“Indeed, I was stupid enough to make myself vulnerable, and you caught me fairly,” the mouse went on. It certainly was a chatterbox. “However, people nowadays like to be responsible for their actions. They like to know why they are doing what they are doing, the context of their decision as well as its consequences. Especially when it involves a member of a minority.”
“Since when did mice become a minority? They are underfoot everywhere, and they multiply like fleas.”
“I am a minority in the sense that I am the victim of an imbalance in a relationship of power, for instance between a responsible Raccoon and an errant Mouse.”
Clutch closed his eyes and prayed to his gods until the rage provoked by this display of impudence passed. First he prayed to the Great Raccoon Ancestor who gave Raccoons their cleverness. Then he prayed to the First Mother, consort of the Spirit Ancestor, she who is called Hapticia, who bestowed her hand-eye coordination on all Raccoons. Meanwhile, the animacy was watching him keenly with its bright eyes. He felt its little heart beating in his paws.
“Since when did you corner the market on victimhood?” he asked it.
“I didn’t. We are all victims. The world is a mean place, and it’s getting meaner by the minute.”
“I’m not a victim,” Clutch said.
“You’re not? Where is the River Clan Family?”
“You tell me, if you know so much.”
“Its people are cowering under porches and in tree hollows from here to the horizon. Like mice.”
“Who is preying on them, to make them as cowardly as mice?”
“That is for you to find out. But don’t let your mission distract from my main point. My point is that most of us are victims in this unbalanced world. We are all minorities.”
Clutch grew tired of this argument. It sounded like one of those paths of reasoning that led to an entanglement, and it was only delaying the inevitable. He cleared his throat for a gulp. This victim was going down the chute. Conversations about bully versus victim power imbalances were going down with it. What next? Were vegetables going to start arguing with their eaters?
“Besides,” the mouse said casually. “You shouldn’t eat me because I can tell your fortune.”
Clutch hesitated again. It was bad enough to be bested by a Goose. But now a Rodent full of a pesky pertinency. Yet in all fairness, he should hear it out. Mice don’t know much, but what they know is close to the ground.
“What do you know about my fortune?”
“I know that you are going to squeeze through a tight space into your future. And that you will become a responsible Raccoon.”
“You could be less vague.”
“You have kinfolk hiding nearby in a boathouse on the lake. They haven’t eaten in nights and they are hungry.”
“I am hungry too, but you’ve taken away my appetite,” Clutch said, releasing the mouse. “Now I don’t want to eat anymore.”
“Neither do I.”
“You’ve made me pointless, moody, and malnourished.”
“But you’re a better Raccoon.”
“Anytime you want to have a disquisition on moral philosophy before lunch, let me know,” Clutch said gruffly.
“I will. Cheers.”
The mouse curled her tail above her ears and watched the raccoon turn sharply away and walk stiff-legged back down the service road in the direction of the lake.
14
“No face or figure is more pleasing than his – so regular his features, so open his countenance! Oh, what a blush of health is upon him, and such an agreeable height and size, a firm and upright ’Coon! There is health in his air, yea, even in his glance.” Fanning herself with a willow branch, Sensibella let out a sigh.
“Lá! What a crush!” Frisk said.
A little breeze from nowhere stirred the tops of the bulrushes. A yellow powder, pollen from a nearby ridge of conifers, covered the open water. It was the quiet part of the day. The only sound was the kek-eree of a Red-winged Blackbird on the far side of the pond.
“But do you not find him somewhat lacking in means? A remarkably fine specimen with dexterity and wit – I’ll give you that. But hardly a gentleman of property. He has nothing but himself to commend him.”
This was Goodpaws, who had the bossy kindness of a senior sister, even though she couldn’t have been born more than five minutes before the others. Frisk and Nimble made up the rest of the sisterhood that was enjoying the shade of a River Willow.
“He has his intricate Makings to commend him, for he is an artiste,” Sensibel declared.
“One who presents to the eyes things that never wert in Nature, like raccoons with wings, clams that talk, and suchlike drolleries,” Goodpaws said. “I beg you reconsider Squire Hairball, who is of our parish and offers the virtue of familiar Customs, not to mention a handsome territory.”
“Phoo! Phoo! He has a projecting tooth and a clumsy wrist.”
“Yet he possesses an acute mind and assiduously pleasing manners,” Goodpaws said.
“I am quite determined to refuse him.”
“Ahem!” Aunt Pawsense clearing her throat, marking an intervention. Plump on turtles’ eggs and fresh spring clams, she moderated the conversation by means of an amiable corpulence and the application of moral axioms: “There is hardly any personal defect which an agreeable manner might not gradually reconcile one to.”
“I think very differently,” Frisk said. “An agreeable manner may set off handsome features, but can never alter plain ones.”
Bandit silently applauded the forthright Friskywits. She made up for an impoverished allure with high animal spirits and a spontaneous cogency. At the end of the bough overhanging the pond, Bandit felt like he was held at paw’s length, permitted to overhear the girl talk for the singular reason that he was decidedly not part of its subject matter, which was a suitable mate for Sensibella. Besides, he had picked up every disagreeable smell in the world during his quest up the Cross Town Creek to see her.
