How a polar fox got to be on the island of Evvia will remain a mystery, like many other things. But it is a fact that she turned up with mysterious skin infections, swellings on her feet, her coat in a shocking condition, and her morale at a very low ebb. Of course her bad health may well have been what saved her from ending up as a fur coat, because it is very likely that such was the fate for which she had been destined but had escaped. Sick, she had become an economic liability to her owner, who had brought her to Greece God knows from where and for what purpose, and so she had been abandoned. Another possibility, equally plausible, was that - being extremely intelligent - she had escaped but had fallen ill in the course of her wanderings on account of the difficulty she had in adapting to the hot Mediterranean climate. Truly, a white animal is meant to live in the snow and ice and hunt lemmings, and not live in scrub, bushes and pine forests baked by the sun most days of the year and inhabited by animals unknown to a polar fox. With proper care she slowly recovered. She became sleek and beautiful. And the more she recovered the more active she became. She had two principal concerns in life: first to wreak as much havoc as she could in as short a time as possible and second to steal cigarettes and destroy them. Both these activities of course had a common denominator. They were a source of irritation to their victims. But the fox was so beautiful that finally they forgave her all these misdemeanours and bore the consequences with resignation, even if they had to gather up the piles of rubbish she had energetically scattered all over the yard, and even if they were left without cigarettes for a whole day. On the other hand, although a fox - wicked and sly in the opinion of many - she never did anything really bad, such as for example harassing another animal. I shall now describe to you her masterly technique of stealing cigarettes, so that you can apply it if, for example, you run out of cigarettes. The first stage is that of selecting the victim - who must necessarily be a smoker. After that, close monitoring and patience are required, until the victim sits down somewhere - relaxed and in the mood for lighting up a cigarette. Usually in our yard this happened on a small flight of steps. The fox then comes up, ostensibly indifferent, making out that she is concerned with other more important matters and that she finds herself there entirely by chance. Insofar as the opening gambits have been successful, and the victim is demonstrably off his guard, the moment of action has arrived. To be successful, the operation has to be executed with lightning rapidity. A fox, naturally, knows quite well how to make precise and rapid movements at the appropriate moment and how to deceive its victims, diverting their attention elsewhere. Otherwise what sort of a fox would it be? Thus, with lightning speed, she shoves her muzzle into the victim's pocket, grabs the cigarettes in her teeth and runs…runs to hide, to chew them at her leisure, while the distraught victim chases her, cursing, to get them back. "Put my cigarettes down, you cunning little swine…" "Don't…don't!" Not my "Camels"! But the shouts and the protests were always futile - in fact she seemed to delight in provoking them - that was the whole point of the theft. In any case, there was nothing she could do with the cigarettes. She couldn't eat them, or - naturally - smoke them. After destroying them she would drop them somewhere, just for the pleasure of seeing the exasperated smoker weeping, wailing, gnashing teeth as he gathered up the remnants. The fox would then bask in the pride of her achievement: she had won, she had demonstrated her superiority to everyone. If she had simply found them lying somewhere, it wouldn't have meant anything to steal them. It would have been quite without interest. But she had succeeded not only in taking a human being by surprise, demonstrating knowledge of what pockets are and the fact that humans conceal in them objects to which they attach some importance, but also in getting - invariably at the first attempt - the right pocket, whether in the jacket or in the trousers. It was very fortunate that she was not particularly interested in money. As for the dismembering of the rubbish bags, it presented similar challenges, and similar satisfactions. During the day it required close monitoring of all the operations under way at the Centre, with a view to targeting the right bag in the right situation: unguarded, however briefly. Within seconds it must be torn open and its contents scattered everywhere as expeditiously as possible, until someone detected the illicit activity and terminated it with shouting and gesticulation. During the night the challenge for the fox was to remove every obstacle barring her access to the rubbish that the municipal garbage truck couldn't collect during the day and that was therefore awaiting its next round the following morning. Alone now, she had more than enough time at her disposal. So she studied the problem assiduously and always came up with a solution. Doors? Grilles? Stones? Wire? Nothing was an obstacle for her. But now the objective was that the next morning the rubbish should present as repulsive a spectacle as possible. This was the effect she was aiming at and the satisfaction she felt was derived from witnessing the profound yet silent dejection - it was too early in the morning for shouting - of the early morning Sisyphi who had by now started to resign themselves to the role of the eternally defeated, the losers. One morning the metal gate to the yard was left open, with the consequence that the fox got out into the road. A state of emergency was declared. "Let's catch her," we said, "so that she doesn't get run over by a car." And we all poured out, six of us, tailing her. We saw the fox nonchalantly traversing an open space opposite the building. Conscious that we were no match for her in either speed or endurance, we fanned out to surround her so that she couldn't break out of the encirclement in any direction. Slowly but steadily we closed in, hoping to trap her in the centre of the circle. What followed is unforgettable. I saw the white fox coming at full speed towards me - making a break to escape the trap. I prepared myself to jump on her and catch her as a goalkeeper catches the ball, calculating that she would pass me on the right. She of course perceived that I was about to execute a sideways jump but continued running in the same direction until the crucial moment that, confident of success, I jumped. But in a split second, with me still in the air, too late for me to change direction, the fox ducked to the left and I came down to bite the dust. I perceive to my exasperation that the fox has broken through the circle. "That's that…she's given up the slip", we think, but we steel ourselves for a continuation of the chase. She describes a wide arc and comes back, trying again to break through the ring, this time not to get out but to get back in. She repeats the same diversionary tactic and has another one of us clawing the dirt. Since she is now inside the circle, we all rush again to catch her, but there's no point…..Abrupt, well-timed ducking and weaving enables her to slip through again, making monkeys of us. I don't know how long we were chasing her and she, after various provocations, succeeded yet again in eluding our grasp. By now we were all out of breath anyway, dragging ourselves around with feet of lead, unqualified to catch even a tortoise or a snail. Great beads of perspiration were dripping from our brows. When the fox saw that she had scored a knockout victory, she slackened her pace. Then we saw something that left us speechless. Literally preening herself, she strutted into the building through the main entrance and headed back to her own yard.. Loud and clear, the message was ringing in my ears: "Dolts, imbeciles…. what am I - a polar fox - to do on the island of Aigina? Who told you that I wanted to leave the place where at least my food and entertainment was guaranteed? If there was a little snow, white like me, there might be some point in escaping from you. As it is, I simply wanted to show you now that I - if I wish - can go wherever I please, for I am cleverer than you, and that for me, is enough, for the time being."