Our scene opens in the Sargent-Colburn kitchen, *on* the kitchen floor,
actually, in the darkest part of the night.  All is quiet, and still.
The refrigerator hums quietly in the corner.  Suddenly--a scampering
noise is heard.  It is the sound of ferret feet padding across the
linoleum of the kitchen floor.  The padding stops in front of the lower
cabinet doors, and suddenly there is a BAD noise....the sound of pots
and pans and metal lids shifting against one another, and spilling out
onto the floor.  Then...silence.  The hoomins shift in their hammie,
but do not wake up.The noise is too far away to be that bothersome.
 
The Noble Allis Chompers, however, the Dog of the House hears
*everything*.  She slouches out of her velvety green armchair in the
living room and pads into the kitchen to investigate, toenails clicking
on the linoleum.  She stands and watches quietly, ears up and head cocked
to one side in wonder, as an upside-down medium sized saucepan slowly
starts inching across the kitchen floor, away from the open cabinet.  A
few inches, a foot...it moves in a jerkey stop and start motion until it
comes to rest against the oven door.  It can go no farther.
 
Allis walks up to it unhesitatingly, her eyebrows raised dots of
suspicion, and gently sniffs at its base.  Aha.  It was as she suspected.
She says quietly to the saucepan "I don't understand ferrets.  What are
you doing under there?" The tinny voice of Ping is He can be heard in
reply: "I'm hiding, Dude.  Go away."
 
At that moment, Puma launches herself over the plexiglass barrier to the
Ferret Room, and lands on the Kitchen floor with a muffled "Oomph!"  She
pads over to the saucepan, stops, and says "Come out of there, Ping.
Sukie isn't going to kill you."
 
The Tinny voice replies "The Crandall is making *death threats*, Dude!  I
read it on the FML!"
 
Allis Chompers looked at Puma, and in an especially sardonic canine way
that displayed more than a hint of ancestral wolf, said merely "Do tell."
 
Puma rolled her eyes and said "Personality conflict."
 
Ping interjected tinnily from beneath the saucepan "It is not!  The
Crandall flies through the night with her wattles and drops textbooks
like bombs from her talons.  You could be squashed flat!  Your guts
would squirt out like toothpaste, Dude!"
 
Puma sighed deeply, closed her eyes and said quietly "Don't call me
Dude."
 
Allis Chompers turned tail, looked back over her shoulder at Puma, and
said simply "Good luck." Then she padded out of sight, back in the
direction of the living room.
 
Puma stood and looked at the upside-down saucepan for a long time.  She
could hear Ping is He breathing beneath it.  Finally she said.  "If I
were you, I'd hide under the TURKEY pan.  Only because we don't have a
DODO pan..  Goodnight." Then she, too, turned tail, and headed for her
bed.
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5163]