Bamboozled (Wilderness Express Series)
“Oh, you don’t really manage a forest, do you?” Gilbert asked himself more than Koda, for whom he opened the front door of Foxtrot’s taco shack.
Koda nodded her thanks as she slipped past the glass door. Gilbert followed.
Inside, a mole was standing on its tiptoes while a mouse, perched atop its shoulder, squeaked the order to Maggie.
“You just live in it and let it do its thing” Gilbert continued as the two took their place in line. “Not much work to it, honestly.”
Koda observed the room from the corners of her eyes as she moved her head between the giant menu board hanging above the register and Gilbert in what she hoped was a natural motion.
“And the tree you were carrying?” Koda asked, an accusatory tone seeped from her unminded mouth as her thoughts were largely occupied elsewhere. Regret washed over her at the sound of her own voice.
Gilbert’s face brightened.
“Auggie has an idea for a new cuckoo clock.”
Koda was charmed and confused all at once. The bear was genuinely happy about delivering the tree to Auggie.
During their descent, Gilbert had rambled on and on about how deeply he loved the forest and how honored he was to protect it. However, the bear seemed nonplussed about the accusation or sacrifice of a beloved.
The bells which hung from the door handle jingled. An important looking figure in a deep purple three-piece suit with a mahogany corduroy vest step grandly into the taco shack. With a wave, the moose greeted the other patrons in the shack who hadn’t so much as looked up from their tacos.
Koda’s eyebrow raised of its own accord.
“A tree for a clock. Do you find that to be a worthwhile trade? Is time that important?”
She strove to pose the question as cordially as possible, but in the end her inner investigative reporter won out. The merciless search for truth had begun.
Gilbert cocked his head to the side.
“What’s time got to do with it?”
Something thumped into the back of Gilbert followed by a screeching of chairs over tile. At the noise, Koda glanced over her shoulder to find a moose battling for equilibrium with the help of two chairs.
“Sorry about that” chuckled Mr. Kazoom as he rebuttoned his jacket. “I forgot how large I am. I hope I didn’t injure you.”
Through the thump, screech, and hoof on Gilbert’s shoulder, the bear remained blissfully unaware of all happenings. Koda elbowed him in the side and nodded backwards to direct Gilbert’s attention.
“Mr. Kazoom” Gilbert said with delight as he turned to find the well-dressed moose standing in line behind him. “We don’t see you down here too often.”
“Quite right. A rare pleasure, I’m sure” said Mr. Kazoom with an important looking grin. “Speaking of a rare sighting, who’s your friend?”
Koda’s breath caught in her throat. Most townsfolk had simply ignored her, as if she was an expected part of the scenery. Though, at first, she had found this treatment unnerving, she now preferred it many times over to being considered out of place.
“Koda.” Her voice cracked against a dry throat she extended a paw.
Mr. Kazoom turned her paw in his hoof and studied the pattern of reddish orange melting into milky white. A look of discovery narrowed his eyes as he shifted them between the two. He stepped back to reassume his spot in line.
“Charmed” he said while fingering an expensive looking cow-skull cufflink.
A strange gleam in the moose’s eye caused Koda to hesitate before turning back towards Gilbert. The moose began muttering something to himself while starring, wide-eyed at Gilbert’s back.
Koda breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at Gilbert only to find him contently gazing forward. She felt an urge to lean against him but the smell of pine rising from his sap gunked fur stiffened her spine.
“Clocks keep time” she said as she took a half step away and leaned back to look the bear in the eye. “That’s why time is relevant. It’s the reason clocks are built and, in this case, why a tree is chopped down.”
“Hmm” the bear mumbled as he turned Koda’s words in his mind. “I don’t know much about this time business.”
Koda’s nose wrinkled.
“That’s impossible. It’s how we decide when to do something or how long it takes.”
“I always figured you either do something or you don’t” Gilbert said, his voice pitched by a yawn. “Then” he added with a scratch of his belly, “if you decide to do something, you keep doin’ it till it’s done.”
The bear was right, Koda had to admit. His reasoning, perhaps, was a bit too simplistic for the real world, but his line pointed straight to the truth. She shifted from one foot to the other, then back again.
“What about bamboo?”
Gilbert looked at her blankly.
“I mean, why not make the clocks out of bamboo, rather than trees?”
She wanted to rant about how the Thrive Federation had long switched to the polycrop culture of bamboo, beans, and gourds for perfect soil balance while using the voracious growth of the bamboo to fuel its construction needs but she couldn’t without revealing herself. Instead, she stood there fidgeting beneath the bear’s unshifting gaze.
“What’s bamboo?” Gilbert asked. “Is it a tree?” The hesitation in his voice quickly gave way to excitement as his mind moved towards the word tree.
A laugh surprised Koda, even though it was her own stomach who had birthed it. She was suddenly reminded of where she was. This place was truly different.
“It’s…it’s a reed, I believe” she said while tilting her head to the ceiling. “But, it grows as tall as a tree and does so very quickly.”
Gilbert followed her eyes to the ceiling.
“That’s not so tall” he said, somewhat let down.
The disappointment in the bear’s tone caused Koda to look over.
“No, no. It grows much taller than just the ceiling.”
“Ooohh” questioned Gilbert with raised eyebrows.
“In fact, it can grow to the height of this ceiling in only a matter of days.”
Koda smiled at the spark of joy that illuminated Gilbert’s eyes.
“Bamboo” he said happily. “I’m sure Auggie could make a cuckoo clock out of bamboo. You have to see one for yourself. They have tiny critters with the silliest clothes chopping wood, riding bikes, and drinking beer all in front of the cuckoo’s house.”
“The cuckoo’s house? You mean the little bird who pops out of the window when the hour strikes?”
Gilbert nodded, the delight still apparent on his face, though he wasn’t sure why this hour critter would assault a bird.
The line before Koda and Gilbert had disappeared. Behind the register awaited an attractive rabbit, Koda noticed.
“Maybe we could plant some bamboo in the forest here.”
Koda could feel herself growing excited as she stepped towards the register.
“It would be a much more efficient exchange than a clock for a tree that requires years to grow.”
“One form of beauty for another is as honest as a trade can get.”
Koda’s mouth shut of its own accord. Given the vacant look in the bear’s eyes, she couldn’t tell if Gilbert had just offered up a nugget of philosophical gold or the words were the desperate last creaks of a caving mind. Either way, they bored into her.
“Hey, Gilly.”
The rabbit’s smooth voice floated from behind the register towards the enraptured bear. Koda’s lip curled. She had never heard a three-letter word burdened with such inuendo. Hey had become a suggestion, an invitation, a reminder, and a provocation all in one.
“Who’s your friend?”
“Koda” the fox heard a defiant voice much like her own say.
Maggie and Gilbert both looked at her as you would someone who interrupted a long, involved conversation.
Koda blanched under their gaze.
“I know who you are” Maggie giggled with a tone as if anything else would be ridiculous. “I just wanted to hear Gilly talk.”
“He has a beautiful voice” the rabbit said as she leaned forward on the counter beside the register, “when he finally musters up the courage to speak.”
Koda’s stomach turned.
She looked at Gilbert whose eyes were so glazed over they’d see more if they were rolled into the back of his head. Though, a needle of truth in the rabbit’s words pricked at her side. She too had grown fond of not just what the bear said but how he said it.
The door bell jingled and two fur balls flashed between Koda and the counter. Within the blink of an eye, the Martin twins had stacked twenty paper cups atop each of their heads and were racing around the restaurant via an impromptu obstacle course.
“One foot hop” called one cup topped twin to the other.
“Only on blue” the other added as they leapt from blue spot to swirl on the tile floor avoiding the color white like a nest of fleas.
Behind Koda and Gilbert, Kazoom’s eye began twitching as the other patrons either laughed at the spectacle or simply ignored it.
“You know” called out the moose as he pulled his deep purple jacket straight. “I’m on the verge of creating a reusable syrup.”
He surveyed the room to find no one aware that he had spoken. So, he stomped the floor lightly and put a little more chest into his words.
“Syrup, you see, is never actually digested by the body. Obviously” he said with a flick of a hoof, “a sign that nature intended it to be used as a condiment. It aids taste, nothing more” the moose added with a wag of a pointed hoof as he scanned the still uninterested crowd. “My process will extract the syrup from a pancake lover’s excrement, purify it, and” Kazoom plucked a syrup bottle from a nearby table, “replace it within the very same squeeze bottle.”
A nauseous look overcame the mole whose syrup bottle had just been confiscated and was now held aloft in the outstretched arms of a moose who looked rather impressed with himself. The mole’s cheeks puffed as she looked at the syrup copiously poured over her breakfast tacos.
Kazoom handed the syrup bottle back to the now swaying mole who didn’t so much as hold it as she temporarily delayed its crash with the tile floor. With a hand on her stomach, the mole plodded her way through the syrup pooling on the floor and out the front door.
“Poor girl” said Kazoom as he watched her leave. “I must finish that kitchen inspection device ahead of schedule. The Taco Shack is providing a compromised service and needs my help.”
As the moose’s face wrinkled with determination, both Martin twins mimicked his hands on hips power stance before feigning a slow, agonizing drowning in the syrup pool as their obstacle course turned into a dramatic stage performance.
“One Gilly special” Maggie jotted down the order without so much as glancing at the pad. “And what will you have, Koda?”
Koda read through the menu once more.
“Gilbert” said Koda, bringing him around with the help of an elbow in the side. “What do you recommend? The fire breathers sound good.”
The bear’s eyes followed Koda’s to the menu and betrayed a hint of surprise to find it hanging above the register. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Sure, they sound good. I guess.”
“You guess?”
Koda studied the bear suspiciously.
“He’s only ever had the Sweet Bee” in a suddenly raspy voice as she leaned on an elbow and batted her eyes at Gilbert. She giggled as the bear teetered from side to side with eyelids half shut. “He’s what you might call a one taco bear.”
Koda gagged. She was beginning to find Maggie’s presence as enjoyable as a rash between the toes.
“What else comes in a Gilly Special?” Koda asked, immediately realizing that she may not want to know the answer.
“A side of waffle fries” chirped Maggie as she assumed the attentive posture of a helpful employee and gave Koda a friendly smile.
Koda steadied a wobbling Gilbert with a paw while eyeing Maggie.
“I’ll take one Fire Breather and one Tzak Attack, please.”
“Great choice!” said Maggie as she wrote down the order. “Anything else?”
Koda looked to Gilbert. His eyelids were twitching as if trying to awaken themselves.
“Two drinks and that’ll be it.”
“Perfect. Uhh” Maggie gave Koda an apologetic look as she realized all of the cups from behind the counter had disappeared.
“Three spins on the badger’s head!”
Koda waved off the inconvenience and snagged two cups from a stack that waddled by on its way to annoy a badger who already looked as if he found life bothersome enough.
“Have a seat wherever you like and I’ll bring your food out shortly” Maggie said brightly.
Koda’s eyes narrowed on the rabbit whose outstretched arm gestured to the tables behind Koda.
“Thanks” she said in a low, drawn-out voice.
She spun Gilbert around and ushered him to an empty table towards the back of the restaurant.
As they sat, the doorbell jingled once more and Koda watched a lynx enter the taco shack in a daze to rival that of Gilbert’s.
The hood of a panda onesie covered a single eye, whose counterpart was open as a bank on St. Passa J Eiaro Day. Passa being the absent-minded beaver who was particularly diligent about passing notes between the town’s folk when left upon his doorstep, inadvertently inventing the post office.
Soggy letters aside, it was a service highly regarded within Wilderness.
A shuffling noise trailed the bottom of pink fuzzy slippers that never left the ground as they slid their way across the blue and white tile floor, catching the attention of Mr. Kazoom mid-order.
The moose’s face twitched.
“Hugo Glass was born into his fortune, you know” he announced once again to a crowd fully emersed in their own concerns. “By some estimates, he would have turned greater profit had he merely placed it in a low-yield savings account. I, on the other hand, have increased my holdings more than one hundred-fold while inventing some of Wilderness’s most beloved, life-improving gadgets.”
Kazoom’s eyes remained wide as he scanned the room, breathing as if he’d just fought off a contender for mating rights.
“The menu board is quite lovely” called a voice.
With a perplexed look scrunching her face, Maggie leaned over the counter and twisted to read the board.
‘Hhmm’ she breathed with a slight nod.
Maggie looked up to find Kazoom smiling expectantly at her.
“Do you think low-yield means you only have to slow down if you want to?” a hushed voiced asked from a table against the wall.
“Kazoom and Auggie look a lot alike, don’t they?” asked Koda, as they waited for their food.
Gilbert lightly sipped his sweet tea. The sugar seemed to help him regain his senses.
“Don’t know. I’ve never seen him.”
Koda’s head jerked to the side in disbelief.
“You’ve never seen Auggie?” she asked. Her words crept from her mouth as if they were approaching a corner in a dark hallway.
“Nope” replied Gilbert matter of factly.
“I thought you delivered wood to him.”
Gilbert nodded excitedly while he drained his tea through a straw.
“How’s that possible?”
“Easy” the bear said with a gasp as he pushed his drink forward. “He leaves a note on the door of the conservation cabin saying what he wants, I deliver it to the drop off spot or his house, and he collects it.”
Koda shook her head as she watched Kazoom finish his order and turn to find one of the Martin twins for a cup.
“Even I’ve seen Auggie and I’ve only been here…”
She stopped suddenly. Her eyes jumped to Gilbert who was looking at her with an expression bordering admiration.
“What’s he look like?” asked the bear.
“He’s, er” Koda leaned back and looked to the ceiling as she thought. “A moose” she offered lamely.
Gilbert again followed Koda’s eyes. Sputtering noises echoed from his straw devoid of tea as his mind wandered.
“Well” he said. “There ya go.”
Koda’s eyes narrowed momentarily as she leaned forward to inspect the bear. She waited but Gilbert added nothing further.
She had to admit that she hadn’t exactly studied Auggie’s appearance at Park Archery. There was so much to take in that it would have been difficult to remember enough nuances to distinguish one moose from another.
Koda relaxed and leaned back in her chair. She swirled the tea in her cup while staring in the direction of the table before her.
“Special delivery” announced Maggie.
The rabbit smiled as she laid the two baskets of food on the table. Gilbert grinned quickly.
“Mrs. Boar has quite a few of Auggie’s clocks in her team room” he said to Koda, giving little heed to either Maggie or the food. “I’ll take you, if you’d like.”
The cool smile spreading across Maggie’s face quickly evaporated under the heat of embarrassment as she realized the extended invitation hadn’t been for her. The vapors tickled her throat, forcing her to cough them away.
Gilbert looked up causing Maggie to squirm in the discomfort of an unusual situation, that of being uncomfortable.
“Thanks, Mags. It looks great.”
‘Mags’ the rabbit mouthed bewildered. She huffed and rested a hand on a hip.
“I was offered a room by Mrs. Boar above her tea shop” explained Koda while Gilbert pierced a taco with a single claw and tossed it into his mouth. Her eyes explored every crevice upon the face of the bear across from her. He didn’t ask where she was moving from or why. The thought didn’t even seem to cross his taco distracted mind.
“Her décor is” she paused as she took a bit of her fire-breather, “impressive.”
Koda chewed while thinking of the china filled tea room.
“See this” a voice interjected as Koda’s basket was lifted from the table. “Five times as strong as the plastic from Glass Enterprises and biodegradable with salt water.”
“That’s an old tray” informed Maggie with a roll of her eyes.
Kazoom raised an eyebrow at the rabbit across the table but turned the basket over nonetheless. Koda watched helplessly as a glob of tzatziki sauce splattered on the table.
“More’s the pity” said Kazoom, “my products are far superior.”
“We ordered fifty” objected Maggie with sass. “You never delivered.”
Koda watched as Kazoom cowered momentarily under the unimpressed look of Maggie. An appreciative grin pricked a single corner of the fox’s mouth.
“Yes, well” Kazoom started as pulled on his jacket flaps while straightening his back. “I have a prototype in the works that will make all competition obsolete.”
“You got a lot of taco basket competition in these woods?” a voice cackled from somewhere in the restaurant.
Kazoom spun to locate the source but only found a dining room full of sniggering patrons. The moose breathed hard through his nostrils, set the basket on an empty table, and walked away with as much dignity as he could feign.
Maggie retrieved the wayward basket and returned it to Koda.
“That one’s a character” said Maggie. “You two enjoy. I’ll be back to check on you.”
The challenge in Maggie’s voice wasn’t lost on Koda as she watched the rabbit let her paw slide tenderly off Gilbert’s shoulder as she walked away.
“This place is incredible” sarcasm cracked Koda’s voice beneath her breath.
“If they used Mrs. Boars honey, it sure would be” said Gilbert as he skewered another taco with a look of bliss upon his face.
“Is that so?” replied Koda for lack of anything better to say.
“Her honey” Gilbert began before leaning towards Koda while glancing around conspiratorially, “isn’t like anything I’ve tasted. Anywhere.”
“That’s…interesting” said Koda while her mind leapt five steps ahead. “Did Kazoom say his baskets would dissolve in saltwater? How would he know? Saltwater is a myth.”
The moose, she thought, is all flash and no substance. Thrive had plenty of the like peddling their gimmick wares any time a carnival rolled through town.
“He says he can make it” Gilbert said without a trace of incredulity as he shoveled a pawful of waffle fries into his mouth. “Says all you need is salt and water” he added with a shrug. “There’s plenty of that in Wilderness.”
Koda sipped her tea while she thought. When you approached it so simply, saltwater didn’t seem so farfetched.
Something bright caught Koda’s attention from the corner of her eye. She nearly spit out her tea as Maggie in a tight, neon green tank top and cut off jean shorts came into view. Instead, she choked on her attempt to avoid embarrassment which resulted in tea dripping from her nostrils. At least this distracted Gilbert from the dribble leaking out of the corner of her mouth as a three-fourths shame fueled laugh sprinkled her shoulder with tea and slobber.
As Koda used a handful of napkins to dry her face she watched as the rabbit approached their table in a manner that could cause ulterior motives to blush and cover themselves.
“Slow down, buckaroo” Gilbert laughed.
The bear looked down to find the napkin dispenser empty and Koda with a look on her face suggesting that she might soon need more.
Gilbert leaned across the aisle to an empty table and retrieved a nearly full dispenser. As he did, he caught a glimpse of the strutting bunny heading his way.
“Got it covered, Mags. Nice shirt.”
Undaunted, Maggie’s swaying hips propelled her onward. She stopped a bit closer to Gilbert than Koda found necessary.
“How are my two favorite customers enjoying their meals?” she asked in a tone not intended to disguise its undercurrent entirely as she laid a soft paw on Gilbert’s shoulder.
“It was delicious” replied Gilbert with a smile. “What did you think, Koda?”
Fully recovered from her liquid dispensing episode, save red, puffy eyes, Koda nodded begrudgingly.
“They were great” she admitted with difficulty a thing which would have come easily, had she been speaking to anyone else.
“But, of course” laughed Maggie with a flip of her hair that ended with a suggestive gaze at Gilbert through the top of her eyes as she allowed her weight to sink a bit more into the bear’s shoulder.
“Panama, huh? What does that mean?” asked Gilbert happily.
A smirk slowly creased the corner of a single cheek as Koda watched Maggie’s eye grow wide at the uncharted territory before her.
“Not a clue” confessed Maggie cheerfully, impressing Koda with the speed of her recovery. “I just like the color.”
The rabbit rocked her shoulders side to side in a playful manner as she gave Gilbert the opportunity to drink her in.
Gilbert, however, did not seem to be as in dire need of refreshment as Maggie had hoped and Koda felt a strange pang of sympathy in her stomach as a genuine sadness momentarily dulled the rabbit’s eyes.
“Can’t go wrong with green” said Gilbert with a smile while tugging on his own shirt.
Maggie did well to disguise a hard swallow.
“Right, as always, Gilly.”
A gloss passed quickly over the bear’s eyes at the mention of his nickname which brought the faintest of rose coloring to Maggie’s cheeks.
Koda sighed and laughed to herself.
“Well, I’ll clear the table for you two” chirped Maggie with much of her old swagger restored. “Enjoy the rest of the day and I’ll see you tomorrow, Gilly” added the rabbit with a wink. “Nice to meet you, Koda.”
“Likewise” responded Koda with a truthfulness that she found surprising.
Maggie turned and sashayed her way back to the register slower than a sloth climbing a sand dune.
A yelp echoed through the taco shack.
Both Koda and Gilbert pricked their ears curiously and scanned the restaurant’ for the source.
A few tables away, a pair of broad shoulders trembled.
Another deep ‘oooo’ echoed through the restaurant just as Maggie rounded the corner of the counter and peered into the kitchen window to check on Steve.
“Gilbert” said Koda, “check out Kazoom. I think it’s him.”
At a table halfway between them and the register, the tremors in Kazoom’s shoulders jumped a few notches on the Richter scale as his head began to rattle.
He stood.
“Yooooooooooop!”
The moose snorted twice and stamped his hooves while tossing his rack which clanged against a rafter above.
Instinctively, Koda’s paw reached for her pad to take notes but she forcefully returned it to the table top. Though all eyes were on the moose, she didn’t want to risk doing anything to bring too much attention to herself.
Besides, there was no chance she would ever forget this scene.
Kazoom became a flurry of snorts, tremors, and stomps as he made his way towards a wooden beam in the middle of the restaurant.
Upon arrival, he let loose another ear-piercing call just before he began to grind his antlers on the beam with all the vigor of a badger in a barrel.
Flecks of blue paint rained down like confetti as the moose picked up steam.
His antlers dug grooves into the pillar as he twisted and turned, rubbing from the front, side and, according to Mrs. Boar, a rather provocative arched spine, backwards angle.
Just when Gilbert began to worry about the structural integrity of the wooden pillar, the moose kicked an empty table through the window. With a leap, Kazoom exited the taco shack via its newest portal.
“One too many Fire Breathers, I reckon” mused Gilbert as he watched the moose disappear peak-way on Till Avenue.
Koda cringed as she watched Kazoom turn his licentious attention to an innocent light post and resume his friction frenzy.
Outside, two farmers in overalls watched the display unfold with the stoicism bestowed upon those who see the full gambit of nature’s urges play before their eyes each day.
“Always using his head, that one” said one.
“Yup” replied the other as he watched the moose mount a mailbox. “If it ain’t one, it’s the other.”
