“Do you like my hat?” Rick asked.
The stranger gasped. “That huge raccoon just talked!” Their little group hurried away, disappearing into the nightly fog.
“Wow, rude,” said Rick.
He touched both paws to his furry belly and hoped the human was only comparing his height to a normal raccoon. It was true he’d gained a little weight since more fish became available in the trash, but he thought he carried it well.
More upsetting was that Rick asked a simple yes-or-no question about his new hat and the human just yelled and ran off. As Ravenshore’s raccoon spirit, it was difficult to get his hands on brand-new clothes. Rick was quite proud of himself for staking out an everything-must-go sale and rescuing this nice burgundy trilby from the trash on closing-down move-out day. Sure, burgundy wasn’t in fashion this year, but Rick thought the colour nicely complemented his purplish-brown eyes, especially when reflected light turned them reddish.
The trash bins behind the closing store were marked by that pest control lady, Piper. The store had paid her to keep animals away from the garbage, which meant Rick’s stakeout cost a lot of energy and willpower fighting the magical compulsion to stay away. Worth it, though. He adjusted the hat again, yawned, and stretched.
Well, according to his cracked watch, it was getting late. Rick wiped his hands on some soft alley moss and climbed a drainpipe to the roof, out above the fog.
Indeed, the sun was coming up somewhere behind the east cliff and low clouds were already orange. Rick stood at the edge of the roof, put his hands on his hips, and looked south across the bay. Calm ocean waves in the distance glittered with reflected sunrise. Beautiful, but still weird after a few centuries of the old Baron’s perpetual storm sitting offshore.
In the sky overhead, someone screamed. Something wet landed on Rick’s hat.
“Oh no,” he moaned. “No, no, no.”
A shiver of dread quivered at the tip of Rick’s tail and worked its way up his spine. Hesitantly he reached up with both hands to the brim of his hat. He removed it, lowered it look down the tip of his snout, gathered his courage to look and found –
Poop.
Seagull poop.
On his brand. New. Hat.
Rick dropped to his knees, raised a fist to the sky, and cried out a despairing “Nooooooo!” This was targeted. He knew it. Only one being could do this. Only one could be so bold. So full of reckless hate.
The island’s seagull spirit.
Richard.
Rick clenched the brim of his burgundy trilby and spread his senses through the island’s raccoons, looking through their eyes, listening with their ears – ah, yeah, there they were. Seagulls at the docks. Swarms of them, screeching a horrible parody of a rooster’s wake-up call.
Well. The ravens and crows would handle this. They were intelligent, organized, and had the backing of the spirit of Ravenshore. Rick watched through the eyes of a few raccoons scrounging for fish waste (and tasting their snacks) while he made his way across rooftops and power lines to see for himself.
By the time he arrived at the waterfront, it was clear the crows weren’t doing so hot. Sure, they were angry at the seagulls swarming their roosts, and the crows did caw back at them. But in times of crisis like this, Rick was used to seeing solitary ravens, directed by the city spirit, lead the crows against their enemies. This battle was chaos: no ravens in sight, the crows wheeling and cawing, but haphazard and outnumbered by laughing crowds of gulls.
Rick tugged at his whiskers. He should have known. Aulonian military had been moving in these past couple of weeks – Ravenshore was too busy with the not-technically-invaders. In fact, an Aulonian patrol boat of some kind was tied up in the harbour, the soldiers on watch having to duck and hide from the flock of birds.
A huge seagull, circling far above the rest, pitched and wheeled toward Rick. Wonderful. It landed on the roof in front of him, uncomfortably close, white-and-grey wings spread wide in a threat display, chest puffed up, feathers seamlessly smooth. The seagull spirit wasn’t as tall as Rick, but he refused to let show that the wingspan was maybe a bit intimidating.
“DID SOMETHING HAPPEN TO YOUR HAT?” screamed the seagull, a glint of malice in his eye.
Rick bared his teeth. “You would know, Richard.”
“ACTUALLY I PREFER DICK.”
Rick grimaced, but tried to be polite, to prevent his lips from curling up to show his teeth. “Sorry, Dick. What brings you and your friends into town today?”
“I NOTICED THE PORT IS OPEN AGAIN.” The huge seagull strutted back and forth. “THIS USED TO BE MY TERRITORY YOU KNOW.”
“Yeah, centuries ago,” said Rick. He waved a hand towards the crows, now in disorganized retreat. “It’s been their home for way longer than it was yours.”
“WELL THAT’S ABOUT TO CHANGE.” Dick tucked his wings back, somehow looked smug. “THE DOCKS ARE SEAGULL TURF NOW.”
Rick grimaced. “Is there anything I can do to change your mind? Something I can offer you?”
“HM, LET ME THINK,” said Richard. “NO.”
Clearly Dick hadn’t actually thought about it. Rick held out his hands, palms up. “Surely we can be reasonable about -“
“DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY! MY NAME IS DICK!”
Rick narrowed his eyes, gave Dick an angry squint. “You’ll regret this,” he said, pointing an accusing finger.
Dick snapped at the finger and laughed. Rick scrambled back, emphatically put on his stained hat, and turned around. More seagulls swooped at him, so he ran, he ran so far away.
Rick slunk across ledges and balconies, keeping below the rooftops to avoid circling, shrieking gulls. Tired from the long night of hat-related stakeout, demoralized by his defeat, and mourning his new hat, Rick picked his way back to his nearest den: a hole in the wall of an old warehouse-turned-gym a friend used to visit. He switched to his sleep cap, tucked himself in, and went to sleep.
The next evening, as his watch alarm went off half an hour before sunset, Rick puffed up his chest and squared his shoulders. He’d find a way to get rid of Dick if it was the last thing he ever did.
Well, hopefully not the last, but he’d definitely do it.
To get himself in the right frame of mind, Rick donned his black detective fedora and tie and straightened his whiskers like a moustache. He didn’t have any cigarettes to complete the image because Kat told him they were bad, but he did have a notepad and pencil.
Evening fog rolled in under cover of threatening rain clouds, so Rick looked even more like a gritty detective, lurking in the shadows, prowling the alleys, observing the seagulls from afar, taking notes.
Dick had settled his flock in nicely. The opposite of nicely. They were already streaking the blackstone white and harassing every human who carried any kind of food. They lined up on the rotting old docks, the lips of blackstone piers, the railings of boats. They perched on crates and barrels, scurried around the entrances to run-down bars and busy warehouses. They avoided the Aulonian patrol boat – the soldiers were already mounting anti-bird spikes. Everywhere the gulls screamed and laughed, full gangs and squadrons of irritating jerks.
Rick watched close for patterns. As night fell and the fog obscured his outline, he crept forward, watched the seagulls flock to their roosts. They swarmed the rooftops, turning black to white as they settled down and tucked their bodies into themselves, forming suspiciously quiet bundles of white like a coating of angry dandruff snow.
When the stupid birds were all settled in, Rick leaned against a streetlamp in the cone of fog-swirled amber light, curled his tail around his feet, and consulted his notes. Ah, yes: pages of scribbles. He couldn’t write.
Still, it helped him think. Roosts. Diet. Behavioural patterns. Seagull psychology. All things he should consider in his plans. He would get into the mind of the gull, into Dick’s head. To defeat the enemy, Rick would understand the mind of the enemy. Lay the eggs of his plans, incubate them, hatch them.
Yes, his plans. Er, what were those, exactly?
Rick gnawed on his pencil. Well, where could he start? He couldn’t read, so studying in the library was right out. Kat would be too busy to help. So would Maxus. And Ravenshore’s spirit, too. That was pretty much his whole list of allies. Among the other greater spirits of the island, Rick had a bit of a reputation as a sneaky trickster, which he felt was completely undeserved. He was curious, that’s all. Liked to get into places he wasn’t supposed to, because in his experience, off-limits usually meant something interesting and/or delicious.
Well. No allies other than his own raccoons. That was fine. Ravenshore had a lot of raccoons.
Remembering how tired he was after fighting Piper’s enchantment last night, Rick settled on his first plan: loose the raccoons on the gulls and keep them awake all night. If he didn’t let the birds sleep, Dick would be too tired to fight for his territory, and he’d have to give up and move back to the north end of the island.
Rick reached out to all the raccoons in the lower city and asked them to converge on the waterfront. He felt their eyes and ears turn south, tails point to ready position. Soon the drainpipes and blackstone chimneys flowed with rivers of raccoons, bounding toward the docks, rippling the upper layers of evening fog.
It worked great at first. The raccoons charged into the flocks of snoozing seagulls, chittering and chasing, nipping at the birds’ stupid little feet. The gulls were panicked and disorganized, uttering squawks of fear instead of brash cockiness. The best kind of chaos. If only he’d brought popcorn.
Then the gulls realized they had stabby knives on their mean little faces and began dive-bombing the raccoons, flapping and screeching with glee. Raccoon war chitters gave way to panicked yelps as they fled the rooftops and scrambled down to fog-shrouded alleys. Rick felt every nip and jab his raccoons suffered: his punishment for an ill-conceived plan.
“DON’T COME BACK, RICK!” yelled Dick from somewhere in the clouded sky. On command, the screeching seagulls all pooped at the raccoons. Streaks of poop came shining down on them, the cloud of gulls moving nearer still.
With a frustrated sigh, Rick released the raccoons and they ran, they ran so far away, back to their territories and lick their wounds. Though he felt them, he didn’t have any injuries of his own, so Rick crossed his arms and went for a walk on his hind legs.
He wandered through the streets, kicking at occasional bits of newspaper and small clumps of moss between black cobblestones. Raccoons couldn’t beat the seagulls in a straight fight – not with those stupid wings of theirs, the ability to stay out of reach, to dive in and out of the battle at will. Rick needed a better way.
What were the unique strengths of raccoons? Rick tugged at his whiskers to think. It wasn’t as simple a question as it seemed. He didn’t really compare himself to others, didn’t have any particular awareness of what he was specifically good at. He just did the things that he did.
Rick turned a corner away from the waterfront, walking north up a street with a few nice little cafes he liked to scrounge around. He spotted half a sandwich just inside an alley. Rick reached for it, but felt that maddening revulsion again – another one of Piper’s wards. Ugh. He’d had to work with her a couple of weeks ago, and she didn’t seem quite as terrible as he expected, but Rick still hated these little zones she made to keep “pests” away.
He fought through the compulsion and picked up the sandwich. After a quick dip in a puddle to get a better feel for the ingredients – tomatoes, salami, cheese all felt fresh – Rick ate while he walked. Too much pepper, but otherwise nice. An excellent find.
Okay, if he couldn’t come up with any special skills, then what were the weaknesses of seagulls? Did they even have any? So hard to get hold of when they could fly off at any time. Rick chewed on his sandwich, scrunched his eyes together.
A huge seagull dove out of the dark sky, a flash of white that filled Rick’s vision. It snatched his sandwich out of his hand and cackled as it flew off. “THANKS FOR DINNER!” screeched Dick.
“Aaaaahhhh!” growled Rick, shaking now-empty hands at the sky. So infuriating. His tail quivered and his stomach rumbled. He wished he could use Piper’s magic against those stupid evil birds! Rick stared at his empty hands, dejectedly licked the remnants of mustard off his fingers. Dick was such a…
Wait.
Rick flexed his fingers. He’d seen this before. He’d seen seagulls snatch food away from humans, exactly as Dick had just done to him. He’d seen them mob fish-catchers on the north shore, who would curse and wave off the birds. They always came back, drawn to potential food sources like roaches, like rats, like… pests.
Rick rubbed his hands together and grinned. He had the beginnings of a plan. A real one this time.
A mid-sized cargo ship chugged to a stop at one of the blackstone piers, its crew shouting instructions and coordinating with dock workers.
Rick smiled. Right on schedule.
He sat on an inconspicuous stack of crates near the mouth of a damp alley filled with trash bins. He snacked on the remnants of a fish-and-chips dinner discarded by one of the pubs, with a cup of water for dipping. It had been a painful evening, a long night of hard work, and a difficult morning coordinating… but everything was in place, and the grand offensive was about to launch. He eyed the seagulls wheeling overhead and chattering on rooftops, but they seemed none the wiser. Dick was nowhere in sight, maybe further down where there were more restaurants and fishing boats.
According to the harbourmaster’s schedule Rick took a look at overnight – which meant breaking in, stealing it out of the office, and talking to humans until he found someone to read the ledgers to him – the work crews would land the cargo ship, then take a break in about… he checked his watch again… five more minutes.
A whistle sounded somewhere. The workers finished tying off the ship’s lines, dropped the boarding ramp, and shooed some gulls away to find seats on the open edge of the pier and along the waterfront. According to the schedule Rick had read to him, the dock foreman would be meeting with the first mate and warehouse manager to plan the unloading, since it was still pretty new for the docks to be in actual use again. Until the meeting finished, most of the dock workers and ship’s crew would be idle.
Rick stood and straightened his hat. He’d chosen an old captain’s cap, stained and not quite white, but he felt it gave him an aura of authority. He straightened up, checked the seagulls one more time to be sure, and whistled to the racoons lying in wait.
In neat lines the raccoons scurried forth from narrow alleys and stacks of crates and barrels, keeping to shadows and nooks, heading toward the dock workers. In their hands they carried the scraps of food they’d scavenged overnight: fish bones, not-too-off vegetables, crusty ends of bread, and the greatest prizes of all: greasy fast food wrappers. It took a lot of work to convince them not to eat their treasures.
The seagulls began to take notice. Rick wasn’t sure if they saw or smelled the food, or had some other mysterious weirdo sense, but beady, greedy little eyes tracked the raccoons. Rick hoped it wasn’t enough to alert the seagull spirit. Rick had to specifically focus on raccoon senses to notice small details, unless he put out an alert, and Dick didn’t seem the sort to scan and plan.
When the humans weren’t watching, his little bandits scattered the leftovers and trash in key locations, pre-planned. Some of them climbed the lines to the ship to scatter food on its deck, while others snuck up to the humans and slipped snacks into their pockets. Only one got caught, but the human thought she was trying to steal, so the raccoon escaped with a few yells and laughs. Things went about as well as could be expected.
Once the food and wrappers were unattended, the seagulls really began to take notice. They circled for a moment, screeching, but quickly dove in, each trying to beat the others to snack time. They flapped and yelled at each other, fighting and picking at the bait, and pooping all over the workers and boats when they finished.
Rick cackled to himself and kicked his feet as the workers were assaulted by flocks of rude birds trying to dig into their pockets. The humans slapped at the seagulls, waved and yelled, tried to chase them off – but the bait was too tempting. The mess even got loud enough that the foreman came out on deck to yell at the workers and birds. According to Rick’s watch, he created a good twenty-three minutes of chaos. An excellent start.
The next few days went even better. Rick organized more efficiently: he had his gangs plant food and wrappers overnight at the docks and piers where ships would be scheduled the next day. He left a few guards to keep the rats away. Not the crows, though – a few seemed to understand something was up and watched from a respectful distance.
Each day the flocks of seagulls grew bigger and more aggressive. Always around active shipping areas and events, to maximize disruption. The humans grew ever angrier, shouting and cursing, throwing things at the seagulls – which made Dick angry, so he’d send birds to laugh and antagonize and poop-bomb any humans who got in the way.
Four business days of hard-working seagull harassment of the docks, followed by a two-day break over the weekend. Rick kept up the lures on the quieter days – not as many people for the gulls to bother, but Rick taught them to associate humans with food even more than normal, so even the bar drunks got bothered.
Maybe the workers hoped it was just a strange week and things would go back to normal after their days off, but Rick made sure things only got worse. He’d left so much food over the weekend that there must have been thousands of gulls picking apart the waterfront, digging into nooks and gaps, screeching at anything that moved. He watched dock workers throw their hands in the air and yell at each other and refuse to work amongst the constant bombings turning the blackstone – and their uniforms – white.
The next day, early in the morning, pest control specialist Piper Byrne was on the scene. Exactly as planned.
Rick did feel kind of bad about it, though – he forgot she’d lost most of a leg in the big kerfuffle a few weeks back. She showed up at the docks in a pretty green dress, a large bag in one hand and a crutch in the other, somehow still as chipper as ever.
He followed from the alleys, keeping an eye on Piper, watching her navigate the poorly-maintained fog-damp cobblestone. He bared his teeth and flinched each time she slipped or stumbled and had to be caught or helped by the dock foreman.
He watched the skies, too. Clouds of seagulls patrolled the docks, diving and squabbling over the snacks Rick’s raccoons hid for them overnight. Dick circled above the rest, difficult to spot with the distance gap making him look almost the same size as the others. Kind of suspicious – the seagull spirit should have the same traits as his creatures, so why wasn’t he diving in to eat like the rest? Could Dick suspect something was up? Was he aware of Piper? Rick stuck with her, to be safe.
Rick lurked behind a barrel and watched Piper set up a small ritual circle with a can of temporary spray paint. She held the foreman’s hand so she could bend over without losing her balance on her only leg. With the spray done, she took a bundle of butcher’s paper from her bag, unwrapped a whole large fish, and placed it at the center of the circle. Rick glanced up again, peeked over the lip of the barrel.
The enormous seagull tucked in its wings and dove in a straight line. At the last second he flared his wings and pulled up to land neatly, just outside the sprayed circle. He eyed the fish, then yelled at Piper. “WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
Rick winced and rubbed his ears. That was extra loud.
“Hello, seagull spirit,” said Piper with a friendly smile. “May I please ask your name?”
“YES.”
“What’s your name?”
“DICK.”
“Hello Dick, I’m Piper. I’d like to negotiate for your use of the docks.”
Dick strutted, bobbed his head back and forth, and shrieked “NO!”
Well, that was not unexpected. Rick crossed his fingers and hoped Piper would be firm with him.
“Dick, I know your people like it here, but they’ve been interfering with -“
“NO!”
“Surely we can come to some kind of -“
“DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY! I’M DICK!”
Piper sighed. “Thank you for speaking with me, Dick. Please take this fish as an offering.” He did, and took off with the fish, screeching triumphantly as a trail of smaller gulls pursued.
Rick’s ears flattened, his tail went limp. Was that all? No, that couldn’t be. A lot of his raccoons needed the docks. Needed them not to be picked clean every day before they had a chance to eat at night. Needed them not to be covered in disgusting, unhealthy poop that would get all over paws and tails.
He listened to the foreman shout that Piper was paid to remove the seagulls, not to have a nice chat and let them run wild. Piper smiled back and said that polite negotiation was always the first step when dealing with spirits, that compromise and cooperation, when possible, lead to the best outcomes for everyone.
The foreman wasn’t having it, and neither was Rick. Compromise and cooperation didn’t sound like spooking his raccoons away from half the old city’s trash bins. He took a deep breath, straightened his captain’s cap, and stepped out from behind the barrel. He adopted what he hoped was a casual strut, and walked by so Piper would happen to see him.
“Hi, Rick!” she exclaimed with a fresh smile and a wave.
He turned, pretended to be surprised, and tipped his hat. “Oh, hi, Piper, what are you doing here?” he asked. Completely casual. Nailed it.
Rick made a bit of small talk, kept his eyes on the sky, and – yes, as expected, the seagulls weren’t happy to see him. Not at all. A flock gathered above, menace growing in their screams.
A seagull swooped past Rick’s head, nipping at his ear. “Ah!” he shouted and ducked. Not much acting needed, now, as a second, a third, a fourth bird buzzed him. “Help!” Rick gasped. He tried to look as flat and pathetic as he could. Again, as more birds swooped at him, it didn’t take a lot of work.
Piper crutched her way over and knelt to cover him as best she could, though he was more than half her size. She smelled like – like something with fur, maybe – oh, right, she had a rat companion at home. Gross.
Rick felt a little guilty about his deception. Well, it wasn’t entirely deception, but the next part would be worse. Piper was too busy covering him from seagull attack to notice Rick’s paws tangling bits of bread into her loose red hair. When he’d finished, he looked up and gave her his cutest wide eyes. “Thanks, I think I can make it to the alley.”
The foreman helped Piper up and Rick ran, he ran but not so far away, holding his hat to his head. He looked over his shoulder. The seagulls began to dive-bomb Piper, tangling their beaks and feet in her hair as they tried to snatch the bread crumbs Rick left behind. Piper gasped and shrieked, tried to shove the birds away. She lost her grip on her crutch; the foreman caught her and helped pull the seagulls off her.
Just before Rick made it to shelter, the hat was ripped out of his hands to the sound of a triumphant screech. Rick turned, and – yeah, it was him again. Rick shook his fist at the sky, and with all the rage he could muster, bellowed “Richaaaaard!”
He hunkered down and tucked his tail around his snout. The fur on his spine stood on end, and Rick perked up again.
Piper was finally doing something. She was looking at the sky, not smiling for once. She watched the gulls that had been in her hair circle just out of arm’s reach. She watched the birds poop on everything, including the foreman and her bare arms. She watched Dick drop Rick’s hat into the bay and bob his head in malicious laughter. Piper shook her head and the can of spray paint, modified her ritual circle, and made some gestures with her hands.
Dick plummeted out of the sky and landed in the circle. “I’m banishing you,” said Piper through the cutest frown Rick had ever seen. “Go back to the north shore and take your lackeys with you.” Piper made a firm gesture with both hands, managing to balance on one foot.
An invisible wave rolled over the harbour, sending consecutive shivers through Rick’s whiskers and tail. He had a brief sense of that discomfort again, whatever Piper did to make his raccoons want to avoid places – but it cleared up for him, and not for Dick. The seagull spirit thrashed and screamed and even whined, but before too long, he took off, circled the bay, and flew north, following his disorganized flock.
Well, that was it. He did it. Rick saved Ravenshore’s harbour from that huge Dick. Workers tentatively emerged from their hiding places, some grumbling with mops in hand. A few crows settled on the eaves and clucked smugly. Quiet and calm descended on the docks once more.
Exhausted, Rick crawled back to his personal den and curled up to sleep.
In the evening, when he woke up, he found a large package hung up below his den entrance. There was a note on it, which he couldn’t read, but it smelled like Piper.
Rick shivered. She knew where he lived. He’d have to move. No way he wanted the pest control lady to know where he was. No telling what she’d do to Rick if someone hired her to get rid of him.
But his curiosity wouldn’t let him leave the package alone. Rick grumbled and groaned to himself, rubbed his face with his paws, slapped his cheeks a few times – but in the end, he couldn’t resist. He eyed a short note he couldn’t read. Carefully, back arched and tail fluffed, he tugged at the paper with one outstretched arm. It came loose and crinkled apart; Rick jumped back, ready to fight or run.
Inside the paper was a box of snacks. Not just snacks – delicacies. The good stuff: a huge selection of fresh crayfish, eggs, nuts, fruits, and to top it all off, a small sardine pizza from the place with the best garbage.
What was all this for? All he’d done was rope her into a scheme to get rid of Dick and his seagulls, but – oh, she probably got paid for that. Pest control was a business. Rick didn’t completely grasp the concept of money, but he did understand gratitude and gifts, and he was happy to accept this one. Rick couldn’t help doing a little jig and began cracking into crayfish shells to add extra toppings to a pizza slice. Maybe Piper wasn’t so bad after all.
A solitary raven landed in the shade next to Rick. It tilted its head, flared its neck feathers, and gave a deep throaty gronk and a spread-wings bow.
“Ravenshore?” asked Rick.
The raven bobbed its head up and down, then bowed again.
“You’re welcome.” Rick rolled the black bird a shrimp. “Never gonna let you down.”
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