The Outcast

by Lily
(Ridgefield, Washington)

One day I was strolling through the Hazel Dell Petco when the ferrets caught my eye.

“I want that one,” I told my dad, pointing to a dark sable one. All the others were sleeping, but he just seemed to sense my presence. “Mom won’t like a one of those smelly weasels,” he said, and we left, ferretless.

I returned a few months later and I asked if I could take out the ferret. He squirmed in my arms, and I put him back, disappointed. However, the one I had always seen sleeping, not playing like the other sable ferrets, was the albino Marshall.

The store had stocked Marshalls, Canadians, and then decided Marshalls would make better pets (Canadians are mean, eh?).

This one was calm when I cradled it in my arms, and nibbled at my fingers softly and playfully instead of the more ferocious blunt nip of the dark sable.

He understood me. His pink eyes stared past my jade, into my soul. He was an outcast compared to the others, with coats of dark sable. I was one too, a ginger, alone, virtually friendless.

I read a Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin is by far the BEST author ever), so I had already compiled a few names for my new friend, Baelor, Ghost, my soulmate.