A Deer Called Dotty

by Helen Peters

  For Marie

  H. P.

  For Siâny

  E. S.

  “Good dog, Bramble,” said Jasmine, as the spaniel came trotting back across the orchard with a battered tennis ball in her mouth. “Good dog.”

  Bramble dropped the soggy ball and Jasmine stroked her silky head. Then she picked up the ball and hurled it into the long grass.

  “Fetch!” she called, and the spaniel wagged her tail and bounded after it. She was old now, but she still loved to play.

  Bramble lived with Jasmine’s pet pig, Truffle, in the big orchard at Oak Tree Farm. It was an unusual friendship, but they had been friends ever since Jasmine had brought Truffle to the farm as a tiny runt. When Truffle was younger, she would chase balls too, but now she preferred to spend her days rooting around under the apple trees.

  Jasmine’s sheepdog, Sky, nuzzled into her knee. Jasmine looked down at the handsome black-and-white collie.

  “Good boy, Sky,” she said. “You’re tired now, aren’t you?”

  She and Sky had just returned from a long walk in the woods. They didn’t normally stay out this late, but it was a Friday and the beginning of the May half-term holiday, so Mum hadn’t fussed about bedtime.

  Sky licked Jasmine’s hand and looked up at her adoringly. Jasmine ruffled the fur on the top of his head.

  She had found Sky as an abandoned puppy, ill-treated and starving, and had nursed him back to health. They had been devoted to each other from the moment they met, but it had taken a long time before Sky could really trust people again. He had bitten Jasmine once when he was frightened, and even now he sometimes got spooked by unfamiliar people and situations. But he was a very different dog from the frail and terrified puppy that Jasmine had scooped out of a hedge almost two years ago.

  Jasmine looked up as car headlights appeared on the farm track.

  “There you are,” she said to Bramble. “Dad’s back. You’ll get your supper now.”

  Jasmine’s dad was the farmer at Oak Tree Farm. He normally drove a truck, but he had used Jasmine’s mum’s car tonight to take her older sister Ella out to practise her driving. Ella had been having driving lessons for months, but she didn’t seem to have made much progress.

  “It will help her confidence if you take her out,” Mum had said to Dad. “Bless her, she’s such a nervous driver. It will be good for her to practise in the evening too. She’s only ever driven in daylight.”

  Jasmine noticed that her mum hadn’t offered to take Ella herself. Ella was extremely clever and hardworking, but she was not a natural driver.

  “If she could learn it all from a book, she’d be fine,” Mum had said. “It’s actually driving the car that’s the problem.”

  “I can’t wait to start driving lessons,” Jasmine’s little brother, Manu, had said. “I’ll be the best driver ever.”

  Manu was staying at his best friend Ben’s house tonight. Which was lucky, because otherwise he would have wanted to sit in the back of the car while Ella was driving. And Manu’s comments were not the sort of thing a nervous driver needed to hear.

  The car continued its jerky progress along the track. Jasmine smiled. “That’s definitely Ella driving,” she said to Sky.

  Suddenly, the engine revved loudly. There was a horrible dull thud. Brakes screeched. Glass shattered.

  Jasmine stood rooted to the spot. The engine stopped and she heard doors opening and then a terrifying high-pitched scream.

  Jasmine unfroze. She raced out of the orchard and up the garden path. She burst through the back door of the farmhouse.

  “Mum!” she yelled.

  Her mum was reading at the kitchen table. She looked up as Jasmine ran into the room. Her eyes widened in alarm.

  “What is it? Jasmine, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s Ella,” gasped Jasmine. “I think she’s hurt.”

  Nadia sprang to her feet. “Where is she?”

  “On the track. The car crashed and Ella was screaming.”

  But Nadia had already left the room. Jasmine sprinted up the farm track after her.

  Dad was running towards them, his boots pounding on the tarmac. In the beam of the headlights, Jasmine saw Ella kneeling in front of the car, her head in her hands, sobbing loudly, next to a brown mound of something Jasmine couldn’t make out.

  “Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” panted Dad.

  “Is Ella OK?” cried Mum. “What happened?”

  “Ella’s fine,” said Dad. “It’s a deer. We hit a deer on the track.”

  Mum ran towards the car, Jasmine following her. She could see now that the brown mound was actually a beautiful deer, stretched out on its side with its eyes open in a fixed stare. Ella was hunched on her knees beside it, rocking to and fro with her head in her hands, wailing.

  “Ella, are you OK?” asked Mum, crouching in front of her. “Were you hurt? Are you injured?”

  “I’m a murderer,” Ella wailed. “I’ve killed a deer.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” said Dad. “Deer are really hard to avoid if they run across the road in front of you. It was just a terrible accident.”

  “It was my fault,” sobbed Ella. “If you’d been driving, she’d still be alive.”

  “I’m sure you did the best you could,” said Mum.

  “You don’t understand,” wailed Ella. “I’m completely stupid. I’m the stupidest person in the world.”

  Mum looked at Dad. “What actually happened?”

  Dad sighed. “She panicked when she saw the deer. She tried to brake, but she pressed the accelerator instead.”

  Jasmine winced.

  “I put the handbrake on, obviously,” said Dad, “but by then we’d hit the deer.”

  Mum put her arm around Ella. “Sweetheart, I know you’ve had a horrible shock, but I need you to get up and move out of the way. I have to examine the deer. We don’t want her to suffer any more than necessary, do we?”

  Thank goodness Mum was a vet, Jasmine thought. She always knew what to do.

  “You don’t need to examine her,” wailed Ella. “She’s dead. I killed her.”

  Nadia sighed impatiently and stood up. “Michael, can you deal with her?” she said.

  Dad crouched beside Ella and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Ella, you’re in shock. I’m going to take you home. Mum will look after the deer. We’re going to have to walk, because Mum might need the equipment in the car. Can you manage to walk?”

  Still sobbing, Ella allowed Dad to help her to her feet.

  “Right,” said Mum. “Grab the torch from the glove compartment, please, Jasmine.”

  Dad put his arm around Ella and started to guide her down the track. When Jasmine returned with the torch, Nadia was holding her coat over the deer’s head.

  “Is she alive?” asked Jasmine.

  “Only just, I think,” said Mum. “I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

  Jasmine watched as Nadia lifted the coat from the deer’s head.

  “The reflex in the pupil of the eye is the last thing to work in a living animal,” said Mum. “If the pupil size doesn’t change when I shine a torch into her eye, then I’m afraid she’s not alive.”

  She shone the torch beam straight into the doe’s eye. Jasmine watched as the shiny black pupil contracted.

  “She’s alive!” she said.

  “She is,” said Nadia, “but barely. I don’t want her to suffer any more.”

  She paused. Then she gave Jasmine a serious look and said, “There’s something else, though. Something I didn’t want to mention in front of Ella.”

  “What?” asked Jasmine.

  But before Nadia could answer, Jasmine saw something in the light of the torch beam. Something that made her
gasp. A movement in the deer’s stomach.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “There’s a baby inside her!”

  “We’re not going to be able to save the mother, I’m afraid,” said Nadia, “but if we work very quickly there’s a small chance that we could save the fawn.”

  She shone the torch beam into the doe’s eye again. This time, the pupil didn’t move.

  “Oh, no,” breathed Jasmine, and tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Poor thing,” said Nadia. “But at least she didn’t suffer for too long. We need to work fast now. The fawn won’t live inside the mother for more than three or four minutes. Will you be my assistant?”

  Jasmine’s heart sped up. “Sure. What should I do?”

  “Can you fetch my box of instruments? I’m going to need a scalpel blade. And a towel to dry the fawn as soon as it’s born.”

  Jasmine hurried to the car boot and took out a clean towel and the big case containing Nadia’s equipment. She set it on the ground beside her mum and opened the lid.

  Nadia pulled on a pair of disposable gloves and unwrapped a gleaming scalpel blade from its sterile packaging.

  “Normally I’d shave the animal’s hair around the area where I’m going to operate,” she said, “but in this case we don’t need to worry too much about hygiene. The only thing that matters is getting the little one out as quickly as possible. Can you hold the torch steady while I operate? It’s lucky you’re not squeamish.”

  She inserted the scalpel blade into a handle and poised the blade above the deer’s stomach. “When I take the fawn out, you hold its back legs firmly and pull, while I help the rest of it out.”

  “OK,” said Jasmine. She held the torch so its beam shone on the deer’s stomach. The mother’s reddish-brown coat rippled and bulged as the fawn moved inside her.

  “Ready?” asked Nadia.

  “Ready,” said Jasmine.

  It all happened very quickly. Jasmine watched, fascinated, as Nadia pulled out a tiny pair of hooves, followed by the fawn’s skinny little back legs.

  “Keep a tight hold of the legs,” she said, “and pull on them steadily. Careful, they’re slippery.”

  Jasmine put the torch down, took hold of the wet slippery legs and pulled, as Nadia eased the rest of the fawn out.

  “Oh, it’s gorgeous!” said Jasmine, as a perfect little head appeared. “It’s so tiny!”

  “She,” corrected Nadia. “Look, she’s a doe.”

  “She’s so still,” said Jasmine. “Is she alive?”

  “She’s not breathing,” said Nadia. “Hold her upside down and I’ll compress her chest.”

  Jasmine dangled the little creature upside down by her back legs, while Nadia worked furiously on the chest.

  “Normally the chest would be compressed as the animal’s being born,” she said, “but that doesn’t happen if it’s born by caesarean, so you have to do it manually.”

  The fawn made no sound or movement. Nadia leaned over and picked one of the long tough grass stems that grew by the side of the track. She tickled the fawn’s nostrils with it.

  Suddenly, the fawn gave a spluttery cough. Jasmine laughed in delight. “She’s alive!”

  The fawn gasped for air.

  “She’s starting to breathe,” said Nadia, still working on her chest. “That’s right, little one. Keep breathing.”

  The fawn spluttered and coughed again. Then she shook her tiny head. Nadia smiled. “That’s what we want to see.” She handed the towel to Jasmine. “Wrap her in this and rub her dry. We need to warm her up and make sure her circulation’s working.”

  Jasmine wrapped the little fawn in the towel and started to dry her, first her tummy and legs, and then her head and face.

  “She’s got such big ears,” said Jasmine. “And such gorgeous dark eyes. I can’t believe how small she is. Should she be this small?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Nadia, “but roe deer are the smallest of all the native deer. She’s absolutely tiny, isn’t she? I could almost fit her in the palm of my hand.”

  “Tiny but perfect,” said Jasmine.

  The fawn shook her head again. Then she kicked out her back legs and wriggled.

  “Look, she’s getting really lively,” said Jasmine. “She’s going to be fine, isn’t she?”

  “It’s impossible to tell,” said Nadia. “The first few days will be crucial.”

  “I’ll spend all my time with her,” said Jasmine. “I’ll be her foster mother.”

  “That’s exactly what she needs,” said Nadia. “You have to bond with fawns immediately if they’re going to survive. It’s lucky it’s your half term. She’s going to need you to do everything for her.”

  Jasmine helped Nadia move the poor mother deer to the side of the track, and then they drove back to the farmyard. Jasmine held the fawn on her lap, wrapped in a dry towel, talking to her softly.

  “I want her to get used to the sound of my voice,” she said. “Then she’ll recognise me as her mother.”

  Dad was making a cup of tea in the kitchen as Mum walked in ahead of Jasmine.

  “Where’s Ella?” asked Mum.

  “I made her go to bed,” said Dad. “She’s in a pretty bad way, poor thing.”

  “I’ll go up and see her as soon as I’ve washed my hands,” said Mum. “Remember to give yours a good scrub too, Jasmine. And would you mind taking the truck to collect the deer, Michael?”

  “Sure,” said Dad. “Poor Ella. I don’t think she’ll be getting back behind the wheel any time soon.”

  Nadia left the room and Dad turned to Jasmine, standing in the doorway with the bundled-up towel in her arms.

  “What have you got there?” he asked.

  Jasmine smiled and walked towards him. Dad stared in surprise.

  “She had a fawn?”

  “She was pregnant,” said Jasmine. “Mum did an emergency caesarean. It was amazing.” She stroked the fawn’s soft ears. “She’s a girl.”

  “Wow,” said Dad. “So now you have an orphaned fawn to rear. That’s going to be a lot of work.”

  Jasmine smiled. “I know.”

  Dad stroked the fawn’s head. “You’d better pop her in the Aga while you get things ready.” He opened the bottom door of the big Aga cooker and laid a sheet of newspaper on the oven floor.

  Visitors to the farm in springtime, seeing the oven door open, were sometimes alarmed at the sight of a tiny live lamb lying in the Aga. The family would have to reassure them that the animal wasn’t being cooked for dinner. In fact, the bottom oven produced a very gentle heat that was exactly the right temperature for warming up sick or motherless baby animals that needed a bit of extra care.

  “Once she’s warmed up, you can bring in the puppy crate for her,” said Dad.

  “We’d better keep the cats out of the kitchen,” said Jasmine. “They’re bigger than her.”

  Jasmine had two cats. Toffee was a ginger tom and Marmite had pure-black fur and amber eyes. They were normally calm and gentle, but Jasmine didn’t want to take any chances.

  “She’ll need colostrum, won’t she?” Jasmine said. “Should I use the same formula we use for the lambs?”

  “Yes, that should be fine,” said Dad. “Well, it’ll have to be, since we don’t have any deer colostrum.”

  Colostrum was the mother’s first milk, and a baby animal couldn’t survive without it. It was a special type of milk that contained extra protein and also antibodies to protect the newborn animal from diseases. Because this fawn was an orphan who couldn’t feed from her mother, she would need a powdered colostrum substitute.

  Jasmine carefully unwrapped the fawn from the towel. She smiled in delight as she saw her properly for the first time. Outside on the track, it had been too dark and the situation had been too urgent to notice any details.

  “Look how beautiful she is!” exclaimed Jasmine. “Look at her eyes! And hasn’t she got the most gorgeous coat?”

  The little deer was incredibly beautiful. She had
huge dark almond-shaped eyes in a delicate face, with a shiny black nose and large fluffy ears. Her neck and legs were covered in light-brown fur and her back was dark brown with wobbly rows of white spots.

  “She looks like someone’s dotted white paint all along her back,” said Jasmine. “I’m going to call her Dotty.”

  “Dotty the deer,” said Dad. “Nice.”

  Dotty’s eyes were fixed on Jasmine. She put out her little pink tongue and licked Jasmine’s hand.

  “Look!” exclaimed Jasmine. “She likes me!”

  She kissed the little deer on the top of her furry brown head and gently laid her in the bottom oven.

  “You rest there,” she said, “and I’ll get your colostrum ready.”

  She put the kettle on and went out to the scullery, where Dad kept the bottle-feeding equipment for the lambs. From the cupboard under the sink, she fetched a bottle, a rubber teat, a sachet of colostrum formula and a small whisk.

  While she was whisking the powder into the boiled water, Dad went to the garage to fetch Sky’s puppy crate.

  “Maybe seeing the fawn will make Ella feel a bit better,” he said when he returned.

  “It might make her feel worse,” said Jasmine. “Knowing that Dotty’s an orphan because of her.”

  Dad sighed as he set the crate down beside the Aga. “You may be right. Poor Ella. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let her drive in the dark.”

  A scuffling noise came from the oven. Jasmine looked round.

  “Oh, look! Dotty’s trying to stand up.”

  The little fawn lifted her head. Her tiny hooves scrabbled on the newspaper as she struggled to get a foothold on the slippery surface. She jerked her back up a few centimetres and then slumped down again.

  “Shall I help her?” asked Jasmine.

  “No, leave her be,” said Dad. “She’s finding her strength. She needs to do it herself.”

  Nadia came into the kitchen, carrying the bathroom scales in one hand and her laptop in the other.

  “How’s Ella?” asked Dad.

  “Not great. It’s terrible timing too, in the middle of her A levels. I hope she gets some sleep.”