“Hi, Nora, how are you?” Marilyn Walker asks as I hand her a bag.
“I’m great. How are you? Is your ankle feeling better?”
She picks up her foot and rotates it. “A little better every day.” She heads off for one of the picnic tables, where she’ll be joined shortly by a couple of her friends after they pick up their bags.
I hand out five more bags before I notice Alex striding across the grass. I give him a little wave, which he returns. He stops several feet away, just observing. I continue handing out the tote bags to the people who formed the short line in front of me, greeting each of them and exchanging small talk before they disperse throughout the park.
Finally, it’s just Alex and me. There are three bags left. I grab the handle of the wagon and start for a bench under one of the trees near the stream. “Come on, we can sit over here,” I tell him.
He falls into step next to me, taking the handle of the wagon from me and linking his fingers with my free hand as we walk. It’s silly, but my stomach flips over at the casual way he touches me.
We settle onto a bench, and I hand over one of the tote bags. He looks inside, then gives me the quizzical glance that I’m expecting.
“What is this about?”
I laugh and pull an item out of my bag. It’s a mini screwdriver. I also have a small bunch of dried flowers, and a biodegradable plastic bag with sardines inside. Alex withdraws a mini flashlight, a used-up toilet paper tube, and a small package of dry cat food from his bag.
“All you have to do is set the bag on the ground, kind of over to the side where it looks like it belongs to you, but you’re not really paying attention to it.” I do exactly that with my bag, setting it on the end of the bench, then crossing my legs and angling my body away from the bag.
He sets his on the ground just under the bench, then turns to me.
“This is otter club?”
I grin and nod. “Wait for it.” I point to the bench where Greg and Donna are sitting. An otter is already approaching the yellow bag sitting next to their bench.
The otter rummages inside the bag, finds an item, pulls it out, then scampers off toward the bank of the stream where its den is located.
“What is this?” Alex says with a chuckle.
“Our otters are pickpockets,” I tell him, watching for his reaction.
His grin grows, and he meets my gaze. “Really?”
“Really. They used to steal things out of bags, purses, backpacks, whatever they could get into. Anything that got set down for too long. Even lunch bags. So, besides warning everyone not to bring bags that are easily opened to the park, and certainly not to leave them unattended, we’ve trained the otters that these yellow bags are fair game. Each bag has a few little items in it—some things they can mess with, some just junk that they’ll play with and then will biodegrade, and some food. But the otters can take whatever they want. They take the stuff back to their dens and hoard it.”
I laugh at the look on Alex’s face. It’s a mix of bewilderment and delight.
“And they can actually tell the difference between these bags and just regular duffel bags or purses?”
“Well, if you bring a bag to the park and leave it somewhere and walk off, you’re going to get something stolen,” I say. “But over time we’ve trained the otters that the yellow bags are for them.”
“And these same otters have just stayed here?”
“Well, there are new ones, of course, from time to time. But the ones that have been around teach the new ones. They especially like shiny things, and seemingly things with switches and buttons. Like the little flashlight.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see an otter start to approach us.
“Do we need to stay really still?” Alex asks quietly.
I shake my head and laugh, looking over at the animal. “They’re pretty used to all of us being around. They don’t get spooked easily.”
We watch as the otter opens the bag and reaches inside. He first pulls out the screwdriver and seems very interested, butthen replaces it and takes out the fish instead. He scampers off as I laugh.
“They do most often go for food. But not always.”
“Do you find stuff scattered around?” Alex asks.
I nod. “For sure. And floating in the stream, since a lot of their burrows are right along the banks. We just gather it up and then use it again some other time.”
