“N-nyaaah, nuh, no, no stop!”
Immediately, Rusty’s eyes flew open and adjusted to the darkness of his bedroom. His ears swivelled slightly, listening out for the noise and trying to pinpoint its source. Then, as he sat up on his bed and sleep stopped fuddling his brain, he remembered where it was coming from.
Looking to his right, his eyes made out the other occupant of his double bed. Even through the darkness, the motion of the person is quite obvious. He isn’t thrashing or screaming, as most children with nightmares do. He is shivering. Violently.
Here come the night terrors again.
It’s happened every day since they found him. They had found him outside their garden one snowy night; scale-and-bone, sitting waist-deep in the freezing snow and shivering like a pansy in a hurricane. Had they not rescued him in time, he would almost certainly have succumbed to hypothermia. Rusty had noticed him first, and had strode out, picked the snake up and carried him in from the cold.
Rusty’s parents, James and Agnes Hamilton, rushed to his aid when he took the stricken serpent into the living room. Laying him down, they rushed off to find warm blankets, towels and coats to wrap him in, leaving Rusty alone with their guest.
Rusty had never really dealt with hypothermia, being from Scotland, no less. But he understood that sufferers needed to be warmed up slowly. So he did the first thing that came to his mind, and put his muscled arms around the rattlesnake, holding him close and saying:
“It’s alright mate, I’m here.”
In the present…
“Right, come here, you!” Rusty says, reaching for the young reptile. He jumps at his touch slightly, waking up, but the shivers have already waned slightly. The snakes’ chest is rising and falling quickly, like he’s still in the nightmare. As the fox gently wraps his furred arms around Ricky, the rattlesnake immediately snuggled up to him, his face firmly in Rusty’s chest fluff.
“It’s alright mate, I’m here.”
The magic words are uttered, Ricky’s breathing slows, his shivering stops, and the monsters have been defeated for another night. Satisfied that his friend will stay calm, the fox settles down to return to sleep. But before sleep claims him, Rusty thinks proudly:
Bugger off, night terrors. You’re no’ gettin’ through me.
