#22: Badger

"Stop badgering me," I said. I was getting agitated because he was constantly asking where it was. It was here, or thereabouts. I remember the creek bed bending beneath the willow tree, and the hill to the north.
Three hours later and I still couldn't locate the rabbit hole. A light mist was shrouding the landscape, possibly disorientating me.
"Are you trying to be funny?" the stout police officer asked. Beneath his hat, his hair poked out at odd angles as if he'd stuck a finger in the light socket.
I turned, narrowing my eyes at his stupidity.
"Funny?"
"Yeah, taking the piss. Badgering." He gave a small and weak little snort at the joke only he found amusing.
"I don't get it," I said. "I don't get any of this. I found some old Roman coins. My ferret went in, and as it dragged out the rabbit, an old coin flopped out."
"Yes, you've told me. And I've told you we need to see the hole."
"It's not a hole no more. I don't see what I've done wrong. I found some coins, tried to sell them, was told I can't. The government took them, and now you want me to find it six months later."
"Just doing as I'm told."
"I don't remember where it was. The creek bends this way and that. What else can I do."
I trudged further along the creek with a sense we were heading in the wrong direction.
"I still don't get what was funny."
"Oh, that," he said again, snorting. "You said to stop badgering."
A full throated chuckle erupted, making him sound like a frog on heat.
"I still don't get it." I watched him, waiting, wanting to know what was amusing him.
It couldn't be dehydration, as we'd taken a sip from the creek not long before, and besides, you just needed to stick your tongue out and you'd get a mouth full of water in no time.
"You said badgering, like the badger." He pointed to my pocket.
"Oh, you think a ferret and a badger are the same thing."
I quickened the pace to lose him out here in the marsh.