Page 16 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Hannah,’ Josh said. ‘What are you doing here?’
She narrowed her eyes. He narrowed his back and gave a jerk of the head that saidcome closer.
As she moved towards the bench she could see that the kid was Braydon Fox, son of one of Josh’s old flames from high school. Mid teens, spotty, blotchier than normal and his eyelashes were wet.
Okay, clearly there was drama going on, but why Josh thought she’d be any help was a mystery. He was the one who’d knocked up his science teacher at the end of Grade Twelve and fathered a daughter—who was currently a teenager. He had skills with this demographic.
Act cool, he’d said. Easy for him to say, he was the people person. ‘I, er, just popped in for some—’ she did a rapid room scan and spotted the bribery jar ‘—liver treats.’
‘Sure, help yourself, but … while you’re here …’ Josh looked down at Braydon. ‘You cool with me getting a second opinion on Peanut? Hannah is the senior partner here and she has a lot of experience with, um, unhappy guinea pigs.’
The kid sniffed and nodded his head.
Either this was an April fool’s joke way too early or she did not understand what was going on.
She moved a clump of old t-shirt fabric to the side of the sneaker box and looked in at the guinea pig currently nibbling away at a carrot stick with what she would have described, if she was in the habit of dropping French phrases into her patient notes, asjoie de vivre.
‘Unhappy? That’s your clinical observation, is it, Josh?’
‘That’sBraydon’sobservation, Hannah. He’s come here for answers.’Not judgementwas the subtext to Josh’s words.
The kid lifted an arm and dragged his sleeve along the bottom of his nose.
‘Right. Mind if I get him out, Braydon?’
He shrugged one shoulder, which she knew—thanks, Poppy—to interpret as approval. Huh. Perhaps being an aunt already meant she wouldn’t be totally clueless when it came to her own child. Another tick in the yes-I’m-doing-the-right-thing column. Then she lifted the fat little beast from his shoebox.
‘Coat’s shiny. Eyes are clear. Teeth—’ At the risk of losing a finger, she prised the last shard of carrot out of the guinea pig’s mouth and bent down for a closer inspection, taking a cautious sniff ‘—are yellowed and ground down, but nothing we wouldn’t expect on a guinea pig the age of Peanut. How big was this carrot? They’re quite high in sugar.’
‘He mainly eats grass in the backyard and veggie scraps, but he likes kale chips done in the airfryer.’
She tried not to smile. A trendy guinea pig. Maybe he had his own Insta account. ‘What makes you think he’s unhappy?’
Braydon cleared his throat. ‘You know how I got another one to keep him company? A girl one, black and white, and all her feet are black like she’s wearing boots, and her head’s got these tuft things like long hair.’
Hannah pulled over the manila folder that Josh had left on the bench. She opened it up, thumbed through Sandra’s colour-sticker system, and ran her eyes down the owner-patient summary page.One guinea pig, name Peanut, male, vaccinated regularly, weight issues, possible arthritis.There was a note scribbled in the margin dating from August last year:Owner’s mother gave Josh the shits and stormed off.Hmm. Not sure that needed to be written up, but whatever. She tapped her finger on the next animal in the family file. ‘Ah yes. A rescue guinea pig, fully vaccinated, neutered, age unknown. And you named it … Poppy.’
If the kid’s face had been blotchy and pale before, now it was blotchy and red. ‘Yeah.’
‘Has, um …’ She looked up at Josh, who was being surprisingly quiet for a bloke who was a) a chatterbox and b) totally aware, like she was, that her niece and Braydon had spent a lot of time together last time Poppy—the human Poppy, that is, not her miniature furry tribute—had come down from Sydney to visit her dad. ‘Has there been some rivalry at home? Any fighting in the guinea pig pen?’
‘Yeah. Well, Poppy’s been ghosting me. Um, him. She was, like, all best friends, whatever, at first, but then nothing. It’s like she doesn’t evenlikehim anymore. And now he’s unhappy and I didn’t know what to do, so I thought if I came here then …’ His voice trickled off.
Riiiight. Life advice for a teenager. This was so not her forte.
Although this could be in her future, having to help her own child come to grips with the pitfalls of young love. She could have a crack at resolving a teen crisis using some guinea pig metaphor, couldn’t she? How hard could it be?
‘Well, Braydon,’ she said. ‘We can put your mind at ease about Peanut. He’s in good health. Do you think’—she popped the little fella back in his shoebox—‘it’s worth giving the whole Poppy thing some time. You can’t force friendship to blossom between two guinea pigs any more than you can between two people, and maybe you don’t know all the facts, so you’re making up trouble when it’s not even there. Just be patient, and be yourself … um, encourage Peanut to be himself. You can always bring him back to see us if his mood doesn’t improve. We love seeing Peanut, don’t we, Josh?’
‘Absolutely.’
Braydon picked up his box and started walking for the door, then turned back to them. ‘Can I ask you something?’ By ‘you’ he clearly meant Josh, so Hannah kept silent. So much for her awesome advice. ‘You don’t think it’s lame that I’ve got two guinea pigs?’
‘Mate, chicks love blokes with pets,’ said Josh firmly.
‘They do?’ The kid looked cheerful for the first time. ‘Well. I guess I’ll get going then. Um, I just pay the lady out front?’
‘No charge,’ said Hannah. ‘Just promise to let us know when Peanut’s a bit happier, okay?’
