Rusty
The raccoon mechanic with unusual solutions.
Rusty is confident with a wrench and even more confident without one. His fixes tend to work, though rarely in the way anyone expected.
The squeaky bench
The bench outside Rusty's garage squeaked every time someone sat down. Rusty promised to fix it before lunch. He tightened every bolt, oiled every hinge and replaced a perfectly good plank. The bench still squeaked.
“Maybe it likes talking,” said Millie. Rusty ignored this and built a small wooden sign: SILENCE, PLEASE. The bench squeaked when he leaned on it to put the sign up.
By evening, half the neighborhood had come to hear Rusty's mysterious bench. He sat beside it, defeated. No squeak. Millie sat down. Squeak.
Rusty looked at her shopping bag. Inside was a rubber duck. Millie squeezed it once and grinned. The bench had been innocent all along. Rusty put the sign on his garage door instead. It squeaked when he opened it.