by Helen Peters
“Of course he does. He ran over to greet you as soon as he heard your voice. And see the way he’s looking at you. It’s like he’s smiling.”
A wave of happiness washed over Jasmine. “He is, isn’t he? He’s really smiling.”
Mum’s voice came from the doorway. “Is anything happening?”
“Oh, Mum,” said Jasmine, running to the door and pulling her mother across the room. “Look, the duckling has hatched! He’s called Button.”
Mum gazed into the incubator. “Oh, Jasmine, he’s perfect.”
“I wish I could hold him,” said Jasmine, looking longingly at the wet little duckling waddling around the incubator.
“I know,” said Mum, “but he needs to stay in there until his down has fluffed up. He could catch a chill if you take him out too early. It won’t be long, and then you’ll have a lovely fluffy duckling you can hold in your hands.” She gave Jasmine a hug. “I’m so pleased for you. It’s lovely to see you happy again.”
“I’ll never forget Petal, though.”
“I know you won’t. Now, I’m going to make breakfast. Tom, what would you like? Jas usually has scrambled egg on Saturdays.”
Jasmine made a face. She glanced at Tom. He appeared equally revolted at the idea.
“Could we just have toast?” said Jasmine. “It’s just… I don’t really feel like eating eggs this morning.”
He’ll Be So Lonely
“Are you coming to the talent show?” Manu asked Mum, as they were having breakfast on the following Saturday.
“The school talent show? I thought you weren’t entering.”
“I am now.”
Mum looked at Manu curiously. “Really? I thought you hated being on stage. You kept your eyes screwed shut the whole way through the Christmas show.”
“Who are you entering with?” asked Jasmine.
“Ben and Noah.”
“Are you singing?” Mum asked.
“No.”
“Dancing?”
“Ugh, no.”
“So what are you doing?”
“Fire eating,” said Manu.
Mum roared with laughter. “Fire eating?”
“Yes.”
“How can you do that?” asked Jasmine. “You’ll set yourselves on fire.”
“Noah says his mum’s got this stuff you put in your mouth and the fire doesn’t burn you. We’re going to practise at his house.”
“Does Miss Taplin know what you’re planning?” asked Mum.
“We haven’t told her yet.”
“Well, I’ll be interested to hear what she says when you do. Oh, Jasmine, take that duckling off the table. How many times have I told you not to let him drink from your glass?”
“But he loves it,” said Jasmine.
“That’s not the point.”
Button took his bill out of Jasmine’s glass and shook himself dry, spraying water all over her plate. He waddled to the edge of the table and plopped on to Jasmine’s lap. Jasmine stroked her duckling’s fluffy yellow down with its brown mallard markings. She still couldn’t get over how soft and light he was.
“Mum, does he have to go to the barn today? He’ll be so lonely.”
“He can’t stay in the house forever, Jasmine. He needs to get used to being outside. You can still spend all day with him, just like you do now. And when you go back to school, he can go in with the chickens.”
“He might not like the chickens. I think he likes people better.”
“He likes the duck in the mirror,” said Manu. “And his teddy bear.”
Button’s home for the first week of his life had been a cardboard box beside Jasmine’s bed. Following the advice she had read about looking after a single duckling, Jasmine had given him a soft toy to snuggle up with and taped a mirror to the side of the box so Button had another duck to look at and talk to. Button seemed to like the duck in the mirror, and enjoyed cheeping at it and watching it cheep back at him. But actually he spent almost all his time with Jasmine. He followed her around the house, sat on her lap at meal times and snuggled in her coat pocket when she took Truffle for walks. He only went into his box at night.
Jasmine had wanted Button to sleep on her pillow, but her parents had been horrified at the idea.
“Ducks are incredibly messy, and you can’t housetrain them,” said Mum. “It’s quite enough that he’s in the house all day.”
On Button’s first night in the box, Jasmine had sneaked him out and let him sleep beside her. But the state of her pillow in the morning had proved the truth of Mum’s words, and even Jasmine decided it was probably a good thing if Button spent his nights in the box.
Now, the duckling nibbled affectionately at Jasmine’s hand as she stroked his down.
“You won’t be lonely outside, I promise,” she said. “I’m going to spend every day with you.”
She picked him up, rose from her stool and put her cereal bowl in the dishwasher.
“See you later,” she said to Mum. “I’m going to take him to the lambing barn.”
Most of the sheep had lambed by now, and the older lambs had already gone out to the field with their mothers. Dad had divided the barn into pens of different sizes. In the largest pen were the sheep with young lambs that weren’t quite strong enough to go out to the field yet. In the second-largest one were the sheep who were still waiting to lamb. And in the row of small individual pens were the sheep with newborn lambs who needed an eye kept on them.
The pen at the far end of this row was different, though. Like the others, it was made of metal hurdles connected together, but this one also had chicken wire fixed around the hurdles.
Jasmine set Button’s box down outside the pen, climbed over the hurdles and leaned back to lift the box inside. She placed it carefully on the fresh bed of chopped straw with which she had covered the floor, under the heat lamp that Dad had strung above the pen. She opened the flaps and the little duckling ran, cheeping in greeting, to the edge of the box. She scooped him into her palm. He looked at her with his bright round eyes.
“It’s a big day for you, Button. You’re going to live in the barn now. You’ve got a whole lovely pen of your own to play in.”
A sudden movement on the far side of the barn caught Jasmine’s eye. She looked up to see a big grey rat scuttling into a gap between two bales. She shuddered. It was a good thing they had put chicken wire all round Button’s pen, she thought, scanning the wire to check there weren’t any gaps. It wouldn’t need a very big hole for a rat to squeeze through. Button, clumsy and unable to fly yet, would be easy prey. She would have to cover the top of the pen with netting, too, when she wasn’t with him.
“What am I going to do for my project, Button?” Jasmine asked her duckling, stroking his down.
Button cheeped in reply.
“I know you’re trying to help,” said Jasmine, “and I wish I could understand you. I haven’t had a single good idea. I was going to paint stones as paperweights, but Tom said Zara’s doing that. I tried weaving a basket but it looked like a two-year-old had done it. I could make a collage, I suppose, but it’s not very exciting. I just can’t think of anything original.”
The door that separated the barn from the milking parlour slid along its runners. Jasmine looked up to see her father in the doorway. The parlour wasn’t used for milking any more, as Dad only kept beef cows, but it had running water, so they still used the sink and taps.
“That old ewe didn’t last the night, I’m afraid,” Dad said.
“Oh, no,” said Jasmine. “The one who lambed yesterday?”
“Yes. I thought she wouldn’t make it. Shame, poor old thing.”
“How’s the lamb?”
“Pretty weak. She’s under that lamp.” He pointed to a pen at the other end of the row.
With Button in the palm of her hand, Jasmine climbed out of his pen and went to look at the tiny ewe lamb. She lay shivering in the corner of her pen, her eyes closed.
“I’ve given her
colostrum through a stomach tube,” said Dad. “Hopefully that will perk her up a bit. You can try her with some milk in a bit.”
“You poor little thing,” said Jasmine. “Look, Button, this little lamb is an orphan, just like you. She’ll be lonely, too.”
Suddenly, an idea popped into Jasmine’s head.
“Can we move her into the empty pen next to Button? It’s got a heat lamp, too, and I’ll be out here all the time, so I can feed her and keep her company.”
“Good idea,” said Dad. “Bed it down and bring her across. I need to see to the calves.”
“Betty,” said Jasmine.
“What?”
“That’s what I’m going to call the lamb.”
“Oh, right.” He left the barn.
Jasmine reached into the pen and stroked the lamb’s soft, nubbly wool. She could feel the ribs under her skin as she shivered.
“Don’t worry, Betty,” she said. “I’ll look after you. And you’ll have Button in the next pen to keep you company. Everything’s going to be all right.”
We Have to Look After Her
Jasmine put Button back in his own pen. She pulled her scissors from her coat pocket and cut a doorway into the side of his box.
“There. Now you can go in and out whenever you like. You can explore the whole pen.”
She climbed out, fetched an armful of straw from the opened bale at the side of the barn and shook it over the floor of the empty pen next door.
She walked over to the pen at the other end of the row, where Betty was lying, her eyes closed, her breathing fast and shallow. Gently, Jasmine lifted her up, carried her to the pen next to Button’s and placed her under the heat lamp.
“There you are, Betty,” she said. “That will be nice and warm for you. And I’m going to be here all day, looking after you.”
The lamb lay on her side under the lamp, her legs straight out in front of her. Her skinny ribs moved up and down under her thin coat. Jasmine’s heart went out to the poor motherless creature. Imagine being one day old and completely alone in the world.
Jasmine sat on the straw next to the lamb, stroking her and speaking gently, but Betty’s eyes stayed closed and she didn’t move.
Button ran, cheeping, across his pen towards Jasmine. He tripped over and fell on his face in the straw, but he got back on to his big webbed feet immediately and started running again. He poked his bill through the chicken wire, cheeping loudly.
“Do you want to come in here with me? Come on, then.”
Jasmine leaned over the hurdle and scooped up the little duckling. She sat him on her lap next to the lamb.
“Betty’s very weak and sad at the moment, Button, so we have to look after her.”
Button scrambled off Jasmine’s lap. He waddled across the straw to the little lamb and walked right over her legs. The lamb didn’t move.
“It’s a good job you’re so light, Button. I don’t have to worry that you’ll hurt poor Betty.”
Button waddled up to Betty’s head. He nibbled gently at the wool on her face.
“Be careful,” said Jasmine. “She might not like it.”
Button continued to nuzzle the lamb’s face all over with his bill. His actions reminded Jasmine of videos she had watched on Mum’s computer, where ducklings nibbled and nudged at their newly-hatched siblings, apparently trying to encourage them into life.
“Are you trying to help her?” she asked Button. “Are you trying to wake her up?”
Button seemed to be doing exactly that. He kept nuzzling gently at the motionless lamb, as though trying to revive her.
Jasmine sat still and watched.
After several minutes, Betty’s head moved, very slightly, on the straw. Her eyes flickered open and closed again.
Was Button annoying the lamb? Jasmine wondered if she should take him away. But he seemed to like her, and it must be a good thing if she was moving.
Betty lay still as Button waddled around her, nibbling at her wool.
Then, as he nibbled at her face, she opened her eyes. She shifted on her side. Her legs twitched.
“She’s trying to get up,” Jasmine said. “You clever duck, Button. You’ve revived her.”
The lamb kicked her legs back and heaved herself into a sitting position. She looked at Button, standing in the straw, cheeping at her. Then she craned her neck forwards, poked out her tiny pink tongue and licked the duckling’s face.
When, some time later, her father returned to the barn with a packed lunch for Jasmine, he stopped outside Button’s pen and laughed in surprise. Jasmine had moved the box into the corner. In the middle of the pen, under the heat lamp, sat a contented-looking lamb. And, snuggled up next to her, huddled in to her side, was a fluffy mallard duckling. Jasmine was sitting on a bale of hay in a corner of the pen, drawing them in her sketchbook.
“I tried to put Button back in here,” she explained, “but he cheeped and flapped so much, and Betty bleated so much, that I didn’t want to separate them. They really wanted to be together. I couldn’t leave Button in the other pen, in case a rat got him, so I moved Betty in here. So neither of them will be lonely now, will they? They’ve both found a friend. They’ll be all right together, won’t they?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Dad. “The only problem would be if the lamb accidentally crushed him. But as long as you keep an eye on them, they shouldn’t come to much harm.”
“Tom will help. He’s coming up in a minute. I’m hoping he’ll give me an idea for my project.”
“What project’s this, then?”
“You know, the one I told you about. We have to make something from things we’ve found in nature. Tom’s made these amazing wooden animals.”
“So what are you making?”
“That’s the problem. I have no idea.”
Dad smiled at her. “Five weeks ago, you found a clutch of duck eggs by the river. I don’t know what you’re racking your brains for, Jas. I think your school project is right here in this barn.”
She’s Ruptured My Appendix
“It’s so unfair,” said Manu. It was the first day of the summer term and Mum was driving them to school.
“What’s unfair?” asked Mum.
“Noah’s mum won’t let us do fire eating at the talent show.”
“Really? That’s shocking.”
“But we’ve got another plan.”
“What’s that, then?”
“Sumo wrestling.”
Mum laughed so much she actually snorted.
“But you don’t even learn sumo wrestling,” said Jasmine.
“You don’t have to learn sumo wrestling. You just wrestle. In a big nappy.”
“Let me know what your teacher says, won’t you,” said Mum. “I just wish I could be there when you tell her.”
They had reached the school gates now. Mum stopped the car. Jasmine hoisted her school bag on to her shoulder and got out slowly and carefully, carrying the big cardboard box as steadily as she could.
“Good luck,” said Mum. “Dad will come and collect him at break time.”
Tom was waiting at the gate.
“Is he OK?” he asked.
“Yes, he’s fine. Let’s take him to the office.”
When they explained the situation to Mr Hampton, he agreed that Jasmine could show her project first.
“Tom’s going to fetch something from the office while I start,” said Jasmine.
She picked up her sketchbook, took an empty paint tray from the back of the classroom and walked to the front.
“Five weeks ago,” she said, “Tom and I found a nest of duck eggs by the riverbank in my dad’s sheep field. A dog had killed the mother duck.” She shot a look at Bella, who looked away. Nobody in the class knew about Bella’s part in the ducklings’ story. “We took the eggs to my house and borrowed an incubator.”
She showed the class her sketches of the two eggs inside the incubator and explained how it worked. “One duckling sadly died ju
st after she’d hatched, but this is how the last egg turned out.”
She nodded at Tom, who was standing outside the door, looking through the glass panel. He came in and gently set the box down on the teacher’s desk.
“Everyone needs to be really quiet,” Jasmine said, “so you don’t frighten him.”
The class watched in silent anticipation as she opened the flaps, reached into the box and lifted out Button.
A hysterical chorus of screeches, oohs and aahs broke out all around the room. People at the back stood up to get a closer look. There was a babble of talking and questions.
“Oh, that is so cute!”
“Can I hold it? Can I hold it?”
“How old is he?”
“Does he live in your house?”
Button cheeped and flapped in alarm. Jasmine had to cup her other hand over the little duckling to keep him still.
“Shh,” hissed Tom, flapping his hands wildly. “Everyone be quiet. You’ll scare him.”
The class gradually quietened, and so did the duckling.
“This is Button,” said Jasmine. “He’s two weeks’ old.”
“Let’s have some questions,” said Mr Hampton.
Hands shot up, faces fit to burst. Jasmine was surprised to see that Bella’s hand was raised highest of all.
“Bella, you start,” said the teacher.
Bella shot a look of triumph at Jasmine.
“She didn’t make it.”
Mr Hampton looked taken aback.
“Sorry?”
“She didn’t make that duckling. It just hatched out of an egg. She’s cheating.”
Mr Hampton gave Bella a steady look. “Bella, how long would you say it took to make your face cream?”
Bella shrugged. “I don’t know. An hour?”
Mr Hampton turned to Jasmine.
“How long would you say you’ve spent looking after this duckling?”
“Well, all the holidays, really,” said Jasmine. “He needs a lot of food and water, and ducklings are really messy, so I have to clean out his house a lot. And he sees me as his mother, so I spend a lot of time with him. Although he’s made friends with an orphan lamb now, so he doesn’t need me around the whole time. Which is lucky, since it’s not the holidays any more.”