An alternate introduction for the Ferret of Inconvenience

Every time Julie drove in Boston, it reminded her of why so many people took public transportation instead. With nice symmetry, every time she took public transportation, it reminded her of why she owned a car. Today was a public transportation day.

[inconvenience filler]

Two plausibly studentlike figures were sitting on the steps, chatting – a lanky, skanky young man with a fedora and unwashed hair who looked generally pleased with himself, and a somewhat cleaner and more demure girl with thick-rimmed but stylish glasses. At least, her posture was more demure – as Julie trudged up the stairs through a haze of cigarette smoke, she noticed that the girl's eyes were very bright and alert, and that even though she was doing most of the listening, she seemed in fact to have the upper hand in the conversation. The man was scrambling through a waterfall of clearly unconvincing explanations as if his listener would vanish if he ever stopped to breathe – something about how he had to finish his doctoral program before something something. The girl just watched him with a small, calm smile.

Julie grinned to herself as she swung the library door open, musing on how it was that it could be possible to tell that an argument was entirely unconvincing without even knowing what was being said. The last thing she heard before it swung shut was the girl's voice, saying amiably but firmly, "Rasputin is not your archnemesis." Fortunately, the door slid back into place before they could hear her laugh.

The library was dark after the sunlight, and seemed to be cordoned off past the entranceway. Blinking, Julie reached for her consortium library card and held it out to the girl at the desk. The girl blinked back at her. All of a sudden, the awful obvious dawned on her: the reason Harvard hadn't been on her initial list of libraries was that Harvard was not part of the consortium, and didn't care what sort of external authority she could command. (Not that she commanded much in the way of authority anywhere, but at least she had a library card.)

She explained, as calmly as she could manage, why she was there, how she had been all over Boston already, and why she really, really needed a copy of this article. Finally, the girl – who was several years younger than her, clearly bored, and wearing flip-flops – gave her a series of paperwork to fill out and a sticker that said "Escorted Access", and informed her that the first-floor copy machine only operated with Harvard IDs, so she would have to go downstairs to Xerox her journal once she found it.

After some typical blundering, she found the journal and went to copy it downstairs, which was even darker than upstairs and full of tightly spaced shelves packed with books. After three tries, she figured out how to position the journal so that the photocopier captured all the text. Painstakingly, she separated out the good copies, compiled them in order, and turned to head back upstairs. Promptly, someone barreled into her and she dropped the whole thing.

The other person had evidently been carrying a heavy stack of books, which kept moving when he stopped, and slammed into her before ricocheting onto the floor. After an initial valiant attempt to keep her balance, Julie decided it was easiest just to fall over.

In a positively anomalous stroke of luck, she didn't actually fall on any books, rendering the experience far less uncomfortable than it could have been. For a minute she sat where she'd fallen, trying to regroup her thoughts and catch her breath. Eventually, she became aware that she was being apologized to profusely by the fedora-wearing student who had been sitting out front making excuses.

In addition to the fedora, he was dressed in rumpled clothes, calf-high boots, and wire-rimmed glasses, with dark hair and eyes that were a somehow incongruous shade of green. Fortunately, he seemed not to smell the way she might have imagined he would have. In fact, he seemed altogether cleaner than he had looked from a distance, making her wonder how much energy he put into seeming as unwashed as he did. She'd thought most grad students were over that sort of thing.

"It's all right," she said, picking herself slowly up off the floor. "You might want to be more careful next time, though."

"It wouldn't help," he said matter-of-factly. "But if it would make you feel better, I suppose I could try."

"Why don't you do that," she suggested. "Maybe circumstances will surprise you."

"Circumstances always surprise me," he said, collecting her papers and handing them to her. "But it still wouldn't help."

He set about picking up his own books, as she leafed through her papers to make sure they were all still there. Astonishingly, not only were they all there, but they were all in the original order – even the ones that had she had organized according to her own weird logic.

"How did you do that?" she asked.

"Do what?" he replied, retrieving the last of the books.

"Put my papers back in the order I had them in."

"Oh, that," he said, holding the door to the staircase for her. "I saw how they fell. This sort of thing happens a lot."

"How hard is it not to bump into people?" she asked.

"Easier for some than for others," he replied.

He thunked his books onto the counter to be dealt with by the girl at the desk, and Julie continued out into the sunshine, deciding against waiting around to see if the girl would be more polite to a fellow Harvard student. (She didn't look like the sort to be impressed by skanky grad students no matter where they were from, anyway.)

The sun was shining brightly now, and she was feeling considerably better about her day now that she'd at least accomplished something. Still, being talked down to by an undergraduate desk clerk was fundamentally irking in a way that the other frustrations of her day hadn't been, and part of her was in the mood to go in search of someone to complain to. (All of her was pretty sure this would be pointless.) And there was something nagging her about the grad student.

"Do you have everything?" a voice asked behind her. She realized that she was standing staring at her sheaf of photocopies. She looked up at the aforementioned grad student, who stepped up next to her, blinking hard and shielding his eyes from the sunlight.

"I think so," she said.

"Good to hear," he said, continuing to squint. "You were looking a little bit intense there. I really am sorry about before. I hope I didn't make it sound like I wasn't trying not to cause trouble, or anything."

"No worries," she replied. "I was just plotting cosmic revenge against Harvard for their library policies."

He laughed. "Those are definitely not my fault! For one thing, they do serve a good purpose."

"How often do they have problems with books being stolen by students of other area universities?" she demanded.

"I don't know about that," he said, setting his books down on the sidewalk and rummaging around in his pocket for something. "But they do get a lot of books stolen generally."

She frowned, distracted from the matter of book theft statistics by trying to think of some non-blunt way to phrase the other question on her mind. There really wasn't one. "Are you the Ferret of Inconvenience?" she asked.

He stared at her, obviously a bit taken aback. She was about to apologize and flee when he grinned. For a split second his pupils flattened to horizontal slits, then back to normal. He pulled a pair of detachable shaded lenses out of his pocket and clipped them onto his glasses. "I might be. How on earth did you figure that out?"

She hadn't quite thought through how she was going to explain that part. "I teach second grade," she said. "A friend of yours was my class hamster for a few months, I think. He mentioned that there was a Ferret of Inconvenience once, when I asked him why there wasn't a Flying Hamster of Doom. And you seemed like you might be an elemental."

"I did?"

"Yeah, you – well, you just did," she said. "And my entire day has been ridiculously inconvenient."

"Actually, that's probably just coincidence," he said. "I'm not the cause of inconvenience in the world; I just incarnate it. More of it happens when I'm around – a lot more of it, actually – but only in close proximity to me."

"So it was just the stuff in this library that was your fault?"

"Not anything that has to do with Harvard University policy," he said. "But maybe other things. Certainly my knocking you over."

"Well, yeah," she said, unreasonably annoyed at not being able to blame the rest of her day on interference by a force of nature. The day certainly deserved it. "I don't think I ever expected that the Ferret of Inconvenience would be a Harvard grad student."

"I'm more of a universal grad student," he replied. "I'm a member of every program, and I never quite graduate from any of them."

"Some of my friends tell me they have nightmares like that," she said. She realized immediately after saying it that this wasn't particularly polite, but he didn't seem offended.

"Are your friends ferrets of inconvenience?" he asked.

"Not that I know of," she said. "Are there many of them out there?"

"No," he said. "I'm the only one."

"Then of course they aren't," she said.

"So then they don't have anything to worry about," he replied. "If I'd realized you knew the hamster, I would have introduced myself," he continued. "But most people don't believe me when I tell them that I'm the Ferret of Inconvenience."

"I can't imagine why," she said. "So, what do they call you?"

"Some unprintable things," he said with a grin. "But mostly Greg."

"So that's who you – " she exclaimed before she managed to cut herself off. "That explains everything."

"It does?" he asked, puzzled.

"I – Wait!" she said, suddenly distracted away from a question she knew the answer to by a question she didn't. "Why did you actually produce smoke, when you were smoking? Eveline said she didn't."

"So you met Eveline," he said with an expression halfway between a grin and a snort. "She's a character and five eighths. What did she tell you about me?"

"She didn't," Julie replied.

"Really?" he asked. He sounded very disappointed.

"Is that a problem? She was mostly preoccupied with making sure the hamster realized he owed her lunch."

The ferret grinned. "She does that. I suppose it’s acceptable that she didn't insult me, if she was legitimately busy. But it's a bit of a shame – she's so good at it."

"Are you two friends?" Julie asked, frowning. From his description it was hard to be sure. "Or – "

His grin broadened, and he shook his head. "She thinks, I suspect, that I'm a classless interloper with lousy French. But she says it so well!"

"Is she wrong?" Julie asked with amusement.

"Of course not," he responded, sounding extremely pleased with himself. "Well…" His expression sobered. "Actually, my French is more authentic than hers," he said quietly. "But it's way more important to her than to me, so if she wants the distinction, I'm happy to let her have it." He glanced around. "I trust we can keep this between us."

"Of course," she replied, trying to process this. "How on earth did you end up with better French than Eveline?!"

"By being European," he replied, grinning again. "She speaks in a much more refined manner than I do, and is undoubtedly much more pleasant to listen to. But like a true snob she considers Parisian French definitive, and I spend entirely more time there than she does!" He tossed his hat in the air and caught it. "And I know all the slang, which she probably persists in considering beneath her, no matter how many tangents I inspired Victor Hugo to write about it."

"You provide literary inspiration?" she asked.

"Not that I know of. I suggested it over [think of appropriate food, beverage or situation to insert here]."

"You – "

"I didn't think he would take me seriously!" he protested.

"Not that!" She shook her head. First things first – "You still haven't explained about the smoking."

"What sort of self-respecting inconvenient being would smoke cigarettes without generating any cigarette smoke?" he asked reasonably. "I mean, what would be the point?"

"I suppose," she said.

"And I – " He frowned. "I don't think Laurie smokes. I don’t see her very often, though, so it's hard to say."

"Laurie?" Julie asked. "Is that the girl you were talking with before?" He nodded. "You could ask her next time you do see her," she suggested.

"Nah." He shrugged. "By then I'll have forgotten."

"Long time?" Julie asked curiously. She wouldn't normally have inquired, but given that he was the Ferret of Inconvenience, it seemed just as likely that the problem was his memory.

"Eh," he said. "Who knows? She wandered off somewhere. She'll be back eventually. Beyond that, I can't really say. Could be a decade or two. She's like that."

Julie decided to drop the subject, since it seemed to be bothering him, and seemed, on the evidence, to be the only topic on earth capable of bothering him. (At least, if he had been an actual person she could have said for sure that he was bothered, but she didn't expect that she was a particularly good judge of anthropomorphic conceptual ferrets.)

"What the heck is a ferret of inconvenience, anyway?" she asked instead

"Me," he replied in tones of the obvious.

"Yes, but... what does that mean?"

"Does it have to mean anything?" he asked.

"Well...I suppose not," she replied dubiously. "But don't most elementals have a point? Like, Tim – "

"Who?"

"Oh," she said. "It's just what I call the hamster. It's easier for me to talk with someone if they have a name." He nodded, with only about a quarter of a smirk (evidently at the choice of name, but hey, it hadn't been her choice). "So," she continued, "he exists to be the elemental hamster…"

"And I exist to be the Ferret of Inconvenience," he said.

"Yes," she said, struggling to either make sense, be patient or both. "But he exists, as I understand it, because there are other hamsters. And you just told me that there are no other ferrets of inconvenience."

"Yes."

"But yet you exist."
"Yes."

"So how does that work?"

"Well," he said, "it's not quite the same thing. He's the Platonic synthesis of all the hamsters in the world. Ditto for Eveline and all the whatever-it-ises she is – Middle Eastern taxonomy is not my strong suit. I'm not the synthesis of anything; I'm just an idea."

"An idea of what?"

"Of a Ferret of Inconvenience, of course."

She blinked hard. "Since when is that an idea?"

"Well, what else is it?"

"Nonsense?"

He shrugged. "Don't ask me. Someone mentioned it in a conversation once, and it worked its way into the fabric of the universe. Therefore, I exist."

"Then why isn't there a Flying Hamster of Doom?" she demanded.

"Some ideas are more persuasive than others."

"But he has his own line of T-shirts, and I've never heard of you."

"I'm a subtle idea," he said. "Full of nuance!"

"That makes no sense."

"Possibly not," he agreed. "Did I say it did? I didn't create the situation. All I can say is that I do exist, and that I am the Ferret of Inconvenience. I have no idea why the world needs a ferret of inconvenience. Having no reason to exist has never been a problem to date, though." He frowned. "Though occasionally a problem with dating."

"Are there more normal ideas out there, then?" she asked (ignoring the dating part, since it seemed likely to at worst upset him, and at best get the conversation totally off track, to the extent that it could be said to have a track in the first place). "Like...I don't know, Perseverance, and Justice, and all?"

"Not that I've ever met. I mean, what would they look like? It's hard to incarnate something that abstract."

"Whereas 'Ferret of Inconvenience' is definite and specific?"

"Isn't it?" he asked. "So much moreso than plain Inconvenience. Pure inconvenience may be out there somewhere, but I'm not sure if I'd recognize it if I met it."

"Is there a normal elemental ferret, though, besides you?"

"There is," he said, making a face. "He doesn't entirely approve of me. Thinks I give ferretness a bad name."

"Aren't all ferrets inconvenient?" she asked. "At least from what I've been told," she amended – she'd never actually met a ferret herself. Or at least, she hadn't met one before.

"Well, yes. But try telling him that!"

"Odd that he'd disagree," she said.

"Not at all," he replied. "If he agreed with me, that would be convenient, and thus counter to his nature."

"You're making my head hurt," Julie said.

"Another victory for inconvenience!" he proclaimed. "Is there anything I can do to help?" he added a bit more seriously. "I can be convenient if I try, but it might be hard if you keep asking philosophical questions."

"Can you make other things be convenient?" she asked. "Can you help me catch the bus?"

"I can try," he said. "Convenience and inconvenience are inextricably reciprocal powers."

"Are you sure those are the longest possible words you could have used in that sentence?" Julie asked as they set off toward the bus stop.

"I probably could have worked 'pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis' in if I'd really tried," he reflected. "Or at least 'antidisestablishmentarianism'. But yeah. What I was basically just saying is that anything that’s convenient for one person probably contributes to someone else's inconvenience, and vice versa. For example, if the bus is already running late, then if it runs faster to get to your stop on time, it's probably inconveniencing somebody in the process. Like good and evil, or the common-law police power and habeas corpus or – "

"Habeas corpus is a metaphor for inconvenience?" she asked, summoning the skeptical expression she usually saved for student excuses.

"Depends whose side you're on," he said. "See?"

"Since when is habeas corpus a metaphor for anything?" she asked. "I mean, besides other legal stuff."

"Everything is a metaphor for something else," he replied. "Or an analogy, or an allegory, or at least a segue. Even if it doesn't know it." He frowned thoughtfully. "So, does Harvard still have an established church, or did they get rid of that?"

"I have no idea," she said. "So what am I a metaphor, analogy, allegory or segue for?"

"I have no idea. It probable wouldn't make any difference to you one way or another. What matters to you is what you see in the world, not what the world sees in you. Just ask Beatrice Portinari."

"Did she ever have trouble getting a job?" Julie asked. "Or a date? It does so matter what the world sees in me."

"Okay, not in you – through you."

"Through me? So now I'm transparent?"

He sighed, slowing to a standstill as they entered Harvard Square. "You ask me that here?" he said. "Do people go here because it's a good university, or because everyone thinks it's a good university?"

"Isn't it a good university?" she asked.

"That's not the point," he said. "Or maybe it's exactly the point. It is, for the most part – but people would go here anyway, because it's Harvard. I mean, it wouldn't be Harvard if it weren't Harvard, but you know what I mean. People stand here and look around, and they don't see red bricks, they see history, and they see prestige – or they see Puritanical depravity, or libertarian depravity, or Brahmin exclusiveness, or Reese Witherspoon as a lawyer, or John Adams studying astronomy. But no one looks at Harvard and just sees Harvard. And that doesn't mean that Harvard isn't also a real place and a good university, named after a real guy named Harvard who had no idea about any of this and is immortalized in a famous statue that's modeled after someone else."

"Oh, good," she said. "Maybe I can become unduly significant after I'm dead."

"You have no way of knowing that you're not unduly significant now," he pointed out. "You could be somebody's personification of the Church Triumphant."

"Eek!" she said. "That's a bit terrifying. Though honestly the idea of being unduly insignificant is pretty terrifying, too."

He nodded. "You see my point, though. Massachusetts has unusually good examples. They don't even make up their own place names! Or even attach 'new' to them and admit they borrowed them. Does the original Cambridge care, or Boston or Brighton or Plymouth or Dorchester? I have no idea. Does Brighton or Dorchester even know? And then there's the Charles River, which Charles I named after himself, before he was beheaded – on account of conceptual differences – and now they have a race called 'The Head of the Charles,' and it isn't supposed to be a reference to anything!"

"Ugh!" she said, trying hard not to think about that. "You know," she reflected, "some elemental should build something that enables you to find out all the metaphorical and allegorical functions that are attached to something. Sort of like how you can see everyone who links to your web page."

"Except that, as you pointed out, you wouldn't want to know," he said. "No one wants to know about anyone else's allegories and metaphors, unless they produce political threats or art. Besides, elementals don't build anything, except their own identities."

"Arg," she said, pinching her sinuses. "The hamster's world seems so much simpler."

"Of course it does," he replied. "He's not a product of the human imagination. Most things are simpler that way. Do you mind if I run in and get a newspaper?" he asked. "Most places don't sell them in Czech."

"Sure," she agreed. She could certainly use a minute to attempt to process everything he'd just said.

"If normal elementals aren't products of human imagination, how do you explain Eveline?" she asked when he emerged from the newsstand. "Are all the snakes in Syria really ironically francophilic?" Her head would probably feel better if she stopped thinking about all of this, but it was more interesting than the rest of her day, and she was curious.

"I think she's more a product of her imagination," he said, punching the button for the crosswalk. "She does make reference to a lot of human ideas, but only because it amuses her." He shook his head. "She has an odd sense of humor."

Julie decided to let that last remark pass. "But isn't she supposed to be a synthesis?"

"Yeah. She – I can't really explain how it works. I think that's more of a side hobby – I mean, she's ironically serpentine, too."

"But how – "

"I don't really know," he said. "Maybe they all have her sense of humor. And I can't imagine spending all of one's time just being an obscure local snake. But it's not something I personally have to worry about – 'Ferret of Inconvenience,' while quite specific in its way, is a pretty broad job description. I have a lot of latitude."

"What else have you done, besides infest academia?" 'Infest' wasn't, she reflected, a particularly positive-sounding word, but given his ferretness (though could a ferret really be said to infest?) and her friends' experiences, it seemed like the most accurate.

He shrugged. "Odds and ends. Wandering around exploring the world. Beating the hamster at chess. I worked at the White House for a bit under Millard Fillmore, but things were tending towards worse than inconvenient, and I decided politics didn't really need me anyway. So I went back to Europe and mostly hung out there until the PhD thing really caught on."

"How did you end up in so many programs?" she asked. "And why?"

"I…umm. It's a long story," he said. "But basically, I thought it would be a good source of free food. And by the time I realized how insidious it was, it was too late to escape." She laughed. "I mean, really," he said a bit defensively. "I love chaos and nonsense, but my intentions are good!"

"I just wouldn't recommend you say that too loudly around here," she said.

Amazingly, the traffic lights were all in their favor, and they managed to get to the bus stop with no problem. Julie was suitably impressed; trying to cross Harvard Square on foot was usually pretty inconvenient in the best of circumstances. There was no suitable bus in sight, but then, according to the schedule none was due for a few minutes, anyway. Assuming that even unusually convenient buses followed the schedule.

Greg studied the row of golden horseshoes embedded in the pavement with interest. "'William Dawes to Lexington, April 18, 1775,'" he read. "I always wonder where he got a one-legged horse** from."

"I think it's one of those symbolic things you were talking about," she said.

"Kind of, maybe. I was talking about projected symbolism, though, not intentional symbolism that invents one-legged horses for no reason. Actually," he observed, "maybe this one was two-legged. A bicyhorse! You have to be really careful to keep your balance when riding one of those."

"You're very strange," she said.

"Hey, I'm not the one who put up a monument to a non-existent two-legged horse!"

"It's a real horse, it just didn't have two legs! And it's not a monument to the horse, it's a monument to William Dawes!"

"Then – " he paused, and she could have sworn she saw his ears twitch. In the sudden local silence she could hear a man talking on a cell phone, in the precise tone and volume guaranteed to grate on anyone's ears.

"You see," he was saying, "in my experience, ferrets are basically invincible weasels. You pick them up and they just curl into a ball, and when you throw them at furniture, they either bounce right off or stick to it like Velcro." A brief pause. "Oh, yes. I’ve thrown ferrets at people." A pause. "Well – "

The narrative dissolved in an anguished squawk, and Julie turned just in time to see the man duck out of the way of a low-flying pigeon and trip on the historic pavement. His Starbucks coffee fell out of his hand and spilled over his clothes, briefcase, and phone, which sparked and died. He cursed louder and louder as commuters and passersby stared in shock and awe; one older woman looked as if she was about ready to give him a public dressing-down for his language.

"Would that you could learn to use your powers only for good," a voice behind them observed. Greg glared at the hamster, who had appeared out of somewhere and was wearing a Harvard sweatshirt and drinking something obscure-looking. He shook his head in the general direction of the man with the ex-cell phone. "He needs to work on his language. Dreadfully uninspired." He raised his drink and shouted something incomprehensible in the man's general direction, then suddenly seemed to notice Julie. "Hey, it's you!"

"Yes," she agreed. "Are hamsters generally oblivious?"

"I wasn't expecting to see you here," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"Being inconvenienced," she replied. "What are you doing here?"

"Being a hamster. Do I ever do anything else?"

"Oh, so you don't have any inextricable reciprocal powers?" she asked.

He blinked. "What?!"

She shrugged. He looked suspiciously at the ferret, who was busy displaying an innocent and even slightly disapproving poker face that he managed to implicitly direct towards the hubbub taking place outside of his line of vision. "This is your fault, isn't it?"

"I'm going to exercise my right against self-incrimination," the ferret replied, not taking his eyes off the extremely serious distance.

"You don't have a right against self-incrimination. You're not human and I'm not a government."

"True. But you can't make me tell you what you want to know, so it adds up to the same thing, doesn't it?"

"No."

"Ah, well." The man with the cell phone finally stormed off in search of paper towels and respite from unsympathetic bystanders telling him he was out of order, and Greg's posture relaxed. Still only allowing himself to crack the slightest smile, (though in Julie's mind, a happy-go-lucky student type in sunglasses and a fedora bearing a professionally serious expression was more conspicuous and more amusing than anything else), he turned and offered his hand to Tim, who shook it. "How're you doing?"

"Pretty well. You?"

"Same. They scheduled all of my qualifying exams for the same hour-long timeslot again. But on the other hand, it's constitutionally impossible for me to either pass or flunk."

"It's a hard life," Tim said. "Where's Laurie?"

The ferret scowled and gestured expressively. "Gone. Where else?"

"Who – ?" Julie began.

"Laurie," the hamster said. "She's – "

"The Raccoon of Furtiveness," Greg finished. He sighed. "It's not a good combination."

Julie tried to suppress a giggle. "The what?"

"Oh, you heard me," he said. "I think I'm going to put 'Invincible Weasel' on my license plate."

"That has way too many letters," she pointed out. "And nothing to do with anything."

"And you don't have a car," Tim added. "And you'd drive on the wrong side of the street if you did."

"I think that's unfair," Greg protested.

"But is it untrue?"

"Are you looking to pick a fight with the Invincible Weasel?"

"Hey, watch what ideas you throw out there!" Tim said. "This world does not need an invincible weasel."

"But I'm already the invincible weasel!" Greg said. "The guy with the cell phone said so!"

Tim looked at Julie. "Is there any chance you could explain this to me?" he asked. "He's never going to."

"Hey!"

"Particularly if it's going to prove him wrong." Greg glared at him. Julie laughed and tried as best she could to describe the cell phone transaction without the ferret interrupting. Tim looked slightly smug by the time she had finished. "See?" he said to Greg. "That wouldn't make you the invincible weasel; it would make Frank the invincible weasel. Do you really want Frank to be the invincible weasel?"

Greg shuddered. "But it would make me an invisible weasel, too!"

"You mean invincible," Julie said. "I hope."
"Right. I'm a ferret, too!"
"Sort of," Tim said.

"I am so a ferret!"

"And not just any ferret, either," Julie agreed. "You have inextricably reciprocal powers of inconvenience. And they're really kind of scary."

This seemed to make him feel somewhat better. "You never explained, by the way."

"Explained what?" she asked, blinking.

"How people calling me Greg explained everything."

"Oh, that," she said. "Well, were you not the grad student named Greg who was meditating in my friend's laundry room in New Haven when the washing machines exploded?"

"I don't meditate!" he said. "I was studying the topography of the linoleum."

"The…" She couldn't really think of a good response to that. "But you were there."

"Maybe."

"Maybe? How can you study the topography of linoleum that's not there?"

"Of course the linoleum was there. Hardwood floors warp when plumbing explodes."

She took a deep breath. "How can you study the topography of linoleum that's not in the same place you are?"

"I have powers!" he replied airly, unclipping the shaded lenses from his glasses as a cloud passed over the sun, and placing them neatly in his shirt pocket.

"No you don't!" Tim retorted. "Well, I mean, you do. But not like that."

Something emitted two unnecessarily loud double beeps, making all three of them jump. Greg pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and started to curse in a language Julie couldn't identify.

"Who was it?" Tim asked.

"Laurie. Of course." He glared at the phone. "It didn't even ring."

Tim shook his head, as the ferret stepped off some distance away, punching at his phone's keypad. "Of course it didn't ring," he said to Julie. "When the Raccoon of Furtiveness calls you, your phone never rings." He looked suddenly thoughtful. "I think I saw a fortune cookie that said that, once. I wonder how they knew."

"Words to live by," she said. "What do you do if you actually want to talk with her, then?"

"Be very, very patient." He glanced over at Greg, who seemed to be listening to his voice mailbox. "Which he is, in addition to being Inconvenient."

"I guess the two might have to go together," Julie said. "I mean, unless he has inconvenience immunity, and he doesn't seem to."

Tim chuckled. "He certainly doesn't. He likes inconvenience, though, even if it happens to him. I mean, he sympathizes and agrees that it's unfortunate and all; he just inwardly rejoices in the chaos. It's his nature."

Sunlight flooded the bus stop as the wind propelled the clouds forwards. Greg squinted sharply, fumbling in his pocket for his removable sunglass lenses, and trying to clip them onto his glasses single-handedly without knocking the glasses off his face. In the process, his phone flew out of his hand and onto the pavement, shattering into multiple pieces.

"Sic incommode istae procyoni furtivae evenat!" he shouted, drawing a stare of shock and awe from an elderly professor and making no impact on anybody else whatsoever. He bent down and picked up the pieces, shoving them back into place while continuing to mutter under his breath. Having finished that, he shook the phone back and forth a few times and pressed the power button. Improbably, it beeped to life looking perfectly functional. He very deliberately locked the keypad, and put it back in his pocket.

"She does like you," Tim pointed out. "She wouldn't keep calling you if she didn't. She's better at avoiding people than that. On purpose, I mean."

"I know she likes me," Greg said. "But why, by the thrice-pinged gods of e-mail and the Ostrich of Ineptitude, can't she stay in one place for ten minutes on end?!"

"Because she's the Raccoon of Furtiveness."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He turned to Julie. "So what was that about people calling me Greg explaining everything?"

"I told you," she said. "My friend and the laundry room. And I have other friends at other schools that I think have mentioned you."

"That doesn't explain everything," he said, confused. "That only explains what happened to your friend's laundry room."

"That was kind of what I meant," she said.

"Oh," he replied, sounding disappointed. "I was hoping you really knew a reason why my name explained everything. I've always wanted to be universally explicative."

"It's not your name," Tim said. "It's Rasputin's name. And you may have to give up on universally explicative and settle for internally consistent."

"That's better than you," Greg retorted.

"Guilty as charged," he agreed, yawning. "But that's all the hamsters' fault." He blinked and seemed to perk up. "Actually, it's all the fault of the Israelis!"

"What?!" Julie asked.

"You don't want to know," the ferret replied. "Well, actually, you probably do. But it's a long story and I've heard it before, so ask him later." He looked at Tim. "And watch what you say, or someone's going to hit you over the head with a divestiture petition."

Tim blinked again, more confusedly. "For saying that Israelis are responsible for mass dispersion of hamsters? It's historical fact."

"Yes, but – that's not exactly what you said."

"It means the same thing to me."

"Just trust me on this, okay?"

"Okay." He shrugged.

"It has to do with politics," Greg elaborated, as if feeling the need to make the matter clearer.

The hamster shuddered and wrinkled his nose. "Say no more."

"You don't like politics?" Julie asked.

"Hamsters don't even like each other," he said, making a face. "I mean, it's fun to watch other species acting weird and all, but only from a distance. I know which countries ban alcohol, and that's all I need to know." He took a swig of whatever it was he was holding. "And by the time I did figure it out, it'd be over and you'd be on to something else."

"Me?" Julie asked.

"Well, not you personally. But people like you."

"People like me?" she asked, getting more confused.

"Yeah," he said, waving his hands in the air. "Assyrians, Babylonians, Hittites, Seleucids. You, know – people."

"People generally? Like the human species?"

"Yes!"

"So why didn't you just say so?"

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I forget not everyone is archetypal."

Current State of the Story

It would have been just fine if only her window had shut properly.

It wasn’t as if her window had ever shut properly, but it had never been a problem before now. It shut almost entirely, leaving only the smallest of cracks, and even the cold winter air didn’t really seep in. But now the wind was wailing up against the wall of her apartment, and tiny crystals of light, dry snow were collecting on the windowsill and spraying down on her face as she tried to sleep. She rolled over and did her best to bury her head in pillow and blanket without making it impossible to breath. Stupid blizzard.

No luck. She could feel the chill on the edges of her ears, even when all the rest of her was warm. Even if she did succeed in drifting off, there was no way she would sleep soundly, and the discomfort would probably do weird things to her dreams. She yawned, got up, and walked over to a less offensive window, watching the trees toss in the gale by the dim, surreal light of the snow-filtered street lamps. At least this way there was no chance of school tomorrow. If she had to, she could sleep then. She made a face, groggily located her slippers, and padded off to the kitchen in search of hot cocoa.

She paused at the threshold to the living room, and blinked. In the dim light she could just make out two familiar figures seated across a chessboard: Tim, hunched over beside an entire colony of beer bottles, and Greg sprawled flat on his face next to a single bottle of wine and a parallel colony of captured chess pieces, snoring slightly. His nose was perilously close to the edge of the board; Julie wondered idly what disaster would be wreaked on the battlefield if he sneezed. Both elementals had, she noted with interest, removed their hats.

Tim grinned at her. "Ferrets have no alcohol tolerance," he whispered loudly. "They love it, but it makes them hypoglycemic."

"Even elemental ferrets?" she asked curiously.

"Well, this one. But he’s not any more convenient for himself than anyone else, so it may just be him. I don’t remember if I’ve met any others. Ferrets are young."

"Young?"

"They haven’t been around that long. Only a couple of thousand years. They’re a domestic species. And I haven’t hung out with many wild weasels."

"Is he always like this?" Julie asked, watching. "How bad a chess player are you?!"

Tim made a face and looked about to respond when Greg yawned, pulled himself into a sitting position – knocking over most of the captured pieces, but thankfully not the bottle of wine – glanced at the board and carelessly moved a piece. "Eschec mat."

"What?!" the hamster exclaimed.

The Ferret of Inconvenience grinned. "You forgot that bishops can move more than three squares at a time. Again."

"Since when?"

"Since…oh, the fifteenth century or so." He grinned infuriatingly. "Sorry."

Tim let forth a stream of intense-sounding Arabic curses mixed with hamster noises.* Greg yawned. "Then it’s a good thing I’m a product of abiogenesis, isn’t it?"

Julie rolled her eyes at both of them. "Something tells me I’m glad I didn’t understand any of that. Now what are you doing in my living room?"

"Playing chess," Tim replied innocently.

"In the dark?"

He shook his head. "You need to overcome these diurnal prejudices of yours." He glanced at Greg. "Maybe we should get her one of those world maps where south is up."

"Why are you playing chess in the dark in my living room? And I assume you’re going to throw out the beer bottles when you’re done?"

"Actually, I was planning on recycling them. I don’t want to still be looking at them in a thousand years."

"That’s a bit presumptuous," Greg interjected. "How can you be sure you’ll be around in a thousand years?"

"Because I’m a desert rodent with worldwide syndication, not an overdomesticted weasel with grassroots political opposition," Tim replied, wrinkling his nose.

"Ouch."

"Besides, people like me. I’m cute."

"You’re not so cute as a person."

"So what?"

"People!" Julie interrupted. "Or whatever. Quit species-bashing and answer my question."

"Which was that?" the hamster asked apologetically.

"Why you were playing chess in the dark in my living room. Or you can skip the chess part and just tell me why you’re in my living room at all."

"Well, it’s because of the chess," Gregg said. "Every place is closed! Even the 24-hour Dunkin’ Donuts with the fascinating sketchy people."

"That’s interesting," Julie observed; "I would have thought you were one."

"I didn’t say I wasn’t."

"I’m not!" Tim protested.

"Anyway," the ferret continued. "We tried playing outside, but the wind kept blowing the pieces over, and the snow kept drifting across the chess board, and Tim's backup beer bottles kept freezing and exploding. And we figured you wouldn’t mind."

"We’ll make you breakfast," the hamster offered.

"Elementals can’t keep beer bottles from exploding?" she asked incredulously.

"Not unless they’re paying attention," Greg replied.

"Not when he’s involved," Tim said simultaneously.

"Can you fix my window?" Julie asked.

"What’s wrong with it?" Tim asked.

"It’s won’t close all the way, and the snow is blowing in and keeping me from sleeping."

"Have you tried duct tape?" the he asked.

She blinked. "Duct tape?"

"Duct tape fixes everything."

"I was hoping for a slightly more elegant solution."

"I thought you were hoping to be able to sleep. Duct tape would do it."

Julie took a deep breath and tried to think calm, non-sleep-deprived thoughts. "I do not host elemental chess games in my living room so that I can patch my leaky windows with duct tape. Could one of you come look at it?"

Tim nodded obligingly and followed her down the hall, as Gregg began to collect the spilled chess pieces. She had vague qualms about leaving the Ferret of Inconvenience alone in her living room, but it was really no riskier than having him accompanied in her living room, or alone anywhere else. He was completely trustworthy as far as intentions go; it was just his nature to radiate chaos wherever he went, unless he was making a special effort not to. But he was good company, and if she was going to put up with the liability of having him in her apartment at all, she thought, he might as well be in the living room.

And he had more common sense than the hamster, anyway – duct tape?! Though, she reflected sleepily, duct tape would have worked. She supposed she really should have thought of that herself. Assuming she had any duct tape.

Tim peered at her window for a moment, then, placing fingers on the frame and thumbs under the sill, pulled it shut with no effort.

"There," he said, wiping his hands off against each other [what’s the term for this?]. "That should do it."

"What was the problem?" she asked curiously.

"It was just jammed, and there was some gunk in the tracks," he replied.

She nodded. "I guess I’ll call someone after the streets clear, and get them to look at it. I doubt I’ll need or want to open it again before spring."

"No need," he said; "I fixed it." He leaned over to demonstrate, sliding it up and down with ease. Cold air and snow rushed into the room, and ceased just as abruptly.
"Yes, but you always do that," she replied, sounding a bit wearier than intended. "That doesn't mean I can open it."

He glanced at her. "Try it in the morning; you'll see I fixed it. But right now you should probably get some sleep. Long day?"

"Yeah," she replied, realizing anew just how tired she was. Suddenly it took all her energy to stay awake and standing. "I…is it okay if I tell you about it tomorrow?"

He grinned. "No problem. We’ll play a few more games; wake up whenever you feel like it."

"But won’t you be tired then?" she said. "I remember you saying once that hamsters are nocturnal. And what the heck are ferrets?"

"Ferrets are…kind of nocturnal, I think?" he postulated. "I dunno; ask Greg. I saw a PBS documentary once, I think, about black-footed ferrets, that said they’re nocturnal – but I’ve never met one, and I don’t know if they’re normal. To the extent that a ferret can be said to be normal, of course. And hamsters are nocturnal. But neither of us is actually alive, so that doesn’t really matter all that much. Sleep well!"

He flicked the light off and turned to go. "Wait!" she said.

He turned around, silhouetted in the doorway in the light from the hallway. "Yes?"

"What does it mean, that you’re not alive? You look alive to me, both of you."

In the darkness, she thought she saw him grin. "Well, what is it you teach your kids life is? Respiration, digestion, reproduction, whatever?"

"I don’t think they teach second graders that," Julie said. "You must have heard it somewhere else."

"Fair enough. But that’s what they teach?"

"I think so," she replied.

"And I can’t speak for the ferrets of inconvenience out there, but I don’t know of any elementals who do any of those. We’re just animate and sentient. Good night!" He shut the door quietly and was gone.

Julie got back in bed; the pillowcase was still a bit cold and damp from the melted snow, but the air was already feeling more habitable. She turned the pillow over, pondered for a few moments the idea of elementals playing chess in her living room as she slept, and while she was doing so, fell fast asleep.

* To be possibly replaced with the actual Arabic when I find it.

At some ungodly but appropriate hour of the morning the alarm on her clock-radio went off. She listened dutifully to the list of closed schools until she heard hers named, then thwacked it off and fell seamlessly back to sleep.

When she reawoke it was broad daylight, albeit the ceaselessly ambiguous dawn-like light of a world covered with snow. She loved that light; growing up it had meant a possible day off from school, and today – whaddaya know, it still did. Now, though, she had a car to worry about. She made a face and peered out her blinds. The snow was deep enough that there was no good frame of reference for how deep it was. Her car was nowhere in sight, though she thought she could spot maybe a glimpse of an antenna. She cursed under her breath and went off to the kitchen in search of her uninvited guests.

"I know," she heard the hamster’s voice say from the kitchen. "But I told her, if you go around taking advice from spiders, that sort of thing is bound to happen! Good morning," he added as Julie walked in. "Do you like waffles?"

"I’m not sure," she said. "Can I let you know in a minute?"

He blinked. "Was that a joke or an answer?"

"Not to be really annoying or anything, but I’m not entirely sure about that either," she replied sleepily. "I just got up. Give me a minute."

He shook his head. "You people are so indecisive."

"See?" she said. "You’re learning valuable information about humans. You should thank me for the opportunity."

He stood and bowed. "Thank you for the opportunity."

She couldn’t really think of anything to do in response besides blink. She wondered vaguely whether he was joking or serious, but quickly concluded that her brainwaves would be much better invested in the question of breakfast.

Abruptly, another thought crossed her mind. "Drat," she said, inadvertently out loud.

"Drat what?" Greg asked curiously.

"I left the window scraper in the car."

"But your windows are fine," Tim replied, looking around.

"The scraper for the windows of the car."

"But your car is buried under three feet of snow," the ferret pointed out. You can’t scrape off the ice until you can reach it anyway. And by then it could all have melted."

"I hope you mean the ice and not the car," she said, wishing she had slightly less surreal guests. But then, less surreal guests wouldn’t have materialized mid-snowstorm and fixed her window. You win some, you lose some.

"Of course I meant the ice," Greg replied, looking offended. "I would never melt your car! I’m the Ferret of Inconvenience, not the Meerkat of Ridiculousness!"

She stared at him. "Is there a Meerkat of Ridiculousness?"

"I’m not actually sure myself. But it seems like the only logical explanation."

"For what? —Wait, never mind," she said. "This isn’t going to get anywhere. But you asked what I was cursing about, and that was it."

"You call that cursing?" Tim asked.

"Yes," she replied. "It isn’t anything other than cursing, is it?"

"It’s a good thing you can’t understand what he says," Greg opined, gesturing at the hamster, who was looking suddenly thoughtful.

"I wonder if I have any – " He rummaged through his pockets, one after the other, as if searching for something specific. "Aha!" With no respect for any laws of physics Julie was aware of, he proudly produced something that looked even more unwieldy and un-pocket-suitable than bottles of beer, and laid it on the table. She blinked. It was a long, sleek samurai sword in an intricately carved case. It looked like it should be transported to a museum without passing Go. "Will that work?" he asked.

"Um," she said. "For what?"

"For scraping the ice off your car?"

"Um, no," was all she could manage to respond with.

"Oh." He sounded very disappointed. "Oh, well, then. It’s all I have on me at the moment." He picked up the sword and tried a few surprisingly accomplished passes with it.

"Where did you learn that?" Greg asked. "Since when do they do samurai fighting in the Levant?"

"They don’t," Tim replied. "But I showed up early at the convention a bunch of times back when transportation was iffier. I didn’t want to risk being late and having all the good food be gone – one year I had to resort to swimming." He shuddered deeply. "That was bad. But I got there for the hors d’oeuvres!" He tossed the sword (fortunately still sheathed) in the air and caught it. "But it’s not like there was anything else to do, hanging around Japan waiting for everyone else to show up." He turned to Julie and held the sword out. "You’re sure you don’t want to try it? It could work, I think." She shook her head mutely. He shrugged and returned it to his pocket in whatever fascinatingly illogical way he’d produced it in the first place.

"Have you ever considered giving that to a museum?" she asked.

"No," he replied, sounding surprised. "Why would I want to do that? They would just stick it in a glass case somewhere until it was too old to be good for anything, and I would have nothing for scraping the ice off windows."

"I had no idea elementals had such little appreciation for art," she said faintly.

"Hey!" Greg retorted. "Don’t judge a ferret by the company he keeps! Hamsters have no appreciation for art. They’re relentlessly utilitarian."

"I am not utilitarian!" Tim replied with equal vehemence. "I’m totally useless! And proud of it!"

The ferret shrugged. "You make a good lab rat," he said with a grin. The hamster seemed to search for a response, but settled for sticking his tongue out. "Careful," Greg said. "You’re getting awfully anthropomorphic there. If you don’t watch out you’ll end up a Disney character."

"Yes, I would like waffles," Julie said.

"Oh, good," Tim said excitedly. He turned and began to rummage busily through her cupboards as if he knew where things were. She wasn’t sure she even had the ingredients for waffles – and she knew she didn’t have a waffle iron – but she had the feeling that one way or another he wasn’t going to let that stop him. So there was really no point in mentioning it.

"Do you need any help?" the ferret asked.

"I’m sure he’ll be fine," Julie said quickly. She wasn’t sure exactly what inconvenient waffles would be like, but this wasn’t the day she wanted to find out. For all she knew, Tim’s waffles-without-ingredients efforts would be problematic enough. "What have you been up to these days?" she asked, hoping if she kept the conversation busy enough he’d forget about wanting to help.

"He’s been playing strip poker with Anansi," the hamster said over his shoulder.

"I don’t believe she asked you!" Greg retorted.

"True questions can be answered by anybody."

"Now who’s proliferating the inconvenience?" the ferret asked smugly.

"No smug ferrets in my kitchen!" Julie announced, opening the refrigerator. "Does anybody want orange juice?"

"What’s wrong with smug ferrets?" Greg asked, looking surprisingly wounded.

"I don’t know; it’s just a rule. Not all rules need reasons."

"Now you’re being inconvenient too!" he said, looking perturbed. "This is very disconcerting."

She shrugged. "Meh. I’m sorry. I don’t know – it’s just been a long week."

"In any way in particular?" he asked, dropping whatever degree to which he had been mugging in favor of real concern. Eggs cracked in the background, hopefully on purpose.

"Eh. I don’t know. Just something about – nothing in particular – teaching, I guess? No, that’s not it. I’ve just been feeling kind of generally discouraged lately. Maybe it’s the weather."

"You seem to like the kids," Greg observed. "Not that I’ve seen you interact with them in person."

"Oh, they’re wonderful," Julie said. "Working with them totally makes my day. I love my job, though sometimes I wonder how good I am at it. At least, it’s something I enjoy doing in the moment. But sometimes I wonder whether I just…lack a greater sense of purpose, I guess. That I should be finding."

"That’s easy to answer," the ferret replied. "You don’t."

"Don’t what?"

"Have a purpose."

She stopped and looked at him, stunned into silence at the confident bluntness of his statement.

"I guess you would know," she managed after a moment.

He looked confused. "Why?"

"Well, I remember you saying once that you have no purpose either, so…"

The ferret shook his head. "I have no reason to exist. That’s different. Of course I have a purpose. I’m a trickster figure. It’s like the jokers in a deck of cards – two in every deck, along with all the kings and queens and eights and hamsters, even they’re almost never necessary for the game. And this world is played with a lot of decks."

"By whom, for what?"

He shrugged. "Beats me. But so – what do you call him, again? – Tim here exists for a reason; he exists because there are hamsters. All the elementals are like that. Well, they don’t all exist because there are hamsters – but you know what I mean. I suppose he has a purpose, if you’ll allow for incarnating hamsterness being a purpose. It’s what he’s around to do. Don’t ask me why," he said quickly. "I have no idea. But that’s what elementals are. I’m a weird subclause; I incarnate an idea, though I happen in addition to be a ferret. That’s my purpose. He hangs out across the millennia being a hamster, I hang out being inconvenient, and Eveline hangs out being a viper, though she almost qualifies for an idea herself these days, given how much she models her self-image on human notions of snake ethos. But that’s more of a hobby, I guess. But anyway, you’re an individual. You don’t come with a purpose, though there’s nothing to stop you from having one. You can have any purpose, if you decide you want to. But it’s not like there’s one out there that will fall on your head if you wait. It doesn’t work that way."

She thought for a moment. "I’m not sure I like that. In some weird way, I’d almost rather have a purpose I didn’t like, at this point, just to know for sure what it was. Though I’m sure I’d feel differently in time, of course."

"Doesn’t matter," he said succinctly. "It’s just as true whether you like it or not."

"If you’re a trickster figure, how can I even be sure you’re not making this up?" she asked, though it seemed like an unlikely thing to fabricate.

The ferret blinked. "Are you kidding?! Nothing’s more inconvenient than the truth. I’m the most forthright elemental you’re likely to meet!"

She laughed, shaken a bit out of her malaise in spite of herself. "You must be one of the lesser-known trickster figures," she said dryly.

He grinned. "You say that like it’s a bad thing. The really successful trickster figures are the ones that never get caught – well, Coyote’s pretty good, but he’s a bit of an image-monger. I always thought he was secretly happy when the American West got invaded by TVs. But Anansi is totally jealous of my record."

"Ah, yes," said the hamster from behind them. "We all know that inside every mythical giant spider, there’s a skanky ferret just waiting to get out."

"That’s not what I meant!" Greg protested. "He was still impressed. Besides," he added, "how do you know that isn’t true? Ferrets are awesome."

Tim just blinked at him knowingly, returning his attention to his clandestine waffle-related activities before the ferret had a chance to scowl.

"So why do you need a purpose, anyway?" Greg asked Julie.

"I – " She honestly didn’t have an answer for that. "What else am I supposed to do?" she asked finally.

"Well, you could keep doing what you’re doing," he suggested. "Or if you don’t like it, stop doing it and find something you do like. I don’t see why that would require a purpose, though."

"What else would I do, though?" she asked.

"Hang out with us for a while," Tim’s voice suggested from behind her.

"Like I’d have the time for that!" she exclaimed.

"Besides," Greg said, "that might be tricky. She needs to eat and sleep and all those other things."

"Good," Tim replied. "That’s inconvenient. It can decoy your aura for long enough for us to maybe get something done."

"But we don’t do anything," the ferret pointed out. "We drink and play chess. And occasionally Eveline decides she’s neglecting her biological duties, and shows up and makes you squirm, and I laugh at both of you." He grinned at Julie. "As I was saying, purpose and productivity have very little to do with one another."

"That’s just because being a Ferret of Inconvenience doesn’t take any work!" the hamster replied.

"I work damn hard at it, thank you very much."

"Yes, but that’s not because you have to; it’s because you enjoy it."

"So?"

"So that’s not work; that’s a hobby."

"That’s ridiculous. It doesn’t stop being a job just because I find it fun. That doesn’t mean it’s good for anything, though."

"I’m not going to argue with that," Tim replied. "Just don’t go casting aspersions on the usefulness of being a hamster just because you have no point!"

"Point?" Greg retorted. "What do hamsters do for the planet?"

"Make people happy!" Tim said. "Well, and serve as lab subjects. But they’re both important!"

"I catch rats," Greg offered. "Well, I used to."

"All ferrets do that," Tim pointed out. "You’re not the archetypal ferret. Besides, other ferrets don’t accidentally lead all the town’s children out after them when they leave! You really should have been paying attention."

"I said I was sorry!" the ferret protested. "I sent them a fruitcake the next Christmas and everything!" He gave Julie a beseeching look. "Sir Isaac Newton let a horse escape while he was thinking, and did anyone hold it against him? No! They thought it was cute. Thoreau had crowds of children follow him wherever he went, and people just chalked it up to his being an amusing eccentric. And me? An honest mistake, and I’m stuck with creepy folktales. I get no slack!"

"If you want slack, you’re in the wrong line of work," the hamster said. He grinned at Julie. "And even if he is, he doesn’t have a choice. Catch the drift?"

"Yeah," she admitted. "But given that I have to do something, I’d still like a reason."

"Well," Greg said, still looking a bit put-out about the rat thing, "what’s stopping you from doing nothing?"

"The need to eat?" she suggested.

"We already told you you could come hang out with us," Tim pointed out. "We’d find food for you somewhere or other. But that doesn’t seem to fix your problem."

"Yeah," she admitted. "I want something to do. And I want to be doing it for a reason." Abruptly, she pushed her chair back and wandered over to the living-room window, picking up static from the carpet as she went. She stood for a few minutes watching the wind blow the powdered snow in clouds over the drifts, like a very confused mist, or maybe a horde of angry gnats. The world looked changed, different – the ground several feet higher, the wind out of another century; forces of nature throwing up snow drifts between her and her everyday life. It was kind of nice, though in time it would get annoying, and then it would melt. The cold radiated in through the glass. The only sounds were the clinking of dishes, as unrelated forces of nature made waffles in her kitchen.

"What are you guys doing in two weeks?" she asked finally.

"I don't plan ahead," the ferret pronounced. Tim turned and glared at him. "…though sometimes other people make plans that involve me, and expect me to show up." He glanced at the hamster. "So what are we doing?"

Tim frowned. "Well, I owe Eveline lunch."

"You're not actually planning on volunteering for that, are you?!" Greg asked, with what Julie took to be expertly feigned shock. Though what the heck, for all she knew it was real shock; she had to admit she was pretty surprised herself.

"Of course not," Tim replied with a what-do-you-take-me-for look. "But it is on my calendar."

The ferret rolled his eyes. "Good to know. And while you're at it, get me Napoleon's autograph. What are we actually doing?"

"I have no idea," Tim said, glancing at his hands, which were covered in an unnecessarily dramatic amount of flour. "I was assuming we would wander around until we found something interesting, like we usually do. Or we could sit in the snow and play chess for another couple of weeks, of course."

"Well," Julie said, "if you're playing chess in the snow, I probably don't want to get involved. But if you're traveling, could I go with you? I have a week of break; could I get back in time?"

"I don't see why not," Tim replied. He attempted to scratch his forehead with his elbow, inhaled flour, and sneezed. "I vote for traveling; I don't like this climate. It's too cold for a hamster."

"It's a perfectly good temperature for a ferret," that elemental retorted.

"Isn't that irrelevant?" Julie cut in, before the hamster had a chance to respond. "I mean, since neither of you seems to notice temperature at all." They both turned and stared at her blankly, as if she'd said something completely beyond comprehension. She shrugged and decided this must be another weird elemental thing.

She took a step back towards the kitchen and paused, glancing around her for some sort of grounded metal. "Is everything okay?" Greg asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm just trying to get rid of all this static before I shock myself or short out my computer." She made a face. "The air's so dry at this time of year."

"Oh, that's all?" he said. He jumped up, strode forward in a few steps, and poked her in the shoulder. The static vanished.

"That's convenient," she replied unthinkingly. The ferret looked slightly stunned, glancing around warily as if someone might have heard. "It's okay," she said with a grin. "I won't tell!"

"Oh, that's alright," he replied a bit distractedly. "I do have a reputation to maintain, and all, but it's at no risk. Particularly since almost no one has ever heard of me in the first place. But I'm not usually convenient without making a special effort. It's an odd sensation – I hope it doesn't mean I'm getting sick, or something."

"You're not getting sick," Tim announced from the kitchen. "You're not alive. And the waffles are ready."

"Those things may never have been said together before," Julie observed with interest.

"That's what I'm here for," he replied, rinsing his hands off in the sink. Miraculously, the rest of the kitchen seemed to be reasonably clean; possibly cleaner than she had left it. She wondered whether the Boy Scouts took elemental hamsters, and whether they'd worry that it would have a bad influence on the children.

"I thought you were here to be a hamster," she said instead.

"Details, details." He dried his hands on a nearby dishtowel and rooted around in his pockets as Greg – apparently still pondering the implications of inadvertent convenience – set out plates, cups and silverware. "Aha!" he said, producing a piece of parchment and shoving it under the ferret's nose on one of his trips back to the cabinet.

Greg peered at it nearsightedly. "'Alexander, Lord of Asia'? What does that have to do with anything?!"

"Oh, right; he's the other one, isn't he?" The hamster returned to foraging in his pockets. "I'm sure I have Napoleon's somewhere."

"Do you usually get autographs from invading generals?" Julie asked.

"I like handwriting," he replied. "Invading armies bring interesting handwriting." He wrinkled his nose. "Though cuneiform or not, I didn't like those Assyrians much."

"That's unfortunate," Julie observed.

"Isn't it?" he said. "If I'd known I'd end up being named after them, I would have entered a complaint somewhere."

"Where does one enter complaints about future geographical names?"

"I don't know; I'd think of something."

There was a sudden crash as a glass slipped out of Greg's hand and shattered on the tile. He looked at Julie sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that," he said. "Just had to make sure I still had it in me." He knelt down and set about picking up the pieces by hand.

"Don't worry;" she replied, slightly irritated but not enough to warrant saying anything about it after-the-fact. With an elemental force of inconvenience in her kitchen, she was probably doing well if her only problem was a broken glass. "They're a dollar each at Best Buy."

"I'm not worried," he said. She watched in fascination as he gathered the broken fragments, large and miniscule, into a pile on the table, and proceeded to try to fit them back together. "I like puzzles," he added, noticing her gaze. "You guys can start, by the way. No need to wait for me."

Julie glanced at Tim, who shrugged, and the two of them sat down to eat.

She had to admit that, for a dingbat elemental hamster, he made surprisingly good waffles.

"Thanks," he replied with his mouth full. It sounded like he said something else after that, but the syllables got completely lost. He swallowed hard and tried again. "So, what's this with you having issues with your life?"

"I don't want to deal with it," she said with irritable succinctness.

"So don't," he suggested. "Take a year or two off." She just looked at him. "Oh, right."

"Things are so simple for you," she said with a sigh.

"Maybe," he said. "But I can't see how that really helps you. What if you didn't want to be a hamster?"

"What if I do?"

He looked at her closely through narrowed eyes as she tried not to laugh at being squinted at by a hamster. "I can't see it," he said finally, shaking his head.

"I – " the ferret began.

"—Be quiet, you don't have an opinion," Tim cut in.

"True," Greg agreed sadly. "But I fixed your cup!" he said to Julie, handing her a glass that was apparently whole and flawless. She blinked.

"Um, thank you?"

"You're welcome." He beamed. "That's what I'm here for; I cause problems and I fix them."

"That's useful, I suppose."

"I should hope not!"

...

"I wouldn't try that," Tim advised. "Laurie would kill you."

"She'd have to find me first."

"How hard would that be?" the hamster asked. "You're not the Raccoon of Furtiveness! Though," he said thoughtfully, "you are a trickster figure. So you could probably hide for a while. But still."

"Fair enough," Greg conceded. "But if she came to kill me, then at least I'd know where she was! Besides, I'm moderately immortal."

"I thought you weren't, really," Julie interrupted. She hoped they weren't actually discussing anything significant enough to need not interrupting, but since she could never tell, she tended to err on the side of assuming their discussion was irrelevant. If she'd been wrong yet, they hadn't let on. "Don't you all just last however long your species does? And vanish or evolve into something else, or whatever?"

"You're mistaking me for a hamster," Greg replied with a grin.

"Never!" she said with the best fake shock she could manage.

"Good!" he said proudly, ignoring Tim's death glare. "But – normal elementals, yeah. But how many ferrets of inconvenience currently exist in nature?"

"None that I've met," she admitted.

"And none that you haven't. Ideas don't work that way. I suppose I could get marginalized out of existence or something, but I don't think anyone cares enough."

"To get rid of inconvenience?" she asked. "Haven't people being trying for ages?"

"Of course. But they need bureaucracy too badly. It's a love-hate relationship, really. You don't know how many self-help-book writers have challenged me to duels. But their publishers always talk them out of it. Or so they say."

"So bureaucracy is your essential ally?" she said, blinking. "I can't picture that."

"Politics makes strange bedfellows." She stared at him. "Sorry," he said quickly; "I didn't mean it THAT way! But anyway, yeah, ideas don't work like that. There's still a Dodo of Something-or-Other around here somewhere, I think."

"Is he really the Dodo of Something-or-Other?" she asked curiously, thankfully distracted completely away from the previous line of conversation. "Or are you just saying that because you can't remember what he's the dodo of?"

"I actually have no idea what he does," Greg said. "But he does exist. I think he was a math professor at one point."

"Wha-?"

"Wha-?, what?"

"Never mind," she said. "Who's Laurie?"

Greg sighed. "She's the Raccoon of Furtiveness, and I've been trying to get a date with her for the past couple of centuries. Without much success."

"Because you can't find her?" Julie asked, trying hard not to grin and probably failing.

"Essentially." He sighed again. "She's not avoiding me, I don't think; she's just elusive like I'm inconvenient. We did try for dinner once sometime in the 1680s, but the restaurant turned out to be closed due to an epidemic of man-eating land snails."

"Man-eating land snails?" she asked incredulously. "Do those exist?"

"No," he said glumly. "I think they created themselves for the purpose. Spiteful creatures."

"If they only existed to inconvenience you, wouldn't that make them your fault?"

"Why don't you just stop while I'm ahead," he suggested.

"What would a man-eating snail even look like?"

"Trust me," he said, "you don't want to know. Those were some very unhappy Bavarian peasants."

"And then there was that Beast of Gevaudan thing," Tim said relentlessly. "And the Boston Molasses Flood. And the Franco-Prussian War."

"Don't remind me," he said. "Can we talk about someone else now?"

"No. Well, you can, but I'm not going to."

"Besides, the Franco-Prussian War was not my fault. It was entirely arranged by Bismark, who has NOTHING of a ferret of inconvenience about him."

"But Napoleon III was your fault."

"Napoleon III was my fault," Greg agreed quietly. "Mostly. But Laurie had nothing to do with it!"

"I know," Tim agreed. "But he was still an evil dweeb!"

"Let's talk about Julie!" Greg said. "How have you been?"

"We already discussed that," she replied. "I'm annoyed and confused. Do you have any suggestions?"

"We settled that already," Tim said. "You're coming with us and we're going to do something or other."

"Like what?"

"Play Parcheesi with the Well-Rested Ammonite?" Greg suggested.

"Ammonites?" Tim said, looking around nervously. "Where?!"

"Not those sort of Ammonites!" Greg said. "Relax!"

"What sort, then?" the hamster demanded.

"The sort I made up just this minute."

"Oh." He relaxed visibly. "Do not joke about Ammonites. Do that again, and I'll dissolve your hat."

The ferret blinked at him. "What did the Ammonites ever do to you?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay, whatever," Greg said, carefully removing his fedora and hiding it behind his back. He turned to Julie. "So, how are you?"

"Still annoyed and confused," she replied, though she couldn't help grinning. "Hey, maybe that's the problem!" she said suddenly.

"What, that you're annoyed and confused?" he asked. "That would do it."

"No," she said. "That I haven't spent enough time around crazy people lately."

"Excuse me?" Tim asked.

"You should be happy; I'm proving you right," she said. "Maybe hanging out with you guys for a week really is what I need."

"I suppose," he said dubiously. "Well, whatever works for you. But we're not crazy people."

"You object to being called crazy?"

"Well," he said with a frown, "by definition I'm normative. But that's not the issue. I am not a crazy person."

"Aha," she said. "I see. Well, I haven't spent enough time around crazy non-people lately, either."
...

School let out for break on a dark, dreary Friday afternoon that radiated Februaryness. Julie packed up her things and headed apprehensively out into the cold, unsure what to expect. She packed her trunk uneventfully, and went to go look around for ideas incarnate as strange people. Or maybe strange ideas incarnate as people.

She found Tim standing at the edge of the school zone, beer in hand, watching everything around him with interest. Julie didn't personally find it very interesting, but she was inspired by the thought that someone might, particularly someone – something? – who'd been around for millennia and seen much more of the world than she likely ever would. Of course, she reflected, anyone who'd been around for millennia and around the world would probably be interested in everything, provided they were still interested in anything at all. But either way, it gave her new appreciation for the world around her.

"Where's Greg?" she asked.

The hamster shrugged broadly. "He's not here on time. I, for one, am absolutely shocked!" He looked over at a gaggle of children being shepherded into a van across the parking lot by a harried-looking mother. "Isn't that the kid who eats crayons?" he asked in a normal, and very audible, tone of voice.

"Shh!" she hissed, glancing around to make sure no one had heard. Tim threw his hands in the air in front of him, backing up sharply as if he thought she might bite, and ran smack into the street sign.

"Hello, Greg," he said without turning around, rubbing his head with an aggrieved expression. "Glad to see you made it."

"Sort of," the ferret replied. He looked from Julie to the hamster and back. "I seem to be on the No-Fly List."

"I'm absolutely shocked," the hamster repeated.

"Can't you just…look like somebody else?" she asked.

"No," he replied emphatically. "Well, yes. But – no."

"What?" She tried her best to assume a conspicuously bewildered expression, which under the circumstances wasn't hard.

"For the same reason he" – he indicated Tim – "won't turn the beer bottle into a Coke bottle so he can stand inside the school zone. It's a matter of principle." The hamster rolled his eyes and took another drink.

"That's bizarre."

"I am bizarre! Haven't you noticed?"

"Yes."

"Besides, I'm sure anyone else I looked like would be equally likely to wind up on the No-Fly List."

She sighed. ""Could you sneak in in a ferret carrier, or something?"

"Clearly you've never tried flying with a ferret."

"No," she admitted. "Nor, does it seem, am I going to. So what do we do now?"

"We could walk," Tim suggested.

"Walk where?"

"France?"

"I can't – " She decided the sentence wasn't even worth finishing.

"What name were you trying to fly under, anyway?" the hamster asked curiously. "Mustela Putorius Furo, or Grigory Rasputin?"

Julie stared. "You try to fly under those?!"

"I usually get through under those," the ferret said proudly. "Inconvenience comes in many forms."