The Hideaway Deer

by Holly Webb

  “There!” She sat back on her heels. “I think it should be free now, Mum. You can let go.”

  Her mum stepped back carefully, pulling the net away from the fawn’s legs.

  The little creature jumped, legs flailing, and sprang away, staggering across the grass to its mother.

  “Is it hurt?” Lola asked worriedly. The fawn seemed so unsteady on its legs – she couldn’t tell if it was limping.

  “I’m not sure,” Mum said, “but I don’t think so. I suppose it’s got pins and needles from being stuck in a funny position all that time.”

  Lola nodded. The fawn and its mother were nuzzling at each other. The mother deer seemed to be checking that her baby was all in one piece, just like her own mum would do if she’d fallen over and hurt herself. She glanced back at Mum and caught her hand, squeezing it tight.

  “Well done,” Mum whispered. “I’m so glad we got the fawn out.”

  “And we didn’t even have to get Uncle Chris to help,” Lola whispered back. “We rescued the fawn all by ourselves. I wish we had a photo to show him. But there wasn’t time to stop and think about photos.”

  Mum slipped her phone out of her pocket. “I might be able to get one now – oh no, they’re going.”

  The fawn and its mother trotted away between the brambles, the fawn’s spotted dark coat blending into the dappled sun and shadow. Lola sighed – some of the magic of the evening seemed to go with them.

  “You know what?” Mum hugged her. “We need a treat. We can order pizza for dinner. We’re far too heroic and clever to make pasta sauce.”

  “Oooh, yay. Can we have pineapple on it?” Lola leaned happily against her mum’s shoulder. “Mum, do you think that was the same baby we saw before? It had really dark fur between the white spots – almost like black stripes.”

  “It could have been. But I suppose there must be quite a few babies around at this time of year?”

  “I suppose…” Lola looked back at the bramble bushes. She was almost sure it had been the same one, with that dark dappled coat. Their own special fawn.

  Miss Addison was a good teacher to have, in most ways. She didn’t give out loads of homework. She liked singing and made everyone in the class do dance warm-ups before class started to get their brains in gear. She stopped work and read out loud for ten minutes at the end of every afternoon. All things that Lola liked.

  The one thing Miss Addison did which Lola hated was news. She insisted on it every Monday morning. Half of the class had to get up and talk about something interesting that had happened over the weekend. The other half of the class did it the next week.

  Lola had done it twice so far and she’d stumbled shyly through a description of painting her new bedroom and how she’d gone on the train on her own to stay with her dad for the weekend. She wasn’t really sure – because she’d been staring at her feet while she did it – but she had the feeling that everyone had been yawning while she talked.

  She just hadn’t had any exciting news – not like Jackson on her table who’d apparently spotted a man shoplifting last weekend, and then deliberately tripped him up when the security guard was chasing him out of the shop. He’d said that the shop was giving his family a year’s supply of ice cream as a reward. Miss Addison had said it was a very good story, even if she’d raised her eyebrows at the ice cream part and everyone had laughed.

  But finally Lola actually had some news to tell. She was almost looking forward to standing up in front of the class. When Miss Addison asked if anyone had any exciting news to share, she put up her hand eagerly.

  Miss Addison beamed at her. “Lola! Lovely – do you want to come up to the front?”

  Lola swallowed a little nervously and pushed back her chair. She stood next to the whiteboard and gabbled, “On Friday night me and my mum rescued a baby deer.”

  “A deer?” Miss Addison leaned forward curiously. “That sounds interesting, Lola. What happened? Tell us nice and slowly.”

  “It was when I got home after gymnastics – we could hear a crying noise coming from the garden and we didn’t know what it was. It was really loud. And when we went into the garden, there was a fawn all tangled up in an old football goal. Its legs were caught up in the net and it couldn’t get out.”

  “What did you do?” one of the girls shouted out – Paige, she was called.

  “I had to cut the net with the kitchen scissors,” Lola explained. “But it was a bit scary because the fawn’s mother was there. She was so worried, she kept jumping around and calling to her baby, and that just made it struggle even more.”

  “But you managed to get it free?” Miss Addison asked.

  Lola nodded. “It was fine. It ran off to see its mum and then they both went through the hole in our fence. Our garden’s next to the graveyard and the deer live in there a lot of the time.”

  Someone made a spooky “whooooo” noise and everyone giggled.

  “Thank you, Lola, that was really exciting news to start with. Maybe you could write about the deer in your garden for one of our story tasks.”

  Lola sat down again, feeling that for once she’d actually done something quite special – instead of being that quiet girl in the corner of the classroom. Paige was smiling at her and trying to whisper something, but she was across the other side of the classroom, so Lola couldn’t hear what she was trying to say.

  Several of the girls in her class had been in the same dance recital over the weekend so they talked about that. Jackson had been to an aircraft museum this time and he’d brought in a book of paper aeroplanes as proof, after no one had been sure whether to believe his shoplifter story. News and their spelling test took up nearly all of the time until morning break.

  Lola dithered between going to change her book at the school library or maybe just sitting outside. It was sunny. She could sit on a bench and read one of the books she’d already got out, she thought. She looked around for Paige, still wondering what she’d been trying to say, but Paige had disappeared out of the classroom as soon as the bell went.

  Lola curled up on the bench in a patch of sun. Before she had the chance to start her book, a group of girls from her class wandered over.

  “Did you make that up about the deer?” one of them asked, gazing down at her.

  “No…” Lola looked at her, surprised. Why would she make it up?

  “I don’t believe it really happened,” the girl said firmly. “How could a deer get caught in a football net? The holes are huge.”

  “No, they’re not…” Lola started to say, but one of the other girls interrupted her.

  “Jessie’s right. I bet you were just making it up to impress Miss Addison.”

  They all stared at her and Lola stared back, unsure what to say. She hadn’t made it up. It was absolutely true. She shrugged a little. She couldn’t make them believe her.

  “You shouldn’t lie,” the first girl, Jessie, said, sounding a bit smug. “No one’s ever going to believe you if you make up stupid stories like that. Are they, Ella?”

  “Yeah.” Ella giggled. “If you’re going to tell lies, at least make them good.”

  “I wasn’t lying!” Lola snapped. How dare they say that? “We do have deer in our garden. I see them every day.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jessie sneered. “Deer in your garden.” And all the others giggled and smirked.

  “I’ve seen deer round the graveyard,” someone else put in, and Lola looked round to see Paige leaning over the back of the bench. “She isn’t making it up. My mum showed me them once when we were driving past. There’s loads. If she lives next door to the graveyard, then she probably does have deer in her garden. You don’t know everything, Jessie.”

  “That’s probably why Lola’s so weird, living next to the graveyard,” Jessie said gleefully. “Maybe she’s a ghost. Or a vampire.”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so stupid.”

  “Even if she does have deer in her garden,” Ella said stubbornly, “I still do
n’t believe the story about the football net. That bit was definitely made up.” She looked round at the others for support and they all nodded.

  “Definitely,” Jessie agreed.

  “I didn’t make it up,” Lola muttered crossly.

  Paige folded her arms. “My mum works for a wildlife shelter,” she said firmly. “And she told me about that happening. She had to go and help someone with a deer stuck in a net the other day, and she said it happens a lot. Anyway, if you’re so bothered, Jessie, you can go and ask Lola’s mum about it, can’t you? She works in the office. Why don’t you go and ask her if Lola’s lying?”

  Jessie looked unsure of herself for the first time. “She isn’t going to say that, is she?” she muttered. “Not about her own daughter.”

  “So now you’re calling my mum a liar as well?” Lola said angrily. She felt almost surprised that she was being so brave.

  “No, she didn’t,” Ella protested.

  “She did.” Paige nodded. “Come on, Lola. Come and sit with us.” She marched away, and Lola hurried after her to one of the picnic tables, where a couple of other girls in their class, Maisie and Hannah, were sitting. She could hear a hiss of hurried whispering break out behind her as Jessie and Ella and the others wondered if she was going to tell Miss Addison what they’d said.

  “Thanks for sticking up for me,” Lola said shyly as she and Paige sat down.

  Paige shrugged. “Jessie’s really mean sometimes. Ella and the others just follow her around. What was it like rescuing the fawn? Were you scared?”

  “A bit,” Lola admitted. “My mum was really worried the mother deer was going to attack us because she didn’t understand that we were trying to help her baby.”

  “I wish I’d seen it,” Maisie said. “Me and my dad saw a deer in the park once, but I’ve never seen a baby one.”

  “It was really cute.” Lola looked over at Paige. “Which wildlife shelter does your mum work for? My uncle works at Abbots Valley.”

  “Same one.” Paige nodded. “My mum takes me and my sister to help out sometimes.”

  “Uncle Chris said I could come and visit.” Lola smiled at Paige. For the first time, it actually felt as though there was someone at school she wanted to be friends with.

  “You should stay out of Jessie’s way,” Hannah put in. “You can sit with us at lunch, if you like.”

  “Thanks,” Lola said shyly, wondering if, just maybe, things were going to get better.

  That week was so different to the rest of the term so far. Lola had almost forgotten what it was like to have a group of friends to hang around with. She was careful – she didn’t want to assume that she was always invited to sit with Paige and have Paige tell her to back off. But Paige and Maisie and Hannah didn’t seem to mind. It was as if they actually quite liked having her around. They sat at their favourite picnic table at lunchtime on Tuesday, and Maisie kept making comments about Jackson and the rest of the boys playing football – comments that sounded like she knew what she was talking about.

  “Do you play for a team?” Lola asked.

  “Yeah, Woodside Wanderers. We’re really good,” Maisie said proudly. “Top of the league. Do you play football?”

  Lola shook her head. “I like kicking a ball about but I don’t go to a club. I do gymnastics competitions sometimes, though.”

  Paige sighed. “Great. Another one who’s sports mad.” Then she shook her head at Lola. “That doesn’t mean stop talking!”

  Lola blinked at her.

  “You don’t talk very much,” Paige explained kindly. “You’ve said more to us today than you have since you arrived.”

  Maisie and Hannah nodded, and Lola felt herself turning scarlet. “Oh… I was just… It’s weird, starting a new school.”

  “I’d hate it.” Maisie shuddered.

  “But now we know you do talk,” Paige said. “So we’re not letting you stop.”

  Lola smiled and felt the hard, scared lump that had been sitting inside her begin to melt.

  “Are you OK?” Lola asked, looking worriedly at Paige, who was slumped on one of the playground benches. Lola had come in early with her mum as usual and she’d just wandered out to the playground to see if her new friends had arrived yet.

  “Mmm.”

  “At least it’s Friday,” Lola said, trying to cheer her up.

  “Yeah. Uuurgh, I’m so tired.” Paige yawned hugely.

  “What’s the matter? Did you stay up late last night?” Lola asked curiously. Paige was never normally sleepy at school.

  “My mum got called out to an emergency,” Paige explained, swallowing another massive yawn. “My dad was on a shift working late too so she had to wake us up and take us to my gran’s house. We didn’t get home till one in the morning.”

  “I don’t think I’d have been able to get up,” Lola said.

  “Mum had to dress Immy this morning.” Immy was Paige’s little sister, who was in Reception, Lola remembered. “She was so tired that she didn’t wake up until Mum had actually put her school dress on her. She was like a little doll.”

  “What was the emergency?” Lola asked.

  “A deer. She’d been hit by a car.” Paige sighed. “It was really sad. Someone found her by the side of the road and called the shelter.”

  “What happened to the deer?” Lola said worriedly, and Paige looked up at her.

  “She died,” Paige said at last. “Sorry, Lola. I know you love the deer in your garden. Mum said the deer died just after she got there. And it wasn’t because Mum had to take us to Gran’s first, I asked her that. The deer was just too badly hurt to survive, Mum said.”

  Lola shivered, thinking of the beautiful deer in her garden. She had seen them walking down the road – Mum had even had to swerve to avoid one that stepped out in front of the car on their way to school once. It would be all too easy for one to be hit. Her little fawn was so tiny and although the mother deer was a lot bigger, she was still small and fragile compared to a car.

  “Where was it?” she asked. “Did your mum say? It – it wasn’t near us?”

  Paige sat up straighter, looking properly awake for the first time. The expression on her face made Lola feel cold inside. Paige’s eyes had gone wide. “I-I didn’t think,” she stammered. “It was by the cemetery, but you said you lived on Coleman Road, and it wasn’t anywhere near there. It was Gansey Street.”

  Lola shook her head. “I don’t know where that is.”

  “The other side of the cemetery from you. That’s why I didn’t make the connection. It’s a long way away, if you’re going by the road.”

  “But the deer wouldn’t be,” Lola said slowly. “They’d walk straight through the graveyard. The same deer would come out on our road sometimes and Gansey Street sometimes.”

  “Yes,” Paige agreed reluctantly. “But that doesn’t mean it was one of your deer that was hit by the car.”

  “No. I know it doesn’t.” Lola sat down on the bench next to Paige. Her legs felt shaky. “But I can’t help worrying. Did I tell you before how my mum and I found a baby deer when Mum was cutting the grass? It was curled up there all on its own and we didn’t know anything about deer then so we thought it had been abandoned. We called Uncle Chris and he said it was probably just waiting for its mum to come back. They can’t walk as far as their mums, you see.” She swallowed hard. “I’m pretty sure it was the same fawn that got caught up in the football net. I could tell from the markings on its coat – I’ve seen a couple of other fawns and they don’t have the same dark stripes.”

  She looked up at Paige. “What if something really had happened to the fawn’s mum – the worst thing that could happen – and now it’s in our garden, waiting for her to come back?” Lola shivered. “Even if it’s not the same fawn, I just hate thinking that there’s a baby hidden somewhere and wondering where its mother is.”

  Paige reached out and put an arm round Lola’s shoulders. “I know,” she murmured. “I didn’t think of it before,
I was just sad about the deer. I hadn’t thought that she might have a baby waiting for her.”

  All that day, Lola kept thinking about the fawn and its mother. She could tell that Paige was worried too – they seemed to keep exchanging anxious glances across the classroom. Lola found it really hard to concentrate on her work. Luckily Hannah was in her group for Literacy. A couple of times she elbowed Lola to make her look as though she was paying attention when Miss Addison came round.

  At the end of school, Lola and Paige dashed round to the office to find Lola’s mum. She beamed at them – she was still getting used to seeing Lola with a new friend at school – but then her smile faded.

  “What’s the matter with you two?” she asked.

  “Paige’s mum works for the same shelter as Uncle Chris!” Lola burst out.

  Lola’s mum nodded. “I know, you told me the other day.”

  “Last night she got called out to an accident – a deer had been run over,” Paige explained.

  “Oh…” Lola’s mum looked sympathetically at Paige. “That’s so sad. Actually, your mum did call this morning to say that she was really sorry if you and Imogen were tired at school today because you’d had to go to your gran’s last night.”

  Lola grabbed her mum’s arm. “But Mum, what if it’s our deer? The fawn’s mum? Paige’s mum got called out to Gansey Street and that’s just on the other side of the cemetery.”

  Lola’s mum frowned. “I think I know where that is. Yes, I suppose that’s actually quite close – for the deer, anyway. Lola, don’t look like that, love…”

  “What about her baby?” Lola’s voice shook. “Mum, can Paige come back to ours? I know I’ve got gymnastics, but can’t I miss it for once? We could go and look for the fawn, just to make sure.”