The inky little critter was smart enough to stay hidden as a speckle on my tail through the rest of the gig. After a few minutes, I didn’t really notice its presence on my skin, though if I leaned in, I could hear it snoring softly.

Mr. Narrator chuckled. “Must have worn itself out, making such a mess.”

“It’s teenier than last time,” I muttered, wiping up the last few stain streaks left on the wall with a rag. “What if it runs outta ink? What do ink critters eat, anyway?”

“Ink critters?”

“Well, what else can Inky be? Dog ears, googly eyes, a bug-like body, but it purrs like a cat? Critter is the only term that fits that critter.”

“I wish I had a different answer, but I can’t rightly come up with one.”

I started to empty my mopping bucket, switching to thought instead of speech that could be overheard.

You could ask the System, you know.

His slow reply was full of hesitation. “I’ll try to…”

What, you two not getting along?

“The System’s… strange. I don’t think it understands much about us. Oh, it uses words well enough, but there’s not too much behind them. Lots of cheerful slogans.”

Us? You talk about us?

“We are stuck together, aren’t we? When I talk to it about me, I can’t leave you out.”

I suppose you’re right—

“Looks ship-shape, Splatter Girl!” Benson Beaver called from a nearby doorway. “Let me just sign off on today’s work.” He took out his pencil and scribbled his signature at the bottom of the clipboard. Within a few moments, a receipt drifted in from the open door on a gust of air.

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

MIRACLE IN MOTION PICTURES

PAYROLL RECEIPT — CARBON COPY

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

Employee: S. Salamander

Gig: Splatter Girl, Soundstage 5 (Encore Request)

Status: COMPLETE

Rate: Day Rate, Female, Rank 0: 6 SPP × 1.2 Encore Multiplier Completion

Bonus: None

Deductions: None

TOTAL SPP EARNED: 7

System Says: Consistency is its own reward, Sally!

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

Only seven SPP?

No bonus?

“You should think of Inky as your bonus,” Mr. Narrator advised. “Most gigs, even properly executed, hardly come with them.”

And they rounded down!

“What’s this now?”

Six times one-point-two is seven-point-two, ain’t it? So, where’d those two tenths run off to?

“The system can’t track tenths of a point.”

That’s a limitation with the System, not me.

“Is anything wrong, Ms. Salamander?” Benson asked.

“Nah,” I said, trying not to sigh. “I was just making sure I understood how this works.”

Benson nodded. “Encores are a good thing. Your multiplier goes up each time you repeat the same type of gig! Up to one-point-five times the current day rate, that is.”

A sinister light bulb appeared over my head as I glanced at my newest speckle. “Izzat so?”

Benson didn’t seem to notice the light bulb cackling above me. “Very much so. Be sure to accept encore requests when you can.” He glanced rather suspiciously up once again at the rafters with a small shiver. “I’d rather not have any like this one, though.”

I guarantee you’ll be calling on me again real soon.

“Sally!” Mr. Narrator protested. “What are you planning—”

Are you telling me you haven’t put it together yet?

Mr. Narrator fell into a sullen silence.

I said my goodbyes to my boss for the day, then headed into town. It took me a little longer to get to Ink and Main properly, mostly because I kept checking the back of my tail to make sure Inky was still there.

Still sleeping… Well, we’ll work it all out later.

With a bounce in my step, I confidently pushed open the door to a sundry shop, which struck a welcoming bell along the way. An eager raccoon in a pristine apron helped me find the brush and hand mirror I was looking for. At the register, I learned the brush ran three SPP, with the mirror another three on top.

Hmm.

“There’s quite a scratch on the back here,” I noted, pointing at the mirror’s celluloid handle. “Can I get one that doesn’t have any defects?”

He frowned, eyeing my bindle a bit. “How about five SPP for this particular set?”

“Deal!”

I paid, noting I had ten SPP left, out of the seventeen I had earned so far before spending two SPP on bread and butter, along with today’s purchases. A glance at a clock behind the counter told me it wasn’t quite five o’clock, but I needed to hurry if I wanted to make one more stop before close of business.

Or maybe it opens after close of business?

“What are you thinking about, Sally?”

“No Joke Jewelers,” I mumbled as I headed toward The Undercrank. “I want to get an estimate on repairing that pocket watch. If they do that, that is. I remember their sign from the other night.”

“Don’t forget you have class tonight.”

“I won’t, I won’t.”

The jewelry shop was wedged between The Checker’s Club and a shuttered storefront with boarded-up windows. Its own front window was respectable enough, however, housing a few velvet trays of rings. The front door held a hand-painted sign which read:

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

NO JOKE JEWELERS

FINE JEWELRY BOUGHT & SOLD

WE ALSO OFFER FINE REPAIRS

HONEST APPRAISALS

ALL WORK GUARANTEED

ANY OTHER INQUIRIES ARE HANDLED DOWNSTAIRS!

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

Another bell rang over the front door as I opened it. A spectacled possum behind a glass case glanced at me with a rather confused smile. When he saw me reach into my bindle, he pointed rather subtly to a stairwell off to his right.

“No, just looking for a repair. Or at least, how much it’ll cost me.” With a bit of a flourish, I pulled out the pocket watch and set it on the counter. He leaned over and took a good look before even touching it.

“Well now…” he said, finally picking it up with a careful thumb and forefinger. “Haven’t seen such an elegant clockface in some time.”

“Yeah?” I asked, leaning forward as if I hadn’t seen it before myself.

“Looks to be even before the turn of the century,” he mused, pulling a small tool from a vest pocket. “Let’s have a closer look, shall we?”

I almost fell into the glass counter between us before realizing he wasn’t being so literal. He took the tool and used it to pop off the back. “No maker’s mark… that’s a bit strange.”

“Does the W on the back cover mean anything to you?” I asked hesitantly.

The possum gave me a good, hard look. “Luckily, the answer is no. Otherwise I might have to ask you if this watch is yours.”

I held my breath for a moment before turning to the dimly lit stairwell. “Do I… gotta take my inquiry downstairs?”

The possum grinned then. “Not at all. No one’s in the market for anything like this, anyway.” Then he looked at the watch’s exposed gears. “However, it’ll be plenty of points to fix.”

“How many is plenty?” I asked, starting to scowl.

He glanced at my bindle again, then grabbed a pad of paper. “I’ll write you up an estimate.”

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

NO JOKE JEWELER’S REPAIR ESTIMATE TICKET

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

Item: Gentleman’s Pocket Watch, No Maker’s Mark, Engraved “W”

Estimated Age: Pre-1900

Condition: Stopped (broken center wheel pivot, wheel damaged, case dented, hands fixed at 5:00)

Repair Estimate: 48 SPP

Completion: 12–14 days

══════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════

I stared at the ticket.

“F-forty-eight?”

The jeweler nodded, carefully closing up the watch. “Wish I could offer you replacement parts,” he said with a bit of a sigh. “But since there’s no maker’s mark or case number I can match, nothing on the shelf is likely to fit a movement like this. I’ll need to turn the pieces myself and hand-fit to match. It’s not a choice so much as the only way it can be done.”

I nodded glumly. “Can I keep the ticket for now?”

“Of course. Let me sign and date it, too, to make it all official. Come back when you can afford it.”

“Sure.”

I left the shop quietly and quickly headed back to Ink and Main. It was getting dark now, and I didn’t want to end up in anything untoward. Before heading out to night school, however, I found myself a nice bench to take a short rest.

Forty-eight SPP…

“You don’t have to fix it, Sally.”

I looked down at the watch that was still in my hand, opening up the front cover with a satisfying click.

“I know I don’t have to. But I admit, there’s something about it. Like… someone made this special-like. Custom parts. Detailed engraving, even. But forty-eight SPP would be quite the investment. Would it pay off?”

Mr. Narrator sounded positively morose. “The jeweler himself said no one was looking for a piece like it, Sally.”

“Yeah. And that makes me want to fix it all the more.”

“It—it does?!” he asked, all incredulous-like.

I closed the watch, stuffed it in the bindle, then stood up and stretched before scratching unceremoniously at an itch between my shoulder blades. “Yeah. It’s something different. And that’s probably why I like it. Eclectic pieces always have some story behind them, and this ticker tickles my fancy.”

“Well now, fancy that!”

Feeling better that he was feeling better about the whole thing, I grinned a bit as I headed off to school.

After all, even if I didn’t know its backstory for true, I could always just make something up.