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And On That Note
A Spontoon Island story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer
(Various characters are copyright their respective owners.)
Thumbnail art by
turnbolt
Fourteen.
“I do hope Willow and the fawns are having a good time,” Reggie Buckhorn remarked as he added a spoonful of sugar to his day’s second cup of coffee. He sat on the veranda outside of Shepherd’s Hotel’s restaurant, l’Etoile d’Argent, at a table for two. The table had a coffee service and a plate bearing an array of fresh scones, with marmalade and clotted cream available. “It is really spiffing weather today,” he added as he stirred the sugar into the coffee.
“Yes, it is,” the rat seated opposite him said nervously as he waited for his own coffee to cool. Abner Moskowitz was the newly-appointed representative of F.R. Buckhorn and Sons to the Spontoons, having been promoted out of the San Francisco office. He had never met his boss before, but had likely been regaled with stories about Reggie’s misadventures before he married.
Hence, possibly, his nervousness.
Reggie sensed this. “Please, Mr. Moskowitz, relax,” the whitetail buck urged as he applied some cream and marmalade to a scone. “And do try a scone. L’Etoile has a top-notch staff.”
“Thank you, Sir,” the rat said, placing a scone on the small plate before him before trying a bite. “Very good,” he said after swallowing the bite.
“And, again, please relax. Gone are the days when I’d do something silly, after attempting to drink the Long Bar dry.” Reggie smiled and tapped the side of his muzzle. “Wife and fawns, don’t you know, as well as running a company. Tends to keep one away from inebriated shenanigans. Now,” he asked after taking a sip of his coffee, “how are you doing? Settled in all right?”
Moskowitz brightened. “Yes, I have. The Spontoonies have been very friendly. I’ve hired a secretary, and I’ve taken your advice about asking the public what they’d like to see sold here. I put ads in two of the papers, the Mirror and the Elele,” he added with a smile.
“Jolly good! Top marks, Mr. Moskowitz. And what is the vox populi asking for?”
"Ah, well, we've received a large number of customer suggestions, but quite a few from one customer."
Reggie’s ears swiveled. “Just one?”
“Just one.”
"What for?"
Moskowitz reached into the briefcase he had placed beside his chair and removed a sheaf of paper. A pause to put on his glasses and he read aloud, “Cocoanut water. Cocoanut butter sandwich spread. Cocoanut candy bars. Cocoanut milk powder . . ."
"Chap seems consistent," Reggie chuckled.
"He says he l-l-l-l-likes cocoanuts."
"Beg pardon?"
"It's on the form, Sir."
"He stutters on the form?" Moskowitz gave Reggie an open-pawed shrug, and the whitetail buck asked, “Any other suggestions?"
"There's one for persimmon pies."
“Persimmon pies? How many roe deer are in the Spontoons?”
***
Orrin Brush looked up, his ears perking, as Inspector Stagg came back into the office. The whitetail buck hadn’t been gone for very long, maybe ten minutes, but from the look in his eyes, the set of his jaw and his flagging tail, whatever he and the Chief had talked about had irritated his superior.
Stagg walked to his desk and sat down in what the fox termed the buck’s ‘thinking pose,’ his paws resting on the head of his cane and his head bowed. He gazed down at his paws for several moments until his lips moved.
Brush had to strain to hear it, but Stagg muttered, “Retro me, Sathanas.” “The buck’s ears swiveled and he looked up. “Sorry, Sergeant? You were saying something?”
“Nothin,’ Sir.” Brush looked concerned. “What’s up?”
Stagg frowned, and after a few moments he got to his hooves and closed the office door before returning to his seat. He beckoned the fox closer and said softly, “Do you know of a Spontoonie, Sergeant, named Sapohatan?”
Brush’s eyes went wide and his ears swept straight back. He quickly glanced at the closed door before asking in the same quiet tone, “That's who you were talking to?" Stagg nodded, and the fox said, "That's swimming in deep water, Sir, if you don't mind my saying."
"Deep water I have no intention of going near, I assure you."
“Like the May case, last year?” Brush asked.
“Deeper than that,” Stagg replied. “You read the papers, Sergeant.”
Brush nodded. “Told him no?”
Stagg nodded, once. “I’m not exactly young, and I have a wife and fawns. Hardly conducive to the cloak and dagger, even if my work was in analysis and not in the field. We’ve agreed to let the matter rest.” He paused. “For now.”
Orrin Brush nodded.
***
“Extra! Extra!”
Willow and Mary’s ears swiveled as a young feline came into view, a stack of newspapers draped over one arm as he called out to passing tourists. “The Mirror always has the latest news!” the tabby said, accepting a coin from one fellow in a floral shirt and letting the customer take one copy. Others started to gather around the paperboy.
“Lodge?” Willow asked. “Could you get one, please?”
“Certainly, Ma’am,” and the beaver shimmered off. He made the purchase and was walking back when he paused to look at the headline.
There was a loud slap as his broad, flat tail smacked the backs of his legs.
“Uh-oh. When Lodge does that, it’s probably trouble,” Willow remarked. In the back of her mind, Grace sat up, ears perking.
“Do you think it’s war?” Mary asked. “I mean, other than the one we already have.”
The whitetail doe shook her head. “Dunno. But we’ll soon find out,” she said as Lodge came up to her. “Lodge?”
The butler looked unusually perturbed as he offered the paper. “I regret to inform you, Ma’am, that Prime Minister Mosley is dead.”
Mary and Willow both gasped.
Grace gasped.
Sophia solemnly crossed herself.
The fawns were sitting on the grass, watching an albino feral squirrel lollop about.
Willow shook out the paper, holding it so Mary could read it as well, and for a time there was very little sound in the park other than birds singing, the breeze rustling branches, and the distant drone of an airplane. “He was assassinated,” Willow said in a half-incredulous tone, “after giving a speech at a steel mill. The murderer was a Russian anarchist.”
“Russian anarchist?” Mary asked. “Do they still have those? I thought Starling got rid of them all.”
“I guess The Red Bird wasn’t looking under enough rocks,” Willow said. She was certain that poor Diana was beside herself at the loss, as well as Wallis and David. The King and Queen liked Mosley. “Funeral arrangements . . . ah. The military’s on alert, and the Deputy Prime Minister’s setting up a ‘collegial’ government to run the country until the next election.”
“What the blazes is a ‘collegial’ government?” the vixen asked.
Willow shook her head. “Damfino. It’s getting on toward lunchtime. What say we get back to the apartment and feed the fawns?” she asked.
“I’m with you on that.”
While they busied themselves getting the fawns into their strollers and packing everything up, Willow thought about the article she’d read. It had taken her more than a few moments to realize just who the Deputy Prime Minister was, and she didn’t think she could spot any of the Cabinet in a crowd. But, she reminded herself, that was pretty much what the British wanted in a government.
Despite herself, she smiled as she thought of an anecdote she’d recently read in Punch. One of the Prime Ministers back in the Twenties had decided to take a bus, and while sitting down he’d encountered an old school chum who asked the P.M. if he’d been doing anything since graduating from Oxford.
“Mosley wasn’t like that,” Grace reminded her.
“True,” Willow replied to her alter ego. Tom had been brash, loud and confrontational, and quite a lot of Society and Establishment furs didn’t quite know how to deal with him. David and Wallis, though, found him to be something of a kindred spirit.
As the whitetail doe and the vixen started to wheel the strollers out of the park, Willow wondered if Reggie had seen the news yet.
***
“Oh! Hullo, Willow!” Reggie said as he entered the hotel room to find his wife, his in-laws’ baby-sitter, and all four infant fawns taking up the sitting room of the suite. Quickly lowering his voice so he wouldn’t startle the children, he asked, “Have you had a good morning?”
He caught the look on his wife’s face, and immediately began wondering if he’d done something wrong.
“Reggie.”
“Yes, Willow?”
“I think you’d better sit down.”
The whitetail buck sat in one of the room’s comfortable armchairs. “Um, is this good news, or bad news?”
Willow stood and walked over to him, offering the copy of the Mirror. “You’d better read this.”
He looked up at her curiously, glanced at the headline, did a violent double-take, and he started to read the accompanying article as his tail flagged hard against the chair’s upholstery. He finished reading and sat back. “Lodge,” he said quietly.
“Sir?” the beaver asked.
“Is it noon yet?”
“Three minutes past, Sir.”
“Willow? Would you like a drink?”
“I think it’d be okay, Reggie. Lodge, could we have two – no, three – gin and tonics, please?” she said as she glanced at Mary, who nodded.
“Of course, Mrs. Buckhorn.”
“Lodge?”
“Sir?”
Reggie half-turned in his chair to look at his butler. “Make mine a double, please.”
The beaver served the vixen first, then the doe, and finally gave the buck his drink. Once he had it in paw, Reggie got to his hooves. “A toast,” he said quietly. “The Prime Minister.” He sipped.
Willow repeated the toast, while Mary, being a Spontoonie, did not. “We should ring down for some lunch,” Willow said.
“Yes, we should,” her husband said. “Shouldn’t drink on empty stomachs.”
<NEXT>
<PREVIOUS>
<FIRST>
A Spontoon Island story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer
(Various characters are copyright their respective owners.)
Thumbnail art by
turnboltFourteen.
“I do hope Willow and the fawns are having a good time,” Reggie Buckhorn remarked as he added a spoonful of sugar to his day’s second cup of coffee. He sat on the veranda outside of Shepherd’s Hotel’s restaurant, l’Etoile d’Argent, at a table for two. The table had a coffee service and a plate bearing an array of fresh scones, with marmalade and clotted cream available. “It is really spiffing weather today,” he added as he stirred the sugar into the coffee.
“Yes, it is,” the rat seated opposite him said nervously as he waited for his own coffee to cool. Abner Moskowitz was the newly-appointed representative of F.R. Buckhorn and Sons to the Spontoons, having been promoted out of the San Francisco office. He had never met his boss before, but had likely been regaled with stories about Reggie’s misadventures before he married.
Hence, possibly, his nervousness.
Reggie sensed this. “Please, Mr. Moskowitz, relax,” the whitetail buck urged as he applied some cream and marmalade to a scone. “And do try a scone. L’Etoile has a top-notch staff.”
“Thank you, Sir,” the rat said, placing a scone on the small plate before him before trying a bite. “Very good,” he said after swallowing the bite.
“And, again, please relax. Gone are the days when I’d do something silly, after attempting to drink the Long Bar dry.” Reggie smiled and tapped the side of his muzzle. “Wife and fawns, don’t you know, as well as running a company. Tends to keep one away from inebriated shenanigans. Now,” he asked after taking a sip of his coffee, “how are you doing? Settled in all right?”
Moskowitz brightened. “Yes, I have. The Spontoonies have been very friendly. I’ve hired a secretary, and I’ve taken your advice about asking the public what they’d like to see sold here. I put ads in two of the papers, the Mirror and the Elele,” he added with a smile.
“Jolly good! Top marks, Mr. Moskowitz. And what is the vox populi asking for?”
"Ah, well, we've received a large number of customer suggestions, but quite a few from one customer."
Reggie’s ears swiveled. “Just one?”
“Just one.”
"What for?"
Moskowitz reached into the briefcase he had placed beside his chair and removed a sheaf of paper. A pause to put on his glasses and he read aloud, “Cocoanut water. Cocoanut butter sandwich spread. Cocoanut candy bars. Cocoanut milk powder . . ."
"Chap seems consistent," Reggie chuckled.
"He says he l-l-l-l-likes cocoanuts."
"Beg pardon?"
"It's on the form, Sir."
"He stutters on the form?" Moskowitz gave Reggie an open-pawed shrug, and the whitetail buck asked, “Any other suggestions?"
"There's one for persimmon pies."
“Persimmon pies? How many roe deer are in the Spontoons?”
***
Orrin Brush looked up, his ears perking, as Inspector Stagg came back into the office. The whitetail buck hadn’t been gone for very long, maybe ten minutes, but from the look in his eyes, the set of his jaw and his flagging tail, whatever he and the Chief had talked about had irritated his superior.
Stagg walked to his desk and sat down in what the fox termed the buck’s ‘thinking pose,’ his paws resting on the head of his cane and his head bowed. He gazed down at his paws for several moments until his lips moved.
Brush had to strain to hear it, but Stagg muttered, “Retro me, Sathanas.” “The buck’s ears swiveled and he looked up. “Sorry, Sergeant? You were saying something?”
“Nothin,’ Sir.” Brush looked concerned. “What’s up?”
Stagg frowned, and after a few moments he got to his hooves and closed the office door before returning to his seat. He beckoned the fox closer and said softly, “Do you know of a Spontoonie, Sergeant, named Sapohatan?”
Brush’s eyes went wide and his ears swept straight back. He quickly glanced at the closed door before asking in the same quiet tone, “That's who you were talking to?" Stagg nodded, and the fox said, "That's swimming in deep water, Sir, if you don't mind my saying."
"Deep water I have no intention of going near, I assure you."
“Like the May case, last year?” Brush asked.
“Deeper than that,” Stagg replied. “You read the papers, Sergeant.”
Brush nodded. “Told him no?”
Stagg nodded, once. “I’m not exactly young, and I have a wife and fawns. Hardly conducive to the cloak and dagger, even if my work was in analysis and not in the field. We’ve agreed to let the matter rest.” He paused. “For now.”
Orrin Brush nodded.
***
“Extra! Extra!”
Willow and Mary’s ears swiveled as a young feline came into view, a stack of newspapers draped over one arm as he called out to passing tourists. “The Mirror always has the latest news!” the tabby said, accepting a coin from one fellow in a floral shirt and letting the customer take one copy. Others started to gather around the paperboy.
“Lodge?” Willow asked. “Could you get one, please?”
“Certainly, Ma’am,” and the beaver shimmered off. He made the purchase and was walking back when he paused to look at the headline.
There was a loud slap as his broad, flat tail smacked the backs of his legs.
“Uh-oh. When Lodge does that, it’s probably trouble,” Willow remarked. In the back of her mind, Grace sat up, ears perking.
“Do you think it’s war?” Mary asked. “I mean, other than the one we already have.”
The whitetail doe shook her head. “Dunno. But we’ll soon find out,” she said as Lodge came up to her. “Lodge?”
The butler looked unusually perturbed as he offered the paper. “I regret to inform you, Ma’am, that Prime Minister Mosley is dead.”
Mary and Willow both gasped.
Grace gasped.
Sophia solemnly crossed herself.
The fawns were sitting on the grass, watching an albino feral squirrel lollop about.
Willow shook out the paper, holding it so Mary could read it as well, and for a time there was very little sound in the park other than birds singing, the breeze rustling branches, and the distant drone of an airplane. “He was assassinated,” Willow said in a half-incredulous tone, “after giving a speech at a steel mill. The murderer was a Russian anarchist.”
“Russian anarchist?” Mary asked. “Do they still have those? I thought Starling got rid of them all.”
“I guess The Red Bird wasn’t looking under enough rocks,” Willow said. She was certain that poor Diana was beside herself at the loss, as well as Wallis and David. The King and Queen liked Mosley. “Funeral arrangements . . . ah. The military’s on alert, and the Deputy Prime Minister’s setting up a ‘collegial’ government to run the country until the next election.”
“What the blazes is a ‘collegial’ government?” the vixen asked.
Willow shook her head. “Damfino. It’s getting on toward lunchtime. What say we get back to the apartment and feed the fawns?” she asked.
“I’m with you on that.”
While they busied themselves getting the fawns into their strollers and packing everything up, Willow thought about the article she’d read. It had taken her more than a few moments to realize just who the Deputy Prime Minister was, and she didn’t think she could spot any of the Cabinet in a crowd. But, she reminded herself, that was pretty much what the British wanted in a government.
Despite herself, she smiled as she thought of an anecdote she’d recently read in Punch. One of the Prime Ministers back in the Twenties had decided to take a bus, and while sitting down he’d encountered an old school chum who asked the P.M. if he’d been doing anything since graduating from Oxford.
“Mosley wasn’t like that,” Grace reminded her.
“True,” Willow replied to her alter ego. Tom had been brash, loud and confrontational, and quite a lot of Society and Establishment furs didn’t quite know how to deal with him. David and Wallis, though, found him to be something of a kindred spirit.
As the whitetail doe and the vixen started to wheel the strollers out of the park, Willow wondered if Reggie had seen the news yet.
***
“Oh! Hullo, Willow!” Reggie said as he entered the hotel room to find his wife, his in-laws’ baby-sitter, and all four infant fawns taking up the sitting room of the suite. Quickly lowering his voice so he wouldn’t startle the children, he asked, “Have you had a good morning?”
He caught the look on his wife’s face, and immediately began wondering if he’d done something wrong.
“Reggie.”
“Yes, Willow?”
“I think you’d better sit down.”
The whitetail buck sat in one of the room’s comfortable armchairs. “Um, is this good news, or bad news?”
Willow stood and walked over to him, offering the copy of the Mirror. “You’d better read this.”
He looked up at her curiously, glanced at the headline, did a violent double-take, and he started to read the accompanying article as his tail flagged hard against the chair’s upholstery. He finished reading and sat back. “Lodge,” he said quietly.
“Sir?” the beaver asked.
“Is it noon yet?”
“Three minutes past, Sir.”
“Willow? Would you like a drink?”
“I think it’d be okay, Reggie. Lodge, could we have two – no, three – gin and tonics, please?” she said as she glanced at Mary, who nodded.
“Of course, Mrs. Buckhorn.”
“Lodge?”
“Sir?”
Reggie half-turned in his chair to look at his butler. “Make mine a double, please.”
The beaver served the vixen first, then the doe, and finally gave the buck his drink. Once he had it in paw, Reggie got to his hooves. “A toast,” he said quietly. “The Prime Minister.” He sipped.
Willow repeated the toast, while Mary, being a Spontoonie, did not. “We should ring down for some lunch,” Willow said.
“Yes, we should,” her husband said. “Shouldn’t drink on empty stomachs.”
<NEXT>
<PREVIOUS>
<FIRST>
Category Story / General Furry Art
Species Deer
Size 87 x 120px
File Size 55 kB
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