The Berry Patch Has Been Found Out

This morning, when the birds went to their favorite berry patch, they had not considered the possibility that other animals in the forest also knew about this particular patch of delicious berries. 

The birds always thought this berry patch was their secret little spot. They had been coming here for years and had never seen anyone else. But today, well, today when they arrived they saw a raccoon gleefully sitting around and eating some of the sweet and delicious berries they had hoped to enjoy. 

The birds gathered around for a quick conference about what they should do about the raccoon -- 

“Let’s throw him in a bucket of water!”

“We’re not going to throw him in a bucket of water Terrance! Why is that always your first suggestion?”

“Because... It would work?”

“How Terrance? Tell me how? For once tell me how that would work? Have you ever watched the news? Do you know what we look like? We are small. We don't have strong arms and we don't have strong legs. How do you suppose we would get any leverage to push a raccoon into a bucket of water? Where would we even begin?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to come up with the logistics of the plan. I’m just the idea guy!”

“Well that was a terrible idea, Terrance. You’re officially fired as the idea guy. What kind of idea guy always has the same idea anyway?”

Terrance had never been fired from a job before. This was something he didn’t know how to handle or respond to. The other birds seemed to quickly move on and began discussing other ideas about what to do now that their secret berry spot has been found out. Terrance was starting to feel consigned to oblivion. He wanted to shout out, “You’ll be sorry! I’d like to see who comes up with the ideas around here when you don’t have ol' Terrance to push around!” But he didn't shout that. 

“What if we just talked to the raccoon first? Maybe he would be amenable to keeping the spot under wraps and not telling other people.” Ava offered. 

“That’s a great idea,” said Akai, the leader of the group, “Who wants to go over and talk to the raccoon?”

Well here it comes, thought Terrance. Obviously the reason I rose to the position of idea man was because I am easily the best talker of the group. Now they’ll see, they’ll come crawling back and...

“Ava, do you want to talk to him?” Akai asked. 

“Absolutely!” She quickly responded. After all, the idea to talk to the raccoon was hers anyway. Ava had been waiting for this moment for a long time. She had been hoping for a chance to demonstrate what she had learned in a YMCA conflict resolution seminar she took 3 years ago and that opportunity was finally here. Now was her time to shine. 

Terrance just knew this was a bad approach. Nothing short of pushing the raccoon into a bucket of water was good enough to achieve the desired results. He was ready to watch this go horribly wrong and watch this group fall apart now that they had fired him. "Oh, now they’ll see... Now they’ll learn." Terrance thought. 

Ava gingerly made her way over to the raccoon. 

She began speaking. 

Terrance and the rest of the birds watched with bated breath as the raccoon’s eyes narrowed at Ava. 

The raccoon’s mouth opened. It opened wide. The teeth were razor sharp. Then, the raccoon’s mouth closed. It opened again, and closed again and opened again, just for a second, but also closed again, the raccoon's mouth was opening and closing very rhythmically and purposefully and it was talking. The raccoon was talking to Ava. The two of them were simply talking. Back and forth. He opened his mouth she opened hers, then him then her and... Terrance did not see that coming. 

They talked some more. Terrance wondered how this was happening, how long could this go on?

Now the two were... laughing? Laughing! Making jokes! 

Ava turned and walked back to the birds. 

“How did it go?” Akai started. 

“Better than we could have hoped!” Ava said. “He was actually thinking about coming over and saying something to us too! His dad used to bring him here for berries when he was young and he’d never seen anyone here either. He doesn’t tell a soul and hopes we’ll do the same... Well, he’ll probably tell his kids..."

“Fair.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.” 

Terrance could not believe what he was hearing, what he was seeing -- 

"I don't know, I still think it's a better idea to...” 

All the birds turned to Terrance and narrowed their eyes. The raccoon even seemed to have overheard this comment and he turned to Terrance as well, eyes narrowed. 

Terrance looked at so many narrowed eyes staring back at him. 

"Never mind..."