The Hedgehog in the Frost

It was the last Saturday afternoon in November, and the frost had not melted all day. Hiba was taking the peelings out to the compost bin when she saw it: a small brown hump in the middle of the lawn.

A hedgehog. In the daytime.

She crouched down. It was hardly bigger than an apple, and it wasn't curled into a prickly ball like the hedgehogs in picture books. When it tried to walk, it wobbled.

Hiba checked her watch: twenty past two. Nadia's mum was picking her up at three for the climbing wall. They had been planning it for weeks.

Someone else will find it, she told herself. She could tuck it under the hedge and still be ready in time. Mum and Dad were out, and her big brother Irfan was upstairs, revising with his headphones on. Nobody would ever know.

The hedgehog took two shaky steps and stopped. Hiba thought about tonight: the frost growing thicker, the hedge black and freezing, and this small thing out there alone in the dark.

She put the peelings down and ran inside.

"Irfan! There's a hedgehog in the garden and it's poorly."

Irfan slid one side of his headphones off. "Hedgehogs don't come out in the day."

"That's the point!"

He sighed, but he came. And when he saw it swaying on the white grass, he stopped sighing.

Irfan found a wildlife charity's website. A hedgehog out in daylight, it said, is usually in trouble, and a small one in winter may not survive the cold.

"Should we give it some milk?" Hiba asked.

Irfan scrolled. "No. Never milk. It makes them ill. Water, in a shallow dish."

Wearing Dad's gardening gloves, Hiba scooped the hedgehog gently into an old towel. It gave a tiny, cross huff. Irfan filled a hot water bottle, wrapped it in a tea towel so it felt gently warm, and put it in a tall cardboard box with room for the hedgehog to shuffle off it. Hiba put a saucer of water in one corner. They settled the box in the quiet utility room.

Irfan sent Mum a photo, then rang a hedgehog rescue on the far side of Sheffield. "Yes, out in the day… about the size of an apple… just water… keep the bottle warm… six o'clock? Thank you."

A car horn tooted outside.

"Go on," said Irfan. "I'll watch it."

Hiba looked at the headphones round his neck and thought of the bottle slowly going cold.

"I found it," she said. "I'll look after it."

She ran out to explain. Nadia's face fell, and Hiba watched the car turn the corner with stinging eyes.

Hiba and Irfan prayed Maghrib together as soon as the sun had set, though it wasn't even four o'clock. Hiba kept checking that the bottle was still warm. Only the tip of a little nose showed under the towel.

At six, a lady in a bobble hat came with a pet carrier. She lifted the towel and smiled. "Ooh, he's a little one. You've done everything right, love. He'd not have managed the winter on his own." In spring, she said, if he was big and strong, the rescue would bring him back.

When the door closed, Hiba sat on the bottom stair. "Nadia thinks I didn't want to come. And the hedgehog will never even know it was me."

Irfan sat beside her. "Do you know the hadith about the man and the thirsty dog?"

Hiba shook her head.

"The Prophet ﷺ told it. A man was walking along a road and got very thirsty. He found a well, climbed down and drank. When he came out, he saw a dog panting and licking the mud, because it was so thirsty. The man thought, this dog is as thirsty as I was. So he went back down, filled his shoe with water, held it in his mouth and gave the dog a drink. And Allah thanked him for it, and forgave him."

"For a shoe full of water?"

"For a shoe full of water. Then the people asked the Prophet ﷺ if there was a reward for them in helping animals. He said there's a reward for serving any living being."

Hiba thought of the saucer, still sitting in the empty box. "Even a hedgehog?"

"Even a very small, very grumpy hedgehog." Irfan nudged her shoulder. "And Allah saw every bit of it."

Later, Hiba rang Nadia and told her everything. Nadia said they could go climbing next Saturday instead.

That night, frost crept across Hiba's window in feathery patterns. She pulled the duvet up to her chin and pictured a tiny hedgehog across the city, curled up warm and safe.

"Goodnight, little hedgehog," she whispered, and she closed her eyes.