Chapter Two
Linda waved goodbye to the milkman as he limped to the end
of her road. Then she sat on her porch with
her new hedgehog. He was so cute.
“Hello. What are you doing?”
a voice asked.
Linda looked up and smiled.
It was Walter, her best friend.
He lived only a few houses down the lane from her, and he came to play
often.
“See my new hedgehog?” Linda said, holding up the tiny
creature.
“Hey, he’s pretty cute,” Walter said. “Can’t you just imagine him smiling? What’s his name?”
“I haven’t named him yet,” Linda answered.
“Well, I think you should call him ‘Quillbur’. It’s like ‘Wilbur’ but with quills,” Walter
offered.
“Quillbur,” Linda repeated, trying the name out. “Quillbur…I like it!”
“Great!” Walter said.
“I’ll help you make a nest for Quillbur.”
Walter and Linda went inside the house. Linda’s mother directed them to a dark corner
in the pantry.
“I’ll get him a piece of an old blanket to snuggle,” Linda
said.
“Wild hedgehogs don’t have blankets, silly,” Walter scoffed.
Linda put her free hand on her hip and glared at
Walter. “Don’t call me ‘silly’,” she
scolded.
For a moment, both children stared grumpily at each
other. Then Walter rubbed his nose and
looked at the corner of the pantry.
“Well, maybe…since he’s a house hedgehog…he does need a
blanket,” Walter admitted. “He needs
something to hide in, too. I have an
idea.”
Walter ran back to
his house and returned with a shoe box.
Linda stared at the box curiously. “Wild hedgehogs don’t have shoe boxes,” she
said, pointedly.
“No, but they have holes and other places where they can
hide,” Walter explained. He used a bit
of string to tie the lid on his box, and he cut a hole in one end. “See?” Walter said, showing Linda. “He can run inside if he wants to.”
Walter ran out to the woodshed and brought in some pine
shavings while Linda asked her mother for an old blanket. They set it all up.
“It looks so cozy,” Linda said. “I wish I were small enough to crawl inside.”
“We did a pretty good job,” Walter agreed.
Linda was happy. Now
her new hedgehog had a name and a bed.
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