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.”

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“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.”

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“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.

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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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“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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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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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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The mango aroma that reaches Big Al has a distinct undertone of vegetation, the kind of aroma he suddenly realizes he hasn’t smelled since entering Ankerton. Not an unclean scent, but slightly sweet and earthy. The green spaces of Ankerton emanate traces of it. Arcanum Glades had lots of it, a sweet smell woven through the overwhelming mess of Stinkwater. He has never smelled this on a human before. All animals and living places had it. It had been missing from the photos of meat and food. It reminds him of the undecided, natural flow of the swamp, of grass growing toward the sun, of herons landing to eat bugs. Of things moving because they are alive.

Is this human nature, or just human?

Disarmed, the croc in a hat and dress scampers on all fours toward the dancer, like a pet returning home. Big Al isn’t sure how or why he does what he does, but he whirls around the dancer in a circle and puts his nose to the ground. They step on, and with an easy toss, the dancer slides down his back. He curls his tail up, spinning the dancer in the air.

He grabs the dancer’s hand in his right hand and with their foot braced against his hip, the two twirl, Big Al’s leg pivoting around.

A blinking orb with a high-pitched sound whirls out from the dancer, around Big Al’s tail, up over his nose and they end their dance with what sounds to Big Al like a glowing hummingbird, whirling around both of them in a fast orbit.

They finish the dance.

This human smells like…cilantro?

The orb hovers before them, a strange smell of rocks and will-o’-the-wisp. The hummingbird sound comes from four tiny rotating blades like the front of an airplane, warm and smelling like burning tree sap.

What is that thing? What just happened?

The sound of humans clapping, the scent of water-return mixed with mango and banana billows from a small crowd that has gathered, watching the two in their dance.

Despite a smile on his snout, Big Al doesn’t know what to think.

Since when do I move like this?

These humans have gathered without him noticing, which unsettles him. His nose has never failed him. Well, maybe, once when he sneezed on those humans at the Zit & Grit, but not like this.

Their scents are accepting in a way that Ms. Fast was not; these aren’t just bison-stewish or even mango. They are sweet like honey, enveloping him.

What? I’m not sweet. I’m a crocodile, right? I sleep and I swim and I eat herons and foxes. Why does this human smell almost like me? How did I get here? What just happened?

“Uhh. Excuse me,” he says.

Overwhelmed, overstimulated, and unimpressed with himself, Big Al freaks out and runs back between the buildings the way he came. His purse flops against his thigh, and his straw hat flies off.

Back towards where he smelled the wheat scent billowing out, he ducks into an alley towards a dumpster he had sniffed on the way in. He flies past two humans just inside the alley who smell like burning grass.

With a hop, he lifts the lid with his nose and slides into the big metal box.

KERFLSSSSS

Air hisses out of scrunching plastic bags filled with pub food. Not long ago, the French fries and hot dogs and hamburgers would have driven him wild with hunger. Now he just wants a quiet, dark place to hide.

I should go back. Life was simpler back then. I swam, I ate, and I slept. Now…what did I just do? It was like I forgot everything. How did I…dance…like that?

“Top of the morning to you!” says a voice from outside the dumpster. “I saw your hat go flying off. I’m sure you’ll want it. It’s here against the side so you don’t crush it when you come out.”

It’s one of the humans he ran past at the front of the alley.

“Thank you,” he says after a moment. “I’ll be a while.”

“You take care of yourself, you hear?” says the human. “Welcome to Ankerton, fellow performer.”

Big Al holds his paws over his nose, then his eyes. The smell in here reminds him a little of Stinkwater. It’s thick, pungent, and something he can sink into. His jaw seals shut, and he freezes into his coiled, uncomfortable position. The dark mire of the swamp seems to bubble up around him…

“Hello in there?”

It’s the dancer.

How did he not smell that human approach? How did he miss their gentle, subtle cilantro scent?

Go away. I’m in the dark now, he thinks. Drifting… sinking down… down…

“If you need a moment, just tap on the side.”

The words interrupt, but frozen in his paralysis, Big Al feels his heart begin to slow to a reptilian beat.

“Hmm. Ok. I’ll take that as a tap.”

The person outside leans against the dumpster, a different scent arising, like the sun melting away dewdrops.

“You’re awfully quiet in there. If people hadn’t seen you go in, I’d think you were a mummy, dead and silent.”

I’m not dead. I’m…I’m…just sleeping for a moment. When I wake up, this will all be over. I’ll be in Stinkwater, a heron stuck between my teeth.

“I think you’re amazing. Who could just join me in the flow like that? No one’s ever done that, but you did it beautifully. That was an incredible experience. Raleigh was right. He had seen our next performer.

“Whatever your name is, I’m sure it’s one for the books.”

Big Al opens his eyes. What is his name? Is it Rick, or is it Big Al? Or is it something different? This is a strange question for his head, and the two names circle like an animal chasing its own tail.

The dancer’s scent isn’t of fox or trick, but the water-return and something else on the other side of it, something that is deeper, wetter.

What’s wetter than water? I don’t understand.

And with that thought, his heart begins to lift, to race, to pump again. He shifts in the dumpster, and something clangs underneath him.

“Thanks for the tap. I’m still here, you know.”

Raleigh. He’s around here somewhere…

His blood warming, breathing returns at first slow, then quickening like a tree shaking in the wind. Those names chasing their tails still circle in his head.

The human who gave him his first key to the human world.

I should find him and see what he has to say, thinks Big Al, Rick.

“Hello?” says the dancer as Big Al pushes up the lid to the dumpster and slides out to sit next to them.

“Hel…lo,” he says. “I’m…new to this, human…thing.”

“It’s okay,” says the dancer with a smile. “We’re all kind of just figuring it out.”

Looking for Raleigh’s card, Big Al opens his purse. He pulls out ‘Kitchen Closed,’ and his stomach sinks when he realizes it’s been crushed and isn’t readable anymore.

“Oh no,” he says, tears running down his face. “I’ve broken one of my keys.”

The dancer looks at the paper menu.

“I think we have some more like that at Hooks, if you want one of ours.”

His jaw opens as he glances at the dancer. “I…would really like…that.” Digging back in his purse, he finds the small card that Raleigh gave him.

“Do…you know…this…person?” he says, holding it out.

With a deft hand, the dancer takes the card, looks at it, flipping it from the back, where a pen-blue line starts in the middle and disappears off the lower edge, to the front.

“Raleigh Sylvester. That’s my boss. He’s the manager at Hooks. Then this really is you. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

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He pats the fender on the truck, startling Big Al awake.

With a throaty roar, Big Al yawns as the truck starts up.

I got keys last night, he thinks, content.

The truck switches gears and the pen from last night skitters across the floor like an escaping snack, and he has to scramble after it. It rolls far beyond the reach of his short, stubby arms. He flops against the wooden floor, watching his precious writing tool roll to the frame, teetering on the edge.

On instinct, he sticks his tongue way out, and wraps it around the pen.

Safe!

Over his head, stirred up by his flop, the menu floats in the air, ‘Kitchen Closed’ circling.

NOOOO!

It flips in the air, and on the other side are pictures, words, even numbers.

WHAAAAAT?

His eyes bulge as he recognizes what could be an even bigger key to the human world.

Doing a quick handstand, he places one foot against the side of the truck for stability, and using his tail, presses the swirling ‘Kitchen Closed’ against the ceiling so it doesn’t fly away. His tongue still wrapped around the pen, he finds himself inverted and not quite sure how he got here. A blink ago, he’d been asleep.

The truck picks up the pace as it hits a smooth highway. A car comes to speed behind the truck. Two passengers, an adult and kid, stare at Big Al stretched out in his contortion.

He decides to hold position, as the car begins to pick up speed and pass.

The kid, a brown-haired boy gives him the strangest look, as if he can’t tell if he’s seeing something real or imaginary.

At last, the car passes, and Big Al lets himself down. Being careful to not lose the menu or choke on the pen, he sits down to study the back of ‘Kitchen Closed’.

For each stomach rumbling picture, there are words. The pictures make his nose feel dead though, for he can’t smell what he sees on the page. His stomach wants to eat what he sees, but his nose says it isn’t there. It’s a very odd feeling for him.

A new scent rolls into the back of the truck, one that has been building for a while like a distant thundercloud finally coming close enough to smell, only this one is of many humans, of many different scents. Of human civilization. Of Ankerton. It swamps Big Al with scents, disorienting him.

That’s humans? They stink worse than Stinkwater.

And the trucker sighs, his own scent becoming more like the homey, cozy smell that is like bison stew but not. He cranks the music, and someone sings about a sweet place in Alabama.

“Coming home to you!” he sings along.

Big Al holds his nose, wishing he still had the nose plugs. He isn’t sure where they went to. But then he gets a big whiff of many dumpsters.

I need noseplugs. Badly.

And as they draw towards Ankerton, Big Al’s nose notices the trucker has many more scents than the few he’s smelled like so far. But instead of the overwhelming stew of some humans at the Zit & Grit last night, the trucker smells like an entire, clean swamp. Each scent swirls with others, little creatures of pits and annoyances swimming through the larger body.

Bouncing onto a bigger road with more lanes of cars heading in the same direction, the truck picks up more speed, and wind fills the back of the truck. More cars start to appear, and he quickly pulls the overhead door down to the floor, closing him off. Some of the scents disappear, but then he smells something very similar to the cinnamon buns, only without the cinnamon and vanilla. Still fresh baked with a buttery smell.

That smells amazing.

Big Al rides along, smelling the different neighborhoods. Some smell more distinctly of pets, people, hedges, trees and lawns, and other smell more of diesel, trucks, oil, metal. Sometimes there’s restaurants and his eyes alight as he sniffs them out.

Then he smells a faintly familiar scent, a human from the bar last night. Someone who told him he had great teeth. It whiffs by in a moment and is gone.

Hmm. Familiar humans. Here and not at Zit & Grit. They get around. Do they journey like me?

Big Al contemplates this.

The truck slows and stops, and the trucker’s scent is changing quickly, building to a ‘home again’ smell, and Big Al realizes he needs to escape the box truck.

The ‘Kitchen Closed’ paper seems too big for the purse, but it crinkles smaller, so he stuffs it in along with the moisturizer and pen. He pulls his hat down over his eyes, adjusts his dress and makes sure the purse is hanging properly. He lifts the back door of the truck, peering out. It’s a diesel environment, and the truck is moving a lot slower. There are no vehicles tailing, so he lifts the door enough and at the next stop and slips down and out of the truck.

He stands at the intersection of Snickle Lane and Handyman Road in Ankerton’s industrial district. It’s mostly warehouses, trucks and parking lots filled with cars

Sniffing the air, he discovers large recycling bins in the area and… faintly…cinnamon buns. Following his nose, he soon realizes how nice the truck shade had been. The hat and sundress keep the direct sun off him, but he hasn’t felt this warm since Arcanum Glades.

Block after block he walks, following the scent of the cinnamon buns. All of a sudden, they get a lot closer. A big truck drives down a road that crosses in front of him, a picture of hamburger buns, cinnamon buns and other breads on the side.

Cinnamon buns in a truck? He stops, not sure why he’s surprised.

A familiar human scent wafts to him, and he sniffs again. Surrounded by food aromas is Raleigh’s human scent.

May as well follow that scent.

Crossing train tracks, he finds himself in a place entirely unlike Stinkwater or anything before, a forest of buildings all on its own. The water scent fills the air, and small stores line the street with big windows where people sit, eat or drink coffee. From an open door the wheat smell billows out like a cloud. Raleigh’s scent goes right past it, so Big Al keeps on moving.

Stick to Raleigh, everything else is mosquitoes in the swamp…

A green park with a big statue in the middle emerges from between the cozy buildings. The grey statue towers over the park, and Big Al doesn’t recognize what it is, but it’s a building-sized anchor, surrounded by a gurgling water feature. Filled with benches, picnic tables and a splash area, the park overlooks a churning, bustling river.

Across the street from the park stands a restaurant, a pirate captain the size of a truck attached to the front of the building. The pirate holds up one arm that ends in a hook, brushing a moustache that ends in a fine curl.

Below the pirate, something moves on the sidewalk unlike anything he’s seen before.

A smallish human dances about, twirling a ribbon wand, more like a bird than anything. They wear something like a tunic of leaves with no leaf scent. Every once in a while, the human stops with their hand up, and a ball of twinkling light appears that they seem to talk to. New and different scents wash towards him, smelling more like things from trees than anything. A few children watch the performer, their awe towards the dancer more…banana than anything. Raleigh’s scent trails from inside the restaurant.

The adults’ chatter has a sharper, brighter twist…mango perhaps? They also have lots of the water return smell.

Big Al stands on a sidewalk, confused, the scents very unusual and not sure what he’s seeing.

The street performer continues their graceful, melodic dance over the sidewalk. They notice him, their scent changing from the human sweat smell to a mango scent that reaches toward him.

They motion for him to step up.

Moving closer, then pulling back, then closer, then pulling back again, the dancer continues to motion for Big Al to approach. Carefully, not sure exactly what is happening, Big Al moves towards this human that is taller than a kid, but smaller than an adult.

A mixture of sweat smell, aromatic honey, more full-bodied and diverse than the children he’s run into so far is what wafts to him. This human stands before a tidal wave of food smells that gushes from the doors.

And for the second time, a new scent arises from Big Al, similar to the mango from the adults.

Curiosity…what is this? Why now?

“Come away! Come away!” calls the dancer. “Dear fellow performer, do you bring the tick tock tick tocking of the clock? Are you a croc that comes looking for the time, or do you bring it? For we at Hooks are a lost little lot, and be eaten we would rather not.”

“Come one Tootles, draw near Nibs. Come Slightly, come Curly. We welcome all to Hooks, but lost boys get free dessert, and twins get free fries too!”

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Big Al waves it away.

Raleigh studies him for a moment, then slowly slides the glass towards himself, downs it quick and wipes his mouth.

“Thank you muchly.”

Cinnamon buns. I came in here for cinnamon buns.

The bartender pours something for Big Al, and it’s got the wheatiest scent so far.

“Extra wit for you, bro,” he says with a nod.

“Dude, that was like the best takedown I’ve ever seen!” exclaims Raleigh. “The Rock has got nothin on you!”

“The croc?” Big Al isn’t sure if he heard correctly. The volume from the band keeps going up, and they just started a new song, something about being addicted to your rush. The crowd goes wild.

“Dwayne Johnson, the Rock. Hey, you gonna drink that one?”

Big Al shakes his head. He looks towards the bartender.

“Sin…cin…cinna…”

“Man, you’re too kind,” says Raleigh, wistful. “I kinda owe ya for this. Matt’s been busting people for ages, and no one’s ever stood up to his crew. We needed ya.”

The scent coming off of Raleigh is that water-return smell, mixed with fear and lots of wit. He still smells like trick, but that’s just a droplet in the thundercloud of his aromas.

What does this human really want?

A group of people sweeps him up, scuttling him to the dance floor. The band is rocking out on a stage across from the bar, bass chords vibrating his body in ways he hasn’t felt since the airplane ride out of Stinkwater.

“Dance with me!” says one.

“Whoops!” says someone behind him. “Watch the fursuit tail yo! It’s heavy!”

I came in here for cinnamon buns. How did I get here, surrounded by humans?

But the human crowd has enfolded him, aromas thankfully dulled by the nose plugs. The scent of acceptance that works through is warm, cozy, and a little like bison stew. He stays inside this welcoming scent for a while. Soon, people begin to trickle out of the pub, the soup of scents slowly fading like a cloud.

Big Al finally makes it back to the bar, where the barkeep is putting things away. Raleigh is at the bar, settling up his tab.

“Man, usually when I share my tab with someone I owe more at the end of the night. But with you, I’m ahead! Anyways, Raleigh McNeil.” He extends a hand to Big Al. “I’m the manager for a restaurant called Hooks. If you ever make it into Ankerton, give me a call. We’re looking for someone like you.”

He hands a small piece of paper to Big Al. It has writing on it, and Big Al studies it. What was it that Raven had said? He needed to learn to read and write.

The human expects something, and he needs to reply.

“Rick,” he mimics. “Thank y-you m-muchly.”

“Anytime. Seriously, look me up. Now, I must be off.” He turns and security carefully helps him out the twisted door. They’ve worked it back into the frame, but have to carry the door to keep it from collapsing.

Big Al looks at the barkeep.

“Cinnamon buns?” he asks. “Do…you… have… cinnamon buns?”

“Aw shoot, the kitchen closed fifteen minutes ago. If you had come here even a few minutes earlier I could have nabbed something, but things are locked up and turned off now.”

He turns around and Big Al watches him scratch on a chalkboard, ‘Kitchen Closed.’

Big Al’s stomach rumbles and his belly beast flares. It subsides after moisturizer on his hands.

“That’s some onesie you’ve got there,” says the barkeep. “Respect for the commitment.”

“F-Food. I’m…hungry,” says Big Al. As delicious as they are, he doesn’t want to revisit a dumpster; last time he’d almost missed his truck and scared two kids.

The barkeep’s face twists into a frown, his returning-water scent strong. There’s also a tough, earthy smell that speaks of dams, fallen trees and boundaries.

“Let me see what I can do.” He pokes around under the bar. In a moment he produces a stashed bag of taco chips and a half-jar of salsa from the minifridge.

“It’s not much, but maybe it’ll get you to morning. Sorry bud. I know there isn’t much open out here at this time of the night.”

Salty, crispy corn with a plant-based salsa, it’s not what he wanted at all. But the action that came out of all those scents was unexpected.

He helped me blend.

“T-Thank you, m-muchly.”

The bag of chips crinkles in his grip, filled with air.

“Here, that suit looks really amorphous. Let me help.”

Big Al hands the bag back, the ‘Kitchen Closed’ sign catching his eye again. The writing seemed so casual, but it sends a new feeling into his thick, leathery skin. A shiver trills his bumpy back. This is what Raven had said to watch for.

Keys to the human world, right out in the open. Amazing.

While the barkeep empties the bag into a chip basket, Big Al reaches over to grab a pen. He pulls out the paper that Raleigh gave him, and glancing between the sign and the small business card, tries to copy what it says.

The first letter he thinks looks like two sticks, one with a broken part against the other. The ‘I’ makes him think of a heron’s legs. ‘T’ reminds him of a fence post and the wire across the top that the buffalo were inside. Ms. Fast’s ladle scoop was the ‘C’…

“Hey, woah. Don’t write on my bar dude.” The beaver dam scent is back, but the returning-water remains stronger.

“Uh. Hmm,” the barkeep scratches his head. “Here.”

The barkeep grabs a paper menu and flips it to the blank back.

“Here, scootch over and have your chips. But I do need you out of here in ten minutes, kay?”

Big Al slides to the left, munches on the chips and tries to copy ‘Kitchen Closed.’ Lemony and pungent, the barkeep’s cleaning spray makes Big Al’s eyes water.

“You know, if Raleigh asked you to check him out, he means that,” says the barkeep, rubbing the bar where Big Al wrote on it. “He’s got an opening that you would fit very well, stranger.”

Big Al finishes what he can of the chips, and gives the barkeep a smile with shimmering eyes.

“Th-thanks m-muchly,” he says. Remembering Ms Fast, he holds up the menu and pen, asking “M-may…I…t-take these?”

The barkeep blinks, then waves him off. “They’re yours buddy. Good luck. Stay weird.”

Big Al nods, and heads toward the door, where security waves him through.

“So what are we doing about the door?” Security asks the barkeep as he waddles back out to the parking lot.

There’s a line of faint purple light over the horizon as Big Al crawls into the back of the Molly’s Long Haul box truck. He falls asleep, human smiles and laughter circling inside his head.

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The truck driver seems to be going through strong, quick-changing emotions and is just letting them flow like water and not constrict to the same manners that Ms. Fast or the family had.

“Just roll with it. Just let it go,” says the truck driver to himself. Then after a moment, “I did what I felt was right there.”

“Couldn’t watch that.”

“Not again.”

Big Al smells something different as the truck driver does something that makes him think of rain falling on the swamp and the tiny drops joining the larger body of water. It’s a scent Big Al hasn’t a word for, and it stumps him.

“I’m ok. The kids will know in time. No guilt. Ohhhh,” he sighs.

New words. Smells that don’t have….words? And humans brownscale? They shed old parts that they don’t need anymore.

The box shakes as the rollers rattle in their rails. Dust rises up from the floor as the floor bumps up and down on a rough road, tickling Big Al’s snout. He can smell the history of the truck’s cargo space, and it speaks of people and homes. Smells of people, children, tempting pet snacks, human food, dirty clothing, clean clothing, garage grease and more tell him about the human world. After several hours of bouncing and jostling, the road becomes smooth and the tires hum.

Big Al falls asleep, his nose following the life-scent of a cat that ate Fancy Feast and slept in a cat box under a pollinating plant.

He’s jostled awake when the truck begins to slow and turn. The back door rattles as the tires hit a gravel parking lot. He peeks outside to see ‘The Last Mile’ truck stop. It smells horribly of diesel and other oil wafts. The truck he’s in rolls under some extremely bright lights and Big Al scurries back into the shadow.

The driver door clicks open as the human climbs out and fills the truck.

“Yet another night,” says the trucker to himself. “The Last Mile, eh? I hope so.”

Big Al gets the sense that the trucker is spending another night, and immediately begins to sniff out the area, hoping for another dumpster.

His eyes go wide. Cinnamon buns. But there are many people in the space, and there’s yeasty, malty haze that covers it up.

The truck ambles its way to a parking space, and the trucker goes into a door, comes out after a bit, and into another door for the night.

Big Al peeks out the door to see a big, color screen with an animated sign that flashes WELCOME. TO THE. ZIT & GRIT. CHECK OUR. NEW DRINK. SPIT GRIT WIT. ASK FOR. EXTRA WIT.

Feeling restless from the long ride, Big Al slips down and out of the truck, adjusts his dress, and waddles toward the bar. Music grows louder as he approaches, and he tucks his straw hat down lower over his eyes.

Cinnamon buns here I come.

This time the door isn’t a mystery, and he grabs the handle and pulls. The latch however is new, and Big Al has put enough strength and weight into the pull that the door bends and slips out of the latch. The top hinge breaks, the door falling open on just the lower hinge, the soft-close arm holding it up.

The music dies down; colored lights move across a still crowd. A man about Big Al’s height and build stands behind a countertop, cleaning a glass. He looks at Big Al and gulps.

Two men with SECURITY on their shirts approach him with confused looks on their faces.

“You gonna fix that door buddy?” His scent is like when Ms. Fast was embarrassed, so Big Al waves his hand like he did with her. Security backs away.

Every eyeball in the place is on him, and he isn’t sure what to make of it. So many scents, so many different people. It’s a little much, but he goes up to the big guy behind the counter.

The bartender doesn’t know what to make of him. “Uhhh…” His eyes flick to security and back.

“What am I getting you?”

Big Al has cinnamon buns on his mind, but the tart smell of tension is only growing and he’s gotta do something about that. It dawns on him that he doesn’t have a door to back out of.

The tune he whistles this time is of the song Carney the Crane had sung, of continuing to stand like a survivor and feeling young.

The band on the stage chimes in at ‘Lookin like a true survivor’ with the real words, and by the time the verse is done, the energy in the bar is back up to the moment before he walked in.

Someone slides up to the bar next to him, and the scent coming off is strong enough for humans to smell. It’s the fermented wheat smell, and Big Al doesn’t want any of that. There’s also a hint of Robbie the Fox to him, and Big Al learns to side-eye.

“Raleigh,” he says, holding out a hand. Big Al looks at it, and decides to mimic. He looks at Raleigh, and the bartender ducks fast to avoid his swinging snout.

Big Al holds out his hand and the two shake.

“That was the best entrance I’ve ever seen,” says Raleigh. “You’ve got talent man, you’ve got skill. Hey bartender, whatever this guy wants, it’s on my tab. What’s your name?”

The scents in here are overwhelming. The salty, fried smell of French fries rolls out from the back. His nose hangs over a dripping row of hoppy, wheaty aromas that also emanate from everyone’s breath. At the corner of the bar are small packages filled with something that’s bright yellow and pink.

Perfect.

Big Al reaches over, takes one package in a hand and deftly tears it open. He takes the ear plugs out and stuffs them in his nostrils. Much better.

“Rr-ick.”

He looks Big Al up and down. “I can’t believe you’re in here wearing almost the same dress my mom has. That’s so metal. Is that real straw?” He pokes at the hat, and shakes his head. “Surr-real. Where you from bro?”

This human smells like fox. Can’t eat this trick. Big Al isn’t sure what the trick is, and whether he should answer or not. But the human seems to be expecting something, and Big Al needs to say something.

“Ssstinkwater.”

“Woah, sounds like a prison. You just get out?”

“This guy with you, Raleigh?” says a deep, resonant voice from behind.

“Hey Matt. Meet my new friend, Rick.”

Big Al looks around. Raleigh seems to know his snout is coming and ducks. The scent of something sharp and musky, like hot metal and salt, comes off three large guys behind him. Two bigger guys flank the one that is talking to him.

“Why you treadin on our turf?” asks Matt, his fear smell growing more tart by the second. “We don’t take kindly to dudes in dresses.”

Big Al doesn’t understand the reference, but inside the fear scent coming off this human is a stew of wheaty mold almost rotten hiding a subtle, sweetish vanilla smell.

This human is…conflicted? Two very different scents at once.

Big Al looks at Raleigh, who has an acrid, nervous smell filling in the space between them. He’s not looking straight at the other guys, and seems to be fidgeting.

“Get lost Matt. He’s a paying customer,” says the bartender.

“Nah, we got something we need to a-dress,” says Matt.

Big Al is taller than this human by a foot, and the others almost come up to his snout. The tart grows stronger, and even through the nose-plugs, it irritates his sinuses, making his eyes water.

“Ah look, he’s startin’ to cry, he’s so afraid,” says the guy on the right, another stew of fear, wheaty mold and the slightest trace of smokey honey.

“Ahh…ahhh…” Big Al can’t help what’s coming. That mold smell isn’t doing him any good.

“Hey, here comes a Spit Grit!” says a voice from down the bar. A drink meant for him comes sliding down the bar towards Big Al.

Big Al sneezes towards Matt before quickly pivoting to catch the drink. His heavy tail whips around, and the three intruders go down like bowling pins.

Raleigh again has seen the snout coming and ducks. The bartender stands at the end, having been the one who slid him the drink.

Matt, having been on the receiving end of the sneeze attack, is covered in a sticky goo. His wingmen have not escaped the splats. Their feet wiped out from under them, the three are a little dazed. A raucous laugh erupts from the crowd.

What just happened?

Everyone is looking at him, the water returning to water smell filling the bar.

They’re laughing, but not mean…

Scents muddled, security approaches the bullies quickly.

“Come on, you don’t need this tonight,” says security, picking up Matt and moving him towards the disjointed door.

“Go home Matt!” says the bartender, tossing him a towel.

Raleigh chimes in. “Go home Matt!”

“He’s cooked! Like chicken!” says someone else.

“Way to go, stranger!”

That scent of a drop returning to the pond fills the bar, and Big Al realizes it’s because of what he just did. He sniffs the Spit Grit, and his throat tightens. It’s way too much wheat in one small glass. He sets it back on the bar.

Strange. Humans fear and fight one minute, laugh the next and brownscale the next…and then…water returning to water.

“Man, you just got the empathy of the whole bar,” says Raleigh.

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- Jacob

He should not have eaten the plate. It sits crooked halfway down his throat, and he isn’t sure how he managed to whistle. So he reaches in, pulls it free. A lone cinnamon bun clings to it. He pries it off, pops it into his mouth, and drops the plate in the dirt.

Cinnamon buns are the next best thing to herons, he thinks, licking his lips.

Big Al shuffles his way towards the diner, car noses and round hood ornaments to his left, dim light slanting out from curtained motel rooms to his right. His tail scratches along the cement walkway in a slow wag.

He stops at the third motel room where it smells so good. The gold number ‘3’ has been pushed to the left. He turns the knob, but it won’t budge.

“Who’s there?” calls a voice. Its sweet smell tempts him, but the door won’t budge. His stomach rumbles and he tries the knob again. Whoever is on the inside moves closer to the door.

“Who are you? I don’t know you. Go away.” The smell of the voice changes from sweet to tart. It smells more like the threatening smell. Big Al’s stomach wants in, but…

Don’t take more Buffalo stew than they are willing to give.

So he continues his walk to the diner. The neon ‘J’s of Jukebox Janus’ Burger Joint flicker like yellow music notes against the orange glow of the other letters. “Burger” flips three times, from word to closed grinning neon bun to open bun. It promises to be a bustling place of travelers, light and tantalizing smells.

Wide windows spill a soft aura of light around the building, while the lamps out front stretch cars into long shadows. Several people sit at tables and the bar, visible through the glass. Inside lingers the smell of people, cooked meat and what he would soon discover was French fries.

Around back comes the smell of more food, and without the distinct smell of people. Big Al’s stomach leaps, propelling him into a run.

He discovers that all the smells emanate from one place. Having never encountered a dumpster, Big Al isn’t quite sure how to make it work. He looks for a knob, but doesn’t find one.

“I’m taking it out now!” says a voice from inside that nears.

Big Al hides on the side away from the door that opens, but forgets to draw his tail closer.

A person steps out, lifts the top and something goes CHUNK into the interior. The lid clatters, then pauses, almost closed. Big Al notes there’s a lid to lift.

A moment of silence stretches out, then keeps stretching, the lid hanging midair.

Hot grease mingles with the rising scent of human fear, and Big Al realizes his tail has been spotted. The lid trembles, fanning that fear towards him.

“Okay, I didn’t just see that tail. Isaac did not just see that tail.” The voice stutters, talking to itself. “I—Isaac—need to stop watching creepy alien movies. Isaac is not seeing things…”

KCHNK. The door clicks shut.

Big Al waits, his nostrils flaring. The fear-scent fades, replaced again by fried food and traces of meat.

If humans see just my tail, they see my tail. But if they see all of me, they miss it. thinks Big Al. He has to remember that.

Big Al lifts the lid slowly, eyes widening as delicious scents rise to meet and then overwhelm him. His tongue hangs out of his mouth like a happy dog, and he loses control.

He grips the lip of the dumpster and scrambles. His rear legs scrape the dirt as he strains to lift himself up. With a final shove, Big Al drops into the dumpster.

Big Al goes wild that night. He devours bacon, eggs, fries, hamburgers, hotdogs, pancakes with syrup, mushroom-stuffed tortillas, and the occasional lactose-free milkshake.

He falls asleep in the dumpster, only to be woken up in the morning by a familiar, lemony-persimmon scent.

The truck driver is moving around inside his motel room. Big Al knows he needs to get back to the truck or he will miss his ride.

With a peek, he looks around outside the dumpster. The coast is clear. The first few faint streaks of sunlight reach across the prairie to paint his green skin yellow.

His movement is sluggish, not as quick as he’d like. His very full stomach throws him off balance as he tries to work his way out of the dumpster.

KERFLUMP

He hits the ground chest first, knocking the wind out of him. He wheezes and tries to draw a breath, but it doesn’t feel like he’s getting enough air. Again, he tries to breathe in, but it hurts.

The scent of the truck driver grows stronger, followed by a subsequent CLICK as he leaves the motel room.

Big Al forces himself to stand on four legs. He peeks around the corner of the motel down the walkway. Another door is open, and there are two sleepy kids standing with their backs to him.

“Do we have to get up already?” says the boy on the left.

“The sun isn’t even up yet,” says the girl on the right.

“Yes, we have a long drive ahead of us,” says a scratchy, husky voice. “It’s sixteen hours to Ankerton, and we want to be there in time for a late dinner. You can sleep in the car or play Nintendo. The charger’s already set up.”

“You can have the Nintendo, bro. I’m gonna sleeeeeep. I want to go back to the crystal city I saw in my dreams.”

“I might sleep too,” says the boy with a yawn.

Big Al creeps across the walkway, ducking behind a car. The boy turns, confused.

“Did you hear that, Sal?”

“Hear what? I’m still sleeping. OOoogh, I’m a sleep zombie.” Her sleepiness smells like a damp beaver dam to Big Al.

“No, I’m serious, Sal. Something’s out there.” To Big Al, the boy’s heightened awareness and disbelief wavers like a faint whiff of green tea.

Big Al moves closer to the truck, his claws and tail scraping against the gravel like raptor claws. He slips between a pick-up truck and a station wagon, daring a look. On the walkway stand the two children, staring straight at him.

The ear-piercing wail doesn’t surprise him, but it means he has to move fast. If he wants his ride, he has to get inside the truck before the man emerges from the motel lobby. He glides to sit directly behind the truck. It’s high enough he can hide underneath the back of it and reach up and around with his tail. The door slides upwards and Big Al lifts himself into the box just as the truck driver emerges from the motel lobby.

“For chrissakes! What is wrong Sally?”

“There’s a MONSTER out there!”

There’s a brief moment of silence before the sound like a stick breaking and then the girl starts bawling. A putrid scent stings his nose, worse than the diesel smell. He shakes his head, gently snorting.

“Don’t EVER yell like that, do you hear me? EVER. I don’t care if you’re dying. You probably just woke up everyone in the motel with your stupid imagination. I’m going to throw that Nintendo out the window if you keep this up. Get in the car and shut up.”

The entire parking lot reeks like something dead, and it’s not carrion worth eating, just a rotten stink.

“But…she did…” says the boy.

“Don’t you dare start too. I’ve had it up to here with your constant whining and yelling. This is the last time we ever go on a road trip. It’s too early for this.”

The truck driver’s smell changes to tart, but has something else to it, something that smells sharp, incisive.

From his hidden position in the back of the truck, Big Al can smell the changing positions of the people outside.

Two doors slam, and the kids’ scent diminishes. Incisive, the driver’s scent moves past the front of the truck.

“Hey, you,” says the trucker.

“I’m sorry?” says the dad.

“Got a minute?”

“No, I’m getting ready to…”

“I DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE TIME, YOU LISTEN UP,” bellows the truck driver, then drops his voice to a hard whisper.

The dad recoils, the tart fear smell blooming like a lotus.

“If you keep doing that to your kids,” the trucker says. “They’ll grow up just. Like. You. Maybe they’ll yell at their own kids. Maybe they’ll spend years in therapy trying to figure out what they did wrong. But the worst part? When someone bigger uses their size to hurt someone smaller. That’s how bullies are made.”

“Psh...”

“No. Kids don’t see their mistake—they see someone they trust lose control and take it out on someone smaller. That breaks trust.”

The man’s scent spikes, tart escalating into bitter, settling into a heavy, smoky heat.

“Well, maybe that’s your percep—” The tang of shame is only a trace, a drop in a bucket of sharp irritation.

A tractor chugs by on the gravel road, gravel crackling under wide tires before it fades.

“Do you have any idea what that does to a kid? To get malice from someone they trust? It shatters them! It breaks their heart, and they carry it forever. It makes them think it’s normal. It isn’t. I’m forty-three and still in therapy.”

“You don’t get to tell me how to raise my kids—”

“No. You shh,” says the trucker, low but steady. “I never stood up to my dad, so I’m doing that right now. In this forever moment they just got, someone’s saying something. Bring your ego down to size before your kids grow up. Drop the crap, get a grip, and treat them how you’d want them to treat their kids. It’s generational. Simple as that. Got it?”

Silence. A motel room door opens and closes, someone else just waking up.

Big Al’s nostrils flare, the air between them smelling like cooling metal.

The truck creaks as if agreeing with its driver.

“Good day to you,” says the driver, stepping back to his rig.

KTHUD

The door slams so hard the truck shivers on its shocks. The starter scratches the engine to life, the turbo-diesel a deep, throaty rumble that pulses the parking lot. After a long pause, the air brakes hiss; the transmission slips into place and the truck eases back, rolling away like a giant.

That was different.

In minutes, the parking lot’s scent shifts like a season turning, and Big Al’s nostrils quiver at the swirl drifting over him like fallen leaves after a windstorm.

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“Alright,” says the driver, a rough voice from below. He slaps the panels, startling Big Al. “Anything back there? Hello? Any animals?”

Big Al crouches on the roof, still. So long as he stays where he is, he should be fine.

“Whoops. Forgot about the door.” Then comes the double-click of a flashlight. “Didn’t think so. Crazy kids. Alligators. Yeah right.” The flashlight clicks off, and the driver goes into the motel.

Big Al waits for a moment, watching and smelling. A faint shampoo aftertaste from the collie appetizer tickles the back of his throat, and it makes him nauseous.

Too much hair, too much soap. That dog had too much small human on it.

His nose can smell lots of new and different things. Now that the truck is standing still, it reeks of the thick, oily pungent smell of diesel. Something about it smells very wrong to the hungry crocodile in a straw hat. The light lines have a faint, twizzly smell to them. At the front of the motel, he can smell pungent territorial marks from dogs. Inside the office it smells of coffee, stale farts and cinnamon buns.

So many scents, so many possibilities!

Big Al waits for the moment though. He thinks the driver will be back, and it only takes a minute before his assumption is proven right.

Instead of returning to the truck, he watches the driver press something against the fifth door and disappear into the room.

Feeling safe for the time being, he isn’t quite sure where he should start. Perhaps the same place the driver went into. His stomach needs food, and something sticky and sweet was inside that office.

Big Al slides down over the windshield, using his tail to lower himself to the ground without a sound.

Adjusting the hat low over his eyes, he scans the area.

No humans.

He approaches the first door where the office is, and presses his right claw to the door.

However, the door doesn’t just open for him. He pushes against the door and makes a terrible thump.

Something’s wrong here. The human went in just fine. What am I doing wrong?

He pats the doorknob, then brushes it from top to bottom, discovering by accident that it turns.

Unfortunately, Big Al is leaning against the door and it opens inwards. Click goes the knob and the he crashes across the threshold into the room, his face meeting the red carpet.

He pushes himself up off the floor with his front legs.

His dress is off to one side, his hat tilted.

“Oh my goodness! Are you okay?” says a woman. She stands in the middle of the motel lobby, surprised.

Big Al looks up to see her face twist into a grimace. Blonde hair frames a thick, dark line above her eyes. White flowers texture her pastel pink dress.

“That door of ours always sticks. I’m surprised you didn’t roll right in.”

“Do you have a reservation?” asked a man at a counter, his voice a nasal drone. Dark hairs comb over a shiny, bald head. The clerk peers over wire-framed spectacles, lenses smudged.

The scent of the sweet and sticky fills Big Al’s nose, and it makes him feel a little frenzied, having gone so long without a real meal.

“N-Name issss R-Rick,” he manages. “Smells g-good in h-here. Good food?”

Both adults look at each other and exchange a glance.

“I’m sorry sir, but this is a motel, not a restaurant,” says the clerk, rubbing knuckles so dry they sound like scales to Big Al.

“There’s a diner next door if you like,” suggests the woman.

Big Al looks at the woman and says “Smells…sweet. Sticky too.”

Big Al doesn’t know a human could change color so quickly. His nose relays information, nothing else.

Before she can reply the clerk interjects, sharp, certain. “Ok. That’s enough. You need to leave,” says the clerk who stands up, his eyes narrow, lizard-like. Thing is he isn’t much taller than the chair he was sitting in.

Big Al can smell the fact that they are no longer welcoming to him, and despite still being afraid of him, are confronting him. This is unusual.

Kind of like Mama Buffalo, only without little ones. Humans are so confusing.

Big Al lets his stomach talk. “Hungry. Need food. Cinnamon? Need cinnamon.”

The adults exchange another look, and their smell changes. It’s not as tart now.

“Cinnamon, need cinnamon,” huffs the clerk under his breath, mimicking Big Al. Then, “Sir, the snacks are for paying guests. But you are not welcome here. You need to leave.”

“It’s okay,” she says to the clerk, her blush fading. “It was a misunderstanding.”

Big Al turns his head following her, smelling the coffee and cinnamon buns in the direction she is heading.

Must learn to smell out the place first, thinks Big Al.

“Daphne, don’t get him one. He was rude. Sir. You need to leave. Now. Or I will call the police.” His voice is hard, prepared for conflict.

“R-Rick is h-hungry.” A word comes to him that Ms. Fast said to him when she turned the same color. “S-Sorry.”

And just like that, the tart smell is gone. The humans smell quite normal.

“Apology accepted,” says Daphne. “I’m going to get him one…”

Not only do all twenty cinnamon buns disappear into Big Al’s mouth, but the plate as well.

Daphne blinks her eyes, not quite sure what to say.

“Well now. Somehow, that wasn’t entirely unexpected,” says the clerk behind the counter in a voice as dry as a crocodile’s back. “Rick, sir. If you need to eat, the town diner sits only a doorstep away. We are a motel. People come here and give us money to sleep in a room for the night. If you are going to pay for a room, let’s do that.” His fingers steeple, a thumbnail black and broken. “Otherwise, please, keep moving, alright?”

He nods towards the door, his territory marked. Narrowing his eyes, nostrils flare and the clerk seems to be expecting something from him. The clerk smiles cold yet welcomingly as Big Al approaches the counter.

“Very good. I’m always pleased to serve a customer,” the clerk says, nodding his head.

Big Al puts his claws on the counter and stands there, looking at him. Money. Sleep. Food. Big Al knows what sleep is, but he doesn’t understand the concept of money. Can he get more food? So, he stares at the man, unblinking.

The man puts his left hand on the counter, stares back at him, also unblinking.

Then, both blink slowly, lizard-like.

Big Al remembers what Raven said, and smiles, his lips pulling back even further to reveal more of his teeth. The man makes more of a grimace, shows yellowed teeth and looks at Big Al’s purse and back at Big Al’s huge snout. Big Al glances at his purse, then back at the clerk.

Watch what humans watch. He must want something from my purse.

Opening the flap to his purse, he wraps his claws around the skin moisturizer and presents it.

The clerk looks very confused. “Sir. That’s, uh…skin moisturizer? I’m sorry, but I, I don’t barter here.” He shakes his head, takes off his glasses and wipes the lens clean, sighing. “I think it would just be best if you carried on, alright?”

Apparently, this isn’t something that can give me food or a place to sleep, thinks Big Al, the process of elimination clicking into place for him. Big Al places the skin moisturizer back into his purse, closes the flap and backs towards the door. The unwelcoming scent is back.

“I got you! You’re it!” shouts a young voice from outside the door.

“Nuh uh! You’re still it!” calls a little girl.

“Why do parents let their kids run wild,” mutters the clerk. Daphne shoots him a side-eye.

Parents? Must be big humans with little ones.

Despite the confusion, Big Al stills. Daphne remains in the corner by the coffee, looking at him gently. The clerk rises and gives him a withering look. It slides off his back.

Can’t leave just yet. Kids outside. Their joyful voices remind him of the two he met at Ms. Fasts, though their scents and voices carry different pitches.

Whatever these growing scents of discomfort may smell like, it will intensify into something else entirely if Big Al doesn’t do something.

The scent grows stronger. They’re looking at him as if he weren’t there, but it isn’t the invisible gaze that he enjoys.

He thinks they are trying to see him out the door.

He purses his lips, presses them together and tries to make a sound. It comes out sounding like a sneeze.

“What?” asks the clerk. “What are you doing? Please leave.”

Big Al can still hear kids running around outside, giggling. He can’t leave yet.

Again he tries, and this time it sounds like a cough.

“I do believe he’s trying to whistle,” says Daphne.

And the third time is the charm. Expending more air than he should, Big Al starts whistling the tune he heard from the airplane, so long ago.

The two relax into smiles as they recognize the tune. “I love that song,” says Daphne. Her voice wavers, and to Big Al she smells wistful.

But all Big Al knows is the ‘in the name of love…’ he heard. He repeats it once, twice, three times before the kids running around outside go away. This time he knows to turn the knob.

With a smile, he lifts his straw hat a little with a claw and exits the Motel lobby.

The neon lit THRESHOLD MOTEL sign flickers light onto the sidewalk where he walks out.

“Most unusual vagrant I’ve seen in a while,” mutters the clerk.

Daphne replies gently, “Give him some slack, you old crocodile. He’s just another wanderer.”

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Ms. Fast talks about how intense the sun can be on the prairie when the scent from the woods drifts past Big Al again.

Something small, the size of an appetizer, darts through the shaded trees. It smells a little like coyote, a little like fox, and nothing like Pelican. With Ms. Fast facing the landing strip, Big Al decides to slip towards the trees.

The woods are similar to those that surrounded the swamp, but not as wet. With a sudden longing, Big Al finds himself almost missing Stinkwater Marsh.

Perhaps one day I will return to the swamp and enjoy just basking in the water, he thinks. Until then, the city is where I go. And woods. Mmm…they smell delicious and mysterious.

As the scent draws him deeper into the woods, Big Al notices this is not Stinkwater Marsh.

Branches scratch at his drying skin, but his hands are fine thanks to the moisturizer. Leaves crunch under his feet. He can smell much smaller animals running away, and it isn’t long before a root sticks out and trips him. Down goes the crocodile, crashing underneath a Mountain Ash in a sprawl.

“Rick? Rick? Where’d you go?” calls Ms. Fast. “Jackalopes prowl those woods with hooded fangs and bone spears!”

GRRRRRRRR

What he had been tailing has turned around and now bares its teeth in a ferocious doggy snarl.

“HERE HE IS. HERE HE IS!” barks a frenzied collie. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE IS, BUT HERE HE IS!”

From further back in the woods Big Al can smell another human starting to run in his direction. He gives the dog a crocodile grimace, and with a snap and a subsequent burp of yellow and white fur, all is quiet.

The human nears, and Big Al decides to stand up. Humans can’t tell what he is if he is standing.

The person isn’t far off, and as soon as he sees Big Al, he stops right where he is.

“What the…”

The man is dressed nothing like the other humans Big Al has seen. This one smells like Raccoon on his head, Cow at his hip and Rabbit on the feet.

What an unusual human, thinks Big Al. Smells so tasty…

THUD

Something wiggles in the tree trunk very close to Big Al’s head. A few inches closer, and Big Al would have been dead.

“I KNEW I should have been practicing that! Someone git my Winchester! Someone git me my Winchester!” yells the man.

He makes a huge racket, and gives Big Al a look as mean as his own grimace. He makes a quick lunge, and Big Al backs away a little. For the first time in his life, Big Al is a little frightened. No smell comes from the human that gives Big Al the sense that Big Al is bigger or stronger, even though he is. This human adult can see him for what he is, and is therefore very dangerous. More dangerous than Big Al himself, and Big Al decides that if he wants to live, he needs to run.

“What is going on here?” calls Ms. Fast, running towards the woods.

Big Al gets back down to all fours and disappears into the bushes. It’s hard to move and not lose the hat, but he holds onto it and with a lopsided waddle, he runs away from them both. He crashes through the woods, running for his life.

“What is a crocodile doing wearing one of your dresses, Bella? That’s plumb dumb!” calls the man.

The driver to the truck slams the driver’s door closed and accidentally leans on the horn with a small BEEEP. The truck then starts up with a rumble, and Big Al sees his means of escape. The back door has been left up half-way.

He runs out of the woods between two sheds. He decides to stand and hold onto his hat as he pumps his short legs to catch the truck.

It begins to move, leaving the little village of three houses, a few sheds and a runway.

Big Al almost loses his purse as he flees across the landing strip. He huffs and he puffs as he runs faster than he ever has in life. Down through the ditch and up onto the dusty track he goes.

He matches pace with the slowly accelerating truck on the bumpy road, and for a brief moment, the truck slows as it shifts into the next gear. Big Al makes his leap and grabs onto the liftgate with his teeth. Drawing himself closer, he pumps his tiny legs, reaches out with his stubby arms and pulls himself inside the five ton.

Farthest away from the door lies a shadow that welcomes Big Al. It’s cool, dark, and a place that he can lie down for a while. His stomach still wants more, and the last appetizer only made his appetite even stronger. However, despite his belligerent belly beast, he knows that he must wait for now.

“Rrr…rrrrr….rrrrick.” He says, practicing how to speak like a human. He tries to remember all that has been said so far, and it’s hard, but he’s picked up a few basics. For the next while, he practices saying what he’s heard.

The truck rattles and bumps on the dirt road. The sun begins to set, painting the sky pink and red. A V-formation of geese honks its way through the clouds.

That night, for the first time, Big Al sees the endless depths of the starry night sky.

It isn’t like the swamp, where the sky was only ever directly overhead. Big Al holds onto the side and turns his head from the left all the way to the right, and all he can see are stars. Crystal clear, the night is an embrace in the darkness. He climbs onto the roof of the shifting, vibrating truck and stretches out, basking in the view.

Stinkwater was always hazy. This sky is something else.

Across the obsidian expanse, movement cuts across like a cat’s claw: twin stars streaking parallel from horizon to horizon.

The slow beat of big wings flaps through the night. At first, he hears it far off. Then silence. And suddenly he smells a bird standing on the back edge of the truck. The visitor’s silhouette cuts a mask in the star-field.

The size of a small elephant, this dark bird is unlike any he has ever seen. He knows it is not food, even though his stomach growls at the meat smell.

“Rrrr…rrrrr….rrRaven,” says Big Al.

“’Tis I, the bird of night, who has flown above both dark and light. Beware dear Crocodile, O creature of the Nile—slumberer from below, privy to backstage of the show. Know this: to be human is not only to speak or blend, but to read the letters and shape your own end. Literacy in all its forms is what humans wield to transform and to ascend. To interpret the ways, I suggest you lead with a smile. But do not let hunger be your guide, or your end will not be yours to decide.”

And having said its piece, the bird’s wings flap, and off it disappears back into the never-void.

Big Al blinks. Lit-rick-sy? What just happened? Am I lit?

If the Crocodile had ever had dreams, that’s what he would have thought it might be. But the lingering scent, and his stomach tells him that it was quite real.

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Thick with onions, mushrooms, garlic and a trace of red wine, the rich, meaty aroma of bison stew fills his senses. He sighs, content. The crocodile sips tea through the straw and nibbles at his soup with the ladle while Ms. Fast chatters and does his nails. By the time she finishes, his bowl is nearly empty. Hunger still sits like a beast in his belly.

“Oh, wait! I should get you a towel,” she says. She hurries to the sink, then hands him a dishcloth to wipe his snout.

As she stands, her green dress catches on the table edge and shifts on her body. Big Al notices, realizing for the first time she is wearing something.

A pale shoulder shows beneath the green fabric before she absently adjusts it back into place. Big Al glances at his own wrist. His green is not clothing but skin.

Humans dress their bodies.

He isn’t sure why, but it changes their color and shape. If he wants to blend in, he will need to dress himself too. And if Big Al is good at anything, it is blending in.

When she hands him the dishcloth, he wipes his snout, then unfolds it and drapes it over his shoulders. It’s flimsy and too small, but he figures it could pass for clothing.

Her face turns bright red. “Good heavens! I should have thought of this sooner. I am so sorry. One moment—I believe I have some clothes to share.”

Ms. Fast bustles off, then returns quickly to grab a painted claw and lead him upstairs.

On the bed waits a red-and-white button-up shirt with a pair of blue jeans.

“I’ll leave you be,” Ms. Fast says, still red-faced as she pulls the door shut. “There’ll be more soup waiting downstairs.”

The pants don’t fit; there’s no place for his tail. Big Al pokes a hole with his claw, then bites the legs shorter. Still, they hang awkwardly.

The shirt fits loose, buttons won’t close, and his yellow underbelly glares like a swamp sun in August. This isn’t blending.

What Ms. Fast wore looked more comfortable. It left room for a tail.

The closet door stands ajar. A blue dress speckled with darker spots catches his eye. Big Al strips out of the shirt and jeans, then slips into the dress without hesitation.

He catches his reflection in a mirror and turns this way and that, studying himself from three angles.

I look better than Ms. Fast in this dress, he thinks with a chuckle.

The aroma of soup drifts up the stairs, mingling with a faint tang of varnished oak, and pulls him from the bedroom. He sets the hat back on his head and galumphs down.

“Oh. I should have been more considerate,” Ms. Fast says, blushing even deeper when she sees him in the dress. She looks puzzled.

“I didn’t realize you preferred that sort of thing.”

Big Al waves his paw the way Mike Mulberry had, and Ms. Fast settles.

“Things have changed so much these days,” she says with a sigh. “It’s hard to keep up, but I try my best. Please, have a seat, Rick. There’s soup waiting.”

Big Al takes his seat and sips contentedly through the straw. He never knew water could taste like meat.

Ms. Fast studies him and something seems to click.

“Oh. I think I have something for you! Just a moment.”

More food? thinks his stomach.

She returns with a small purse, beaming.

“I knew I was holding onto this for a reason,” she says, setting it beside him. From the purse she takes a little canister. “It’s moisturizer—a gift I’ve saved for years. I think it might suit you. Sometimes the smallest comforts make the biggest difference.”

Big Al blows bubbles in his soup while she tucks the canister back into the purse and places it by his left claw.

“All fit as a fiddle,” she says warmly. “It’s worked wonders for me. Oh—are you done already?”

Big Al flips his soup bowl upside down, clean as a whistle. He wants more. His stomach demands it. Something strange passes through him; a feeling he doesn’t recognize, rising from wanting more than she was willing to give.

A new scent seems to arise from his own skin.

Hmm. I feel bad, but not sure why. Big Al feels shame for the first time.

“Slow down, Chompers, there’s only so much stew to go around,” she says. “I need to save some for dinner. I’ll get more bison tomorrow.”

The scent of soup still simmering on the stove rumbles his belly beast. This was only a small appetizer, and now she is telling him there will be no more. The belly beast tightens itself.

“I’m sorry, Rick, that’s all for now. But I can make more tomorrow.” She fans her face, catching her breath. “Why don’t we go for a walk? The outdoors will do us both good. You seem the outdoorsy type.”

Big Al knows that eating her would not be in the best interest of his stomach. If he were to eat her, there would be no more soup at all. He doesn’t know how to use the knobs on the stove or how to make more food come to him here. With this realization comes the knowledge that he must learn how to make food come to him in the human world. In Stinkwater Marsh all he had to do was lay in wait. Here, something else must happen.

Hungry, but waiting, he decides.

So they leave the house, against the will of Big Al’s stomach. The belly beast grumbles again. Big Al lifts the moisturizer from the purse and rubs it into his skin. Somehow the beast grows quieter.

Ms. Fast pays him no mind. She shows him around, and with only three houses there isn’t much to see. The houses face the landing strip, their backs to the woods. A rusted panel truck, Molly’s Long-Distance Moving painted on the side, squats in tall grass near the farthest house.

“The Johnson’s are just settling in,” Ms. Fast says. “They had a few things that couldn’t be flown in. That must be their moving truck.”

Big Al lifts his snout. From the woods comes a new scent, sharp and teasing to his rumbling stomach. His belly beast growls, eager for the hunt.

For a moment, the old, easy Stinkwater way of patient waiting tries to pull him back.

Not here. Not now, he tells himself.

“Watch yourself near those trees, Rick. The wild out here can kill.”

You mean it brings food, he thinks. For me.

Chapter Index →

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The girl’s gaze lingers a second too long on the shadowed room, eyes narrowing for a moment before widening in horrified surprise. Then a piercing shriek bores into his head, and the flowers slip from her fingers and drift to the floor. Ms. Fast is indeed fast, snatching the sugar from mid-air as Clayton lets it slip, his mouth opening with a second, synchronous scream of death.

Ms. Fast sets the sugar down, holds one finger against her lips, and raises an open palm.

“Please. Stop. Stop. Stoooop.”

Clayton bursts into tears and bolts from her doorstep.

“What EVER is the MATTER, Jenny?” She peers past her front door, watching Clayton zip home.

Tears spring to the girl’s eyes as she attempts to keep herself composed. She squints, twisting her face like she’s trying to wrap her head around something that doesn’t make sense. She tilts her head, blinks, and looks from Ms. Fast to the apparition inside.

“Wha…. wha…. why… Ms. Fast. Is. Is. Is there a… crocodile… inside your home, sitting at your table… with a manicure set open before it?”

Closing her eyes, she presses both hands against her temples.

“Goodness, darling child, this is no crocodile. This is Rick. He just got in and I was having a conversation with him. You brought the sugar by just in time for our tea—so very timely of you indeed. If you come in, I can introduce you to him. He’s quiet as a crocodile, but don’t be shy. He’s gentle as a bird.”

Her head tilts downwards—refusing to believe—Jenny looks up slowly and shakes her head. “No, Ms. Fast. That’s a crocodile, not a person.”

Anxious, Big Al thumps his tail against the floor. Dishes in a cabinet rattle.

“SEE? He’s got a tail! It just thumped the floor!”

“I heard a thunderclap somewhere, yes,” says Ms. Fast, looking out at the clear sky. “How odd. But don’t be afraid—this is just some company that stopped by.”

Jenny shakes her head and backs away.

“Hello!” Clayton returns, leading his mother, a woman with bright green eyes in her late twenties or early thirties. “Clayton was saying something about a crocodile, which is just plain ridiculous…”

“Dawn! Good to see you! I don’t know what’s gotten into the children—they went plumb crazy when they saw my guest here.”

Dawn looks past Ms. Fast, squints, and shields her eyes, peering into the twilight space.

“You ever think of putting a window in that east wall, Ms. Fast? It’s so dim in here I wouldn’t be surprised to see a jackalope.” Her gaze brushes over where Big Al sits, lingers for an anxious moment, then moves on.

“Can’t do it—that’s where the elevated water tank is.”

“Oh, right.”

“MOM! That is NOT a person—it’s a crocodile. Big, fat, with a humongous tail that makes dishes rattle,” insists Jenny.

“Jenny, are you playing too much Roblox again?” sighs Dawn, giving the shadow in the corner an uneasy glance. “Sorry about the kids—they’ve got wild imaginations.”

“Come along now.” She ushers them away, and as they go, Clayton spots the tip of Big Al’s tail wiggle and bursts into tears again.

“Well now, that certainly was dramatic. There’s not much drama around here—I’m sure we’ll be laughing about the misunderstanding for months. But let’s move along,” says Ms. Fast, closing the door.

Was that danger or not? I’m not sure.

Outside, Big Al hears a motor rumble. Lower-pitched than the airplane but not as throaty as the tractor.

“What kind of tea do you like, dear?” asks Ms. Fast. “I’ve got golden chamomile, red rose, orange pekoe, lemon ginger, indigo butterfly pea blossom, and—and persimmon, which isn’t a colour at all, but I like it anyway.”

“Rrrrr…”

“Red rose it is!”

Big Al swishes his tail, knocking over a stool.

“Oh goodness, did that orange cat get in again? Give me just a moment and I’ll chase it down.”

Big Al watches her search the small kitchen for the culprit.

“DK, where are you, silly kitty? Short for Doorknob—dumb as one, I tell you. Come here! DK? DK?”

Strange, thinks Big Al. Little ones can see me, but not big ones.

He understands the bigger one who came with a little one was like the mother Buffalo.

Big ones guard little ones. Can’t eat little ones.

This is a new situation to Big Al, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. He’s hungry, but Ms. Fast looks like him, dressed in green and wearing a straw hat. It wouldn’t be right to eat something that seems so similar to him.

So when Ms. Fast says she’ll be right back, that the cat must have gone elsewhere in the house, he looks around the kitchen.

Scents overwhelm him. Before, all he could smell was the human. Her scent still lingers, but by shifting his snout even slightly, he can smell things close by and far away. Cinnamon sits in a jar a few feet away; the red rose tea is like a beacon in front of him.

Meat. There’s meat in a pot on the stove, and Big Al’s eyes widen. It smells a little different—not quite as raw—but still smells incredible.

Big Al can’t help himself. His tongue snakes out to the pot to slurp up the delicious contents.

Pain. Pain like Big Al hasn’t felt before. Getting stomped on by an elephant was one thing; getting head-butted by a buffalo was similar. But sticking his tongue into a pot of boiling bison soup is the single worst pain yet.

“AAaaaOOOooooooo!” yelps Big Al, sounding more like a lone wolf than a crocodile.

Ms. Fast thumps into the kitchen. Big Al holds his freshly pampered nails to his snout.

“Goodness, are you hungry?” she asks, seeing him over the pot of stew. “Did you burn yourself? I’m so sorry. I should have asked if you were hungry. Drat that cat, I’ll leave him be. Rick, please, sit down. I’ll fix you a bowl of stew and we shall have our tea.”

Big Al sits, holding his claws to his snout.

This human world has pain in the smallest places. Finding food hurts. Perhaps I should go back to the swamp.

But then she pours the stew into a bowl, blows to cool it, and Big Al’s stomach leaps in joy.

Something smells so very good.

“It’s my very own bison stew. It’s very hot, though. Here, you look like someone who’d appreciate a straw.”

Ms. Fast gives him a straw with a cherry fastened in the middle, along with a ladle to scoop it up.

Tantalizing and delicious, the heat rises to meet him. Mimicking Ms. Fast, he blows on the surface to cool it, and in a moment, it runs down his throat—juicy, warm and delicious.

Strange. Buffalo food for humans, but not for Crocodile. If I eat like a human, I get things I wouldn’t otherwise.

Right there, Big Al makes his decision to continue to Big City. He wonders what else might get cooked up there.

Chapter Index →

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Season 1

Chapter 1: The Escapee
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Chapter 2: Touchdown
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Chapter 3: Disguise… Maybe, Maybe, Maybe
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Chapter 4: He is cooked
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Chapter 5: Making scents of shame
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Chapter 6: Raven Runway Run
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Chapter 7: The Threshold Motel
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Chapter 8: Jukebox Janus’ Burger Joint
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Season 2

Chapter 9: A Crocodile Walks into a Bar
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Chapter 10: Kitchen Closed
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Chapter 11: Hooks & Ankerton
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Chapter 12: Cavalidile
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Chapter 13: Inside the Hold
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Chapter 14: Infiltration
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Chapter 15: Belonging
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Chapter 16: Livestream
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Season 3

Chapter 17: Viral
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Chapter 18: Emote
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Chapter 19: Windows
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Chapter 20: Diamond Hand
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🎧 Prefer to listen? [Hear Chapter 3 – Disguise… Maybe, Maybe, Maybe in audio form]

Mike Mulberry had been driving tractors since he was six, fixing engines since he was nine, and helping run the farm by twelve. Now, at seventeen, he was proud to own his own vintage tractor from the auction. It was something real fine to use in his dad’s field. A tractor made all the difference in the world on the farm.

And besides, the rounded grey fenders, red engine and black steering wheel made it look purdy, he thought. He’d touched up the paint himself.

That morning, he slapped on his big floppy hat to shade his eyes, hooked the harrow to the hydraulic lift, and rumbled down the dusty road to the field.

Born and raised a country boy, he had only passed grade four. He couldn’t fully read or write, but could do it if he had to. His family didn’t have a television, and all their supplies came in on the Hoffman airplane. He liked his simple life.

So when he passed the airfield and saw someone stand up in the ditch, he figured they’d just fallen asleep there. People did that sometimes. Heck, his uncle passed out in ditches all the time when he got into the bottle.

“Top of the morning to you, sir!” Mike called out to the man, who looked real green. “You feelin’ ok?”

The man turned. His face didn’t look quite right. It looked…puffy. Elongated. Maybe an allergy?

Mike squinted.

Whatever it was, he didn’t want to be rude.

So he gave a big wave and a squinty smile as he passed. The man waved back, real slow.

By the time Mike made it to the field, he’d already forgotten about the green man in the ditch.

Later that afternoon, though, he did notice one thing.

His hat was missing.

Big Al wakes up and immediately stands on two legs. It feels like the right thing to do. He stretches, then he hears the pop-pop-pop of a different, smaller motor behind him. He turns and sees a big tractor with man sitting on top.

“Top of the morning to you, sir! You feelin’ okay?”

All Big Al can do is nod slowly. When the man waves, Big Al mimics him with his front paw.

The tractor passes, and as Big Al watches, a gust of wind blows the hat off the man. The hat spirals a few times and lands on the dusty road. Big Al scrambles out of the ditch, walks to the hat and watches the tractor disappear down the road.

I must remember, he tells himself. I am a Crocodile, but people may see me differently.

Big Al looks down at the hat. Made of straw and quite large, he picks it up and sets it on his head. The brim covers two-thirds of his snout and shields him from the sun.

He feels cooler right away. He realizes that he needs the water of the ditch, and that he can’t last long without it.

“Hello there! Who are you?”

Big Al turns towards the voice. Across the airfield stands a woman wearing a green dress and a straw hat.

“Did you just get in? You must be a traveler, for you do look bagged. Come on in and I’ll make you some tea.”

Big Al glances around and points at himself. He isn’t sure what’s going on, but things seem to be going his way. It’s hard to walk on his back legs, and halfway across the airfield he drops to touch his front paws to the ground.

“You must be tired. Or tipsy for that matter! No worries though. My tea’s the best. It will fix you right up.”

The woman hurries toward him, and Big Al pushes himself upright again. Too much time on all fours and they might see through him.

She reaches out for his front paw. Big Al doesn’t know what it means, but she grabs it gently and gives it a tug.

“Oh goodness, your skin isn’t so good. I have conditioner made by Ellie May a few fields over. It’s the best conditioner you can get. Better than anything in a store. It’ll soften that poor skin of yours right up, so don’t you worry.”

“OK.” It comes out in a low grumble. Talking to people feels much harder than talking to other animals. Instead of just connecting, he has to adjust something in his throat.

“Goodness, did you just cut the cheese? Never mind, it’s okay. Oh, silly me, I haven’t even introduced myself yet. I’m Isabella Fast. Fastest talker around, they say. I can just chatter up any old owl and get even the shyest crocodile to open up. It’s in my blood, I say. My mother was like that, so was her mother, and so was her mother’s mother. We’re all fast talkers and we’re all…”

Big Al listens carefully. With enough listening, he might figure out how all this works. He learned how to stand from a Heron. Maybe he can learn to talk from a person.

She leads him toward her small home near the airfield.

“…just a small little place, but I do have the essentials, yes indeed. The kids will be by later with the sugar, so the tea will have to do for now. Here we are, here we are, just watch your step in here. Oh, careful! Don’t get your tail caught in the door!”

Big Al uses his tail to balance, and it flattens across the floor.

Humans don’t have tails, he thinks. Will they notice I have one?

But Isabella Fast just steps over it, like it’s a sleeping dog, and lets it lie. Still talking, she starts digging through her cabinets.

“I haven’t given a manicure in the very longest time! I used to be an esthetician you see, and I’ve seen all kinds of nails. Being a fast talker, made it a great job!”

She guides Big Al to sit on a stool at a small table. She puts a kettle of water on the stove, then sits down across from him with a big smile.

“Soooo, what’s your name?” she asks as she reaches for his right claw.

Big Al doesn’t know what to say. He extends his claw and realizes he is expected to speak. His long mouth opens, showing even more of his sharp teeth. Isabella just blinks fashionably and returns a smile with just as many teeth.

“Rrrrrrrr…Rrrrrr….R…” The vibration in his throat makes him hiccup. “Ick. Ick.”

“Rick! Well, nice to meet you, Rick. You’re such a handsome young man,” she says and starts brushing his nails.

“Your skin feels so rough. Once I’m done here, I’ll get the skin softener and freshen you up, fit as a fiddle.

“It is nice to see you! We don’t get many strangers out here, but everyone gets a warm welcome. Arcanum Glades is a little community of just a few families.

“Mister and Missus Hoffman came first. Their kids were born right here. A natural home birth in the tub. Can you believe that? After all these years, people are going back to the old ways.

“Me, I was waitressin’ in Ankerton when I overheard Mr. Hoffman say he lived in the middle of nowhere. That’s what I always wanted. So I did what I had to and sold everything. They even helped me get set up out here. It sure is nice seeing the sunrise, the stars at night and…”

The tea kettle starts to whistle and at the same time there is a knock at the door. Big Al feels his defensive instincts kick in. He snarls and pulls back his claw, but she’s already on her feet with her back to him. She lifts the kettle off the heat and steps over to open the door.

A brown-haired girl about nine years of age and a little blonde boy about six stand in the doorway. The girl holds a ring of daisies she’s made and the boy clutches a clear Tupperware container full of sugar.

“This is for you Ms. Fast,” the girl says, holding up the flower ring with a sweet smile.

“An’ heres your SUGAR!” says Clayton. “I totally swear I didn’t eat any!”

Big Al turns to look at the pair, and his stomach growls. Hunger and memory surface at once, and his lips pull back, but he forces them down and looks at the tea kettle.

Not the swamp, he thinks. Different time. Different rules.

Chapter List →

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Chapter 3 audio drops August 9
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