Nightmare and memories. Tidbit

Tidbit, to this day all I see is the head. For some reason this memory has reawakend in my dreams more grotesque than ever. I write the story here for you, from the perspective of a seven year old Terry.

Tidbit. nonfiction by Terry Steele (C) 2007

I am seven years old. Actually I am seven and a half years old. Seven and a half is much older then seven. My brothers Rob and Bruce are fifteen and walk to school every day. All I want to be is be like them. They are fun and dress up as clowns and talk to girls. I dont know why they talk to girls, but they see to talk alot about them. My dad calls them 'Sexy Mommas' when we drive down the road in the green GMC. My brothers laugh, and I think it must be their nicknames. GMC stands for my uncle, Go Mike Childs. It makes sense to me--what else could GMC stand for? It´s the fall and I just started first grade. I like it. Mrs. Smiley teaches me how to spell fun and cat and dog. I run from the bus stop and ask my brother Rob how to spell fun and cat and dog. Rob is alway being teased about his bad spelling skills, so I want to ask him first. I ask him in front of Dad and Bruce, and they both laugh, but I am not sure at what. Rob says it is F Uckin N. I think Rob just swore, but Dad just laughs, so I tell Rob it is F U N. Rob doesnt seem to want to know how to spell FUN and just walks away from me. There seems always something the matter with Rob.

One of the things our family does is have a big cage of ferrets. Most are white with red eyes and I think this makes them smart. I ask Pat, a women who lived with us, I ask, ''Do babies come from ferrets?'' Pat ignores me, as she does with most my questions. I ask her in the kitchen while I play on the brown carpet floor. One of the ferrets I was holding just disappeared behind the fridge. Pat doesn't like me but I don't know why. I look at Nini, Pat's baby little girl who is very white, and I think she came from a ferret.

We now have many ferrets. The large brown one was put in the cage with the smaller white one and after much biting and tackling, they were separated. The white one has lots of blood stained white fur (on its shoulders where the brown one bit) that matches its eyes. After it awhile its belly bulges and looks fat. It soon has many many babies. They seem to suck everywhere on the tummy. I go down into the basement and look at them everyday. They all get very big, the size of rats in a few weeks. All but one.

Tidbit.

That is what we named him. He was so cute and small and we all wanted the turn to feed him. He was what mom and dad called the runt. The other babies were mean and never let him get to milk. Tidbit was half the size of all the others, seemed blind, and squeaked alot. We all loved him. When we all noticed him, small and weak, we felt sorry and decided to take care of him. We made milk for him. Not the instant dry milk from the food shelter, but real whole milk from the jug. We warmed it up in a small pot, just for him. There was a special dropper Tidbit sucked milk out of--and he would do it right out of the palm of our hand. It was a special event every night--after supper, we would get tidbit, and we would take turns holding him while giving him the special warmed whole milk. I wanted to hold him and feed him, but was told I was never 'old enough'. I hated being told I was not 'old enough'. I was seven and a half.

Tidbit, little by little, got bigger. He was the favorite of the whole family. There were only four names for the ferrets we raised (at least to me)--the momma, the papa, Tidbit, and the kids. For me Tidbit was the only one that mattered. I would look in the glass cage and route for him to get a nipple to suck on. He was always the underdog, but rarely the winner. He was the easiest to find, since he was always half the size. I was always the smallest and so was Tidbit. So I routed for him, and pretended, he routed for me.

There is a great yelling after dinner and everyone rushes downstairs to see the momma and the babies. I dont know how but the next memory is all of us looking in cage--looking for Tidbit. Tidbit is gone and we wonder how he got out. Actually, I am the only one to wonder how he got out. All of them see, but I dont. Everyone in the family is mad and angry and some are crying (mom and my brothers), but I still dont see. I dont want to see--thats not Tidbit I see--Tidbit is whole and real and squeaks and furry and small and, and, and, and thats not Tidbit. Tidbit has not been reduced to just a head and red.... Tidbit has not been eaten all the up to the neck, so it has no arms, no legs, and no torso. Can that be Tidbits head?? Why? How? Why would the other ferrets do that? Why would they eat Tidbit? Eaten alive and at seven and a half, this is something that greatly frightens me. This is not the way it is supposed to be, this seems really really unfair to me and Tidbit. But none of these questions I ask are answered--no one wants to talk about it.

We put the head in a jewelry box, wrap it in plastic and bury it in the ground across the street --under Rob and Bruce's tree fort. It is where many of our pets were buried. 50 feet from a real cemetary.

The passion for raising ferrets soon leaves all of us, in the family. We pick up every baby in the litter as we clean up the cage and silently ask if he or she was one of the ones that ate Tidbit. The rest of the babies grew and I know not what happens next with them. I know a few months after the death of Tidbit, all of the ferrets were gone, and the ferret cages were empty. I think we gave them away and or let them loose in the field and swamp behind us. That was the last time I ever seen ferrets in our family.

It was a long time until we had any pets after that.