“Precisely what are we sniffing for?” Touchwit asked.

  “Turkey, red meat, tuna fish, the usual delicacies.”

  “Anything but pizza crusts,” Clutch said.

  “Okay, what are we not sniffing for?”

  “You just asked a good question.” The raccoon mother pauses to let a teaching moment gather. “In the old days, there was good raccoon food in every bin. So we just tipped the first one over and gorged, then moved on to the second, then the third until our tummies were full and we staggered home. And in those days, the lids were simple snap-offs so we didn’t waste time analysing how to open the bins.”

  I thought I heard Ma Slypaws sigh at the memory of the old days.

  “But today we can’t find what we like to eat in every bin, and we lose precious seconds trying to outwit the cunning new locks. It has become a colossal fluster.”

  “The Primates aren’t eating our kind of food anymore?” Like many of Clutch’s interjections, the remark hung between an observation and a query.

  “No, they’ve altered their diet. Only a few diehards are eating normal city raccoon food. That’s why there’s a problem.”

  “What are they eating, then?”

  “Most of them aren’t eating meat.”

  “Great Raccoon Spirit preserve us!” Clutch exclaimed.

  The family waited for Clutch’s piety to ascend the chimney and join the constellation that inspired it.

  “They’ve become vegetarians or vegans – especially in Raccoonopolis to the south. Does that tell you something?”

  “It tells me why a city raccoon wanted to come up here and marry Aunt Pawsense,” Bandit explained.

  “Precisely. He migrated here because his people had nothing to eat in the city but veggie burgers.”

  “Now he gets to eat fresh Clams and Crayfish with Cranberry sauce, surrounded by his fat daughters,” Bandit said wistfully.

  “We shall have to return to the Old Ways of living off the land,” Clutch said.

  “The Old Ways require a lot of effort now because you can’t just enjoy them; you have to protect them. You have to defend your hunting ground against intruders who want to eat the nourishing food. Your Aunt can afford to live the Old Ways because her partner assists with the defense.”

  “His scent empties the forest.”

  “Clutch, dear. Don’t you think that’s a little uncivil?”

  “Uncivil? Aunt Pawsense married him so she can build a dynasty. She’ll marry off her daughters to his relatives, and they’ll all move up here and protect her territory. Suddenly you have an Empire. It’ll be called New Raccoonopolis. Not exactly living close to Nature in the Old Ways!”

  “Do consider what you mean by the Old Ways? They’re not as wild and pure as you think. Raccoons have lived beside Primates for as long as anyone can remember.”

  “Actually, I think Uncle Smartwhisker is cool,” Bandit said. “He cares about his family, even though he can’t remember their names.”

  “As for us, we have our River,” Slypaws said. “There’s always something juicy in a river. My sister only has a pond. If she tries to steal an egg, she gets swarmed by Red-winged Blackbirds. We have acorns and nuts and grapes in our little forest, and chestnuts to dig out of the ground where the Squirrels bury them, and peanuts and black oil sunflower seeds which the Idiot gives to the Chickadees, who jam them in the tree bark for storage.”

  I thought that Mother Slypaws might be feeling inferior to her older sister in the eyes of her cubs. Hadn’t she chosen a safe habitat for her little family?

  “That’s how you got us through the winter! Nuts and seeds. Food for Squirrels and Birds,” Clutch said. “You’ve turned us into vegans.”

  “Plus pizza,” Bandit said.

  “I wonder what the neighbourhood Primates have been eating this week?” Touchwit bringing the discussion back into focus. There is the sound of noses sniffing.

  “You’ll find out when you tip the bins.”

  Slypaws was ensuring that her cubs used their initiative. After the Summer Solstice, they’d have to survive on their own instead of relying on her. In these parts, the Summer Solstice is when mothers take their cubs out to survey future dens.

  “Give us a clue.”

  “Alright. The Primate two houses away eats food delivered in boxes. That’s where I got the pizza for you during the Winter. Further up the street there’s a vegan whose bin isn’t worth the effort. You won’t find fish or flesh or fowl in her bin. Not even eggs. Vegans are becoming numerous.”

  “What’s wrong with eating meat and fish and birds?” Clutch asked.

  “They’re living creatures. Some humans think that it’s wrong to kill a living creature just so that you can eat its body.”

  “Plants are living creatures. We kill them and eat their bodies,” Bandit said.

  “True,” Slypaws said. “When you eat a crabapple, you’re eating one of the tree’s ovaries.”

  “I see why vegans won’t eat certain things,” Touchwit said. “But I don’t understand why they won’t eat creatures who aren’t going to live a long time anyway. Like Crayfish or Clams.”

  Slypaws’s reply was delicate: “I don’t know. Maybe some eat Clams, but never Crayfish. Worms, but never Frogs.”

  “I get it!” Clutch exclaimed. “Vegans won’t eat creatures who have faces.”

  “Or anything belonging to a creature with a face. Bees have faces, so vegans won’t eat honey. And vegans won’t even use the skin or fur of a living creature. They consider it theft.”

  “What if vegetables had faces?” Touchwit mused.

  “So, what’s left for us to eat when we pop a lid?” Bandit asked, trying to clear his head of his sister’s whimsy.

  “These days, we have to be selective about our food choices. As Primates evolve, so Raccoons evolve,” Slypaws said, quoting a proverb.

  “That means we have to sniff out the choice bits and pull them out of the bags like Skunks,” Touchwit said. She didn’t make this comparison with scorn. Skunks, in spite of their ability to send an attacker reeling with their spray, are very hygienic animals.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Clutch said. “After we pop a lid, we strew the contents of the container all over the garden and especially the front path. All the better to eat selectively in our own spaces without getting on top of each other. Also, it leaves a statement.”

  “That’s our mob!” Bandit said.

  “But how will we know what’s good for us to eat today?” Touchwit asked.

  “Experiment. Whatever doesn’t make you retch will make you stronger. And don’t guzzle the dregs of spirit juice from the empty bottles in the open bins. It’s not good for raccoons.”

  At that remark, they began their sortie. For creatures who are secretive, the mess they were about to make would be a flagrant manifesto, a vivid claim that they owned the neighbourhood. I stayed up late. I usually do. I’m a writer and my profession is nocturnal. That’s why I feel I have a special bond with the Procyon species and am able to understand them. I would guard the fort until they returned.

  Return? Absolutely! They came home like they were returning from a party, and one of them missed his footing and dropped straight down the chimney well to the bottom and passed out. Untranslatable growling up and down the chimney. But at the open top, singing. One of them was singing. It was Touchwit singing a moist lullaby to the stars.

  I don’t understand raccoons at all.

  9

  Another outburst in the chimney! Brimstone pits and hell! These snarling explosions of petulance are becoming more frequent now that the sun is hitting the chimney top.

  “Mom, tell Witless to stop pulling hairs out of my tail.”

  “I need them for my Making.”

  “Get them from your own tail.”

  “That wouldn’t be right. The material has to come from something other than the maker.”

  “Your material is taking up all the space in the den. Especially the grapevines.”

  “Your Makings are very beautiful, darling – but Bandy has a point. Do you really need all these vines for your objects? I like the grass ones better. I don’t get caught in them.”

  “The whole idea is to get caught in them.”

  “Is that why you’re weaving my tail hair into the vines? I’m supposed to get caught in it?”

  “A little bit of you. Yes.”

  “What, pray tell, does my body hair have to do with your Making?”

  “Your hair makes it more authentic. Like I said, the Making can’t be all me; it has to be a little bit me and a little bit something that’s not-me. That’s what gives it meaning.”

  “What does this one mean?”

  “I don’t know. I have to find out by making it.”

  “It means I need more space,” Clutch says.

  “What are you finding out from this one?” Bandit asks.

  “I’m not sure. Something about a balance of the materials of the Making. If there’s balance in the composure of the materials, there’s probably a balance in the environment where the materials came from. What do you think?”

  “I think that I find out about a balance by tiptoeing along one of those thick wires that hums under your feet.”

  “You would! I find out about balance by fashioning Makings. It’s less scary.”

  “But it’s more … authen – whatever you call it?”

  “New word, Clutch. Auth-en-tic. It means being your whole true self.”

  “I am my whole true self.”

  “No, you’re not. Parts of you are out there in the River and the Forest. Or in the Sky with your Great Raccoon Ancestor. Or in Dad – wherever he is. You’re scattered all over the place.”

  “I shall venture forth and find my missing pieces.”

  “It’s not enough just to find them. You have to coax them to cohere in just the right way. I know what – I’ll create a Making for your quest. It might guide you.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Wear it around my neck? I’ll trip over the stupid thing.”

  “You just have to think of it.” Touchwit sounds hurt.

  “I don’t think you should call Touchwit’s Makings ‘stupid’,” Slypaws says.

  “At least, it gives her something to do with her hands. They are always fidgeting,” Clutch says.

  “Think that she’s adding something to the world,” Slypaws says.

  “She’s adding clutter to the world.”

  “Clutch, until you find yourself, all your bits and pieces are going to be cluttering up the world. Your name is synonymous with clutter.”

  “Touchwit has a glitch in her hand-eye coordination. She has a virus.”

  “Maybe she’s got the mumbles.”

  Time for Slypaws to intervene. This is getting personal.

  “Clutch, love. You too, Bandit. Your sister might be bringing something entirely new to your eyes. Something that wasn’t there before. Isn’t that it, Touch?”

  “That’s right. But it isn’t clutter like Clutch thinks. It isn’t useful or useless. It just is.”

  No one spoke further. They were content to leave the issue there. However, a larger issue was finding its voice in Touchwit’s makings. The world was very big and the chimney was getting smaller by the hour. It could no longer accommodate the three cubs and their energies.

  10

  I didn’t hear my colleagues behind the wall for some time. They came and went discreetly at odd hours like boarders. Outside my study window, moss began to grow on the limbs of the Manitoba Maple because of the rain. My neighbour’s Forsythia held its yellow blossoms under grey skies and the robins sang for a sun that rarely shined. About mid-May, the weather changed and in the first full day of sunlight the mosquitoes and flies hatched, warblers appeared out of nowhere, the ferns unfolded, and the crabapple tree exploded into crimson blossoms like a firework. Soon the blackbirds would be plucking mayflies off the lilac blossoms. Then Spring would be here in its fullness, not begrudgingly but triumphantly. But what were the Raccoons up to?

  I guessed they were exploring their world and discovering the nourishment that is available to them in the wild: tadpoles, clams, crayfish, minnows, water spiders, pinheads, rock perch, sunfish, chub, and every other creature called up from the riverbed. In the trees, robins’ eggs and spiders. On the river bank, frogs and turtles and snails.

  But just when I began to feel they had left the chimney to start a new life on their own, there was the familiar chittering at ear level behind my wall. I reached for the stethoscope:

  “Well, we’re certainly not going to go there again!”

  The voice of a stressed mother, relieved that her family was safe at home.

  “What shall we do if we can’t use the community latrine?” That was Clutch, tentatively asserting his status as elder brother through a question. It seemed that Clutch possessed all the qualities of leadership as an intellectual notion, without the desire to engage in a single one of them. His whole existence was a question mark.

  “We’ll start our own latrine,” Mother Slypaws announced. “Any ideas?”

  “The upper verandah where the Idiot sprays water at the squirrels.”

  Thanks, Touchwit. That’s all I need – to wake up in the morning and go out on the balcony to greet the day. The first thing I see is a pile of raccoon scat. The fact that it is exquisitely tidy only adds to the offense.

  “That’s a good place, except Dad might see us,” Clutch said.

  “Do you think he recognized our scents?” Bandit asked.

  Slypaws replied. “I don’t know. There’s no clue in our scents to separate us from the other raccoons in the clan. Now that it’s Spring, we’re eating the same food as the others. And I doubt if the Creep will be interested in checking out this house. He’s too heavy for the cedars anyway, and if he does make it onto the roof I’ll hold my ground at the top of the chimney.”

  “We’ll need to be quiet though,” Bandit said. “Which means no more drinking the leftovers in the Blue Boxes.”

  The remark was directed at Clutch and Touchwit. I hoped they didn’t hear me laughing. It appeared they had discovered alcohol that night Touchwit had come home singing and Clutch had fallen through the chimney. Raccoons love anything that has sugar in it. Sugar is a fatal weakness.

  Touchwit seemed uncharacteristically silent. She wouldn’t be embarrassed at drinking wine and beer for the first time – she was bursting to be a grown-up.

  “Your father is only the face of the problem. The problem itself is political economy.” Slypaws’s voice diminished to a whisper. I had to press the disc of the stethoscope hard against the wall to hear her elaboration. “Look, kids. We’ve learned some things from our reconnaissance. Precarious things. There are pressures on the River. More raccoons want to settle here. The Clan Fathers can’t protect their territories individually against all the newcomers. They can’t look after the scattered hunting grounds of their respective families. They are considering that they need to unite and serve under a Supreme Male in order to protect the whole clan territory. Meatbreath is promoting himself as the overall leader.”

  “Our Dad!” I heard awe in Clutch’s voice.

  “Help! It’s every Cub for himself!” Bandit said.

  I’m not sure from these sentiments if the young family understood politics, but I do. First of all, there is no universal model for the social organization of raccoons. They organize themselves variously depending on the landscape and the species. But in the Eastern Woodlands, a common model is a network of clan families dominated by the senior males. These family heads hang out together like oligarchs, boasting about the number of cubs they’ve sired and gossiping about the competing raccoons in the adjacent territories. As males sharing a common clan responsibility, they are relaxed most of the year about crossing into each other’s family hunting grounds. Two or more families can co-habit the same hunting ground, with the one father visiting his various wives and children. There are other kinds of social organization, but this versatile model prevailed on the River. Now in the face of migrating raccoons, the breeding males, the Clan Fathers, were yielding up their paternal roles in exchange for the security offered by the strongest male, Meatbreath. And this centralizing of power was occurring at the height of the mating season, which made the autocracy all the more intense.

  “This is going to mess up all the balances in the hunting grounds. They depend on local knowledge and nearby fathers. What are we going to do?” Touchwit put the question to her whole family.

  “Hey, here’s an idea. Why don’t we stop getting drunk and instead stand up for ourselves? The only thing an alpha male understands is brute force.”

  “Go right ahead, Bandit. Me? – I’m going to consult our Customs. They will tell us what to do.”

  “Clutch, what’s the time-honoured Custom for negotiating with a power nozzle?” Bandit asked. The sarcasm was beginning to mount.

  “I don’t know, but there’s a Custom for every situation so there must be one for dealing with a raccoon who’s become a bully. I’m sure the problem has happened before.”

  Silence. The children are turning to their mother for an answer. But Slypaws is saying nothing.

  “If we can’t fight, we have to turn tail and flee. That’s the best Custom I know,” Bandit said eventually.

  “That’s because it’s the only one you know,” Touchwit said.

  “Where are we going to flee to?” Clutch asked.

  “We can go to Aunt Pawsense’s pond.”

  “Sure, that’s going to work. Four more mouths for her to feed. And she’s already got plans for inviting grown-up raccoons to defend her pond. All they have to do in return is marry her daughters.”