Heretical Fishing

Chapter 25: Tutor

Sergeant Snips stretched her claws wide, gathering power in her joints. She prepared to unleash a mighty clack of the claws on whomever was foolish enough to sneak up on her.

Who dares attack the benevolent Sergeant Snips—beloved crab of Fischer?

A small object sunk down toward her, and she scuttled to the side, her eye watching it with keen hesitance. It hit the bottom with a soft

thud. Sergeant Snips waited, but nothing happened. She crawled over to it, tentatively poking it with a calcified stick of dead coral. Again, nothing. Slowly, ever so carefully, she snipped a metal padlock and lifted the lid. Her lone eye sparkled as moonlight reflected off the chest’s contents.

I woke to the sight of a rather pleased crab hovering above me, tentative little bubbles of greeting coming forth.

“Morning, Snips.” I stretched out, unleashing a mighty yawn. “I missed you yesterday, where’d you get off to?”

She jumped off the bed, urging me to follow her with both claws.

“Not so fast, you little scamp!” I jumped down after her, rubbing the back of her head.

“You thought you could just get away without a good scratch?”

She leaned to the side, one of her limbs kicking up and down in a rather doglike manner.

“Ohhhh, is that the spot, Snips?” I smiled mischievously, scratching the carapace harder.

Her foot tapped away on the wooden floor, a staccato rhythm to match my laughter. I released her, stretching my hands to the roof and yawning again.

“All right, what did you have to show me?”

She shook off the aftereffects of the scratch, scuttling out into the living room and leading me through the front door. I followed her, muscle memory moving my arm and grabbing my hat from a hook on the way past.

I took a moment to stare once I stepped outside. Predawn light lit the scene, small waves atop the river reflecting glimpses of the eastern sky that shone a pale pink. A claw tapped me gently, grabbing my attention. Snips gestured to keep coming, and she led me around the corner to the side patio my barbecue would one day occupy. She scuttled to a corner, gesturing at something hidden in the shadows.

“What is it, girl?” I bent down, squinting into the gloom.

It was a small chest, made of dark lacquered wood with metal casings around the corners. A padlock hung in the lock, clearly snipped by my trusty guard crab.

“You found a treasure chest . . . ?”

She nodded vigorously, gesturing with her entire body to open the lid.

I picked it up and took it out the front, wanting to see the contents in the rising sunlight. I knelt down, opening it at Sergeant Snips’s eye level.

Before I could make out what it was, I saw the reflected light of the eastern sky bouncing off the contents just as it did the waves. Countless points of light hit me, and it took my sleep-addled brain a long moment to realize what I was looking at. When comprehension hit me, my eyebrows tried to leave my face.

“Snips . . . where did you get this?”

She shrugged her spiny carapace, gesturing to the sea.

I looked at her, stunned, then returned my attention to the chest. It was filled with jewelry; silver and gold rings, necklaces, and bracelets. Most of the precious-metal pieces had pearls set in them, and I struggled to grasp just how much wealth was in front of me.

I stared at it, mouth hanging open. I quickly counted the pearls; there were eleven of the orbs in total.

“Jesus, Snips . . .”

A claw tapped me again, arresting my attention. Snips peered intently at me, blowing a soft stream of questioning bubbles.

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“You . . . you want to know if you did good?”

She nodded, cocking her body to the side.

“Sergeant Snips, you beautiful, majestic crab queen—you did great!” I bellowed a laugh, giving her long, stroking rubs atop her treasure-finding head. “I can’t believe you brought this home! This was an insane find, Snips!”

She nodded and blew content bubbles, responding to my praise.

What in the banished gods am I going to do with all this, though . . . ?

It was entirely too much wealth, and trying to sell it would draw way more attention than I was comfortable with.

“I guess we just stash it for now . . . do you have any use for it, Snips?”

She shook her head, and I got an idea. I picked up a bracelet with a single pearl affixed, then set it atop her head.

I grinned as I eyed my handiwork. “A crown befitting a Queen, Snips!”

She bubbled her excitement, scuttling to the glass-paneled door to admire her reflection.

I knelt down behind her. The makeshift crown slid almost off as she moved, and I readjusted it to the front of her head.

“Shame it doesn’t stay in place. It suits you.”

She turned to me, pointing to my hat, then to her head.

“You want me to fix the crown to your head?” I rubbed my chin in thought. “I guess we could—”

She shook her entire body at my question. She took the bracelet off, handing it to me. Pointing again at the straw hat, then to her head, she repeated the gesture two more times.

“Oh!” I said with a laugh. “You want a hat?”

A stream of ascending bubbles.

“That, I can do!” I ran to the roll of string beside my drying bamboo rods. “Let me get a measurement!”

I wrapped the line around her carapace in different directions, noting the measurements. I couldn’t help but brush against the hard-to-reach parts of her top carapace as I went, and she halfheartedly tried to escape my tickles by scuttling in circles.

“All right—I have a quest for today! Fetch Snips a stylish new hat!”

She raised both her claws high, a veritable torrent of happy bubbles flying from her mouth.

“But, my trusty queen crab . . .” I gave her a conspiratorial look. “Shall we check the pot first?”

She froze for a moment, then scrambled toward the shore with an astonishing pace. I ran after her, giggling at the spray of sand kicking up in the wake of her blurred legs.

“Ready, Snips?” I whispered, crouching over the line.

She nodded, her eye gleaming in anticipation.

I grabbed the line, pulling it in with constant pressure. It was heavy, and hope swelled up within me. I could see something dark in the trap and smiled as I tried to make out what it was. When I grabbed the pot and hauled it out of the water, Sergeant Snips let out a low hiss.

There were two crabs: one sand crab, and one rock crab. I reached in and grabbed the sand crab, and checking its bottom carapace, saw it was male—a big one, at that. I left the rock crab to its fate, knowing what would come next.

Sergeant Snips moved to the side with exacting movements, standing on the shore and staring out at the rising sun. The rock crab didn’t need instruction. It sullenly walked over in front of Snips, turned its back to her, and awaited its discipline.

Snips held her claw to her mouth, wetting it, then held it high, checking the wind direction. She stretched both claws, limbering up. Her left claw flicked under its carapace in a blur, lifting the crab into the air. Her right claw met it midair, and with a massive overhand throw, she flung it out to sea.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—

Plop.

She shook her head at the forcibly departed crustacean.

“Same crab?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded, then shrugged both claws, as if to say “What are you gonna do?”

“Well, at least we got some dinner!” I said, gesturing to the sand crab in one hand.

I left the crab pot on the shore as we lacked any bait to refill it, and we made our way back at a much more leisurely pace.

I filled a pot with salt water, left the crab inside the kitchen, and made my way back out to Snips. The wind had picked up again, making it, unfortunately, not a great day for fishing.

Shame—at least I have other things to take care of.

Sergeant Snips sat by the coals of the fire, staring at the pot atop them with curiosity.

“It’s salt water,” I said, peering inside.

The water had reduced significantly, and there was a thin layer of salty sediment on the bottom of the pot. I gave it a stir with a wooden spoon, mixing it all together.

“I’m reducing it to make salt, the flavor of the gods—” I cut myself off at a thought. “Well, MSG is the flavor of the gods, but salt is a good starting point.”

She scuttled over and looked inside, blowing curious bubbles.

“Hopefully it’ll reduce down completely today. Then we just need to dry it out!”

I sat down on a log, leaning back and taking in the beautiful sunrise. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Snips—were the pearls you and the other crabs collected hard to find?”

She made a so-so gesture with a claw.

“Can you get more?” I asked.

She thought for a moment, blowing a few indiscernible bubbles. Then, with immaculate accuracy, she started drawing characters in the sand.

For a moment, I thought she was drawing me a picture, but with dawning amazement, realized she was writing—actually

writing. I recognized some of the letters from the deed George had brought me.

I stared at the words then down at Snips. She gestured at the letters, nodding sagely.

“Uh, Snips—I . . . I can’t read.”

She blinked at me; I blinked back. Small hissing noises started coming from her mouth, and she shook, kneeling down and rolling in the sand.

She’s laughing at me!

I roared with laughter, and her hissing noises increased. She rolled onto her back, legs kicking out as she blurted a stream of sporadic hisses and bubbles. I fell over beside her, unable to contain my mirth. We rolled in the sand, tears coming to my eyes as I lost myself to the laughter.

When my cheeks ached and I could no longer see through swimming vision, I rolled to my front, getting to my feet just as Snips did the same.

“I—I’m sorry, Snips,” I said through tears and fleeting giggles, pointing down at the ruined script. “I rolled in your message—not that I could read it.”

She fell backward again, her limbs quivering in delight as her hisses came bubbling back up.

“Oh, you think me being illiterate is funny?” I leaned over her, tickling under her chin with both hands.

Her kicking increased, and I moved with her as she tried to get away from my assault. Eventually, I let her go, and she got upright, settling into the sand and seeming to sigh with contentment.

After a moment of regaining her composure, she started drawing again, and this time it was a picture. I leaned down, seeing a rather good approximation of an oyster with a pearl inside. She wrote a word next to it.

“Oyster?” I asked.

She nodded emphatically and started drawing again. She wrote a word then gestured at everything around us with both claws.

“Area?”

She made a so-so gesture again, shaking her head.

“Everything?”

She made the same gesture, which I took to mean “not quite.”

“Surroundings?”

She nodded, pointing her claw at me, then the word.

“Okay—so we’ve got oysters and surroundings.”

She drew another word, then an “X” in the sand beside it.

“Here?”

She shook her carapace, then pointed at the word, crossed her claws in front of her, and shook her head again.

“Ohhh, no? That word means no?”

She blew victorious bubbles, nodding. She drew the word for “surroundings,” then “no,” and finally, “oysters.”

“There are no more oysters in the surrounding area?” I asked.

She hissed with delight, her whole body going up and down.

I laughed. “I can’t believe you’re my language tutor, Snips—what would I do without you?”

She sidled over and rubbed against my leg affectionately. I stroked her head.

“Ah, I love you too, my literate little scamp. So you guys harvested all the oysters within a reasonable distance.”

She nodded again.

“No wonder the otter has been coming to our headland, Snips—you and your crabs harvested the rest of them!”

She froze, her body going rigid as she blew tiny bubbles of comprehension.

Ah, she hadn’t realized it was our fault the otter came here.

“Well, no matter.” I rubbed her head again. “That just makes it easier for us to befriend it!”

She blew a single, oversized bubble of anger, and I barked a laugh.

“I know, Snips. I know.”