The Hopfather's Code

Snitches get sewers.

Not a threat. A postal code. Ask anyone who's currently gone fishing in the islands — you can't, and that's the rule working.

Never trust a frog who pays his taxes.

A clean record isn't innocence, it's a cover story with a receipt. PooPee has run that con himself, which is precisely how he knows.

The house takes a cut of every croak.

If frogs are betting in your storm drain, the odds were never theirs to win. Big Tongue's ran twenty-four hours precisely because the math never slept.

Own no pond. Toll every crossing.

Property is a paper trail. A toll is just gratitude collected firmly. Four ponds, zero deeds, and not one refund issued.

The money belongs to whoever's holding it during the float.

Between the dirty fly and the clean one, the flies belong to no one — which, by PooPee's reading, means him. Never let the wash finish before you've been paid.

Name your shell pondcompanies after cousins nobody can find.

Seventeen ponds with no water in them, each signed for by a relative last seen fishing in the islands. The registry can't subpoena a rumor.

Sell the lily-pad before you build it. Then don't build it.

Forty-one tenants, one brochure, zero pads. The only thing you owe a believer is a reason to keep believing.

A confession you narrate isn't a confession. It's confidence.

Say it loud, say it proud, and let the prosecutor prove which part was the crime. He's said it in open court. It's on the record. It worked on nobody and he'd do it again.

The one signature you can't fake is the one worth faking.

A tongue-print is the swamp's only unforgeable mark, which is exactly why PooPee forged six and signed a casserole receipt in a name that wasn't his.

Keep the warden fed and the cellblock is yours.

You don't break out of the Lily-pad Lockup. You buy the floor plan and run it more profitably than the frog who's paid to. Warden Toadkins has no comment and a new watch.

Evidence has legs. Help it walk.

Three exhibits in his own case are logged as property-room shrinkage. The desk officer saw nothing, which is the second-most valuable thing a desk officer can see.

Blood across the water is still blood. Wave anyway.

There's a frog on the far bank who does everything right and sleeps worse for it. PooPee doesn't say his name. He just waves, and lets the whole swamp wonder which of them is winning.