... Spiky...

… Spiky… (Purdy, Symes and Wright - part 5)

by Peter Hunter

… Spiky lives in the large clump of brambles that obstruct the view of the goldfish pond from the conservatory. He makes irritating grunting noises and if you get too close he smells. Normally Purdey, Symes and Wright aided by friends Pooky and Molly, mostly drive other mammals and birds away but none of them are prepared to take on a hedgehogs spiny defences…
'… I heard our humans talking about him…' said Wright. Apparently Mum found him outside the back door in a terrible state…
… starving, weak - almost dead.
She found a big box, lined it with straw and fed him water and some of our cat food. Within three weeks he had doubled in weight and was now fat enough to hibernate. She kept him in her study - just as well as his smell upset Dad…'
'Dad's always upset about something…' said Purdey. '… he was upset when I broke Mums Chinese vase… in fact he said something about re-homing me…'
'So what do we do?' asked Symes.
Nothing they all agreed - it was just too Spiky a question…

End

Peter Hunter's full-length thrillers are available on Kindle

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