Skunked! (3 page)

“Oh, Travis,” I said, knowing the heartbreak that lay ahead, “it's the runt of the litter. It isn't going to make it. You should put it back.”

He looked aghast. “We can't just leave it here. We have to try. You have to help me.”

I thought for a moment. Did I dare go to the vet, Dr. Pritzker? It would be asking a lot. He didn't look after wild animals, especially wild animals like skunks that were considered the lowest of the low. They were varmints and pests, real nuisances to the local farmers, tearing up gardens and stealing eggs from the henhouse. Nobody in town would ever dream of trying to save a skunk because they were all too busy trying to kill them. Dr. Pritzker might think I was crazy or—much worse—stupid. And I didn't want him to think I was crazy or stupid, because he sometimes let me watch him doctor the cattle and horses, useful animals that were actually worth something. All that would come to a sudden halt if he thought I was crazy or stupid. I weighed all these things up. Then my soft hearted brother began to plead with me.

“Please, Callie, we have to try. Please.” He looked so upset that I knew I'd have to give in.

I sighed. He cracked a huge smile, knowing he'd won me over.

I shoved Stinky at him and said, “See if you can get some food into the little one. I'll go to Dr. Pritzker's and meet you at home.”

“Thanks! You won't regret it.” He jogged off, clutching the kits to him.

“Of course I will,” I shouted at him. “I always do!” Then I took off in the other direction. I made the run downtown to Dr. Pritzker's office in record time, and I was relieved to see his mare, Penny, hitched to his buggy out front. I'd caught him before he left on his first call of the day.

I didn't even stop to give Penny her usual pat on the nose but burst through the door, startling the doctor who was looking over some papers on his desk.

“What is it, Calpurnia? What's the trouble?”

I paused to catch my breath and think. I couldn't tell him we had a skunk. So I said, “Dr. Pritzker, I'm worried about one of our, uh, kittens. It's awfully small, it's the runt of the litter, and I told my brother we should just let it go, but he wants to try and save it.”

“Do you think that's a good idea? Nature doesn't usually intend the runts to live.”

“I know, but Travis has his heart set on trying. What should we do?”

“Well, the first thing you have to do is keep it warm somehow. Once they lose body heat, they start to fail quickly. And it needs to feed frequently. Is the mother cat around to feed it?”

“She's … gone.”

“Is it old enough to eat solid food? Some ground-up meat?”

“Uh, maybe not. It looks pretty weak to me.”

“Then you'll have to feed it milk somehow, either with a sponge it can suck on or with a very small bottle. And you'll need to warm the milk first.”

“Okay, I will. Is there anything else we can do?”

“You can hope for the best. And I do hope you and Travis won't feel too badly if it dies. Runts often do, even when you do everything to save them.”

“Thank you.”

I dashed back out. It wasn't until I'd got most of the way home and saw the sun high in the sky that I realized we'd missed breakfast. Uh-oh, a punishable offense in our house.

6

Travis had both skunks in the cage by the time I got back to the barn. The larger one was nosing and cuddling the smaller one, which looked frighteningly weak. I explained Dr. Pritzker's advice and then cast around for something I could use to warm the runt. I grabbed a brick from a stack and then ran with it to the back door of our house.

Our cook, Viola, sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and taking a short break between cooking our family's huge breakfast and cooking our family's huge lunch. “You two done missed out. Your mama's not happy about that. She wants to see you.”

Drat. Now I was in trouble, and I didn't have
time
to be in trouble.

“What you doing with that brick?”

Viola doted on Idabelle, our one Inside Cat, whose job it was to keep the mice at bay, so I decided to stick with the kitten story. “I need it to warm one of the barn kittens that's sick.” I opened the stove and pushed the brick in, nearly burning my fingers.

“Okay, but your mama wants to see you.”

I smoothed down my hair, straightened my pinafore, and marched into the parlor where Mother sat mending a big basket of my brothers' shirts. (It turns out that a passel of brothers aren't just hard on their sister; they're hard on their shirts as well.)

“Ah,” said Mother, “the missing daughter has returned. Where were you at breakfast? And where is Travis?”

The sick kitten story seemed to be holding up well, so I went on with it and then explained about having to run to Dr. Pritzker's for emergency advice. Mother didn't much like me hanging around his office, saying it wasn't a suitable place for a young lady, but she, like everyone else, felt sorry for the so-called sick kitten. She finally let me go with a word of warning not to miss any more meals, then said, “Send Travis to see me.”

“I think he's still busy with our, uh, patient.”

“Well then, after that. You may go.”

I went back to the kitchen, took a dish towel from a drawer, and scooped out the brick and wrapped it up, again nearly burning myself. This skunk doctoring business was dangerous in ways I hadn't expected.

I hurried out to the barn with my warm bundle.

Travis stood in the gloom next to the cage, looking anxious and biting his nails.

“Stop that,” I said. “Mother will get all over you about it, and you're already in trouble for missing breakfast. Look here, I've got a way to warm the kit up.”

“You didn't tell her we have skunks, did you?”

I marveled at the boy. Was he insane? “I told her we had a sick kitten. I told Viola that too. So that's what we've got, right?”

“Right.”

We opened the cage and put the brick between the two. The bigger kit immediately nestled up beside it. The smaller one didn't quite get it, so I picked it up and put it on top of the brick. It rooted around feebly, looking like it was trying to nurse in the fuzzy towel.

“All right,” I said. “Next, the warm milk. Go and find Flossie—we won't need much.”

“She's out in the pasture.”

“Doesn't matter. We only need a couple of squirts. I've got to find a bottle that's small enough. Or a sponge. Ugh, I guess I have to go back into the house again.”

Travis grabbed an empty jar and went out looking for our milk cow. I went back to the house, trying to think what I could use. We'd hand raised orphaned lambs and piglets with bottles in the past but they were far too big for the kit.

Viola was gone from the kitchen. I rustled around in the pantry but there was nothing we could use.

“Think, Calpurnia, think,” I muttered. Somewhere in my distant past, I'd seen a tiny little bottle in the house, but where? Then it came to me.

Mother was still sewing in the parlor, so I crept quietly up the stairs so as not to attract her attention. I went into the trunk room, stacked high with wicker traveling trunks, and then up the rickety stairs into the attic. The reek of mothballs grew stronger as I climbed higher. The hatchway into the attic creaked ominously as I pushed it open. Just like in a ghost story.

Oh stop, I told myself. You're just being silly.

The attic was dark and piled high with winter quilts. My grandfather's war uniform hung from one of the rafters like a dead Confederate soldier, complete with sword. I shuddered and wished I'd brought a candle with me. In the corner stood our old rocking horse, paint chipped off, scraggly real horsehair mane and tail mostly missing from hard use by many children, including me. All seven of us had outgrown it, but for some reason Mother had not been able to pitch it out.

Over there were my old dolls sitting in a row, dolls I hadn't played with in years. They grinned at me in the gloom and spoke in a whispery chorus: “Calleeeee. Where have you been, Calleeeee? We used to be your dearest friends, but now you have abandoned us in the dark. What do you have to say for yourself, Calleeeee?”

I cleared my throat. “Be quiet. You're not really talking. It's just my imagination. My
overactive
imagination.”

“Are you sure, Calleeeee?”

I told myself, Calpurnia, get a grip. I said to the dolls, “Oh, shut up.”

And they did.

I opened a tin box full of doll clothes. Buried at the bottom was a tiny glass bottle with a rubber tip. Ha! I congratulated myself on being a clever girl and skedaddled out of there before the dolls could accuse me again. I'd outgrown them and felt a bit sad about it, but not too sad because now I had other, better things in my life. Now I had my Scientific Notebook and Granddaddy to do experiments with; now I had Dr. Pritzker to teach me about animals. Now I had tadpoles that turned into frogs, caterpillars that grew into butterflies.

I crept back through the house and ran into Viola peeling spuds in the kitchen.

“What you got there?” she said, squinting at me.

“Nothing,” I said, and thrust the bottle into my pinafore pocket.

“Huh. Every time you got ‘nothing,' it never turns out good.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” I kissed her cheek and ran out before she could swat me away.

Back at the barn I waited for Travis and worried about the runt, staring at it closely to make sure it was still breathing. It lay on the brick where I'd placed it, its rib cage barely moving in tiny shallow puffs.

Travis clattered in, carrying the jar with a couple of inches of milk. He looked like he'd been in a fistfight, with his hair standing on end and streaks of cow manure all over him.

I stared at him. “What happened to you?”

“It's Flossie,” he panted. “She's not used to being milked at this time of day. She didn't like it one bit.” He wiped his brow. “And all this time I thought we were friends. Did you find a bottle?”

I showed him the doll bottle, and we both agreed it was perfect. It had to be—it's all there was. I poured the warm milk into it while Travis took the runt and cuddled it in his arms.

“I think the brick is working,” he said. “He feels nice and toasty.”

I had my doubts. The poor thing looked pretty limp. I held the bottle to its mouth but it didn't move.

“What's wrong?” said Travis. “Why won't he drink?”

“I don't know. Maybe it won't drink cow's milk. Maybe it will only drink skunk's milk. Maybe we have to round up a skunk to milk.”

But Travis was in no mood for joking. “We can't milk a skunk,” he cried, sounding dangerously close to tears.

“All right then, we're going to have to force it.” I squeezed the rubber tip of the bottle, and a little milk oozed out. “Wake it up.”