Pets Surprise!

         We just got back to China and now we already have 2 pets! Let me tell you the story of how it all happened.

     First, Daddy received a messaged from a friend. I don’t remember the details, but our friend said that his friend did an environmental experiment on bunnies. His friend brought back one of the bunnies to keep as a pet in his school, but the school wouldn’t let him keep the bunny. So now, the bunny needed a home, and our friend asked if our family could take in the bunny. Sadly, Daddy said “no”.

     On that very same day, Daddy, Anabel, Theodore, and I biked to the basketball court to play basketball. On our way back home, Theodore, Anabel, and I decided to bike a couple more rounds in our neighborhood before going back home. As I biked, I spotted a tiny black “thing” with-a-tail crawling slowly in the middle of the road. Quickly, I swerved my bike off the road to avoid colliding with the animal.

     “A rat!” I exclaimed.

     However, the rat was a strange one, because it walked slowly across the road and rats usually scamper around. I happened to be riding Theodore on the bike.

     “Let me off the bike! I need to go get it!” Theodore called out.

     “Uh oh,” I thought.

     Theodore has a kind heart and is well known for rescuing hurt animals, and that rat apparently looked very hurt. I loved rescuing animals, too, but a rat in the house? I didn’t think I was ready for that.

     Theodore ran to the tiny black “thing”-with-a-tail and crouched down. I dismounted from my bike and joined Theodore. As I bent down, I got a closer look of the tiny black “thing” with-a-tail. Oh, and just to let you know, I am nearsighted (you’ll find out why I told you this later).

     The tiny black “thing” with-a-tail measured about two inches wide and four inches long. It had a short, stubby tail. It had a black body, a pointy nose, and eyes that were barely opened. It inched slowly across the grass making a high-pitched noise that sounded like “Yeeh! Yeeh!” (like the letter "E"). As I told you before, I am nearsighted. And even though I was nearsighted, by this time I could tell that the tiny black “thing” with-a-tail was definitely not a rat.

     It was a hedgehog!

     “We need to get this home,” Theodore told me, “it’s hurt and it’s too young to be out on its own.”

     “Okay,” I replied, and biked home as fast as I could to get a container to put hedgehog in.

     At home, Daddy met me at the door.

     “Theodore found um... something!” I caught myself just in time, not wanting to risk saying the word "hedgehog".

“I need a box and a bag!” I continued, and together, Daddy and I found what I was looking for. I raced out the door and pedaled as fast as I could back to where Anabel and Theodore were waiting.

We coaxed the hedgehog into the box, put the box and the hedgehog into the bike basket, and wheeled the bikes home.

Thankfully, it was Catherine who met the three of us at the door. Daddy had gone outside to buy some groceries.

“Shh…” we whispered to Catherine as we stepped through the door, “we have a baby hedgehog.”

A look of surprise spread over Catherine’s face.

“Wow!” she exclaimed as she motioned us into the house.

We quickly brought the hedgehog into Theodore’s room. There was no lid over the box, since the box was too small, and the hedgehog was trying to get out! We needed to put it somewhere safe and do it fast! Theodore quickly put the hedgehog into an upside down stool just in time. Once inside the stool, the hedgehog overturned the plastic box and fell down upside down.

Finally, at the end, we managed to get the hedgehog into a bigger box and put it in a corner in Theodore’s room, safe out of sight. Whew!

But our troubles were far from over. What would Daddy do when he found out that he had refused a bunny and now a hedgehog was in his house?

Well, that’s enough for today.

Read the next post here to find out more!