by Helen Peters
Chapter Seven
Running Around the Countryside, Stealing Pigs
“Well, I have to say you’ve done a great job,” said Mum, once Jasmine had explained everything. “That was exactly the right thing to do, giving her colostrum.”
“All those hours in the lambing pen paid off, then,” said Dad, stroking Truffle’s head with a rough, work-hardened finger.
Jasmine was amazed. She needn’t have worried after all. All that sneaking about for nothing!
“So where shall we keep her?” she asked. (Because Mum had checked and Truffle was a girl.) “Once she’s strong enough, I mean.”
Mum stared at her. “Jas,” she said gently, “you know you can’t keep her. She doesn’t belong to you.”
“You pignapped her,” said Manu.
“But you can’t give her back to Mr Carter,” said Ella. “He’ll just put her with the other pigs and she’ll get crushed.”
Jasmine held Truffle tighter. “I’m not taking her back,” she said, “and if you try to make me, I’ll run away.”
Mum sighed. “You can’t just take an animal from somebody else’s farm. Imagine if someone came up here and took one of Dad’s lambs. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“That’s completely different,” said Jasmine. “We look after all our lambs. We’d never just leave one to die.”
“Even so,” said Mum. She turned to Dad. “Come on, Michael, back me up on this.”
“Eh?” said Dad, who was tickling Truffle between the ears. Jasmine was delighted to hear Truffle making contented little grunts in response.
“She likes you, Dad,” she said.
“I said, can you back me up on this, Michael?” Mum repeated. “We can’t have our daughter running about the countryside, stealing pigs.”
Dad straightened up. “Well, she’ll just have to phone old Carter, won’t she?”
“Phone him?” asked Jasmine.
“If you want to keep the pig, that is. Otherwise, just take it back.”
Jasmine stared at her father.
“You mean … you would let me keep her? But … you don’t even like pigs.”
“That’s neither here nor there. I doubt he’ll let you keep it, anyway. He’s a miserable old beggar. But you’ll never know if you don’t ask.”
Mum was looking at Dad, shaking her head. “I don’t know. You must be going soft in your old age.”
“It won’t be forever,” said Dad. “Once she’s weaned, she’ll have to go, like any other farm animal. She’s not a pet.”
Jasmine opened her mouth to protest, and then thought better of it. She could deal with that later.
Mum was still shaking her head as she found Mr Carter’s number and passed it to Jasmine. Cradling Truffle in one arm, Jasmine picked up the phone. Everyone was silent as she dialled the number. She felt sick.
“Put it on speakerphone,” said Ella. “I want to hear this.”
The phone rang and rang and she thought nobody was going to pick it up. Then a very grumpy voice barked, “Yes?”
Feeling sicker than ever, Jasmine stutteringly explained to Mr Carter that she had kidnapped his runt. To her amazement, he gave an explosive bark of laughter. Around the table, her family’s eyes nearly popped out of their heads.
“I wondered where it was when I looked in this morning,” he said. “Thought the sow must have ate it.”
Jasmine shuddered. Mother pigs did sometimes eat their piglets. Imagine if that had happened to Truffle! Thank goodness she had rescued her.
“Still alive, is it?” he asked.
“Yes. She’s looking much better.”
Immediately she worried she had said the wrong thing. If the farmer thought Truffle was doing well, he might want her back.
“Well, you’ve done a better job with it than the old sow would have done, then.”
In a tiny, strained voice, Jasmine said, “Do you … do you want her back?”
Mr Carter gave that barking laugh again. “It wouldn’t last long with that old sow. You’d best hang on to it. What does your dad say?”
Jasmine looked at her dad, who seemed to be listening to the conversation with great interest.
“He says I can keep her until she’s weaned.”
“Huh. Must be going soft in the head.”
Jasmine smiled. “That’s exactly what my mum said.”
Chapter Eight
She’s Smaller Than My Guinea Pigs
When the back doorbell rang an hour later, Jasmine ran to answer it. On the step stood her best friend Tom, beaming with excitement.
“I can’t believe you’ve got your own piglet,” he said, before she even had a chance to say hello. “Where is she?”
He took off his wellington boots and Jasmine led the way into the kitchen, knelt down and opened the half-open Aga door.
Truffle was still lying on her side, but Jasmine was delighted to see that her eyes were open and she had stopped shivering.
Tom knelt beside Jasmine. His mouth fell open and his eyes grew very wide.
“She’s so tiny! I didn’t know pigs could be that small. She’s smaller than my guinea pigs.”
Jasmine laughed. “That is actually true,” she said. Tom’s guinea pigs were massive. Probably because Tom fed them two banquets of fresh fruit and vegetables every day, and they had an enormous run in the garden where they could munch on grass the rest of the time.
She lifted Truffle out of the Aga. “Mum just gave her an iron injection,” she said.
“Why, is she ill?”
“No, all day-old pigs get one. It keeps them strong. She was very brave. I held her while Mum injected her and she didn’t make a sound.”
“Can I hold her?” Tom asked.
Jasmine laid Truffle on Tom’s knees and Tom stroked her shining hair. He looked up at Jasmine, amazed. “She’s so silky and warm.”
Truffle raised her head and her little trotters started scrabbling around, as if looking for a foothold.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Jasmine. “I think she’s trying to stand up.”
Gently, she lifted Truffle and stood her on the tiled floor. The piglet wobbled a bit but she stayed upright, looking around curiously.
“She can stand!” said Jasmine. “Mum, come and look!”
Mum came into the kitchen with a basket full of laundry. “Oh, that’s a lovely sight. She’s definitely better. She won’t need to be in the Aga now.”
“Shall I put her back in my room?”
“You can for now. Just one more day, though, and then we’ll need to find somewhere on the farm for her.”
“Oh, but she’s too little. Look at her. She’ll get cold and lonely outside.”
“We’ll think of something, and we won’t let her get cold or lonely. But she needs to live outside once she’s running around, Jasmine. She’s going to get pretty messy once she starts eating properly, and she’s not house-trained. And no,” she said, as Jasmine opened her mouth, “you are not going to attempt to house-train her. This house is chaotic enough as it is.”
“How did you know what I was going to say?”
Mum raised her eyebrows. “I know how your mind works. Now, I must get this washing on.”
“Should I give her some milk?”
“After you’ve done the hens.”
Jasmine scooped up the little pig. “Come on, Tom, let’s put her in my room while we feed the hens.”
“Well done, Jas,” said Mum. “You’ve done a great job with that pig. I think you have a talent for working with animals.”
Jasmine glowed. Mum only praised you if she really meant it.
Once they had put Truffle back in her box, Jasmine and Tom pulled on their coats and wellies in the scullery and opened the back door. It was freezing cold this morning, and there was ice on the puddles.
“Poor Bramble,” said Tom, as they passed the kennel where the old spaniel sat looking out, her big brown eyes mournful. “She looks so sad without Bracken.”
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br /> “I know,” said Jasmine. “She’s out on the farm with Dad most of the time, but she must be really lonely when she’s in her kennel.”
They walked across the yard, smashing the ice on the puddles as they went. It was so much fun to jump on to the smooth ice as hard as you could, hear the satisfying crack and watch as the muddy brown water beneath oozed through the splits. Jasmine’s other favourite thing was to tread really carefully over the ice, hearing it creak and groan under her weight, until it cracked a tiny bit and she could watch the cracks run across the surface of the puddle.
They came to the old cowshed on the other side of the yard, where the hens lived. Jasmine unbolted the top half of the door, opened it and reached over to unbolt the bottom half. Inside, hens perched on the cobwebbed roof beams and sat in nests they had hollowed out of the deep earth floor.
As Jasmine opened the door and a shaft of morning sunlight spilled into the dim interior, hens came running out of the shed on their spindly legs, eager for their breakfast. It was a sight that Jasmine never got tired of watching.
And the most eager of all was Blossom, who raced up to Jasmine and started rubbing herself against her wellingtons.
“Can I feed them?” asked Tom.
Jasmine handed him the basket, which contained a tub of grain, some lettuce leaves and a few pieces of stale bread. “Crumble the bread into little pieces,” she said, “and tear up the lettuce leaves.”
While Tom scattered handfuls of grain and crumbled-up crusts around the yard, Jasmine scooped Blossom into her arms. Blossom clucked and cooed as Jasmine stroked her. Her silky feathers were amazing shades of gold and brown, like autumn leaves, with black edges that looked as though they’d been dipped in ink.
“Shall we collect the eggs?” asked Tom, when the basket was empty.
“I collect them in the afternoons,” said Jasmine. “They generally lay in the mornings.”
But Tom looked disappointed, so she said, “But you can go in and see if there are any.”
A few minutes later, Tom emerged triumphantly from the darkness with eight smooth, speckled eggs in the basket.
“Tom?” said Jasmine.
“Yes?”
“I’ve decided what I’m going to do when I’m grown up.”
“You’re going to have a chicken farm, aren’t you?”
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to have an animal rescue centre.”
Tom’s eyes lit up. “Cool! Can I help?”
“You can run it with me. We’ll be partners.”
“Can we have guinea pigs?”
“We’ll have any animal that needs rescuing. Cats, dogs, lambs, piglets…”
“Lions, tigers, rhinos…”
“Lions and tigers might eat the guinea pigs. And we’d need loads of raw meat to feed them with.”
Tom nodded thoughtfully. “Farm animals and pets, then. That will be amazing.”
“We’ll have to have a farm for them.”
“Let’s look on the internet. My parents are always looking at houses on the internet.”
Jasmine looked at him, alarmed. “Why are they looking at houses? You’re not moving away, are you?”
Tom laughed. “No. They’re just obsessed with houses.”
“OK, let’s look for a farm,” said Jasmine. “And then we can make plans.” She scanned the yard excitedly. “And we should have an office. Where we can write down all our plans and put them up on the walls. We can find a shed. And you can come up every day in the Christmas holidays to work on the plans.”
“I can’t. We’re going to my granny’s,” said Tom.
“To Cornwall? For the whole two weeks?”
“Yes. But I’m worried about the guinea pigs. I’ve never left them for two weeks before. My parents are looking for a boarding place, but what if the people aren’t nice?”
Jasmine turned to him with shining eyes. “Let me look after them! I love your guinea pigs and I’d take really good care of them.”
Tom’s eyes lit up, too. “Oh, would you? That would be amazing. Won’t your parents mind?”
“Why would they? I’d be the one doing all the work.”
“Let’s ask them,” said Tom.
“After we’ve fed Truffle,” said Jasmine.
She put Blossom down among the other hens and they splashed back through the icy puddles. Bramble still looked mournful. Jasmine stroked her head sadly through the wire of the kennel door. “She needs a friend,” she said.
In the scullery, Jasmine found the big tub of formula milk that Dad kept for the bottle-fed lambs.
“Smell this,” she said to Tom. “It’s so nice and sweet.”
Tom looked suspicious. “Are you tricking me?” He took a quick sniff. “Oh, that is nice,” he said in surprise. “It smells like cake.”
“Mmm,” said Jasmine, taking a long sniff. “It reminds me of lambing. I can’t wait.”
She washed out Truffle’s bottle and showed Tom how to make up the formula.
“That’s enough shaking,” she said, finally. “Let’s take it to my – oh, no!” She gasped in horror and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“What?” said Tom.
But Jasmine had started to run. “The cats!” she wailed, as she raced up the stairs. “I left my bedroom door open! What if they’ve attacked her?”
Picturing poor, defenceless little Truffle covered in bites and scratches, Jasmine burst through her bedroom door and darted round the end of the bed.
“Oh!” she exclaimed.
“What’s happened?” asked Tom, running into the room. “Is she OK?”
“Oh, Tom,” said Jasmine. “Look at this.”
Tom looked. “Oh,” he said. “That’s amazing.”
Jasmine ran to her bedroom door. “Mum!” she called. “Come and look at this.”
Mum emerged from her office, holding the phone in one hand and a letter in the other. “Is it important? I’m working.”
“It’s very important. It won’t take long, but there’s something you need to see.”
She took Mum’s arm and pulled her over to where Tom was kneeling beside Truffle’s box.
“Oh, my,” said Mum. “That is so sweet.”
The tiny pig lay asleep in the straw, breathing quietly and steadily. Curled around her, each twice her size and both fast asleep too, were Toffee and Marmite. It was the most peaceful sight you could possibly imagine.
“Have you ever seen that before?” asked Jasmine. “Piglets and cats being friends?”
Mum shook her head, smiling. “Never,” she said. “That is really very special.”
Jasmine looked pleadingly at her mother.
“So you can’t turn her outside now, can you? She’s very special, you just said so.”
Mum laughed. “Nice try, Jasmine. You have to remember she’s a pig, not a cat or a dog. You saw the size of her mother. I know she’s tiny now, but she’ll grow very quickly. She’s not an indoor animal.”
Suddenly, Jasmine had a thought. It was so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before.
She looked up at Mum, her eyes full of excitement.
“Maybe she can’t live inside forever,” she said, “but I know someone she could live with outside. Someone who really needs a friend right now.”
Chapter Nine
I’ve Got a New Idea
The sun came out for the first day of the Christmas holidays. The frost that coated every blade of grass sparkled like diamonds as Jasmine opened the gate into the orchard, a bottle of warm milk in her hand.
She opened her mouth to call Truffle but the sturdy little piglet was already galloping across the frosty grass on her tiny trotters, squealing with excitement. Beside her, tail wagging wildly, bounded Bramble. She looked a completely different dog from the one who had sat mournfully alone in her kennel a month ago.
Truffle clamped the teat in her mouth and started to guzzle the milk, her curly tail wriggling with pleasure. Jasmine thought back
to her first desperate attempts to get her to swallow. These days, she had to grip the bottle hard or Truffle would pull it out of her hands with the force of her sucking. It took less than a minute for her to guzzle the lot.
“That’s it, Truffle, sorry,” said Jasmine. The piglet was still sucking on thin air and she had to wrestle the empty bottle away from her. She took a threadbare tennis ball from her pocket.
“Look! Playtime!”
Truffle squealed with excitement. Jasmine hurled the ball as far as she could and the piglet bounded across the grass between the fruit trees in pursuit. Bramble looked on proudly as Truffle raced back with the tennis ball clamped between her jaws.
“Good girl,” said Jasmine, scratching Truffle’s soft belly. The pig flopped on to her side, grunting with pleasure.
Dad and Manu were walking towards the orchard from the field. “Bramble!” called Dad.
He opened the gate from the orchard into the farmyard and Bramble ran out to greet him. She might be old, but there was still nothing she liked more than a walk around the fields with her master.
Dad frowned as he looked over the fence at the grass. “That pig’s made a right state of the orchard, rooting around.”
“It’s not her fault,” Jasmine said. “It’s her instincts. She can smell things up to six feet underground, did you know that? That’s why they use pigs to sniff out truffles in Italy.”
Manu broke into peals of laughter. “Truffles! Why do they bury chocolates underground?”
“Not that sort of truffles,” said Jasmine. “They’re a kind of underground fungus.”
“Oh,” said Manu, understanding dawning on his face. “Is that why you called her Truffle?”
“Well, there’s no truffles here,” said Dad, “and she’s ruining the grass. Come on, Bramble. Let’s go and check those sheep.”
Jasmine heard a car engine. “Ooh, Truffle,” she said, “that must be Tom with the guinea pigs! I’m going to go and settle them in, and then we’ll come and play with you.”
