Sylvia blew on her hot cocoa and turned her attention back to a pile of bills she had been sorting through.  She couldn’t really blame the guests for complaining, but she worried about the bad publicity that would turn into when they made it back to the mainland.  Sighing once again, she pushed it deep into a corner of her mind. 

The phone rang.  Sylvia had just jolted at the noise when Janet bounced into the room with a tablecloth folded over her arm and scooped up the receiver.  Sylvia watched her seventeen-year-old daughter idly as Janet purred ‘Hellos’ and ‘Oh dears’ and finally a ‘Yes, right away’ into the receiver.  Janet then tossed the receiver with a clattering noise back onto it’s cradle before glancing up at her mother. 

Sylvia tsked.  "How many times have I told you not to toss the receiver around like that?  They’re not indestructable, and we can’t afford a new one any time soon." 

"Er, sorry mom", Janet said brushing a stray lock from her face, "but that was the people in cabin three.  Their roof has sprung a leak and there’s now a big pool of water in their bed." 

Sylvia groaned inwardly.  "Well, I suppose it had to happen sooner or later.  See if you can get your brother to go out and fix it." 

Janet giggled "Sounded like they were getting quite passionate before they took their cold shower." 

Sylvia stared at Janet a second, biting her lower lip and trying not to break out in the need to laugh that had been building in her for days.  It overpowered her, though, and soon she was hooting into her bill-covered table and holding the sides of her head. 

"Scoot", she said when she could manage to speak again.  "I don’t think the Bluebottles will find it quite as funny as I did." 

Janet flashed a grin back at her mother and then walked gracefully out of the kitchen with a flourish of a tablecloth behind her.  She had lots of chores to do, and not a moment to waist.
 

***** 

Out on the nearby island of Halfspoon someone else was watching the rain with concern.  Tuna peered out of a paneless window at the front of his small marina into the falling rain.  He couldn’t remember having seen this much rain in his entire twenty years at the Happenstance islands.  Of course, being only twenty, he couldn’t remember having seen this much rain anywhere else either. 

There had been no customers for most of the week, but Tuna went about his routines anyway, straightening untouched shelves and making sure the untapped gas tanks were still topped off.  He then bent over a crossword puzzle in the back of an old issue of Detective Stories magazine.  He stared at the three entries he had already made for over twenty minutes before putting the magazine down in frustration and starting yet another redundant tour of his shop. 

He stopped in front of a wall mirror to make sure the dampness hadn’t snarled his hair.  After passing a cloven hand through it a few times to subdue the worst of the damage, he stepped back to inspect the handsome young goat that was his image.  There weren’t too many goats in this part of the world – mainly because most goats still lived under the Perostota system back in the old country, and well outside the boarders of the Federation.  Tuna snorted a breath that condensed onto the mirror.  He had always wondered what his father’s country was like.  His father had said it was a lot like Freedom’s run, except that it was colder and harder to run a store.  Tuna had always wondered what his father had meant by that, but he had refused to elaborate. 

***** 

"Lucas, stop reading those comics and get your butt over to cabin three!" Janet shouted, almost in Lucas’ ear. 

Lucas, a handsome young boarder-collie who had snuck an issue of Captain Razor in with the pipes and wrenches he was supposed to be using to fix the bathtub, bolted straight up and rammed his head into the top of the cabinet he had crawled into.  His sister giggled as he stuck his head out of the enclosure, flicked off his flashlight and barked, "Got a problem, sis?" 

"Leak in cabin three.  We need you to fix the roof and replace the mattress.  I’ll be by when you’re done to change the linen.  IF you’re done, that is." 

Lucas looked his sister up and down.  She was a seventeen-year-old tiger, and quite attractive for her age, but all Lucas saw was the obnoxious sibling that took great pleasure in taunting him.  He quietly wished that he had been the one blessed with quiet, stalking feet rather than her.  The world could do with a few more Captain Razors and a few less silly sisters in his opinion. 

"Can it wait until I finish the bathtub?" 

"You were fixing the bathtub?  I thought you were reading the great works of Captain Razor!  You don’t have a test on it for school, do you?" 

"I’m working on the bathtub.  I was only looking at the comic just now." 

"Really?" asked his sister, snatching Captain Razor from Lucas’ clutches before he mutter even a ‘Hey!’ in protest.  "Well, I’d hate to keep you from it, and I bet Captain Razor would too.  So better get that mattress over to cabin three so you can come back here and finish up as fast as possible!" 

With that, Janet let off yet another giggle and bounded down the staircase to the main lobby, comic firmly in hand.  Lucas was about to shout something quite unbrotherly after her, but decided it was not worth risking another of mom’s talks about what was polite language within hearing distance of the guests.  So instead he sulked in the cabinet for a minute or two, then crawled out and down to the basement to get a spare mattress. 

***** 

Tuna finished another tour of his shop and then went to stand in the middle of it, gazing about with a semi-fanatical look.  He looked at the rack of small bags of chips, all perfectly arranged and rearranged from four days of uninterrupted solitude.  He looked at the partly disassembled boat motor in the corner of the shop, waiting for a shipment of O-rings to arrive before it could be repaired.  He looked at the old mounted fish that some tourist had left years before and his father had mounted above the door to the shop.  He looked at the fish, and the fish looked back at him.  That’s all there was to it. 

In a sudden burst of mad energy, Tuna ran to the paneless window overlooking his marina’s cove and shouted "Stop, you rain, stop it!" into the steady drum beat and fluttering wind.  He didn’t know whether the rain heard or not, but it seemed to.  A wind gust picked just that moment to come bounding across the cove toward him.  Much as the wind bends fields of grass to the earth, so the rain seemed to bend to the water in the cove.  And then the hypnotic wave of falling water broke, sending a tinny tasting spray into Tuna’s face and a gust of wind shaking his rack of chips and sending a few bags flying to the back of the store. 

Tuna sighed and let his head sink onto his cloven hands as the rain washed yet another day into a night of boredom.  At length, he left the window, retreating into the warmth of his small shop and sank into a wooden chair.  He pushed against the floor boards with is feet, tilting the chair back on an angle and giving a satisfying crack-squeak. 

Tuna smiled at the noise.  He rocked back again – another crack-squeak.  He rocked forward.  Crack-squeak.  Tuna let his weight fall forward; the front legs of the chair came down with a thump-crack-squeak.  Tuna patted the chair.  Perhaps he did have a friend in this storm after all. 

Crack. 

Tuna listened.  He thought he heard a crack.  He wasn’t sure.  It was too faint.  He listened again, more intently, but nothing came of it.  Perhaps it was just the chair settling into the floor. 

Tuna began another round of his store, listening intently.  If nothing else, listening for faint cracking sounds was a diversion. 

***** 

Lucas half walked, half slid down the muddy boardwalk leading to cabin three.  He clutched a large mattress tightly wrapped in tarpaulin and a toolbox shrouded in a plastic garbage bag.  He himself was nude, save a baseball cap.  In this climate, it was far more comfortable – and far more safe – to brave the rain with your own fur than someone else’s. 

Lucas squinted into the rain; there was so much of it, it rolled into his eyes and made seeing as difficult as looking into a funhouse mirror.  Twice he had stumbled on slick boulders, and once lost his way for a few seconds.  This bothered him, since he had played on these paths since he was a young boy.  At length, the beckoning porchlight of cabin three broke through the trees.  Lucas smiled and looked at his feet, turning his back to the driving rain.  From here he could do the rest by memory – even blindfolded and backwards! 

Needless to say, Mrs. Bluebottle was surprised to see a naked young boarder collie walking backwards towards her cabin in the driving rain with two objects that shimmered in the porchlight.  She watched as Lucas approached and set the two bulky objects a few feet apart on her porch.  Then, ducking under the porch overhang and out of the weather, Lucas prepared to knock. 

Mrs. Bluebottle didn’t give him the chance. 

"Good evening, young sir.  Are you here to fix the leak?" 

Lucas blinked, his arm still extended in a knock that never was.  He then shifted his feet and removed his hat.  "Yes’m.  And to give you a new mattress", he added, gesturing to the tarp-wrapped object still deflecting raindrops. 

"Splendid.  Bring it in." 

"Yes’m.  Just be a second", said Lucas, closing the door that had just been opened to him.  He stood on the porch and twisted his body in violent shaking motions, sending water droplets flying back out into the storm they came from.  He then did the same with his hat and some quick arm motions.  Then slapping it back on his head, he opened the door again, revealing the now repuzzled Mrs. Bluebottle.  ‘She must not get out in the country much’ thought Lucas to himself. 

He reached out into the rain again, grabbing the mattress and dragging it into the house after him. 

***** 

Tuna had just finished reordering the chips when he heard the cracking noise again.  It was still low and soft, almost like thunder in the distance.  He shook his head, trying to clear the ghost of a noise.  He took stock another pointless time.  He toured.  He stood.  He sat in the wooden chair.  He squeak-cracked.  He flipped through the issue of Detective Stories that he had flipped through so many times before he had almost memorized the stories.  He even looked through the adds, hoping to find some bit of small print, some inscrutable term of legalese that he had missed in his previous readings, but nothing came to him.  He sat. 

He heard the crack again. 

‘You’re going as batty as your old man’ he thought to himself as he looked nervously around the store. 

Crack. 

Tuna rose uncertainly from his chair.  He pulled a handful of empty plastic bags out from under his counter and then opened the cash.  Slowly, listening over the sound of the pattering rain, he removed the bills from the cash and placed them in one of the bags.  He then removed the deed to the property from where it was hidden behind the velvet of a kitchy Super Skunk picture hanging over the table of fishing tackles.  It followed the bills into the bag.  He then rolled the bag tightly up and placed it inside the others, then shoved the lot under his vest.  He grabbed a bottle of gasoline from a neatly ordered row along the side of the store – and then as an after thought, an umbrella.  He opened to door to his store. 

Tuna stood there hesitantly, not wanting to go further.  The cracks had him spooked, that was for certain.  Perhaps if they stopped, everything would be all right.  He listened.  There was only the pat of rain.  He looked around.  There was no one there who could have made cracking sounds.  But then, they hadn’t sounded like anyone had made them.  He waited.  No sounds.  He tried to tell himself he had imagined it. 

Crack. 

That one he heard.  That one was no ghost of a sound.  Tuna tripped out into the rain and along the short dock that fronted his marina.  There were two boats tied up there; the one he was fixing and his own boat that he used to go into town.  He clumsily fiddled with the rusty hooks anchoring the protective tarp of his small motor boat to its aluminum hull, then pulled sharply up on them in frustration.  The hooks snapped.  The hull was freed.  Tuna threw in the gasoline and the umbrella, then jumped in himself. 

Tuna was about to cast off, when he heard the cracking noise again.  It was more like thunder this time, though.  He waited.  Nothing happened.  Tuna opened the umbrella and raised it over his now soaking body.  He leaned back in the boat.  ‘Alright, noise’, he thought to himself, ‘you can force me out of my cabin, but you’d better be pretty impressive to get me to move any farther.’ 

***** 

Lucas had set the tarp covered mattress steaming and dripping against the pine knotted side of cabin three.  He was now inspecting the steady drip-drip of water that was soaking through the ceiling and landing rhythmically in the face washing basin placed on a soaked mattress and propped precariously level by a spare pillow.  With the basin almost full, Mr. Bluebottle emptied it out a nearby window and then placed it back in position. 

"And you’ve been doing that for the last hour or so?" asked Lucas. 

"Yes", said Mr. Bluebottle, a middle aged rabbit peering out from behind thick glasses.  "Ever since my wife and I were interrupted at our, ah, reading, we’ve been tossing bowlfuls of rainwater out the window." 

"I suppose the first thing to do then", said Lucas, "is fix that leak." 

"Can you do that in this weather?" interrupted Mrs. Bluebottle. 

"Ah, no sweat", lied Lucas.  "I’ve fixed roofs in worse weather than this." 

"I’m not sure your mother would want you up on the roof in…", started Mrs. Bluebottle. 

"Ah, don’t worry", said Lucas with a wave of his hand.  "She’s seen me do it plenty of times.  It’s just a matter of ignoring the rain.  It’s really nothing more than an annoyance.  Once you put it out of your mind, you can work like it’s clear and sunny." 

And before either of the Bluebottles could respond, Lucas was out the door and scurrying up to the roof of cabin three with his tool box under one arm.  He made a separate trip with an armful of shingles he remembered had been left near by, and soon was watching a small river of water running down the roof and around his bare feet over a bed of tar and sand. 

Lucas quickly located two shingles that had worn with age and had chosen the storm as the best time to rip in half.  ‘I could hammer the new shingles over top of these’, he thought to himself.  ‘It wouldn’t be a very pretty job, but I could always fix it when the weather was nice again.’  Lucas maneuvered one of the new shingles into place and fished a shingle nail out of the tool box.  He placed the nail on the shingle and raised the hammer above his head, preparing to strike. 

Then Lucas heard a low, cracking sound. 

Lucas looked over his shoulder.  It came from across the bay, from Halfspoon island, it seemed. 

Lucas put the hammer down, then stood on the roof.  Through the trees, he could make out the familiar cliffs that faced Freedom’s Run from Halfspoon island.  Craning his neck, he could take in most of the vista; though he knew there wasn’t much to see on this side of the island other than some trees and a few bait and tackle shops. 

Then came a sound almost like thunder. 

Lucas stared wide eyed as one of the massive cliffs gave way and plunged into the water below. 

***** 

Tuna more felt than heard the landslide coming.  He saw the cliff lurch toward him, almost as if it was going to pounce on him.  Tuna grabbed franticly at the rope mooring his boat to the dock and slipped the knot over the dock post, shouting obscure things his father had told him never to say all the while.  The rope came free.  Tuna glanced up at massive cliff face which now was suspended in it’s decent; hesitating as a civic playing at being a fauve would, uncertain if it wanted to kill it’s prey.  Tuna leapt too – onto the motor of the boat.  He pulled the cord with all his strength, praying that the motor would catch on the first try. 

Tuna pulled.  The motor sputtered. 

"C’mon", Tuna said to the motor, "I gave you a new oil job just two days ago.  Now you can be kind to me, he?" 

Tuna pulled the cord again.  The motor sputtered. 

Tuna pulled the cord again.  The motor roared to life, rippling the water behind it. 

Tuna glanced over his shoulder at the massive cliff that was starting its decent once again.  The boat shot forward.  The cliff continued it’s fall. 

Tuna looked about for a point; any fixed point that he could navigate by.  Then his eyes fixed on a rock jutting out of the water near the shore or Freedom’s Run.  It was easy to see despite the pouring rain.  It was shaped like a horse’s head, so it was easy to remember.  And most importantly, it was in the exact opposite direction of the falling wall of rock and soil. 

The water bubbled and frothed beneath Tuna, and his boat sank deep into it, loosing buoyancy.  If he had looked over his shoulder, Tuna would have seen the sea boiling red with the power of the landslide.  As it was he just saw the horse’s head jump wildly from port to starboard in front of him as he desperately tried to keep the boat right side up.  Sand and small twigs lashed at his back, feeling like fire in the excitement of the moment.  Sea foam entered his nose and made him sneeze.  Tuna held on for everything he was worth.