​ Humans are Weird – Measure Thrice  Hopper gurgled happily to herself as she adjusted the awkward bundle of cloth on her back once more. She had spent hours washing the cloth by paw in traditionally made, plant based soaps. The grain oils that had originally dirtied the material had mostly washed out, leaving the pattern that Sally Mai had requested. The human had recently flung herself into a series of art projects with a drive that was almost frightening in its intensity. While Hopper was delighted to find a way to participate, she was coming today as much to check on Sally Mai’s mental state as to gift her the patterned cloth.
The gravel leading up to Sally Mai’s dwelling crunched pleasantly under Hopper’s paws as she neared. Usually this sound was enough to alert Sally Mai to the presence of a visitor but she had not come to the door by the time Hopper reached it. Hopper lifted up on her hind legs and thumped one paw on the frame of the door. Apparently the traditional greeting of slapping the door with one’s tail didn’t quite translate well in human communities. Something about their doors not being meant to take that kind of abuse.
Today the thumping was met with a mildly startling scream from within. A sound rather like steam escaping from a safety vent. Hopper clicked her teeth in amusement and opened the door. The front entryway was cluttered with torn open shipping containers strewn about in defiance of every known safety regulation. Hopper gingerly lifted the cloth she was bringing over several suspiciously wet looking substances and something that smelled of dead trees.
From a room deeper in the structure Sally Mai’s voice was ranting in that peculiar tone humans used when addressing inanimate objects that they felt had offended them with deliberate malice. Hopper came to a door hung with a bead curtain and poked her nose through. Sally Mai was fairly small for a human with her thin, delicate bone structure showing clearly under her soft skin. Her hair was deep, cave black but the oils that kept it smooth caught the sun and reflected iridescent glints. At the moment much of her hair was escaping the tight bun she kept it in while working and her forearm bones showed their shape clearly in her hands and wrists as she stretched a cloth oval in what was clearly a futile attempt to get it to fit over metal grid-frame.
“I measured!” Sally Mai was nearly screaming at the offending item. “Twice now I measured! Both of you why won’t you fit!”
The last word was accompanied by a tremendous strain at the material and another failure for the cloth to attach to the hooks on the grid-frame. Sally Mai gave an exasperated screech like soft metal rending and flung the circle of cloth into a corner to join several others.
“It looks like its time to sit down and have a nice chew,” Hopper suggested.
Sally Mai leapt comically up with a gasp and stared at her in shock. Hopper waved her tail in greeting as she adjusted the cloth she had brought.
“Let’s get some nice, tough small-loaves and-”
“That’s the sacking for me?” Sally Mai demanded, her bright, bi-focal eyes landing on Hopper’s burden.
“Yes,” Hopper agreed, unbuckling the carry harness and letting the material drop to the relatively clean floor in this room. “Now, you smell all kinds of flustered. Before you try cutting this for your project let’s just sit and ruminate over some good...you are not listening to a grain of my point, are you?”
Sally Mai had snatched up the cloth and was rolling out one end onto her cutting work bench.
“Yes, yes,” the human muttered absently. “We’ll have a good chew. Got some nice aged loaves just – gotta cut this. It’ll be right this time.”
“Now Sally Mai,” Hopper said, trying to make her tone gentle but firm to human hearing. “Do you really think cutting it again in this state of fermentation is going to get you what you want? Let’s go rest a bit-”
“I know what I did wrong last time!” Sally Mai insisted as she marked the cloth with trembling hands. “Just let me-”
What she wanted Hopper to let her do was cut off as the human shoved her marking tool into her mouth and grabbed her cutting tool with hands trembling with eagerness. The cutting tool made a pleasant zizzing sound as it parted the fibers and a neat circle fell out of the material onto the work bench. Sally Mai snatched it up and ran back to her grid-frame. It almost did look like it would fit this time, but as Sally Mai attempted to stretch the material the final few claw lengths the truth bubbled to the surface.
“No!” the human shrieked, this time flinging the grid-frame itself across the room with a loud clang. “I am an idiot!”
The human suddenly folded down into a rough egg shape and made hissing sounds through her teeth. Hopper walked over on her hind legs and gently rubbed between the human’s shoulder blades. The pattern of breathing Hopper could hear and the faint scent of saltwater suggested that Sally Mai was crying.
“I wasted nearly a yard of that cloth you got me,” the human muttered from the depth of her egg-shape.
“There is more than enough to try again,” Hopper soothed her.
“Why did I rush in like that?” Sally Mai demanded, letting her head rock back and her limbs sprawl out, knocking over a mug with small amounts her favorite morning stimulant still lingering in it. She brought her hand up to rub her eyes. “I needed to rest! To have a snack!”
It was a very good question, and they were distinctly good ideas, Hopper thought. Sally Mai stared at the clear ceiling that was letting in the specific amount of light she needed for her art, finally she sighed and gathered her limbs to stand up.
“Come on Hopper,” the human said as she used her toes to grab at a nearby rag and soak up the spilled remnants of the drink, “let’s go have a chew at some small-loaves and then I can come back to this project with a clear head and a steady hand.”
“Now that is a well fermented idea!” Hopper said. “So glad you thought of it!”
Sally Mai snorted and rapped her knuckles against Hopper’s head. Hopper clicked her teeth in amusement and used her tail to flick the latest failure over to the waste pile with the others. Why a human, with entire control of her own schedule refused to eat until it hindered her ability to work was a mystery beyond her, but she had seen the situation play out often enough that she found it far less worth pursuing than the promised small-loaves.




Author Betty Adams Books
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