Saving Itsy Bitsy

by Rebecca Johnson

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Abbey, Hannah and Talika are new recruits at Willowvale boarding school’s Vet Cadets program. And what a year it is turning out to be! Henrietta, the school pig, has had a very large litter of piglets. But something is wrong with Itsy Bitsy, the smallest piglet, and the girls must work together to fight for her life.

  There’s also the mystery of some stolen cattle to solve – it seems that saving lives and crime fighting through science are all just part of a normal school day for these clever Vet Cadets.

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  Chapter 1 Vets in the making

  Chapter 2 Thirteen

  Chapter 3 Calling Dr Brown

  Chapter 4 An itsy bitsy problem

  Chapter 5 Diarrhoea

  Chapter 6 Teamwork

  Chapter 7 An unexpected talent

  Chapter 8 Stampede

  Chapter 9 Missing

  Chapter 10 Evidence

  Chapter 11 The big question

  Chapter 12 The plan

  Chapter 13 Mmmm, meatloaf

  Chapter 14 A big decision

  Chapter 15 Guess who?

  Chapter 16 Auction action

  Chapter 17 Showtime

  Tips for Future Vets

  Acknowledgements

  For my daughter, Madelene.

  Because you are everything I could

  ever have wished for, and more.

  Love, Mum

  ‘This place reminds me of home,’ said Abbey, as the girls waited to get off the bus that had pulled up at the cattle stud.

  ‘Watch the manure,’ said Mr McPhail, their animal husbandry teacher.

  But Abbey wasn’t listening. Through the window, she had caught sight of three people standing in the dust beside cattle yards that held a large mob of fat Hereford cattle. She felt a sharp twang of homesickness in her belly, but pushed the feeling aside with a loud sigh.

  ‘Mind the –’ gasped Talika, but it was too late. Abbey had plonked her riding boot straight into the middle of a fresh cow pat as she stepped down off the bus.

  The other girls from Willowvale Girls Grammar stood with their mouths agape, waiting to see what Abbey would do. Hannah looked as though she was about to be ill.

  Abbey stared down at her boot surrounded by tan-coloured ooze, then lifted it up and stomped it clean in the dirt.

  ‘I did try to warn you,’ said Talika.

  Abbey glanced over at the graziers in their dusty boots and worn moleskin trousers, their hats pulled down over their eyes and sleeves rolled up to their elbows, before shrugging her shoulders and smiling. The graziers tipped their hats and smiled back. Abbey’s first instincts had been right. This place did feel just like home, even if home was more than six hours away.

  ‘Vet Cadets,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘This is Mr Vickery, and his daughter Jessica and son Robert. This family owns Sandown Hereford Stud, and they have very kindly allowed us to come along today to watch them vaccinate, worm and tag some of their calves.’

  ‘Is this going to hurt them?’ whispered Talika, looking at the adorable calves peering out from behind their enormous mothers. Unlike Abbey, she had very little experience working with cattle and had admitted to her friends that she found many of their field trips a little daunting.

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ said Abbey.

  ‘Sandown Herefords are some of the best cattle in the world,’ continued Mr McPhail. ‘Last year, Sandown’s prize bull, Sandown King the Third, won the Best Bull in Show at the national level, and these cattle are his offspring. We’re extremely lucky to have our school so close to this stud and, as Vet Cadets, you can learn a lot about good cattle practices here.’

  Abbey had heard of Sandown cattle before. When she’d visited shows with her parents’ cattle, they were almost always there. She went to an auction once where a Sandown bull had sold for $80,000! She was sure the Vickerys were friends with her father, but she hadn’t ever met them herself.

  Mr Vickery stepped forwards. He pushed his hat back with the twig that he held in his hand. Every now and then he swished a persistent fly from his tanned, weather-beaten face with it.

  ‘Cattle management has become more and more focused on not only what’s best for the farmer, but best for the cattle as well. The days of branding cattle are almost behind us in Australia, mainly because of the concerns of animal welfare groups. Does anyone know what’s been introduced instead of branding?’

  Abbey was the only person to shoot her hand into the air.

  She noticed that Mr Vickery looked a little surprised that someone might know the answer. He nodded in Abbey’s direction.

  ‘NLIS tags,’ she said without hesitation.

  Mr Vickery glanced at Mr McPhail, clearly impressed.

  ‘Abbey is John Mason’s daughter,’ said Mr McPhail.

  The Vickerys smiled broadly. ‘Well, there won’t be a lot we can teach you about good cattle practice, Abbey. Your father is very well respected in this industry,’ said Mr Vickery.

  Abbey couldn’t have felt more proud. She couldn’t wait to call her dad and tell him that he was the star of their lesson!

  ‘Abbey’s right,’ said Mr Vickery. ‘The National Livestock Identification System, or NLIS, is a way of electronically tagging all cattle in Australia that are used for food production.’

  Jessica held up a white disc with numbers on it. It looked like an oversized round earring.

  ‘When a calf is born, one of these has to be inserted into its ear before the animal can leave our property. This tag will stay in its ear for its entire life, and can be used to track its life history.’

  ‘The tag’s clipped into the animal’s ear using this device,’ said Robert, holding up something that looked a bit like a large pair of pliers. ‘It’s just like getting your ear pierced.’

  Talika and a few other girls rubbed their ears as they thought about the spike going through their skin.

  ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’ said Clare.

  ‘You’ll see in a minute that it doesn’t seem to be such a big deal for them. They certainly complained a lot more when they used to be branded,’ said Mr Vickery.

  Right on cue, a calf bawled loudly. The girls all laughed.

  ‘But what if it falls out?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘They’re pretty tough and designed to last, but if it does, it’s replaced with an orange tag,’ said Robert, holding one up. ‘And, if a farmer wants to be really sure that his cattle can always be traced back to him, a rumen bolus, which is the shape of a small battery, can be pushed down a cow’s throat where it will stay in its stomach forever. It’s painless for the calves, though they have to be at least three months old. These devices have made it much harder to steal cattle in Australia, because it’s like a microchip you might have in your pet dog. It can be read by using a scanner to give information about ownership of the animal.’

  Quite a few of the girls who had dogs nodded.

  They all moved over to the side of the large holding yard and watched the Vickerys start to work the cattle into where they wanted them. Two cattle hands and a trusty dog urged the herd towards the gates, while Robert swung the gate back and forth, expertly cutting the cows from their calves at the last minute. Both the cows and the calves mooed in complaint. The noise was deafening.

  Abbey was glad she was on the outside of the fence. These huge tan and white mothers were not happy at all!

  One at a time, the calves were directed into a narrow chute. When the first calf reached the end, a lever was pulled up and two gates closed on either side of the calf to hold him steady.

  Mr McPhail called the girls over to see what was happening. ‘They put the calves in this device, called a crush, to keep them still and to ensur
e they don’t hurt themselves.’

  First the calf was given a needle into the muscle of his neck. ‘This will guard against tetanus and other diseases,’ said Jessica.

  Next up was the worming treatment, which was squirted along his spine using a nozzle attached by a hose to a drum of liquid.

  ‘The last thing we do is the NLIS tag,’ said Mr Vickery. ‘It’s loaded into the applicator, dipped in antiseptic, then clipped into the centre of the right ear.’

  Abbey noticed that Hannah and Talika held their breath as the calf had his ear tagged, but he didn’t seemed bothered at all. Then the crush opened and he was released to the herd of mothers milling around anxiously. He found his mum and made himself feel a whole lot better with a drink of warm milk.

  ‘That does seem a lot kinder than branding,’ said Hannah.

  The girls watched a few more calves go through the process, and then Mr Vickery asked if anyone would like to have a turn at the jobs.

  Hannah, Abbey and Talika shot their hands up.

  ‘I think I could give them the needle,’ said Hannah. ‘I had to give one to my horse Bedazzled once, so I could do it.’ After Jessica had given her a few tips, Hannah carefully inserted the needle into the calf, talking gently to the animal.

  ‘Now you really look like a vet!’ said Mr McPhail.

  ‘Could I try the worming?’ asked Talika, and she was passed the nozzle by Robert. ‘Abbey, can you take my picture on my phone to send to Mum?’

  Talika looked quite the part as she stood on the fence rail and carefully drizzled the blue mixture down the little calf’s back. Abbey got some great shots.

  ‘Would you like to have a go at tagging, Abbey?’ said Mr Vickery.

  Abbey hesitated. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt a calf by not doing it properly.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Mr Vickery, kindly. ‘How about you get the feel of it by tagging this bit of old leather here? That way you’ll know how hard to clamp it.’

  Abbey liked the sound of a practice run. She held her breath as she squeezed the handles of the applicator together.

  ‘I did it!’ she said, admiring her work.

  ‘And the calf’s ear won’t be anywhere near as tough as that leather,’ laughed Jessica.

  So Abbey tagged her very first calf and Talika got the photo to prove it.

  By the time they left, Talika had taken photos of everyone treating a calf. They had never felt more like vets in the making.

  ‘Girls, wake up.’

  Talika sat up in bed. She looked through sleepy eyes at Miss Beckett, the boarding house supervisor. They had all been exhausted when they got home from the cattle stud yesterday and had fallen straight into bed after dinner.

  ‘Have we slept past our alarm?’ she said, blinking at her clock. It read six am.

  Abbey groaned and pulled her stuffed gorilla over her face.

  ‘No,’ smiled Miss Beckett. ‘Henrietta had her piglets last night, and Mr McPhail thought the Vet Cadet girls might like to go down and see them before breakfast.’

  Abbey sat straight up and threw the gorilla at Hannah’s head.

  ‘Hannah! Wake up! Henni’s piglets have arrived!’

  Within minutes, all of the year seven Vet Cadet girls were running from their rooms in various stages of getting ready for school.

  ‘I wonder how many she’s had?’ said Charlotte, jogging down the path beside Abbey.

  ‘She was so fat,’ said Abbey, trying to knot her school tie as she ran. ‘There has to be heaps!’

  ‘Do you think Mr McPhail will let us hold one?’ said Hannah, excitedly, while plaiting her hair on the run.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Talika. ‘I’ve never held a piglet before.’

  Mr McPhail was standing beside the pen next to where Henrietta slept. Boris, the enormous school boar, had his head through the rails and the teacher was giving him a scratch on the back with a stick. Mr McPhail smiled broadly as the Vet Cadets approached.

  ‘Good morning, girls,’ he said. ‘Boris wanted me to let you know that, as of this morning, he’s the proud father of twelve chubby piglets.’ He slowly opened the side gate to Henrietta’s stall, and the girls looked in at the massive pig lying on her side in the soft straw.

  ‘Ohhhh!’ was the collective sigh.

  Everyone was whispering at once. Mr McPhail let them all creep in closer and form a semicircle around Henrietta and her litter. Talika had her hand on her chest. ‘They are the sweetest little things I have ever seen.’

  The twelve piglets were all piled on top of one another in two rows along the mother’s vast belly. Their eyes were closed as they suckled her warm milk contentedly. As the girls watched a few of the piglets rolled off to the side and lay sleeping in the straw blissfully drunk on milk.

  ‘That one’s lost the teat,’ said Hannah, pointing as a little piglet searched desperately for the teat he had been drinking from, which was now taken over by another.

  ‘Listen to him squeal,’ laughed Milly, as the little piglet pushed and wrestled his way over the top of his brothers and sisters.

  All of the piglets started grunting and squealing at once. They were butting poor Henrietta with their little snouts, trying to get back to the warm milk and jostling about. Henrietta let out a sigh and rolled further onto her side, and eventually everyone re-found a teat and settled down again. Henrietta’s ear had fallen over her eye, and she appeared to be fast asleep in no time.

  Mr McPhail slowly reached down and lifted one of the drowsy pink babies up to his chest.

  The piglet was so full of milk that even when the teacher laid him on his back and held him like a baby he didn’t stir at all.

  ‘Can I please hold him, sir?’ said Charlotte. Mr McPhail passed the piglet to her, then bent down and chose some more that were looking very full.

  ‘Just a quick hold,’ he said, as each girl took their turn. ‘I don’t want Mrs Bristow blaming me if you’re late for breakfast.’

  ‘You’re adorable,’ said Abbey, as she cradled a piglet in her arms and tickled the soft tummy. The piglet let out a sad little squeak. At least she thought it did, it was very hard to tell with so much other grunting and squeaking going on. Then she heard it again. She looked down at her sleeping piglet. This time, she was sure it hadn’t come from the animal in her arms. It came from behind her where there was a wooden wall that separated the pig sty from the feed shed.

  Abbey leant closer to the wall. She heard it again.

  Mr McPhail was watching her. ‘Time to go, girls,’ he said, taking back the piglets and reuniting them with their squirming siblings.

  Abbey was the last to hand her piglet over. Apart from Hannah and Talika, all of the other girls were on their way back up the path to breakfast.

  ‘Let’s go, Ab,’ said Hannah, washing her hands with soap and drying them on a towel. ‘You don’t want to get in trouble with Mrs Bristow again!’

  ‘Just a sec,’ said Abbey. ‘I need to talk to Mr McPhail.’

  Hannah shrugged and looked at Talika, who shrugged as well. Both girls looked confused.

  ‘There’s a runt, isn’t there?’ asked Abbey. She couldn’t help sounding accusing.

  ‘There is,’ said Mr McPhail. ‘You, of all people, know what it’s like working with animals, Abbey. There must have been plenty of times before where you’ve dealt with this kind of thing on your parents’ cattle station.’

  ‘Mum raises poddy calves all the time,’ said Abbey with a shrug. ‘Why’s this any different?’

  ‘What’s a poddy calf?’ said Talika.

  ‘A calf that doesn’t have a mother to feed it,’ explained Hannah.

  ‘This runt is no poddy calf,’ said Mr McPhail.

  ‘It’s tiny. It’s sick, and it’s got no hope.’

  ‘Can we see it?’ said Hannah.

  Mr McPhail sighed. He slowly opened the gate that led to the feed room, then pointed to a crate on the table. Inside the crate was a towel and it was moving ever
so slightly.

  ‘You can’t let her die!’ whispered Abbey, tears filling her eyes when she saw the tiny, weak piglet lying on her side in the towel.

  Talika and Hannah stared down at the sad little shape. She was barely bigger than a rat.

  ‘She’ll never live. She’s too small and the other piglets will never let her in to feed. It’s kindest just to let her pass away,’ said the teacher.

  ‘But people save them all the time,’ said Abbey.

  Without asking permission, she leant in and picked up the fragile creature. The piglet was so weak, she could hardly lift her head and easily fitted into Abbey’s cupped hands.

  ‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ she whispered, pressing her cheek to the piglet’s tiny back. A tear dropped onto her thumb. The little piglet twitched and wriggled her snout, then to the amazement of the girls and Mr McPhail, the piglet licked Abbey’s thumb.

  ‘Look,’ giggled Abbey, tears still streaming from her eyes. ‘Look sir, she wants to live.’

  Mr McPhail looked down at the tiny piglet and at the girl who held her.

  ‘I must be getting soft in the head,’ he said, rubbing the side of his face. ‘Dr Brown is on her way to check on Henrietta,’ he said. ‘If she thinks the piglet can be saved and it’s not cruel to try –’

  ‘Oh thank you, Mr McPhail,’ Abbey said, cutting him off.

  ‘No promises,’ said the teacher, taking the piglet from her hands. ‘And please, apart from you girls, don’t say anything to the others. I know many of the new girls are struggling with homesickness. They don’t need another reason to get upset,’ he said.

  Abbey nodded quickly. Seeing the piglet had made her feel even more homesick for some reason. Perhaps it was because her mother would surely have known what to do in an awful situation like this one, or maybe it was just the thought of the piglet being away from Henrietta. ‘When’s Dr Brown coming?’ she asked impatiently, trying to hide her emotions.

  ‘Anytime now,’ said Mr McPhail.

  ‘So you’ll know by morning tea if she has a chance?’

  The teacher nodded.

  The bell for first lessons rang as the girls ran up the path. Abbey really hoped the cranky dining hall supervisor hadn’t noticed them missing from breakfast. They were always in trouble with Mrs Bristow.