This episode includes:
✅ Chapter 20 - Diamond Hand
✅ Forever Croc
✅ Dept. of Fourth Wall Deconstruction PSA

Full text & chapter archive for The Stinkwater Escapee:

https://stinkwater.ca

Phones begin to ease out and point at him.

Henry walks up and pokes Big Sal in the chest.

“I don’t know where you came from, or how you managed to land this job, but you will never be as good as I was! Everyone remembers my floss.”

“Who’s that guy, mommy?” says a little girl, maybe five. Then, cringing away from Big Sal, “And why’s the puppet so real?”

“Ah-HAH! Even she knows you’re just a puppet!” says Henry.

This human smells like that old crocodile suit. Trick. Conflicted. Two scents pulling opposite ways.

Big Sal looks around for a barkeep, but all he sees is Raleigh behind the tall, long table. His back is to the scene unfolding as he checks orders. Petra isn’t anywhere to be seen.

“And where did you get such a suit? What kind of blasphemy is this?” He gestures to the entirety of Big Sal.

The smell coming off him is sweet-ish, but not. Cinnamon buns had a full kind of sweet, held up by spice. This one is hollow, sweet on top, sticky-sharp underneath. It has a shape, too. Pointing right at Big Sal. Trying to…make him feel smaller.

“Wow. Real impressive,” says Henry, poking at his arm. “Good for you. You don’t belong at Hooks. You’re going to fail here in less than a week. Maybe days. Maybe hours!”

Working himself back up, Henry grabs Big Sal’s snout and pries it open, peering in at the rows of teeth.

“Hm. Too realistic. And grody.” He leans back. “Yeah…I can smell…actually, never mind, I don’t want to say it. Not in front of the cameras.”

Then he lifts the croc’s left arm, studies the armpit, and frowns.

Before Big Sal can stop him, Henry climbs up and sits on his head, feeling along his jawline.

“Why does it seem like there are no seams? What are you, welded to this pathetic mimicry of a crocodile suit? Seams fishy,” he says. “Hah.”

“Wait,” says a boy. “Look under his chin.”

Henry scrambles down and looks where the boy is pointing.

“Huh,” he says, leaning close.

The top of a zipper sits against Big Sal’s throat, as if it were melded into the skin.

“Not a real crocodile,” whispers a girl to her little sister. “You’re okay.”

Say what?

If he had hair, it would be prickling. His hand lifts toward his throat, but the proximity band goes off and the speakers bark, “This croc can dance! Watch him floss!”

He tries to do the floss, but his short, thick arms still won’t go behind his back.

“Like I said, pathetic!” says Henry, matching to the stinger as he performs a floss that swings in a wide circle.

Big Sal looks down at this person, two feet shorter than him. It’s almost amusing. It isn’t.

A familiar human scent from the crowd reaches him. He can’t quite place it. Then he can.

It’s the pilot, whose airplane he caught a ride on out of Stinkwater.

Big Sal looks around, trying to see the human, to remember the face, but he doesn’t think he ever saw it. A song starts to play, and it’s not one he’s heard before, but the beat, the rhythm catches him.

And then his body is already moving. He doesn’t understand how, or why, or where it came from. Only that something broken left something open, and the music pours in. Pulls him.

This isn’t about snacks.

Gesturing at the far side of the crowd, he tries to move them away. People look at each other, confused, until he bellows, “Move. Please.”

The crowd parts, and the front doors slide open to the staged front of Hooks.

“Duck,” he says to Henry, who looks confused. Then, “Get down.”

Henry waffles for a moment as Big Sal takes the prosthetic tooth out of his mouth. He winds up. Henry finally ducks.

Big Sal throws it out the front door, runs, and jumps, launching himself out after it.

“Watch out!” says a mom, pulling her kids close.

“Flying crocodile!” says a teenager.

“Don’t lose your hat!” says someone else.

Aiming high, he fans out all four legs and, like an airplane, lifts, twists, and pulls the tooth out of the air, landing in a smooth roll outside of Hooks, on the pavement where he first saw Petra.

He tosses the prosthetic tooth up in the air, catches it behind his head and rolls it down his ribbly back, over his tail and then launches it as high as he can.

“This croc…”

Hands out to one side, his legs move across the pavement to the music, and his tail tips a sunhat off of a woman’s head. It’s not as big as his floppy hat, but does the trick.

“…has got to…”

In a breakdance method that only he could make smooth with his tail, he falls to the ground, tipping the hat up and over to land on his head. It’s a little low and covers his eyes, but he’s good.

He twirls in a stirring motion, then with an exaggerated sniff, he rumbles. “Mmm…make it homey…”

The crowd, though, hears ‘homey’ like ‘bro’, and loses it in a raucous cheer.

“That’s the croc!” yells a little kid from his dad’s shoulders. He tries to do the flying motion Big Sal did, and Dad has to catch him before he falls off.

“No no NO!” yells Henry, trying to storm through. “This croc is—”

“Oh run some floss through your teeth,” says a teenager. “Give it a rest.”

Big Sal grooves to the music, letting it flow through him on that sidewalk in front of Hooks. There’s some mad drops and a few hat twirls. He does a spinning headstand and as he’s beginning to feel the song start to end, a glowing orb soars over the crowd to circle him in a rising spiral.

Petra.

He stalls, the orb knocking him out of his zone for a moment, and he almost fumbles his end. His tail reaches up and out and catches the tooth he threw upwards as it returns to the ground, slides it up to catch it in his hand, and jams it back into his mouth where it had been.

The song ends, and he stands in the middle of the crowd.

Everyone’s looking at him, expecting something.

A swishing sound and the sliding doors close behind everyone. The orb disappears back over the crowd.

“That’s the croc!” yells the kid from his dad’s shoulders again.

“THAT’S THE CROC!” the crowd rumbles.

“Dad, I want crocodile legs,” says the kid.

“Uh, I think they come with ranch sauce. You don’t like ranch,” says his Dad.

“DAD, NO! I wanna be able to fly like him!”

Chuckles from the crowd respond to the kid.

“I’m so hungry I could eat a crocodile,” says a man who looks like he works in construction. He winks at Big Sal and turns towards the entrance.

“Can I get a selfie with you?” says a teenager, approaching Big Sal.

“Uh.”

She leans against him, clicks her camera and whoops. “First post!”

A line forms fast, and Big Sal finds himself making different faces and motions for each one.

Three selfies later, the restaurant’s big outdoor speakers boom, the current selfie goes awry with shock on everyone’s face, even his.

“WELCOME TO HOOKS THEMED RESTAURANT!” says a deep voice. “WHERE THE SHOW GETS FLOSSED EVERY…”

“Whoops,” says Raleigh, walking out with his phone in hand. “Not floss. Not floss. Dammit. I should have changed that years ago.”

“You didn’t change it because I was only on leave,” says Henry, gruffly as he shuffles away.

“Oh go back to The Cinnamon State, you stick-legged rolly poly roll,” says Raleigh. “Enjoy basting yourself in butter.”

Chapter Index

🔍 Want to preview Chapter 21?
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Just one offer when an edition is ready.

Chapter 20 podcast drops April 18
Chapter 21 text drops April 25

This episode includes:
✅ Don Maroon covers The Cinnamon State’s new CinnaStirStick
✅ Chapter 19 - Windows
✅ Hook’s callback

Full text & chapter archive for The Stinkwater Escapee:

https://stinkwater.ca

“I don’t know what that is,” says Petra. She begins to pull Sal towards the front of the kitchen, where plates of steaming food are waiting for their customers.

She looks at an order slip.

“Do you see those three people sitting by the window over there?” she asks, pointing. Three teenagers sit near a window, two chatting and one on their phone. She takes three plates and three milkshakes and puts them on a tray.

“Take this to those customers. Set these in front of them. And don’t eat any of it. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He takes the tray in two hands, and three Hook burgers, accompanying fries and three different kinds of milkshakes, one lactose-free, are like beacons under his nose. He walks slow and careful, doing his best to keep things balanced.

But his sway has milkshakes looking like pendulums by the time he reaches the table, and the fear-tart that arises he can’t tell if it’s from him or the swinging milkshakes.

“Woah, grab ‘em while they’re upright!” says the closest.

Three hands grab their milkshakes, and Big Sal sets the tray on the table.

It doesn’t seem right though, and he takes the plates off. Each person raises a hand when theirs is touched, and he figures it out quickly. When the last plate is placed, he lifts the tray again.

“You’re like the hottest thing in Ankerton right now, croc-dude,” says one kid. “Don’t listen to the haters. Just be yourself.”

“I dunno Joey,” says a girl, whose milkshake smells like mango. “You sure this croc isn’t real? I mean, he’s got drool forming.”

“Nah Jane, don’t be a hater.”

“That’s a hype costume. Where’d you get it?” asks the other.

“Oh, leave him alone, Peter.”

His proximity wristband starts to vibrate, and he looks at it. A moment later, the sound of breaking waves and a little human roar comes over restaurant speakers.

“This croc can dance! Watch him floss!” says a deep baritone of a pirate voice.

“Oh wow! We’re the first to hear the croc stinger in like, years!” says Joey.

Big Sal has no idea what is happening, just that the way everyone is looking at him, they clearly expect something.

Uhh. Gotta do something…

So, he tosses the tray he is holding up in the air in a spin, opens his jaws, and…

SNAP

A moment later, he spits the tray out with a pa-tooey.

The table erupts in laughter.

“That isn’t the floss!” says Peter. “This is the floss!”

The kid jumps up and does the floss, his arms swinging like the milkshakes were. Big Sal watches for a moment, then tries to mimic. His arms don’t have the same mobility, and he ends up looking more like a stuffed crocodile that bangs chairs with his tail.

Two phones snap, and one kid holds his screen up, recording. Again, Big Sal isn’t sure what’s happening, but the scents from the table explode outwards in a fruity potpourri of banana, mango, honey, water-return, and others.

On their faces is pure hilarity, smiles, laughter and mirth.

“Peter, you’re going to go viral! Dancing with the Hooks crocodile! First one too! Oh my god!” says Jane. “That was hi-lar-ious!”

Those Hook burgers smell amazing.

After a moment, It’s kind of like the Zit & Grit, only without the wheaty smell. These small humans aren’t afraid of me, and they’re laughing.

The scent of bison stew steeps out from between his scales.

“Alright, big guy,” whispers Petra, appearing at his elbow. “That was only the first emote. Just wait for the others.”

Then, to the table, she says, “Ahoy shipmates! Don’t feed the animals! They might just get a hankerin’ for you landlubbers!”

She leads him away from a still-laughing table and back to the kitchen.

For the next few hours, Petra tells him which plates go where, slowly explaining how the marks correspond to each table. He doesn’t get it at first. He makes a few mistakes. But the proximity band goes off every several tables, and every time it’s the floss dance. Every time he feels like a stuffed crocodile with arms that just won’t do what they’re supposed to.

I wish I had human arms for this. Flossing would be easier.

“You should go for break,” says Petra. “See the two hands on the clock?”

He looks at his hands, his claws. “How do these make a clock?”

Petra gives him a steady look. “You’re really from the back woods, aren’t you?”

“Stinkwater. Stinkwater…marsh.”

“Ok buddy. See that round thing up there?” Petra points at a wall clock in the kitchen.

“Yeah.”

“See how the two black lines are straight across the round part right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Take a break, a rest, go have a bath up in your room if you want…doesn’t matter what you do. Just be back when the lines look like this.” She holds her finger and thumb in an ‘L’ shape. “Hold yours up too.”

He does, and she makes sure he isn’t mirroring, only mimicking.

“Thanks.” Water-return arises from between his scales.

“Where do I find the cinnamon buns?”

Chapter 19 – Windows

As he walks up to his room, many different scents hiss from between his scales, the caustic of shame, mostly the fear-tart. The small hallway compresses. As much as he wants to get to his room, he’s also afraid of what he’s going to find.

Stopping to look closer at the hand-drawn, spot-lit crocodile on the wall, he wonders why it looks more ferocious than he feels right now. The eyebrow slants tight, eyes squint, and the tongue hangs out behind the extra tooth. An eternal smile smirks at him.

That crocodile looks like it’s trying to be a crocodile, but knows it isn’t.

With a sigh, he opens the door to ‘The Croc’s’ room. He pushes through billowing clouds of something that’s a soft, creamy butter scent, a hint of beehive and another sweetish nut.

Tears begin to form as he looks at the cream spread out across the table. The broken screw-top lid clings to the edge of the table.

“Oh no. What did I do?” he says aloud this time.

He tips it right-side up and touches the broken edge. The sharp edge leaves a mark on his scale, and…for the first time, his claws feel like skin, not scales.

And as he looks at his claws, they seem a little narrower.

He closes his eyes. The scents scatter his concentration, and he sags against the table, shaking. When he opens his eyes, his concentration comes back, and he realizes he can’t disappear into the dark like he used to.

The water in the bathtub calls like memory, like mud and herons and sand. Then, forcing himself, he stands up, moves to the tub, and turns on the water.

He lies down as the tub fills, the water murmuring toward his eyes while his own runs down to meet it. He turns the knob off and stares at the tiled wall.

I…I feel like that bottle. How am I supposed to put myself back together?

The recent memory of the laughing kids comes to him like a heartbeat, and he breathes in.

Laughter is like swamp gas. There’s something alive inside its belly.

Breathing in again, he thinks about something Petra had said. Four chairs, right? Four things. One, two, three, four chairs.

Four plates.

Four milkshakes.

He breathes with each number, thinking about the laughter.

A yell from outside pulls him up to look out a dirty window pane. He places his wet hand on the glass and wipes. Dirty streaks remain. The river still courses by outside, and if he presses his eyes close to the pane, he can see the fountain off to the right in front of Hooks.

An adult is out front, yelling that whoever they got for the new croc is just a…frog? He can’t tell if that’s the right word or not, but the person is jumping around and waving his arms.

The clock looks like that ‘L’ Petra showed him. He doesn’t want to be late. So he gets out of the tub and walks, dripping wet, across the floor.

It doesn’t seem right to just leave this broken here.

Big Sal goes through the drawers. He finds a towel with the same ‘The Croc’ as on his front door. He uses the towel to clean up the moisturizer, carefully picks up the glass, and puts it in a trashcan.

Sighing, he says, “I hope that stays like bison. Only happens once.”

The stairway isn’t as claustrophobic this time around. The scent of Hook burgers drifts over him, and his stomach rumbles.

“Sal, glad to see you! Good job being on time,” says Petra. “So, there’s someone here that you should know about.”

“Is that the person yelling outside about a frog?”

“Uh. Yes. Not frog. Fraud. But don’t worry about him. He’s just the guy who used to play the old croc, and he’s the jealous type. We know all about him.”

New stick bundle, or word, I guess.

“What is…frau—d? Like frog, but slimier?” he says. The heat from the plates and the heat lamps dries him out, and he drinks from the dishwasher hose.

Petra gives him a steady look. “Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking or not. Because sometimes you’re right. A fraud would be someone who’s pretending to be something they are not. Poser? Here, use this glass and fill it from the drink machine when you get thirsty.”

“Thanks.” Mango scents arise from his scales, and he finds himself wanting to know more.

“Don’t worry about him. We know him well. It’s already picking up from Don Maroon’s coverage of our viral bit. Tonight will be busy,” says Petra. “Here, keep doing what you were doing before. Match plates to tables. And I will tell Raleigh that he has got to change it from the floss.”

“Why’s that?” he says. He puts plates and glasses on a tray and takes it out. He does the floss, bangs some chairs with his tail, and returns.

“The floss was Henry’s signature dance, and it’s what stayed in the stinger when he left, four years ago.”

“Henry…is that guy waving his arms and yelling outside?” His taped on eyebrow gains an inch as his real one perks up.

“You got it. He is a little weird. But you know how we like weird here.”

The next tray he takes out, Henry stands at the helm, blue eyes glaring at him.

“You’re a fraud, mister.”

Chapter Index

🔍 Want to preview Chapter 19?
Subscribe and it’ll land in your inbox!

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Just one offer when an edition is ready.

Chapter 19 podcast drops April 4
Chapter 20 text drops April 11

This episode includes:
✅ Chapter 18 - Emote
✅ Captain Clamjaw’s All-You-Can-Eat Buffet ad
✅ Department of Fourth Wall Deconstruction PSA

Full text & chapter archive for The Stinkwater Escapee:

https://stinkwater.ca

“I don’t know what that is,” says Petra. She begins to pull Sal towards the front of the kitchen, where plates of steaming food are waiting for their customers.

She looks at an order slip.

“Do you see those three people sitting by the window over there?” she asks, pointing. Three teenagers sit near a window, two chatting and one on their phone. She takes three plates and three milkshakes and puts them on a tray.

“Take this to those customers. Set these in front of them. And don’t eat any of it. Got it?”

“Got it.”

He takes the tray in two hands, and three Hook burgers, accompanying fries and three different kinds of milkshakes, one lactose-free, are like beacons under his nose. He walks slow and careful, doing his best to keep things balanced.

But his sway has milkshakes looking like pendulums by the time he reaches the table, and the fear-tart that arises he can’t tell if it’s from him or the swinging milkshakes.

“Woah, grab ‘em while they’re upright!” says the closest.

Three hands grab their milkshakes, and Big Sal sets the tray on the table.

It doesn’t seem right though, and he takes the plates off. Each person raises a hand when theirs is touched, and he figures it out quickly. When the last plate is placed, he lifts the tray again.

“You’re like the hottest thing in Ankerton right now, croc-dude,” says one kid. “Don’t listen to the haters. Just be yourself.”

“I dunno Joey,” says a girl, whose milkshake smells like mango. “You sure this croc isn’t real? I mean, he’s got drool forming.”

“Nah Jane, don’t be a hater.”

“That’s a hype costume. Where’d you get it?” asks the other.

“Oh, leave him alone, Peter.”

His proximity wristband starts to vibrate, and he looks at it. A moment later, the sound of breaking waves and a little human roar comes over restaurant speakers.

“This croc can dance! Watch him floss!” says a deep baritone of a pirate voice.

“Oh wow! We’re the first to hear the croc stinger in like, years!” says Joey.

Big Sal has no idea what is happening, just that the way everyone is looking at him, they clearly expect something.

Uhh. Gotta do something…

So, he tosses the tray he is holding up in the air in a spin, opens his jaws, and…

SNAP

A moment later, he spits the tray out with a pa-tooey.

The table erupts in laughter.

“That isn’t the floss!” says Peter. “This is the floss!”

The kid jumps up and does the floss, his arms swinging like the milkshakes were. Big Sal watches for a moment, then tries to mimic. His arms don’t have the same mobility, and he ends up looking more like a stuffed crocodile that bangs chairs with his tail.

Two phones snap, and one kid holds his screen up, recording. Again, Big Sal isn’t sure what’s happening, but the scents from the table explode outwards in a fruity potpourri of banana, mango, honey, water-return, and others.

On their faces is pure hilarity, smiles, laughter and mirth.

“Peter, you’re going to go viral! Dancing with the Hooks crocodile! First one too! Oh my god!” says Jane. “That was hi-lar-ious!”

Those Hook burgers smell amazing.

After a moment, It’s kind of like the Zit & Grit, only without the wheaty smell. These small humans aren’t afraid of me, and they’re laughing.

The scent of bison stew steeps out from between his scales.

“Alright, big guy,” whispers Petra, appearing at his elbow. “That was only the first emote. Just wait for the others.”

Then, to the table, she says, “Ahoy shipmates! Don’t feed the animals! They might just get a hankerin’ for you landlubbers!”

She leads him away from a still-laughing table and back to the kitchen.

For the next few hours, Petra tells him which plates go where, slowly explaining how the marks correspond to each table. He doesn’t get it at first. He makes a few mistakes. But the proximity band goes off every several tables, and every time it’s the floss dance. Every time he feels like a stuffed crocodile with arms that just won’t do what they’re supposed to.

I wish I had human arms for this. Flossing would be easier.

“You should go for break,” says Petra. “See the two hands on the clock?”

He looks at his hands, his claws. “How do these make a clock?”

Petra gives him a steady look. “You’re really from the back woods, aren’t you?”

“Stinkwater. Stinkwater…marsh.”

“Ok buddy. See that round thing up there?” Petra points at a wall clock in the kitchen.

“Yeah.”

“See how the two black lines are straight across the round part right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Take a break, a rest, go have a bath up in your room if you want…doesn’t matter what you do. Just be back when the lines look like this.” She holds her finger and thumb in an ‘L’ shape. “Hold yours up too.”

He does, and she makes sure he isn’t mirroring, only mimicking.

“Thanks.” Water-return arises from between his scales.

“Where do I find the cinnamon buns?”

“Uh, ask the chef. I’m not sure if we got any in today. They might have some in the freezer.”

Big Sal finds the chef.

“Dude, your costume is killer. I don’t know how you do it, but mad respect.”

“Cinnamon buns. Where are these?”

“Oh bro, I’m sorry, but we be out. There was stuff in the freezer we threw out yesterday to make room for today’s shipment. Which you absolutely rocked! Man, how much that pallet weigh? Five hundred? Six hundred pounds?”

Big Sal has no idea what’s going on, but he understands that they are out of cinnamon buns.

Darn. Got my hopes up.

And thinking of ‘up’, he remembers his ‘below-deck’ room and wanting to get back to it.

Something broken awaits.

🔍 Want to preview Chapter 19?
Subscribe and it’ll land in your inbox!

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Just one offer when an edition is ready.

Chapter 18 podcast drops March 14
Chapter 19 text drops March 21

After the chapter, stay tuned for a short in-world announcement from Hook’s Themed Restaurant.

Full text and chapter archive:
https://stinkwater.ca

KCHNK

The wall he leaned against disappears, and Big Sal tilts out of the cold, splatting against a warmer floor. Kitchen scents waft toward him.

“Sal?” says Petra. “You can’t be sleeping. Are you?”

Petra, who has just opened the walk-in refrigerator door, looks down at him.

A familiar scent widens his nostrils. His eyes blink open and come into focus.

“Are there cinnamon buns here?”

“I’m sure you can have one on break. But that’s in two hours.”

The teenager who greeted him at Hooks now carries a stack of dirty plates to a nearby sink, sets them in the basin, and squeezes the water hose, rinsing them.

Petra looks over, a scent arising from her that is a mix of water-return and beaver dam. It’s similar to what the barkeep from the Zit & Grit had, but her with own flavor.

Reaching down, she runs a finger through the sticky, half-frozen sauces and sniffs it.

“You’re covered in ketchup and plum sauce, Sal,” she sighs. “I wondered what that was. You should go upstairs and get cleaned up. I’ll let Raleigh know you’re…”

Oh ho. Something smells a little like bison. Is that fried onions too?

He flips onto all fours, stands, and bustles to the sink. The busboy takes a step away, then hurries to the dining area.

With a quick slurp, Big Sal finishes off the remnants of a dinner for four. He then rinses the plates and turns the hose on himself. A moment later, he’s clean, but the floor is covered in water. The busboy returns with another stack of plates.

He hands each plate to Big Sal, who slurps it. A Hook burger goes down, then a plastic basket with fries.

“Isn’t this a sanitary thing?” he asks Petra in a voice that cracks.

“Yeah, it kind of would be,” says Petra. “But more on this guy’s end. I’m not sure how his suit processes the food, or what it does. Whoever is inside that is quite well protected.”

“Did you see our stats?” Raleigh beams, striding fast from the dining area. “We’re going viral! Whoops!”

His boots elevate him four inches, and the captain’s hat adds another eight inches to his five-eleven frame. All of it whip-saws like a windmill as he slips on the standing water. A boot crashes upwards into the ceiling, bounces, and splashes into the basin. His hat flies towards Petra, who snatches it out of the air.

He holds his phone up like a trophy. “We’re on the news!”

The basket isn’t going down, and Big Sal has to pull it back out.

Alright. That’s not food. Tasty—but not to eat.

Raleigh sticks a hand out to Petra, and she pulls him to his feet. He then leads the three of them to the television overhead at the kitchen entrance, taps his phone, and the channel changes to a newscast.

“Yes, Captain Raleigh has rallied a new shipmate for the fabled crocodile role at Hook’s Themed Restaurant,” says the newscaster. “After a long while of the relative quiet, it appears someone with their own highly advanced costume has stumbled into the role hole.”

The newscaster is replaced by the livestream Petra recorded moments ago.

The drone’s perspective shows the closed doors to the truck. A bang, then two, followed by a quiet thump. Trying to stay low, the trucker is seen unlatching them. A few moments later, the doors squeak open. Raleigh emerges from the dim cavern of the box, crows like only a pirate captain can, and strides off to the right.

The camera zooms in on the silhouette of a pallet stacked with boxes, rising into view at waist height. One box reads “Pizza Dough,” another, “Hamburgers.”

One arm, frosted scales and large claws gripping the side of the pallet, appears first. Two short, stout legs, claws nicking at the wooden floor, make a sharper CLINK as they hit the metal ramp.

Three steps into sunlight, and from around the back of the pallet appears a crocodile’s jaws, lips curled in a snarl, a red rivulet of ketchup between almost-crossed eyes. A stream of plum sauce ripples over the shoulders as the reptile emerges into the light of day.

He looks like he just won a fight.

That looks different from how it felt.

He isn’t sure he likes the mismatch. His nose can barely make out a sour scent rising from his skin.

“Fearsome!” says the newscaster. “Fang-tastic! What a suit! That is definitely not Raleigh’s old, used crocodile skin. This is something new, people!”

“I don’t know, Don,” says another newscaster. “Comments seem to be questioning whether that’s a real crocodile.”

“Impossible!” says Don. “It’s phenomenal! Crocodiles don’t stand on two legs. I’ll bet this croc can sing and dance, too! Weren’t there reports of a crocodile dancing with the—uh—dancer? The girl?”

A new scent arises from Petra. She clears her throat and mutters, “Always just ‘the girl.’” Vinegar with hints of mud cloud her. “Just call me Petra.”

Big Sal watches her, and the way she’s standing changes. Her arms cross, her eyes narrow and grow distant. As her scents squeak out from her joints, they tell him something very different.

Held behind the beaver dam scent swirls a small pocket of water-return in a larger body of irritation. Some of that vinegar leaks steadily between the sticks and mud.

She lets some seep through but keeps most of it behind.

With a smile, he tries to mimic it. The scent of beaver dam feels familiar in a warm way.

“Hi Petra. I’m Sal.”

Raleigh hasn’t heard either of them. His eyes are wide, and a fast-rising scent of something very different rolls off him.

She smiles at him, her scents dropping away to water-return and hints of cilantro. A different scent arises, with heat and perhaps tomato.

“Thanks, Sal.”

“WHOO HOO!” exclaims Raleigh. “We need to get a new menu done up for this weekend! We need new proximity scenes created. Oh Sal, you’ve just catapulted us into the next level! Don Maroon’s coverage is gonna bring everyone and their pets out!”

And… this guy has no dam.

Overcome with his seemingly good fortune, Raleigh whoops, hollers, and runs around in a circle, yelling “For the win! For the win!” He ends by clasping Big Sal’s snout and giving him a kiss.

What is this? This human is a flood.

Editor’s note (March 2026): Minor line edits made for clarity and flow.

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Some stories are meant to be held.

The Stinkwater Escapee: Season 1 now exists as a printed chapbook — the first collected edition of Big Al’s journey beyond Stinkwater Marsh.

If you’ve been following the Saturday chapters, this gathers the beginning of the adventure into one book you can hold, share, or pass along.

If you’re new to Stinkwater, this is where the escape begins.

Available here:
stinkwater.ca/buy

Thank you to everyone who’s read, listened, shared, and asked for something tangible.

Regular Saturday chapters continue this weekend.

“I don’t…get…this,” he says, unsure what the feeling even is.

Moisturizer. I need the moisturizer.

His purse sits on the chair where he tossed it earlier, but with the look Petra is giving him, he doesn’t think he can reach for it right now.

Not the first time he’s smelled it, but the first time he’s smelled it on himself—a faint whiff of fear-tart steams out from between his scales. Not knowing why this is happening doesn’t help.

Petra watches this, sees he’s struggling.

“Right. Your suit is different, and by the looks of it, probably waterproof. That hook won’t work.”

She grabs a round roll from a drawer in his room, and it smells like burning plastic. His right eye twitches at the cracking sound as she unrolls it.

But before he can blink, Petra has taped the eyebrows on with clear packing tape, securing them to his head.

The prosthetic tooth is easy enough to wedge between two of his other teeth.

He tries to look at himself in the window.

“You know, you could use the mirror over the sink,” Petra says.

He looks around, spies the mirror, and leans in close.

“Ho ho! I look…”

Not like myself.

“Like Raleigh’s vision of a mean old crocodile,” Petra says. “If you can pretend to be a mean old crocodile without eating anyone, we’re good!”

Big Sal gives her a side-eye.

Does she know?

He does something he saw someone at the Zit & Grit do: he gives her a thumbs-up.

“Let’s go!” She turns and heads toward the door.

Big Sal sneaks a hand toward the purse, slips the moisturizer out, and rubs it on his hands. The fear-tart eases, and he tosses the bottle back onto the table.

CLUNK

Petra looks back at him. “What was that?”

He looks at the bottle. It’s broken open, and the gentle scent that had brought calm slowly fills the room.

Oh no… what did I do?

“I don’t know what that is,” she says. “But Raleigh is waiting, and we need to get moving.”

Trying to blink something back, he feels water well up in his eyes and run down his neck.

Petra has already turned away, walking fast to the door.

I… I…

He follows, but something inside hurts, and with it comes more water leaking from his eyes.

Running down the stairs after Petra, looking like someone else’s crocodile, Big Sal almost trips. Cilantro arises fast, and Petra seems to know which side of the stairway to retreat to as he slides down a couple stairs.

“Careful, big guy. Don’t want you breaking a leg.”

Ow. I think I stubbed my toe.

“S-so w-where’s this l-livestream?” he asks, recovering and standing more on a heel than toes.

From a pocket in her costume, Petra removes her glowing orb and a gold-rimmed monocle. She wedges the monocle over her left eye, attaching its chain to her clothes with a clip. A mechanism in the middle of the orb pivots, and her deft hands reveal a small camera.

Big Sal gets the impression she’s controlling the camera with the movements of her left eye.

“Wherever I want,” she says. “Don’t worry, we’re not live yet.”

At the bottom of the stairs, they turn right and go through the kitchen, Petra’s orb following overhead.

The stubbed toe and the hurting inside subside as the kitchen scents overwhelm him. Fried onions, French fries, milkshakes of many different flavors…

“What’s that?” he exclaims. Something hot and bubbling smells like cooking meat.

“Deep fried crocodile legs,” says the chef, and when Big Sal’s mean looking eyebrows look even meaner, he quickly follows up. “Well, it’s really crab Rangoon with Worcestershire and sweet chili, but you know.”

This human place smells so delicious and is even more confusing…

Petra stands at the back of the kitchen, sunlight spilling in through a door she holds open, waving him forward.

The direct sunlight blinds him momentarily, and he shields his eyes with a hand.

Outside, a truck similar to the Molly’s Long Haul Moving truck much of his journey took place in has backed up to a loading dock. A ramp extends from the truck’s doorframe to the dock.

“There you are, my friend!”

Raleigh surprises him, his eyes still adjusting.

“Tick tock tick tock—we’re on the clock,” says the pirate captain. “Petra, we’re starting with top shot over the ramp, forty feet up. Descending in a slight outwards parabola, keeping the frame on the closed truck door, then boom down to three feet above the ramp height. I’ll knock three times, open the door, and out we come. Stay on me until I start walking, then hold as I exit the frame. Push in behind me with a handheld wobble when Sal’s silhouette is visible, and dolly out, keeping him center. Sal, you will carry in three loads, and as he does that, Petra, keep the handheld wobble and paparazzi zoom in and out. After three loads, we wrap with a drone shot of the exterior sign. Got it?”

“Got it, boss,” says Petra.

“Sal, you look great! Those eyebrows are amazing!”

“It was Petra…” starts Big Sal, but before he can finish, Raleigh has already moved on.

“Alright! Places, every one!” he says. “You.” He points at the truck driver wearing overalls and steel-toe boots. “Close and latch the door, and let me open it as we come out.”

“But…” says the trucker. This trucker has a very different scent from the other one.

“Tut tut! We’re on the clock! Let’s go!” Raleigh barks.

The truck door opens, and Big Sal’s eyes widen as it does.

It’s so collld…

He walks in, Raleigh trailing behind, but as he does, he can feel his limbs start to numb and his heart rate slow.

“Grab that pallet by the fork notches and pick it up,” Raleigh says.

Big Sal approaches what Raleigh has pointed at, leans down, and has to turn his head to the left. He picks it up, but the top box squishes against the ceiling. Something red with a tomato smell runs down over him as the doors close. For a moment, Raleigh and Big Sal are alone together in the dark refrigerator truck.

Raleigh seems to be counting under his breath. Then he reaches forward with his fist and pounds once.

BANG

BANG BANG

The doors are supposed to open, but when he pushes against them, they don’t move.

“What in blue blazes is this?” Raleigh says quietly.

Then the doors crack open, and he leans against them. They don’t move as quick as he’d like, but after a moment and a half, he bursts through.

“After searching high and low across the jungles and marshes, from the highest of mountain peaks to the lowest of the Nether, I have finally found the treasure I had been searching for!” he says to the hovering orb.

“Wasn’t it at the Zit and…” Big Sal starts.

“At long last, from the plains of the Nile, our leathery friend comes—the beholden crocodile!”

And with that, Raleigh moves forward enough for Big Sal to emerge from the truck. His snout faces left of the pallet, away from the camera, a thick red liquid running down over him. The stack atop the pallet catches inside the upper doorframe, and another box tumbles downward and smacks him on the head, breaking open.

Sounds worse than it feels, Big Sal thinks, remembering the smack after getting headbutted so very long ago.

The trucker stands on the ground, and the two lock eyes. He mouths and points for him to turn the other way.

His neck gives a horrendous crick as he slides his snout vertically over the side of the stack to look at Petra’s orb, and he can’t help but snarl.

Like a hummingbird, the orb darts backward, flitting about just like one too.

Covered in tomato sauce and now something that smells like liquid plums, he walks on what feels like a gangplank.

More cold air spills out of an open overhead door, and he walks through stinky flaps that move aside as he pushes in.

Silent, Raleigh points where to set everything down, then gestures to for him to walk back to the truck.

His heart racing from the effort, he manages to grab the other two pallets and carry them across the narrow gangplank into the refrigerated space of Hook’s.

The overhead door closes, and the lights go off as slams it shut.

Alone in the dark, refrigerated space, his heart rapidly slows, and Big Sal begins to feel sleepy.

Man, if I could just catch a couple z’s…

His breath turns into ice crystals, and he leans against a part of the wall that looks a different color. Something like a knob he hasn’t seen before sticks out of the wall, and he sighs, a wintry mix of tomato and plum sauce freezing to him.

He closes his eyes for a moment. It’ll just be a moment.

And something passes overhead, something that might smell like Raven. He can’t quite tell.

But what he can tell is the berry-sour scent of the vine it carries.

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Big Al takes a moment to realize Raleigh is talking to him, then turns to look back at the restaurant.

“If you want to start now, we’ve got some boxes we need to unload. Come show me some of that Zit & Grit grit!”

With a grunt, he twists and almost falls off the picnic bench. His butt is sore where he had been sitting.

“I’ll be right there,” says Big Sal. He stretches his arms and tail out, catches the water spray, and sighs.

Contented, he trundles beneath the watchful eye of the frozen pirate captain stuck to the side of the building, then to the live one that welcomes him into the open door.

“Welcome, welcome!” says Raleigh. With his hand on Big Sal’s shoulder, he leads him in the same direction he had before. “First things first, let’s get you below deck and presentable to our customers!”

Booths line the outer walls and, open on both sides, run down the middle of a wide room. Tables and chairs stand between the rows of booths. Six different themed tables are scattered throughout. One round table circles around a mast where canvas droops from the ceiling. Another square table near the back wall looks out over the back of a boat, a mural of a sea filled with mer-people.

And at the entrance stands a helm—a ship’s wheel—and a teenage pirate whose eyes are as wide as the helm he holds.

“Welcome to…uh…Hooks! Where we serve only the jolliest of rogers and the heartiest of…” His voice trails off as Raleigh waves a hand.

Petra appears from behind a swinging door, orders of fried onions, hamburgers and French fries balanced on serving trays in her hands. Dressed in a pirate costume, she looks like a stowaway. She smiles when she sees him heading Below Deck.

“It’s all taken care of then?” she says.

“Yes, indubitably so! We have our Croc! At long last, we…have…our…Croc!” he says, calling out the last word.

Two children, a boy and a girl of about eight and nine sit at a table with their parents, watching Petra bring their meals. But at Raleigh’s last shout, their attention draws to the large crocodile in a hat and dress passing through the dining area.

Two harmonious shrieks of death pierce the restaurant atmosphere, and as soon as they fade…

“Ha HA!” replies Raleigh. “Music to my ears! He’s not a real crocodile, children, but he’s real good at pretending! The best I say!”

And with that, he presses something on his wrist. A ship’s bell resonates through the restaurant.

DING! DING!

Petra winces at the sound, rolls her eyes and then, turning towards them, smiles at her customers. Two befuddled parents share glances as their kids look too scared to move.

“Ahoy to our captive audience!” says Petra, greeting them. “Hook burger and onion rings with murder sauce?”

A timid hand lifts as the boy looks at the plate set quickly before him.

“Did anyone die in making the murder sauce?” he asks quietly.

“No one was hurt in the making of the sauce,” Petra holds a hand against her mouth as if sharing a secret. “It’s really just ketchup with more zip than catch.”

Everyone at the booth then takes a breath as she matches plates with people.

Raleigh leads Big Sal through the restaurant. They pass under a television with moving pictures and a voice that says something about warming northern temperatures.

“Oh I’ve been waiting so long to ding the dong!” says Raleigh as they climb the dim stairs toward the rooms. “Here, my friend, are your keys,” he says, tossing them toward Big Sal with a wrist-snap flourish. “If you can present yourself as this…” He points at a spotlit, framed, hand-drawn picture hanging on the hallway wall of a crocodile with an extra-large set of mean-looking eyebrows, a large prosthetic tooth on one side and definitely no dress or hat.

“…We will be ship-shape! Oh and don’t forget your wristband. It’s your proximity device and will trigger different scenes at different times. Be ready for them I say! You’ve got five minutes and we will need you downstairs unloading the refrigerator truck out back.”

With that, Raleigh turns and heads back down the hallway, head held high as if he were a lion tamer who had just put his head inside the jaws and lived to tell the tale.

Hmm. So blending here means taking my human clothes off and looking like myself…I could get used to this.

Carefully, and with great concentration, he opens the door to his room with a key that slides in and out of the lock. He had seen Raleigh do this earlier. He feels it click and then turns it.

The room feels cozier, and as he steps into it, he feels his shoulders relax, his belly loosen and his jaw hang open.

“Oh ho,” he says. “Why does this feel so good?”

A new scent begins to arise from his skin, this one almost of bison stew, but has a strange, peachy undertone to it.

Peachy bison stew? How strange do these scents get?

And then he smells something behind a door, something very human, very stinky, and his curiosity leads him to open it.

His jaw drops and he feels a flip-flop in his stomach.

“What is that?” he whispers, not sure whether he’s afraid, bewildered or something else.

Hanging in the closet appears to be the skin of a crocodile, only it never was a crocodile, his nose tells him that. The smell of sweat from many different humans oozes from it, as if it had been soaked time and time again. It’s puffed out to give shape, but seems old, dead, and very worn out.

As he touches it, the scales shimmer and shift. A few patches have been sewn on in different spots and camouflaged to blend in.

Humans wore this to look like a crocodile. But I’m me, and they think I’m one of them, wearing something like that.

Am I one of them?

Confusion filling him, he takes off his hat and tosses it onto a chair, which is where the dress goes as well, but then he sees his reflection in the window over the tub.

And I’m Big Sal now? What did this journey do to me?

He looks the same, but he feels different.

Then his focus changes as he sees the view of the river beyond the windowpane, green forest lining the opposite side. It is by accident that his tail brushes a knob and water splashes onto his feet.

Again, peachy bison stew arises, and for the first time in a very long time, he gets down on all fours as the tub fills around him. He flips onto his back, his tail hanging out of the tub, and sighs.

“Ahhh. This is what I’ve been waiting for,” he mumbles.

A table near him starts buzzing like a cricket, and the sound starts to lull him to sleep.

However, within moments there is a knock at the door.

“Hello Sal?” calls Petra. “Are you ready?”

He gurgles bubbles from the tub.

“Sal?”

Vibration comes from the table again, this time more like a motel sign flashing on and off.

She knocks, tries the knob, and when he doesn’t answer, keeps knocking, slowly opens the door, calling his name. She sees him lazing in the tub, his eyes slowly closing.

“Sal, uh, it’s your first day on the job. You can’t be falling asleep before you’ve even started,” she says. She picks up the vibrating proximity band from the table and tosses it onto his belly, where the tickle startles him awake and into consciousness.

“Oh. Sorry.” He shakes his head. “The water was just so comfy.”

Petra rolls her eyes and throws a towel toward him.

“Get yourself dry. You’re going into the refrigerator today. And don’t forget your eyebrows or tooth. Raleigh wants a livestream.”

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Adults mistake him for a person.
Kids see him.

Guided by his powerful nose — and the occasional raven — Big Al navigates motels, diners, trucks, and back alleys on an antihero journey where blending in proves harder than escaping.

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Events & Appearances

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Her cilantro scent has diminished, but hasn’t entirely gone. The scent of hamburgers, French fries, and other fried food hovers around her like a cloud of mosquitoes.

“You’ve got more mysteries than scales, sir,” she says, turning it over, studying the stitching and feeling the waterproof material. “Anyways. Are you able to give me a name for your employment? It’ll be what we call you inside, the name Raleigh writes your paychecks out to. It’ll follow you here at Hooks.”

Big Al isn’t sure what to say. Rick is what Ms Fast had thought he said when he hiccupped. His name, Big Al, was more how he thought of himself, and less than what other creatures called him. In Stinkwater, he had been ‘the croc’. So what name was he going to be called at Hooks? And what was this thing called a paycheck?

He has finished the word ‘CHEESEBURGER’, copied its number, and has started on the next menu item, Salisbury steak.

S A L is on the paper. He turns it around and points at it.

“Sal, right?” he says slowly.

Petra looks at his writing, and copies it to the form. “Perfect. Last name?”

Big Al turns the paper back around, copies the rest, then shows ‘ISBURY.’

Petra taps a pen against her lips. “Mmm…Sal will work, but ‘isbury’ won’t. You’re not a steak.”

She pauses, watching him as he tries to copy the numbers for the Salisbury steak.

“We can come back to that. Any address?”

Big Al’s response is a grunt.

“Raleigh said we could use PO Box 6767 if we needed to. It’s for a shell company he has.”

She watches him copy the next menu item, ‘Hook Burger.’ He writes the double oo as a sideways eight, and she slips around the table to sit next to him.

“Here, instead of connecting them because they’re together, they have to stay separate. See the 8 there?” She points at a price. “Similar picture. Only upright. What you’re drawing is a single thing, but not a double ‘o’.”

Big Al scoots over a bit, a little uncomfortable. This human smells like fried onions and he knows he can’t eat her, but his mouth starts to water.

The fact that she’s helping him learn to write brings a new scent from his scaley skin, and again it’s unlike anything he’s smelled so far. Bright, savory and…spices? Butter maybe?

It comes with something like a creak, or a crack that shivers his body and leaves him a little dizzy before fading quickly.

“It looks like water against two blades of swamp grass,” he mumbles.

Petra blinks at him. “Okay.”

She frowns, then looks at the numbers he has copied.

“What does this mean to you?” she asks, and points at a 4.

The scent of cilantro begins to warm up.

“Uh, a heron with tasty looking legs.”

“And this?” She points at a number 5.

“A pelican with an extra snack inside. Very tasty.”

“Fascinating.” Petra scratches her head. “Okay. Well, let’s translate this a bit. Here at Hooks, this four means that there are four things. It could be hamburgers, or four drinks, or four people.”

“I…don’t get it.”

A small bird lands on the picnic table and Petra smiles at it. It looks at both of them, and then disappears in a tuft of feathers, Big Al’s tongue drawing it in like a fly.

At the same time, Petra’s phone dings with a reminder. “Annnd it’s time to get back to work,” she says, standing up. “This was…something else.”

Big Al watches her go back to Hooks, swallows and taps his tail against the table.

With a fountain behind him, the wind blows sparkles of water over him, cooling him.

This is nice. Water on my back, food at the front and sun overhead. What else do I need?

A human jogs by on the sidewalk, paced by a large dog. As soon as the dog gets a whiff of Big Al, it starts growling, then barks an alarm.

GRRRRRR. RRRRR. YOU’RE NOT WELCOME. NOT WELCOME. GET OUT. GET OUT!

“Jeez Fido, give the busker a break. He’s just sunning himself,” says the woman. “Sorry about the dog sir. You did great at the dance earlier. You’ll fit right in at Hooks. They’ve been looking for a croc for a time.”

Big Al smiles and does something he saw Raleigh do at the Zit & Grit. He leans back, gives the person a smile, then tries to snap his fingers and point at her. The snap fails to make sound, but the woman shakes her head with a smile.

“You’re awesome,” smirks the jogger, while her dog growls as they pass.

So long as these snacks are on leashes, I should be good, he thinks. And then, with a crafty cackle, Well, off leash and they become my snacks.

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[Chapter 13 – Inside the Hold]

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The dancer smiles, looks him over. “You’ve got quite the first impression. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the real thing. You’re an incredible method actor.”

Big Al doesn’t know what this means, but he smiles, nods, and winks. It felt like the right thing to do.

Back to the restaurant they walk. The dancer is quiet, the scent of cilantro mostly faded, more mango, banana, and citrus.

Big Al isn’t entirely sure what this means. Cilantro has always been the closest to nature, to flow. And it seems to come and go with the dancer, which is entirely unexpected. It disorients him.

The crowd has mostly scattered upon return, but a couple families are still milling around. Light applause greets the two as they re-enter the sidewalk stage. Big Al isn’t sure why, but the water-return scent arises from his own skin, and he smiles and takes a small bow.

The food aromas spill out from Hooks in a wave of cooked meat, fried food and other delicious scents. The doors slide open as they get close, and Big Al stops for a moment, again confused.

No knobs? Why can’t every door be like this? And food! How do I get some of this?

“Ah, my friend!” It’s Raleigh, or at least it smells like Raleigh. There’s a little bit of trick to him and a lot of leather. He looks like what’s stuck to the outside of the building.

“Thank you, Petra, for bringing this tick-tick-tickety boom of an actor back from the depths!” he says. “Hoo boy. You smell like you spent the night in a dumpster! Come below deck and we shall get you ship-shape!”

“See you later, dancer,” says Petra to Big Al, who smiles and gives Big Al a little wave.

“How did you find us? All the way from Zit & Grit? You’ve had an adventure, I can tell. It’s written all over your face. It’s Rick, right?”

“Uh, yes. I think,” says Big Al.

Raleigh shakes his head slowly. “You’re here for the job, right? I’ve got some paperwork for you to fill out, and there’s even a changing room just for the croc!”

Big Al allows himself to be led towards a door that is marked ‘Shipmates Only’, up some stairs and into a tight, claustrophobic hallway with doors on both sides.

His tail scrapes the wooden floor with a THSH, THSH as he follows.

A door marked ‘The Croc’ stands closed. Raleigh fishes out a set of keys to open it. Across the hallway, a door is marked ‘The Cap’n’.

Hmm. Some of the same sticks from Kitchen Closed.

Raleigh notices Big Al looking at the signs.

“I can’t use direct references or I might be sued, and I really can’t afford liability lawyers,” says Raleigh. “But here’s where you can get changed when you want. It’s even got a private shower and tub!”

“Grrrreat,” rumbles Big Al as he looks into the room. There is one small window in the far wall, and the river is visible.

“Before you get too settled, let’s get your paperwork filled out,” says Raleigh, hand on his own door. “Let’s see what we can do for you.”

The Cap’n’s room is twice the size of The Croc’s, and plusher. Instead of thin, stick-like furniture in The Croc’s, this has a big, shiny desk that smells like the varnish from Ms. Fasts’s handrail. Raleigh sits down behind the desk in a swiveling chair that smells like him.

Raleigh waves to a big, stuffed chair before the desk, smells of many different humans, sweat emanating from it like a stewpot with meat. The man ruffles through the drawers of his desk, looking for something.

Something hangs on the wall to Big Al’s left, and glancing up he sees a large stuffed crocodile on a shelf, its jaws held open by a round clock that goes TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.

It’s not a real crocodile, and never was, his nose tells him that. But it looks like it could have been from Stinkwater, or somewhere else. The plush chair Big Al was waved into suddenly feels like the hallway, closing in on him.

Is this croc going to end up like that croc? he wonders. Does this human world mean to hang me on a wall holding something I don’t know?

“Ah! Here it is! Employment Form 101. Now, are you able to break form for a minute and fill this out yourself?”

“Uhh. I’m just learning to read and write. I’m not great,” he says, then after a moment, “Yet.”

Raleigh nods as if he knew this was coming.

“Alright. Well, I can’t fill this out myself, buuut…I may be able to have someone that knows you help you fill it out. Do you have anyone like that?”

“Uhh.”

The tip of Big Al’s tail twitches nervously. It catches Raleigh’s attention.

“I swear, that suit is seamless. Wherever you got it, that person’s a real craftsman.” He twirls a pen between his fingers, makes it dance, thinks.

Holding a button on his desk, “Can someone please send Petra up to the Cap’ns Office?” Then he gives his attention back to Big Al, studies him like he’s counting scales.

“I’m going to guess that you don’t have a fixed address, being the wanderer you are. I’m going to ask you the first question straight. Are you still wandering?”

Big Al thinks for a moment.

Food. I left because swamp pickin’s were getting thin.

The aromas of all the cooked food here in Hooks are an undercurrent that is everywhere.

So Big Al looks Raleigh in the eyes.

“Nope.”

Raleigh breathes out as if he had been holding his breath, smiles with as many teeth as Big Al has.

“Wonderful to hear. That’s really great.”

The door creaks open, the dancer easing in with a tart, nervous scent changing to citrus as she steps in.

“You asked to see me?”

There is little cilantro to the dancer, but rather smells more like hamburgers, fries and something with a lot of fried onion.

“Petra! Great timing. Have you taken your lunch break yet?”

“Not yet. I was thinking of taking it a little later and running to the pharmacy after the noon rush.”

Raleigh pauses. “Is it anything I could pick up for you?”

Now it’s Petra’s turn to pause. “Uh, sure. I was just picking up a prescription. I’d have to call and let them….”

A double cilantro scent arises, and a cell phone lands in Petra’s hands, the two humans coordinated before either could blink.

“When you take your break, if you could help our esteemed reptilian friend fill out our oh-so-very-important-information for the taxman, I’d be forever indebted to you. And yes, I can grab that and won’t ask any questions. Shall I put it in your jolly roger locker when I get back?”

Petra seems genuinely surprised. Mango, banana, and a sharper citrus scent arises. The fried onion smell makes Big Al’s stomach rumble.

“Yes. Sure, I can do that.” She looks at the time held by the eternally fake crocodile on the wall. “Lunch is in ten minutes?”

“Take a longer lunch. It’s on me.”

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