Do you know how fast a hedgehog can move when you put her on a basalt stone floor?
(Slow at first, as she gets her bearings, sniffing around your knee, digging at the mat. Then faster, more urgently, investigating all the smells. Into the boot tray and out again. All across the welcome mat smelling, no doubt, the rich traces of the outside world you’ve carried in.)
Do you know the sounds a hedgehog makes?
(A huffing, a cat-like hissing in short, sharp bursts as she puffs herself up against potential threats. But also a sort of humming thrum, maybe to the quick cadence of her own heart, the rapid inhale of new smells making an almost-imagined almost-purr in her throat).
What does a hedgehog think of a foot bath in the sink?
(A scramble to get out! A ravenous appetite after).
How does a hedgehog talk?
(It was chillsome after the wishwash. There were so many sniffs. And no, she’s never seen you before– oh, wait, yes she has, she just doesn’t have a very good rememory.)
And what do the humans do while the hedgehog is just being herself?
(They watch and interfere and shake their heads and are, for a moment, wee hedgepigs themselves.)
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