Bush Baby Rescue

by Rebecca Johnson

  ‘And they’re a lot cuter than four of yours!’ adds Chelsea.

  ‘This is like feeding tiny stuffed toys, only better,’ whispers Maisy as we feed our babies for the first time.

  Their little bodies feel so warm in their pouches and their tiny eyes peep out at us confused. At first I am scared that I won’t do it properly, but then my possum starts sucking on her teat and closes her eyes. I relax. I can’t believe I am getting to do this. I am already in love with them all!

  Chelsea, Maisy and I have sorted out who will look after each of the nine babies. We have named them already:

  I hear a roar from outside. ‘Mum!’ calls Max, sticking his head in the door.

  ‘SHHHH!’ we say together.

  Max tries to whisper. ‘Dad’s helped me set up my lizard tank and now we’re looking for snails and grasshoppers for it to eat. Can I have him soon? I’m gonna call him Killer.’

  ‘He’s going to get way too attached to that lizard,’ I say to Chelsea, shaking my head.

  ‘Mmm, I know,’ she says, as we look down at our babies adoringly.

  ‘Can Chelsea and I keep our babies in my room, Mum? Max is allowed to have his lizard in his room. Maisy’s mum is going to let her keep hers in her room . . . ’ Maisy nods.

  ‘Actually, I can’t keep them at my house because of Princess,’ says Chelsea. Princess is Chelsea’s beautiful cat.

  ‘They’re not pets, Juliet.’ Mum is looking really tired and frustrated as she tries to get the tiny koala to take his bottle. He keeps rolling into a ball and tucking his head down. His little back legs are bandaged and obviously very sore.

  ‘We won’t get them out unless it’s feeding time, we promise,’ I say. ‘We just want to set it up like a little hospital where everything is quiet.’

  Mum sighs. ‘You’re going to have to ask Dad. You haven’t got a great track record for managing to keep animals in your room in the past, Juliet. And I’ll need to check on them every day. Mrs Brown is going to be keeping a very close eye on Maisy’s possums.’

  Maisy nods again vigorously.

  ‘When they get a bit older and need to go into the cages for climbing practice and stuff, I promise we’ll bring them back out here,’ I plead.

  Mum just looks at me. I decide I’d better leave it at that.

  After we have fed all the babies, Mrs Brown takes Maisy and all of their patients home to get organised. Chelsea and I go into my room to see how it can be set up – once I’ve told Dad about it, of course.

  ‘Um, maybe we should clear away a bit of this mess first?’ says Chelsea.

  ‘Good thinking,’ I say as I look at the floor. Well, what I can see of it that’s not hidden by clothes and books. I push it all under the bed and pull the bedspread up. I clear my desk into a box with one swipe and look around with my hands on my hips. ‘There. Tidy. Now, let’s go and get their cages.’

  Chelsea grimaces and smiles. She is a bit of a neat freak.

  As we walk past Max’s room I can see Dad has set up the glass tank for him on his desk. There are dinosaurs surrounding it, staring in at the lizard.

  ‘I hope they don’t scare it,’ I say.

  ‘They’re his friends,’ Max says confidently.

  We head out to the shed to get the first load of cages and pet carriers. Back in my room, we place them side by side. It really does look like a hospital.

  ‘I’ll make labels for their cages with their names and the times they need to be fed and how much to feed them,’ says Chelsea, sitting down at the computer.

  ‘I’ll go back out to the surgery to get some teats and bottles,’ I reply.

  Being a vet can be very busy work.

  I meet Chelsea’s mum and my dad on the way. She’s just been up to the pet warehouse to get some more teats for Mum and has a present for Max and his lizard; it’s a box of crickets. Dad is very pleased because now he can stop hunting for bugs.

  ‘I didn’t even know they sold bugs in boxes!’ says Dad, holding it up with two fingers to look inside.

  ‘Oh, they sell all sorts of things for reptiles to eat, even boxes of cockroaches!’

  Dad pulls a face. ‘Thanks for not getting those, Helen! Even if the lizard prefers cockroaches, I certainly don’t.’

  I guess someone should have supervised Max putting the crickets into the tank with the lizard.

  Instead of putting the cricket container into the tank and then taking the lid off, he thought he would just get one cricket out at a time and pop it in.

  ‘Agh, get them off me!’ he screeches as Chelsea and I race into his room. There are crickets leaping out of the container in every direction. Dad comes running in, but it’s too late – they’ve disappeared under the bed and through his toys.

  ‘Well, at least he got some in there,’ I say, trying to calm Dad down a bit. There are about half a dozen crickets jumping around inside the tank. The lizard just lies there watching them.

  ‘When’s he gonna eat them?’ Max presses his face against the glass.

  ‘He might be a bit too sore to eat for a while,’ Mum says from the doorway. She’s come in from the surgery for the first time that day. ‘Give him time to recover. I think he’ll be all right.’

  Dad goes to make Mum a cup of tea.

  ‘Did you get the baby koala to drink?’ I ask her.

  ‘No.’ Mum runs her hands through her hair. ‘He’s the only one that’s not responding. I’ve given him a needle with some fluids, but if he doesn’t pick up soon, I don’t know that he’ll make it. He’s just too dehydrated.’

  After Mum finishes her tea she goes and has a sleep. Chelsea and I offer to keep an eye on the surgery. We’ll have to feed all the babies again in a couple of hours and poor Mum and Mrs O’Sullivan are going to have to get up at least twice during the night. I’m glad our babies are older and stronger.

  The babies in the surgery seem warm and settled. The little koala doesn’t move when I gently place my hand on the outside of the pouch. Even though he feels warm, he is shaking. I can see why Mum is so worried.

  When Mum wakes up, she looks on the internet for information on orphan koalas.

  ‘They’re not like possums and gliders,’ I hear her telling Dad. ‘Only about ten per cent of them survive when they are brought in for care and this one has burns and shock to deal with as well.’

  Mum comes to sit with us when we get ready to feed our babies for the second time. She looks pleased and says they’re all doing very well.

  ‘Chelsea and I have come to an arrangement,’ I tell Mum as I sit dabbing at a tiny sugar glider’s bottom. ‘I clean all the bottoms and she makes up the bottles.’

  Chelsea walks in with a tray of tiny labelled bottles. ‘Maisy said she’d do it for me, but we didn’t think about the times when she wasn’t here. Poo is just not my thing. I’m sorry, Mrs Fletcher.’ She looks a bit embarrassed, but Mum just smiles.

  ‘I think that’s a very clever arrangement,’ she says. ‘Make sure you give your hands a good wash before you feed them, Juliet.’

  We all sit very quietly as each baby is fed. Their little eyes peer up at us through the dim light.

  ‘I wonder what they’re thinking?’ I whisper.

  ‘The instinct to survive is the most powerful thing,’ says Mum. She strokes Blossom’s tiny head as Chelsea feeds her. ‘They are probably very confused and frightened at the moment, but their bodies know they need this milk to survive, so that overpowers the fear.’

  ‘Will they always be frightened of us?’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ whispers Mum. ‘After a while they’ll start to see you as their mum. They’ll be quite happy to climb up to your shoulder and look at the world, just like they would their real mum.’

  Right on cue, Daisy, the larger of my two gliders, climbs up onto my arm as I feed her little sister.

  ‘Hello, Daisy,’ I whisper. ‘I’m going to be your mummy.’

  ‘So are they ever going to want to leave us?’ asks Chelsea. The th
ought of going everywhere with three possums clinging to her is obviously not the most exciting news for her. I wouldn’t mind at all.

  ‘That’s why they’ll go to a release aviary out in the bush when they don’t need a bottle any more. A carer will put food and water out for them until they are adjusted to the foods and surroundings of their natural environment and humans gradually have less and less contact with them. Then they are released back into the wild.’

  ‘I must make a note of all the stages they have to go through later,’ I say to myself. Handing them over to the carer was going to be a very sad day.

  We all get into bed feeling exhausted. It’s been another long, tiring day. As well as caring for the new babies, I still have my guinea pigs, chickens and Curly to look after. I feel really guilty as I put Curly’s basket outside my bedroom door. I don’t think he likes my new babies at all.

  Only a couple of minutes after Dad turns off the light in the hallway, the crickets start to chirp.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sakes!’ groans Dad.

  I don’t mind the noise at all. It’s a bit like sleeping out in the bush. In fact, I think my babies actually like it because they settle. It probably makes them feel more like they’re at home.

  I get up to go to the toilet during the night and see the light on in the surgery.

  I tiptoe out along the path and open the door. Mum looks up and doesn’t seem all that surprised to see me. Mrs O’Sullivan is sitting beside her feeding a baby too.

  ‘How’s the baby koala?’ I ask.

  ‘Still struggling, I’m afraid,’ sighs Mum. ‘I did get her to take a tiny sip of milk from a glass syringe, but she’s very reluctant.’

  I walk over and look into her cage. The little ball inside the pouch doesn’t move at all.

  ‘Juliet, vets can’t save every animal that comes in. You know that.’

  I nod and try to smile. ‘I think I’ll go back to bed.’

  Curly has followed me the whole time. I let him into my room to see what he will do. He sniffs at the cages for a moment then sits beside the bed and rests his chin on it. I stroke him gently. He seems to understand that I feel sad.

  The next morning Max is very excited. His lizard has eaten some of the banana from his bowl.

  ‘That’s a good sign,’ says Mum.

  ‘It’ll be a better sign when he’s eaten those crickets,’ grumbles Dad, looking behind the door and in the wardrobe. I don’t think Dad would make much of a camper.

  ‘My dinosaurs are going to help me round up the crickets,’ says Max proudly. I look at a large Tyrannosaurus Rex on the floor with its mouth open. A cricket is sitting on its nose. I don’t think it’s quite as terrified as Max might hope.

  ‘Just make sure it’s a quiet hunt,’ I say. ‘My babies are trying to sleep.’

  Chelsea arrives from next door looking all neat and tidy. I look like a dinosaur’s breakfast. Vets don’t always have time for grooming themselves.

  We start getting ready for our next round of feeding, preparing the warm water and formula.

  ‘Maisy and her mum are bringing their babies in for a check-up with your mum this morning,’ says Chelsea.

  ‘I can’t wait to see those little ringtail possums again. Especially Lambchop. He’s so chubby and cuddly looking.’

  ‘I don’t understand why they’re called ringtails?’ says Chelsea. ‘My brushtails all have tails that make little rings too.’ She pulls back one of the pouches to reveal a fluffy tail curled in the shape of a ring.

  ‘Yeah, it’s confusing,’ I say. ‘All possums have tails that go into a ring because that’s how they hold onto branches and stuff. Brushtail possums just have much fluffier ones – a bit like a bottlebrush, I guess. Here, I’ll show you the difference.’

  I open my Vet Diary.

  ‘Oh, I see! Juliet,’ sighs Chelsea, ‘you really are nearly a vet.’

  I smile but the moment is ruined by a loud ‘Gotcha!’ Max runs past the bedroom yelling, ‘Dad, I got another one!’

  ‘I don’t know how much longer this can go on,’ I mutter as I stand up to close my door. ‘This morning Curly was fast asleep when a cricket crawled onto his back. Max pounced on it and poor Curly got such a fright he ran out the back door taking the screen with him. Dad’s just finished fixing it now.’

  ‘That’s not going to do a lot for your Dad’s love of animals!’ laughs Chelsea.

  Right on cue we hear a loud ‘AGGGHHHH!’ followed by a bang in the kitchen. We both race out to see what it is.

  ‘What on earth?’ yells Dad. An ice-cream tub half-filled with writhing brown things is sitting on the table.

  ‘Mealworms,’ Max and I answer in unison.

  ‘What are mealworms?’ says Dad, pulling a face. ‘And why do we have worms of any kind in the fridge? I thought it was leftovers from dinner last night.’

  ‘They’re to feed Killer the Lizard,’ Max explains. ‘Mrs O’Sullivan bought them for me because we were worried the crickets were too fast for the lizard while he’s sick. You should see how much he loves them, Dad.’

  ‘They’re not actually worms, Dad. They’re beetle larvae. If you keep them in the fridge, it stops them from going through metamorphosis,’ I add.

  I thought everyone knew that.

  ‘Here, I’m sure I have a life-cycle diagram in my Vet Diary.’

  I flick through to the section on insects to find my diagram.

  ‘Uh, thanks, Juliet, but I think . . . I’m just going to . . . um . . . work in my . . . office . . . alone . . . for a while,’ says Dad, backing away slowly before I can show him. He leaves the kitchen shaking his head. He’s been doing that a lot lately.

  Maisy and her mum arrive and bring Harry, Maisy’s little brother, with them. He has a cardboard box full of dinosaurs in his arms. Just what we need. More dinosaurs. They can’t wait to show us all their healthy babies.

  ‘Look at the size of them now!’ laughs Mum as Maisy holds up Lambchop, Lucy and Ruby. Their little bulging black eyes peer curiously at all of us as they hang onto Maisy’s fingers. She snuggles them into her chest. ‘Lambchop weighs 250 grams already,’ she announces proudly.

  ‘Thank you all for doing this,’ Mum says as she peeps into a pouch at a tiny brushtail possum, ‘I don’t know what I would’ve done without you all.’

  ‘Actually, Helen and I have decided to become registered wildlife carers,’ Chelsea’s mum announces. ‘We feel like this is such a worthwhile thing to do and with so many animals dying in the fire, we have to all work together to rebuild the populations.’

  ‘Does that mean we can become carers too?’ Chelsea says excitedly.

  ‘Not until you and Maisy are older,’ says Mum, ‘but if both your mums are carers, they’ll always need help. And you have proved yourselves to be very capable in this emergency.’

  We all go over to Chelsea’s house to see how her mum is going. She is still sewing little pouches to send to the other carers in the area.

  ‘Muuuuuuuummmmmm!’ there is a loud cry from Max in the backyard. We all rush out to see.

  ‘We were just taking Killer out for a walk on the grass with our other dinosaurs and he took off and went under the woodpile. Can you catch him, Mum? Can you get him back?’

  ‘I think Killer might be trying to tell you something, Max. I think he is ready to be free.’

  ‘But he hasn’t eaten all his crickets yet,’ he wails, ‘or his mealworms!’

  Mum bobs down and pulls Max close. I start to worry that I am going to cry too. Max loves Killer like I love my babies. ‘You know what would be really nice, Max? If you got some crickets and mealworms and put them with a bowl of water out here near the woodpile for Killer. Then he won’t have to go too far away to hunt for his food.’

  ‘We can put some snails under there for him too,’ Harry adds.

  Max brightens. ‘He’d love that,’ he sniffles as they head inside to get the mealworms. ‘I just really liked having him in my room.’

 
Chelsea, Maisy and I walk over to the surgery to look in on the animals Mum is caring for. We stand at the cage quietly and watch the tiny koala. He keeps struggling and trying to push his way out of the pouch.

  ‘He’s taking a little more milk, but it’s such a struggle. He’s so unsettled and he’s losing weight,’ sighs Mum.

  ‘He looks like he’s looking for his mum,’ says Chelsea sadly.

  ‘Chelsea, you are brilliant!’ I whisper. ‘You really do have a talent with animal behaviour and you have just given me a great idea.’

  I race back inside and start pulling stuff out from under my bed.

  ‘Didn’t you just shove all that under there?’ says Chelsea, confused.

  ‘Yep,’ I say, trying to find what I’m hunting for. Then my hand touches something. ‘Got it!’

  I pull out a large brown teddy. ‘One koala mummy,’ I smile.

  We race outside and carefully open the door to the cage. All we can see is the top of the little koala’s head. I gently put the pouch against the teddy’s tummy and we all wait.

  A tiny hand comes out and curls around the teddy’s fur. Ever so slowly the little koala emerges from the pouch and nestles in under the tummy of the large bear. Their furs seem to blend together and all we can see is his little black button nose poking out from under the bear’s arm. We all look at each other and smile.

  ‘I think your name should be Button,’ I whisper.

  ‘Our babies have really grown, haven’t they?’ I say excitedly.

  Chelsea, Maisy and I are weighing them all and filling in their charts.

  ‘Mum says all the brushtail possums that are over 200 grams and the ringtails that are over 130 grams can start being fed some strained fruit and custards now. Soon they will start to nibble at leaves and flowers.’

  ‘Well, that is all three of my babies,’ says Chelsea. ‘They look so much better than they did three weeks ago, don’t they!’

  ‘And mine,’ smiles Maisy, holding up an adorable and very chubby little Lambchop. ‘At least your mum won’t have to give them bottles during the day when we are at school now. We can just do an early morning, afternoon and night feed.’