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bushes. Susan chucked at it and held out a bit of bread.
    It poked its nose into the circle of light from our flashes and blinked at us. It was the saddest-looking excuse for a creature I’d ever seen—the head was the shape of an old boot with jackass ears stuck on it.
    “C’mon, Monster,” Susan coaxed. “You know how much you love Chris’s bread. Don’t worry about them. They’re noisy but they won’t hurt you.”
    Sure enough, it humped its way out. It looked even worse when you saw the whole of it. What I’d thought was an otter wasn’t. Oh, the body was otter, all eight feet of it, but the head didn’t go with the rest. After a moment’s hesitation, it made an uncertain lowing noise, then snuffled at Susan, and took the piece of bread in its otter paws and crammed it down its mouth.
    Then it bellowed, startling all three of us.
    “He just learned how to do that this year,” Susan said, a pleased sort of admiration in her voice.
    The undergrowth around us stirred.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Leo level his rifle. Susan looked at him, worried. “He won’t shoot unless something goes wrong, kiddo,” I said as softly as I could and still be heard. “He promised me.”
    Susan nodded. “Okay, Monster. You can call them out then.”
    She needn’t have said it. That bellow already had. There were maybe a dozen of them, all alike, all of them painfully ugly. No, that’s the wrong way to put it—they were all laughably ugly.
    The one she’d dubbed “Monster” edged closer to me. Nosy like the otters, too.
    It whuffled at my hand. Damn if that head wasn’t purely herbivore. The teeth could give you a nasty nip from the looks of them, but it was deer family. The ugly branch of it anyhow.
    A second one crawled into Leo’s lap. It was trying to make off with his belt buckle. Susan chucked at it and bribed it away with bread. “She’s such a thief. If you’re not careful, she’ll take anything that’s shiny. Like the otters, really.”
    Yes, they were. The behavior was the same I’d seen from Susan’s otters—but now I understood why the otters had chased one of these away this afternoon. They were recognizably not otters, even if they thought they were
    . Like humans, otters are very conservative about what they consider one of them.
    Pretty soon the bread was gone. Monster hustled up the troops and headed them out, with one last look over his shoulder at us.
    I popped him neatly with the snagger before Susan could raise a protest. He grunted and gnawed for a moment at his hip, the way a dog would for a flea, then he spotted the snagger moving away from him and pounced.
    I had a tug of war on my hands. Susan got into the act and so did a handful of Monster’s fellow monsters.
    Leo laughed. It was enough to startle them away. I fell over and Susan landed on top of me. She Page 17

    was giggling too, but she crawled over and got up, triumphant, with the sample in her hands.
    “You didn’t need it, Mama Jason,” Susan said, “but I’ve decided to forgive you.
    Monster thought it was a good game.” She giggled again and added impishly, “So did I.”
    “Fine,” I said. “I hate to spoil the party, but it’s time we got back to the lodge.
    We’re all going to feel like hell in the morning.”
    Susan yawned. “I’s’pose so. They lose interest pretty fast once I run out of bread.”
    “Susan, you row Leo back.”
    “You’re not coming?” she said.
    “Two boats,” I pointed out. Susan was sleepy enough that she didn’t ask why I wanted Leo in her boat. Leo blinked at me once, caught on, and climbed into the boat with his rifle across his knees.
    By the time we reached the lodge, we were all pretty well knocked out. Jen gave us a big grin of relief to welcome us in. But two steps later we ran hard into Elly’s scowl, not to mention Chris’s, Ilanith’s, and a half dozens others.
    “I found Jen sitting in the hall watching the clock,” Elly said. “She wouldn’t go to