by Hilary McKay
“John Cherry Bubbles Pineapple Prickles Elizabeth Queenie Sonic-for-Short is being so silly!” said Mellie.
“It’s what hedgehogs do,” said Lulu.
“Be silly?”
“No! Wander! Look at this book. It tells you.”
It was a book that Lulu had found in the library at school. It was a book entirely about hedgehogs. Lulu had read the whole thing, and now she knew more about hedgehogs than she ever had before.
“One garden isn’t enough,” she told Mellie. “Especially a little garden like ours. It says a proper wild hedgehog needs much more space than that. But if we let the hedgehog go through to Charlie’s garden, then what?”
“Then it’ll be lost,” said Mellie.
There was a map in the hedgehog book. It showed the track of a hedgehog exploring at night.
Mellie began drawing a map of her own. She drew Lulu’s garden and Arthur’s garden and Charlie’s garden. She drew the fences in between. Mellie drew her lines hard and black because she was upset. She said, “I thought we were going to look after the hedgehog.”
“We are,” said Lulu.
“Well then, we should fill in that hole and not let it make anymore. It could have a lovely run to play in like the rabbits have. We could put in leaves and branches and things to explore. Then it would be safe.”
“Then it would be a pet hedgehog, not a wild hedgehog,” said Lulu. She pulled Mellie’s map toward her and asked, “What comes after Charlie?”
“The New Old Lady.”
“Oh yes.”
Mellie took her map back and continued her drawing. She murmured as she drew.
“Arthur’s garden, Lulu’s garden, Charlie’s garden, New Old Lady’s garden …” (They called her the New Old Lady because she had just moved into the street.) “Empty garden, Bossy Man’s garden, Henry’s garden …”
Mellie drew wiggly lines to show where the gardens were divided by hedges, and straight ones to show where there were fences. After Charlie’s garden there were only hedges.
“See how far the hedgehog could go if it gets under the fence,” said Mellie. “All the way to Henry’s!”
“That’s what a wild hedgehog should be able to do,” said Lulu.
“It wouldn’t be safe. Even going as far as Charlie’s wouldn’t be safe. Their gate is open all the time. It would get out onto the road.”
“Not if Charlie shut it.”
“How do you know the New Old Lady would care about hedgehogs?”
“How do you know she wouldn’t? We could ask. We could go and talk to her.”
“What, and go and talk to the Bossy Man too? I don’t want to!”
Lulu didn’t want to either. The Bossy Man was almost always grumpy. He tried not to be, but he was. He liked peace and quiet and tidiness. It was unlucky for the Bossy Man that he lived where he did, next door to Henry. It made him bossier and grumpier than ever.
“Henry is the worst of all,” said Mellie. “He wants the hedgehog for himself.”
“Nobody can have that,” said Lulu.
“No, because it’s yours.”
“Not really. I’m just trying to look after it. But I can’t on my own, in one little garden. What if everyone helped, you and me, and Arthur and Charlie and Henry, and the New Old Lady and the Bossy Man as well … If we had a hedgehog club …”
Mellie, who had been drawing hedgehog footprints all around the edge of her map, rolled over and looked at Lulu.
“A hedgehog club?” she asked.
“Yes, for people who would keep their gardens hedgehog-safe.”
“A proper club, like the Doctor Whatsit show fan club at school? They have badges. The Hedgehog Club could have badges! I could make them with my badge-making machine!”
“Do you think it’s a good idea, then?”
“If I can make the badges I do.”
“You can make the badges. We’ll give them to everyone who says they’ll help.”
“Free badges for hedgehog clubbers!” said Mellie. “And I know what! Free maps of the gardens to show them how important they are! I love drawing maps! Who’ll we ask first?”
“Charlie,” said Lulu at once, “because before the hedgehog can go anywhere we’ve got to make Charlie start shutting his gate.”
Chapter Three
The Hedgehog Club
Charlie’s garden had a gate that drove his family crazy. It was an ordinary gate. It opened and closed like any other gate. But it was open much more than it was closed because Charlie could never remember to shut it.
Trash blew in and annoyed his mother. Stray dogs wandered in and bothered the cat. Once a football burglar burgled Charlie’s big brother’s brand-new football.
“Shut the gate, Charlie!”
“Charlie! The gate!”
“Come back, please, Charlie, and …”
But as often as not, before they stopped speaking, Charlie would have vanished.
Late for school.
Rushing down to Henry’s.
Wobbling on his skateboard.
And there would be the gate, left open again.
Getting Charlie to join the Hedgehog Club was not easy. Lulu and Mellie went around to his house after school and at first he was very stubborn.
“I don’t like clubs,” he said. “They kicked me out of that Doctor Whatsit one and I’m never joining any more again!”
“We won’t kick you out; we want you in!” said Lulu. “The Hedgehog Club is a great club! No kicking out and free maps and badges!”
Charlie still was not happy. He looked at his free map and insisted on drawing himself on it. He looked at Mellie’s badges and said, “No way! ‘I heart hedgehogs’! I’m not wearing that!”
“If I make you a different badge, will you join?” asked Mellie.
“What else do I have to do?”
“Shut your gate!”
Charlie said he wasn’t going to be told what to do.
“We’re not,” said Mellie. “We’re just saying you’ve got to remember to shut your gate!”
“That’s telling me what to do!” said Charlie sulkily. “Anyway, I almost always do.”
“You almost always don’t!” said Lulu. “So Mellie’s made you a special notice to put on it to remind you.”
Mellie was good at art. Her notices were bright and bold. Charlie’s said in fierce red letters:
SHUT THIS GATE!
“How bossy!” said Charlie.
“Charlie,” said Lulu. “It’s really important!”
When Lulu said important, Charlie’s face changed. It looked interested for the first time.
Lulu and Mellie made a new notice.
Very Important!
Please Keep Charlie’s Gate Shut!
And Mellie made a new badge, especially for Charlie. SHARP! NOT FLAT! said the badge she made, around a picture of a very sharply prickled hedgehog indeed.
“That’s better!” said Charlie, and he was in.
Henry was the next person they asked. At first he could not understand it.
“But you’re letting it go!”
“Sort of.”
“When you wouldn’t even swap?”
“Only if we can make a hedgehog club to keep the gardens safe.”
“My garden’s safe. It’s got walls all around except for the Bossy Man’s side and the gate shuts itself.”
“Good.”
Henry looked at his map. With his finger he traced a line from Lulu’s garden to his.
“It could come straight to me.”
“It could go anywhere,” agreed Lulu.
“OK,” said Henry. “I’ll join! Where’s my badge?”
Mellie had made him a wonderful badge. KEEP SPIKY! it said, with a picture of a hedgehog with its s
pikes arranged in a way that looked very like Henry’s own hair.
“Cool!” said Henry.
Arthur was easy. Mellie did him all by herself when Lulu wasn’t listening.
“Do you want to join our hedgehog club to help look after Sonic-for-Short?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Arthur.
Arthur’s badge said TEAM SONIC!
“Good name!” said Arthur.
“Sonic?” asked Lulu doubtfully when she heard.
“Sonic-for-Short!” said Mellie.
“Oh all right!” said Lulu. “Who next?”
“I think the New Old Lady,” said Mellie. “I think you should leave the Bossy Man till last!”
Lulu noticed that she said “you” and not “we.”
“The New Old Lady might be even worse than the Bossy Man,” she said.
“Let’s ask Charlie what she’s like,” suggested Mellie. “He should know. He lives next door.”
Charlie was helpful. He had not lived next door to the New Old Lady for long, but he knew all about her.
“She’s nice,” he told Lulu. “She’s very nice to our family anyway! She has to be!”
“Why?”
Charlie explained that the first thing the New Old Lady had done after coming to live next door was to reverse her car into his dad’s motorbike.
“It was parked outside our house where he always puts it,” said Charlie. “And she said she didn’t see it! She bashed it down and then she ran over it! And then she came around all in a flap and we had to give her a cup of tea.”
“But why does that make her have to be nice?” asked Lulu.
Charlie explained. His family had been nice about the motorbike. Now the New Old Lady had to be nice back. She had to throw back footballs. She had to put up with Charlie and Henry’s rock band practices.
“And she’ll have to join the Hedgehog Club!” said Charlie. “I’ll come with you to ask her if you like, to make sure.”
Charlie was right. There never was a nicer old lady. She came smiling to her door to talk to Lulu and Mellie and Charlie. She loved her I HEART HEDGEHOGS badge and she said she always kept her gate locked so they needn’t worry about that.
“We used to have a hedgehog in the garden when I was a girl,” she told them. “Dear little things!”
“Yes, they are,” agreed Lulu. “And useful. Sonic-for-Short will eat up your slugs and snails for you too.”
“Don’t talk to me about slugs and snails!” groaned the New Old Lady. “This garden is full of the beasties! I’ve been putting down slug pellets. I must have killed hundreds already!”
“Oh please don’t do that!” exclaimed Lulu. “What if Sonic-for-Short ate slug pellets by mistake? Or some of the poor poisoned slugs?”
“Oh, that would never happen,” said the New Old Lady cheerfully. “Bread and milk! That’s what hedgehogs like best! Your little hedgehog won’t bother with slugs and snails if it has bread and milk for supper. It will be nice to have a hedgehog to feed again … Oh! Goodness! Where has she gone?”
Charlie and Mellie couldn’t guess. Lulu had dashed away without a word of explanation. She returned a minute later, and flopped down panting on the doorstep.
“I went for my hedgehog book,” she said, hurriedly turning pages. “Look! It tells you everything! Where they live … making houses … how to tell their footprints from cats and rabbits and things! Here’s a bit about hibernation (that’s when they go to sleep all winter) and here’s what they eat. Slugs. Snails. Wood lice. Beetles. No bread and milk! It makes them sick! It tells you! See?”
“We always put out bread and milk,” protested the New Old Lady.
“If you want to feed them you should give them cat food,” said Lulu. “That’s what this book says. That’s what we do.”
“You’d have all the local cats around,” said the New Old Lady. “I don’t want that! I’m not feeding cats.”
“Don’t you like cats?” asked Mellie.
“We’ve got a cat,” said Charlie.
“Oh yes. I forgot.” The New Old Lady sounded tired of being nice. She said in a not-very-joking voice to Lulu, “Are you going to sit there on the doorstep and read the whole book?”
“Please would you not put out bread and milk for Sonic-for-Short, please?” begged Lulu. “And not poison the slugs and snails in your garden anymore?”
“How else can I get rid of them?” asked the New Old Lady.
“I could come with a bucket,” offered Lulu. “We all could! The Hedgehog Club! We could collect your slugs and snails and take them home. That’s a good idea, isn’t it?”
The New Old Lady gave up. She agreed to no bread and milk and she agreed to snail collecting and then she shut her door very quickly, as if she didn’t want to have to agree to anything else.
“I told you she was nice!” said Charlie, and Lulu said, “Yes,” but Mellie looked thoughtful.
“Slugs and snails in a bucket?” she asked after a while.
“What could be easier?” asked Lulu cheerfully.
Mellie did not reply.
After the New Old Lady there was only the Bossy Man left.
“I can’t go with you,” said Mellie to Lulu. “He doesn’t like me or Arthur. He moaned to our moms about the chalk pictures we drew in the street.”
Charlie wouldn’t go either. He had once accidentally thrown a football shoe through the Bossy Man’s windshield. He wished he hadn’t. The Bossy Man wished he hadn’t. But neither of them could ever forget it.
“I’m not going,” said Henry. “He’s been complaining ever since I got my trampoline!”
“Why?”
“He says I keep appearing. Pulling faces. It’s just my trampolining face!”
“It’s ’cause you cross your eyes,” said Mellie.
“Not on purpose.”
“And stick out your tongue!”
“Everyone does, jumping.”
“And waggle your fingers with your thumbs in your ears!”
“Anyway, I’m not going near him,” said Henry, and Arthur and Charlie and Mellie said the same, but Mellie also added something very sensible: “Ask Nan!”
Nan was the answer. She liked the Bossy Man. She liked his garden. She understood completely about chalk all over the pavement and shoes through windshields and trampolining neighbors with terrible faces. She and the Bossy Man talked about these things as he tidied his garden. They talked about how to prune roses too, and the way the leaves blew in from the park down the road, and how hard it had rained on the day of the hedgehog rescue. And before he knew it, the Bossy Man had joined the Hedgehog Club too.
“You don’t need to worry about my gate,” the Bossy Man told them. “I keep it locked because of the ki …” He paused, looked at Lulu, and tried again. “ … wind! Is that for me?”
Lulu nodded and handed him his badge. SONIC-FOR-SHORT RULES! Mellie had written around a picture of a hedgehog in a crown. (The crown had been Lulu’s idea. “Just right for such a bossy man,” Mellie had agreed.)
The Bossy Man put his badge in his pocket with the map wrapped around it and said he would look at them both later, when he had finished raking the leaves.
“Thank you,” said Lulu, and she went home with Nan very happily. Later, she went down to Sonic-for-Short’s hedgehog house to whisper the news.
“We’ve made you a hedgehog club, so you can be a wild hedgehog! You can go as far as you want to now. All the gardens are safe.”
“Brrrr!” went Sonic-for-Short’s tiny snore.
There was one star out in a purple sky. There was the cheerful sound of voices coming from the park. There was a lovely smell of damp grass and bonfire smoke in the air.
Bonfire smoke! thought Lulu, and she remembered the Bossy Man’s pile of raked-up leaves. Then she leapt to her feet and r
an.
“What? What?” demanded the Bossy Man as she hurtled down his garden path.
“You can’t have bonfires!” shouted Lulu.
“WHAT?”
“You might cook a hedgehog!”
“WHAT?” said the Bossy Man.
“They hide in piles of leaves just like that!”
“Remind me of your name!” said the Bossy Man.
“Lulu.”
“Lulu, there is no hedgehog in this pile of leaves. I know. I raked them up myself, only this afternoon. You were here. You saw me.”
“I didn’t see you rake up the whole pile.”
“Well, I did.”
“All of it this afternoon?”
“Almost.”
“Was there a little pile to start with?”
“Yes, but there was no hedgehog in the little pile.”
“Did you check?”
“Not under every leaf,” admitted the Bossy Man, and he began to put out his bonfire, raking and stamping until he was left with nothing but great piles of smoky damp leaves all over his garden.
“What am I to do with them?” he grumbled.
“Couldn’t you just leave them on the grass?”
“Of course not!”
“Or put them in the trash?”
“Not allowed!”
“They blew here. Perhaps they will blow away again.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You know the New Old Lady?” asked Lulu.
“No.”
“The one who squashed up Charlie’s dad’s motorbike.”
“Go on!”
“The Hedgehog Club is taking away her slugs and snails so she doesn’t use poisonous slug pellets. Would you like us to take away your leaves as well?”
“Where to?”
“My garden. In the wheelbarrow. It would be easy!”
“Are the slugs and snails going there too?”
Lulu nodded.
“What do your parents say about that?”
