Ella came home sobbing. Maher was away for work, and Ella was back in her tiny studio apartment in the Financial District. She jumped in the shower, but the tears didn't stop and they kept on flowing even when her head hit the pillow, wet hair and all, at 2:47 a.m.

Maple lopped over with a towel and gently rubbed her hair, soaking out the wetness as he was afraid she would get a headache. Zoe, the motherly platypus snuggled herself under Ella's arm.

"Tell me what happened, my little Ella," Zoe said, her voice trembling as she tried to keep her composure.

Ella sniffled into a Kleenex. The toys gathered around her, including Papple, who was spending the week there and really becoming a part of the gang.

"How about you just tell me a small something, little Ella," Zoe insisted, her voice soothing and calm.

Although it was ages ago, Ella still remembered quite vividly the night she had gotten Zoe. Ella had secretly been pining for Zoe for months after seeing her in the local toy store at the mall. Zoe's squishy round bottom and giant pink bow were irresistible to Ella and she would often make excuses to visit Zoe whenever she could. She even activated Zoe's machine learning system at the store, which would have gotten her in a lot of trouble if anyone had found out.

One night, her parents went out for a show and Ella was struck with a mind-numbing headache. When Ella's parents came home, they had Zoe in tow. The moment Ella hugged the pink platypus, her headache inexplicably went away. Since then, Zoe and Ella became inseparable and Zoe, despite her rather large size, followed Ella to college, law school and eventually to New York.

Zoe nuzzled herself under Ella's chin. "Let's start slowly, okay? It's just us."

With a giant sob, Ella nodded and began her story. "Well, I just don't really know what's happening."

"Well, let's start by what's making you upset."

"This partner, Richard Shermane. He yells at me all the time."

"That's awful!" exclaimed Zoe. "That horrible man again? I thought your project with him finished months ago?"

"Well, it did, but then he staffed me on another one of his deals right after and then another after that. But that isn't really what's gotten me down."

"There's more?" asked Zoe.

"Sir'Duke and I will punch him the face," murmured Sweet Lou, thrashing his tail in the air.

"Wait, isn't that the jerk that calls himself, "Dick"?" asked Sir'Duke. "If it is, sure is fitting."

Sweet Lou guffawed and gave Sir'Duke a high-five with his tail.

"He said something about me during my annual review that just simply isn't true, and I don't know why!"

"What did he say?"

"Well he said that I tried to make some changes to a document that he didn't authorize and that it created a huge issue for our client."

"How?" asked Zoe, as she handed Ella a hot mug of tea, which Maple had retrieved from the kitchen.

"He said I made the changes on my own and sent them over to opposing counsel without his permission. But I didn't!"

"He's a stupid idiot," Kitty interjected, her face hot with anger. "You would never do that. He is a jerk!"

The outburst from the normally prim Kitty made Ella smile despite her predicament.

"'Tis the truth," Kitty insisted, gripping her freshly pressed blue skirt in frustration.

"No disagreements over here," added Sir'Duke. "Spill the beans on what that Dick did."

Maple nodded in encouragement, and Papple, brows furrowed, waddled over to hold Kitty's hand as he could tell she was quite distressed.

"Are you sure I'm not boring you guys?" asked Ella.

"Never!" replied Sweet Lou, as he started humming, something he tended to do when he was upset.

With that, Ella spilled the rest of her story. "So you see," she said. "There were two partners on the deal, one of them was Mr. Shermane and the other was Mr. Ryde. Both of them made changes to the opinion document."

"What's an opinion?" asked Sweet Lou, the humming intensifying.

Maple, being quite knowledgeable in these matters due to his prior experiences softly jumped in, "It's basically a cover your neck document."

"Oh, okay," Zoe said. "Go on."

"Well, Mr. Ryde, had me make some changes. I put them in and then showed them to Mr. Shermane." A few sobs escaped, which Zoe quickly wiped up with her plush fur.

"You mean, Dick," corrected Sir'Duke under his breath.

"And then Mr. Shermane overrode Mr. Ryde's comments and told me to send them directly to the counterparty. So I did."

"Seems like you're doing everything right so far," Zoe stated, stroking Ella's hair with her beak. "What happened next?"

"Well apparently Mr. Ryde found out about the changes and he said they were incorrect and could open the firm and the client up to a lot of liability."

Sir'Duke interjected, "So it was a partner versus partner kind of a conflict? But what does that have to do with you?"

"Well Mr. Shermane told Mr. Ryde that he never made those changes and that I went and revised the document on my own."

Maple sputtered, "I don't understand? He said that you, a first year associate, somehow had the wherewithal to revise one of the most complicated legal documents out there?"

"I really don't understand, but yes," sobbed Ella. "And you all know I would never do something like that!"

"It makes no sense." S.K. said, as she shook her head in disbelief. "When did this happen?"

"It happened during my first month on the job."

"But how did you only find out about it now?"

"During my review," Ella replied, "Mr. Shermane left the most scathing comments and said that I never listened and was one of the worst associates at the firm."

"But hasn't he been requesting you on all his deals?" Maple asked, vigorously massaging Ella's head, almost a little too roughly, lost in his anger.

"Yes, he has!"

"He can't get away with this," said Kitty, unconsciously twisting poor Pineapple's hand with a vengeance. She was surprisingly strong for a dainty little toy and the wee pineapple was very much regretting his earlier decision to hold her hand.

"Well, the one bright spot is this woman, Linda. She's the reviewing partner that gave me my review, and she told me that everyone else has only had really positive things to say about my work."

"But how can he lie about you like this?" Kitty screeched, barely listening to what Ella was saying. "I'll punch him in the face, er, rather, I'll pay someone to do it. I don't want to touch his disgusting face." As Kitty threw her arms in the air out of exasperation, she let go of poor Papple's hand, which had now turned red, and he fainted to the ground.

"Do you know the funny thing, guys?" Ella asked, as her tears finally slowed to a rate where Zoe was not constantly reaching for Kleenex. "I was so in awe of working on this file, it being my first and all, that I actually kept all of the mark-ups from both partners."

At this point, Sir'Duke jumped in, "So you have the receipts on his lying butt?"

"Well, I guess I kind of do!"

"You should bring that up to Linda," suggested Maple. "He can't flat out lie like that and get away with it."

Papple, now recovered from his brief encounter with the ground, shook his head back and forth. There was a phrase where he came from, e hele apo i nā mea apauthe, which roughly translated to "everything comes full circle," and pineapples being quite round, knew a lot about how to make things come around . . ..