by Helen Peters
He fetched a rope halter from the corner of the barn and climbed into the pen.
“Hold her head steady,” he said.
Burning with resentment, Jasmine held the ewe’s big woolly head as Dad attached the halter and tied the rope around the hurdle.
“Put him back in there, Jas.”
Jasmine glared at her father’s back. Then she kissed Lucky’s head and lowered him into the pen. She held her breath as he dragged himself over to the ewe. The sheep tugged at her collar and swung her head to and fro to try to free herself. When that didn’t work, she aimed a swift kick at Lucky.
The little lamb went flying. He crashed into the metal hurdle with a force that made Jasmine cry out in horror.
“He’s bleeding!”
She scooped him out of the pen. There was a gash on his left back leg, just above the knee, where the ewe’s sharp hoof had struck him.
Dad frowned and shook his head. “They don’t usually kick,” he said.
“You can’t put him back in there,” said Jasmine, holding Lucky tightly to her. “I won’t let you. I’m not letting him go until you promise I can look after him.”
“She might accept him eventually,” said Dad, “if he was big and strong enough to keep on trying. But she’s clearly going to put up a fight, and he’s not going to be able to take much more of that.”
“He’s not going back in there,” Jasmine repeated. “I’m going to look after him myself.”
Dad gave a rueful smile. “All right, Jasmine. You win.”
Jasmine gave a cry of delight. “Oh, thank you, Dad! Did you hear that, Lucky? I’m going to be your foster mother, not that nasty old ewe.”
“Bed up that empty pen,” said Dad. “Put plenty of straw down, and I’ll stack a couple of those small bales around it, to keep out draughts.”
“I’ll ask Mum to treat that cut on his leg, too,” said Jasmine.
“He ought to go under a heat lamp really,” said Dad, “but I’m reluctant to use one again, after last year.”
Jasmine shuddered at the memory. Last spring, the lambing barn had caught fire when a heat lamp fell on the floor and set the straw alight.
“No, don’t use a heat lamp,” she said. “I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to make him a thermal jacket.”
Dad raised his eyebrows. “Really? I didn’t think you liked sewing.”
“There’s no sewing. Just parcel tape and bubble wrap.”
“Bubble wrap?”
“Mum said at the vets’ they make little blankets out of bubble wrap for hamsters and guinea pigs when they’re recovering from operations, to keep their body heat in. So I’m going to make Lucky a bubble wrap jacket to keep him warm.”
Dad nodded thoughtfully. “Well, it’s definitely worth a try. If it works, you can patent it and make your fortune.”
“I’ll do that,” said Jasmine. “Then I can use the money for my animal rescue centre.”
She should be completely happy now, she thought, as she walked back to the house. She had a lamb and two baby birds to look after. But there was a little dark cloud at the edge of her happiness. She tried her best to ignore it, but it kept pushing its way back in.
In just a few weeks’ time, she would have to say goodbye to all of them.
Will She Be OK?
Peanut and Popcorn grew rapidly. At five days old, their shiny round black eyes opened and they started to look at each other.
“They’re imprinting on each other,” said Jasmine. “That’s really good. They know they’re birds now.”
The next day, they began to crawl around the nest and flap their little wings. By the time they were eight days old, they had the beginnings of tiny brown and black feathers.
“I think they’re sparrows,” said Jasmine, and when she asked Mum to come and look, Mum told her she was right.
When they were a week old, the nestlings stood upright on their skinny legs for the first time. By eleven days, their feathers were soft and fluffy.
“I wish we could stroke them,” said Jasmine longingly.
“You’re going to have to resist,” said Mum. “You’ve done really well, you know. They’ve imprinted on each other, not on you, and that’s exactly how it should be.”
The nestlings didn’t need food colouring to tell them apart any more. Peanut had the pale brown back of a female sparrow, whereas Popcorn had a black bib at his throat and a male sparrow’s reddish-brown back.
When they were twelve days old, Jasmine found them hopping about at the bottom of her wardrobe. It was time to put them in a birdcage, so they could learn to fly. Mum borrowed a cage from the vets’ surgery and Dad hung it in the lambing barn. Young sparrows have to learn their songs from other sparrows, and there were always sparrows in and around the barn.
When the summer term began, Jasmine brought the birdcage into the scullery every day after school, so that Peanut and Popcorn could practise flying for longer distances. At first, they stayed mainly on the floor, just taking a few tentative short flights. But every day they flew higher and further. When they were tired or hungry, they just flew back into the cage.
Although Jasmine still hand-fed them a few times a day, they began to eat more of their food from a bowl. They also started to peck at the bird seed she scattered on the cage floor.
One Saturday morning, they didn’t open their beaks when Jasmine approached with the tweezers. She waved her hand above their heads to create a shadow, to imitate the shadow the parents make when they arrive at the nest with food. But the sparrows ignored her.
“You don’t want me to feed you any more, do you?” she said to them sadly, withdrawing her hand. “You’re fully weaned.”
Peanut hopped to the open cage door, flapped her wings and flew up to the work surface. Jasmine dropped a few seeds on the surface nearby and Peanut pecked them up.
CRASH!
The noise came from Manu’s room, directly above the scullery, as something very heavy fell to the floor. Peanut flapped her wings in panic, flew across the scullery at full pelt and smashed right into the window. Jasmine cried out in terror as the bird’s little body slid down the glass. It landed on the work surface and lay there, silent and unmoving.
For a few terrible seconds, Jasmine stood rooted to the spot, her heart pounding. Then she dashed through the kitchen and into the hall.
“Mum!” she shouted. “Mum, come here!”
“What is it?” called Mum from upstairs.
“Peanut’s injured. Badly. Come, quickly.”
But as Jasmine ran back into the scullery, an even more terrible sight met her eyes. On the work surface stood Toffee, with Peanut clamped between his jaws.
Jasmine’s heart stopped. She sprang across the room. “No!” she shouted. “No! Put her down!”
Toffee sprang to the floor, with Peanut still in his mouth, and ran towards the kitchen. Jasmine lunged for him but he was too quick for her.
“Toffee, put her down!” shouted Jasmine. She ran after him into the kitchen, just as Mum opened the other door. Toffee changed direction and Jasmine grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. Startled, he dropped Peanut.
“Bad cat!” said Jasmine. “Bad, bad cat!”
She took him out to the garden and shut the door behind him. She locked the cat flap and ran back in to the kitchen.
Mum and Jasmine stood over the little bird. Peanut lay on her side, her eyes closed, motionless except for the rapid beating of her heart.
Jasmine dreaded what Mum might say, but she had to know.
“Will she be OK?” she whispered.
“She doesn’t have any visible injuries,” said Mum. “Hopefully, she’s just stunned. We’ll wait and see.”
Jasmine held her breath. They waited for what seemed like a very long time. Then Peanut opened her eyes. Jasmine gave a gasp of relief.
Peanut closed her eyes. Jasmine’s stomach lurched. She watched the little bird fearfully.
Peanut opened her eyes again. She jerked her body, flapped her
wings and staggered to her feet.
“Oh,” whispered Jasmine.
Mum was smiling. “She’s recovering from the concussion.”
Peanut stood quietly, opening and shutting her eyes, for several minutes, while Mum and Jasmine watched. Then she turned her head and looked at them. She turned her head the other way, as if re-familiarising herself with her surroundings.
“Do you think she’s all right?” asked Jasmine.
“I think she’ll be fine,” said Mum. “She seems to be recovering well. What happened to her?”
Jasmine told her. “It was all Manu’s fault,” she finished. “Dropping things like that.”
Mum raised her eyebrows and looked at Jasmine. “You know what this means, though, don’t you?”
“What?” said Jasmine.
“If she’s flying strongly enough that she can knock herself out by flying into a window, then they’re ready to be released.”
“But I already have to take Lucky out to the field this morning.”
“Remember what you promised?” said Mum. “You need to set them free.”
“I will,” said Jasmine. “I want to set them free. But I can’t let them all go in one day. I’ll release the birds tomorrow. I promise.”
Lots Of Space to Play In
When Tom arrived an hour later to help take Lucky and the other lambs to the field, Peanut was chirping happily in her cage again. Jasmine told Tom the whole terrible story as she put her boots and coat on and they walked across the yard.
All the lambs started to bleat as Tom and Jasmine approached the barn. Lucky’s bleat was the loudest of all. He scampered to the gate to greet Jasmine, running with his front legs and jumping with his back ones. He could pick up his back legs now, but, despite all the pedalling exercises, he couldn’t move them separately. He was much stronger, though, and no longer needed his bubble-wrap jacket.
Jasmine picked him up and he nibbled at her ear. She laughed and turned her head away. “That tickles! Stop sucking, Lucky. It’s not time for your feed yet.”
Lucky started nibbling at a loose strand of her hair. Jasmine pulled his jaws apart with her fingers and extracted her hair from his mouth. His little teeth were quite sharp now.
She set the lamb down. He bleated again and began to suck at the hem of her trousers.
“You’re going to live in a field now, Lucky,” she said. “You’re going to taste grass for the first time. And Sky and I will walk up to feed you every day before and after school.”
It was a beautiful day. The sky arched high and blue over the farm, and the blackthorn bushes frothed with white blossom. The willow catkins looked like millipedes that had dipped their toes in yellow powder. Jasmine stroked one and the pollen came off on her fingers.
Jasmine, Tom and Dad walked the sheep across Hawthorn Field and through the gate into Willow Field, which was next to the woods at the northern edge of the farm. There was another gate on the right-hand side of this field, which led out to the lane where Tom lived. It was padlocked, but Tom often climbed over it to take a short cut to the farmhouse.
In Willow Field, the ewes were grazing peacefully or sitting down chewing the cud. Some of the lambs were feeding. Others sat nestled into their mothers’ woolly fleeces. One group of more adventurous lambs was racing around the field in a gang, running, skipping and doing funny little sideways jumps.
“Look, Lucky,” said Jasmine. “Lots of space to play in and friends to play with.”
Lucky bent his head down and took an experimental nibble of grass. He clearly liked it, because he immediately started pulling up more.
“Lovely sight, isn’t it,” said Dad, “seeing all the ewes with their new lambs out here for the first time. It always makes me think back to those first four ewes I bought thirty years ago.”
As a teenager, Dad had saved up money from his work on the farm and bought four pedigree Southdown ewe lambs to start his flock. Most of the sheep in this field were descended from those four lambs.
Dad set off around the edge of the field to check the sheep.
“The other lambs are all so much bigger than Lucky,” said Jasmine. “I hope they won’t bully him. Do you think he’ll be all right?”
“It’s a shame Betty isn’t in this field,” said Tom. “She could have looked after him.”
Betty was a lamb that Jasmine had bottle fed the previous year. She was still very tame, and ran over to greet Jasmine every time she came to her field. Last year’s lambs were in a different field, though, so Betty wouldn’t be able to look after Lucky.
“Where is Lucky, anyway?” asked Tom.
Jasmine glanced down, but Lucky had gone. She scanned the sheep nearby, but she couldn’t see him.
Suddenly, Tom laughed. “Look,” he said, pointing to a fallen tree trunk in the middle of the field. A gaggle of lambs was chasing each other around it, jumping on to the fallen tree and off again. And right in the middle of them was Lucky, half running, half jumping, and clearly having a wonderful time.
Jasmine watched him, her feelings a mixture of pride and sadness. Tom glanced at her.
“He’s still yours, you know,” he said. “You told me that sheep remember their human friends even after years apart. Lucky will always come when you call him, like Betty still does.”
“I know,” said Jasmine. “But he’ll only be here for a few more months.”
“Do you think your dad might let you keep him?”
“No,” said Jasmine. “He’s not a good enough specimen to be a breeding ram, and I’m not allowed any more pets. So…”
She couldn’t bear to finish the sentence, but they both knew how it would end. In a few months’ time, Lucky would be sent to market.
Headlights
In the middle of the night, Jasmine was woken by terrible screams outside her window. She sat up in bed, her heart pounding. What was going on?
Then she realised what it was. A fox fight.
She got out of bed, opened her curtains and looked down over the moonlit garden. She couldn’t see any foxes.
She looked out across the fields. Then she frowned. There were headlights shining at the edge of Willow Field. Headlights belonging to a big vehicle, by the look of it.
Why would there be a vehicle in the sheep field at this time of night? Was it Dad’s truck? Had something happened with the sheep? But it looked too big to be Dad’s truck.
Jasmine ran out of her room, along the landing and into her parents’ room.
“Dad? Mum?”
“Jasmine?” It was Mum’s sleepy voice.
“Is Dad there?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“There’s a vehicle up in the sheep field. I thought it was his truck.”
Mum switched on her bedside lamp. “A vehicle?”
“What’s going on?” Dad mumbled.
Mum was wide awake now. “Jasmine’s seen a vehicle in the sheep field.”
“What?” Dad jumped out of bed and grabbed his jeans from the chair.
“What are you doing?” asked Mum.
“Going up there, of course.”
Jasmine opened the curtains. “Oh. It’s gone.”
Dad looked out of the window. Then he turned to Jasmine. “Are you sure you saw a vehicle?”
“Yes!” said Jasmine indignantly. “There were big headlights.”
“But was it definitely in the sheep field?” asked Mum. “Could it have just been in the lane? The driver might have stopped to make a phone call or something.”
Jasmine began to doubt herself. “I’m sure it was in the field. But maybe it wasn’t.”
Dad looked at her for a few seconds. Then he said, “Well, it won’t do any harm to drive up there and check. Better safe than sorry.”
“Take your phone with you,” said Mum. “Call me if you need me.”
Jasmine followed Dad out of the room and down the stairs. In the hall, she said, “I’m coming with you.”
“Don’t be silly, Jas. It�
��s two in the morning. Go back to bed.”
“I won’t be able to sleep until I know the sheep are safe. I’ll go back to bed as soon as we get home, I promise.”
“But you’re not even dressed.”
“I’ll put my coat and wellies on over my pyjamas.”
“Oh, all right, then. But hurry up. I need to go.”
Sky jumped up from his bed as Jasmine came into the scullery for her wellies.
“Do you want to come with me?” she said, taking his lead from the hook on the back of the door. “We might need a sheepdog.”
She thought Dad might make a fuss about Sky coming, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Sky sat quietly at Jasmine’s feet in the passenger seat as they drove up the farm track and along the lane. Dad drove fast and looked tense. He didn’t say a word.
As the gate to Willow Field came into view, Jasmine cried out in dismay. It was wide open.
Dad swore under his breath and swung the truck through the gateway. They both jumped out. Frantically, Jasmine scanned the field, desperately hoping to see the flock huddled together in a corner. But the field was empty. Every single sheep had gone.
She looked around for Dad. He was standing at the gate, as still as a statue, staring at the padlock. She walked over to him.
“They’ve sawn through the chain,” he said. His voice was so quiet and flat that she could hardly hear the words. “They’ve taken the whole lot.”
“Call the police,” said Jasmine. “Where’s your phone?”
As if in a daze, Dad pulled his phone out of his pocket. Then he put his hand on the gate to steady himself. He looked blankly at the phone screen.
“What’s the number?” he said.
“Give me the phone,” said Jasmine, holding out her hand. “I’ll call the police.”
I’m Not Going Home
“Why are they taking so long?” Jasmine said, for the umpteenth time.
Dad said nothing. He hadn’t said a single word since Jasmine had taken his phone to call the police. He hadn’t even been able to text Mum and let her know what was happening. Jasmine had texted her instead. Dad was just staring into the empty field. He seemed to be paralysed with shock.