"Eh?" Jon said, distracted. Had she not interrupted him, things would have gone differently because of Red-sky.
Red-sky had been living in the sea for as long as he could remember. It had seemed like a long time, but some of his friends looked much older and had told him stories of still older otters. What mattered wasn't the time but the moment, the feel of warm water rushing over him as he jumped to get a good look at the newcomers. Sooner or later they'd leave, like all the stories said, so the only chance to explore this new thing was now.
The foreign-scented land-man had a strange rock in his hands, and he was wishing out loud for things. Stranger still, the wishes were coming true! A big floating platform appeared on the waves right in front of him, then a growing pile of boxes and tools atop it. Red-sky darted closer, and when when the man wasn't looking snatched the stone from his hands and flipped away, wanting to see the man's reaction and laugh at him.
"Hey, give that back!" The man changed to a normal otter and blustered his way towards Red-sky, far too slowly. The man's friend, the woman called Karyn, looked alarmed too and joined in the chase. Red-sky's friends signaled that they wanted to play keep-away, but he had an idea about the stone.
"I wish I knew what this thing was," he said, and nearly dropped it into the sea when the answer came to him from nowhere.
Karyn and the man were trying to surround him, so he flipped under them and came up behind Karyn. "Give what back?"
"Quit fooling -- that's ours!"
Red-sky laughed and said, "Okay, okay. But first I wish --"
