[Primrose Bolger]

‘Ferrets!’ Ginger eyed the two sleeping animals. To be honest, they looked so sweet and peaceful. Her fingers itched to touch them. ‘Best not wake them,’ a little voice in the back of her mind warned her.

Just this past spring a trio of ferrets had got into her family’s henhouse and ate the eggs beneath the hens. Two of her mother’s prize layers had been dragged off, too; and a number of the little chicks killed.

‘Where did you get them? Are they tame?’ Ginger asked the woman. She thought about what Cook might say if she knew there were ferrets in the Inn. ‘What do they eat?’