“Can we try paddling ashore with our hands?” The mouse felt surprised that the duck cared even a little for his safety. “If I trip and fall over my head will flood and that will pull me down and I’ll drown. Swim.” said the duck with grim finality, but the mouse suspected he was lying. “It’s more in character for you to swim than me - “ They sat silently, watching the water climb higher - or the boat sink lower, take your pick. “Fur - especially that cheap synthetic crap you wear - can be cleaned. “Feathers!” said the duck, shaking his arm at the mouse. “Me? I’ve got white fur! Look at the water!” A fine sheen rested atop the water: Motor oil and diesel fuel and anti-bacterial agents and trash and doubtlessly urine from excited little kids on Huck Finn’s Sandbar who couldn’t wait for Paul Bunyon’s Raft to ferry them back to the restrooms ashore. “Then one of us has to go over the side.” There was a significant pause before the duck said: “Probably not.” They sat silently for a moment, then the mouse asked: “Will we sink if we both stay on the boat?” The mouse lifted his big green sneakers and rested them on the gunwale of the boat the duck did the same with his big spats-wearing webbed feet. “They will fire us! Remember what happened to the cat? She snagged her tail on a ride and they fired her, both for ruining a costume and for breaking character. “Don’t!” said the duck, this time more loudly than before. (The tourists did, of course, and laughed and waved and snapped more pictures.) All stayed fixedly intent on their duties, either tending to tourists or cleaning up tourists’ trash. The mouse looked at the shore, trying to catch the eye of another park worker. “About an inch a minute now,” said the duck, “but as more water fills the boat, the lower it will ride, and the lower it rides the greater the water pressure at the leak, and the greater the water pressure at the leak, the faster it will flood in.” It seemed fitting that the duck would be this well informed about the physical properties of water. The whole circuit takes twenty-seven minutes, and we’ve been sitting here maybe five, maybe six.” It was a cheap form of advertising for the park. The tourists would take photos and videos of the two sitting and bobbing and waving, and share those with their family and friends on social media. Once a day, to fill up what would otherwise be a dead spot in the amusement park’s schedule of events, they put the duck and the mouse in a lifeboat and let them bob up and down, waving at tourists, until Old Ironsides returned to pick them up. Old Ironsides was a ship - a boat-shaped trolley running on a submerged track, actually - that cruised around Huck Finn’s Sandbar every hour on the hour. “How long before Old Ironsides comes back?” “Maintenance is going to hear about this.” The duck made no response. The mouse sat, lifting his shoes as the water level continued to rise. “Sit down, you’re rocking the boat,” said the duck. The tourists on the shore laughed and cheered and waved back, snapping pictures. “They can’t hear us, they’re too far away.” “Don’t talk! We’re not supposed to talk.”
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