The Hedgehog.

Twenty days ago.

The lovely boy and I are out cycling and we find a baby hedgehog right in the middle of the cycle path, in the middle of the day in the boiling hot sun. He isn't moving much and doesn't look very well and he has little white fly eggs all around his eye and his ear. We look at him for a bit and some people walk past and look at him too and then carry on. I ask one of them if they have a box or a bag, but they react like I am a crazy woman. We stand there for a bit and I say, "Well, we can't leave him here" so TLB takes his T-shirt off and I wrap the hedgehog up in it so he doesn't prickle me. Then we cycle to the park, me holding onto the handlebars one-handed, because I am carrying the hedgehog aloft in the other.

"Precious cargo", TLB says.

We go to the park and we find a park ranger. I show him the hedgehog and he tells me to take him home and give him some water.
"I'm a member of the British Hedgehog Protection Society", I say. I'm not sure why.
"He's in good hands then" he says.

So we take him home and TBM has a look at him and sprays him with water and the hedgehog seems to like that, and then I have a look online and find out that it is quite likely the hedgehog has lungworm. I ring the vet and explain what has happened and they think we should bring him in, so we put him in a box and get in the car. All the way there TLB holds the box sending the hedgehog all the energy he can.

"A very important job." he says.

The vet takes him in because they have a special wild animal fund which means they can care for him, and they give him saline and lungworm antibiotics. The first night we all cross our fingers and I ring in the morning. The nurse tells me that he'd had a good night. "But he's not out of the woods yet", she says, "he's very weak."

The next morning I ring again and she says he is really doing alright. "The lungworm medicine takes nineteen days to work" she says, "ring back then and you can release him into your garden, or back where you found him."

Everyday TLB asks about the hedgehog and I tell him what they'd said. "He's doing well, he's having his medicine."

***

So then on the twentieth day, which is today I call back.

"I'm so sorry," the lady on the phone says. "Did they not ring? I did tell them to to ring you, but I only work part time."

She tells me he died, three days after the medicine started and that it was sudden and suprising and that they had thought that he was doing really well.

She tells me they were all very sad about it and I tell her that I am too.

****

Poor little hedgehog.