Hello there!
There is a lot of excitement around the Holt at the moment, as you can well imagine!
These developments in the Littlepaws Gin distillery are absolutely tremendous and I am very much looking forward to my sample! We are meeting later for inaugural tasting and complementary snacks. Complementary in fact, and complimentary…
Hmmm, whats that?
Oh yes, that’s right… Simon Swifttail is here and he tells me that there are far more important things afoot in the world of quantum exploration and prophecy!
Actually, the young fellow is getting extremely excited about the whole thing, he is dashing backwards and forwards between my office and his lab talking at nineteen to the dozen the whole time! So fast, in fact, that it is quite hard to make out what he is saying most of the time; something about prophetic shirts, something about feathers and heels, something about a kitchen and, for some reason, chicken soup.
Right then, yes, the excitement, the excitement that isn’t gin related that is…
Simon is extremely excited that some events hinted at by the prophecy seem to have played out in Brazil!
Ahh yes, talking of Brazil, I’d better let you read the last part of Zsofia’s superb report!
QUATT Beta Test 1: Temporal Exploration Team Report part 2
“Otters!! in pink and black shirts!!”
We landed on the other side of the window right in the path of some much smaller fully human looking creatures. I don’t know who was more startled, them as we landed or Peter when they pointed at us and started squeaking words in high pitched voices whilst jumping up and down! I heard words such as:
Veja! Lontras minúsculas !!
Que fofo!
tão pequeno!!
My Portuguese is not good, but between us Peter and I (with a little help from Seska) later figured out that these phrases referred to small and cute otters. Well, if we weren’t cute , decoy otters would not be able to do their job, but I am not so sure about small… although subsequent developments may have made me reconsider. But I’ll get to that…
Peter and I dashed towards the squeaking tiny humans, wriggling our way through their legs and outstretched hands, we sped down the ally, rounded the building at the end and clambered up what seemed to be a metal stairway of some sort. This took us all the way to the rooftop where we stopped to catch our breath.
All around us we could hear the drums and exciting music made by the hybrid bird humans, but at increasing volume were the cries of “otters in shirts” “cute otters” “look up there” and the like. Peter voiced some concern that we were drawing a considerable amount of attention, which is not ideal for a time travel expedition. These things are supposed to be secret! It was time to get out of there!
Our return home devices (which still need a sensible name) have been modified in line with the QUATTT to incorporate purely spatial transportation. Part of our brief for this mission was to test this function, this seemed like the perfect time! With no other points of reference, we set the dials for fresh water and pressed the big blue button.
After the peculiar feeling of being dragged backwards from our middles and folded in half several times, we landed with a splash, in, what seemed to be the biggest expanse of water I have ever seen! We wriggled and sploshed and eventually fought our way free from the pink and black fabric which seemed to have come along for the ride, and surfaced at the edge of the enormous river, only to look up into the face of the largest otter I have ever seen!
As we scrambled backward about to dive into the river to get away from this giant, we were brought up short when he said:
“Zsofia, Peter! Welcome my friends, we have been expecting you! Come along with me and I’ll sort out a snack for you before you return”
Peter squeaked in alarm and I have to admit I may have emitted a tiny squeal of my own! Of all the strange things we had encountered so far, meeting a large, slightly sorrowful otter who knew our names has to be the oddest!
So startled were we, that we forgot to do anything at all for a good 30 seconds. Once I recovered my wits, I grabbed Peters paw and was about to make a swim for it when the large chap said:
“Ahh yes you warned me you’d be quite flustered, here are some bowls of catfish and eel soup, have a snack and then you had better get going there is no time to lose”
As he was speaking an almost equally giant female otter dashed out with two steaming bowls which smelled extremely appetising. She set them down, waved cheerily to me, hugged Peter much to his surprise and said:
“With compliments of the Rainforest River Raft”
Then dashed off.
At this point we were so overwhelmed we decided that a snack was probably the best idea at that moment. We ate the delicious soup, Peter used the time to make some notes, and the whole time the giant otter watched us. As we finished, he raised a monumental paw and dived into the river. Just as I was about to ask what was going on too!
My word! That was just marvellous! I can’t make head nor tail of it, but Simon Swifttail has some very interesting theories I can tell you!
Zsofia and Peter did a fantastic job on this expedition, absolutely superb. We have some extremely important avenues of research to pursue now! This will keep the teams busy for a good long while!
First order of businesses to find the recipe of that superb sounding soup!
Of course we need to find out who these tremendous sounding Rainforest fellows are too. That goes without saying! I am sure they will be able to tell the catering team how to make, what was it? Catfish and Eel soup? The sooner we find them the better I say!!
The Otter Chronicles 