It is late at night in the Sargent-Colburn household.  The hoomins are
asleep in their bed.  The hob hoomin snores, gently.  The dog, the Noble
Allis Chompers has once again found a way to slither into the bed,
beneath the covers, on the hobs side of the bed.  She, too, snores
gently.  The hob's wife's butt has no covers, because the hob and the
dog have most of them.( There are reasons why she sleeps in flannel
nightgowns)  She whines a little in her sleep, and tugs on the blanket
she can see clearly in her dreams.
 
It is quiet.  The refrigerator humms softly to itself in the kitchen, and
though, sometimes, two ferrets used to crouch beneath the kitchen table
on nights like this to talk about, oh, everything...there is only one
ferret under there now.  She looks out the window at the stars, sees the
bare early spring branches bend in the breeze, and cries, just a little
bit, to herself.
 
One sound starts up very suddenly in the closet of the ferret room.  This
is the kingdom of France, the Fricken' Pigmy Hedgehog, and in the deepest
night, her 'day' begins.  Hedgehogs are nocturnal, you know.  We can hear
the pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter of her feet in her gigantic purple
plastic exercise wheel.  For hours, every night, she runs in her wheel,
feeling the breeze blow over her whiskers, she falls into a trace state,
and in her mind she scurries beneath an African moon, in search of big
crunchy bugs.  It is necessary for her to meditate in this fashion, for
spiritual reasons.  The squeal of the wheel's axle really used to *iss
off her ferret neighbors, just on the other side of the closet door's
plexiglass barrier.
 
There is a thump, and France freezes, the clusters of little brown
spikes above her eyes bristle in fury, and her wheel rocks in place
a few times with it's momentum.  She swings in the bottom of it like a
pendulum.  Ah, it is only that thief, Lily, returning to the ferret
room.  (All of those ferrets are thieves.) France relaxes, her spikes
come to lie flat and smooth against her head once again.  She resumes
her run.  Pitter-pitter-pitter-pitter....ah, she can just see the horns
of the moon now, risen above the savannah like the horns of an enormous
antelope....and there is BUG!  A crunchy, fat BUG just (sniff)....
huh?....(sniff-sniff)....sniff?
 
France mumbles to herself, "But 'oo iss it 'oo iss cryin...Oh, it iss
that thief, zee Lily, cryin in her nessstin' box." France sighs deeply.
The things that a Hog must put up with, living as she does in such
inferior company.  (Thieves, every last one of them.)
 
"Hey, thief!", France calls out from her closet.  "Come over 'ere,
thief."
 
Very slowly, Lily exits the long aluminum dryer vent hose that leads to
her nesting box.  It is the only way in, or out, of the comforting, dark
box.  "Heeeee," she says, softly.  Her whiskers are wet.
 
"Thief," says France, " I doo not like your kind, thief.  Youuu are too
long, too much neck, you smell like socksss..You 'ave no culture, and
I would bite youu for zose terrible 'tings you say about zat geniuss,
Jerry Lewiss, who has won zee Medal of Honor from zee greatful' nation
of France....but come 'ere, closer, so we cannn talk without zee
shouuutin'..."
 
Lily quietly pads over to the plexiglass barrier that divides her kingdom
from France's.  Ferret and Hog regard one another, nearly nose to nose,
separated only by the thin barrier.  "Thief, I am worry about youuu...I
tell you a 'ting.  I know iss 'been 'ard, dat terrible dog,..., but ze
hoomins, who also 'aff no culture, an' drink no great French wine even zo
zey haff opposable thunbs an' can open zee bottles, zey goin' to bring
you a frien', soon.  Zey 'dopting him at zee shelter.  I 'ere it today,
when I get up to poop.  I 'ere zem talkin' about it."
 
Lily's butt slowly sinks to the ground, as her back legs collapse beneath
her, seemingly in slow motion.  Her jaw drops, and all that comes out of
her open mouth is something like" ???hhhh????"  Not even "heee", just
"hhhh?"
 
"Oui", says France.  "A fren' for you.  Maybe two, tree weeks.  So you
got to stop cryin', an' eat morrre food.  I be your fren' till he come.
Only till den, because you still barbarian, and you 'aff no culture, and
I 'ate youuu very much, I 'ate all you theif ferrets.  Come 'ere.  You
never tell, no?  Or I dig my way out of 'ere an I **** in your nessstin'
box.."
 
 
So France lay herself down along the plexiglass barrier, and Lily moved
over to lie down against France from Lily's side of the barrier, and they
shared their body heat through the plexiglass, through the long night.
 
And if you ever tell, France will deny it, and come **** in your nesting
box, you hoomin barbarian!
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 4832]