"Aha," he said, finally getting a grip on the one in her hair. This was the raccoon one. It was actually sort of soft to the touch, and it smelled like peanut butter.
Another thump from above made him realize that having them running around in the pilothouse was an absolutely terrible idea. Eren ran up the steps, holding the screeching, flapping raccoon griffin at arm's length, and kicked the door open. He chucked it out onto the deck, more gently than it probably deserved.
The raccoon griffin dug in its claws and turned around to hiss at him. It was joined a moment later by the alley-cat-gull one, and then the possum one skittered under his feet, chased by Lucy with a broom.
"Is that all of them?" Eren asked, as he and Lucy stood panting and disheveled in the doorway, staring out at the trash griffins staring back at them. All three of the griffins were mussed and covered in bits of pillow fluff stuck to them with what Eren was pretty sure was peanut butter.
"I think so," Lucy said, out of breath. She had pillow fluff in her hair and a smear of peanut butter on the back of her hand.
"And stay out!" Eren ordered. He closed and latched the door, but watched for a moment as the trash griffins skittered around on the deck, and then one by one vanished from sight.
Eren cursed. "They're getting in through the hold somehow."
He ran back down the stairs and was just in time to intercept a gull head poking in through a hole in the bulkhead between the cargo hold and the cabin. Eren jammed the beak firmly back where it came from and looked around for something to stuff into the hole. Eventually he got it patched with a wadded-up piece of canvas, a metal pie plate over the top of it, and a lot of tape and staples.
"Is that going to keep them out?" Lucy asked. She had been cleaning up the cabin and now had it set to rights, with the remains of the pillow and a broken jar of peanut butter stuffed into a trash bag.
"It better, the little jerks." He could hear tiny claws scrabbling on the other side of the bulkhead. For good measure he sprayed the whole area with a strong-smelling cleaning chemical that seemed to be helpful for keeping other vermin out of things. "Sorry to leave you to this, I need to go up and check on the boat's situation before we get caught up in a current taking us to Norway. Can you go ahead and finish cleaning up down here?"
Lucy nodded and held out her hand for the spray bottle of cleaner.
Eren left her wiping down surfaces and climbed back up to the pilothouse. As far as he could tell, the trash griffins hadn't been in the cabin for long; they hadn't had time to do much damage. But he was definitely going to need to look into blocking up all the places where they could get in.
Lucy came up a few minutes later, smelling of cleaning chemicals. "Here, I brought you some wet wipes." She held out a box.
Eren wiped his hands down. "Got everything squared away down there?"
Lucy nodded. "I think we were almost done anyway." She went to peer out the door at the deck.
"See 'em out there?"
"No, I think they're still hidden, uh, wherever they're hidden."
"They're in the hold where we store our catch when we're using the boat for fishing," Eren said. "It must be trash griffin heaven down there. No matter how well you clean it, there are still going to be fish scraps and other junk. I'dreallylike to know where those things came from. Maybe they escaped from a zoo." Or a mad scientist's lab, he thought.
Lucy looked like she was about to say something and then hesitated.
"What is it?"
"I don't know, I feel like I've seen something like them before, but I don't know where or when. I mean, before I first saw them in St. John's. They're so familiar, but I can't quite figure out why."
"In storybooks, maybe."
"Maybe," Lucy said, but she seemed doubtful.
She went back to her seat and commenced picking bits of pillow fluff out of her hair.
"Do you want to take a turn piloting the boat for a while?" Eren asked.
This time, there was no hesitation. Lucy jumped off the bench. "Yeah, I'd love to!"
Eren started to relinquish the pilot's chair to her, then decided to do it differently. "Since you're kind of short, why don't you stand in front of me and I'll go over the controls with you."
He slid the chair back so there was room. Lucy stood between his spread legs, her round behind pressing into his thighs, and he was suddenly very aware of what he had just gotten himself into.
"You good with this?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"You're fine," Lucy said. She sounded a little strangled. "I mean, I'm fine with it."