Odder

This section summarizes Poem 117: “recovery,” Poem 118: “regret,” Poem 119: “looking,” Poem 120: “visits,” Poem 121: “mistake,” Poem 122: “rehab,” and Poem 123: “stronger.”

Odder awakes back at Highwater in the present day, where the humans tend to her wounds. Regretting her present situation and fearing that she has gotten Kairi killed, Odder promises herself that she’ll no longer be “Odder”: Instead of being adventurous and playful, she’ll become careful and prudent. Odder recalls her days in the wild and how, no matter the warnings of danger ringing in the back of her mind, she had looked for the humans she’d left behind once she was released. As she looked out for them, Odder swam and played because play was her purpose. Whenever she got too curious about human activity in the area, the humans trapped and relocated her farther away. Each time, she was delighted to see her old friends again.

Now Odder misses her days of freedom in the wild, and she knows that they’d still be hers if she’d been more cautious about the shark: One mistake is all it takes to end an otter’s life out in the ocean.