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The Query
“I have a question. Don’t ask me why I need to know, that knowledge lies beyond the realm of any mortal mind. My question…is this: how do you tell whether or not Etho likes you?”
Answer 1
“…you know I’m honestly not sure he does,” Grian said. “Like me, I mean.”
He scratched beneath his fisherman’s cap. The water lapped merrily against the legs of the dock.
“He doesn’t say much. Not unless you ask, anyway. I guess…I guess maybe he thinks I’m alright? When I invite him to things he turns up, so he’s willing to tolerate me at least. I think we make a good team. We’ve caused our fair share of chaos.”
A fiendish grin spread across Grian’s face as he cast his line once more.
“Clever little menace, our Etho.”
Answer 2
“You can tell Etho likes you because when he feels safe around you he gets mean,” said Gem. She flipped another line of trapdoors.
“He’s all polite and quiet and sweet when you first meet him, but watch out! As soon as he’s comfortable with you, you’re gonna get roasted endlessly. Which would be fine, but half the time his roasts are just nonsense!”
Gem rounded the corner of Pearl’s house and started opening up the window shutters.
“He’ll start just showing up and going through your things all the time. And he’ll be all clingy about it, too! He’ll talk and talk and never leave.”
Her face softened.
“It’s cute, though. How he bounces in. Like a lil’ puppy, causing trouble.”
“Hey!” a new voice shouted. “What’re you doin’ calling someone else a troublemaker?”
“Hi Pearl! Whatcha doing here?”
“I live here you absolute nugget! Stop flippin’ my trapdoors before I come flip you!”
Answer 3
“Oh, Etho loves everyone,” said Keralis. “He’s a wonderful guy! He called me Sweetface once. I’m not sure why he did that, but it surely meant something, no?”
Answer 4
“Oh gosh,” Beef said, leaning against his plow. “I haven’t thought about that in a long time. Etho and I have been friends forever, it feels like…I don’t really think to question it.” Beef doffed his straw hat and fanned himself with it.
“I guess…when he references the jokes I told years and years ago like he’s been laughing at them ever since. That’s how I know he cares.”
Answer 5
“I shouldn’t need to tell you the obvious,” Doc chided. His indignation rose above the thunder of the piston tape several blocks below them.
“It’s the same reason you can be certain that I like you, despite everything you’ve put me through. Etho loves us. The proof is if he didn’t, he wouldn’t keep coming back here.
“As for you, specifically? Man…how should I know? Everyone likes you, don’t they? So Etho must, too. It’s very simple, I don’t know why that’s a question.”
Answer 6
Tango laughed at first. Then, seeming to recognize the sincerity underneath the question’s bluster, he took a minute to think it over.
“I guess…I guess…” He scratched his chin. “I don’t wanna speak for the guy. But when he wants to show off something he’s made, something he’s proud of, and he comes to me? Me? As if my thoughts on his work mean something to him? That feels really, really good. It…it means everything.”
Answer 7
“Hell if I know how to tell what that crazy Canadian thinks,” said Joel, his arms full of scaffolding. “He’s a weird, strange man who does weird, strange things. Is that all you came here for? I’m very busy. I’ve got to get my notes ready for the interview I’m having with myself—it’s filming in an hour and I still need to build the set.”
Answer 8
“That sounds like a question for Etho?” Cleo looked up from their workbench. “Why are you asking me and not him?”
“Etho’s scary! He’ll rip me to pieces.”
Cleo snorted.
“Etho’s not scary,” she tutted. “Etho’s afraid of me, and I’m not scary at all. Most of the other hermits are far more terrifying. God knows why he’s afraid of me…but if he gets along with me anyway I suppose he must like me well enough. There, that’s my answer. You can tell Etho likes you when you frighten him, but he’s willing to have silly bits with you anyways.”
“That’s no good Cleo, why would Etho be scared of me?”
Another snort.
“C’mon. Think a little. You’re loud, you’re unpredictable, you take offense easily and you hold the wildest grudges. You can tell any story you like and make it come true, just because people want to go along with you. I don’t think you’re scary, really—but you won’t make sense to someone who wants to see the world work logically.
“For the record I mean all of that as a compliment. Never change, Scar.”
Answer 9
Bdubs nodded at the question, a knowing sparkle in his eye.
“You should’ve come to me first.”
“I was trying!” Scar said. His tone would be a wail if he weren’t so exhausted. “I’ve been looking all over the server for you!”
“Maybe if you bothered purchasing some of my nice high-quality products once in a while you’d have thought to check here sooner!”
Bdubs slammed the lid shut on the box of unsold bamboo fences. A layer of dust flew up. Scar wheeled back a subtle few inches while Bdubs coughed and the dust settled.
“I will buy a—a whole half stack of the bamboo mosaic from you right now if you just explain Etho to me. Please Bdubs, my fellow Clocker, most powerful of campaign managers, you gotta help a man out!”
Bdubs nodded sagely.
“Because we’re good friends, and because you’re gonna patronize my establishment, I will share you this wisdom.”
Scar leaned forward as Bdubs cleared his throat.
“The thing about Etho is he likes to figure things out. And when he thinks he’s figured you out, he’ll try and talk to you using your language, whatever that is. The way Etho says he loves you is how you show your love to others.”
Scar took that in.
“That’s…good, good, that makes sense, but. What does Etho think is the way I like people?”
“I don’t know, go ask him! Now buy my amazing product, a whole stack you promised.”
“Half stack! I said half stack, everyone heard me.”
“You…”
Answer 10
Scar did not go ask Etho how he could tell if Etho liked him. Instead he flew back home from the shopping district, taking a winding, lazy path. Plenty of time to ponder along the way.
“How…how do I tell people I love them?”
Scar wasn’t sure how to define that.
He glided down to the zoo train’s engine, the hard stop rattling the frame of his chair.
A sticky-sweet smell caught Scar’s attention. On the shelf by the furnace was the remains of that morning’s breakfast—pancakes served with high-quality golden syrup courtesy of “the Maple Prince.”
Scar remembered receiving that letter in the mail. How the laughter bubbled up as he’d recognized the scam. How he went along with it anyway—for fun. For the bit. Just to see what Etho would do next.
Because an obvious lie told just for you is in many ways a gift.
A gift Scar knew very well.