"Were you the one that called?" The man, dressed in an orange jumpsuit and aviator glasses stood on Ms. Dalloway's porch. He would have looked exactly like Dale Gribble in the animated show King of the Hill, except Dale was rail-thin, and this man looked as if...well, let's just say he wasn't thin at all.

"Yes, thank you for coming so quickly," Ms. Dalloway said as she ushered him inside the house. "The scratching started last night, and I think I heard hissing."

"Hm, hissing? Scratching at night? Sounds like you're dealing with a marsupial, ma'am."

"Marsupial? You mean like a possum or a raccoon?" She backed herself up into the front door, feeling a sense of security there. "Don't they usually have rabies?"

"Sometimes," said the man, opening his toolbox full of various liquids and nets and equipment. "But not all the time. Usually, these guys get in through the foundation of the house or exterior vents. Do you know where he might've crawled into?"

"Well, no, this house is fairly new. There shouldn't be any foundation cracks."

"Okay, then. I'll do a perimeter around your house and see if it has any entries or exits, and I'll probably identify it in the meantime." He left out the backdoor with a spray gun in hand and a gas mask on. Ms. Dalloway didn't know what to do besides wait for the man to come back, so she decided on sitting on the front porch, away from any hissing noises.

The man, an exterminator with fifteen years of experience, walked around the white house. The paneling was new, indicating that the woman knew what she was talking about. The house was fairly new and - what the Hell is that?

The man noticed a red tuff of fur next to one of the gutter drainage systems. He followed the drainage pipe up to the gutters on the roof and noticed a patch of tiles had been ripped open. However, the opening was huge, much larger than a raccoon or a possum. And the red hair? It looked like the hair of a red panda, but this was in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa, and red pandas aren't marsupials.

The man picked up the hair and sniffed. Definitely a wild animal. Male. About fifteen, no sixteen and a half years of age. Whatever this thing was, it was in its prime. Wait a minute...the man licked the tuff of hair, and it all of a sudden hit him like a ton of bricks. He knew what exactly he was dealing with. He spit on the ground, and cursed.

The man walked back to the front porch where Ms. Dalloway was sitting. "Ma'am, you have a grade four infestation."

"Grade four? Is that bad?" Ms. Dalloway lept from her chair, as if the intruder would leap out of the house any second and grab her.

"No, grade four is pretty low, but rather annoying." The man walked back to his truck, and put his tools away. He reached into his glove box, and pulled out sunscreen and a can of mountain dew. "The infestation you have is non-toxic, non-lethal, and is just looking for a place to find some shade. Ironically, they make very good company and haven't harmed anybody."

The man opened the soda, and shook the sunscreen bottle. From the house, you could hear a scrambling and something breaking. Ms. Dalloway would later find out that the something that broke was one of her vents.

"Come on, fella. Let's get you back home. You're probably someone's son."

The front door crept open and out stepped a red-headed man. A ginger. He walked slowly towards the exterminator and grabbed the soda.

"A red-headed child. These guys often get scared during the summer months due to the extreme heat. The sun burns their skin and they seek shelter from time to time."

"Billy?!" A voice said from down the road. "We've been looking all over for you!"

The kid's head perked up at the sound of his mother's voice. He ran to his mother, dropping the soda can in the street. They embraced, and began walking back towards home.

"Thank you," Ms. Dalloway said as the exterminator got back in his van.

He tipped his glasses to her. "All in a day's work, ma'am."