Janelle Lee
Our dogs sometimes sit on command, they rarely fetch, they take themselves for a walk and they know how to bark. They bark when the cat is around. They bark when someone walks passed and they can really get the decibel count up when someone enters the yard.
During the day it is annoying but tolerable, at night it is unbearable and excruciating.
Climbing into bed suffering from the flu, which had taken a vice like grip on me and being allergic to anything that is likely to offer any comfort is bad enough, the last thing I needed or wanted was dogs barking. But bark they did.
“Shut up,” I growled. Of course being as obedient as the kids they promptly defied the direct order. They continued to bark. You want to ignore it. You want to kill them. Throwing the covers over your head doesn’t do it. Even the threat of being taken to the pound wasn’t enough to silence them. I knew had to get up.
It was ten to midnight and they had turned feral. I figured with the lack of sleep, a temperature and a head that was threatening to pound right off my shoulders they didn’t know what feral was but they would. Oh, how they would. I threw back the covers.
“The dogs are barking,” the youngest complained as I had my head was buried in the kitchen cupboard. I had already cleared out the laundry cupboard. “Really I hadn’t noticed. Where’s the torch?”
“You are making a mess.”
“You’d know all about that wouldn’t you seeing as your bedroom has been declared a disaster zone.” I snapped. I was dying too but that wasn’t about to stop me. Four torches and not one could be found when it was needed. My hand located one. I hit the switch… nothing.
“Battery must be flat,” number two son suggested, “Did you know the dogs are barking?”
I used all of what was left of my self control not to deck him with it.
The youngest went to investigate. She came back to inform me that the dogs were barking at grass.
“How can it be grass?” I retorted, “We haven’t had grass in the backyard for years we have dirt. You know that brown looking stuff?”
She shrugged. “Whatever… I am going to bed.”
“No one sleeps until I do.”
With the kids following me I made my way towards the dogs armed with the broom and a torch that had an unsteady shine. The dogs looked up at me wearing their proudest smiles. I rolled my eyes.
The youngest pointed. “See I told you it was grass.”
The eyes did a three sixty. I took a mental note to have her eyesight tested. “It’s an echidna.”
“Wow,” she cooed, “can we keep him?”
I had identified two enemies now I just had to get rid of them.
I tried shooing. The echidna dug in deeper and so did the youngest.
With the dogs barking, the youngest cooing and my snap happy son taking photos I made my way back inside and rang for help. Instead I got someone impersonating Animal Control. A cheery voice greeted me. I mentioned my problem with the echidna.
“A what?”
“Echidna. How do I get rid of it?”
“Oh, I don’t know. How big is it?”
I wondered what difference that made.
“Four or five feet?” he asked.
Four or five feet! “I said echidna, mate, not elephant. The dogs are going ballistic.”
“Oh. Put them in the shed and let the echidna have a clear path.”
To where? How about if I open the gate and bake him a parting gift as well?
“If you need any more help just ring me back.”
What help? I stared at the phone in my hand.
My husband arrived home. “Put the dogs in the shed,” I said. The shed door was opened to reveal the blue tongue lizard. “What is this a wildlife park? You have to be kidding.” The dogs had a new foe to contend with. Their barking echoed through the shed. “Get them out of the shed. ”
“It’s scared,” the young one called out as she stood guard over the echidna.
“It came here. No one forced it. I don’t recall a gun being held to its head.”
“Which end is it head?” she asked.
My husband looked to the ball of spikes. “I am not picking that up.”
The shovel was produced along with the cardboard box. We stood and looked at the echidna now inside the box pondering our next move. “Now what?”
Now it’s time to bring in the big guns. I rang WIRES.
“Female or male it is hard to tell,” the woman informed me.
“I am not checking.”
She laughed. “You are lucky not many people get to see them in their natural habitat.”
My back yard is not a habitat. It is barely a backyard. It is a grassless wasteland.
“Whatever you do, do not put the echidna in a cardboard box,” she warned.
Oops.
“What is she saying?” My husband asked.
“It’s all good.”
“If it is a female she could have babies nearby,” the woman continued.
Great.
“So don’t put the echidna any more than fifty metres away.”
There we were like thieves in the night making our way into the grapevines to dump an echidna. After tipping the echidna out of the box we stood there as the youngest decided to do a narration of his/her time with us. “He is…”
“A sleep pilfering rodent,” I snapped. “I am going to bed.”
It’s over, I thought as I climbed back into bed. Ten minutes later the dogs started up again. “Now what?” I screamed out into the darkness. I made my way outside and stared down at the echidna. It was back. I couldn’t believe it.“Get rid of it,” I demanded of my husband.
“What am I suppose to do?”
“Take it for a drive and dump it.”
“I can’t do that what about the babies?”
“What about my sleep? We don’t even know if it is a female. It is far too late in the day to suddenly become an animal liberationist.”
“But do you want to be responsible for a mother abandoning her babies?”
That did it. “Alright this is how it is going to work either you get rid of the echidna permanently or I get rid of you.”
He placed the echidna into the box and put it in the car.
“What about the babies?” the youngest whined.
“Don’t you start. It’s a male,” I demanded.
“How do you know?”
“Because a male never asks for directions.”
kiss? Thirty seconds later are you going to still treasure it. Maybe I’ve been married too long, but I know I’ll never get that first kiss again, so I make sure my characters have a memorable ones.
