Pib and the Borrowed Lantern Oil

Dusk comes up the harbor slow, and Pib comes up with it. He is the smallest lamplighter these docks have had, and he fits along the rail where the big lanterns hang. Before each one he taps his tail twice on the post, for luck.

Nine lanterns to light, and the fog already coming in.

Mika the gull keeps her lamp oil under the third piling, corked in a jar she traded for all summer.

"Nine tonight?" she says.

"Nine." Pib holds his own jar where she cannot see it. "The fog came early."

"It does that." Mika works the cork loose with one foot. "Mine's full, if the sea takes yours. And there's a flask down at the stalls. Cracked, but it holds."

"It won't come to that," says Pib.

The fourth lantern takes the last of his oil, and the jar gives up a thin sighing trickle, then nothing at all. One drop hangs at the lip and will not come down.

Six lanterns to light, and nothing in the jar.

Below him the piling has gone dark, and Mika sleeps with her head under her wing. Pib climbs down and the cork comes out easy in his paws. Just enough, he tells himself, and he will pour it back before she wakes. Just a little. Just enough.

Her oil is thicker than his and it pours slow, but the fifth lantern takes it and the sixth takes it. His paw skids on wet stone, the jar goes over, and half of what is left runs out into the tide pool. Dark water takes it. Pib sits down on the rock, and his heart goes like a small drum.

Three lanterns to light, and his paws stinging.

So he does the thing he can do, and down at the stalls the flask is where she said. It leaks the whole way up the rocks. He carries it anyway, a little at a time, until her jar stands full at the line where it was. Moonrise comes and goes, and his arms ache.

One lantern to light.

Pib climbs the ninth post, up where the last boat is only a shape in the fog. He lights the wick and the glass takes the flame. Post to post the bay turns gold, and the boat comes in along the light.

None left to light.

Morning. Mika lifts her jar out of the rocks and turns it in the light. The oil in it is paler than hers, and it smells of the fish stalls.

Pib climbs down and stands where she can see him.

"This isn't mine," she says.

"No." He looks at the cork. "I took yours while you were asleep. I put some back. Not all of it."

Mika sets the jar down on the rock between them. "You could have asked. I'd have given it."

"I know," says Pib. "I didn't want to say it out loud."

"You said it now." She moves over on the piling, and he sits.

The fog is off the water and the boats are all in. The wood is warm from the sun. Pib puts his head down on it and sleeps.

Taking something you mean to put back still means you took it.