• In the usual families, everyone has at least one family pet. A little source of hope when something bad happens. Someone special that makes you feel better. Someone to complain to when other humans are being the biggest bag of doo-doo on the market. But what would happen if your life ended and you couldn’t look after someone so wonderful? Well, this is what happened to Mr. Yasashi. He died, and his little ball of sunshine had nowhere else to go… Sad, isn’t it?

    “TIA!!! BRITZ IS ON THE PHONE!!!”

    Tia flipped out of her medium-sized bed and scrabbled to her door. I wonder what she wants, she thought. She leaped down the stairs and grabbed the phone from her mother. “Hi Britz! What’s up?”

    Her best friend’s name was actually Julia, but she liked to be called Britz. Tia had been friends with her since she was eight, and they had been best friends ever since.

    “Oh my gosh! I found the most perfect thing for you at my dad’s uncle’s neighbor’s house! It’s AMAZING and fits you perfectly! Do you want it?!”

    Tia paused for a moment. Britz had always liked getting her things from random people and places. The last thing her wonderful friend had got her was a spiked flower toe ring from an old Asian soda bottle. “Okay. When do I get to see it?”

    Suddenly the door bell rang; Tia almost dropped the phone.

    “One moment Britz. Some one is at the door.” She put the phone to her chest –hopefully Britz didn’t mind the sound of her heartbeat- and walked to the door. She opened it slowly.

    “And that someone is me! The marvelous Julia!” Britz hollered. She bowed happily and was standing beside a box. Tia stared at the box ignoring her overacting friend.

    “Oh my…” She stared back at her friend. Her excitement began to grow. “YOU GOT ME A BOX!” She squealed. “I always wanted one!” She stopped jumping and crossed her arms. “We only have fifty in the house! How could you think of getting me a box!?”

    Britz stared at Tia in shocked confusion. She blinked a few times then leaned back dramatically. “Me?! Get you, my best friend ever, a box?!” She leaned forward and pointed her finger. “What do you think I am? Crazy?” She huffed and grabbed the box carefully.

    Britz pushed her way past Tia, and into the living room. “Now my dad’s uncle’s neighbor’s roommate just died, so he had to give this little baby away.”

    She leaned over the box and started to take it apart. “This one smells so good! Normal people think these things smell awful, but I think they smell amazing!”

    Tai paused to think what on earth it could be. Then it came to her. “You got me cheese?”

    Britz snorted and reached into the box. “No silly!” She pulled out a wiggly tube of fur. “I got you a ferret!”

    The little creature in Britz’s hand was small, about the length of someone’s forearm. It had an Oreo cookie colored pelt, with cream colored mask, chest, and pads. Fangs were sticking out of its mouth, and its eyes were beady black, glancing around the room every second, taking in all it could.

    “Let’s take it upstairs!” Britz cooed. She smiled wildly as the ferret squirmed into what looked to be a more comfortable position.



    Upstairs, Britz let the ferret out of her grasp gently on the floor. The little creature stood still for a moment, then started to pad across the room. It had a arched back, its center perhaps higher than its head was held. Its tail wiggled behind it as it padded, adding more rhythm to the little ‘pad pad, pad pad’ of its feet.

    “Isn’t it cute?”

    Tia stared at the little creature some more, then a question popped up in her mind. “What gender is it?”

    Britz snorted. “A male silly!”

    The little ferret padded up to Tia’s sneakers and stared at them. He lifted his head up a little higher till he could see the other side of the shoe. He padded closer and then plopped into the sneaker, seeming to smile the whole way into it.

    Tia gasped and lurched forward, only to be held back by a warm hand.

    “Let him explore, Tia! He just got here you know!”

    Then the scratching started. The little creature had flipped over onto its back and started to rip the sneaker to shreds from inside out.

    “Ferret! That’s my shoe!” Tia yelled, waving her arms in anger.

    A little head poked out of the shoe and stared at something. From what the girls could tell, the bed. After a moment of that, he gurgled a strange melody and crawled out of the previously interesting ripped shoe. Tia bent over the little weasel and picked up her ruined foot holder.

    “Its alright… Just… I think it’s a size bigger now!”

    Britz’s gaze followed the ferret as it scurried under the bed. “You know… The little thing needs a name… His past owner, Mr. Yasashi, died a few weeks ago. That’s where I got this little fella; Mr. Yasashi. Anyway, Mr. Yasashi called him Joey Gay.”

    Tia’s eyes widened and she dropped her shoe. “Gay?! Like in boy-on-boy?”

    Britz almost fell over laughing. “Not that kind of gay! Who would name their ferret that?”

    Tia thought for a moment and opened her mouth to say something.

    “Never mind. The gay he is named after is the happy gay. Get it? Joey Happy?”

    Tia blinked. Joey Happy? She stared at the little tube of fur. Yeah… Happy… He must be the happiest ferret in the world to be able to rip up what ever crossed his path… Speaking of which…

    “WHY YOU LITTLE~ GET AWAY FROM THAT SHIRT!”

    Joey was currently biting and scratching Tia’s favorite purple shirt and having a gay time at doing it.

    Tia charge at Joey and ripped the shirt out of his fangs. Or tried to, since the little weasel was dangling off of it. “LET GO!” Tia yelled.

    She whipped the shirt to her bed and Joey came flying off, then ‘fwumped’ back on it. Suddenly Joey stared to do twists and turns in the air, jumping up and down on the bed, making little ‘er er er’ sounds. Still making the crazy sound, he leaped off of the bed and raced to another shirt ripping it and clawing it

    Tia roared. “STAY AWAY FROM THOSE!”

    The same routine happened a few times: Tia flinging Joey to the bed, him getting all spazy, then flying off to claw up another shirt. In this time of annoyance and crazy dances, Britz started to notice something threw her laughter. “You know... I think he is playing with you.”

    Tia froze in her position. If that was true, then this annoying habit would of made much more sense. She turned her head to see Joey falling off of the bed once more to attack a different shirt. That must be part one of the game, she thought.

    She grabbed the shirt and twirled it around a few times. This time, when Joey fwumped down on her mattress and danced, Tia smiled. It was a game, and now that she realized he wasn’t trying to make her go to school shirtless, she thought it was rather funny.

    However, when Joey came back to another shirt, Tia ignored him. He bit the color, wiggled in and out of the sleeves, chewed through the back, and even dragged the shirt a few feet back. But Tia still wouldn’t budge!

    Joey sighed a little ferret-y sigh and padded underneath Tia’s long blue table. There were a LOT of things under this that caught Joeys attention, but only for a moment. Then he saw something extremely interesting. He padded up to it and gave it a good sniff. From what he could see, it was triangular, white, and had a little square on the bottom of it. He decided to sink his teeth into it, and whoa, it was wonderful! Chewy, soft, enough resistance to bite into it many times. It was perfect!

    Joey padded from under the table with the white thing still in his mouth and noticed the two girl on their knees in search for something. He couldn’t tell what it was, so he just started dancing around playing with his new toy.

    Something gasped from behind him.

    “Tia! Joey has your onigiri eraser!”

    Tia leaped up from her position on the floor and grabbed Joey by the scruff. “Bad ferret! You can’t have that!”

    Joey released the eraser and it plopped on the floor.

    Tia gently put him on the ground and tickled him. “Sorry little fella. You just can’t have this. It is my favorite. I have plenty of others that you can have. But just not this one.” Tia got back onto her feet and began to scuffled through her drawers. As she was doing that, Britz leaned over Joey and pointed a finger at him.

    “I can tell what you’re trying to do.”

    Joey seemed to raise his little ears in curiosity.

    Britz smiled. “I think you’re trying to make her like you!” She winked. “Keep at it, kiddo!”

    “Found one!” Tia lifted a bright pink eraser into the air. She smiled down at her friend and then to Joey; They both stared at her expectantly.

    Tia leaned down to give Joey the eraser. He stared at it and turned his head away. A second later, he was padding out the door.

    Tia and Britz stared at each other.

    “Maybe he doesn’t want another eraser.”

    “Maybe he doesn’t like pink!”

    Right when Britz opened her mouth to respond and heard a scream.

    The girls stared at each other again.

    “It wasn’t me!”

    “Me either, and I’m pretty sure ferrets don’t scream.... So it must be....”

    “Mom!” Tia dashed out of her room and charged into her mom’s room.

    Joey was leaning against a chair staring in curiosity at the tall woman screaming above him.

    “IT’S A RAT! A FURRY SLINKY RAT! GET IT AWAY!” Tia’s mother screamed.

    Tia raised her hands. “Mom! It’s okay! Its just a fair-rat! A cute calm little fair-rat!”

    “That’s spelled f-e-r-r-e-t.” Britz stated, looking from behind Tia, seeing a full grown woman act like something as big as her foot might be able to end her life.

    “IT STILL LOOKS LIKE A RAT AND HAS ‘RAT’ IN ITS NAME!!!”

    “Ferrets eat rats, Mrs. Tia’s mom.”

    Tia’s mom glared at Britz. “Yes, thank you for telling me, now will you please GET IT OUT OF HERE?! THERE WILL BE NO RODENTS IN THIS HOUSE!”

    “Actually, ferrets are in the weasel~”

    “Julia!”

    “Alright!” Britz left the room, muttering something probably only Joey could hear.

    Tia sighed and held out a hand. “Mom, will you please stop screaming and get off of the chair?”

    Her mother looked from her daughter’s offered hand to the little creature staring at her feet.”A-Alright...”

    Now Joey, who was extremely amused by how high the woman stepping over him could scream, thought it would be great fun to explore every inch of the house. So far he had only explored Tia’s room and the hallway, now a new door way was in his sight. It was grey, was dark, and moved.

    Tias mother all of a sudden started screaming again, and Tia sounded like she was trying to calm her historical mother down. Britz came back into the room to see the mother jumping up and down on one foot, kicking the other crazily, with her arms flying; Tia running around trying to make her mom stop attempting to break her heels, and strangely enough no Joey!

    “Is everything all right?” Britz asked innocently.

    Just as the other two were about to respond, a tube of fur shot out of Tias mother’s pant leg and landed hard in the bed.

    Joey didn’t feel very well. He flopped over on a bunch of pillows and stared across the room to try to keep the room from spinning. Tia was yelling at her mother, her mother was on the ground rubbing her leg, and Britz was on the ground laughing. After a couple minutes, the two family members stopped yelling and Britz was now only snickering.

    Tia helped her mother off of the ground, but continued to stare at it. “So... Can we keep him?”

    Her mother glared at her. “Are you serious! There is no way we are keeping that thing after what it did to me! It could bit your finger off! It is a danger to the family! Get rid of it!”

    While Tia’s mom had been yelling, Joey had some how gotten off of the bed –which was much taller than Tia’s- and had wobbled to the door. He could smell the anger in the air, along with something that smelled like salt, and had decided to get away from this place.

    “Fine! We won’t keep him!” Tia yelled with tears in her eyes. She stomped out of the room and slammed the door. She stared down at Britz and Joey who were both looking at her strangely. She sucked in a deep breath and smiled. “Let go get something to eat.”



    In the kitchen, Joey had found all soars of nooks and crannies to hide in. The place under the glass tank with the floating snacks was nice to hide under, but it frustrated him that he couldn’t get to the fish. When Tia had opened a secret door, Joey found out all of the human snacks that was hit inside. There were rainbow colored stuff, and stuff that was really hard that would probably break his teeth, stuff that smelled great, and stuff that was fun to rip apart.. If this wasn’t a happy day, Joey wouldn’t know what it would be!

    Tia and Britz were leaning up against the counter drinking some Sprite and chips watching Joey attack Tia’s fish tank and pantry.

    Britz looked at Tia with sad eyes and asked, “Are you all right?”

    Tia frowned and gulped down some of her Sprite. “Mom wants me to get rid of Joey…”

    Britz nodded and sighed. “I probably should of asked before I brought him over… He just seemed so perfect and I thought you two would of loved him.”

    “Mom is used to cats. Not weasels,” She laughed.

    Suddenly, a crashing sound was heard and the two girls whipped their heads to the direction it was heard.

    It was Joey, and he had somehow gotten the bags of dried fruit to fall onto him. He wiggled out of the health food mass, and started to pad to the living room. The girls gaze followed him until his little tail disappeared underneath the couch.

    Tia leaped away from the counter, chucked her drink away to be caught by Britz, and kneeled beside the cough to look underneath. She could see little paws scurrying around, but she knew she couldn’t reach him.

    “Dang it… If I can’t get him out, mom will be soo angry with me! He is suppose to be gone, not playing in the furniture!”

    Little did Tia know, Joey had gotten out on the other side of the couch and was now padding to the toys bin. He leaned over it to see what was inside, but nothing amused him. So, he leaped away and crawled under another very low table. Once he was under, he heard pounding and whipped around. He could see Tia’s face staring at him with frustration in her eyes. Joey smiled a ferret-y smile and padded deeper under table.

    “JOEY! Get out here NOW!”

    Joey just mumbled this little melody and padded on. He turned around and saw the knees of Tia.

    “Britz!” Tia’s voice hollered. “He’s being stubborn! He won’t come!”

    Joey heard a laughing. “Well, yeah! Haven’t you heard? Ferrets are like puppies! They are curious and get into everything! Also like puppies, they can be taught tricks and can even the litter box!”

    Joey nodded his head in agreement. He could use the littler box, and he did in fact know tricks. ‘Role over’, ‘stay’, and ‘retrieve’. He, however, didn’t care for Tia that much at the moment, so he wouldn’t listen to her.

    While spaced out, Joey tripped over something hard. It looked like a small orange tube with two gold pieces at the end. Joey bit it and it was rather hard. Joey suddenly remembered a game like this at Mr. Yasashi’s house, and decided to take the tube from under the table. The rules were simple. Take something from under something else, and put it in someplace where Mr. Yasashi could find it. Since his master wasn’t here for some strange reason, Joey decided to put the tube in the box he came in. After the item clunked at the bottom of the box, Joey decided to go back under the table. This time he found something soft, black, and rectangular. He pulled it with him by the long string that it was attached to and put it in the box as well.

    After his few trips form the table to the box, Joey had found; a small gold ball, a long piece of blue wood, and a fluffy thing with strange powder at the end.

    Joey was really happy with what he found, but then a feeling suddenly hit him hard.

    “Tia! Look at what Joey found!” Britz called.

    Tia looked away from Joey, who was racing into the kitchen, to Britz. She was pointing at the box.

    “Whoa… I can’t believe he found all of that!”

    “Me either…”

    “Who found what?” Both of the girls jumped. It was Tia’s mom who had just walked into the room.

    “Uhh… Joey?”

    “Joey who?”

    Tia became really nervous. “The, uhh, ferret?”

    Her moms face turned red. “I told you to get rid of it!”

    “But he has found all of the things you lost!” Tia said as she pointed at the box.

    Her mom looked in the box. It was true. Her favorite pen, purse, earring, pencil, and makeup brush. “Wow… Sneaky little fellow…”

    “He’s like a puppy…” Britz said. “And he knows tricks! Like how to use the litter box!”

    Tia’s mom thought for a moment, then looked behind her. Joey had come from the kitchen and was now wobbling to the box. He climbed inside and curled up in a ball.

    They all smiled.

    “It’s his happy place…” Tia’s mom said.

    “No…” Britz said.

    “It’s his Gay Box!”