Dear Ferret Folks--
I am sorry for the long gap between installments. We have had an
illness in the house. Someone with four legs is sick, and that's
always harder than someone with two.
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As we rejoin our story....It is Sunday, the day of the big Flea Market.
Little colorful shade structures and tents have popped up here and
there, and hoomins have been carefully arranging their wares atop
folding card tables in the lots they have rented for the day. Racks of
clothing appear, and cardboard boxes of vinyl record albums. Rainbow
jumbles of plastic toddler toys are placed upon blankets spread in the
grass, and are quickly joined by tottering stacks of worn paperback
books. Romances. Westerns. Microwave Meal Magic. Learn Spanish! Invest
in Alpaca. The Search for the Aliens Among Us. Wooden crates of curious
bits of brass hardware and incomplete socket wrench sets are unloaded
from the back of heavily laden pick-up trucks. Packs of children run
between the tables, yelling, and are angrily cautioned to slow down, to
no great effect. The sky is blue, the sun is golden, and rising into a
sky fringed with pine and hemlock all around.
Allis Chompers and the Sheep were *extremely* hot after the sucessful
Border Collie demonstration. As the dollars fluttered into the honour
box from the duly impressed hoomins, the Sheep, a no-nonsense sort
of charachter simply walked up to the Otter's kiddie wading pool and
dunked his entire wooly head into the cool water. The Otters were left
sputtering with outrage, and quickly splashed their way out of the pool
and onto the green grass it rested upon. Their whiskers stuck out stiff
from their faces like broom straws with their paired indignation.The
Sheep raised his head from the water and simply dripped, un-ashamed. He
took a step forward so that both front feet were in the pool and dunked
his head again, this time blowing bubbles from his soft nostrils.Then
he once again raised his dripping head, backed up and made the short
knock kneed walk to the patch of shade beneath the tractor and sat
down beneath it, his head still streaming.
A mirthful hissing could be heard from the rare pigmy porcupine. The
Porcupine actually fell over on her little side laughing, helpless,
something *nobody* who had ever known her had ever witnessed, and Ping
and Puma in their guise as rare black Russian minks had to hide their
smiles behind their sooty paws rather than risk offending the Otters
even further. The endangered Ocelot, who was beginning to smell a lot
like a Sharpie pen in the sun found himself grinning simply seeing
the little "Porcupine" laugh! Everybody knew that France could snarl,
whine, curse (especially curse) and complain, but *belly laugh*? She
lay on her little side next to her paw lettered sign advising that she
not be touched and said weakly "Dee sheeep! Dee sheeep!"
A hoomin onlooker said to his companion "Is the porcupine having a fit?
It is awful hot out here in the sun."
France looked over at the Sheep again. He was still sitting gravely
beneath the tractor, flicking drops of water from the ends of his small
ears with his customary grave expression. France began to laugh even
harder and tiny, tiny tears started to roll down her face. Her little
back feet kicked and pinwheeled with it as if she were riding an
invisible bicycle. Ping and Puma did not even dare look at one another,
realizing that they would completely lose it, but weasels are fun
loving by nature and they slipped up. They made eye contact and they
both snorted, then made a few slow, lazy war dance hops. A little
dooking was heard. Ping bounced into Sterling the endangered Ocelot and
that got Sterling giggling. He tried to control it, but he made the
fatal mistake of looking over at the Sheep, who at that moment had a
crystal bead of water hanging pendulously from the end of his soft dark
nose. Sterling bent over double, laughing the breathy, shallow laughs
of a cat.
The hoomin onlooker now said to his companion "And that Ocelot has a
hairball something awful!"
Allis Chompers was doing her absolute best not to giggle, not even
once. She was a noble animal, indeed, and was succeeding. until
she looked over at France, who raised her tiny head and said in as
sheeplike a voice as she could muster "Maah!" At that Allis found
her lips rising up from her teeth in a huge grin she was helpless to
repress, and she looked away, desperate not to make eye contact with
the Sheep.
The Otters merely stood there side by side, fisted paws on hips,
clearly exasperated by the entire episode. The First Otter said in
exasperation "Are you all quite through now?"
Ping answered in as deep a voice as he could muster "Maah!" And it
began all over.
And dollars fluttered into the honour box.
More Tomorrow.
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML 5725]
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