by Tina Nolan
Eva set off towards the stables then quickly changed her mind. She retraced her steps into the cattery, saying hi to Rosa and the rest of the litter, then stopping close to the fox cub’s unit. “Hi, Rusty,” she murmured, longing to pick him up and cuddle him.
No! she told herself. Don’t pet him!
Rusty looked up at her with bright eyes. He uncurled himself and stretched. Then he stood gingerly, taking care not to put weight on his injured leg.
“You’re beautiful!” Eva breathed. “And so little!”
She gazed at the tiny fox cub’s shiny, rust-brown coat with the clean white flash on his chest. His pointed ears were pricked, his amber eyes shone. With his sore foot raised, Rusty tilted his head and gazed back at her.
“So little!” she repeated. Much too small to be set free and made to fend for himself amongst the long grass and thorn bushes, beside the dangerous water of the fast-flowing river.
“And so helpless,” she whispered fearfully. “Oh Rusty, I can’t bear it. Why do you have to go?”
“Has the post arrived?” Karl asked when he appeared at breakfast the next morning.
“Nope.” Eva had been up for hours. Even though the summer holidays had begun, she didn’t have lie-ins – not when there were dogs to walk, kittens to feed, Rusty to look after … the list was endless.
Karl went to the front door to check the mat, just in case.
“He’s worried about the letter from the council,” Heidi guessed. She’d popped into the house for a coffee after a busy session of canine dentistry. “Jasper’s teeth are much better,” she told them. “And I’ve given all the dogs their wormers. When I go back across, I plan to microchip Rosa’s litter.”
“Can I feed Rusty?” Eva asked. She knew it was Joel’s day off and jumped at the chance to step in.
“Yes, please.” Swallowing the last of her coffee, Heidi rushed on ahead.
”You only offered ’cos you want a chance to cuddle him,” Karl scoffed.
“So?” Eva blushed.
“So, he should be learning to feed from a saucer by now, ready for F Day.”
“Ready for what?”
“F Day. Freedom Day, in case you’d forgotten.”
Eva’s heart sank. “Shut up, Karl,” she muttered as she dashed after her mum.
“Hey, Rusty!” Eva murmured. She settled the fox cub on her lap.
Rusty looked around eagerly for his milk, twitching his ears and flicking his little tail.
“Yes, it’s coming. Here you are!”
As Eva slid the dropper between his lips, the cub gulped greedily. Soon all the milk was gone.
“Good boy!” Eva smiled. She tickled him under his chin then let him lick her fingers. “You’re doing really well, you know that?”
Rusty’s temperature was back to normal. His leg was healing rapidly. For a tiny second Eva gave way to the temptation to hug him.
“Good news!” Karl burst into the cattery. “I checked the emails and we’ve got another enquiry about Gordon!” He broke off as he spotted Eva with Rusty.
Guiltily she put him back in the unit.
“I saw that!” Karl cried. “You know you’re not supposed to pet that cub!”
“I wasn’t … I didn’t …” Eva shook her head. “Give me a break, Karl!”
But her brother was still angry with her over Gordon. “You know what Mum said – Rusty will never survive in the wild if you handle him all the time.”
“It’s not all the time. I just picked him up to feed him.”
“Yeah, well, it’ll be your fault if he doesn’t survive out there.” With this, Karl barged out of the door.
Eva’s heart thumped. She swallowed hard as she gazed down at Rusty. “I’m sorry … I didn’t mean … I mean … oh dear!”
The cub gave her a bright stare. He cocked his head to one side and sat back on his hind legs, for all the world like a puppy inviting her to play.
“Oh!” Eva panicked. “What if Karl’s right? What if I have wrecked your chances of making it out in the wild?”
Though it was one of the hardest things Eva had ever had to do, she kept away from Rusty all through Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday evening, Heidi reported that the cub had fought off the infection and was now eating small amounts of kitten food from a saucer.
“Terrific,” Mark said. “When do his stitches come out?”
“Friday,” Heidi said. “By the way, when are you going to plant those new lettuces for Linda? She was nagging me about them earlier today.”
“As it happens…” Mark began.
They watched him go outside to his van and return with a box of lettuce seedlings.
“I called in at the garden centre on the way home from work,” he explained. “Eva, do you want to come next door and help me plant them?”
Eva nodded, keen to keep busy and not worry about Rusty.
Her dad grinned. “Great! You can protect me from the dreaded Linda. Come on!”
“So what’s wrong?” Mark asked as he and Eva knelt side by side in Linda’s vegetable patch.
Only Jason was in, but he’d told Mark and Eva to go ahead with the planting.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Eva fibbed.
“So why are you so quiet? It’s not like you.” Dropping a seedling into a small hole, Mark firmed up the soil around it.
“No reason. I’m fine.”
“Have you had an argument with Karl?”
“No. Well, yeah.”
“About Gordon? Is that little feud still bubbling away?”
Eva copied her dad and planted another seedling. “Kind of.”
They worked for a while in silence, making sure that their rows of seedlings were straight. “Karl can be a bit of a know-all sometimes,” her dad began again. “Y’know, like most big brothers. But don’t let him get to you.”
“I don’t,” Eva protested, glad for once to see Linda’s car driving through the gates.
Annie jumped out and hurried over. “Hi, Eva! Do you fancy taking Guinevere out? You can ride first if you want.”
“No time now. Maybe tomorrow,” Eva said, cringing as Annie’s mum approached.
Mark looked up from his planting. “These are the best Webbs lettuces,” he told Linda. “Hand picked and donated by my dad.”
Linda inspected the newly planted rows.
“Well?” Mark asked.
“Not bad,” Linda acknowledged slowly. “You’ve planted them nice and straight. You and Eva have done a good job.”
“Thank you, m’lady!” Mark stood up, tugging his forelock and grinning. “So are we quits?”
Linda sniffed and held her head high. But gradually her face softened into a smile. “Yes, you and Gordon are officially forgiven! In fact, why don’t you and Eva come inside for a cup of tea?”
“Relief!” Mark sighed. “You hear that, Eva and Annie? You’re both witnesses!”
“Don’t push it, Mark,” Linda warned. “And don’t let that goat near my garden ever again!”
“Linda actually said she was sorry for getting up the petition in the first place,” Mark told Heidi when he and Eva went to look for her in the cattery.
Heidi had just admitted a feral cat brought in from an allotment on the edge of Okeham village. The poor creature was thin and scraggy, with a mass of tangled grey fur.
“Sorry is not a word I ever expected to hear from Linda’s lips,” Heidi admitted.
“I know. She was talking about it over a cup of tea after we’d finished planting the lettuces. I almost fell off my chair.”
As her parents chatted, Eva sneaked a look at Rusty.
As soon as the fox cub spotted her, he tried to clamber up the side of his unit.
“No. Stay down, Rusty. I’m not allowed to pick you up,” she murmured.
“Linda’s sorry she’s caused us all this worry about being closed down,” Mark went on. “And now she admits she’d never have had the chance to adopt Guinevere and Merlin if it hadn’t been for Animal M
agic.”
“Wow,” Heidi said, then tutted. “Better late than never, I guess.”
“…Stay down, Rusty,” Eva insisted.
“You resisted him – well done!” her mum said. “Rusty’s way too cute for his own good.”
“Totally,” Eva sighed, shaking her head as she tore herself away.
Her dad stared quietly after her. “Aha,” he told Heidi softly. “Now I know what’s got into Eva!”
“What’s really bothering you?” Eva’s dad asked her.
For once, the whole family had got together the next evening to relax in front of the telly. It was Thursday, and Karl and Heidi wanted to watch a wildlife programme that followed the migration of three wild swans across the frozen wastes of the Canadian Rockies.
“Everything!” Eva admitted.
Her dad cosied up next to her on the sofa and put an arm around her shoulder. “It’s Rusty, isn’t it?” he said quietly. “That’s what’s making you miserable.”
Eva sighed and nodded.
“Tell me more,” Mark invited gently.
“Sshh!” Karl said, as he turned up the volume on the television.
“We won’t know how he’s getting on after we set him free,” Eva answered.
Mark nodded. “True,” he said.
“He’ll be all alone. And it’s scary out there, especially at night.”
Mark squeezed her hand. “I understand how you feel, Eva, but I’m afraid that’s life. It’s something you’re going to have to accept.”
“But cars speed down these lanes, Dad. Rusty might be crossing the road and…” Eva tailed off. “…And even if he doesn’t get squished, what will he eat? What if he starves? And what if he has to be alone for the rest of his life?”
“I don’t know. But as far as I can see, there’s nothing we can do to keep track of a wild animal once we release it.”
“So how do they track these swans?” Heidi showed that she’d been half listening to their conversation as she watched the telly. “Karl, do you know how they know which bird is which?”
Eva and Mark switched their attention to the screen. They watched a large flock of swans sailing on air currents over snow-covered mountains.
“Easy. They explained it at the start of the programme – they fix tiny radio transmitters to the swans’ legs,” Karl said. “You set a special signal for each bird. The film-makers receive the signal on a special handset.”
“Clever stuff,” Mark said.
Eva stared at the wild birds soaring through the sky. “Wow! That means they can track them wherever they go!”
“Whoa, just a minute!” Mark warned, worried that Eva was about to come up with one of her brilliant ideas.
“No, that’s really interesting,” Heidi interrupted. “I was at college with a woman called Su Jones who tracked a male badger for six months with a tiny transmitter fixed to the base of his ear. It was her special project.”
“But, hang on.” Mark glanced at Eva. It was too late. Her eyes were gleaming. She was taking in every word.
“We could do that with Rusty!” Eva gasped. “We could get a tiny radio and fix it to his ear. Then we’d know exactly where he was!”
“Yeah, but where do we find a transmitter?” Mark asked. “Don’t you need an expert to fit it? Aren’t they very expensive?”
“Mum can ask her friend, Su!” Eva exclaimed. She sprang up from the sofa. “Where does Su live now?”
“Not far. About twenty miles away. I’m still in touch with her from time to time.” Heidi gave the idea serious thought. “You know, it might be worth giving her a call.”
“Now!” Eva insisted. Suddenly her whole world had turned on its head. If swans flew over massive mountain ranges giving off radio signals, why couldn’t a little fox cub go beep-beep as he roamed through the undergrowth at the bottom of Linda’s field?
Heidi raised her eyebrows as she glanced at Mark. Karl had his face glued to the television as usual. “It’s worth a try,” she decided.
“Now, Mum!” Eva said again, dragging Heidi towards the phone. As they left the room, she fell on Karl and gave him a hug.
He shrank back. “Yuck. What was that for?”
“For giving us a totally cool idea!” Eva cried, and danced out of the room.
“Joel, could you bring the light closer to the table?” It was Friday morning. Heidi, Joel and Eva were gathered around the surgery table. Eva had sprayed the surface and wiped it clean before her mum had arrived with Rusty.
“That’s better. Now we can see exactly what we’re doing,” Heidi said as she pulled on a pair of blue surgical gloves. “Eva, keep a tight hold of Rusty while I quickly take out his stitches.”
Gently, Eva held the cub still. He sat quietly, curling his pink tongue across his top lip, his eyes darting this way and that.
“Perfect,” Heidi announced after the job was done. “Now hang on to him while I pierce his ear and put in this sterile pin.”
“Your friend, Su, told you how this thing works?” Joel asked, watching with interest.
Heidi nodded. “I went over to see her early this morning. She was glad to give us the device and explain the whole thing. This pin has a small tag which glows in the dark and sends off a radio signal. The receiver’s on the shelf over there. We set it to the right frequency and it picks up Rusty’s whereabouts from a distance of five kilometres. The signal gets louder as you get closer to the transmitter, and vice versa.”
Joel picked up the receiver and turned it over, examining it closely.
Swiftly, Heidi pierced the cub’s ear, almost without him seeming to notice. The tag was firmly in place.
“See, that didn’t hurt,” Eva whispered.
“OK, back into the unit!” Heidi ordered.
Eva whisked the cub from the table and carried him back into the cattery.
“Hey, Dusty!” she sang out to the stray allotment cat who was now on the Animal Magic website. She placed Rusty in his unit. “Until tonight!” she murmured.
Tonight was the big night – Freedom Night.
And now Eva wasn’t so afraid for little Rusty. OK, so it was still a big, scary world out there, and yes, maybe Eva had made him too much of a pet, but when you looked at him, how could you resist? At least now, with this little pin in his ear, they would know exactly where he was and that he was safe!
“See you later, Rusty,” Eva whispered.
She closed the door of the cattery with her fingers crossed, half-afraid, half-excited about what lay ahead.
“Don’t go near Gordon!” Karl warned as Eva went out into the yard.
She’d left Joel and her mum to work out exactly how the radio receiver worked and had bumped into Karl.
“Why not?” Eva wanted to know.
“A man called Eric is on his way to see him right now. And you know what happened last time with the Wesleys.”
“OK, OK, no need to rub it in!” Eva laughed. No way was grumpy Karl going to spoil Rusty’s special day.
“Just don’t go near him with sprays and brushes, OK!” Karl grumbled.
“Oh please, let me de-tangle him and make him pretty!” she said wickedly, advancing towards the stables.
Karl blocked Eva’s way. “Very funny!” he muttered as a muddy Land Rover turned into the yard.
Out stepped an old man in a worn tweed jacket and wellington boots.
“Hello, er – Eric?” Karl said uncertainly.
“Where’s this goat of yours?” The visitor got straight down to business, marching into the stable and taking a long, hard look at Gordon.
“Scary man!” Eva mouthed at Karl behind the visitor’s back. She saw a black and white Border collie sitting patiently in the Land Rover.
“Yeah,” Karl whispered back.
They followed him inside.
Boldly, Eric went up to Gordon and ran a hand through his silky coat. Then to Gordon’s surprise, the old man slid his fingers into the goat’s mouth and checked his teeth.
> “Hmm,” Eric said.
Gordon snickered uneasily as the visitor firmly closed his mouth then picked up one foot at a time to inspect his hooves.
“Good boy, Gordon!” Karl muttered nervously. Any second now, the goat was going to floor the old man with a mighty kick.
“Nice pedigree,” Eric reported. “Good condition. Well done, lad.”
“Well done, who? Me or Gordon?” Karl whispered to Eva.
She shrugged. Didn’t Eric know the risk he was taking if he pushed Gordon around like that?
But Gordon stood meekly having his feet lifted and his mouth inspected a second time.
“The thing is, I don’t know if I really need a billy goat right now,” the old man explained as he emerged unscathed from Gordon’s stall.
Gordon stood with a puzzled expression. Eva thought he was probably wondering why he hadn’t managed to get in a quick headbutt.
“I run a small herd of goats at a farm over the other side of the valley,” Eric told Eva and Karl. “My son spotted this one on your website and said I should come and take a look.”
“A goat farm?” Karl checked out the visitor. Now the muddy Land Rover and the patient dog made sense. “Hey, Gordon, doesn’t that sound cool?”
Eric frowned and jutted out his bottom lip. “Listen, I’m not saying for certain that I’ll take him off your hands. I only came to give him a quick glance.”
Karl and Eva nodded and exchanged hopeful looks. They’d definitely got over their first impression of Eric as Mr Scary.
“As I say, I don’t really need a billy goat. The one I have, Tyson, is a handful as it is.”
Eva thought fast. “Yes, but Gordon isn’t hard to handle,” she pointed out, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “You saw for yourself, he’s really gentle!”
Karl’s eyes almost popped out of his head at this, but he didn’t say a word.
