Napoleonic Exhile

The steps down into the basement were weathered grey, edges rounded from the years, looked slick and narrow.   Dangerous.   Scurrying in the dark shadows...  she aims the flashlight into the boxes and sees nothing.  "Come on, get out of there."

The ferret had never listened to her before, and was not about to just then...  he had never managed to make it all the way down from her apartment to the basement before.   From the sound of his running and jumping, he was having a ball.

She has three cats who have been wanting to eat the ferret since she was forced to bring it home, for the weekend, to help out a friend who gave her fifty bucks.   She could, she knows,   just get the big old orange Tom and let him hunt down the ferret.    This search of hers would be over in minutes, she could return to her life...   She could just call and leave a message on her friends machine, and forget about this musky chapter in her young life.  She knew she wouldn't.... couldn't...  she began could hear him in the corner, doing something ...  he doesn't run as she approaches.   She looks behind a pile and see's him clawing at a box, trying to dig a hole.   He just looks at her as she reaches down, gets a grip on the thin torso and lifts him.  

The woman never comes back to pick up the ferret.   The phone number ends up being disconnected.   No shelters would take them, except those which killed, and she was not about to do that to any animal.  Ten days later and ferret is pretty much her responsibility. 

 She had nothing against ferrets, and this one, Samson, grew on her everyday.   Anything living did.