Barney the Baby Hedgehog Read Online Free

excited.
    Eva could sense something important inthe air. She stopped grooming Gwinnie and waited to hear more.
    Annie wouldn’t let her mum off the hook. “It is – it’s Rosie, isn’t it?”
    Linda sighed. She crouched down and put her arm around the sturdy little Shetland’s neck. “Oh all right, I give in. I’ll tell you girls what you want to know.”
    Eva and Annie nodded eagerly.

    “I’ve developed a real soft spot for this young lady,” Linda confessed. “And I think she likes me.”
    Rosie turned her head and nuzzled Linda’s cheek.
    Annie and Eva held their breath.
    “So, I’ve decided to ask Heidi if she’ll let me adopt Rosie!” Linda announced. “I want her to come and live with us permanently!”

    “So we broke out the apples and celebrated!” Eva told Heidi and Jen later that afternoon. “Of course we gave Rosie the biggest and juiciest one.”
    “It’s fantastic news,” Heidi agreed. “Annie must have been so pleased.”
    “Yes, well excited.” Eva watched as her mum lifted the patient on to the surgerytable. It was a stray dog, painfully thin, which Jen had discovered trapped in an empty lock-up garage in town. She’d phoned Mark and he’d driven into town and brought the stray back to Animal Magic.
    “From what we can gather, it seems like someone dumped the poor thing in a garage and locked the door.” Heidi listened to the dog’s heartbeat, then examined her eyes and mouth.

    “She’s dehydrated and she only weighs about half of what would be her normal weight, but given time and some TLC she should be OK.”
    Eva sighed as the smooth-haired white dog tried to raise her head, then let it loll back on the table. “I’ll get Karl to take a picture. Do you know where he is?”
    “In the small animals unit, the last I knew.”
    Quickly Eva went to find her brother, but he wasn’t where she expected him to be. The unit was all quiet and Eva found herself drawn to Barney’s cage. She peered in to see how her little friend was doing. “And how are you? Are you hungry? Shall I give you some food?”
    For once Barney didn’t curl into a ball at the sound of Eva’s approach. Instead he shuffled to the wire mesh door andsnuffled in his short-sighted way.
    “Yes, it’s me,” Eva whispered. “I’m the one who feeds you, remember!”
    Little Barney poked his long nose through the mesh while Eva prepared his food. When she opened the door he stuck his nose straight into the dish.
    “Better than beetles and toads, huh?” Eva grinned. Like Eva, Karl had been on the hedgehog website and discovered all about their diet. He’d told Eva that morning over breakfast.
    “Maggots, worms, insects, beetles, earwigs, slugs, caterpillars, toads and dead mice!” he’d announced, making Eva spit out her cornflakes.
    Barney looked too cute to have dead mice on his menu. But then, as Heidi had pointed out, hedgehogs probably turned their noses up at human treats like creamcakes and chocolate cookies.
    In any case, Barney was tucking in to his cat food, happily piling on the pounds.
    Or grams , Eva thought. Then she got to thinking about Barney’s family. I wonder how many brothers and sisters you’ve got. And if your mum misses you. Or if she’ll come back to Mr Ingleby’s farm to look for you, in spite of what Mum thinks.
    Ignoring her, Barney guzzled his way through his supper.
    “OK, so your mum might reject you because we’ve handled you and left our scent. And I’m totally cool with hand-rearing you because you’re gorgeous. But that’s not the point…”
    Suddenly Karl burst in with a huge grin on his face. “Smidge and Smudge have been adopted by the Scaife family. They seemed really nice.”
    “Cool.” Eva pretended she hadn’t been deep in conversation with Barney. “Can you go into the surgery and photograph a new stray dog?” she asked.
    Karl nodded. “So what’s not the point?” he asked, picking up from where Eva had left off with Barney. “It’s OK,