Skunked! Read Free

Pritzker’s office in record time, and I was relieved to see his mare, Penny, hitched to his buggy out front. I’d caught him before he left on his first call of the day.

    I didn’t even stop to give Penny her usual pat on the nose but burst through the door, startling the doctor who was looking over some papers on his desk.
    â€œWhat is it, Calpurnia? What’s the trouble?”
    I paused to catch my breath and think. I couldn’t tell him we had a skunk. So I said, “Dr. Pritzker, I’m worried about one of our, uh, kittens. It’s awfully small, it’s the runt of the litter, and I told my brother we should just let it go, but he wants to try and save it.”
    â€œDo you think that’s a good idea? Nature doesn’t usually intend the runts to live.”
    â€œI know, but Travis has his heart set on trying. What should we do?”
    â€œWell, the first thing you have to do is keep it warm somehow. Once they lose body heat, they start to fail quickly. And it needs to feed frequently. Is the mother cat around to feed it?”
    â€œShe’s … gone.”
    â€œIs it old enough to eat solid food? Some ground-up meat?”
    â€œUh, maybe not. It looks pretty weak to me.”
    â€œThen you’ll have to feed it milk somehow, either with a sponge it can suck on or with a very small bottle. And you’ll need to warm the milk first.”
    â€œOkay, I will. Is there anything else we can do?”
    â€œYou can hope for the best. And I do hope you and Travis won’t feel too badly if it dies. Runts often do, even when you do everything to save them.”
    â€œThank you.”
    I dashed back out. It wasn’t until I’d got most of the way home and saw the sun high in the sky that I realized we’d missed breakfast. Uh-oh, a punishable offense in our house.

6
    Travis had both skunks in the cage by the time I got back to the barn. The larger one was nosing and cuddling the smaller one, which looked frighteningly weak. I explained Dr. Pritzker’s advice and then cast around for something I could use to warm the runt. I grabbed a brick from a stack and then ran with it to the back door of our house.
    Our cook, Viola, sat at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee and taking a short break between cooking our family’s huge breakfast and cooking our family’s huge lunch. “You two done missed out. Your mama’s not happy about that. She wants to see you.”
    Drat. Now I was in trouble, and I didn’t have time to be in trouble.
    â€œWhat you doing with that brick?”
    Viola doted on Idabelle, our one Inside Cat, whose job it was to keep the mice at bay, so I decided to stick with the kitten story. “I need it to warm one of the barn kittens that’s sick.” I opened the stove and pushed the brick in, nearly burning my fingers.
    â€œOkay, but your mama wants to see you.”
    I smoothed down my hair, straightened my pinafore, and marched into the parlor where Mother sat mending a big basket of my brothers’ shirts. (It turns out that a passel of brothers aren’t just hard on their sister; they’re hard on their shirts as well.)
    â€œAh,” said Mother, “the missing daughter has returned. Where were you at breakfast? And where is Travis?”
    The sick kitten story seemed to be holding up well, so I went on with it and then explained about having to run to Dr. Pritzker’s for emergency advice. Mother didn’t much like me hanging around his office, saying it wasn’t a suitable place for a young lady, but she, like everyone else, felt sorry for the so-called sick kitten. She finally let me go with a word of warning not to miss any more meals, then said, “Send Travis to see me.”
    â€œI think he’s still busy with our, uh, patient.”
    â€œWell then, after that. You may go.”
    I went back to the kitchen, took a dish towel from a drawer, and scooped