by Helen Peters
At least that bit was true, she thought. They did have to write a poem.
Mum looked surprised and slightly confused. “Well, if you’re really happy with beans on toast, I expect I can manage that.”
“Yes please,” said Jasmine. “Thank you, Mum.”
“Thank you,” said Tom.
“I’ll just put these clothes away,” said Mum.
She walked across to the wardrobe. Jasmine and Tom leapt up.
“We’ll do it,” said Jasmine, snatching the clothes from her mother.
Mum looked at her suspiciously. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. We’re just trying to help. You must be tired after all that TB testing.”
Mum didn’t look convinced. “Are you up to something, Jasmine?”
“Of course not,” said Jasmine, with her most wide-eyed, innocent look. “We’re just in the middle of planning our poems, that’s all.”
With a last thoughtful look at her, Mum left the room.
“Phew,” said Jasmine. “That was close.”
“This is going to be hard,” said Tom. “We need to walk Sky, too.”
“One of us will have to walk him while the other one looks after the birds. Will you be able to come up every day?”
“Of course,” said Tom, “if I don’t leave Holly for too long.”
Holly was Tom’s cat, and they were devoted to each other.
“Do you think we should tell your mum?” asked Tom. “You know, because of what those websites say about orphaned baby birds not surviving.”
“But if we tell her,” Jasmine said, “she’ll just take them to a rehabilitator. And I don’t believe they could look after them any better than we could. We’re doing everything they say on the websites.”
“Plus the rehabilitators are probably looking after loads of birds,” said Tom. “We’ve only got Popcorn and Peanut, and there are two of us, so we can give them much more attention than they could.”
“That’s true,” said Jasmine, impressed with his logic.
“And it won’t be for long,” said Tom. “Once they’re about a week old, they start getting feathers, and then they only need feeding every forty-five minutes.”
“We won’t need to keep them secret for that long, anyway,” said Jasmine. “If we tell Mum after a few days, she can’t say we have to take them to a rehabilitator, because we’ll have shown we can look after them ourselves.”
“If they survive that long,” said Tom.
“Of course they’ll survive,” said Jasmine. “We’re going to make sure they do.”
I’ll Check the Sheep
The next morning Jasmine woke to a little cheeping sound coming from her wardrobe. She smiled as she realised what it was. Then fear gripped her stomach. What if that was only one bird cheeping?
She held her breath as she opened the wardrobe door.
Two huge beaks gaped up at her. Jasmine’s shoulders dropped with relief.
“I’m coming, little ones,” she whispered. “I’ll just go and make you some food.”
As she pulled on her clothes, she glanced at her alarm clock. She was pleased to see it was only a quarter to six. She liked being the first one up. It was so nice to have the house to herself for a while before anybody else was awake. Except for Dad, of course. He was always up early.
When she got downstairs, Dad was in the kitchen, speaking to somebody on the phone.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He put the phone down and turned to Jasmine. “Some bloke at Foxdean has woken up to find six calves in his back garden.” He grabbed the keys to his truck from the top of the dresser. “Making a heck of a mess, apparently. I’m going to head over and round them up. What a nuisance.”
“I can check the sheep for you,” said Jasmine.
He looked at her gratefully. “Oh, thanks, Jas. I’d have asked Mum, but she’s been called out.”
This was not unusual. When Mum was on call, she often had to get up in the middle of the night for an animal emergency.
Dad took his coat off its peg. “I checked them at midnight,” he said, “so with any luck everything will be as it should be.” He went out to the scullery, put his boots on and unlocked the back door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“OK,” said Jasmine. “Bye, Dad.”
She followed him into the scullery and took a sachet of cat food from the cupboard. Sky got up from his bed and padded over to her, wagging his tail.
“Good morning, Sky,” said Jasmine, stroking his soft coat. “I’m going to feed Popcorn and Peanut and check the sheep. Then I’ll need to feed the chicks again, and after that I’ll take you for a walk.”
Toffee and Marmite were curled up in their bed. Jasmine opened the sachet and squeezed most of the food into their dishes. Then she mashed up the rest in a bowl with some warm water.
She tiptoed back to her room. The cheeping was so loud that she was amazed it hadn’t woken Ella and Manu. The baby birds were stretching their necks and heads as high as they could reach, their huge beaks gaping open. Jasmine had put a little dab of green food colouring on the top of Peanut’s head last night, so she knew which bird was which.
When the chicks stopped feeding, Jasmine tiptoed back downstairs, put on her coat and wellies and walked across the yard to the lambing barn. Maybe there would be another set of twins, or even triplets.
She scanned the pen of pregnant ewes. Her stomach gave a horrible lurch.
A ewe lay on her side in the straw. Her eyes were open, but she was frighteningly still. Beside her lay a shivering newborn lamb.
Jasmine hurried across the barn, knelt on the straw and lifted the ewe’s head.
It lay heavy in her hands. The open eyes were dull and her nose was dry. Jasmine could tell there was no life left in her.
The lamb was a boy, Jasmine saw. He lay trembling in the straw, still wet from his birth. His eyes were closed and his wrinkled coat was a yellowy colour. When Jasmine touched him, he felt dangerously cold. She knew she didn’t have much time to save him.
She rubbed him with a handful of straw to dry his damp wool and stimulate the circulation. Then she grabbed an empty feed sack and filled it with fresh straw. She unzipped her coat, scooped the lamb into her arms and wrapped her coat around him. Holding him tightly with one arm, she picked up the sack of straw with the other, climbed back over the gate and hurried towards the farmhouse.
Poor Little Scrap
Cradling the lamb under her coat, Jasmine fetched an empty cardboard box from the garage and took it into the kitchen. She knelt on the tiled floor in front of the big Aga cooker and laid the cold little lamb on her lap. His eyes were still closed and his breathing was fast and shallow. He looked very sick indeed.
Jasmine half-filled the box with straw and laid the lamb inside it. She lifted his head a little. When she took her hand away, it flopped back down in the straw. Her heart sank. If he couldn’t hold up his own head, then he probably wouldn’t be strong enough to swallow. It was vital to warm him up.
The Aga had four ovens, two on each side. The top right was the hottest and the bottom left was the coolest. It gave off a very gentle warmth, perfect for reviving sick baby animals.
“There you go, little one,” said Jasmine, sliding the box into the oven and half closing the door. “That will warm you up. I’m going to make you some colostrum.”
Colostrum was the mother’s first milk. It contained a lot of protein, as well as vital antibodies to protect the newborn animal from disease. If the lamb’s mother had died immediately after he was born, he would have had no colostrum. Jasmine could give him colostrum formula, but he had to be strong enough to swallow it.
From the cupboard under the scullery sink, where Dad kept the supplies for bottle-fed lambs, she fetched a plastic measuring jug, a tub of powdered colostrum formula, a feeding bottle and a rubber teat. She read the instructions on the tub, and then she measured the p
owder into the jug, added the right amount of warm water and whisked the mixture until it was smooth.
Then she poured it into the bottle, screwed the teat on, pushed up her sleeve and squeezed a few drops on to her wrist to check that it didn’t feel either hot or cold on the thin skin there.
It was a bit too warm, so she left it a minute and tested it again. This time, it felt just right. Carefully, she slid the cardboard box out of the oven.
“Come on, little lamb,” Jasmine whispered, lifting him out of the box and arranging him in a sitting position on her lap. “If you drink your colostrum, you’ll soon get better.”
Even as she said this, she knew it wasn’t necessarily true. Some lambs got better and some didn’t. At this point, it was impossible to tell whether this one would revive or not.
Jasmine slipped her index finger inside his mouth and prised his jaws apart. She placed the teat in his mouth, hoping he would start to suck. But he didn’t move.
The best way to give him colostrum would be through a stomach tube. But she couldn’t do that herself, so she would have to teach him to suck from a teat.
She held the bottle in position with one hand while, with the other, she tried to move his jaw up and down to teach him to suck. It wasn’t easy and she couldn’t tell whether he was actually getting any colostrum. The rich yellowy milk dribbled out of the sides of his mouth. Was any of it going down his throat?
Jasmine looked at her watch. Oh, no! It was over half an hour since she had fed Popcorn and Peanut.
“Please drink, little lamb,” she said. “I know it’s not your fault, but I have two baby birds who need feeding too.”
She wished Tom was here to help. But seven o’clock was too early to phone him.
The scullery door rattled open.
“Dad?” called Jasmine.
“It’s me,” came Mum’s voice.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re back,” said Jasmine, as Mum appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Look. He’s an orphan. I made him colostrum, but he can’t suck. He needs it through a tube.”
Mum went to the sink to wash her hands. “Where’s Dad?” she asked.
“He had to go and round up some escaped calves at Foxdean. So I checked the sheep and there was a dead ewe with this poor little lamb beside her.”
Mum looked at the lamb as she dried her hands. “He needs that colostrum quickly.”
She went out to the scullery and came back with a length of rubber tubing and a plastic syringe. She laid the tubing along the lamb’s body from his mouth to his last rib. “That’s where the stomach is. Make a mark on the tube with that pen, would you, so I know how far to insert it.”
Jasmine made a mark on the tubing where it lay next to the lamb’s mouth. Then Mum ran the tube under the tap and inserted it. When Jasmine had been younger, she had worried that this would hurt the lamb, but they never seemed to mind. This one didn’t make any fuss at all as the tube went down his throat.
Mum dipped the syringe into the bottle of colostrum and drew up the plunger. Then she attached the syringe to the tube and steadily pushed the plunger until all the colostrum had gone down the tube.
“There you are,” she said to the lamb. “All fed. Pop him back in the Aga, Jas, and hopefully he’ll start to improve soon.”
She handed the lamb to Jasmine, who kissed the top of his head before she put him in his box.
“He feels warmer already,” she said, sliding the box into the Aga. “It was lucky you came home.”
“It’s lucky you found him when you did,” said Mum. “He wouldn’t have survived much longer, poor little scrap.”
Suddenly, Jasmine smiled. “Lucky! That’s what I’m going to call him.”
“Don’t get your hopes up too much,” said Mum. “He’s still got a long way to go.”
Jasmine gave her mother a reproachful look. “He’s going to be fine. I can tell.”
“Right. Will you wash all the feeding things, please?” said Mum.
“In a minute,” said Jasmine. “I just need to go upstairs.”
Toffee was mewing and scratching at Jasmine’s bedroom door, clearly desperate to get in. Jasmine shook her head at him.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “I know exactly what you want, and you’re not getting anywhere near those baby birds.”
She picked him up and set him down on the other side of the landing before she opened the door. But she had underestimated Toffee’s speed. Before she had a chance to close the door behind her, he had shot between her legs and across the room to the wardrobe, hooking his paw around the door to prise it open.
Jasmine ran to the wardrobe and grabbed Toffee around the middle. “No,” she said, in her strictest voice, as she carried him out of the room. “I know it’s your natural instinct and you don’t understand about kindness to birds, but I’m looking after these chicks and I’m not letting you get near them.”
She set Toffee down again on the landing and shut the door firmly in his face.
Popcorn and Peanut were cheeping desperately. Jasmine took the tweezers and food from under her bed and dropped little pieces into their gaping mouths until they closed their beaks.
She checked the time. She needed to take Sky out before breakfast. And with a lamb to look after as well, it wasn’t going to be easy to sneak off every thirty minutes.
Maybe she should tell Mum about the birds this morning, she thought. After all, she had kept them alive for long enough to prove she could look after them. If she told her about them now, surely Mum would let her care for them until they were old enough to be released?
A Few Shaky Steps
Jasmine brought Sky back to the house just as it was time to give Peanut and Popcorn their next feed.
“Come and look at this, Jas,” Mum called from the kitchen.
Jasmine opened the door and her face broke into an enormous smile. Lucky was sitting up in his box, looking out of the oven. When he saw Jasmine, he gave a little bleat and his hooves scrabbled around in the straw.
“He’s revived!” cried Jasmine, running across the room. “He’s trying to stand up! Oh, you clever little lamb.” She knelt down and kissed his head. Lucky bleated again.
“You’re talking, too! Oh, I’m so happy you’re better.”
“He’s really perked up, hasn’t he?” said Mum, who was cooking on the Aga. She picked up the frying pan and flipped a pancake.
“Ooh, pancakes!” said Jasmine.
“I thought you deserved your favourite breakfast, seeing as you’ve already saved a lamb’s life this morning. Here, you can have the first one.”
She slid the pancake on to a plate. Jasmine looked at it longingly. But she needed to feed Popcorn and Peanut before she ate anything herself.
The door from the hall opened and Manu appeared in his pyjamas, his hair sticking up in tufts.
“Manu can have it,” said Jasmine. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Cool,” said Manu, plonking himself on a chair.
Mum looked astonished. “But you always fight for the first pancake.”
Jasmine left the room to avoid having to reply. Manu was already reaching for the golden syrup.
Toffee was lurking outside her bedroom door again. Jasmine tutted at him.
“I’m never going to let you in while the birds are there,” she said, as she picked him up and opened the door. “So you might as well give up trying.” And she set him down on the landing and shut the door behind him.
Peanut and Popcorn were cheeping again, their necks at full stretch and their beaks gaping.
“Bird parents must be exhausted the whole time, with a nest full of chicks to feed,” Jasmine said to them, dropping food into their mouths. “And they have to find the food themselves. I only have to open a packet.”
Suddenly she remembered that she wasn’t meant to talk to the chicks. She closed her mouth tightly. It was so hard not to speak to baby animals.
When she went back to the kitchen, Manu was kneel
ing by the Aga, stroking the little lamb. “He’s so cute,” he said to Jasmine. “I’m going to call him Derek.”
“He’s already got a name,” said Jasmine. “He’s called Lucky.”
“Derek’s a better name,” said Manu. “Can I make cakes today, Mum?”
“I’m not sure I’ve got the strength,” said Mum, as she slid a pancake on to a plate for Jasmine. “It took about a week to clean the kitchen after you made cakes last time.”
“There’s still some icing on the ceiling,” said Jasmine, squeezing lemon juice on to her pancake.
“That was Ben,” said Manu. “He was doing a gravity experiment.”
“Yes, well, it might be nice if Ben didn’t do quite so many of his experiments in our kitchen,” said Mum.
A tremendous scrabbling sound came from the Aga. Jasmine looked across the table.
Lucky was scrambling for a foothold. He scrabbled around frantically with his little hooves, and then, with what looked like an enormous effort, he heaved his front legs upright.
“Oh, good boy,” said Jasmine. “Well done, Lucky. See if you can stand on your back legs too.”
Lucky scrambled and pushed and arched his back, and then finally he half climbed, half fell out of the Aga, and there he was, standing on the tiled floor on his own four legs. Jasmine jumped up from the table, knelt down and kissed his head.
“Look at you, Lucky! You’re standing up all by yourself.”
The back door opened.
“Dad!” called Jasmine. “Come and look at this.”
Dad appeared in the kitchen doorway, still in his coat and boots. He smiled and shook his head ruefully as he looked at Jasmine and Lucky.
“I might have known it was a bad idea to let you check the sheep. The minute I turn my back you bring another animal into the house.”
“That’s very rude,” said Jasmine. “You should be thanking me. I just saved his life. Well, me and Mum.”