neetha Napew - The Time Of The Transferance

Jon-Tom caught the otter’s drift and shut up. There was no harm in acceding to his friend’s unspoken request for silence. He doubted Weegee needed any otherworldly philosophical help anyway.

XIV

The ogres did not follow. Jon-Tom suspected they wouldn’t. They were too busy sorting out their own lives to worry about their former captives.

Mudge should have been cheered by their easy escape. Instead, the otter tramped along enveloped in melancholy, his expression dour. When he replied to questions it was in monosyllables. Finally Jon-Tom asked him if anything was wrong.

“O” course somethin’s wrong, mate. I’m tired. Tired o’ stinkin’ jungle, tired o’ runnin’, tired o’ followin’ you ‘alfway around the world every time I think life’s settled back to somethin’ like normal. An* there’s somethin’ else, too.” By way of illustration be began scratching under his left arm, working his way around to his back.

“Ever since we left Chejiji I’ve been itchin’. Last few days ‘tis gotten considerable worse. I must’ve picked up some kind o’ rash. Worst place is in the middle o’ me back, but I can’t reach back there.”

“You should’ve said something, love.” Weegee halted and began peeling off his vest. “Let me have a look.”

They took a standing break while she inspected Mudge’s back and shoulders.

“Well, wot is it?” he asked when she didn’t comment. When she finally did speak it wasn’t to him.

“Jon-Tom, I think you’d better come have a look at this.”

He did so, and was too shocked by what he saw to say anything.

All the hair on the otter’s back had fallen out. A glance beneath the arm where he’d just been scratching showed that the fur there was likewise coming out. Weegee brushed her paw across the back of his leg and came away with a whole handful of fur.

“Wot’s the matter with you two? Wot’s wrong?”

“I’m afraid it’s more than just a rash, Mudge.”

“Wot do you mean, more than a rash? ‘Ave I got leprosy or somethin’?”

“No—not exactly,” Weegee murmured.

That brought Mudge around sharply. “Wot do you mean, ‘not exactly’? Will somebody kindly tell me wot’s wrong? Tis just a damn itch. See?” He rubbed his right forearm. When he brought his paw back he’d left behind a bare strip of skin. “Oh me haunches an’ little sisters.” Horrified, he stared up at Jon-Tom. “You got to stop it, mate.” A patch of fur fell from his forehead. “Do somethin’, spellsing it awaaaay.” He was hopping about frantically, the fur fairly flying off him.

“I’ll try, Mudge.” He whipped the suar around and sang the most appropriate songs he could think of, ending with a rousing chorus of the title tune froni the musical, Hair. All to no avail. Mudge’s alopecia continued to worsen. When the exhausted otter finally ran down several minutes later there wasn’t a tuft of fur on his denuded form.

Cautious regarded him with his usual phlegmatic state. “Never seen a bald otter before. Ain’t pretty.”

“Wot am I goin’ to doooo!”

“Stop moaning, for one thing,” Jon-Tom chided him.

“I might as well be dead.”

“And don’t talk like that.”

Weegee was leaning on Mudge, trying to comfort him. Now she pulled away slightly to peer at his spine. “Wait a minute. I think it’s starting to grow back already.”

“Don’t tease me, luv. I know I’m doomed to wander the world like this, an outcast, furless and naked like some mutated ‘uman.”

“No, really.” There was genuine excitement in her voice. “Look here.” She raised his left arm to his face. Jon-Tom looked, too. Sure enough, little nubs of fur were sprouting through the skin. They could see them growing.

Mudge all but leaped into the air with relief. “Comin’ back she is! Wot a relief. I thought ‘twas all over for poor Mudge. Wouldn’t ‘ave been able to show me face in any o’ me old “aunts. Come on, mates, let’s not ‘ang around ‘ere. I might get reinfected.”

By late that night half-inch long fur, dark brown and glossy, covered the otter’s entire body. By morning it had grown back to its normal length. Each bristle was unusually thick, but the color and feel were otherwise correct and Mudge could have cared less about the one unnoticeable variation. He looked like himself again.

Toward the end of the day he no longer did.

“When do you suppose this’ll stop growin’?” He was staring down at himself and muttering.

“Don’t worry about it.” Weegee gave him a reassuring caress. “If it gets any longer we can always give you a trim.”

Trouble was, it continued to grow and short of swords they had nothing to trim it with. So it continued to lengthen, growing at the same steady extraordinary speed, until it was a foot long. This slowed their progress since Mudge had a tendency to step on and trip over the fur growing from his feet. He’d long since had to removed his boots. Finally it was decided to resort to the use of a short sword, but trimming it back only accelerated the rate of regrowth.

By the morning of the next day the quartet included three anxious travelers and a shambling ball of fuzz. Mudge was reduced to holding the fur away from his eyes in order to see.

“You look like the sheepdog that ate Seattle.”

“This is gettin’ bloody absurd, mate. Pretty soon I won’t be able to walk.”

“Then we roll you into Strelakat Mews.” Cautious ducked beneath a branch. “I hope among their master craftsfolk there be a master barber.”

“And I’ve about had it with the clever comments!” the otter bawled angrily. He would have taken a swing at the raccoon except that he could barely move his arms.

By afternoon a light rain was falling and, perhaps by coincidence, so was the fur. It came out in four-foot long strands. When the last hank lay upon the ground there stretched out behind them a trail of fur sufficient to fill a couple of goodsized mattresses. Mudge was bare-ass bald again.

Yet new bristles were already starting to appear on his back. By nightfall his coat had grown back to normal.

“Maybe we’ll wake up in the mornin’ an’ I’ll be meself again,” he said hopefully as he wrapped himself in a light bedroll.

“I’m sure you will.” Weegee patted him soothingly. “It’s been a terrible couple of days for you but I bet the infection’s run its course. You’ve lost it all, had it come back in multiples, lost that and regained it again. Surely nothing else can happen.” She lay down next to him.

The main problem with jungle trekking, Jon-Tom reflected, was that you sweated all the time. Not that it mattered to anyone but him, since odor was an accepted bodily condition in this world. But he wasn’t used to smelling as strongly as Mudge, say, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore his own intensifying aroma.

For a change he was the first one up. The camp was silent. Weegee slept comfortably on her side and Cautious lay on his belly not far away. But where was Mudge? Had the otter wandered off in a fit of depression and perhaps fallen into one? The cycle of too much fur-none at all had stressed his stubby companion considerably. A quick inspection of the camp revealed no sign of the otter.

“Weegee.” He shook her firmly. “Wake up, Weegee.”

She sat up fast. Otters do not awaken gradually. “What’s wrong, Jon-Tom?”

“Mudge has disappeared.”

She was on her feet fast and he moved to wake Cautious.

“Ain’t here.” The raccoon turned a slow circle. “Wonder what happened to him, you bet.”

“He’s always hungry,” said a worried Weegee. “Maybe he’s just gone berry hunting or something. Let’s shout his name simultaneously and see what happens.”