by Helen Peters
They weren’t as perfect as you would find in a garden centre. A bit of clever decorating was always needed to cover the bald patches and the wonky bits. But once they had covered it with tinsel and baubles and fairy lights, Jasmine always thought their tree looked magical.
The tree they chose this year was the biggest one so far. Mum would have a fit.
“Not too big,” she said every year, “or we won’t all fit in the room.”
But they never took any notice. With Christmas trees, the rest of them all agreed, bigger was definitely better.
They held the tree steady while Dad sawed through the trunk. The wind was bitingly cold and Jasmine was glad she had worn her gloves. When it was cut, they all piled into the back of the truck and Dad lifted the tree on to their knees. It prickled their faces as they jolted over the rutted ground, singing Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. At that moment, Jasmine felt properly Christmassy.
“That wind’s getting up,” said Dad, as he heaved the enormous tree out of the truck. “Shouldn’t be surprised if it snows later. This is some tree. Mum’s going to go crazy.”
Snow! Jasmine loved snow, but she did worry about the guinea pigs. What if they froze to death?
“Give them extra hay so they can burrow right into it,” Mum said, when Jasmine asked her advice later that afternoon. She had finally stopped ranting about the size of the tree and it was safe to speak to her again.
“I’ve already given them loads of extra hay. And I put an old blanket over the hutch.”
“Then you’ve done the right thing. They’ll be fine. They’ve got all that fur, remember. Now where did I put my car keys? I’ll be back in a couple of hours, in time to decorate the tree and hang up the stockings.”
Mum was taking Manu and Ben to a Christmas Eve party at a friend’s house. Dad was feeding the calves. Ella was upstairs. It was only four thirty, but it was already dark. Too dark to play with Truffle, who was snuggled up in the kennel with Bramble, warm and cosy and full of milk.
Mum opened the front door and a gust of freezing wind blew in. “Oh, it’s horrible out there. Boys, are you coming?”
Jasmine went to look at the Christmas tree. It was beautiful, but the house felt too quiet and empty. The wind whipped strands of ivy against the windows. Jasmine drew the curtains closed. She wished there was a fire, but she wasn’t allowed to light it when there was no adult around. She went up to her room and took out her drawing paper and pencils.
She became so absorbed in drawing a picture of a field full of pigs that she tuned out the outside world completely. It was only when she finished it and realised she was hungry that she noticed the wind was much fiercer now. It howled in the chimneys and rattled the doors.
It was time to give the guinea pigs their evening feed. She put some carrots and cabbage leaves in a bowl and pulled on her coat and wellies in the scullery. An icy wind blew under the back door, rattling at the catch. When Jasmine opened the door, the cabbage leaves flew out of the bowl and she was almost blown back into the room. She scrabbled on the floor to pick up the leaves and clamped a hand over the bowl as she went out. The wind was blowing the door inwards and she couldn’t shut it with one hand, so she had to stuff the food into her pocket and abandon the bowl. She put her torch in the other pocket and grabbed the door handle with both hands to have a tug of war with the gale.
Once she had finally yanked the door shut, she made her way along the garden path, head down, hands in her pockets. The wind was behind her now and its force propelled her down the path. She had never known wind like it.
She came to the bottom of the path and stepped on to the lawn. Then she gasped in horror.
The guinea pigs’ hutch had blown right over. It was lying on its back on the grass. And the roof was completely open.
“Oh, no, oh, no!” cried Jasmine. She ran to the fallen hutch and shone her torch inside.
The guinea pigs weren’t there.
Chapter Thirteen
We’ve Got Work to Do
Jasmine desperately shone her torch into every corner of the empty hutch. Terrible pictures flashed into her mind. Were the guinea pigs crushed under the hutch? Had the fox taken them? Had the cats got them? Were they freezing to death in a hedge? Or had they run so far away that she would never find them again?
How could she ever tell Tom? He had trusted her with his precious pets and look what she had done. She wasn’t worthy to look after animals. This would never have happened if Tom had sent them to a boarding kennels.
All this went through Jasmine’s mind in a couple of seconds. And then she came to her senses.
Stop panicking, she told herself, and find the guinea pigs. That’s the only thing that matters.
The first thing to do was to lift the hutch up. The thought of what she might find underneath it was unbearable, but she had to do it.
She pulled the lid shut, crouched down and slid her fingers under the edges of the fallen hutch. She took a firm grip. Then, with all her strength, she pushed it upright. Feeling sick, she made herself shine her torch on the ground where the hutch had fallen.
Relief swept over her. The guinea pigs weren’t crushed.
But the relief only lasted a second. Because if they weren’t under the hutch, then where were they?
Jasmine straightened up and swept her torch around the garden. Panic overwhelmed her. It was a big garden, with a lot of shrubs in the flower border and on the lawn. And it was enclosed on two sides by a dense, prickly hawthorn hedge. How long would it take to search all that? And what might happen to the poor little guinea pigs in the meantime?
At least Snowy would show up easily in the torchlight. Unless it started to snow, of course.
Oh, please don’t let it snow, Jasmine thought. Not now. Not while Snowy and Twiglet are out in the wild.
She lay on the freezing lawn in front of the nearest bush. She parted the twigs and swept the torch beam over the ground.
“Snowy! Twiglet!” she called softly. “Come on, boys. Come on, babies.”
No, unless they were hiding very well indeed, they weren’t in that bush. She scanned the lawn with her torch again. No sign of them on the grass. She searched the other shrubs, first the ones nearest the hutch and then gradually moving further away, calling softly the whole time.
By the time she had searched every bush in the garden, Jasmine’s hands were numb and her feet felt like blocks of ice in her boots. Her teeth chattered and her head throbbed. But she had to go on. Giving up was unthinkable.
She looked at the hedge with a feeling of dread. She and Tom had once spent a morning building a den in there. After two hours of tunnelling through hawthorn, they were covered in scratches that stung for days.
But now she had no choice.
She would burrow into the hedge and crawl right through it, the whole way round the garden. It was hollow inside, so once she was in, it shouldn’t be too bad. Oh, please, she thought, please let the guinea pigs be sheltering in there.
Because if they weren’t in the garden, then what would she do? They could have run in any direction. What possible hope did she have of finding them?
If they hadn’t been caught already.
She mustn’t think about that. She would start here, by the orchard fence.
The orchard fence…
Jasmine’s eyes widened.
The orchard!
Truffle!
How could she have been so stupid? Crawling under bushes, wasting goodness knows how much time, when she had a fully trained sniffer pig sitting in the kennel.
She battled up the garden path, her eyes streaming from the biting wind. Her mind was whirling. Truffle was used to sniffing out her ball, and the scent on her ball was the scent of the guinea pigs, so surely it should work?
But would it?
Jasmine reached the front garden. She took Truffle’s collar and lead off the hook by the kennel door.
“Truffle!” she called. “Come here, Truffle.�
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Truffle didn’t need to be called twice. Before Jasmine had finished saying the words, the piglet was at the kennel door, squealing in anticipation. Jasmine shone her torch inside. Bramble looked up sleepily from her basket. Jasmine unbolted the door and opened it just wide enough for Truffle to get out. She bolted it shut again and slipped the collar over Truffle’s head. She stroked her smooth sleek back and silky ears. Her skin was so warm. Jasmine felt bad about bringing her out into the freezing night, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Come on, Truffle,” said Jasmine, leading her pig down the garden path. “We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter Fourteen
Find It, Truffle!
Outside the guinea pigs’ hutch, Jasmine crouched down next to Truffle.
“Find it, Truffle,” she said. “Find it!”
Truffle was already sniffing the ground, her snout quivering just above the grass. She seemed excited. She must recognise the scent of her ball, Jasmine thought.
“Find it!” she said again, encouragingly.
Truffle kept sniffing.
“Find it!” Jasmine said, trying to sound relaxed and positive. Inside, though, she felt desperate. Truffle was her only hope. She would never find Twiglet and Snowy on her own.
Truffle continued to sniff around the hutch. And in the torchlight, Jasmine saw white flakes falling.
Snow!
Jasmine had been wishing for a white Christmas for years. But right now, it was the last thing she wanted. It was bad enough that the guinea pigs were out in this bitter wind, without snow to make them even colder.
“Find it!” she said, urgently. “Find it!”
And Truffle started edging away from the hutch, her snout still quivering just above the ground. Jasmine’s heart sped up. Could she really have picked up a trail?
Holding tightly to the end of the lead, Jasmine crept behind Truffle as she sniffed her way across the garden. She hardly dared breathe. She mustn’t distract her. It would be best if Truffle didn’t even realise Jasmine was there. She wasn’t used to being on a lead while she searched. But Jasmine didn’t dare let her off the lead tonight. Because it wouldn’t be a ball she found at the end of the trail, would it? It would be two very frightened guinea pigs. And it wouldn’t do them any good at all to be grabbed in a pig’s jaws like a tennis ball.
Truffle made her way straight to the hedge. Jasmine’s heart sank. Now she was going to have to crawl through it. But of course the guinea pigs would go to the hedge. They would naturally choose the safest route.
Truffle was straining at the leash, snuffling at the ground. Jasmine got down on her hands and knees, bunched up the lead in her hand and wriggled after her into the hedge. Twigs snapped and thorns scratched her face as she wormed her way into the hollow centre. She screwed up her face in pain as she knelt on a sharp stone, but she managed not to make a sound. She mustn’t do anything to put Truffle off the scent.
Truffle snuffled her way enthusiastically right along the middle of the hedge. How far had the guinea pigs gone? Were they still in here? If they were, at least they might be safe. Although a hedge wouldn’t be a barrier to a hungry fox.
She mustn’t think about that. She just hoped Truffle was actually on the trail of the guinea pigs. What if she was following a completely different scent? What if she wasn’t following any scent at all, but just going for a stroll along the middle of a hedgerow?
They had reached the far corner of the garden. Truffle turned right, following the hedge along the bottom of the orchard. Jasmine got something in her eye when a twig snapped against the side of her face, but she couldn’t stop. She just kept blinking and hoping it would get dislodged. Her face was smarting with the scratches and her knees throbbed from crawling over roots and stones. Her hair kept getting caught in thorns and she just had to yank it free. The only good thing was that at least the hedge was out of the wind.
Truffle kept on going, snuffling and grunting as she went. In the far corner of the orchard, she turned left and followed the hedge down through the field between the orchard and the wood.
Jasmine’s heart thudded. At the edge of this field was a big pond. A pond with muddy, slippery banks. What if the guinea pigs had fallen in?
Truffle slowed to a stop just above the pond. Here, the hedge straggled out into a couple of bushes and then a row of three huge oak trees. Out in the open again, the wind whipped Jasmine’s hair into her eyes and mouth. She pushed it behind her ears and pulled her hood up.
The ground was peppered with rabbit holes. Jasmine’s torch picked out a pair of startled rabbit’s eyes. The rabbit froze for a couple of seconds before it bolted away.
Truffle was nuzzling around the burrows. Had she got distracted by the smell of rabbit and lost the guinea pig scent?
“Find it!” Jasmine urged. “Find it, Truffle!”
Truffle seemed particularly interested in one big rabbit hole near the hedge.
“Not rabbits,” said Jasmine. “Guinea pigs! It’s guinea pigs we need, Truffle. Go on. Find it!”
But Truffle kept snuffling at the rabbit hole.
She was getting frantic now, grunting excitedly, shoving her snout right in the opening and digging out the soil.
Jasmine frowned. This wasn’t typical Truffle behaviour. She had never been interested in rabbit holes before.
Could the guinea pigs possibly have chosen this burrow as their hiding place?
“Good girl, Truffle,” she said. “Now sit. Sit.”
She pressed her hand down firmly on the piglet’s back end. Reluctantly, Truffle stopped digging and sat, her snout still quivering.
“Good girl,” said Jasmine, scratching her between the ears. “Good girl.”
She shone her torch around until she spotted a sturdy-looking low branch in the hedge. She noticed with alarm that the torch beam was getting fainter. The battery must be running low.
She tied Truffle’s lead firmly to the branch. “Sit there, Truffle.”
Feeling sick with nerves, Jasmine shone the fading light into the rabbit hole. And there, far, far down, huddled two bundles of quivering fur, staring out at her, frozen in terror.
“Oh!” breathed Jasmine, letting out her pent-up breath in a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, there you are! You’re alive! We’ve found you! You’re safe!”
She turned to Truffle and gave her an enormous hug. “You did it, Truffle! You found the guinea pigs! You clever, clever girl. Now we just have to get them out of that hole.”
She shone the fading beam into the burrow, quite glad the light was weak now. Hopefully it would be less scary for the guinea pigs.
“Come on, Snowy,” she coaxed softly. “Come on, Twiglet. Come on, boys, you’re all safe now.”
The guinea pigs didn’t move. Very slowly, Jasmine extended her right arm into the burrow. If they stayed frozen, she could lift them out.
But as her arm moved closer to them, the guinea pigs squeaked in alarm and scuttled backwards, further into the burrow.
That wasn’t going to work, then. Jasmine slowly withdrew her arm. How was she ever going to get them out?
Then she remembered. She had carrots and cabbage in her pockets.
She took out a long piece of carrot. Guinea pigs were supposed to have an excellent sense of smell. And these two were probably hungry by now. If she could just tempt them out…
She held the carrot out towards them. The guinea pigs gave frightened squeaks and shuffled back again. Jasmine dropped the carrot on the floor of the burrow, withdrew her hand and waited. She tried not to think about how cold she was.
“We might be waiting a long time, Truffle,” she said. “But that’s OK. You deserve a very good scratch for all your hard work. And a treat.”
She fed Truffle half a carrot, which she crunched up in her mouth, grunting happily. Then Jasmine scratched her belly until she flopped over on to her side with sheer pleasure.
Still scratching Truffle with one hand, Jasmine leaned over and peered into
the burrow, shining the torch to one side of the hole so as not to startle the guinea pigs.
“Oh,” she said, in the tiniest whisper. “It’s working.”
Twiglet was approaching the carrot. Just as he clamped it in his mouth, Jasmine reached out, grabbed him round the middle and lifted him out of the hole. Twiglet squealed but when Jasmine held him close and stroked him, he quietened. His heart was beating so fast that Jasmine feared it would burst.
Now for Snowy. Holding Twiglet’s warm body against her coat, Jasmine gently placed another piece of carrot near the mouth of the burrow.
Snowy was more timid than his brother, and Jasmine sat shivering on the freezing ground for a long time, talking in a soft voice that she hoped would soothe both Twiglet in her arms and Snowy in the burrow. It must have soothed Truffle, anyway, because she sat quietly, only giving an occasional contented low grunt.
Eventually, Jasmine heard the sound she had been waiting for. A tiny scrabbling noise, followed by a frantic crunching of carrot.
Holding her breath and moving as stealthily as she could, Jasmine stretched her arm into the burrow and grasped Snowy round the middle. He squealed and wriggled, but Jasmine kept hold of him and lifted him out.
Two guinea pigs, safe in her arms! Jasmine had never been so relieved in her life. She stroked and soothed them until they had calmed a little. Their warm bodies felt like hot water bottles for her freezing hands. Thank goodness they had such thick fur.
Once the guinea pigs were calm, Jasmine tried to untie Truffle’s lead from the branch. This proved impossible with a guinea pig in each arm, so she just unclipped the lead from the collar. She would have to come back and fetch it tomorrow.
