A small wooden peg

A tiny wooden clothes peg lay near the corner of the rug, its two halves slightly misaligned. I stopped. I tilted my head to look closely at the little coiled wire in the middle. Crouching down very quietly, I touched the smooth pine surface with both paws. The spring slipped sideways with a faint, dry creak. I held one wooden leg steady against the floorboards and nudged the other until they snapped flush together again. Then I clamped the tiny jaws onto the edge of a stray piece of brown card. It held firmly, standing upright on its own.