Petra, the dancer, holds his purse in her hands, turning it over as she looks at it. She sits at a picnic table near the anchor and its water feature. Big Al sits across from her, his tail wrapped around and under the table. Two paper menus from Hooks sit in front of him, and he has a pen, trying to copy the menu by hand onto the back of the second.
Her cilantro scent has diminished, but hasn’t entirely gone. The scent of hamburgers, French fries, and other fried food hovers around her like a cloud of mosquitoes.
“You’ve got more mysteries than scales, sir,” she says, turning it over, studying the stitching and feeling the waterproof material. “Anyways. Are you able to give me a name for your employment? It’ll be what we call you inside, the name Raleigh writes your paychecks out to. It’ll follow you here at Hooks.”
Big Al isn’t sure what to say. Rick is what Ms Fast had thought he said when he hiccupped. His name, Big Al, was more how he thought of himself, and less than what other creatures called him. In Stinkwater, he had been ‘the croc’. So what name was he going to be called at Hooks? And what was this thing called a paycheck?
He has finished the word ‘CHEESEBURGER’, copied its number, and has started on the next menu item, Salisbury steak.
S A L is on the paper. He turns it around and points at it.
“Sal, right?” he says slowly.
Petra looks at his writing, and copies it to the form. “Perfect. Last name?”
Big Al turns the paper back around, copies the rest, then shows ‘ISBURY.’
Petra taps a pen against her lips. “Mmm…Sal will work, but ‘isbury’ won’t. You’re not a steak.”
She pauses, watching him as he tries to copy the numbers for the Salisbury steak.
“We can come back to that. Any address?”
Big Al’s response is a grunt.
“Raleigh said we could use PO Box 6767 if we needed to. It’s for a shell company he has.”
She watches him copy the next menu item, ‘Hook Burger.’ He writes the double oo as a sideways eight, and she slips around the table to sit next to him.
“Here, instead of connecting them because they’re together, they have to stay separate. See the 8 there?” She points at a price. “Similar picture. Only upright. What you’re drawing is a single thing, but not a double ‘o’.”
Big Al scoots over a bit, a little uncomfortable. This human smells like fried onions and he knows he can’t eat her, but his mouth starts to water.
The fact that she’s helping him learn to write brings a new scent from his scaley skin, and again it’s unlike anything he’s smelled so far. Bright, savory and…spices? Butter maybe?
It comes with something like a creak, or a crack that shivers his body and leaves him a little dizzy before fading quickly.
“It looks like water against two blades of swamp grass,” he mumbles.
Petra blinks at him. “Okay.”
She frowns, then looks at the numbers he has copied.
“What does this mean to you?” she asks, and points at a 4.
The scent of cilantro begins to warm up.
“Uh, a heron with tasty looking legs.”
“And this?” She points at a number 5.
“A pelican with an extra snack inside. Very tasty.”
“Fascinating.” Petra scratches her head. “Okay. Well, let’s translate this a bit. Here at Hooks, this four means that there are four things. It could be hamburgers, or four drinks, or four people.”
“I…don’t get it.”
A small bird lands on the picnic table and Petra smiles at it. It looks at both of them, and then disappears in a tuft of feathers, Big Al’s tongue drawing it in like a fly.
At the same time, Petra’s phone dings with a reminder. “Annnd it’s time to get back to work,” she says, standing up. “This was…something else.”
Big Al watches her go back to Hooks, swallows and taps his tail against the table.
With a fountain behind him, the wind blows sparkles of water over him, cooling him.
This is nice. Water on my back, food at the front and sun overhead. What else do I need?
A human jogs by on the sidewalk, paced by a large dog. As soon as the dog gets a whiff of Big Al, it starts growling, then barks an alarm.
GRRRRRR. RRRRR. YOU’RE NOT WELCOME. NOT WELCOME. GET OUT. GET OUT!
“Jeez Fido, give the busker a break. He’s just sunning himself,” says the woman. “Sorry about the dog sir. You did great at the dance earlier. You’ll fit right in at Hooks. They’ve been looking for a croc for a time.”
Big Al smiles and does something he saw Raleigh do at the Zit & Grit. He leans back, gives the person a smile, then tries to snap his fingers and point at her. The snap fails to make sound, but the woman shakes her head with a smile.
“You’re awesome,” smirks the jogger, while her dog growls as they pass.
So long as these snacks are on leashes, I should be good, he thinks. And then, with a crafty cackle, Well, off leash and they become my snacks.
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Chapter 14 podcast drops January 24
Chapter 15 text drops January 31
