The current forced his legs over his head as he spiraled under the rapids. He opened his eyes, and everything was a blur of dark gray and bubbles. He waited for the right moment and kicked off the bottom of the bank, shooting toward the surface of the water. When he broke out into the air to breathe, he inhaled raindrops into his lungs, and sputtered, thrashing his arms. Jack ran along the riverbank shouting for help, but the rain and the rapids drowned out his voice. Keene got sucked under the current of the rapids again, arms flailing to prevent another spin, but all of his energy and breath was almost gone. He’d have to release the last pocket of air in his lung any second despite how much he tried to keep it in. Everything went duller, and slower, and finally, he admitted that he might die today.
His entire body tingled. Little prickles grazed inside his skin—the same the sensation he felt after sitting on his tail for too long, but there was a tight pressure in his chest, too. Spit it out, said a harsh voice in his head. He coughed up water and bile into the river, but felt a gentle lift soon after. It was almost like he was riding the elevator in the town mall, the same feeling of a swallowing your own stomach. His head broke the surface of the water again and he sucked in air like he was hungry for it, tears rolling down his face along with the streaks of torrential rainfall.
He was suspended in the middle of the air without a hook or a rope. Keene threw up another surge of water and stared at the river bank. Something small sat in the sand, covered in brown cloth, but their form was a blur, completely out of focus just like the shaking tree tops. The faint sound of Jack’s voice calling his name echoed behind him and he closed his eyes, blacking out.
When Keene woke up, he was lying supine on the wooden couch in his den. Jack had a towel wrapped around him, shivering with a cup of nettle tea in his hands.
“Y-your stove works real well.” The rat’s teeth chattered, and he took a hearty gulp of the hot liquid substance in his cup.
“Jack! I saw—”
“Don’t strain yourself,” said his mother quietly. She was sitting in the loveseat opposite from him. A warm rag, that he hadn’t noticed until now, slipped off the side of his head. He whimpered, afraid of what she’d say next. She hadn’t taught him to run on logs in the rain. She taught him how to swim, and take care of himself. The only sentiment she could possibly feel right now was disappointment, and it made Keene want to throw up again.
“Pick up that rag, Fran, and dip it in the kettle. Should still be hot.”
“Yes ma,” said his sister, who rubbed the moisture from her bleary read eyes and plucked the cloth from the ground.
“Poor boy. You’ll probably never think of water in the same way ever again, will you? Can be pretty wicked, can’t it?” Rain was still splattering on their tin roof, sounding like rubber bullets, and he nodded, shivering.
“Well, that’s enough of that. We’ll get you better.” She jerked her head towards Jack. “Rat boy, how’d you like to learn to make an easy fish broth?” He squeaked when she made eye contact with him, but he nodded emphatically. “Good. Go cut some chives from the garden and I’ll show you where the good bouillon is after. For the love of heaven, though, take an umbrella with you. I don’t need two children on my hands soaked to the bone.”
Jack tittered nervously with a “yes’m,” and pulled an umbrella from a rack and clippers from a drawer.
“Didn’t even have to tell ‘em where the clippers were. That one’s either incredibly smart or incredibly nosy, but I like his initiative.” A smile stretched across her maw.
“I’m sorry, ma,” said Keene, feeling like he had swallowed up all of the riverbed’s clay and its gravel, too.
Aude let out a harsh laugh. “Sorry for what? The weather? Falling?”
Keene tried to swallow his own spit, but it hurt. “You aren’t mad at me?”
“We aint the first hounds who fell on our asses and we sure as hell won’t be the last. There’s a common idiom for people that kind of attitude. Folks call it kicking a dog when he’s down. Somebody who does that, well… that’s the kind of person you don’t share your soup with, because when the first sight of famine pokes its head around the corner, you can bet he’ll be calling it the end times. He’ll be hoarding all the food he saved up for himself— maybe the rest of his ilk, too, but sure enough you’re not gonna taste a kernel of sweet corn.”
Tears welled up in Keene’s face and they slipped out slow “But I couldn’t do anything. I wasn’t strong enough to fight the current, or careful not to slip in the first place.”
“Who says you’re supposed to do everything alone?” said his ma. She got up, walked over to where he was sitting and petted his back “Everybody needs help. You want to plant your own food? You damn well should, but where’d you get the seeds from? Where’d you get the compost? Who wrote the book that taught you what time of summer to grow corn and what time of year to grow squash? Who taught you how to keep the bugs off of ‘em? Sometimes I look up into outer space and I think: ‘you know, more foxes in our family tree had pups before I came along than I can count stars in the sky, and they made it all the way to me. Who am I to throw away all the knowledge? Real hubris isn’t rejecting the modern way. Real hubris is rejecting the modern way and pretending you did it all on your own. Life in the present is a privilege no matter how many folks think the future looks ugly, because ugly isn’t ever going to keep away from life so long as we draw breath.” She planted a warm kiss on his forehead and he wriggled under the covers. “We can make as much beauty as we want so long as we’re always willing to try again.”
Keene rubbed the tears out of his eyes and hugged his mother. “You’re really smart.”
“Mhm. And you will be too if you turn every experience into an asset. Falling into that river is a part of life that’s utterly yours. You work with what you got.”
The front door opened and Jack came running in with tubular chutes of green vegetables. “Wrassled these from the wild, for you!”
Aude cocked an eyebrow. “The wild? Poor boy, that’s a front yard. Well, I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it for now. At least you didn’t mistake the veggies for something else. Come along, now, let’s chop the veggies first then get the water boiling.” Jack and Aude huddled into the kitchen and Fran jogged into the den with a sopping wet cloth.
“Here,” she grunted, slapping the hot wet rag on his forehead and giving him a bit of a rattle. “Don’t you dare scare me like that ever again. You’re so clumsy.”
“Never thought I’d see you cry over me,” said Keene, shooting his sister a toothy grin.
“Never thought I would either but you’re a walking disaster.” She crossed her arms. “I’m pretty certain you almost died today and now there’s talk about building your own house? What’s this ‘adventure club’ all about anyway?”
Keene heard jack chopping chives in the kitchen and heard his mom correcting him, chiding he was chopping things the slow way.
Keene sat up, balancing the warm rag on top of his head and between his ears. “So how much did Jack tell you?”
“Well, he told ma this elaborate plan to build a clubhouse in our backyard recruiting some of the neighborhood kids and now it seems like they’re thick as thieves. She got a little testy when he brought up the solar panels, though.”
He wasn’t surprised, but the huge puff of air escaped his lungs anyway. The rain abated, now just a timid pitter-patter. Fran folded her hands on her jeans just like Aude did, with one of her digits tapping the side of her palm. “I want to help.”
“What, so you can take over something that doesn’t even exist yet? No.”
“The sooner you move out, the sooner I get my own room too. So what’s the problem?”
“Problem is that you’re going to want to be around all the time if what we make is cool, and I don’t agree to those terms.”
“And I don’t agree to rolling you around in a wheelchair for the rest of my life if you hack your foot clean off, or trip and fall into a saw blade, or crush your tail in the door—”
“Okay. Fine! I’ll think about it.”
“Think about it good, because you know I’m stronger than you,” she preened. The vixen was shorter, but she had muscle, and neighbors often mistook her for the older sibling. She wasn’t wrong, but he didn’t want to admit to that or think about it.
“Soup’s ready!” sang Jack, bringing out a hearty bowl between with two mittens.
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