Traces (Part 2)

The officer turned towards the shark, who was still busy displaying his goofy smile. She then did the marmot equivalent of raising an eyebrow, indicating that now was the time for the shark (who represented the bank) to present their point of view. What followed was silence. Well, the monkey was still soothing our ears with his outstanding skills. The couple had left, probably went to buy more kumquats.

There was some chatter behind me and I turned my head slightly to take a look. Four animals queued up at the entrance of the bank waiting for the bouncerfish, who was busy eating popcorn (on the second bowl already, judging by the fact that there was an empty bowl rolling around on the ground next to his workspace), were chatting amongst each other. Probably annoyed by the treatment the pufferfish gave them, completely disregarding their presence. They couldn't really complain though, because if they did, he could just turn them away for arbitrary reasons.

The shark began his act. He opened his briefcase. Pulled out some audio recording device. Initiated the playback:

"Here is the card you ordered, you officially have a bank account now. May the riches be with you! Can you gift (the "t" is concealed, but it's definitely there) me the cheque? I need to check whether or not it's genuine."

"It's genuine I swear, just add it to the account"

"You need to hand it over for me to check, I can't accept anything without confirming. It's mandatory."

"Sure, take it."

The shark stopped the recording. I observed the face of the moustached fox drop. It had a very ugly expression now. Here I realized that this would probably be the lawyer the fox was talking about back in the bank. In contrast, the shark was still smiling. The officer looked grumpy, probably felt some kind of headache coming.

She then muttered "Hold on" and strolled off, straight towards the fountain where she leaned over the edge and stuck her head into the water. After that she walked back over (still dripping), complained that "it's too hot today" and bluntly stated:

"You had some complaint that required my presence?"

The moustache fox then replied that there were no issues and it was just a prank of the naïve fox, thanked her for her time and then tried to get the fox gang to leave.

The shark wouldn't let them go so easily though, as if smelling blood in the water (air). He made a loan offer for the gullible fox.

"You lost so much money, I can give you some to invest! You can use that to replenish the losses! Win-win if you ask me."

The shark had a deep, raspy voice, his statement was well-practiced though. He then continued to quickly lay down endless terms, totally confusing the poor little fox. Then he rolled out a prepared contract and handed it over to the fox, together with a pencil. Just as the fox was about to sign it, he got headbutted by one of his (I think father? Not too sure) companions, while the other tried to drag him away by the tail.

The police officer grunted and left. The lawyer-fox started scolding, something about "never deal with loan-sharks" n stuff, the other fox was visibly disappointed. I watched them leave and thought about the things that transpired. When I turned to ask the shark some questions, I came to realize that he wasn't there anymore. No clue where he could have vanished to, but I guess sharks that can breathe air and convince a fox that just got scammed to sign a loan in less than 12 seconds don't abide by the rules of regular animals.

I turned around to see the pufferfish toss out the second (empty) bowl of popcorn and resume his actual work. He now had 7 animals waiting in line. Wait, he shouldn't have been able to hear what they were talking about. Did he just watch them? Seriously, this is confusing. Guess he might have just bought some extra time for the clerks inside? Used the commotion as an excuse to snack some popcorn? Maybe there's some kind of arrangement in place that I'm not aware of.

I decided to walk towards a colleague of mine (usually there's a rivalry between different news agencies, but we field workers tend to get along) and posed a question:

"How's the Oranger-gang like? Do you have more information on them? They seem to be new in town. Unaware of some… rules."

My conversation partner, an eagle, thought for a bit and then responded:

"Yeah, they haven't been here for too long. I actually tailed their leader, the unassuming fox, the headbutting bystander. According to my sources, they have a woolly mammoth among their ranks, which is what I'm trying to confirm. This story right here is a welcome distraction and serves as some temporary relief from my pesky editor. Just a heads up, this is the second incident in the vicinity within a week. Some monkey apparently wanted to blow up the building just across the street and some chicken came and stopped him before he ignited the explosives. I didn't cover it, a buddy told me. Maybe you are connecting those?"

There's something strange in this story, but I'm not too sure. Might just be my imagination, his words might have some merit. I told the eagle that I'd keep my ears open in case I stumbled across some hints about a woolly mammoth and departed.

Now to think of a good headline to go with my article…