Free Raising Rufus by David Fulk

“Ballet de Beavre.” How they taught those big rodents to dance and prance around that little stage wearing fluffy white tutus, and to do it a dozen times every day, is a mystery only a beaver’s brain can fathom. But their rendition of
Swan Lake
never failed to entertain and inspire.
    Another audience favorite, especially with the kids, took place in the Walleye Theater. The stage was home to magicians, acrobats, jugglers, and novelty acts of all descriptions. The show’s masters of ceremonies were “Curtis and Jake,” a pair of backwoods dimwits who kept ’em laughing with a nonstop barrage of bad puns, slapstick routines, and big, toothless grins. Many of the folks in Menominee Springs didn’t much appreciate being portrayed to the world as dumb country hicks, but as long as visitors kept buying tickets to the shows, Ben Fairfield didn’t concern himself with such things.
    By the end of the day, Martin’s feet felt like they had sandbags attached to them, and he leaned against a railing to give them a bit of a break. He could see Mr. Fairfield standing in his usual spot just below the talking fish, greeting the arriving customers with a handshake and a smile. “Hi there, folks! Thanks for coming today.”
    He seemed happy enough, but in between groups of guests his expression darkened, and he fidgeted tensely. Martin had sensed his mood all day and kept his distance, but his dad wasn’t afraid to walk up to him. “Little slow for opening day, eh, Ben?”
    “Disaster,” Mr. Fairfield snapped. “Worst in twenty years.”
    “I wouldn’t sweat it based on one day. Whole season to go yet.”
    The words of encouragement didn’t help, and Mr. Fairfield marched away gruffly.
    —
    For Martin, this job meant some extra dollars in his pocket for spending cash. And as the owner of a rapidly growing pet with a giant appetite, he needed a
lot
of spending cash. He was amazed at how fast Rufus had grown in just five weeks—and how much food he put away. At first, Martin collected as many dinner scraps and leftovers as he could take without raising suspicions, but pretty soon it just wasn’t enough. So he had to do the one thing he had sworn he never would: he raided the mayonnaise jar holding his life savings—all forty-eight dollars and twenty-six cents of it. He used every penny to buy dozens of cans of a dog food called Fido-Nummy, because it was cheap and Rufus liked it.
    And the bigger Rufus got, the more Fido-Nummy he ate. Martin was keeping a log of his growth, and he could hardly believe how fast the numbers went up:

    The weight measurements weren’t quite exact, because Martin had a hard time holding Rufus on his mom’s bathroom scale, which he would occasionally borrow while she was at work. But he figured his numbers were pretty close.
    —
    By the time the Trout Palace had been open for a week, Martin’s money supply was about gone, and the Fido-Nummy was dwindling fast. He had put in a good ten hours of work there, and he needed to get paid, and soon. At the end of that warm Friday, he spotted his dad replacing a lightbulb on the U-Bag-Em and briskly walked up to him.
    “Hi, Dad. I finished washing those tools.”
    “Huh?…Oh. Yeah.”
    “So…is that it?”
    “Um…did you sweep up the theater like I said?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Sanded the splinters off the thing…?”
    “Yep.”
    Martin stood there, nervously scratching his shoulder, as Mr. Tinker kept wrestling with the hard-to-reach bulb, grunting under his breath.
    “Okay,” Martin finally said. “Guess that’s it.” He trotted off toward Ben Fairfield’s office.
    “Where’re you going?”
    “Mr. Fairfield said I’d get paid on Fridays.”
    “No, don’t bother him. I’ll get it from him later. Here.” He took out his wallet and extracted a few bills. But he didn’t hand them to Martin right away; instead he just stood there, studying him.
    Martin figured he was about to get a lecture or something, and he was not