A Deer Called Dotty

by Helen Peters

  Ella finally allowed her gaze to settle on the beautiful little fawn. Dotty gazed serenely back at her. Ella’s face, which had been screwed tight with misery, relaxed slightly.

  “All right,” she said.

  Nadia’s eyebrows shot up in amazement.

  “Really?” said Jasmine. “Mucking out Truffle and everything?”

  “I need to do something to help,” said Ella, “since this is all my fault. And I’ve been thinking I should get outside and do a bit of exercise this half term.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” said Jasmine. “Thank you so much.”

  “What about when you go back to school, though?” asked Ella. “Won’t Dotty still need you around all the time?”

  Jasmine shrugged. She had already started thinking about that too.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll work something out.”

  When Jasmine sat down for breakfast, her eyelids felt so heavy she could hardly stay awake. So after breakfast she carried Dotty into the living room and lay on the sofa with the fawn nestled in her arms, where they both immediately fell into a deep, blissful sleep.

  Jasmine was woken by a high-pitched squeaking sound. Before she could even open her eyes, she felt a wet tongue on her cheek. She sat up, laughing as she wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “Hello, Dotty,” she said. “Are you hungry again?”

  She set Dotty on the floor, where she stood, wobbling on her stick-thin legs. Jasmine looked at the clock.

  “Nearly eleven. Let’s get you some food.”

  Dotty followed her to the kitchen, her head brushing Jasmine’s knee. She stood beside her while she made up the colostrum formula. Then she trotted across the room with her when Jasmine fetched a sheet of newspaper and spread it on the floor.

  “Wow,” said Jasmine. “You really do follow your mum everywhere, don’t you? I guess that makes sense if you’re living in the wild.”

  She looked at the tiny, wobbly-legged animal. Dotty would have no chance against a dog or a fox. She would need her mum’s protection the whole time. So it was her instinct to stay constantly at her mother’s side.

  Jasmine told Tom all about it on the phone later that day.

  “How will she be able to live in the wild when she’s an adult, though,” asked Tom, “if she’s imprinted on you?”

  When they had rescued Pebble the otter and Star the barn owl, they had to be really careful not to handle them too much, because if they imprinted on humans, they would never be properly wild again.

  “Deer aren’t like a lot of other wild animals,” said Jasmine. “I was reading about it. They have to bond with one carer, but they can still go and live successfully in the wild once they’re adults.”

  “Wow, that’s perfect,” said Tom. “I can’t wait to see her. Can I come round as soon as we get home?”

  “Of course,” said Jasmine. “You won’t believe how amazing she is.”

  For some reason, though, she didn’t tell Tom her one big worry. The first few days were crucial. Dotty had to learn how to suck from a teat. But first she had to start sucking from the syringe, and she still showed no interest in this at all.

  Jasmine was preparing Dotty’s four o’clock feed in the kitchen when she heard the back door open. Her mum had been to fetch her little brother Manu from his first day at a half-term football camp.

  “Take your boots off, Manu, and go and have a shower,” Mum said, sounding very stressed. “Honestly, I’m so cross with you. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my entire life.”

  “I don’t know why you’re mad,” said Manu. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Don’t make me even crosser,” said Mum. “I’m going to get the shopping from the car.”

  Manu walked into the kitchen. Every part of him, from his hair down to his socks, was coated in mud.

  His eyes widened as he saw Dotty. “Oh, he’s so cute! Where did you get him?”

  “She’s a girl,” said Jasmine. “Her mum was killed in a car accident.”

  She didn’t mention exactly how Dotty’s mother had been killed. The last thing Ella needed at the moment was endless questions and comments from her brother.

  “Can I feed her?” asked Manu.

  “No,” said Jasmine. “She has to have just one carer, and that’s me.”

  “That’s not fair,” said Manu. “I bet she’d like me to feed her.”

  “Why’s Mum so mad at you?” asked Jasmine. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” said Manu. “Me and Ben were just putting different things in our sandwiches, that’s all.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Just normal things. We took the cheese out and put in grass and leaves and stuff. Just to see what they tasted like in a sandwich.”

  “But why’s Mum so mad?” asked Jasmine, as she filled the syringe with colostrum. Eating grass and leaves was fairly normal behaviour for Manu, and Mum was usually quite relaxed about that sort of thing.

  Manu shrugged. “How should I know?”

  Nadia appeared in the doorway with two bags of shopping. She glared at Manu.

  “Really? You don’t know why I was mad? Daring everybody to eat soil, and making that little boy so sick that his mother had to come and take him home?”

  “He was just making a fuss,” protested Manu. “I’ve ate worms before and I wasn’t sick.”

  “Worms?” said Jasmine. “You said grass and leaves.”

  Manu grinned. “We just put a little tasty worm in his one, to see if he’d notice.”

  “That’s not very nice,” said Jasmine. “For the boy or the worm.”

  “It’s fine for the worm,” said Manu. “Ollie only ate half of it and then he spat it out. And worms grow back again if they’re cut in half.”

  “I don’t want to hear another word,” said Mum. “Go and have your shower. I need to look at a calf Dad’s worried about.”

  Jasmine had been too distracted to focus completely on Dotty, so when the syringe was jerked out of her hand, it took her a couple of seconds to register what was happening. She took hold of the syringe again but Dotty clamped her lips around it and pulled.

  “Oh, Dotty!” said Jasmine, her face breaking into a huge smile. “You’re sucking! Well done! Oh, my goodness. Right, wait there.”

  She took the syringe out of Dotty’s mouth and fetched the feeding bottle. She screwed the teat on and offered it to the fawn.

  “Here you are,” she said. “Now you can suck properly.”

  But Dotty didn’t open her mouth. Jasmine remembered Mira’s advice. She pushed her finger into the left side of Dotty’s mouth and slipped the teat in. Still Dotty didn’t suck, so Jasmine gently moved the teat backwards and forwards to encourage her. Almost immediately, she felt a pull. She held the bottle firmly, silently willing Dotty to continue.

  And Dotty did. She sucked until all the colostrum had disappeared. Even then, she continued to suck on air until Jasmine pulled the teat from her mouth.

  “Well done, Dotty!” she said, wrapping her arms around the fawn and kissing the top of her head. “You’ve done it!”

  For three days, Dotty stayed in the house, following Jasmine between the kitchen and the living room, feeding every two hours and sleeping in Jasmine’s room at night. On the fourth morning, Jasmine said, “I think she’s ready to go into the garden.”

  Her heart swelled with pride as she fastened Sky’s old puppy collar around Dotty’s neck and attached a little lead. A few days ago, she would never have imagined she would be taking her very own fawn for a walk.

  Dotty stopped every few steps to investigate a leaf, a twig or a flower. It was the slowest walk ever, but Jasmine loved it. She felt as though she was experiencing the world for the first time, through Dotty’s eyes.

  “In a few more days you’ll be eating those plants as well as sniffing them,” she said.

  “I will not be eating daisies,” said a voice behind her.

  Jasmine turned.
“Tom! Did you just get back?”

  “She’s so tiny!” Tom said. “I didn’t know fawns were that small.”

  “I’m getting her used to going outside,” said Jasmine. “She’ll start nibbling earth soon.”

  “Nibbling earth? Why?”

  “They get minerals from it, apparently. Maybe that’s what Manu was trying to do when he made his soil sandwiches.”

  As they walked around the garden, Jasmine told Tom all she had learned about roe deer.

  “What about when school starts?” asked Tom, as they finally walked back towards the house. “Will she still need feeding every two hours?”

  “Every three hours next week,” said Jasmine. “So I can feed her at six in the morning, and then if I go to school in the car instead of walking, I can feed her again just before nine. So then the next one would be at twelve.” She looked at Tom. “Will you help me write a really polite email to the school? I need to get permission to come home at lunchtimes next week.”

  “Look,” said Tom, pointing at a small black object hovering in the sky. “Who’s flying a drone over your farm?”

  “Some guy who lives in the village,” said Jasmine. “Dad said he could come up here and fly it.”

  But Tom wasn’t looking at the drone any more. He was staring over the hedge into the farmyard, his eyes huge with amazement.

  “That’s not Ella?” he said. “Pushing a wheelbarrow? No way.”

  Ella wheeled the barrow to the garden gate. Sky was at her side, wagging his tail.

  “Hi, Tom,” she said. “How are you?”

  Tom appeared to have been struck dumb. Jasmine hastily scooped Dotty into her arms as Sky ran to greet her. She passed the fawn to Tom before she bent down to stroke her dog.

  “Good boy,” she said. “Did you behave yourself with Ella?”

  “He was good as gold,” said Ella. “Sometimes he runs off to investigate things, but he always comes back when I call him.”

  “Don’t let him go too far away,” said Jasmine. “He can get a taste for freedom, and then he won’t come back when you call.”

  “He’ll be fine,” said Ella. “He likes me, don’t you, Sky?”

  Tom finally found his voice. “Have you been mucking out Truffle?” he asked.

  Ella smiled at him. “Don’t sound so surprised. I’m just helping Jasmine with her animals while she’s looking after Dotty.”

  “Ella actually likes mucking out Truffle, don’t you?” said Jasmine.

  “Not so much the actual mucking out,” said Ella, “but it’s very satisfying when she wriggles around in the fresh straw making all those happy grunting noises.”

  Nadia was on the phone as they walked into the kitchen. She did not sound happy.

  “I’m so sorry,” she was saying. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s got into them. First the sandwiches and now this. I’m so sorry.”

  Jasmine raised her eyebrows at Tom. “Manu and Ben,” she whispered. “They’re at football camp.”

  “Yes, please do cut them,” said Mum to the person on the phone.

  Jasmine stared at her. Cut what?

  “Yes, I’m sure Ben’s mum would give permission,” said Mum. “I’ve got some spares at home. I’ll bring them over now.”

  She put the phone down and sank on to a chair, propping her head in her hands.

  “What’s happened?” asked Jasmine.

  Mum raised her head and stared blankly at the kitchen wall for a few seconds before sighing heavily.

  “Shoelaces,” she said.

  “Shoelaces?”

  “Manu and Ben held a knot-tying competition during the lunch break. They encouraged a whole group of boys to take the laces out of their football boots, and then they all tied each other’s ankles together. So now there’s about six boys who can’t play football because nobody can untie the knots. And I need to go and deliver spare shoelaces to the football field.”

  She sighed again as she got up. “If only Ella could drive, I could have got her to do it, and I’d have been spared the embarrassment.”

  “You should be used to it by now,” said Jasmine.

  “I suppose I should,” said Nadia. “But I don’t think I ever will be.”

  Jasmine’s head teacher was surprisingly reasonable about her request. It was arranged that Dad would collect Jasmine from school at lunchtime every day the following week and bring her back in time for afternoon lessons.

  “Bella’s going to be so mad,” said Tom.

  Bella Bradley was in Jasmine and Tom’s class, and she was their worst enemy. Two years ago, her dog had killed a nesting duck beside the river while Jasmine and Tom had tried in vain to stop it. Jasmine might just about have been able to forgive Bella if she had been sorry, but all Bella had said was, “So? It’s just a duck.”

  Tom was right. Bella was mad. She always hated it when anyone got more attention than she did.

  “I don’t see why she gets special permission to go home at lunchtimes,” she said loudly at morning break on their first day back. “Someone else could easily feed that deer.”

  “Actually, roe deer fawns need just one person looking after them,” said Jasmine. “Or else they die. But you wouldn’t care about that, would you?”

  That shut Bella up. For the moment, anyway.

  Every morning and evening, Jasmine took Dotty for a walk, so she could get used to the land that would be her home when she was released into the wild.

  Jasmine didn’t like to think too much about this. She had read a lot about roe deer, and she was horrified by how many were hit by cars, caught in fences or killed by dogs.

  “Do we really have to release her?” she asked Nadia. “She’s so attached to me, she’s more like a dog really. She wouldn’t be any trouble.”

  Nadia shook her head. “She’s just a baby now, Jasmine, but she’ll be completely different in a few months’ time. It wouldn’t be right to keep her once she’s fully grown. Wild animals need freedom.”

  “I know,” said Jasmine. “But it’s so dangerous for deer in the wild. Imagine if something terrible happened to her and there was no one there to help her.”

  “Try not to imagine it,” said Nadia. “Just imagine her having a lovely time instead.”

  At two weeks old, Dotty was able to lap milk from a bowl, so Dad could feed her at lunchtime. She also started to nibble at soil and plants. Dandelions and chickweed were her favourites, and she loved chopped fruit and vegetables too.

  Mira phoned to see how they were getting on. “I’d stop using the lead when you walk her now,” she advised. “Try to behave as much like her real mother as possible. But she will start running away as she gets older, so you need to learn to call her back by whistling like her mother would.”

  Jasmine searched online for the sound of a roe deer calling to her fawn, and she and Tom practised the whistle until they could do it perfectly.

  Tom lived on the lane that bordered Jasmine’s farm, and he often joined them on their walks. But Jasmine didn’t let anybody else come. It was important that Dotty kept her animal instincts and stayed wary of humans and dogs. If they saw a person or a dog on their walks, they would run away from them together, like a doe and her fawn would.

  By the time she was three weeks old, Dotty was surprisingly fast at running and amazingly good at hiding. She could disappear in seconds, her coat blending in perfectly with her surroundings.

  “It’s lucky she always comes back when I whistle,” said Jasmine. “Otherwise I don’t think we’d ever find her.”

  It was a Sunday evening, and they were walking Dotty around the wildflower meadow at the northern edge of Oak Tree Farm. The grass here was long and thick, almost ready to be made into hay. At the top end, the meadow bordered the woods.

  “There’s Ella and Sky, look,” said Tom.

  Two fields below them, Ella was walking along the hedgerow towards the farmyard. Sky was bounding through the middle of the field.

  “I thought she’d sto
pped walking Sky now,” said Tom.

  “She has, mostly,” said Jasmine, “but she said she needed a break from revision this evening. I didn’t think she was coming up this way, though. I thought she was going to walk along the river.”

  “Oh, no,” said Tom, pointing to the other side of the meadow. “Look.”

  A girl in shorts and a strappy top had just climbed over the stile, while a Jack Russell terrier ran under it. It was Bella Bradley and her dog, Rupert. The dog that had killed the nesting duck on the riverbank.

  “Ugh,” said Jasmine. “What’s she doing here?” She bent down to pick up Dotty.

  Her stomach lurched. Dotty wasn’t there.

  “Where is she?” she asked, looking around in panic.

  “She was there a second ago,” said Tom. “Where did she go?” He stood on tiptoe and scanned the field.

  Jasmine whistled. “Dotty!” she called, and whistled again.

  There was no answering squeak. The grasses rustled. Was that just the evening breeze, or was it Dotty running through the tall grass? What if it was Bella’s dog chasing Dotty?

  “Call your dog, Bella!” shouted Jasmine. “Put it on a lead!”

  But Bella either didn’t hear or didn’t take any notice.

  “I’ll go and tell her,” said Tom. “Keep whistling.”

  He ran across the field, while Jasmine revolved on the spot, whistling and calling. Dotty could have run off in any direction, and she was so good at hiding that she was almost impossible to find. But she always came back when Jasmine called her. Why didn’t she come now?

  From some distance away, Jasmine heard Ella calling Sky.

  Oh, no. Two dogs on the loose!

  She whistled again, desperate now. She heard Tom calling to Bella, and Ella calling Sky again. She walked across the field, whistling constantly, but Dotty was nowhere to be seen.

  “Why should I?” she heard Bella say. “There’s no animals in this field. Rupert can go where he likes.”