Seven Raccoons

It was winter, and we were hungry.

We stood tall as we could, leg on shoulder, stacked on top of each other; four sets of striped tails and fuzzy ears stuffed together in a trenchcoat. Stripey, who served as our head, kept a scarf and hat closely wrapped around him. It did little to keep out the biting wind of deep winter, but it kept our innards obscured.

This was far from our first heist, and it wouldn’t be the last.

The burger stand was the ideal target for an operation. It lay on the cusp of the human’s reach. Their sprawling habitat was unlike ours, it was ever-changing as it cut deep into our forests. This burger stand stood at the border of their world and ours. It had stood here for long enough that the forest had begun to welcome it back. Snow had long since covered the ground, beneath it we could feel the crunch of leaves as the trees closed in from above.

The stand wasn’t very large by human standards. Scruffy, who grew up in the big city, said that sometimes buildings were even taller than the tallest trees. Sticky and Stripey didn’t believe her, but Marsh did. But we knew Marsh would believe anything after eating the plastic wrapping a few winters ago.

Since the first snow, we had carefully observed the burger stand. Taking careful note of the position of the moon when the stand closed down, and the various different humans who would stand there. Tonight, it was a young one. It was later than most humans were awake, and we thought it odd that they would let one of their young work long hours alone in the cold.

But that sentiment wouldn’t – couldn’t – stop us; the job always came first.

The moon rose higher in the sky, and our window of opportunity was rapidly closing; we had to act now.

Sticky and Marsh, who made up the bottom of our stack, began to move out of our forest hiding spot and towards the stand. Despite being the biggest and strongest, it was both of their first heists.

Scruffy was in charge of controlling our arm, which consisted of a long stick with an old human glove stuck on the end. This was a time honored technique in our business, even if we only had enough material for one arm. The glove on the tip had the precise amount of green paper they would need to get a burger.

Stripey was on top of Scruffy and carefully kept the scarf and hat on to obscure our face; he also acted as our eyes.

It was slow moving making our way over to the stand, no matter how much we practiced Marsh could only move so fast and retain balance.

But it wouldn’t be a heist if something didn’t go wrong.

As we approached the stand, the short human didn’t react the way they were supposed to. Usually, humans would start muttering in their strange language — but this one remained silent. Instead, in one jerky motion, they put a shiny piece of paper on the counter that Stripey recognized as the menu.

For a moment, we froze, but only a moment. We practiced for this.

Stripey tapped Scruffy once on the head and she expertly maneuvered our arm onto the counter to deposit the green paper before pointing at the picture of the burger. The human may have been behaving strangely, but we adapted well; and hopefully quick enough that they didn’t notice our hesitation. The human was wearing the same uniform that all the burger people wore, as well as a long winter coat, hat and scarf. Their winter attire was close enough to ours that it bolstered our confidence in our disguise.

Thankfully, the short human didn’t react to our hesitation, and instead swept the money onto the floor before slowly walking into the back area of the burger stand. This itself was odd,

as humans normally put the green paper in one of their metal machines. Stripey took note of this for further investigation. It was important that their behavioral research stayed up to date.

We collectively held our breath as we waited for the human to return. In our observations, the burgers themselves didn’t take too long to prepare. Now that the human had accepted the payment, it was only a matter of time before we could feast. A chilling breeze blew through the burger stand, and the mouthwatering smell of food filled the air. We had smelled it many times before during our careful research and our prize was almost within our grasp.

After what felt like an eternity, the short human returned. They slowly crept out from the back of the stand with a delicious smelling paper bag. As they approached the counter, Stripey once again tapped Scruffy on the head, signalling that it was time for the next phase of the plan.

Scruffy, as skilled as she was, wasn’t perfect. There was only so far that skill could take you when your vision was obscured by a dusty old trenchcoat. As she pivoted the stick-arm to grab the burger bag, she overshot, and instead slammed right into the short human’s head.

We clearly didn’t study humans hard enough, because as soon as our arm hit them, their head toppled clean off! Soon after, the rest of their body began to fall apart piece by piece. In our time in the forest, we’d all seen a gory incident or two. But this human didn’t bleed or cry out in their strange language. It was as if they were completely unaffected by falling to pieces.

Instead, all we heard was a shrill shout of, “Oh crap!” as the burger uniform pooled into a puddle on the ground.

Scruffy, who was still unable to see, stopped patting around the counter for the burger bag at the sound of the shout. Marsh and Sticky rustled with unease.

The shout itself wasn’t what confused us, it was the fact that we understood it perfectly. “Stripey, what’s going on?” Scruffy whispered, moving the arm off of the counter for now.

“Did you say that? Did something happen?”

“No, I didn’t say anything!” Stripey hastily responded. “The shout came from inside the human!”

Stripey pulled back our scarf a little bit, giving him a better view of the floor of the burger stand. The human’s burger uniform and coat sat in a pile on the ground. Within it three lumps moved about. Muffled noises were coming from each of them, but we couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Suddenly, a furry creature emerged from the pile.

Stripey gasped in recognition, “Fuzzy…? Is that you?” he asked the newly visible raccoon. “What is going on?”

Moments later, two more raccoons crawled out of the pile of discarded clothes. As Stripey stared at the three raccoons on the ground, our balance teetered as Scruffy threw open our coat. What we thought was a short human wasn’t a human at all.

“Scruffy? Stripey? What are you doing here?” Asked Fuzzy as he climbed up to the counter, followed quickly by the other two raccoons.

Thoroughly confused by this encounter, we became unbalanced, and each tumbled out of our positions onto the ground. Marsh and Sticky, just now seeing the three new raccoons, looked over at Stripey in confusion.

“Where did the human go?” Asked Marsh, rubbing his hands together. “I thought we were almost done! I could smell the food and everything!” Sticky wasn’t big on words, but eagerly nodded along with Marsh’s question.

“Human? I see you fell for our disguise then!” Fuzzy responded with a laugh. “What kind of amateur heist is this?”

“Amateur? How dare you!” Stripey seethed, pointing up at Fuzzy and his friends. “How could you call us amateurs when you’re not even following protocol! Everyone knows that heists require four raccoons, not three!”

Scruffy, Sticky, and Marsh nodded along with Stripey’s claim. Fuzzy’s expression grew foul, and he shook his fist at us.

“Today’s just an off night, okay!” He screamed, crossing his arms with a growl. “Ughhh, listen up amateur! We usually do follow protocol! Berry, who’s our veteran stick-hand controller, is out sick today, so this is just a temporary adjustment. ”

Fuzzy jumped down off the counter, quickly followed by the other two raccoons.

“See, Leafy, Mushroom and I have had a rough night,” Fuzzy explained, pointing to his companions. “We all had to do jobs that we didn’t have a ton of practice with, so you amateurs can shut it!”

Stripey crossed his arms, fuming over Fuzzy’s treatment of his team.

“Oh, just you wait until the boss hears about this!” Stripey cackled. “You’re finished!”