Charlie checked his watch. ‘Get ourselves prepared for the nine o’clock feed, I guess.’ He pulled the instruction leaflet out and they both read it, whilst surreptitiously keeping an eye on the crate.
‘So shall we take one each at nine o’clock?’ suggested Regan.
‘There’s no point us both being up every two hours during the night.’
‘You’re not suggesting I do it all, are you?’ Regan gave him a look she hoped he understood.
‘No. We’ve both got work tomorrow, so I’m saying we could take it in turns. I’ll take eleven o’clock, you take the next one and so on. Okay?’
Regan was working out her shifts in her head. ‘Hang on. That means you’re only up once in the night with the three o’clock feed, but I’ve got one o’clock and five.’ She wasn’t going to be hoodwinked.
‘I really don’t mind. I thought you’d prefer to get to bed earlier and get a few hours in but I’m happy to swap.’
Regan’s brain was whizzing. Which was the best option? She wasn’t sure. ‘Okay. I’ll stick with—’ A tiny squeak from the crate drew their attention. They inched forward until they were both peering over the side of the crate.
Inside, two tiny brown blobs with pale spines were wriggling about. They were the oddest sight. They looked like someone had stolen some of their prickles, and they were blind as their eyes hadn’t opened yet. They were the most helpless creatures Regan had ever seen. ‘Oh, look at them. Aren’t they the cutest?’ She pulled the blanket back slightly for a better look.
‘Mind they don’t get cold,’ said Charlie, poking the blanket back into place.
‘I’ll introduce Elvis to them so he doesn’t feel left out,’ said Regan, opening the living room door.
‘No, don’t let—’ But Elvis trotted in and went straight to investigate the crate.
Charlie whipped it out of the way, making Elvis even keener to get his nose inside. ‘Get him away, Reg. He’ll eat them.’
‘No, he won’t.’ She was defensive of Elvis but she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him away all the same. ‘You’re overreacting.’
‘Am I? We all know Elvis’s rule of three: eat it, shag it or pee on it. And I don’t want any of those things happening to the twins.’
‘The twins?’ said Regan, with a splutter. She liked the way Charlie was protecting the hoglets, but he made them sound like actual human babies. ‘Come on, Elvis.’ And she encouraged him out with the lure of food. ‘We’d better leave Charlie Poppins to it.’
Regan had heard new mums complain about night feeds and being tired, and now she had a tiny window into what they were on about. When her phone buzzed into life again at five o’clock she could have merrily thrown it out of the window or fed it to Elvis. Elvis buried his face in his paws and she wished she could do the same.
She padded downstairs and heard an awful noise coming from the living room. She rushed in and both babies were making a high-pitched whistling noise. They looked okay, so Regan figured it was them demanding their next feed. She got the formula ready in between giant yawns. She felt like a reheated zombie. Her brain wasn’t functioning properly whilst she hunted for the syringes. Where had Charlie left them? They were in the sink but hadn’t been washed. She grumbled and banged about whilst sterilising them.
Her frustrations vanished when she cradled the tiny hoglets and they stopped their baby shrieks and began guzzling. It was a slow process because they were so little; they only took a tiny amount of fluid with each suck. And the syringes had to be small so needed regular refilling. She watched them nodding off as their tummies filled up.
‘Come on,’ she whispered, ‘just a bit more. Mrs Tiggy-Winkle’s instructions say you have to drink it all.’ But shecould feel her own eyes growing heavy too. Having her sleep interrupted was a killer. She had slept between feeds, but it had felt like it had taken ages for her to drop off, only to be woken shortly afterwards by the next alarm. Thank goodness Charlie was taking his share of turns or she’d feel even worse than she did.
‘Reg. Wakey wakey,’ came a distant voice. Regan stretched.
‘Whoa,’ said Charlie, quickly taking the bundle of hoglets from her arms. ‘You fell asleep.’
She opened a blurry eye. ‘What time is it?’
‘Seven. It’s my turn.’ He took the hedgehogs and empty syringes off to the kitchen while Regan tried to pull herself awake.
‘You want a coffee?’ he called cheerfully. He was so cheerful, she wanted to smother him with Elvis’s sheepskin. How come he was so bright? She’d definitely picked the wrong shifts.
By quarter to five that evening Regan was dead on her feet. If she wasn’t feeding the hoglets, she was cleaning them, checking they were safe and warm, or thinking about the next time she had to do all those things. Trying to run the stall at the same time was quite the challenge. Elvis was having a playful day and he wanted to greet anyone who came within six feet of them. Regan was convinced he was acting up because he was jealous of the new arrivals.
Despite her feet aching, she could have fallen asleep standing up. Sales-wise it had been an okay day, and the online business was steadily picking up now Cleo had got a friend to examine her SEO, which apparently stood for ‘search engine optimisation’. Regan wasn’t that clued upon how to manipulate the internet, so she was very grateful for any help she could get.
She had six orders that needed packing up and posting, and she needed to make more jam. She was now in the odd position where she was having to buy strawberries from Jag because her unicorn jam was a bestseller. This had made Jag very happy, and he was sharing with the other stallholders how he had ‘paid it forward’ to help her get started.
Regan started to pack her stall away but was interrupted by Bernice striding over. The sight of her looming into view didn’t have its previous effect now the two women were getting to know each other better.
‘Regan, take a look at this.’ Bernice placed a sheet of A4 paper on the stall and Regan tried to focus on the picture. ‘One of the shops got in touch and this is the shot we got from their film. I’ve given the film to the police, but I’ve printed off fifty posters of this image. It should be enough for someone to identify the car.’ She tapped a finger on the blurry image. It was the back of a small, light-coloured car. The number plate was obscured, but part of a Manchester United scarf was clearly visible hanging in the back window. Regan recognised the scarf and a wave of nausea washed over her.
