Dear Ferret Folks- For those of you off-line during the weekend, there was a part twelve yesterday. A- **************************************************************** As we rejoin our story....It is late in the afternoon, on the day of the big Flea Market.Evening was coming, and with it the heavy dew. The tents and shade structures were coming down, and the unsold goods were being repackaged. Crates and boxes were being tucked back into cars and vans and pick-ups. Tarps were being lifted up from the grass and being folded. Small, tired hoomin children whined, and *vhemently* denied that they were tired! The talk turned to what would be had for dinner, and how much had been made that day. And at lot 72.... There was a battered green and yellow John Deere 1020 tractor, now parked in full shade as the sun had swung around and the shade from the hemlocks had followed suit. Beneath it there was a reclining sheep, contentedly chewing. The second and final Border Collie Exhibition had finished up an hour before, and his head was only a little damp. The carefully paw-lettered signs had been gathered into a neat stack just a few minutes before, and the dog, the Noble Allis Chompers, had picked the entire stack up in her mouth and was off looking for a convenient trash can to dispose of them in. The (borrowed!) kiddie wading pool had been tipped over and emptied of water, and now rested inside the tractor's bucket. Behind the tractor (and the sheep) just out of hoomin sight there was a small circle of animals huddled together, and a box of money. Literally. A *box* of dollar bills. The First Otter took them from the box one at a time and counted them out loud, and the Second Otter stacked them neatly in piles of twenty. Ping and Puma watched the process with interest, but Sterling the cat was distracted and sleepy. He simply wanted to get the loud, horrid ride home over with. France was curled up in her soft towel, but every now and again she was overheard to chuckle, and say simply "Dat Sheeep!" By now everyone was over that magic, inexplicable manic burst of the giggles that had overtaken the group earlier, and the mood was all business. The counting continued. Finally the First Otter looked up and said "By my calculation, we have eight dollars more than will be necessary to buy and ship the necessary part!" At that, everyone was silent, considering. It had been a long day. A very long day for everyone. There had been no naps, and no kibble. They had dealt with many strange hoomins, and taken many big risks. And the day was not over, yet. Ping and Puma looked at one another. They often squabbled, but they were the dearest of friends.They shared a hammie, and nobody could say where one's soft fur ended on the hanging square of fleece and the other's began. They shared many confidences in the darkness and the peace of the cage. They ran riot in the house together during Out Time, overturning cups, the bathroom wastebasket, wrestling on the hoomin's bed among the tangled blankets. Today had been a great risk, indeed. Neither of them, and none of the Brothers and Sisters in Fur assembled together had really taken a moment and sat down to voice how great the risks were that they had taken. It was a thing that was known, but not discussed. It is difficult to wear fur in the larger hoomin world. Very difficult, sometimes. Ping looked at Puma and she returned his gaze without turning away. Hoomins speak of "the pursuit of happiness." They don't seem to find it any easier among themselves than the Brotherhood and Sisterhood in Fur do among them. Hoomins are...complicated and complicating. The moment ended and Allis Chompers headed home through the woods with the Sheep, who was looking forward to free, unfettered access to the hoomin's vegetable garden. He said that he had spent most of the day deciding in what order he would devour it. The green beans, apparently, were going to go first. The Otters gently lifted France up into the tractor's bucket while she said a few choice things about how she should be placed relative to the wading pool, and something incomprehensible about "feng shui." "Delightful creature!" muttered the Second Otter. "Yes, perfectly delightful!"agreed his generally more assertive brother. Sterling the cat, still smelling faintly of Sharpie marker leaped up into the bucket himself, and the Otters followed. Ping and Puma started the tractor with very little difficulty, and began the long roll home. One Volvo station wagon waiting in the line of cars to exit the Flea Market's grounds did drive into the bushes when the operator got a good look at just *who* was driving the tractor, but nobody was injured, and soon the gathering evening gave way to true night-fall, ending the possibility of just that sort of mishap. And the tractor, one headlight on, one off, rolled home in the breakdown lane. Soon enough, the tractor pulled onto the dirt and gravel road that lead to their destination. 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!" More Tomorrow Alexandra in Ma [Posted in FML 5726]