lunch for us! Thanks, Mrs. Colwin,” Rashawn said as he pulled up a chair.

  “Wash your hands before you eat, all four of you,” Ziggy’s mother said. “There’s no telling what kind of germs a little deer might carry.”

  Rashawn and Jerome looked at Ziggy and Rico with surprise. “You told her?” Jerome asked.

  “She already knew, mon,” Ziggy said.

  “I told you! Moms are like magic,” Jerome replied, awe in his voice.

  After the boys washed their hands, they ate quickly, glancing nervously at Ziggy’s mother, who tapped her fingers on the countertop.

  “Well, let’s go take a look at this fawn of yours,” she said after Ziggy put all four bowls in the sink. “What made you think you could hide a deer from me in my own house, Ziggy?”

  “I dunno, Mum. I was gonna tell you—eventually.”

  “When it grew up and weighed two hundred pounds?”

  “They get that big?” Jerome asked as they all headed up the steps.

  “Yes, with antlers and hooves and legs that can help them jump six feet in the air. This is a wild animal you’ve found, boys, not a kitten or a puppy. You can’t raise it like a pet.”

  The walls of Ziggy’s bedroom were decorated with posters of guitar-playing Jamaican reggae singers, his favorite soccer players, and an old treasure map that had once gotten Ziggy and his friends trapped in an underground tunnel. Clothes were strewn all over the floor, and a pair of tennis shoes had been tossed on one twin bed, which was unmade. The other twin bed seemed to serve as a storage space for Ziggy’s various collections of golf balls, baseball cards, and bottle caps. It was a comfortable room.

  Curled in a corner, on one of Ziggy’s blankets that Jerome and Rashawn had arranged for it, the big-eyed fawn watched them carefully as they tiptoed close to it.

  “How old do you think it is, Mrs. Colwin?” Jerome asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I’d figure about three or four weeks old,” she replied, her face a frown.

  “It’s so soft,” Rashawn said, “and warm. When I was carrying it here, it felt like one of those stuffed animals my two little sisters play with, only it was alive and real.”

  “This is no toy,” Rico said seriously.

  Then the fawn made a faint noise that was a cross between a cry, a whine, and a bleat—a soft baby sound of need.

  “What’s wrong with it, Mum?” Ziggy asked.

  “It’s hungry, son. How do you plan to feed it?” She put her hands on her hips and let the boys try to figure out an answer.

  “What does it eat?” Rashawn asked.

  “My grandmother is always complaining about how the deer come into our yard at night and eat her tulips,” Jerome said. “Maybe we should chop up some flowers.”

  “That won’t work. This is just a baby,” Rico reasoned. “It needs milk.”

  “Maybe I should go downstairs and get some milk from the refrigerator,” Ziggy suggest
ed.

  “Then what?” Rico asked. “Are you going to serve it to the deer in a coffee cup?”

  “No, mon, from my favorite plastic zebra cup that I got at the zoo last year!”

  “That’s not gonna work, Ziggy,” Jerome told him.

  “I know,” Ziggy replied with a sigh.

  “This is a deer. Can it drink cow’s milk?” Rashawn asked. “Does it make a difference?”

  The fawn continued to cry out.

  “What shall we do, Mum?” Ziggy finally asked, starting to sound frantic.

  MRS. COLWIN SAT DOWN ON THE FLOOR VERY CLOSE TO THE YOUNG DEER. She motioned for the boys to do the same. “When I was a girl in Jamaica,” she began, “we raised goats. Every once in a while a young one would lose its mother and we’d have to hand feed it.”

  “How?” Jerome asked.

  “With a baby bottle,” Ziggy’s mom replied.

  “How cool!” Ziggy said, jumping up with excitement.

  “Regular cow’s milk?” Rashawn asked.

  “No, I imagine a fawn needs a very high fat content in its food. Goat’s milk would probably work for this little one.” Mrs. Colwin sighed.

  “Where will we get goat’s milk? Do they sell it at the grocery store?”

  “Yes, in the larger stores. Actually, I have one tin of goat’s milk in the back of my cupboard,” she replied. “Remember, Ziggy, when your uncle Raphael from Jamaica visited last year? He was allergic to all dairy products except for goat’s milk.”

  “I remember!” Ziggy said. “It tasted a little like ice cream with butter in it.”

  “This sounds like fun!” Rico said. “We’ve got a baby bottle at home. My little cousin left it last week.”

  “Do you know how often it needs to be fed?” Mrs. Colwin asked, her voice patient and understanding.

  “Twice a day?” Rico asked hopefully.

  “Be for real, mon,” Ziggy said. “We eat all day long, and we’re not babies.”

  “It will need to be fed at least every three or four hours for the next couple of weeks—that means daytime and nighttime. Are you willing to do that?” Mrs. Colwin asked.

  “Uh, sure, Mum! We’ll take turns feeding it—won’t we, guys?” Ziggy looked at the other three boys.

  “This is a great project for the Black Dinosaurs!” Rashawn replied with enthusiasm.

  “We’ll make sure it’s cared for real good!” Jerome added.

  “We’ll make up a chart and assign feeding times,” Rico said, always the practical one.

  “Are you sure you boys know what you’re getting into?” Mrs. Colwin insisted. “You have to feed it at three in the morning. What about when you are at school?”

  “Well, we have these two weeks off for spring break,” Rashawn said.

  “And after you go back to school? What then?” Mrs. Colwin asked.

  None of the boys had an answer.

  “Aren’t you always telling me I should show responsibility, Mum?” Ziggy asked. “We can do this. We promise! Right, guys?”

  His mother looked unconvinced.

  The fawn bleated again, this time louder and with more desperation. It stood up on wobbly legs and looked at them with expectation.

  “We’d better hurry!” Rashawn said. “It’s really hungry.”

  Just then they heard a loud, wet-sounding, distinctive SPLAT! The odor that followed was powerful, overwhelming, and disgusting. The whole room was filled with the stench of the remains of the fawn’s last meal.

  “Oooh, yuck, mon!” Ziggy cried. “It pooped all over my blanket!”

  “What a stink!” Jerome said, waving his hand across his nose.

  “Everything poops,” Rico said reasonably, but he went to open Ziggy’s bedroom window. “I tried to warn you, Ziggy.”

  Mrs. Colwin chuckled. “Yes, but not in my house. That was going to be my next suggestion. You’ll have to keep the deer in the shed in the back. There’s electricity in there, and you can plug in a small heater to keep it warm.”

  “Did we do the right thing, Mum?” Ziggy asked, more serious than usual.

  “I understand how you didn’t want to leave it to die. But nature has a way of taking care of its own, son,” she replied. “Humans, especially untrained boys like you and your friends, don’t have the capability to care for wild animals.”

  “Thanks, Mum, for letting us try,” Ziggy said. He gave his mother a big hug.

  She hugged him back, then said, “Well, the little deer will die if we don’t get food in it soon. You boys better hustle.”

  Rico took charge. “Rashawn, call your dad and get the number of the vet who takes care of Afrika so we can call her to find out what to do.”

  Rashawn ran to the phone.

  “Jerome, you and Ziggy get the fawn settled in the shed.” He paused. “We’re gonna have to wash that blanket.”

  “You got that right, mon!” Ziggy said, making a face.

  “I’ll run to my house and get that baby bottle,” Rico said. He looked hopefully at Ziggy’s mother.

  She looked at the boys. “And I’ll see if I can find that tin of goat’s milk. If this works, I’ll buy some more, but I’m not getting up in the middle of the night to feed your deer, understand?”

  “Yes, Mum,” Ziggy said.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Colwin,” the others chorused.

  Jerome knelt down and touched the fawn on its snout. It grabbed one of his fingers and began to suck on it. “Aw, man, would you look at this,” he said, wonder in his voice. “It likes me!”

  “It’s so hungry that it thinks your fingers are chocolate bars, mon,” Ziggy said. “Let’s hurry.”

  Jerome and Ziggy took the fawn downstairs to the shed, while Rico ran to get the baby bottle.

  By the time he got back with it, Rashawn had talked to the vet, the fawn was settled on a soft pile of leaves and pine needles, and Ziggy’s mom had warmed the goat’s milk and let the boys know their fawn was a male. She poured the milk carefully into the bottle and secured the nipple, then handed it to Ziggy.

  “The vet said to hold the bottle up high, about the height that he would ordinarily nurse from his mother,” Rashawn reported. “She also said that he could eat some solid food like deer pellets and some grass.”

  “What’s a deer pellet?” Rico asked.

  “Something like dog chow, only it’s for deer. You can get it at any feed store, she said.”

  “You think you could get some of that while you’re out, Mum?” Ziggy asked hopefully. “You’re being so nice about this.”

  “Yeah, we think you’re really cool, Mrs. Colwin,” Jerome added with a grin.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Ziggy’s mom replied, rolling her eyes at the boys. “For now, I have things to do in the house. Make sure the shed is locked when you come back inside.” She left the boys alone with the fawn.

  “The vet also said we should call the Ohio Wildlife Refuge Center. They take care of abandoned creatures and wild strays,” Rashawn said, “but they don’t like taking care of baby animals, she told me. They want him to be a little older.”

  “Good! He needs us right now,” Jerome said. “Will he take the bottle, Ziggy?”

  Ziggy held the nipple of the baby bottle close to the deer’s mouth. It grabbed on so quickly and forcefully that he almost dropped it. “Whoa, mon! Look at him gobble that milk! We’re not going to have a problem getting him to eat!”

  The fawn finished the eight ounces of liquid in the bottle quickly. Then it burped. The four boys laughed as it looked at them with those large black eyes.

  “What shall we name him?” Rico asked.

  “What about Bambi?” Rashawn suggested.

  “This isn’t a cartoon—he’s real,” Jerome said.

  “What about Noodle, mon?” Ziggy said. “That’s what we had to eat today.” He was gently rubbing the fawn across his head and neck.

  The other boys shook their heads.

  “We’re the Black Dinosaurs, right?” Rico said, th
inking out loud. “So let’s call him Dino.”

  “Dino the deer! I like it!” Jerome said, grinning.

  As Ziggy gently caressed the deer on its back, Dino fell asleep, his head resting on Ziggy’s other hand.

  THE NEXT TWO WEEKS SPED BY QUICKLY. Between watching the construction workers, playing with the fawn, and feeding it, there was barely time for the boys to eat or rest. Rico, as he had promised, made up a chart that gave the boys a schedule of feeding times, which they stretched to every four to five hours. It wasn’t so bad during the day, when everybody was awake and daylight made it easy, but the middle-of-the-night feedings were rough. Their parents were surprisingly supportive of the project but had insisted that the night feedings include two boys, as well as a parent to keep an eye out to make sure they were safe.

  Around three a.m. on the Saturday before school was scheduled to resume, Ziggy and Rashawn stumbled into Ziggy’s shed with flashlights. Ziggy’s mom waved sleepily from the kitchen window. Rashawn had spent the night since it was his turn to do a middle-of-the-night feeding. Dino, who in two weeks had grown quite a bit, stood up on legs no longer wobbly and ran to them, searching in Ziggy’s pocket for the slices of apple he always kept there.

  “Hey, little Dino, mon!” Ziggy said sleepily. “You always seem so glad to see us!”

  As Rashawn fed the deer from the bottle, he said, “This has been hard, man, but I think it’s the best thing we’ve ever done.”

  “You got that right. Even the poop cleanup and the midnight feedings have been fun,” Ziggy agreed.

  “Sorta,” Rashawn said with a laugh as Dino nuzzled his neck.

  “What happens when school starts again on Monday, mon?” Ziggy asked with concern.

  “Well, the vet said we could stretch out the bottle feedings. She said as long as we leave lots of water and deer pellets and some of those apples he likes so much, we can give him his milk just before we leave for school and just as soon as we get home.”

  “Do you think he’ll be lonely while we’re gone?” Ziggy asked.

  “I have a feeling your mother will check on our little Dino,” Rashawn said. “I think she really likes him.”