There's always something snuffling about the garden. Mum used to say it was hedgehogs but she'd say it so quietly, repeating it over and over again and closing her eyes sometimes. She had us convinced when we were kids but had never managed to convince herself.
Now that we're older we're allowed to know more about it. What is does and what it leaves behind but mostly what it leaves behind. I nearly filled an entire rubbish sack with the junk and rank smelling dirt it tossed all over the patio for whatever kind of reason. Mum still won't say what it is, only that it's "just hedgehogs as far as you and I are concerned now put more salt about the doorstep, there's a good lad."
When my parents left for the week it was just my sister and me to watch the house and take care of the mess that our resident "hedgehog" made. We decided to ask around and see who else had this visitor. As it turned out everyone in the neighbourhood did and followed pretty much the same steps that we always had of cleaning the mess and salting the doors and windows every morning and evening.
All but one and she said she was better off letting it rampage about the garden, said it brought her money and gold and beautiful flowers in return for letting it use her garden. She even let us see what it had done but the "flowers" she mentioned were old dolls that had been melted and reshaped into roughly flower-like shapes. We left soon after seeing that, I'll never forget how strained her smile was as she closed the door, like she knew it had gone too far but she was powerless to stop it.
We thought it best to keep cleaning and salting as always but also set up a camera to see just what was out there, seems everyone else was too scared too anyway. It took a couple of nights to get it to work, we only saw a darkish blob before we figured out how to get the night vision setting properly on.
The night we did, my sister and I sat upstairs in our room with the door locked, staring at her laptop screen and waiting for our "hedgehog" to make their usual appearance. Much to our surprise we did get a hedgehog. A perfectly normal hedgehog with no oddities or unusual appendages and a very hedgehog-like face that was nothing like a human's. It was just a small, average hedgehog that went about eating slugs, digging up the garden and staring deep into the camera but only when we turned our heads marginally away from it.
It did leave us a lovely bouquet of flowers in the morning though.
Now that we're older we're allowed to know more about it. What is does and what it leaves behind but mostly what it leaves behind. I nearly filled an entire rubbish sack with the junk and rank smelling dirt it tossed all over the patio for whatever kind of reason. Mum still won't say what it is, only that it's "just hedgehogs as far as you and I are concerned now put more salt about the doorstep, there's a good lad."
When my parents left for the week it was just my sister and me to watch the house and take care of the mess that our resident "hedgehog" made. We decided to ask around and see who else had this visitor. As it turned out everyone in the neighbourhood did and followed pretty much the same steps that we always had of cleaning the mess and salting the doors and windows every morning and evening.
All but one and she said she was better off letting it rampage about the garden, said it brought her money and gold and beautiful flowers in return for letting it use her garden. She even let us see what it had done but the "flowers" she mentioned were old dolls that had been melted and reshaped into roughly flower-like shapes. We left soon after seeing that, I'll never forget how strained her smile was as she closed the door, like she knew it had gone too far but she was powerless to stop it.
We thought it best to keep cleaning and salting as always but also set up a camera to see just what was out there, seems everyone else was too scared too anyway. It took a couple of nights to get it to work, we only saw a darkish blob before we figured out how to get the night vision setting properly on.
The night we did, my sister and I sat upstairs in our room with the door locked, staring at her laptop screen and waiting for our "hedgehog" to make their usual appearance. Much to our surprise we did get a hedgehog. A perfectly normal hedgehog with no oddities or unusual appendages and a very hedgehog-like face that was nothing like a human's. It was just a small, average hedgehog that went about eating slugs, digging up the garden and staring deep into the camera but only when we turned our heads marginally away from it.
It did leave us a lovely bouquet of flowers in the morning though.
yes...yes it did...
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