The pier cracked and shook, jolting Wally awake. Up he leaped, whirled around, the fishing pole flying from his paws, and with teeth bared, his fur bristling, he tried to remember the sorts of sounds angry badgers made.
But the planks stretched empty to the tangle of collapsed warehouses, the abandoned containers alone along the quay, clouds drifting quietly over the shattered towers of downtown Oakland and the hills beyond. Wally stood and stared while the thumping and quivering continued under his paws.
Under? He turned, peered over the edge of the dock, and there, just above the water's surface on one of the pilings, clung Les, a chunk of concrete in his paws, hacking at what looked like a bunch of black rocks. Wally watched the otter for a moment, the whole pier trembling with each hack, then called down, "What are you doing?"
Les snapped a wide-eyed look up at him just as the whole sheet of rocks came loose, and he tumbled back with a splash. Wally waited, and in another moment, the otter came floating to the surface, a bundle of the black things draped over his chest. "What did you say?" he called from the water.
"Don't change the subject!" Wally waved a paw. "Why can't you do something to help me for once? All your playing around with rocks has made me lose the fishing pole!"
"Rocks?" Les blinked. "What rocks?"
"What rocks?" Wally stared. "Why, those very rocks there across your stomach!"
"What, these?" Les shifted the bundle to his shoulder, began clambering up the piling. "But these're mussels, Wally, not rocks. You can eat 'em." He flipped himself onto the pier, pulled a black thing loose, and pried it open.
A fishy smell rose from it. Wally cleared his throat to hide his stomach's growling. "Well, you otters eat a lot of odd things. How do I know it isn't poisonous to badgers?"
Les blinked for a moment. "Well, my cookbook used to say mussels're all right as long as the month has an 'R' in it." He blinked some more. "Gee, what month do you s'pose it is?"
Wally stopped sniffing. "You mean you don't know?"
"I can't help it." Les's face began clouding up. "They keep changing them."
"I'm ashamed to be seen with you." Wally crossed his arms. "Imagine not knowing what month it is." But as the otter's whiskers drooped, Wally had to pat his shoulder. "Oh, now, don't fret; your secret is safe with me."
"Thank you, Wally." Les sniffed. "So what month is it?"
"Why, it's March, of course." Wally considered. "Or perhaps October. Either way, there's an 'R,' so let's eat."
Les's face brightened; he sucked the meat from the mussel he'd opened, then flopped down onto the pier and began cracking shells. Wally took one and touched his tongue to it: a little slimy and rubbery, but no worse than the garbage he'd had to pick through these past few weeks.
For a while, everything was cracks and slurps, and Wally was just licking the last shell when a sound reached his ears: an automobile engine, getting louder and louder. Les seemed to hear it, too, his eyes going wide as he cowered down among the mussel shells. "Pelters!" he squeaked.
"Don't be ridiculous." Wally crossed his arms. "Pelters have to sneak up on you so they can kill you and take your pelt. You can't sneak up on anyone in a car."
"You could do it at night when ev'ryone's asleep!"
Wally gave him a look. "Is it night? Are we asleep?"
Les blinked, then shook his head, a smile stretching through his whiskers. The sound ground down and stopped, and when Wally turned back to the warehouses, he caught his breath to see two humans appear among the containers beside a loading dock: a man in a dark suit and a woman in a blue overcoat. The man poked at something in his hand, and the humans' eyes came up to meet Wally's. They stared, then started picking their way through the debris to the base of the pier.
Humans! And real humans, too, not the dirty, skulking kind he'd seen these past weeks! Wally sprang up and raced along the pier, Les clattering behind him; his speech already prepared, he slid out onto the grimy concrete and bowed to the two. "Good afternoon. I am Mr. Brock, and this is my friend, Mr. Spivy, both formerly in the employ of Dr. Charles Yun, I as butler, and Les here as cook." He put a paw to his chest. "How well I remember Dr. Yun's parting words to me: 'Mr. Brock, you are one of the few things about this planet I shall miss. I know I shan't find a finer valet in the colonies, either human or anthrop.'"
He felt a tap on his shoulder. "Say, Wally," he heard Les ask, "was that before or after he had the dogs chase us off? I can't seem to remember."
)
