Sent to:  Sandy Weaver - Deem who wrote:
 
.....the beautiful inlayed chest in its small stubby fins.
Christianaferret stared transfixed at it, that is until the Snap-Fish
groused at her and said, "Stop gawking at it like some foolish kit and
take it!", to which Christianaferret, troubles temporary forgotten,
rushed forward to relieve the Snap-Fish of its gift - which did indeed
smell a tad bit fishy she thought.  "It is so beautiful." she said, as
her nimble little paws traced over the well crafted cameos on its lid.
"it may also be an answer to your prayers as well.' said the Snap-Fish.
 
"How so?" questioned Christianaferretet.  "Well aside from it being a
priceless work of art, it also possess the ability to answer any question
you would put to it." the Snap-Fish said.  Christianaferret looked from
the chest to the Snap-Fish and asked, "How?" "How should I know silly
girl, I am only good at repeating the facts and doing as I have been
ordered to do!", and with that, the Snap-Fish left in one great S N A P .
"That is a very odd fish." thought Christianaferret, and with the
Snap-Fish gone she turned back her attention to the chest in her hands.
She then walked over toher hammock and climbed in, got comfy and began
looking the chest over.  It really was beautiful.  It had all of these
beautiful inlays which depicted a forest at spring time, and on its lid
were two ferret cameos.  After she was through admiring it, she looked
for a way to open it, she looked first for a lock, but found nothing, she
then looked for hinges, thinking she could take out the pins and open it
that way, but found no hinges either.  It seemed to be sealed as if by
magic.  So, to no one in particular she said.  " So how do I open you?"
and as the last word was spoken, two twin voices, from the two twin
cameos said, " A question you must ask if you seek to find answers
within."
 
This startled poor Christianaferret so badly that she zoomed from her
hammy, to the other end of her room, in a nano-second.  When nothing else
failed to happen, she did her best to finger comb down the bottle brush
effect that resulted from the scare of hearing the chest speak.  Walked
back over to her hammie, and curiously peered in at the chest.  She
thought about the question she might ask, but then as one question came,
so did a dozen others, and all of them had to do with her up and coming
nuptials.  She slid down to the floor and further thought, "Now I must
not squander my questions either, because what if this chest is like
that genies bottle I read about, and I can only have so many to ask?"
 
After a few more minutes of deep thought, she climbed back into her
hammy and said, in a nice clear voice," If after I marry the Dook of
Cornish Hen, and have made my father, and his Dookdum happy and secure,
will I myself be happy too?"
 
And again, after she uttered her last word, there was a noise, not the
twin voices as before, but more of a click and then a whirl, and then
the lid of the chest popped up a bit.
 
Christianaferret laughed with glee and then gently opened the chest.
Inside she found a note attached to a bundle of what appeared to be
old cloth.  She read the note which simply stated "If answers to your
question you seek to find, you must go out and live among your own kind."
She thought this quite strange and set the note aside in order to see
what was in the bundle of cloth, but upon shaking it out, she found
not cloth, but a bodice, a chemise, two skirts and a pair of well worn
sandals - very much like the outfits of the working class, and an idea
occurred to her.....
 
To be continued
[Posted in FML issue 4907]