Juliet Nearly a Vet: Rainforest Camp Read online

  ‘Got it!’ I say.

  ‘What is it?’ says Maisy.

  ‘It’s a little heat pack.’

  I show them all the small packet with ‘hand warmer’ printed on the front.

  ‘See,’ I say, giving it a shake. ‘People use these when they are skiing or in cold places to put in their pocket to keep their hands warm. Mum always has a few in her kit as they can be very handy if you need to keep something small heated. When you shake it, the chemicals in it mix and make it warm, but not too hot.’

  I slide the now very warm little parcel in between Chelsea’s hand and the outside of the pouch.

  ‘You must never put the heat source right next to the animal. Always have some fabric between them.’

  I see Mrs Hodby look over at Alex and smile.

  ‘She is nearly a vet!’ he says.

  ‘So what should we do now?’ asks Maisy. ‘We don’t have any of the right milk for little mammals here.’

  ‘We shouldn’t feed her until she is warm anyway,’ I say. ‘We need to ring the closest vet, and they’ll probably tell us how to contact a wildlife carer.’

  ‘That would be Stan Miller,’ says Alex. ‘I have his number in my office. He picked up a wallaby for me that had been injured. He’s a really great carer.’

  Alex heads off to make the call.

  Chelsea hands me the pouch and I cuddle it against my chest.

  We slowly walk back towards the cabin. It would be far too noisy in the hall for this little baby.

  Alex jogs back over a few minutes later to tell us the carer will be here in fifteen minutes.

  The three of us sit on my bed and take it in turns to nurse the tiny, warm pouch. We don’t open it to look in, as much as we all want to. This baby needs her sleep.

  By the time the carer comes, Mrs Hodby and Mr Thomson have gathered everyone in the hall. The whole group has settled down and is sitting very quietly. We bring the little joey glider over.

  The carer is waiting with the teachers. When he smiles at me, his warm grey eyes tell me that he will be very kind to our baby, and that she is going to be okay.

  Fifty children hold their breath as he slides his hand into the pouch and brings out the tiny, grey ball to examine her.

  ‘Ahhhhhh,’ is the only sound you can hear.

  Mr Millar tells the classes that I have done everything right while we waited for help to come. Everyone smiles at me.

  Then they smile up at him as he explains the stages he will go through now to help this baby survive and eventually be released back into the wild.

  I whip out my diary and take some notes while he talks.

  I tell the wildlife carer that he can keep my little pouch and hand warmer, and he’s very grateful.

  All afternoon, whenever anyone sees me, all they want to do is talk about the rescue, and how cute the glider was.

  That night, we all go spotlighting on a night walk. We see possums and owls and all kinds of night animals.

  Best of all, we see a beautiful adult sugar glider gracefully gliding from the canopy of one tree down to another.

  I hold my breath and hope that, one day, when she is grown, our baby will be able to do that too.

  Then we finally make it to the glow-worm caves. The one we go into is about half as big as our classroom.

  We turn our torches off once we are seated on little mats on the damp ground. As the darkness surrounds us, tiny specks of light begin to appear above us, like stars in a night sky.

  It is very beautiful.

  ‘You know, Chelsea,’ I say when we are gathered outside the cave and are allowed to talk again, ‘glow-worms are not actually worms.’

  ‘Of course they’re worms!’ says Corey Smythe-Donnerly, rolling his eyes. ‘Why else would they be called glow-worms?’

  ‘Well, they’re like mealworms,’ I say, shining my torch on my diary to show the life cycle of a mealworm. ‘They’re just the larva stage of an insect.’

  Suddenly I hear a voice behind me I know all too well.

  ‘You’d better listen to her, Corey,’ says Portia. ‘Juliet actually is nearly a vet.’

  I’ve been on lots of school camps – first as a child and then again as a teacher. I love going, because it is always a chance to explore a new place and see different animals. One night, we were in a rainforest with a group of students and there was a full moon. Sitting quietly on the grass together, we were lucky enough to see a colony of little sugar gliders emerge from a hole in a tree, one after the other, and glide across the open space above us to reach a large gum tree in flower. Juliet and Chelsea would have loved it!

  As a little girl, I always wanted to be a vet. I had mice, guinea pigs, dogs, goldfish, sea snails, sea monkeys and tadpoles as pets. I loved looking after my friends’ pets when they went on holidays, and every Saturday I helped out at a pet store. Now that I’m all grown up, I have the best job in the world. I get to draw lots of animals for ­children’s books and for animated TV shows. In my studio I have two dogs, Jed and Evie, and two cats, Bosco and Kobe, who love to watch me draw.

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  First published by Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd, 2016

  Text copyright © Rebecca Johnson, 2016

  Illustrations copyright © Kyla May Productions, 2016

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Cover and text design by Karen Scott © Penguin Random House Australia Pty Ltd

  penguin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-76014-196-7

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