Dilly the Lost Duckling Read online

  This series is for my riding friend Shelley, who cares about all animals.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “‘Spring into Action!’ – I’ve always liked that,” Mark Harrison said. “It’s a great slogan for Animal Magic. ‘Spring into Action!’ – it sounds very positive.”

  “Thanks,” Karl said, staring longingly at his pizza.

  The Harrisons – Mark, Heidi, Karl and Eva – plus Joel, Animal Magic’s veterinary assistant, were celebrating at the best Italian restaurant in town.

  “Hey, Karl!” Eva objected. “I helped you think of it, remember!”

  ‘Spring into Action’ – the springtime slogan for the rescue centre – had worked wonders, and it was partly down to Eva and her brother Karl working on the website together.

  And right now the family had another reason to celebrate. “This is the time to look forward,” Heidi reminded them.

  Mark nodded. “Absolutely! The Council finally said no to Linda’s petition to have us closed down.”

  “Let’s drink to that!” Joel said.

  “And look at how well we’ve been doing recently,” Heidi added. “Since early May we’ve found good homes for 18 out of the 20 dogs we’ve rescued, 12 out of 15 cats, six out of six hamsters, besides all the other small animals that have been brought in – rabbits, ferrets, mice – you name it, we’ve rehomed it!”

  “We’re on a roll,” Mark agreed. “I think the spring campaign is really working.”

  “Yes, enjoy!” Heidi said, raising her glass.

  Eva and Karl didn’t need to be told twice. They tucked into their pizzas and chomped quietly.

  “Ah, peace!” Mark joked. “I have found, over the years, that food is the only thing that keeps you two quiet.”

  Chewy, crusty pizza with slurpy tomato sauce, pepperoni and melted cheese on top – yum! Eva munched in silence.

  “Which gives me the chance to say thanks to everyone for all the effort you put in to keeping Animal Magic open,” Heidi went on. “It’s been a stressful time, waiting for the Council to consider Linda’s petition, but you all worked your socks off to make sure we got the right decision.”

  Joel, Eva and Karl grinned and nodded.

  “Finally!” Karl mumbled between mouthfuls.

  “We won. Nothing can stop us now!” Eva smiled. “Whatever Linda Brooks says, we can rescue animals and match the perfect pet with the perfect owner for ever – can’t we, Dad?”

  “You bet,” Mark said, giving first Eva then Karl a high five. Then he snuck a look at Heidi and Joel – a look which seemed to say, “Don’t spoil the moment – let them enjoy it” – and the two grown-ups nodded back at him and drank from their glasses. Then Heidi called for the pudding menu.

  “Sticky toffee,” Eva decided. “With ice cream.”

  “Please,” Mark reminded her.

  “Please!”

  “Double chocolate fudge cake with chocolate sauce.” Karl chose carefully from the list.

  “Pl…” Mark began.

  “Please!”

  The waiter grinned as he took the order.

  “Looks like someone’s celebrating,” he said when he came back with their puddings.

  Everybody nodded happily.

  Munch-munch – seriously sticky, totally toffee – Eva was in dessert heaven! “I’ve got another wicked idea for the website,” she announced between gulps. “We should do a spring-clean-for-pets information thing – you know, how to get rid of fleas and tapeworms and stuff.”

  “Please!” Joel groaned. “Not while we’re eating.”

  “Cool,” Karl said. “Did you know a single flea can lay up to 27 eggs per day? We could give lots of info on how to get rid of them.”

  “Yuck, it’s making me itch, even just thinking about it.” But Joel knew when he was beaten by this animal-mad family. He fell silent and tucked into his strawberry ice cream.

  Heidi nodded. “You two can do the research then run it past me before you put it on the site.”

  “Brilliant!” Karl and Eva chorused. “We’ll do it tomorrow.”

  Chapter Two

  Next morning, a Saturday, Eva was up early.

  “Come on, Cleo, let’s go for a walk,” she said to the young springer spaniel, who was raring to go.

  Cleo jumped up at her kennel door. Along the row, other puppies and dogs wagged their tails and woofed.

  “Later, Mitch. Soon, Val,” Eva told the yappy Jack Russell and the elderly golden Labrador. “I’ll take you two for a walk after I’ve been down to the river with Cleo.”

  She slid the bolt to Cleo’s door and the spaniel leaped out, racing down the aisle and bouncing up at the door that led out into the yard. “Slow down,” Eva said with a shake of her head. She needed to get the dog on the lead in case she raced out on to the road. “What’s the hurry, Cleo?”

  The spaniel jumped up, long ears flopping, short tail wagging.

  “Sit!” Eva ordered. “Good girl.” Quickly she clipped the lead on to Cleo’s collar. “OK, now we can go.”

  Closing the door on the other dogs, Eva set off for the river. She held Cleo on a tight lead out of the yard and on to Okeham Main Street, turning left after twenty metres, down the side of Animal Magic along an overgrown path leading to a stile and a footpath across fields to the nearby river. At the stile it was safe for Cleo to run free, so Eva let her off the lead.

  “Wow, she sure can sprint!” she murmured as the dog bounded off through the long grass. “Heel, Cleo!” she called, seeing a young rabbit shoot out across the path with Cleo hard on its heels.

  The spaniel obeyed, ears drooping, tail tucked between her legs.

  “Good girl,” Eva told her. “No chasing poor, teeny-weeny baby rabbits, OK?”

  They walked on for a while in the early morning sun. Blackbirds trilled in the hawthorn hedges, pigeons cooed from the nearby woods.

  Soon Eva could hear the sound of water rippling over a stony bed, and when they turned the corner they came out along the bank where the river bent in a wide arc. Nearby there was an old stone bridge and the smooth expanse of the golf course beyond.

  “OK, Cleo, now you can go and play,” Eva said, pointing to a pebble bank and the cool, clear water.

  With a yelp of joy Cleo went flying down to the river, nose down, following every delicious scent of the early summer morning. She sniffed here and there, at rabbit holes, molehills and patches of scuffed earth, seizing a stick and bringing it to Eva, darting back and waiting for it to be thrown.

  “Fetch!” Eva called, flinging the stick as far as she could into the river.

  The little spaniel plunged in and doggy-paddled towards the floating stick. She snatched at it and brought it back to shore.

  “Hey!” Eva yelped as she bent to pick up the stick, ready to begin again. Cleo had just shaken herself from top to toe. Icy droplets soaked Eva to the skin. But she threw the stick a second time and watched.

  Cleo swam with her head just clear of the sparkling surface. She was three or four metres from the stick, which was floating slowly downstream, when suddenly Eva saw the ducklings.

  “Oh!” she said out loud, as the four little ducks paddled midstream. One after the other, they swam in a line – fluffy and yellow, heads up, battling the current. “Sweet!”

  But where are their mum and dad? Eva wondered.


  Woof! Spotting the ducklings, Cleo changed course and swam straight towards them.

  Uh-oh! “Here, Cleo – heel!” Eva called.

  This time the eager spaniel ignored her and made a beeline for the ducklings.

  They were swimming against the current, too tiny to make much headway and scared stiff by the creature with the broad head and sharp white teeth that drew nearer and nearer. Cheep! they cried. Cheep-cheep!

  “Cleo, come back!” Eva shouted angrily.

  Just then the ducklings’ parents appeared from under the shelter of the far bank. They swam rapidly across the water, craning their necks and quacking loudly at Cleo.

  “Bad dog, Cleo!” Eva yelled.

  The spaniel turned her head. The adult ducks were speeding towards her, flapping their wings, half rising out of the water like angry jet-skiers.

  Good for you! Eva thought, admiring the sleek green-black head of the male duck with its bright yellow beak, and the brown speckles of the female. You tell Cleo off as much as you like – I don’t blame you!

  Cheep-cheep! the ducklings cried. In their panic, they split off in four different directions.

  Quack! The mother duck called them back. Three of them turned and swam straight to join her. But the fourth and smallest duckling – a ball of yellow fluff bobbing in the middle of the river – ignored her mother’s call.

  Meanwhile, the drake attacked Cleo. He flew at her, flapping across the surface, stabbing at her with his beak and making a terrific racket.

  Woof! Suddenly Cleo didn’t like the look of this. She turned away from the lonely duckling and its angry dad and began swimming back to shore.

  “That’s right, come here!” Eva called.

  Good riddance! The male duck followed, quacking angrily. Then, when he was sure Cleo had backed down, he turned and began to shoo the fourth, dithery duckling towards her brothers and sisters.

  Cheep! The tiny cry sounded so cute.

  Quack! said the angry dad.

  “Thank goodness!” Eva sighed with relief to see the family back together. “Don’t tell the little one off. She might be a bit scatty, but she was confused and didn’t know what to do when big bad Cleo suddenly appeared!”

  Then, as quickly as the danger had begun, it was over. The spaniel was back onshore, shaking herself and drenching Eva. “Bad girl!” Eva said again.

  Cleo hung her head and tucked her tail between her legs.

  Meanwhile, the four yellow ducklings were swimming with their parents towards the far bank. All was well.

  “Dilly, Dilly duckling!” Eva made up a song as they walked back across the fields. “Bright yellow daffy-dilly, dizzy little thing!” Yeah, she thought, Dilly! Dilly’s a good name for the scatty one!

  She climbed the stile and walked rapidly up the footpath. I can’t wait to tell everyone about Cleo and Dilly the duckling!

  Chapter Three

  “Oh no, Eva’s already given the duckling a name!” Karl scoffed. “She’s called it Dilly and now she’s in lurve – again!”

  “I am not!” Eva retorted. She’d been in the surgery, telling her mum all about the ducklings when her brother interrupted.

  “Are!”

  “Am not!”

  “Hush, you two!” Heidi warned, picking up the phone. “OK, Cath, I can hear you now – yes, we do have a spare stable, we could take Rosie any time that suits you – yes, straight away then. OK, bye!”

  “I only said Dilly was cute!” Eva protested. “She’s the littlest one, and she got separated from the others. Her big brave dad looked after her though.”

  “How do you even know it’s a she?” Karl asked. While Eva had been out with Cleo, he’d been looking up flea facts and writing pages for the website. He’d discovered that fleas feed on blood. They lay eggs which drop from your pet on to the carpet, the bed or an armchair. “Did you know fleas prefer temperatures between 18 and 23 degrees?” he added.

  “Yeah, I really needed to know that,” Eva huffed. If Karl wasn’t going to show any interest in her ducklings, no way was she going to get excited about fleas.

  “Mum, how many ducklings usually hatch out in one nest?”

  “Maybe six or seven,” Heidi said absent-mindedly. She was busy jotting down lists of figures in a notebook. “Not all survive though.”

  “That’s sad! What happens to the ones who don’t?”

  “Oh, they’re taken by foxes perhaps. Or else they get separated from the rest before they’re big enough to feed and look after themselves. There are loads of deadly dangers out there for a little duckling.”

  Eva shuddered. “Well anyway, Dilly got safely back to her family before Cleo could do anything horrid, thank heavens.”

  Heidi nodded.

  “Dilly!” Karl snorted, going back to his flea info.

  “Eva, take Cleo into the kennels and give her a good rub-down with a towel. Then, if you like, you could come back and help me here.” Heidi closed her notebook and put on her pale-blue surgery tunic. She looked at her watch. “Almost time for the mad rush.”

  “I was going to take Mitch and Val for a walk,” Eva told her.

  “Oh yeah, any excuse to go back and see the fluffy-wuffy ickle ducklings!” Karl grunted without turning round.

  “Well, I don’t mind,” Heidi shrugged. “But I thought you’d like to help me admit Rosie.”

  “Who’s Rosie?” Eva asked.

  “Rosie is a twelve-year-old Shetland pony who’s looking for a home. I just took a phone call about her from Cath Brown at Leebank Pony Sanctuary. Cath rescued her a few weeks back from a deserted caravan site just outside the city. From what she told me, the poor thing was practically starving.”

  “And is she OK now?” Eva asked, all thoughts of another dog walk, fleas and ducklings quickly biting the dust.

  Heidi nodded. “Cath fed her up and got her back into good condition. Now she wants to hand her over to us. I said we’d rehome Rosie, no problem.”

  “Cool!” Eva cried. “Which stable shall we put her in? Shall I lay a bed of fresh straw? Do Shetlands need special feed? What colour is she?”

  “Whoa!” Heidi laughed. “You can prepare the end stable next to Mickey the donkey if you like. And you can get Annie to help you.”

  Through the window Heidi had spotted Annie Brooks running across the yard. Annie burst in through the door. “Hi, Heidi, Hi, Karl! Eva, do you want to come and ride Guinevere with me?”

  “Sorry, Annie, I’m too busy,” Eva replied hurriedly. “We’ve got a new pony coming in.” She disappeared down the corridor to dry Cleo and put her into her kennel. When she came back, Annie was hovering behind Karl, reading his newly created web page.

  “Yuck!” Annie said. “Ewww! Fleas are attracted by your pet’s body heat and movement. You can get skin diseases from them!”

  “Enough about fleas!” Eva protested. “Annie, do you want to help me sort out the stable…?”

  “You bet!” Annie replied, racing out of Reception ahead of Eva. “What kind of pony? When? What’s its name?”

  “A Shetland. Now. Rosie,” Eva replied.

  “Exciting!” Annie said.

  Soon the girls were cutting the strings around a bale of straw and scattering the bedding. In the stable next door, Mickey scuffled his feet.

  Karl had given him his full name, Mickey Mouse, when he arrived at Animal Magic. “His coat is mouse colour, and he’s got big ears. And anyway, Mickey Mouse suits him.”

  “Who says?” Eva had quizzed.

  “I do,” Karl had replied.

  “It’s OK, Mickey, calm down,” Eva soothed now. “You’re going to have a new neighbour – someone you’ll like, I promise!” She hung up a hay-net, checked the water supply and the light switch. Everything was in working order.

  “So when can we ride Guinevere?” Annie wanted to know, when the bed was laid. She was eager to go out on her mum’s lovely grey mare.

  “After Rosie gets here,” Eva decided. “I can bring Val and Mitch wi
th me and you can ride down the path to the river. With a bit of luck, we’ll see Dilly.”

  Annie rested against the stable door. “Dilly who?” she asked.

  And Eva was off again – “Dilly duckling – yellow and fluffy – cheep-cheep – so cute!”

  It was almost midday before Cath drove her trailer into the yard at Animal Magic. Meanwhile, Eva and Annie had been helping Joel in the surgery.

  “What can we do while we’re waiting for Rosie?” Eva had asked.

  “Plenty. You can wipe down the treatment tables for a start,” Joel had said. Then he’d admitted a rabbit and told Eva to give Karl information for the website.

  “Hugo – a friendly, neutered brown rabbit. Litter-trained and likes a cuddle,” Eva dictated.

  Karl had typed fast while Annie had taken a photo of the new admission.

  Then they’d taken in a feral cat, found near the cricket pavilion and brought in by the team captain, plus an unwanted hamster. The morning had flown.

  “Here comes the Leebank trailer!” Karl called just before twelve o’clock.

  “At last!” Eva and Annie rushed out to greet it.

  Cath stepped down from her Land Rover. “Sorry I took so long,” she apologized. “One of the ponies got a touch of colic. I had to call the vet.”

  “Can we see Rosie?” Eva asked, jumping up and down with excitement.

  Cath grinned. “Stand well back while I lower the ramp and lead her out.”

  By this time, Heidi, Joel and Karl had come out of the surgery and Mark had strolled out of the house, so there was a small crowd to meet the new arrival.

  They waited on tenterhooks until Cath emerged from the trailer, then there were gasps and soft cries of surprise.

  “Oh, she’s so small!”

  “Tiny!”

  “Sweet!”

  Cath led Rosie down the ramp. The little Shetland was chocolate brown with a white flash on her nose and two white forelegs. Her heavy brown mane hung long and shaggy over her face and neck; her legs were short and stumpy.