The Wildlife Games by Bindi Irwin

DR DIANNE GAVE A HUGE SIGH AS the patient’s vital signs returned to normal. ‘She’s going to be okay, gang.’ The kangaroo on the operating table was one lucky roo. A driver on the Sunshine Coast had pulled over when he’d caught sight of the macropod limping badly onthe side of a busy road. The roo was in bad shape and the driver had managed to cover her with a blanket, put her carefully in his ute and deliver her straight to the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital.
    The vet had surmised pretty quickly that the roo had a broken hind leg, and they were able to operate. The roo had scared them halfway through the operation when she’d stopped breathing briefly, but now it seemed she was going to make it through.
    Dr Dianne finished stitching up the leg, and two vet nurses carefully transported the patient away to the recovery area. The vet called out from the operating theatre, ‘Bindi, how many more patients have we got in triage?’
    Bindi Irwin, after finishing her schoolworkfor the day, had a couple of hours free and decided to lend a hand at the wildlife hospital. It had once been an avocado packing shed and now was a state-of-the-art vet hospital situated in the grounds of Australia Zoo. She was busy checking supplies in the triage area. They were getting pretty low on bandages and saline drips. She glanced over at the whiteboard that listed the day’s patients.
    â€˜Okay, so we’ve got a shingleback lizard with a damaged claw, a koala with an eye infection and a carpet python –’ she looked over at the cage containing the large snake with a swollen belly – ‘who looks like his breakfast isn’t going down too well.’
    Dr Dianne tied her dark hair back into a ponytail and walked into the triage area, giving Bindi a tiredsmile. ‘Okay, we should be able to get them all done before the end of the day.’
    Bindi was concerned. ‘Who’s on call for tonight?’
    Dr Dianne tilted her head. ‘That would be me.’
    Bindi frowned. ‘But you were on call all last week too, weren’t you?’
    Dr Dianne nodded. ‘Well, that’s the way it is at the moment, I’m afraid.’
    Although Australia Zoo helped the wildlife hospital, the hospital had to rely on funds from the public as it received no government funding, apart from the odd local council grant. So there were times when there was enough money to buy supplies and equipment and to pay for extra help, and other times, like now, when there was not.
    Earlier on in the hot Queensland summer there’d been a spate of bushfires and, unsurprisingly, the numbers of injured wildlife increased dramatically during that time and for weeks afterwards, running down stocks of medication and equipment much faster than had been expected.
    Dr Dianne went over to the python’s cage, opened it and took out her next patient. ‘Oh, you poor thing. Don’t worry, we’ll have you feeling better in no time.’
    She grabbed the glasses from around her neck and put them on, taking a closer look at the python’s belly, feeling gently around the swelling. ‘Whatever you ate is certainly not getting broken down by your stomach acids.’
    Bindi checked the notes on her clipboard. ‘Oh,this may be why. The woman who found the snake in her chook house said a marble egg, the one she keeps in the nesting area to encourage the hens to lay there, has gone missing.’
    Dr Dianne looked the snake full in the face. ‘You ate a marble egg just because it smelled like a chicken?’
    The snake looked back, steely-eyed, obviously not willing to admit his mistake.
    â€˜Well, we all make bad decisions sometimes. Come with me, and we’ll sort you out.’
    Bindi smiled as Dianne took the python through to the operating theatre. She loved Dr Dianne, and loved to see her never-ending compassion for the constant stream of animals she looked after.