The Leather Pocket

Night brought me slipping back under the front threshold to rest. *Click-tkk.* Deep inside the dark hallway coat closet, a quiet tremor hummed through the timber floorboards. I tracked it straight into the lower rack of a tiered wooden shoe organizer. Stuffed tightly into a dark nook was a stiff, hollow leather boot, its heavy opening pinched shut by knotted rawhide laces. Resistance. *Hssss!* I anchored my segmented tail into the slotted pine shelf and drove my primary scythes straight between the eyelets, levering sideways until the knot snapped loose. Squeezing belly-first down the calf shaft, I wedged my ribs against the rigid leather heel cup, drinking in every gentle footstep echoing through the floor.