Green Grass by Raffaella Barker

squeezing grip could in fact feel like another ferret to a man in shock. She glances up at his face, now deathly pale as though Precious has sucked all the colour out.
    Hedley, his expression grim, attempts to prise Precious’s jaws apart. ‘They won’t let go,’ he says regretfully. ‘Their instinct is to hold on, especially if someone has tried to remove them. My hand is too big, I can’t get her to open her mouth.’ He turns to Fred. ‘You’ll have to try, I’m afraid. Sorry.’
    Fred steps forward, his face as white as the fog, eyes dark and wide with shock. He reaches up and inserts a finger into the ferret’s jaw. Laura closes her eyes for a quick prayer to beg that Precious does not maim Fred as well. Immediately, though, Hedley’s triumphant voice booms into the fog.
    â€˜Well done, Fred. She’s let go. She’s let go.’ Laura opens her eyes to see Precious coiling down into Fred’s arms, biddable and innocent save for the wine-dark mask which seeps past her eyes and trickles along her back. Inigo’s legs fold and he crumples onto the earth.
    â€˜Christ. I’ve probably got bubonic plague,’ he says, carefully running his fingers over the wound to feel the four toothmarks among the oozing blood.
    Fred recovers from his shock the instant the drama is over, and is fascinated by the wounds. ‘They’re like vampire toothmarks. I didn’t think you could get bitten like that in real life,’ he marvels.
    Inigo is not impressed. ‘I’m delighted to be able to increase your knowledge of toothmarks,’ he says sarcastically, ‘but rather than leaving me here on the ground as a case study, I think you had better help me up and get me to a doctor before some filthy disease sets in.’
    â€˜Come on. I’ll take you. What a vile thing to happen – it must be a rogue ferret.’ Laura, still suppressing nausea and finding her face creasing into shocked laughter, helps Inigo up from the ground, holding her hankie over her mouth to hide her inane giggling.
    â€˜I don’t have to come, do I?’ asks Fred, with the natural callousness of youth. ‘It’s just that I want to stay and help do some proper ferret work with these guys.’
    Hedley laughs, slapping him on the back. Laura leads Inigo, nursing flesh wounds and seething spirits, back to the house to be ministered to and fussed over by the girls.
    Tamsin and Dolly are eating toast in the kitchen, both wearing pale green face packs as the final part of a lengthy morning bathroom session.
    â€˜OhmiGod, what happened?’ screams Dolly, cracking the lower half of her mask in her concern for her father.
    Tamsin drops her toast and runs to fetch the First Aid kit. ‘I love cleaning wounds,’ she purrs.
    â€˜Good,’ says Laura, who doesn’t. ‘You clean him up then.’
    Tamsin and Dolly happily settle down to mend Inigo. Their dabbing with cotton wool to the damaged chin and tender sympathy to the lacerated spirits perk him up a lot. This unexpected attention, followed by a telephone call to the doctor, has a tranquillising effect on Inigo. The doctor takes a suitably serious view of the event and agrees that tetanus is a danger, and that an injection will be necessary. As a committed hypochondriac, this is great news for Inigo. He puts the telephone down and announces triumphantly to Laura, ‘You see, it is very primitive here. I shouldn’t be surprised if you can get the plague too and a lot of other medieval illnesses that have been wiped out elsewhere.’
    â€˜Yes, you can,’ says Hedley, who has just come in and is enjoying this train of thought. ‘You can get ringworm, and cow pox.’
    Inigo looks very alarmed; Tamsin rolls her eyes. ‘No one gets cow pox! You’re thinking of chicken pox.’
    Inigo’s visit to the local GP is enhanced by a discussion about primitive cultures