The Otter Family's Terrible Tuesday

Riva woke up to the sound of rain drumming on the riverbank.

Not the gentle, pitter-patter kind of rain that makes you want to snuggle deeper into your nest. No. This was the loud, splattery, get-in-your-ears kind of rain that says, "Good morning! Everything is going to be DIFFICULT today!"

Riva stretched her long, sleek body and yawned. She was the mother of the busiest, wiggliest, most wonderfully impossible little otter pup on the whole river. His name was Cub, and he was already awake.

She knew this because she could hear him.

"MOM! MOM! THERE'S A BEETLE ON A LEAF AND IT'S SPINNING! MOM, ARE YOU WATCHING? MOM!"

Riva closed her eyes for one more second. Just one.

"I'm coming, Cub."

She slid out of their cozy burrow and into the grey, grumbly morning. Cub was bouncing — actually bouncing — at the water's edge, pointing at a leaf that had already floated away.

"You missed it," he said sadly. Then, instantly happy again: "Can we go fishing? I want to catch the biggest fish in the river. I want to catch a fish as big as a LOG."

"First, breakfast," said Riva. "I'll catch us something. You stay right here on the bank and practice your floating."

"I don't WANT to practice floating," said Cub. "Floating is boring. I want to do diving."

"Floating first," said Riva firmly. "You need to get your floating steady before you dive."

"But MOM—"

"Floating. First."

Riva dove into the water. The river was cold and murky from the rain. She couldn't see nearly as well as usual. She swam down to the rocky bottom where the fat, silver fish liked to hide, and she spotted one right away — a beautiful, plump trout tucked behind a stone.

She lunged.

The fish shot sideways like a little silver rocket.

Riva twisted, kicked, lunged again—

Missed.

The fish zagged left. Riva zagged left. The fish zagged right. Riva zagged right. The fish did something completely impossible — it seemed to go UP and DOWN at the same time — and then it was gone. Just gone, into the cloudy water.

Riva surfaced, breathing hard. No fish.

"Did you get one?" called Cub from the bank.

"Not yet!"

She dove again. She found another fish — a smaller one, but it would do. She crept closer, closer, wiggled her whiskers, and POUNCED—

The fish squirted right through her paws like a wet bar of soap.

"Oh, COME ON," Riva bubbled underwater.

She chased it. She cornered it against a log. She was SO close, her claws were practically touching its tail, and then — fwooop — it slipped into a tiny crack in the log that was absolutely, definitely too small for any reasonable fish to fit through.

But it fit.

Because today was Tuesday.

Riva popped back up to the surface, whiskers drooping, paws empty. She'd been fishing for ages and hadn't caught a single thing. She looked toward the bank to check on Cub.

Cub was not on the bank.

Cub was not practicing his floating.

Cub was far downstream, diving.

"CUB!" Riva shouted, swimming toward him as fast as she could. "CUB, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Cub's little head popped up. "I'm DIVING, Mom! Watch!"

He flipped under the water, and Riva's heart jumped into her throat. She raced downstream and grabbed him just as he came sputtering back up, coughing and flailing.

"I told you to stay on the bank!" Riva said, pulling him to the shallows. Her voice was sharp, but her paws were gentle. "You're not ready for diving in the deep part! The current is strong today because of the rain — you could have been swept away!"

"But I was FINE," Cub protested, even though he was shivering, and his eyes were a little too wide.

"You were NOT fine. You were coughing up half the river."

Riva pulled him onto the bank and tucked him against her warm belly. Cub squirmed.

"I want to try again."

"No."

"Just one more—"

"No, Cub."

Cub went quiet. But it was the loud kind of quiet. The kind where you could practically hear him thinking about how unfair everything was.

Riva sighed. Her stomach growled. She still hadn't caught breakfast. The rain was getting heavier. Her pup wouldn't listen. And now he was giving her the silent treatment, which — if you've never gotten the silent treatment from a baby otter — is surprisingly effective, because they have very large, very round, very sad eyes.

She tried fishing one more time, keeping Cub right beside her in the shallows. She spotted a small perch. She pounced.

She missed.

She pounced again.

Missed AGAIN.

The little perch actually seemed to look at her before swimming away. Like it was embarrassed for her.

That was it. That was the moment Riva, proud otter mother and usually excellent fisher, sat down on a wet rock in the rain and said, out loud, to nobody in particular:

"I give up."

Cub looked at her. He'd never heard his mother say that before.

"Today," Riva continued, "is a terrible, horrible, no-good Tuesday, and I think we should just go back to bed and wait for Wednesday."

Cub blinked. Then he waddled over and sat on the wet rock next to her. For a moment, they just sat there together, two wet otters in the rain.

"Mom?" Cub said quietly.

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I went diving. The water was really scary when I went under. It was all pushy and swirly. I didn't think it would be like that."

Riva looked at him. "That's why I wanted you to practice floating first. So you could feel how the water moves before you go under it."

Cub nodded slowly. "Okay." He paused. "Mom?"

"Yes?"

"I can maybe... try floating now? If you want."

Riva almost smiled. Almost.

"How about this," she said. "We'll go to the calm pool behind the big rocks. The current can't reach us there. We'll float together."

They slid into the calm pool, and Riva showed Cub how to lie on his back, paws up, letting the water hold him. Cub wobbled. He sank a little. He grabbed Riva's tail.

"Just relax," Riva said softly. "Let the water do the work."

Cub tried again. He wobbled less. He let go of her tail — just for a second — and floated. Actually floated! His little round belly stuck up like a furry island.

"MOM! I'M DOING IT! I'M—" He got excited and sank immediately.

But he came up laughing.

They practiced and practiced. Cub sank a LOT. But he floated a little more each time. And while they were floating and sinking and laughing, Riva felt something bump against her back.

She flipped over in one quick motion and — without even thinking, without trying — scooped up a fish. A fat, beautiful, absolutely perfect trout that had wandered into the calm pool like it had a dinner reservation.

Riva held it up, stunned.

"MOM!" Cub shrieked. "YOU CAUGHT A FISH! THE BIGGEST FISH I'VE EVER SEEN!"

It was not the biggest fish he'd ever seen. It was medium at best. But right then, in that moment, it felt enormous.

They climbed onto the bank and shared their breakfast under the shelter of an old willow tree while the rain pattered on the leaves above them. Cub leaned against Riva's side, still chewing.

"Mom?"

"Mm?"

"This is a pretty good Tuesday after all."

Riva looked at the rain, and the river, and the half-eaten fish, and her soggy, impossible, wonderful little pup, who was already drifting off to sleep against her fur.

"Yeah," she said softly. "I think it is."

And when Cub woke up an hour later, the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and the very first thing he said was:

"Can I practice floating again?"

And Riva smiled — a real, full smile — and said, "Race you to the calm pool."

They hit the water together, side by side, with a splash so big it startled that same little perch, who looked at them both and swam away in a huff.

It was, in the end, a very fine Tuesday indeed.