Get caught up on Susie’s Adventure and read the previous chapters.

Susie’s Shell Searching Adventure /// Chapter 14

Susie wasn’t all that certain what she expected to see when she entered the bar, she just knew that she wasn’t expecting the boisterous scene that greeted her. Behind the bar stood a rather large, strikingly white crane apart from its red head. At first, Susie almost thought the crane was a statue by the way it stood completely still, head curled tall and backward as if doing the limbo, holding one wing high and one wing low while a team of fireflies directed a beam of light upon it. But then the crane would change positions. Every ten seconds or so it seemed the crane would strike a new pose, in what was surely a stop-motion best picture on how to best tend a bar. 

There were a great many creatures inside the bar, which was also surprising. Susie had thought they’d only see more beavers on the inside, and yet, she could hardly see any beavers in the crowd. The tables were filled with frogs and salamanders. On stage, a chameleon played a guitar while a green and yellow bird sang for all the bar crawlers. 

‘Susie!’ Mel said. ‘This is amazing! There really is a whole community here!’

Susie smirked. ‘I thought bars were scary,’ she said. 

Just then, the crane behind the bar let out two short squawks that sounded a bit like she was saying yeehaw. Mere slimes away, a beaver emerged from a hole in the Earth, springing into the air and showering Mel and Susie both in water.  They were so startled they tried to unplop themselves from the ground, but the water made them all the more sticky. 

‘Two fish!’ the beaver yelled, then tossed two fish up in the air and roundhouse slapped them with his tail to send them flying towards the crane. The crane went spread-eagle with its wings and the fish slapped clean into each wing and down onto the counter. The fireflies blinked their lights in celebration and then resumed their steady beam. The beaver gave the crane a sort of salute and dove back into the hole to disappear again. 

‘Okay, on second thought, maybe bars are a little scary,’ Mel said, disturbed by the pinpoint accuracy and striking power displayed by the now-hidden beaver. 

Susie stood completely still, staring ahead like she’d been caught in the light of the fireflies, trying to comprehend what she had just seen. It was the Olympics of bartending and the gold medal went to a team composed of one crane and one beaver.

But Susie’s ogling was interrupted just then as the crane made her sounds again, though this time she squawked just once instead of twice like she was only saying yeeeeet. The beaver jumped from the hole again, yelled ‘One fish!’ and roundhouse slapped the fish towards the crane. But the crane was staring straight towards Mel and Susie now, her Olympic concentration interrupted. The fish hit the crane square on the beak, turning the crane’s face into something like a shishkebab. The beaver realized his error and landed on the ground with a grimace on his face. The music stopped and the team of fireflies frantically worked to move their light beam to illuminate Mel and Susie. The beaver turned towards the light and saw the slugs who had caught the crane’s eyes. 

‘Newcomers!’ yelled the beaver. 

‘ooo-ummerz?’ said the crane. Everyone looked towards her and realized her beak had so pierced the fish sent flying towards her that she could not open it to speak. 

‘Oh heavens!’ said the beaver from down under. ‘I do apologize, Cass. It sounded as though you had called for a fish!’

The beaver scurried over to the bar, clambered atop the table, grabbed the fish on Cass’ beak, and pulled backward as hard as he could. He pulled too hard. The fish slid off the beak but the beaver began to slide off the table as well before Cass caught the beaver’s tail in her beak. Every bar crawler in attendance was quiet, the band had stopped playing, and Mel and Susie joined in an awe-struck gaze as they witnessed two, successive, heroic acts. Cass held the beaver there in the air, suspended, with her wings situated in such a position as to resemble the letter L. The Olympic duo appeared to have taken up pairs figure skating, and they were irrefutably experts at that as well. The fireflies in the rafters flew between three hollowed-out, perfectly cylindrical tubes of wood, each narrower than the last, managing to focus their light beam tighter and tighter around Cass’s pose in a synchronized display of pure drama.

At last, the room erupted into cheers and Cass flapped her wings in acknowledgment, flew over the table, and delicately returned the beaver to the floor. She then struck a series of three more poses, first flaring her right wing to half of the bar’s patrons, then bringing it back to her body to fling her left wing to acknowledge the bar’s other half. After an absurdly long time, she tossed both wings straight up into the air and then folded them behind her back and sunk into a deep bow. It could have been a greeting, though Susie remained quite skeptical. Mel, however, ducked her head to the ground in a bow that resembled a cat stretching.

Cass ignored Mel’s greeting. ‘To what do we owe the company of noobs?’ she said, her head turned to the side as she looked at Mel and Susie with just one, searingly yellow eye. Pretentious.

‘Our boat is being fixed,’ said Susie. The truth.

Cass brought both wings to the belly of her bill and peered down at Mel and Susie in a photograph of uwu. Yet another ridiculous pose. ‘A boat, you say?’ she said.

Mel nodded her head excitedly. ‘Mhmm!’ she said. ‘See, a boat is this big thing that floats and protects us and helps us to travel by water.’

Cass audibly rolled her eyes, brushing one wing across her brow as if she were wiping away sweat. She sort of flicked her wing and then held it in the air in — you guessed it — another pose. ‘And I presume you want food?’ she said. 

‘Golly, that would be amazing!’ said Mel. ‘We would especially love some shrooms.’ 

Cass tossed back her head in exhaustion. Or hyperbole. Maybe exasperation? Who could really say. The array of poses was candidly exhausting, even as an onlooker. And the accompanying bouts of silence were all the more sleep-inducing. Susie waited patiently for Cass to complete her pose and actually issue her response. At last, Cass said, ‘Yes, well, we aren’t exactly dealers, now, are we?’ She folded her wings into an L shape, resting her bill atop the L like a thinker. ‘What are you? Vegetarians, yes? I think we should have a great deal of plant dishes available for you.’ She threw her head out before her, struck her leg out behind her, and spun quickly around like a camel only to pause dramatically after completing the pirouette, like a skater who had just finished her short program. After her dramatic pause, Cass opened her bill and let out a morse code series of honks, and the rescued beaver dove back into his hole only to reappear with two large sticks of greenery. Cass proceeded to retake her position behind the bar.

The beaver bounded over to Mel and Susie. ‘Two sticks of algae for our two sluggish guests,’ he said. 

Mel looked towards Susie. She wasn’t super sure what algae was, but it looked quite magnificent. Startlingly green, and delicately wet. She snatched her stick from the beaver and began to chow down. It took only a few slurps before she turned towards Susie again with a face as bright as the fireflies above. ‘Susie. You HAVE to try this’ she said. 

Susie scowled in return. She wasn’t about to try some slimy greenery. She just needed their boat repaired. That was all. Nothing more. She needed her shell and her life and her days in the field with Trunky. She needed some shrooms, not some new-fangled thing. She needed comfort, and every step of their journey seemed to pull her further and further from that comfort she so desired.

Cass let out an exaggerated sigh and tossed her head back again to visually show her disgust. ‘You won’t have it then?’ she said, glaring at Susie.

Susie shook her head and slimed her way atop a stool at the bar. She took in all the many drinks and treats that stood on the bar’s shelves and slumped her head onto the table in front of her. Shortly after, Mel joined her at the adjacent seat and poked her with a single antenna.

‘What is it, Susie?’ Mel said.

Susie shrugged and closed her eyes. ‘Nothing, Mel. It’s nothing.’ The truth. Definitive as always. She felt feathers slide beneath her chin and opened her eyes as Cass softly lifted Susie’s head with her wing. 

‘Come now, darling, nothing is always something after all,’ she said.

Cass was staring directly into Susie’s soul, but Susie refused to let her in, choosing instead to look past the crane and to the notice board behind her. What she saw caused her to perk up. ‘Hey, hey, hey, what is that?’ she said, pointing with one of her antennae.

Cass looked back over her shoulder. ‘Something?’ she said.

And now Susie returned the perfect eyeroll she had seen from Cass earlier. ‘The snake!’ she said. ‘What does that say?’

‘What, Bel?’ said Cass.

‘So it is her?’ said Susie.

‘Why yes, everyone knows Bel,’ said Cass.

But now Mel piped in. ‘Everyone?’ she said. ‘How do you know Bel? Why is her picture in your bar?’ Fear had returned and she cast Susie a glance that said What if they’re her friends? 

‘Relax,’ said Cass. ‘Bel is infamous. There’s not a creature in this bar who hasn’t had something stolen by that fiendish snake.’ 

‘Even you?’ said Susie.

‘My dignity!’ said Cass. She buried her face within her wings, clearly fighting off tears so as not to compromise her perfect pose. 

Both Mel and Susie refused to play the game this time. They stared splinters at the bird until she expounded on what had been stolen from her.

‘Oh, very well then,’ said Cass, at last. ‘Once upon a time, I was but a young swan, splashing in the very river on which the two of you arrived here. I had a dream, you see. I longed for a future in which I could replace the ice sculptures so many are used to and instead be the bayou’s first, live-action fountain. I would perform at parties all throughout the bayou. Flit this way and that, spout water to and fro. You get the picture. One day, that heinous snake came passing by on the river bank and wouldn’t you know it, she shouted at me! “Hey, crane!” she shouted and I had no choice but to halt my practice. A crane! She called me a crane! Can you believe the pain that followed?’ 

Mel and Susie looked at each other and then back at Cass. ‘Aren’t swans completely white?’ said Susie.

‘It is a beauty mark!’ snapped Cass.

‘And it’s very beautiful, indeed,’ said Mel, sliming in to calm the tension. ‘You see, it’s just that Susie gets called a slug all the time but she’s actually a snail, and Bel stole her shell and we’re trying to get it back.’ 

Cass slapped both wings on the table and extended them straight out in front of her, pushing herself back in complete shock. ‘You’re a snail?!’ she said. ‘So you know? You know what it’s like? Oh my. Someone who understands!’ She was tossing her head back and drawing on each and every word with the most complex mixture of sorrow, happiness, and drama two slugs had ever heard. ‘Here I spend all my nights, performing for these creatures, whooping and hollering all the while performing with the greatest elegance. And still… Still. You know what they call me? A crane! They still continue to call me a crane. But you know! You must know!’

Susie shrugged. She looked uncomfortable. ‘I mean, I guess?’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, I actually don’t mind being a slug. I just want my shell back because it’s mine.’ 

Cass rocked forward to the table again while gasping and placing one wing over her beak. Whiplash. The emotional kind. ‘You can’t be serious?’

Susie gave Mel a side-eye and then looked back and Cass and nodded ever so slightly. Serious. 

‘Well, in any case. Bel is a renowned thief. She is wanted by every one of us. One day.’ She held up one feather on her wind. ‘One day, she will meet her reckoning.’

‘We will reckon with her,’ said Susie. Matter-of-fact.

‘We will.’ Mel agreed.

‘Do you hear that?’ Cass said to the rest of the patrons. ‘These two are going to put a stop to Bel!’

The bar erupted into a chorus of cheers. The beavers slapped their tails on the floor. The chameleons turned as bright as the sun in their happiness. The beaver from down under sprung up from his hole once, then twice, then three times, shouting hip, hip, and then hurray. Mel was grinning as brightly as the chameleons. Heroes, she thought. They were already heroes. And even Susie took some pride in the whole display. This adventure was no longer just about her. It wasn’t even about her having dragged Mel into things. They represented the hope of the bayou, and that meant more than even the shell she had wanted returned for so long. As she thought, she heard the voice of the bird, amplified by the many tubes through which she spoke into.

‘How about a song?’ the bird said. 

‘Ooooo!!! A song!’ said Mel. ‘Susie can even provide the percussion! And.. Not to brag. But I’m sort of a professional rapper.’

‘Excellent,’ said the bird. ‘You just join in as your heart feels fit.’ 

Mel turned to Susie, beaming. ‘You hear that? I get to rap! With a band!’ she said.

‘I heard,’ said Susie. But more importantly, she felt. She felt the comfort of community.

 

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