The Hideaway Deer

by Holly Webb

“I suppose…” Lola sighed. She’d been hoping that she could invite Paige to her house again soon. It had been so nice having people to talk to at school this last week. She hadn’t really been able to enjoy having Paige over on Friday afternoon – it wasn’t as if they’d had much time to talk. But she’d loved it that she had a friend she could ask for help.

  Uncle Chris was probably right, though. She really wanted to do the best she could to look after Dapple. That was the most important thing now.

  “There. Finished, I think.” Uncle Chris looked proudly at the little fenced enclosure and the gate. “Now we just need to let her come out and explore while we put down some straw for her.”

  “Shall I open the shed door?” Lola asked hopefully.

  “Let me just get in and shut the gate. Yes – go ahead.”

  Lola carefully unlatched the door and peered round it. The fawn was curled on the blankets still but she was wide awake and watching, her eyes gleaming in the shadowy dimness of the shed.

  “Look…” Lola whispered. “There’s lot of space for you now.” She glanced back at Uncle Chris. “What shall we do? I don’t want to scare her by going in.”

  He shook his head. “No, let’s not. We’ll just wait out here and see if she decides to come and explore. Then we can take this basket inside and put down the straw.”

  They sat together on the straw bale, watching but trying not to make themselves too obvious. Lola leaned forward with her chin on her hands, feeling sleepy. She hadn’t slept well the night before and she’d got up so early. She could feel her eyes closing.

  Then someone dug her gently in the ribs and she sat up. “Look,” Uncle Chris murmured in her ear.

  The fawn was at the door of the shed, looking cautiously out into the garden. She could obviously see Lola and Uncle Chris – she kept darting careful little looks at them. But in the end she seemed to decide that they were mostly harmless. She stepped delicately out of the doorway and into the enclosure. Then she went sniffing and nosing around the edge of the fence, stopping every so often for a nibble of grass.

  Uncle Chris stood up, moving very slowly so as not to spook Dapple, and picked up the straw bale. He carried it into the shed, slit the bindings and started to scatter straw around the floor. Lola brought in the basket and put one of the old blankets inside it for a cushion, fluffing it up to make it look comfy. Then she laughed. The fawn was standing at the door of the shed now, eyeing them curiously.

  “Nice new bed,” Lola whispered to her. Then she wondered if she shouldn’t have said it. Did that count as being too friendly and encouraging Dapple to get too tame?

  She sighed. This was going to be so much harder than she’d thought.

  For the next few days, Dapple drank her bottles eagerly and spent the day pattering around her little yard, snuffling for daisies and dandelions in the grass. Lola fed her early in the morning – usually in her pyjamas, so as not to get her school uniform mucky – and then once when she’d got home from school and once just before bed. Uncle Chris popped in from work to feed the fawn at lunchtime.

  Lola was pretty sure that she could see Dapple growing. The little deer seemed to become plumper and glossier every day. Her white spots glowed in the dark of the shed when she bounced up to greet Lola coming with her bottle.

  It was hard for Lola not to pet the fawn, like she would with Alfie. Dapple’s coat looked so shiny and soft and she nuzzled so hopefully at Lola’s fingers when Lola was too slow with the milk.

  But it was even harder not to tell Paige – and Hannah and Maisie and Miss Addison and everyone else in the class – about her. Lola was desperate to share the news. Paige and the others had been so interested in her story about freeing Dapple from the football net. She knew they’d love to hear that Dapple was living in her garden shed now. Paige had even hugged her on that first Monday morning and said she was sorry that they hadn’t found the fawn. Lola had felt like the world’s biggest liar. She’d almost burst out, “But I did!” And then she remembered what Uncle Chris had said and clamped her mouth shut.

  As the weeks went on, and Dapple grew bigger and healthier and even more beautiful, Lola hated not being able to tell her new friend what she was doing.

  Luckily, Paige was distracted from thinking about the fawn. Her birthday was just before school broke up for summer and her mum had promised her a sleepover party on the last day. Paige had been planning it ever since half-term, but now her birthday was only a few days away, and she couldn’t stop talking about it – what sort of birthday cake she ought to have and what films they should watch and how her mum wouldn’t mind if they stayed up really, really late. Lola had been so excited when Paige gave her the invitation the week before – she was starting to feel like she actually belonged.

  When Paige came running towards her in the playground one morning a couple of days before the party, Lola thought it was to tell her more party news. That maybe her mum had agreed to getting pizzas delivered after all. But it wasn’t.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Paige demanded, standing right in front of Lola and staring at her. She looked so hurt.

  “Wh-what?” Lola stammered, her heart suddenly thumping. Maisie and Hannah were watching, whispering together worriedly.

  “About the fawn! After all that time we spent looking for her, how could you not tell me that you found her? I thought we were friends!”

  “We are!” Lola gasped. “Paige, we are friends. I couldn’t tell you, that was all. I couldn’t tell anyone. How do you even know?”

  “Your uncle told my mum and she told me! Actually, she didn’t tell me. She asked was it going to be OK you coming to my sleepover when you had to feed your fawn four times a day? Like I already knew about it!”

  “Oh…” Lola stared at her feet. She felt awful. The ends of her fingers had gone all cold.

  “So why didn’t you tell me?” Paige shook her head. “I’m not sure I even want to know. Lola, you lied to me! You said you never found her!”

  “I didn’t,” Lola whispered. Because she had tried so very hard not to tell Paige that. She’d just nodded and looked sad. But she had deliberately let her friend think they hadn’t found Dapple when she’d asked and that was just as bad.

  She looked up at Paige, twisting her fingers. “Uncle Chris said not to tell you – not to tell anyone from school. Because then you’d want to come and see her and she’s not supposed to get used to any more people than just me and him. She mustn’t get tame, don’t you see? We want to release her back into the wild when she’s big enough.”

  “So? You could have just told me that,” Paige said, and Lola was sure that she was almost crying. “I’m not stupid, Lola. I’d have understood!”

  “I know,” Lola muttered. “I should have told you. I was the one being stupid. I’m really sorry.” Now Paige said it, Lola could see that she was right. Why hadn’t she just explained about Dapple having to stay scared of people? If Lola could understand it, why wouldn’t Paige and the others? Uncle Chris had meant well but he’d been absolutely wrong. Even if Paige had begged to come and see Dapple and Lola had to say no, it wouldn’t have been as bad as this.

  “I was just trying to do the right thing,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Paige.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t trust me.” Paige really was crying now, which only made Lola feel worse. “You’re supposed to be coming to my party!”

  Lola stared at her miserably. “Do you – do you not want me to come any more?”

  Paige just stood there, sniffing back tears.

  “I don’t know…” she whispered.

  Lola just about managed not to cry at school. She spent break and lunchtime hiding in the library, trying to pretend she was fine. But she wasn’t. Everybody else in their class seemed to know that she and Paige had had a fight – whenever she walked past, there was a little hissing tide of whispers. And in Numeracy, when they were supposed to be talking about decimals, Jessie was smirking and gossiping, telling ever
yone that, “Lola’s been so horrible to poor Paige…”

  At the end of the day Lola trailed into the office. Her mum smiled at her – and that was it. Lola stopped trying not to cry and leaned against Mum, her shoulders shaking.

  “What happened?” Mum asked, trying to get Lola to look at her. “Lola, what’s the matter?”

  Mum listened as Lola sniffed and sobbed her way through the explanation.

  “I wish you’d said.” Mum sighed. “We could’ve arranged for Paige to come over and just look at Dapple from the other side of the garden or something like that. She’s sensible. She wouldn’t have minded.”

  “I know that now,” Lola wailed. “But Uncle Chris said and he knows about animals so I did what he told me! And now Paige won’t even talk to me!”

  “Oh, love.” Lola’s mum looked at her worriedly. “The party? Isn’t it the day after tomorrow? The last day of term?”

  Lola shook her head. “I’m not going to go. I can’t. Just tell Paige’s mum I’m not well or something.” She rubbed her eyes wearily. “Please can we go home?”

  Mum offered to feed Dapple for Lola that afternoon, or call Uncle Chris and ask him to do it – she said this was partly his fault, so he ought to come and make up for it. But Lola just sniffed and shook her head. It wasn’t fair on Dapple to change things around like that – she didn’t know Mum and if they waited for Uncle Chris, she’d be getting hungry. “I’ll do it,” she muttered, shaking up the bottle. “It’s OK, Mum. See you in a minute.”

  She hurried out to the garden where Dapple was waiting eagerly by the gate, obviously watching out for her bottle.

  “Hey,” Lola murmured. “Go back from the gate a bit, sweetheart.” She shooed Dapple gently so she could get in and then held out the bottle. “Look, I’ve got it. Come on.” She leaned over Dapple the way Uncle Chris had shown her – if Dapple was feeding from her mum, she’d have her mum’s body above her. Leaning over was meant to make the bottle-feeding seem a little more natural.

  Dapple sucked greedily at the bottle – she’d got so good at it now, it usually only took a couple of minutes for her to drink it all. Lola had worried that maybe they weren’t giving her enough since she was finishing the milk so quickly but Uncle Chris promised that it was OK. He said that fawns weren’t good at knowing how much was enough – given a chance, they’d drink way too much and make themselves ill. So it was better to stick with the measured amount of milk, even if Dapple did make starved faces when she’d finished.

  Lola sniffed again and Dapple stopped sucking for a moment and looked up at her. “Sorry,” Lola murmured. “It’s OK. Keep going.”

  But Dapple didn’t go back to her bottle. She let go and gazed up at Lola. And then she reached up and licked Lola’s cheek – a slobbery, milky, lovely lick that made Lola cry even more.

  Lola was extra glad that she had Dapple to care for over the summer holidays. Lola had told Uncle Chris he didn’t need to do any of the feeds now she wasn’t at school – she was glad of the extra work. She’d been hoping to meet up with Paige while they were off school – maybe with Maisie and Hannah too. But after Mum had called Paige’s mum and explained that Lola wouldn’t be able to make it to Paige’s birthday sleepover, all that was off. If it hadn’t been for the fawn, Lola would have been even more miserable. It was amazing to watch Dapple grow so fast, though, and to know that it was partly because she was looking after her.

  Lola started to understand what Uncle Chris had meant about the two and a half metre fences for keeping deer out of gardens. She’d definitely caught Dapple giving the fence around her little run some thoughtful looks.

  “I think she needs more space,” she told Uncle Chris when he next came over to check up on Dapple.

  “Mmmm.” Uncle Chris looked around the run. “I think you’re right. What about taking her for a walk round the garden before you feed her?”

  Lola looked surprised. “Will we have to put her on a lead? Won’t she run off?”

  “Not if she hasn’t had her milk,” Uncle Chris pointed out. “If she wanders too far, you can just bring out her bottle. She’ll come straight back.”

  “If you’re sure…” Lola said. “Yeah! She’s going to love getting to explore the garden.”

  “Just don’t let her go near the football net!” Mum called from the kitchen.

  That afternoon, Lola got Dapple’s bottle ready and brought it out to the garden with her. She put it down in a clump of long grass growing next to the gate of the run and then unlatched the gate. Dapple surged eagerly forward, nearly tripping Lola over and nudging at her for the milk. But Lola stepped away from the run, beckoning the little deer out into the garden, and Dapple followed after her, ears twitching curiously.

  Lola wondered how much she remembered of her days with her mother. She must have walked this way so many times, pattering after her mother as they searched for a safe hiding place for Dapple to wait away the day. But now the fawn seemed only excited, hopping and springing about, and taking short little dashes across the grass. She seemed to be testing out how big the space really was after being shut up in the run.

  Lola watched her, giggling as the fawn bounced but feeling sad too. Until now she hadn’t realized just how small Dapple’s run was. She had been proud of how well they were looking after her and she’d been quite sure the fawn was happy. But seeing her loving the freedom of the garden changed that.

  “It’s OK,” she whispered. “It won’t be long before you’re big enough to live out here all the time.” She stopped as Dapple sniffed at a rose bush and then nibbled curiously at one of the flowers. What would it be like, not having to dash out every morning with a bottle? Lola wouldn’t have to stand there laughing to herself as the fawn snorted and slobbered her way through her milk. Everything would be just like it was before – but somehow it was hard to imagine. Letting Dapple out to explore the garden felt like the first step to saying goodbye.

  “I’ll miss you,” Lola murmured.

  Lola didn’t really mind that she wasn’t going on a summer holiday this year. She went to stay with Dad for a long weekend in the middle of August and they went to a theme park, which was good because she and Dad both liked rollercoasters, and her mum really didn’t – and she ate lots of pancakes, which were her favourite thing and something Dad was very good at cooking. She went over to Amie’s house with Eloise too.

  But she missed Mum and worried about Dapple, even though she knew Uncle Chris was looking after the fawn. It was weird, being back close to her old house and her old school, but staying in Dad’s flat instead. Even though she loved spending time with Dad, Lola was glad to get back home – it was home now, she realized, with a little jolt of surprise. It really was.

  When Dad dropped her off she took him into the garden to show him Dapple – very carefully. If they stood just by the big rose bush that Dapple thought was so delicious, then they could peer round at the fawn without her noticing them.

  “She’s so little!” Dad murmured and Lola shook her head.

  “She isn’t! She’s grown loads. She actually looks bigger than when I last saw her on Thursday, Dad, honestly.”

  “You’re obviously doing a really good job looking after her. She’s amazing, Lola, I’m so glad you showed me. Look, I’d better get back now. See you soon, OK?”

  “Do you want a snack, Lola?” Mum asked as Lola came back from waving Dad off.

  “Mmm, can I have a bit of toast, please?” Then Lola frowned as she spotted a piece of paper on the table. It was folded in half and had her name on it. “What’s that?”

  “It’s from Paige,” Mum said, eyeing Lola a little worriedly as if she wasn’t sure how Lola was going to react. “She came round with her mum on Sunday afternoon. She didn’t know you were away, of course. And then this note came through the letter box. You don’t have to open it,” she added.

  Lola gave her a surprised look.

  “If she’s still upset with you, I mean. Although she didn’t se
em to be, when she came round.”

  “Oh.” Lola picked up the note and unfolded it slowly. She was almost sure that Paige wouldn’t write her a mean note – she wasn’t that sort of person. But Paige had been so cross with her before.

  Hi Lola

  I’m sorry I was so angry about the fawn. I didn’t understand why you couldn’t have just told me. I was still upset with you but I talked to my mum a couple of days ago, and she said you were right. She’s looked after fawns and other baby wild animals before. She said they have to stay wild and not get used to meeting people. (I still wish you’d told me that – I wouldn’t have minded.)

  Sorry you’re not here, I wanted to say hello. And I wish you had come to my party.

  Paige xx

  “Is it all right?” Mum asked.

  Lola nodded, smiling. “Her mum works at the same shelter as Uncle Chris. She told Paige he was right about not letting people visit the fawn.”

  “Oh, good. I did tell her mum that I’d ring her when you got back. Paige and Immy are at holiday club this week, but maybe Paige could come round afterwards?”

  “Really?” Lola gripped the note tight. “Yes! Can you call her now?”

  “I can leave a message. Lola, stop jumping, I’ll drop the phone!”

  Later that afternoon, Lola answered the door, her heart thudding. What was Paige going to say?

  But in the end, her friend didn’t say anything. She just stared at Lola and then gave her a massive hug. Then she yelped and handed Lola a plastic bag that had been squashed between them. “I forgot about it! Mum said Dapple would like these. I hope they’re still OK.”

  Lola looked into it, and laughed – the bag was full of dandelions, the fat yellow flowers looking fresh and crunchy. “She’ll love them. Do you want to see her now?”