“Karl,” said his auntie, gently stroking a lamb under the chin, “while you are out, I look on Internet. I check pictures of poodles. These are not poodles. These are sheeps.”
Karl sighed.
“Yes, Auntie. I know.”
“You think I am foolish?”
“No, Auntie. You’ve never seen a poodle up close.” said Karl. “And anyway,” he added, “there’s nothing foolish about having a dream.”
While Karl was delving into the freezer with Mr. Khan, Gemma was sweeping fur and fluff from the floor of the vet’s waiting room.
She worked there two evenings a week, mostly cleaning, but sometimes she got to help with the animals.
“Gemma!” Dr. Sweeney stepped into the waiting room. Gemma liked old Dr. Sweeney. Of all the vets, he let her work with the animals the most. He was holding a small basket with five pale blue eggs inside.
“Mrs. Tasker brought them in for me. She knows I like duck eggs,” said Dr. Sweeney. “But, bless her, she’s a bit loopy, and I’m pretty sure they’re rotten. Can you chuck them in the green trash can on your way out?”
“Yes,” Gemma said, “of course.”
“Thanks, Gemma. Next time I have to hold a hamster down, you’re the one I’ll call!” He grinned through his beard and went back to the exam room.
Gemma looked at the eggs. They didn’t look bad. In fact, they looked beautiful, resting in a little nest of snowy feathers. She couldn’t bear to chuck them in the trash can and hear them smash on the bottom. Very carefully, she wrapped the eggs in her sweatshirt and went home.
In the middle of the night, a tiny sound woke Gemma up.
Peep!
Then, Peep! Peep!
The sounds were coming from under her sweatshirt on the floor. The eggs! She’d been so busy all evening being annoyed by her brother, Lee, that she’d forgotten all about them.
She got out of bed and, very gently, pulled back the sweatshirt and peered at the eggs. A little flake of shell had fallen from the middle of the biggest one, and a beak, a patch of pink skin, and some wet yellow fluff showed through the hole. The eggs weren’t rotten — they were just ready to hatch!
“Peep! Peep!” called the duckling from inside.
“Peep!” called another duckling from a different egg. Another flake of shell came off one of the other eggs with a tiny crack, and there was such a chorus of peeping that Gemma couldn’t tell which eggs were talking and which weren’t. Very gently, she lifted one to her ear and listened. Up against her ear she could hear little tapping sounds as the duckling’s beak worked at the inside of its shelly prison.
“Hello!” she whispered.
“Peep!” the duckling answered softly. Gemma was so surprised that she almost dropped the egg. She tried again, a little louder this time.
“Hello!” she said.
“Peep!” replied the duckling.
Gemma spoke to the other eggs one by one, until she’d had a little conversation with all five of them. Then she sat with the basket on her lap and watched as more and more flakes of shell fell off. One of the eggs split right around the middle! The duckling inside slowly pushed the two halves apart and then struggled up on its leathery webbed feet. It shook its beak and looked right at her with its bright, dark eyes.
“Hello, duckling!” said Gemma.
“Peep, peep,” said the duckling. It was wet and bedraggled looking, and Gemma realized that it would soon get very cold if it didn’t dry out. She got a cardboard box down from her closet, lined it with old newspapers, and put her desk lamp on the floor so that its warm bulb could shine inside the box and heat up the air.
By the time she got back to the ducklings, the first one had four little damp companions! She put them all inside the box to get warm, and they peep-peeped anxiously.
“Hush, ducklings!” Gemma soothed, and as she spoke to them, they settled down. The ducklings all sat on their feet and closed their eyes in the warmth of the lamp, like sunbathers. Soon they were drying out and becoming as yellow and fluffy as ducklings on an Easter card.
Gemma knew that newly hatched chicks didn’t need to eat or drink for a few hours, so she didn’t need to worry about feeding them until the morning. She pulled the box and lamp close to her bed so she could check on the ducklings and speak to them in the night. Then she fell back into bed.
“Night, night, Silver Street Ducks,” Gemma whispered sleepily as she closed her eyes.
“Peep, peep, peep, peep,” the ducklings whispered back.
The next morning, Meera ran all the way to the park, where she was meeting Karl, Gemma, and the very first Silver Street livestock. Karl was already there with the lambs. They were wearing leashes and looked a lot like puppies.
“I had to carry them some of the way,” said Karl, “but they don’t seem to mind the collars and leashes at all.”
Gemma arrived a few moments later with the ducklings tucked up in the hem of her T-shirt.
“They won’t let me out of their sight,” she said with a giggle. “I had to take them in the shower with me this morning!”
The children sat on the grass while the ducklings waddled around between their legs and the lambs took turns nibbling their hair and butting them playfully. It was hard to stop smiling and concentrate.
“The problem is,” Gemma said, “Mom says I can’t keep the ducklings. I’ve got to find them a home by the end of the week.”
“Yeah,” said Karl. “Now that Auntie Nat knows they’re sheep, she doesn’t really want them in the apartment. You can’t housebreak lambs. The whole place smells of sheep poop!”
“We need Silver Street right now!” Gemma said.
“But it could take months or even years to persuade the city council that a city farm is a good idea,” said Karl, taking his hair out of Bobo’s mouth.
“Hmmm,” said Meera thoughtfully. “What we need is publicity.”
“Yes!” said Karl. “If we get everybody in Lonchester on our side, then the city council would have to give us Silver Street.”
“Cosmic TV!” said Gemma. “They’re always asking for community stories.”
Meera jumped up. “And these are brilliant stories . . . the great poodle-lamb swindle and the rotten eggs that turned into ducklings! Come on, if we walk across the park now, we might be in time for their morning news.”
Sashi, the young reporter at Cosmic TV, was delighted. It was the best story they’d had in months, she said. Within five minutes, the children and the animals were lined up in the studio. It wasn’t much more than a broom closet with lights, but it didn’t matter. Meera and Karl held a lamb each, and the five ducklings popped their heads out of Gemma’s T-shirt.
“Looks good!” said Stewy the cameraman, peering through his dreadlocks with a grin. “Looks really, really good!”
“If we get this right,” said Meera, “the city council should give us Silver Street Farm tied up with a ribbon!”
“OK, everybody!” said Sashi. “On air in five, four . . .” she counted the last three seconds with her fingers.
A little red light lit up on Stewy’s camera.
Sashi smiled into the camera and began to speak: “Three Lonchester children have big plans to make the derelict station at Silver Street into Lonchester’s first city farm,” she told the camera. “The city council may have other plans for the old station, but two extraordinary twists of fate have given the children a head start with their plans and provided them with their first farm animals!”
Then Sashi asked Karl about the poodle-lambs and how Auntie Nat had been tricked, while he and Meera fed the lambs with a bottle. Sashi asked Gemma about the “rotten” eggs that the vet was going to throw out, which had hatched into ducklings, while Gemma held a duckling and stroked its fluffy yellow head.
Then Sashi turned to Meera. “Why do you want to make Silver Street Station into a city farm?” she asked.
For a moment, Meera’s head swam with all the dreams and plans that she and Gemma and K
arl had made since they were small. Then, suddenly, she knew just what to say.
“Ever since we were in kindergarten, we’ve dreamed about making a farm in the city,” she began. “We want all Lonchester children to come to Silver Street Farm and see what farm animals are like, so that no one grows up thinking that eggs and milk comes from a carton.”
“Well, you heard it here first!” said Sashi. “More from Cosmic TV News at three.”
The red light went off.
“That was brilliant, kids!” said Sashi. “This story is going to be so big!”
“Yeah! Big! So big,” said Stewy. “Can I hold a duckling now?”
Sashi was right. The story spread through the city like wildfire.
Within hours, every TV and radio station was talking about it. Rockin’ Roland Rogers, Lonchester City FM’s most famous DJ, even hosted a call-in about it.
“So,” said Rockin’ Roland, “Mrs. O from Hopdown Flats, what would you like to say about these crazy kids and their plan to make old Silver Street Station into a farm?”
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Mrs. O in a shaky, old lady’s voice. “It’s not just the youngsters who would enjoy having farm animals at Silver Street. Us old folks would love it, too!”
“Jack Flash now on line three,” said Rockin’ Roland.
“It’s, like, brilliant,” said Jack. “Totally cool. I mean, the poodles being sheep, that was bad, but now kinda good. Yeah? Like, wow!”
“And just one more call. Hello, Jody on line two.”
“If the council doesn’t give Silver Street Station to the kids, I won’t vote for them,” said Jody, sounding very determined.
“Fighting talk there, Jody. And now for some music. The new single from Fake Tat —”
But the children didn’t have time to watch TV or listen to the radio, because soon after the very first broadcast on Cosmic TV, things got busy.
Meera, Gemma, and Karl were all at Gemma’s house, so that the lambs could run around on the tiny patch of lawn and the ducklings could swim in the old wading pool, when Meera’s cell phone rang. The only people who ever called her cell were Karl and Gemma, so it was a bit of a shock.
“Hello, Meera speaking!” said Meera, trying to sound grown-up.
“Hi Meera. It’s Sashi from Cosmic TV.” She sounded very stressed. “I think you guys need to get back down here. Somebody’s just delivered ten bales of hay and”— Sashi took a deep breath —“some chickens and two real live goats!”
The sidewalk outside Cosmic TV was blocked with a pet carrier full of clucking chickens and a huge pile of hay bales. Standing on top of the bales, contentedly munching hay, were two goats. One was pure white with sticking-up ears, and the other was chocolate brown with droopy ears.
“Wow!” said Gemma, who had been reading up about goat breeds. “A Saanen and a Nubian!”
But before the children had time to say hello to Silver Street’s first goats, Sashi rushed up looking very worried.
“We’re in trouble,” she said, and pointed to a very large, very round police officer who was standing by the hay bales. “I think you’d better speak to him.”
Nervously, the three children approached the officer. Close up, they could see that he was even bigger and angrier than he had at first appeared, but the moment he saw the children, the lambs, and the ducklings, his face broke into a big beaming smile.
“Ah!” he said, as if seeing the children and their animals was the biggest treat of his day. “I wondered when you’d get here!”
The police officer held out a huge hand for the children to shake. “I’m Sergeant Short,” he said. “And I presume you’re the youngsters who want to turn Silver Street Station into a city farm?”
Caught in Sergeant Short’s blue-eyed stare, the children could only nod.
“Well,” he said quietly, leaning down from his great height so that they could hear him whisper, “strictly off the record, I think that’s a great idea, but”— he straightened up to his official height again —“we can’t have goats and bales obstructing the public highway. So, my fellow officers and I will help you to get it all moved.” And the sergeant gave the children the biggest wink they’d ever seen.
Sergeant Short asked Sashi not to film the hay bales, chickens, lambs, goats, and ducklings being loaded into the back of a big police van by four police officers.
“Not sure how the police chief would see it, really,” he said. “Best keep it between us, eh?”
“Hop in!” said a young woman police officer with a big smile. She helped the children into the van, and they were off.
The children were too astonished to ask where they were being taken. Karl wondered anxiously if it was all just a trick and if they were about to go to prison. But when the doors opened, they found themselves at the far end of the park. The police had built a little compound for the animals using crash barriers and crowd-control netting.
In just a few minutes, the goats were happily nibbling hay and the chickens were scratching in the shade of the trees.
“You can’t stay here long,” said the sergeant, “but I’ve cleared it with the police chief until tomorrow. In the meantime, Julie — I mean Officer Worthing — will help keep an eye on things.”
Julie leaned out of the driver’s seat of the van.
“Sarge? Sarge! You need to see this!”
On a tiny television in the front of the police van, the Wire TV lunchtime news was just ending.
“We now bring you a live announcement from Lonchester City Council,” the newscaster was saying. The picture cut to a big man in a suit, standing outside of City Hall.
He looked very angry.
“I would like to read the following statement from Lonchester City Council,” the man began, already rather red in the face. “The council has for some time been planning to demolish Silver Street Station, in preparation for a new multistory parking garage.”
Meera gasped. Auntie Priya hadn’t told her that!
“Lonchester City Council would like to reassure tax payers that there are no plans whatsoever to make this site into a city farm.”
As he said the words “city farm,” he made a face as if, Gemma thought, he’d swallowed a wasp.
“Furthermore,” he said, now looking so red that Karl wondered if he might explode, “we have decided to begin the demolition of Silver Street Station tomorrow at nine a.m. Thank you.”
Officer Worthing turned off the television. She seemed almost as upset as the children.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”
Gemma buried her nose in a duckling’s comforting fluff, and Karl and Meera held the lambs extra close. Nobody said anything.
“All right,” said Sergeant Short. “I’ll admit that it doesn’t look good . . .”
The children shook their heads in gloomy agreement.
“But, you know what they say. . . .” He winked one of his huge winks. “It’s not over till the fat policeman sings.”
Sergeant Short and his officers worked to improve the temporary animal pens they had built earlier (Officer Worthing was particularly good with the goats). They carried bales of hay and fetched buckets of water from the fountain so the animals wouldn’t go thirsty. They even made the children a sort of tent from silvery emergency blankets so that they could spend the night with their makeshift farm in the park.
Just as the first story about Silver Street Station had spread, so did the news about the mini farm camped out in the park and the city council’s promise to demolish Silver Street Station. By early evening, the children were surrounded by a curious crowd and a flock of TV and radio reporters waving cameras and microphones.
In spite of what the city council had said about making Silver Street Station into a parking garage, people still wanted to hear about the children’s plans for a city farm. But answering the questions from the interviewers and the crowd made it all seem even sadder. Tomorrow, Silver Street Station would be flattened, no mat
ter what the children’s plans had been, and all their newfound animals would be homeless.
“OK, ladies and gents,” Sergeant Short said at last, “just one more question, then I think you all need to go home! These young people should get some rest.”
The reporter from City Wire TV pushed through the crowds and shoved a big fluffy microphone under Meera’s nose.
“I’d like to ask,” he said with a nasty sneer, “what’s going to happen to all your fine plans when Silver Street Station is demolished tomorrow? Aren’t you just some rather foolish children with an even more foolish dream?”
The crowd gasped, and there were even a few quiet boos.
Meera looked up at the reporter. Maybe he was right, she thought. Maybe all this time, ever since Gemma, Karl, and she had been friends, it had all been a silly, hopeless dream. For the first time in her life, Meera was lost for words; her mouth opened like a goldfish’s, but nothing would come out.
“Well,” said the reporter smugly. “I think that’s your answer!”
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” said Gemma, stepping up to him, ducklings peep-peeping from inside her shirt. “We may be kids, but we aren’t foolish. A city farm is a really, really good idea.”
The crowd murmured its approval.
“And do you know what?” said Karl. His voice wobbled a little, but it was still loud. “Maybe Silver Street Station won’t be demolished.”
“Well said!” cried several people in the crowd.
Meera looked at Karl and Gemma and was suddenly ashamed of giving in so easily. She jumped onto a hay bale so that she was eye to eye with the reporter, and she spoke out so that everyone could hear her.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s right! Maybe tomorrow morning the people of Lonchester will decide that they don’t want another parking garage and that they’d much rather have a city farm instead!”
The whole crowd exploded with cheering as if they’d been holding it in all along. The reporter scowled and slunk away.
Still standing on her hay bale, Meera could see that her parents, Auntie Nat, and Gemma’s brother, Lee, were waiting for them at the back of the crowd. And they were cheering loudest of all.
Welcome to Silver Street Farm Page 2