The Hedge Hog (as in 'Bush Pig' - but also, Hedgehog)

Below is an extract from a series of short stories I've been writing in order to simultaneously teach children about a certain animal and also to introduce them to a certain literary style. This is the eighth in the series which juxtaposes hedgehogs and horror...

“What do you mean, dead?” Samwise Gangee asked, down the phone to his supervisor (who’d just told him that his [Samwise’s] wife was dead).

The supervisor meant exactly what he said. She’d been shot in the lung by a bullet, and it wasn’t looking good. Or was it?

No. Samwise dropped the phone in horror. She’d been trying to contact him all day, but he’d been too blasted busy! Busy busy busy, he thought. Busy like a bee. Busy like a bee would be busy. He don’t need this.

He slammed the door and walked into the forecourt. What had she been trying to tell him? He checked his answerphone. The signal was poor.

“Samwi…I…research…massive, they…wha-?....hedgehogs…can you…hedgehogs…I’m trying…experi-…hedgehogs…GET AWAY FROM M-!...hedgehogs…”

What did it all mean? Who killed her? Or what? It could have been an animal, of course.

He knew that she’d been working on an experiment to make animals bigger and more intelligent. But that only narrowed it down to every living thing on the planet that wasn’t a plant – and that was a list he hadn’t the time to peruse. Which animal? Which one? Which? Which animal?

A hedgehog scuttled past his feet.

“Get away from me, you stupid little-”

But wait. He realised. Hedgehogs. His hedgehogs. Their hedgehogs. He’d leant them to her just that morning.

It was a prickly situation, he quipped to no-one in particular.

These were all the things Samwise knew about hedgehogs; ‘A hedgehog is any of the small spiny mammals of the subfamily Erinaceinae and the order Erinaceomorpha. There are 16 species of hedgehog in five genera, found through parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, and New Zealand. There are no hedgehogs native to Australia, and no living species native to North America; those in New Zealand are introduced. Hedgehogs have changed little over the last 15 million years. Like many of the first mammals they have adapted to a nocturnal, insectivorous way of life. The name 'hedgehog' came into use around the year 1450, derived from the Middle English 'heyghoge', from 'heyg', 'hegge' = hedge, because it frequents hedgerows, and 'hoge', 'hogge' = hog, from its piglike snout. Other folk names include 'urchin', 'hedgepig' and 'furze-pig'’

All of that would be useful now.