Windfall: An Otter-Body Experience
Page 9
The crew fed the glitter fans and watered the fog machines.
Kylie half-crossed her arms, then grumbled at herself and returned them to their doctoral position. “They must be taking this episode seriously: they busted out the green screen.”
Nodding, her canine companion finished his final sandwich.
Without even thinking, she snagged a wet napkin from the pocket of her vest and scrubbed a smear of mustard from his pristine muzzle fur. She took care not to screw up all that stupid hand paint.
Max, recently used to her fussing over him, leaned down without a word to give her easier access.
And that exact moment is when a spotlight clicked on over them, aimed by a snickering ocelot. Instantly, this illumination drew the eyes and awws of all crew present.
The heat she felt on her cheeks had nothing to do with the spotlight’s glow.
Years later and a continent away, Kylie opened her front door to a delivery of a massive pastel bouquet. She signed for it with idle curiosity.
The delivery greyhound tipped her hat and departed, loping back toward a white van emblazoned with “Floral Authority, Inc.” and “Your most flowerful ally!” in leafy-green lettering.
Turning, the lutrine shut the door with a bump of her tail. A nice enough bouquet, really. Pale blue flowers, with some whites and pinks, all with buttery yellow centers. The prodigious bundle of blooms burgeoned from its plastic wrap.
Max knelt on the floor, tapping tiny nails into loose skirting boards. He’d pried the boards off to run networking cable, uncovering ancient wallpaper in the process. He looked up at her and tilted his head.
“Hey, I have no idea.” She bumped into a chair, unable to see past the expansive bouquet.
Her husky boyfriend stood and took the flowers. In his giant paws, the bundle looked almost reasonable.
She used a webbed paw to block her voice from going upstairs. “You think it’s one of mom’s old flames?”
“They usually sent roses.” His wide nose sniffed the blooms delicately. “And wine. Or just wine and additional wine.”
The otter nodded. She’d seen her mom both drink and auction off expensive gift-wine, depending on the value and how much she liked the sender. “Okay, so maybe a crazy fan?”
Max shrugged. “Karl does know where we live.” He located a small white envelope in the foliage and handed it to her. “But you’d think he’d take the excuse to see us in person.”
Her claws neatly sliced the top of the envelope. “Better not be from some creep.”
The card had an ornate heart on one side. She flipped it over to find text in immaculate calligraphy: “We told you so.”
“Those creeps!” Her indignant chatter filled the entryway. “It’s from the crew!”
In the kitchen, Max looked up from filling a vase in the sink.
“Don’t put them in water!” She punched her fists down at her sides. “Then we have to keep them!”
He looked around for the kitchen shears, eventually settling for a sushi knife. “They’re just flowers, rudderbutt.”
“That is a bouquet of mockeries!” Kylie jabbed an accusing finger at the pastel blooms.
A single, effortless slice took off the bottoms of the flower stems at a smooth angle. “We should be happy that people are happy that we are happy.”
“That is the most canine thing you could possibly say.” She waggled a finger at his muzzle.
Eyes closing softly, he nodded with serenity. “We dogs are a wise people.”
“I could have been dating you for years!” She threw her paws in the air. “Additional bonus years!”
“But we were hanging out all that time anyway.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “The only difference is that we would’ve been having sex sooner.” With a grin, he set the vase on the table. “And we’ve been making up for lost time.”
She crossed her arms, feeling sullen and not entirely sure why. “But dating you is so much cooler than just being friends…”
His thick fingers made little rearrangements to the flower configuration. “For all we know, if we dated before this, we would’ve broken up because we weren’t ready.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “We just took our time. And it seems to be going okay.”
“It makes me feel like I suck at knowing who I am. Casual acquaintances wander by and do a better job.” She buried her muzzle against his chest. “If I didn’t know that I was in love with you, how much else do I not know about myself?”
“I think that might just be…life?” The husky patted her back. “Nothing is for sure. Until you die.”
She chittered up at him: “And that’s the most Siberian thing you could say.”
“Hmm.” His chin lifted in thought, then shook in the negative. “No, it would have to include something about straying away from your pack and getting eaten by ice monsters.”
A sigh rocked her lithe form. “I just don’t like people lording over me that they were right and I was wrong.”
He leaned in and rubbed his muzzle atop her head. “Who cares about being right compared to being happy?”
“Great.” She mumbled into his shirt. “More dog wisdom.”
He put on his best enlightened tone of voice. “Sometimes dog wisdom is everybody wisdom.”
Grumbling and grudging, Kylie admitted to herself that he might have a point. At least she had a big, fluffy husky to hug. If that meant she had to receive mocking flowers occasionally, perhaps life wasn’t all bad.
Tied at the Dock
Max sat with his otter girlfriend, drinking slushies and watching the commotion out the window. He rested against the wall, hoping to appear casual and unobtrusive. As unobtrusive as a two-meter husky can be, anyway. Beads of moisture rolled down his extra-large slushie onto his white-furred paw, the plastic refreshingly cool amid the summer heat.
On the street, Cindy Madison, the cocker spaniel from the tourist trap next door over slunk toward a shiny sedan, tail between her legs. She yanked on the handle, snarling when the door didn’t budge. She leaned back against the car with a well-practiced pout, arms and ankles crossed.
Kylie watched with amusement from where she sat on the countertop. Halfway through a fish burrito, she looked up and wiped her mouth with a webbed paw. “So, we need to capture a monster.”
“Not Cindy, I hope?” Hot sunlight streamed through the shop’s glass door to warm his lap. “She’s been trying to catch me all summer and I don’t want any part of that.”
Cindy’s father followed with a beach umbrella and cooler, clad only in a speedo. As he set them down, the car popped unlocked due to the proximity of his keychain. A passerby shouted “Lookin’ good there, Mr. Madison!” In response, the older dog turned to point duel fingers with a smirked click of his tongue. Paws on the four-door, Cindy tilted her head with an unheard groan of despair.
“I’m serious.” She took a drag of her blue-raspberry beverage. “A real one. For proof.”
The big husky rolled his eyes and indulged a sip of his own slushie. The supercooled cola splashed onto his tongue, the ice crystals melting against his gums. His thick coat meant it was easier to cool him from the inside out.
Outside, Mr. Madison had fallen into an extended conversation with the passerby. His daughter glared at him from the passenger side, attempting to psychically compel him to unlock the car. Every meter or so he’d stop and then drive again; her outraged barks rattled the store window.
A metallic crinkle rustled next to him. After a brief fight with the foil, the otter emitted a chatter of victory. She nibbled a flake of white fish from the burrito wrapper. “Or at least get some video. Good video, not the blurry junk we get of the skitters.”
Eyes fixed on the otter, he took another icy gulp and gave her a chill look. She looked cute up there on the countertop, legs swinging, ample tail twitching beside the cash register. She looked much better in this store than, say, being attacked by a murderous extra-dimensional alien.
“C
’mon!” A groan of exasperation wiggled her supple body. Against the dark hues of the nostalgia shop, her brown pelt almost disappeared. Her teal Sturgeon Emergency band t-shirt stood out, however, clinging pleasantly to her streamlined curves. “We totally survived the last one. It can’t be that dangerous.”
He sighed, cool breath teasing his nose in the summer heat. “Can’t you be happy nothing’s trying to kill us?”
She propped a fist to her hip and jabbed her seafood-stuffed tortilla at the window. “The whole town still thinks my family was crazy the last hundred years.”
“You know better.” The dog glanced outside. His eyes narrowed to half-lidded as he monitored the Madisons’ departure.
Now well past the shop, Cindy’s dad concluded his game of very gradually driving away and unlocked the door. She climbed in with a visible huff and began barking at his grinning face. They drove off, the yaps of pique audible over the rumble of the engine.
Leaning forward in the antique chair, Max kept his ears and tone relaxed. “Why do you care what other people think?” His paw pads rested against the cool of the icy cup.
“I’m a minor TV star.” She chomped a massive bite out of the burrito, chewing with frantic little teeth before a greedy swallow. “Caring what other people think has basically been my entire life up to this point.”
He took another long slurp. The level of the cola slush sank to scant clumps. Sucking air through the slush with disapproval, he met her gaze. His ears rose with the patient determination not to validate her dangerous notion. That’d been his role in their friendship for years, though the monster focus was more recent. Prior, he’d mostly worried about keeping her from driving into bad neighborhoods or driving at all.
“Besides, you’re a gigantic sled dog! You cracked that alien sucker like a lobster.” Her hands smacked invisible bludgeons onto an invisible foe.
He did not remember it being that easy. He mostly remembered it being scary. “There are many powers in this world, for good or for evil.” He tilted the last of his ice slush at her. “Some are greater than I am—and against some I have not yet been tested.”
She scoffed and munched the last of her burrito. “I’ve been going over local sources and I’ve found one that seems consistent.” Pulling the phone from her pocket, her webbed finger flicked through some screens. “There’s got to be something buried in all this hype and delusion.”
The husky nodded, finished his beverage, and cleaned up the scattered food wrappers. With any luck, this impulse would simmer for a while, then maybe lead to a stakeout in a nice restaurant. A steak restaurant, if he dared to hope. He nuzzled in to kiss his girlfriend goodbye, then padded out the door and back toward her house.
Sunlight streaming in his bedroom window, the husky lay reading in bed. Around him, the ancient house creaked and settled. The sheets smelled like his girlfriend, putting an extra wag in his tail. In a moment of rare indulgence, he buried his nose in the pillow and breathed deep. The aggregate of a thousand memories surged through him, leaving him quietly radiant.
The otter herself flailed into the room, breathless and wild-eyed. “Maxie! You’re not gonna believe what I found.”
Shaken from his revelry, he sat up. His ears perked at her. “You’re probably right.”
“Remember my Uncle Thomas?” She padded and paced around the floor. Webbed toes gripped at the carpet in anxiety to swim in pursuit of a lead. “From the crab feast?”
Max recalled the crab festival with a moan of satisfaction. Never had a country dog eaten so much shellfish in one sitting. “The one who brews seaweed beer?” He shuddered at the salty, umami memory.
Her sleek form slipped in and out of the pool of summer sunlight at the center of his room. “He told me about this lake monster that’s supposed to be on the property.”
“Is that worth investigating?” A shrug rolled his heavy shoulders. “We live in a town where every gas station claims to have full-service ghosts.”
She sputtered like an underwater bottle rocket and bounced toward him. “I was looking for references to it in the journals and I found this!” Her webbed paw proffered a yellowing instant photo. The sides had come unglued, but the image held what looked like an aquatic reptile peeking up from the lake like a periscope. Kylie beamed with pride over picture.
“Not to dash your hopes, rudderbutt, but this could be action figure floating in a fish tank.” Squinting at the photo, he stroked his whiskers. “Not sure people will accept that as proof of supernatural life.”
With a huff, she propped fists on curvy lutrine hips. “Would you have believed me about an ageless alien living in the silver mines two months ago?”
“Okay, so the evidence we have is your seaweed-farming uncle’s story and a possibly-staged photograph?”
“And we’ll have more once we investigate the lake.” A little bob of excitement bounced her. Her cuteness reached dangerous levels. It threatened to drag him along on another crazy misadventure.
Sitting up, he closed his book to look up at her with suspicion. “Define investigate.”
Her paw attempted to fan away his worries. “No no no. We’re just gonna take a look around. Nothing serious…”
Max trudged through two feet of muck, his calves aching from the unusual exertion. Steady panting and occasional shade did little to cool him against the summer sun. After hours of slogging, the only evidence he’d found along the perimeter of the lake had been his own. He looked up to find he’d circled around to where they’d started.
A few meters toward the center of the lake, Kylie bobbed to the surface with a contemplative look. The mid-summer sunshine gleamed like gold off her pelt. Water rolled off her in easy drops, leaving her face almost dry. Those delicate whiskers alone trapped beads of gilded light.
Dripping and silent, the husky watched her eel toward him. It’d been a long afternoon and evening, but at least it was over. With the lake searched, Kylie could look for evidence in a less exhausting way.
She glided through the water with infinite ease, then popped out at the shore. Mud and water fell from her sleek pelt and streamlined underwear, leaving her cleaner than she dove in. With a thoughtful mutter, she shook the water from her hair. “So much for the shallows.”
He slogged out of the murk and mire, small plants clinging to his muddy jeans. He tried to brush them off, in vain. Ears popping upright, he looked up at her. “You’re kidding.”
“Well, we have to check the bottom.” Her arms flew up at how obvious the statement was. “It could be hibernating there like a frog.”
His ears lifted. Without a towel, it would take him the better part the day to dry, and when they got back to the house he’d have to shower again to get the lake scum out. He suppressed a growl of complaint.
“And yes, I know you lack my amazing water-repellant properties. Here.” She dug into her pack and threw him a big, fluffy towel to dry his big, fluffy pelt. Her round little muzzle flashed him a winning smile. “It won’t be a big deal. Really.”
Clad in a wetsuit, snorkel, goggles, and flippers the husky clomped to the edge of the dock. The lake shone like flawed mirror glass, a shimmering imitation of the sky. Max stood with his paws on his hips. His gaze cast over the lake, then back to his girlfriend with suspicion. “You’re not planning to eat the lake monster, are you?”
“No!” The otter wiggled in indignation. “…Unless it’s a giant crab. Or an eel. Eels are pretty delicious.”
He double-checked his clothes and phone wouldn’t fall off the dock. “Because we spent like a week diving for that giant dumpling squid in the bay, which turned out to be earthly in origin.”
“That was rumored to be supernaturally delicious.” She flowed around him like a whirlpool of chittering assurance. “This is strictly to prove my ancestors weren’t crazy.”
“From now on, I’m picking the monster…” The husky heaved a heavy sigh. “Do we even know what this ‘sandbar stalker’ is supposed to look like?”
“Great.” He glanced back at her. “Aren’t you getting changed?”
“Nope.” She shoved him into the water.
Flailing, Max scrambled at air for an instant, then plummeted into the drink. With a gurgled yelp, he splashed in, hung for a moment in the distorted light, then bobbed back up in a mass of tiny bubbles. Like the wetsuits they’d used on set, the air in his fluffy coat would keep him afloat until water seeped in, like a sub’s ballast tanks. Shaking the droplets from his goggles and coughing, he doggy-padded around to see the platform. “Hey!”
His girlfriend stood, paw on one hip, and watched. “It’s just water, Maxie.” Her tail swayed in amusement.
His ears flicked back over the band of the snorkel. “You coming in?”
“One sec…” She shrugged out of her vest and, with a lithe bow, set it on the dock. With her phone safe, she smirked at him, hopped, and slithered past the water’s surface. Only a slight ripple radiated from her dive, the otter herself vanishing from his sight.
Max peered around the depths, wondering where she could’ve gone.
She tapped his shoulder. “We gonna look for that monster or what?”
Hours later, a very soggy husky slogged to the shore. Water dripped from his ears, his whiskers, his tail.
“Hmmm. Well, I have some weighted nets in the carriage house. Let’s grab those and dredge the lakebed.”
The waterlogged dog gave her a narrow look and squished with each step on the grass.
Kylie followed, taking almost none of the lake with her. “C’mon, Maxie, you can’t be that tired.”
“Afraid I’d disagree.” He pulled his snorkel off and panted. “I’m not a torpedo like you. You’re welcome to keep looking.”