A Piglet Called Truffle
Page 6
Tomorrow! Jasmine suddenly remembered that tomorrow was Christmas Day. Everything was all right again. Snowy and Twiglet were safe and sound, and her pig had found them.
“Come on, Truffle,” she said. “Home time.”
As they walked back to the house, the snow started to fall thickly and steadily. Jasmine kept her eyes on the ground. She didn’t want to stumble into a rabbit hole with the guinea pigs in her arms. Her torch beam was now just a feeble pinprick of light.
Halfway across the field, she thought she heard shouting. She looked up. Several torch beams swept across the garden, the farmyard, the next field and now the field she was in. What was going on?
She stopped and listened. What were they shouting?
They were calling her name! Why were they calling her name?
Suddenly she was lit up in a beam of light.
“Jasmine!” shouted Mum. “Oh, Jasmine, where have you been?”
Mum started running across the field. “She’s here! Jasmine’s here!”
And now Mum reached her and flung her arms around her. “Oh, Jas, where have you been? We’ve been completely frantic.”
“Don’t squash the guinea pigs,” Jasmine tried to say, but her teeth were chattering so much and her lips were so numb that she couldn’t speak.
Her mum released her. “Are you all right? What happened?”
She shone her torch into Jasmine’s face. Jasmine flinched and screwed her eyes shut.
Mum gasped. “Your lips are purple. And you’re covered in scratches.” She touched Jasmine’s cheek. “Oh, you’re like a block of ice. What on earth has happened to you?”
“I’m fine,” Jasmine managed to say through her chattering teeth. “I was on a rescue mission.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jasmine First
The first thing Jasmine saw when she woke up the next morning was the bulging stocking at the end of her bed, with a chocolate Father Christmas peeping out of the top. She smiled to herself. It was really Christmas Day. And all her animals were safe.
She swung her legs out of bed and hurried to the window. Dad had promised he would put heavy weights on the hutch roof to make sure it wouldn’t blow over again, but she had to make sure everything was all right.
She pulled the curtains open and gasped. Outside was a fairytale world. The ground was covered in a dazzling white carpet of snow. Every twig on every tree was coated with snow. And the guinea pigs’ hutch was safe and sound under a snow blanket.
It wasn’t until four in the afternoon, when the animals had all been fed and checked and Mum had returned from an emergency foaling, that the family sat down in front of a roaring log fire to admire the Christmas tree and open their presents.
“Jasmine first!” said Manu, who was bouncing up and down with excitement.
Ella handed Jasmine a present. Jasmine could tell immediately that it was a book, although she could have guessed that before she saw it. Ella always gave books.
It was called, “The Porcine Encyclopaedia: All You Need To Know About the Care and Treatment of Pigs”. Jasmine was touched by Ella’s thoughtfulness, and tried not to think about Truffle being sold in a few months’ time.
Manu needed Dad’s help to lift his enormous present from under the tree and carry it over to Jasmine. Jasmine prodded it experimentally. It felt lumpy and it crackled in a plastic-sounding way.
Bursting with curiosity, Jasmine tore off the snowman paper. Underneath was a pink plastic sack. The black writing said: Pig Starter and Grower Pellets.
“Food for Truffle! Thank you, Manu. That’s really kind of you.”
Manu was still bouncing up and down on his chair. “Now give her your present!” he said, looking eagerly at Dad.
Dad glanced towards the door. “Jasmine, this is from Mum and me,” he said. “We hope you’ll like it.”
Everybody turned to the door. Jasmine heard a familiar grunt. In walked Mum, with a huge smile on her face, and beside her, gleaming with cleanliness and wearing a big red bow around her neck, was Truffle.
Jasmine stared in confusion. Everyone was grinning at her. But Truffle was already hers. How could she be a Christmas present?
Dad smiled at her. “Jasmine, I know I said I don’t keep pigs and we weren’t going to keep Truffle. But you’ve proved that pigs have a lot more to them than I’ve ever given them credit for. And you’ve also proved yourself as a top pig keeper. So how would you like to keep Truffle here?”
Jasmine stared at her father. “For ever?”
“Yes. For ever. Provided she behaves herself, of course.”
Truffle trotted over to Jasmine, grunting her contented grunt. Jasmine knelt on the fireside rug, scooped up her piglet and clasped her in a huge hug.
“So what do you think, Jas?” asked Mum. “It’s an unusual sort of present, I know, but we thought you might like it.”
Jasmine sat up on the rug and grinned at her parents. “Thank you so, so much,” she said. “I like it more than anything else in the whole entire world.”
Also by
HELEN PETERS
LOOK OUT FOR:
A Duckling Called Button
A Sheepdog Called Sky
A Goat Called Willow
FOR OLDER READERS:
The Secret Hen House Theatre
The Farm Beneath the Water
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2016 by Nosy Crow Ltd
Nosy Crow, The Crow’s Nest, 14 Baden Place, Crosby Row,
London, SE1 1YW, UK
Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd
Text copyright © Helen Peters, 2016
Cover and illustrations copyright © Ellie Snowdon, 2016
The right of Helen Peters and Ellie Snowdon to be identified as the author and illustrator respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved
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ISBN: 978 0 85763 773 4
eISBN: 978 0 85763 774 1
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