ll otters gather in the central chamber!” yelled Papa Brown, leaping out of the river and on to the mooring pad, with Papa Black following close behind. The rest of the returning group clambered after them and hurried into Cottonwood Lodge.

When everyone was assembled, Papa Brown called for quiet and then addressed the two families. Sooty and Woody sat at the back and couldn’t wait to hear their fathers’ plan of action.

“Our meeting with the new neighbours did not go well,” said Papa Brown gravely. “In fact, it went very badly indeed. The beavers refuse to move their dam and we don’t know what to do about it.”

The otters all gasped and stared, wide-eyed, at him.

“However …” prompted Mama Brown, elbowing her husband.

“Huh?” said Papa Brown, who was always bad at giving speeches.

“The good news is that we all have different skills and talents!” Mama Brown continued, opening her arms wide. “And if we all put our furry heads together, we’re sure to come up with something brilliant!”

“HOORAY!” cheered the otters.

Papa Black stepped forward and began to scratch on the mud wall with a stick.

“There are six beavers in total,” he said, drawing six beaver-shaped blobs in a line and in order of size. “And the dam stretches the entire width of the river, blocking the flow of fish to us,” he added, drawing a wiggly line with a bend in the middle and two thicker lines cutting across the top.

“Where are we?” asked Nutmeg, raising her paw.

“Don’t you know where you are?” chuckled Chestnut, mocking his twin sister as usual. “Nutmeg doesn’t know where she is!”

“I meant in the diagram, nitwit,” Nutmeg groaned.

“We are right about here,” said Papa Black, following the river bend with his stick and drawing a cross to mark the location of Cottonwood Lodge. “And the water flows in this direction, from here to here,” he added, drawing a curved arrow from the dam to the lodge.

“Now we just need to find a way to make these go away,” said Papa Brown, pointing at the pictures of the beavers. “Or to make this go away,” he said, pointing to the dam.

“Turn the beavers into toads!” giggled Storm.

“Or turnips!” giggled Shadow.

“Turnip toads!” they giggled together.

“Thank you for your input,” sighed Papa Black, shaking his head and casting his eyes over the sea of black and brown fur. “Does anyone have any non-magical solutions?”

“Can’t we ask them nicely to go away?” whispered Beanie.

“I’m afraid we’ve already tried that, my darling,” smiled Mama Brown. “Though, I suspect if the female otters and female beavers got together, we might still arrive at a sensible solution.”

“Hear, hear!” said Mama Black.

“You didn’t see the female beavers!” said Grandpa Jack. “I think they were more into chomping than chatting. What did they call the three daughters?”

“The Saw Sisters,” said Papa Brown. “They were pretty scary.”

“Well, I think we should set a pack of wolves after them!” growled Grandpa Bruno. “The only danger there would be making sure we didn’t get eaten ourselves.”

“That’s a little extreme, even for you,” frowned Grandma Maple. “Having beavers in our back yard is bad enough; we don’t want wolves at the door as well.”

Papa Brown was beginning to look rather worried. “Does anyone have any other suggestions at all? What about Coco and Berry?”

“We can’t concentrate with those two whispering!” growled Coco, pointing an accusing finger at her little brother and his friend at the back of the chamber. “Otherwise we probably would have come up with something really, really clever.”

“Woody and Sooty,” said Papa Black. “Do you have any thoughts you’d like to share?”

“Holes!” said Woody, jumping up excitedly.

“Excuse me?” said Papa Brown.

“We can make lots of little holes in the dam,” said Sooty, also jumping up and down. “That way the beavers can stay where they are, but the fish can carry on swimming down the river as usual.”

“And the beavers probably won’t even notice,” added Woody.

“Holes …” pondered Papa Brown, scratching his chin. “I like it!”

Papa Black turned back to the wall and started prodding the drawing of the dam with the end of his stick, making little holes all along its length. He then added lines showing water flowing through and drew baffled expressions on the blobby beavers’ faces.

“Holes!” he said cheerfully.

“Holes!” confirmed Papa Brown.

“HOLES!” cheered the otters.

“All we need now is a crack team of dam busters and a cool name for the operation,” said Papa Brown, obviously excited to be taking action at last. “Any suggestions?”

Storm and Shadow swiftly put their paws up.

“Any suggestions that don’t involve toads or turnips?” added Papa Brown, at which the twins lowered their paws with a sigh. “A name that will inspire greatness in the brave team entrusted with this mighty task?”

There were cries of “Woodworm Warriors!” and “Operation Fish Holes!” and “Beaver Deceivers!” Then Woody put his paw up and waved at his dad. “You’ve already given it a name!”

“What did I say?” asked Papa Brown.

“Dam Busters!” said Woody. “Operation Dam Buster!”

The otters selected for Operation Dam Buster were not the most obvious choices, but they were the ones most likely to work quickly and quietly and with the least amount of fuss. So Papa Brown and Papa Black left Cottonwood Lodge with Woody and Sooty because they had come up with the idea of Operation Dam Buster in the first place – and were far more responsible than their older brothers and sisters. The beavers would still be sleeping in their lodge and they needed to stay that way for the plan to succeed.

“I wish we could just be friends with the beavers,” whispered Sooty as the young pups turned the bend in the river and followed their fathers towards the dam, swimming slowly with their heads just above the surface of the water.

“Me too,” agreed Woody. “There’s enough fish for all of us.”

“Our dads did try to talk to them,” said Sooty, “but they didn’t seem very friendly at all.”

“Maybe it’s because we woke them up?” said Woody. “I know Grandpa Bruno can be grumpy when he’s disturbed. Grandma Maple tells us all to hush when he’s having a nap so as not to wake the ogre!”

The four otters reached the dam and Papa Brown and Papa Black made paw signals to instruct Woody and Sooty to dive underwater and spread out along the length of the structure. When the dam busters were in position they began to pull away lumps of grass and moss and removed some of the smaller branches, letting them rise to the surface and drift downstream.

The two adults continued to give paw signals through the murky water, and the pups dashed up and down the dam, seeking likely locations for brand-new holes. Despite wishing to make friends with their new neighbours, the young otters were having a brilliant time pulling apart the beavers’ enormous dam. In fact, they were having so much fun they got a little carried away.

“I’ve made seven,” said Woody as they came up for air.

“I’ve made four,” said Sooty. “But they’re all bigger than yours.”

“Not for long!” laughed Woody, diving back under as his friend chased after him.

They had both started out making small holes, but when they discovered that only small fish could swim through, they made the holes wider to let the large fish through, for bigger meals.

Papa Brown and Papa Black were no better with their hole control, so when the dam busting was finished there were more holes than dam and white water was gushing through in torrents. All that remained of the structure was a mess of loose logs and branches clinging to the central tree trunk. Soon the whole thing began to bend and creak as the full force of the river pounded against it. Eventually there was an enormous crack that sent the otters rocketing to the surface.

The tree trunk splintered in two under the pressure of the water. The thinner top end drifted downriver, along with the remaining logs and branches. The thicker root end remained anchored to the bank, supporting the bristly mess that was the beaver lodge. The otters bobbed up and down in the water and drifted downriver with the broken dam. They clambered on to the treetop to rest, riding it home like a giant canoe.

“I think the beavers might notice that,” frowned Woody.

“I think you’re right,” replied Sooty.

“Well, maybe it will teach them a lesson – not to mess with otters and their fishy food supply,” said Papa Black, patting the pups’ heads. “They started it by building the dam in the first place.”

“I doubt we’ll have any more trouble from the beavers,” said Papa Brown. “Not now they know who they’re up against. I imagine they’ll simply pack their stuff and move on, as we originally suggested.”

The otters ate a modest mussel dinner served with daring tales from Operation Dam Buster and, having solved the beaver problem once and for all, everyone was in high spirits.

“We dashed about like lightning,” said Woody, whooshing his arms about to show how fast they moved, “making holes in that huge dam and watching shoals of fish dart through!”

“But we stayed completely silent,” whispered Sooty, “because we could hear those mean beavers snoring their heads off while we worked under their very noses!”

“WOW!” gasped the rest of the young otters, gripped by the story.

“But that’s not the best bit,” said Woody, nudging his friend.

“Then we broke the whole thing wide open!” added Sooty excitedly.

“BOOM!” roared the pups, jumping up with their paws in the air.

Everyone chuckled and clapped with delight, happy that the otters had triumphed against the beavers. They were also keen to fill their rumbling bellies with fishy goodness.

The otters all went to bed early that evening so they could rise early the next day and reap the rewards of Operation Dam Buster. After a night of regular water flow the fish stocks would return to normal and by morning the river would be jam-packed with delicious food.