As we rejoin our story...It is full evening, and the John Deere 1020
tractor is returning (gingerly! with it's cracked axle to the
Sargent-Colburn household. It carries a tired former ocelot who smells
a lot like a sharpie pen, two former Black Russian minks who have
discussed the wisdom of simply jumping into the hoomin's toilet to wash
off the soot, two otters who have decided that to save money they will
hitch-hike back to the Ecotarium in Worcester, and one small sort-of
porcupine who spent her *whole* sleep cycle awake instead of asleep.
This did nothing to improve her naturally cheery disposition.

This band with the blue plastic (borrowed!) kiddy wading pool jammed
in the great dimpled iron bucket of the tractor arrived at the end of
their driveway...And there...was something that nobody expected. A 1965
Garway motor home, all twenty feet of it was parked in the driveway.
The blue and silver (very nifty looking!) motor home that the hoomins
had gone away in for the weekend. They weren't supposed to be home for
*hours* yet. As France said quietly, muffled through a fold of her
towel, "Ah, merde!"

Yes, the hoomins had indeed come home early. In fact, the she hoomin
was sitting on the front step of the house in the yellow pool of light
from the two lamps flanking the front door. The house itself was dark,
otherwise, and the hob hoomin was nowhere to be seen. The she hoomin
had a fleece wrap around her shoulders to keep off the evening's chill.
She looked utterly, utterly unsurprised to see the tractor pull up
at the end of the driveway. In fact her expression was singularly
expressionless. She had seen too many things like this happen before.
And such things take their toll, on some level.

The tractor sat at the end of the driveway, and idled. The she hoomin
sat and watched it. Stalemate.

It is virtually impossible to have a conversation on a running tractor,
the engine is simply too loud to permit it. Accordingly, the otters
simply leapt out of the bucket and into the road, and from there
crashed away through the bushes lining the edges of the next door
neighbours yard. Who knew otters could move that quickly out of water!
But they did. And they didn't look back, not once.

Sterling the cat decided to follow their example, and likewise leapt
from the bucket with his singular feline grace and hit the ground
running. He disappeared into the thick tangle of mountain laurel and
hemlock by the side of the road and was not seen again for a full day
until hunger drove him back to his chow bowl. If he had been able to
catch a mouse or two to satisfy his appetite, he would have stayed
away *longer*.

The she hoomin stood up slowly and snugged her fleece wrap more tightly
around her shoulders. She slowly walked down the driveway to the idling
tractor. She walked over to the bucket and looked inside. There she saw
a brown cardboard shoebox with a red nylon wallet inside of it. The
wallet was obviously bulging with cash, unable to be zippered closed
all the way. She looked at that for a few moments and turned her gaze
upon the blue plastic wading pool, then the small towel with a bump
under it, wedged into the very corner of the bucket as if trying to be
invisible.

Her gaze swung over to the two small, very sooty ferrets behind the
wheel of the tractor. Puma was standing with her front paws lightly
draped over the bottom curve of the steering wheel. Ping stood close to
her on three feet, with one paw protectively wrapped around the cold
iron rod of the gear shift. Or he could have been using that paw to
keep himself from falling over in sheer terror, really, it wasn't quite
clear what his motivation was at that moment. The she hoomin loosened
her fleece wrap enough to allow her right arm some freedom. She then
simply reached past the ferrets with that one hand and turned the
tractor's ignition key to the 'off' position. The engine silenced at
once, and the silence was deafening. Deafening.

A minute passed. Two. Finally the she hoomin said "I'll have you know
my husband is down at the Police Station reporting this tractor as
being *stolen.*  Which it was. Wasn't it now."

The silence stretched out longer....Ping and Puma looked at the she
hoomin, and she returned their gaze, levelly. The she hoomin spoke
again. "I saw no reason to tell him *who* I suspected had stolen it.
Now get in the damn house with the dog. And I'm really mad about my
vegetable garden."

At that Ping and Puma, moving as one, *bolted* from behind the wheel of
the tractor, leapt to the dirt and gravel surface of the driveway and
ran to the front door of the house at a phenomenal rate of speed. Ping
thumped the wooden front door with his shoulder and it opened two
inches, it had not been closed tightly. In an instant both ferrets
disappeared into the darkened gloom of the house.

The she hoomin turned once again to the tractor's enormous iron bucket
and looked inside. She ignored the plastic pool, the box with the red
nylon wallet. Instead she reached both hands very carefully to the
towel in the corner with the little lump under it. She wrapped the
towel gently around the warm little lump as it hissed and hissed and
hissed. Finally she held the little bundle to herself, and tucked it
under her heart, arranging the fleece wrap around the two of them. She
spoke one final time as she turned back to the house and began the
walk to the slightly open front door.

"Well, old girl. I guess it's just you and me."

The End

This story is affectionately dedicated to the memory of France, the
Fricken' Pigmy Hedgehog, who just traveled the worn wooden planks of
the Rainbow Bridge, and for the very first time, finds that
*everything* is to her liking. *Everything.*

Alexandra in Ma

[Posted in FML 5728]