THIS IS GASTRONOMANCY JUNE SECOND WEEK: TALES

Steve the Otter, & the Amphibious Croak

Steve the Otter and the Amphibious Croak: An affair

Once upon a time, in the oddly humid town of Allahabad, lived an otter named Steve who wore sunglasses at night and insisted on calling himself a “hydrodynamic life coach.” His best friend? A frog named Croak.

But not just any frog, Croak was a conspiracy theorist who believed pond algae was an ancient alien lifeform trying to take over the local lily pad council.

Their friendship began during a high-speed escape from a yoga retreat gone wrong. Steve had accidentally introduced caffeine into the meditation tea, and Croak mistook the resulting chaos for a government amphibian roundup. One cannonball dive into the pond later, destiny sealed their bond.

Together, they ran an underground (quite literally, under a tree root) spa for overworked woodland creatures. It offered acorn facials, mud jacuzzi therapy, and a wildly misunderstood service called “leech whispering.”

Everything was groovy until one fateful day, Steve declared he was going to run for mayor of Allahabad… with a jellybean platform. Croak was skeptical.

“I will not be part of another Jellybean Junta,” croaked Croak, hiding under a toadstool.

But Steve, wearing a glitter cape and armed with a placard, simply replied, “Politics is the future, my friend; look at Trump and Putin and Modi. Elon Musk?”

Steve lounged in a hammock woven from pondweed and ambition. He adjusted his sunglasses with the flair of someone who had no idea what they were doing but refused to admit it.

Croak, meanwhile, was wearing a tinfoil beret.

“You’ve what now?” He croaked, blinking at Steve.

“I’m running for mayor,” Steve said, lazily tossing a pebble into the pond. “On a jellybean-based economy.”

Croak choked on his breakfast cricket.

Steve continued, unbothered, “No more taxes. No more rules. Just jellybeans. Red ones for rent. Green ones for groceries. Purple ones if you’re fancy.”

Croak stared, utterly nonplussed in disbelief.

“But Steve… You once paid a raccoon, in a little pope hat, in acorns to be your life coach.”

“Which is why I must now lead,” said Steve solemnly, placing a paw over his chest. “Allahabad needs vision. Allahabad needs courage. Allahabad needs... funk.”

Steve’s campaign launch was held beside the Great Sangam. A crowd of squirrels, ducks, hedgehogs, and one very confused goose gathered, lured by promises of free snacks.

Croak had reluctantly agreed to be his campaign manager, mostly to prevent a civil uprising.

“I made flyers,” Croak muttered, holding up one that read:

Steve, dressed in a glitter cape, climbed a toadstool and yelled into a mike, “Allahabadians! The time has come to DANCE our problems away!”

He blew a kiss and began an interpretive routine called It’s My Life; it involved twirling, winking, and accidentally kicking over a lemonade stand.

The crowd was baffled.

A squirrel muttered, “Is this politics?”

A hedgehog whispered, “No, it’s performance art. I think.”

Steve’s poll numbers soared. Then came disaster.

An investigative Newt named Cheryl uncovered a scandal: the jellybeans Steve had promised were actually grape-scented buttons.

The Forest Press dubbed it “ButtonGate.”

“I trusted him,” sobbed a chipmunk, holding up a button that said “Believe in Beans.”

Croak sighed deeply. “You couldn’t just use actual candy, could you?”

Steve was unfazed. “Candy melts under pressure. Buttons are eternal.”

Facing impeachment before even being elected, Steve proposed a compromise.

“Let’s settle this the Allahabad way: with a dance-off.”

His opponent, a grumpy badger named Loretta, accepted.

The swamp amphitheater filled. Birds perched on branches. Toads beatbox. Steve moonwalked into legend. Loretta waltzed like a chainsaw with ballet shoes.

In the end, Steve won by a single firefly vote.

Croak stared, jaw open. “I can’t believe that worked.”

Steve grinned, removing his sunglasses to reveal... another pair of sunglasses.

Epilogue: Mayor Steve and the Funky Future

Steve did become mayor. The jellybean system never quite worked, but Allahabad got something better: joy, street parades, leaf confetti, and a new pond slide.

Croak went on to write a bestselling memoir, “I Tried to Stop Him.”

And every Tuesday, just after dusk, Steve and Croak would sit under the old tree root spa, sipping cricket IPL soda, watching the stars, and occasionally, giving gyan to a confused raccoon wearing a little pope hat, seeking political advice.

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