Episode 3:
“Finding A Vocation”
“I’m glad we both want to help the Independent Otters stay free,” Finnick the fox said to his friend Maximus the mouse. “But if we’re going to keep smuggling fish to them, then we need a reason to keep going there.”
“What about: ‘Because the Great Grizzly is a mean jerk?’” suggested Maximus.
“Yeah, something better.”
“Well…what other things do you like to do besides fishing?” asked Maximus.
“I can hide and find caches of food,” Finnick said. “I use my sense of earth’s magnetic field to find stashes of food I’ve tucked away. Sometimes I teach other foxes how to do it.”
“How about that?” suggested Maximus.
“What?”
“You’re a teacher. You teach the Otters how to hide and find caches of food. That’s why you go there.”
“I’m not sure I could teach them if they’re not foxes.”
“How hard could it be?” asked Maximus.
Finnick narrowed his eyes.
“Well, you could try,” said Maximus.
“I don’t know that I’m very good at it. What if no one ever learns?”
Maximus waved a hand. “You’re a natural. What about me? What do I do?”
“What do you like to do?”
“I’m good at fighting people. Or threatening them with my stick,” Maximus whipped out his pointy stick and jabbed it towards Finnick.
“That’s not really a job.”
“It’s a way of life.”
“Maybe it’s not a good one. Why would the Independent Otters want that?”
“I can teach them how to fight!”
“Let’s say you can,” said Finnick. “I’m not sure that’s something the Great Grizzly wants them learning. He wants them under his rule. We’re trying to get his people to let us go back and forth to the Otters without trouble.”
“I can fight the people who get in the way!” said Maximus.
“It’s mostly foxes. They’re a lot bigger than you.”
“Not when I get through with them!”
Finnick sighed. “You’re going to fight all of them? Every time?”
“Every time. Every one.”
“Let’s keep that a backup plan,” said Finnick. “Do you do anything else?”
“I trade food. I’ll travel around and exchange things people have a lot of for things they want.”
“You’re a traveling salesman?”
“I don’t like that term,” said Maximus.
“What about peddler?”
Maximus shook his head.
“Scammer? Grifter? Greaseball? Middleman?”
“No. I’m an agent of opportunity.” Maximus waved his hand in a hopeful arc.
Finnick rolled his eyes. “How about importer-exporter?”
“What does that mean?”
“What you just said. You import things people want. You export things they have too much of.”
“And when do I fight them?”
“No fighting. You don’t need to fight. Do you fight the animals you trade food with?”
“If they try to rip me off.”
“The Otters are not going to rip you off.”
“Why don’t we just say I’m a food-trader?”
“Importer-exporter sounds more official.”
“And you’re a teacher?” Maximus confirmed.
“I think we found some good jobs,” said Finnick.
You can find Episode 1 here, as well as the story behind these stories.
Read Episode 2: The Shortcut
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