One morning a pet ferret awakens as a self-aware sentient being. He has no memory of what came before, and quickly bumps up against built-in restraints, such as an inability to harm people, or to sleep during the day as other ferrets would do, and, most peculiarly, he is compelled each evening to review the day's events. Perhaps the strongest inherent taboo, however, is to do anything that would reveal his abnormal intelligence, and against this he struggles as he finds trouble, and trouble finds him and his faithful owner, Joanne.