Barney the Baby Hedgehog by Tina Nolan

Chapter One
    “Eva, where are you?” Karl Harrison called.
    Eva heard her brother’s voice from way below. They’d finished collecting bedding and feed to take back for Rosie the pony and Mickey the donkey at Animal Magic, and now she lay on her back, staring up at the cobwebby rafters of Tom Ingleby’s old barn. “Up here!” she replied.
    Karl didn’t hear her, and ran off across the farmyard still calling her name.
    I love it here – I could lie here for ever! Eva thought, as she lay amongst the sweet-smelling bales of straw, on top of a stack that almost touched the roof.
    Down in the yard, her dad, Mark, chatted with the farmer.
    “I owe you for six bales of straw and six of hay,” Mark said, counting them off in the back of his van.

    “Are you still looking for a home for that little Shetland pony?” Tom asked.
    “Why – are you interested?” Mark said quickly.
    “Not now that my daughter, Lizzie, is grown up and gone. I was just wondering about the pony, that’s all.”
    “Well, we’re not sure yet. Eva thinks maybe our next door neighbour will adopt Rosie in the end. But we’ve still got her up on the website, along with the charming Mickey!”
    Tom laughed. “Yes, I can hear that donkey’s bray from here – right across the fields.”
    “So I take it you don’t want to offer him a home?” Mark grinned.
    Up on top of the stack, Eva rolled on to her stomach, peered over the edge and listened.
    “Not likely!” Tom replied. “Anyway, we’re pretty busy at the moment, with the new house we’re building for Adam. Now that we’ve finally got planning permission, we’ve made a start on the foundations. Come and have a look.”
    Eva watched her dad and Tom wander across the yard. She sighed and turned on to her back. It was a pity – High Trees Farm would have been the perfect place for Mickey.
    She was studying the way a shaft of sunlight lit up a giant cobweb when Karl jogged back towards the barn. “Eva!” he yelled. “Where are you? I told Tom we’d sweep the yard. I’m not doing it by myself. You have to help me!”
    Sighing again, Eva sat up. “OK, I’ll be down in a minute,” she called back.
    “Now!” Karl insisted, spotting her andholding up a large yard-brush.
    Eva jumped down on to the nearest ledge, then the next, sliding from one bale to the other. “Whoo!” she cried.
    “Get sweeping!” Karl said with a grin. He handed her a brush and they set to work at one end of the yard.
    “This brush is heavy,” Eva grunted after a few minutes.
    “Moan, moan, moan…” Karl teased.
    “It is! Hey, watch out – what was that?” Eva stopped work as she saw a movement in amongst a heap of straw.
    “Nothing – you’re imagining things,” Karl muttered, moving in with his brush. “Come on, let’s get this yard clear!”
    There was another movement in the straw. “No, honestly, I saw something,” Eva insisted. “Wait a second while I take a look.”
    Carefully she knelt down and lifted away a handful of straw. Sure enough, she saw a pair of bright eyes staring back at her.
    “What is it?” Karl asked, coming up close behind. “A field mouse?”
    “I don’t know yet.” Eva couldn’t make it out, but she didn’t want to move more straw and run the risk of seriously scaring the creature. She leaned forward and looked again.

    Bright eyes and a long snout. Small furry ears. “It’s a…” Sharp claws and a body covered in spikes. “…Baby hedgehog!”
    “Is it lost?” Karl asked, as the hedgehog made a run for it. It scuttled out of the pile of straw, towards the barn. Then it doubled back and ran into the middle of the yard, then back again towards the barn.
    “It looks like it,” Eva muttered. “Where’s the rest of its family, I wonder?”
    “Yes, it’s too little to be out by itself,” Karl agreed.
    They watched helplessly as the hedgehog ran here and there, finally zigzagging back towards the barn and shuffling under a broken bale of