Thomas was sixteen. Everyone thought his name was Tom, and that is what he preferred to be called. ‘Thomas’ seemed a bit serious, ‘Thomas’ meant there was trouble ahead. Tom’s gran looked after him. His mum had left when he was very young and his gran had taken on the role of being ‘mum’. Grandad was there too. He was great, grandad was. He showed Tom how to use a saw, how to hammer nails and to make things out of wood.

 Tom kept ferrets. He had no brothers or sisters but he had a whole family of ferrets instead. He had started off with a female, Jess, he called her. She was not much bigger than a rat when she arrived. Grandad brought her home. A friend at work had given the young ferret to him for Tom. They put her in a cat’s carrying box and went out to the shed to see what they could use to make a cage for her.  Tom had helped his grandad to make things out of wood, but he had never actually made anything by himself.

 “You can make the cage Tom,” said his Grandad.

 “How will I do that? I don’t know what to do.”

 “I’ll help you; look I found this ferret cage design in the library.”

 That was the great thing about grandad – he always planned ahead. He always took the trouble to work things out beforehand.

Tom sort of knew that somewhere in the shed would be all the bits and pieces they needed. Grandad would have seen to that already. He must have known about the ferret having babies for several weeks. He liked to give other people nice surprises, but not problems. The nice surprise was for Tom. The careful planning was for him.

 “Let’s have a look then, Grandad, you tell me what we need and I’ll see if I can find it.”

 “Right lad, here we go. Two metres of four by two…” and so the list started.

 Tom picked up all the bits as his grandad listed them. He could see he would have to do some sawing and measuring, but he knew he could do it with his grandad’s help.

 That had been three years ago, now Tom had a row of cages in the garage. He had made them all. Each cage was home to one or two ferrets and each cage was better than the last. Grandad had brought him a ’jack’ ferret on his 14th birthday and over time Jess and Joss, as the male was called, had produced several young.

 Tom loved his ferrets more than anything. He would take them to country fairs in the summer. Grandad would drive and Grandma always sent them off with a good picnic. That was Tom’s favourite time of year – summer holidays – ferret racing.

 Tom started college just after he was 16. He had never been very interested in reading or writing. He was a bit worried about how he would get on. He had decided to study farming as that seemed to be the best subject for him.

 The students were a mixed bunch. Some of them were very keen on their subject, but a lot of them didn’t seem to care what they did. They were often noisy and rude to each other. They jostled and pushed and generally tried to see if they could make someone else feel small so that they could feel big. Tom thought it was a very strange way to behave. It was not how he had been brought up. He had been brought up to listen to what other people had to say, to pay attention, not to interrupt and to show respect for other people.