Otto and the Slow Bend of the River

Otto was a small otter with a big idea. He wanted to be the fastest thing on the whole river.

Every morning he raced the leaves. Every afternoon he raced the ducks. Once he raced a dragonfly, and the dragonfly won, but only just, and Otto said that it did not count because the dragonfly had wings.

"Fast, fast, fast," said Otto, splashing in circles. "One day I will be faster than the river itself."

His grandmother, who was old and whiskery and very good at floating, watched him from a flat mossy rock. "The river is not racing you, Otto," she said. "The river is going somewhere."

"Where?" said Otto.

"Round the slow bend," said his grandmother. "Come and see it tonight, when the racing is done."

Otto did not like the sound of the slow bend. Slow was for snails. Slow was for the moon, which took all night to cross the sky and never seemed to get anywhere. But he liked his grandmother, so when the sun slid down behind the reeds, he paddled after her.

The river changed as they went. Near the rapids it had been loud and white and busy. Here it grew wide and dark and quiet, like a long piece of blue cloth being pulled gently through the grass. Otto stopped paddling. He did not mean to. His paws simply forgot.

"Lie back," said his grandmother, and she showed him how. Otters can float on their backs with their paws folded on their tummies, and Otto had always thought this was a silly way to travel. Now he tried it. The water held him. The water carried him. He did not have to do anything at all.

Above him, the first star came out. Then another. Then the river, which had been copying the sky all evening, put a star of its own right next to his nose.

"The river is slow here," whispered his grandmother, "so that it can carry things carefully. Leaves. Feathers. Tired otters."

Otto watched a feather drift past. It did not hurry. It turned once, slowly, as if it were looking at the view, and went round the bend without a sound.

"I think," said Otto, in a smaller voice than usual, "I would like to be carried carefully."

"That is what the slow bend is for," said his grandmother.

They floated. The reeds nodded on both sides. A frog said one word, then thought better of it. Somewhere behind them the rapids were still rushing and roaring, but it sounded far away now, like a story someone else was telling.

Otto's eyes began to close. He opened them. He closed them again.

"Grandmother," he said, "am I still fast?"

"You are exactly as fast as the river," she said. "Which tonight is just right."

The slow bend took them round, gently, the way it took everything. The star beside Otto's nose stayed with him the whole way. And by the time the river reached the place where the willow leaned down to say goodnight, the fastest otter on the whole river was fast asleep, floating on his back, with his paws folded on his tummy, being carried carefully home.