| Harold awoke early the next afternoon..he lay still curled up in a ball beside Hettie. He wondered if they had made the right decision coming all this way to the bottom of the South Island. He knew Hettie had her doubts too, but this was their big adventure..and they had made up their minds to enjoy it, no matter what the outcome. Harold reached over and gave Hettie a playful nudge, knowing full well he was taking a risk as she was a fiesty hedgehog and hated being woken up. Hettie mumbled something unintelliglble...and slowly opened her eyes. She focused a terrible glare on Harold. Harold pretended to be very busy washing himself. But Hettie knew better...! Harold looked over and smiled a sweet and innocent smile. Hettie chuckled, and reached out with her little paw, as if to smooth Harold's fur, but instead choosing to dig her sharp little claw into his foot. Harold yelped! And the playfight began. Chasing each other through the grass, nipping at each other at every opportunity, and giggling as they went. Tommy watched on with amusement from behind the long grass. He would have dearly loved to join in the game..but he was very aware of their sharp prickles..and decided that it would be safer just to watch. Harold and Hettie soon collapsed in a heap, still giggling at their own antics. Tommy chose his moment, just as the hedgehogs were relaxing and catching their breath, to spring out from the long grass. Harold and Hettie froze. Tommy laughed.They breathed a sigh of relief, realising that it was their friend Tommy, and continued on their way back to the nest...Harold mumbled to Tommy about scaring the life out of them. But Tommy continued to smile and chuckle to himself proud of his achievement. Hettie was quick to point out his short comings if he chose to do that stunt too often. And with that Tommy sobered up considerably, asking how they were settling in. They told Tommy about the Mouse family that had come to visit in the early hours of the morning. Apparently they were moving into the house...as they heard of bad weather coming, It was going to snow. Tommy licked his lips and washed his whiskers at the thought of mice in the house. He dismissed the idea of snow, but Harold and Hettie were not so convinced. Tommy questioned them in depth about the mouse family. Wanting to know how many there were, and how and when they planned to move into the house. Bryan had had trouble with mice before..and he knew the likely outcome. Apparently he would set a trap for the mice..or if he managed to catch them alive, would give them over to Tommy for sport. Hettie shuddered at the thougt of being anywhere close to Tommy's sharp fangs (he only had three left) or his horrible bad breath. |
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| HAROLD AND HETTIE CHAPTER FOUR MOUSE FAMILY VISITORS |
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