It was a few days before Porky managed to find what he was looking for.
Daffy had decided, or at least decreed, that they would try to do some supplemental research before he tried recording anything again, so the first week of them all being in the Archives had been spent dividing up files, spreading out tasks, and making phone calls. Lots and lots of making phone calls. Porky didn’t mind making phone calls on a show, usually, but actually making them in real life? It was a lot harder to make the calls when his stutter was an actual disability and not a running joke.
Still, he persevered. He turned out to have a better gift for the computer research than the other two, anyway, so he let Wile E and Tweety make the phone calls and talk to people in person while he dug through files and hacked into records.
But they had a stack that were ready to record, so Daffy wanted the tape recorder in case he came across any more awkward ones. They weren’t even sure it was going to work, but they were going to try. Porky was the only one around, and after all he’d been the one to mention it, so here he was, digging through the filing cabinets. Tweety, only a few feet away, was dragging papers over to the stapler and jumping on it to staple them together.
“Eh-w-w—what are you d-doing?” Porky asked, pausing in his work.
“Stapwing.” Tweety slammed the stapler down for emphasis. “Daffy was getting annoyed wit aww the papews evewywhewe, so I’m cowwating and stapwing them. What are you doing?”
“Eh-l-l, eh-l-l, eh-l-looking for the tape recorder,” Porky replied. “I eh-kn-kn-know it’s around here eh-s-somewhere.”
“I tawt I taw it in dis dwawew.” Tweety yanked on a drawer with all his might and pulled it open, then dove in and came out triumphantly, clutching a reel-to-reel tape recorder of the kind they’d used in their oldest of cartoons. “I did! I did taw it in dis dwawew!”
Porky took it from Tweety before he hurt himself and poked it. It began spooling, so it obviously worked. “Eh-th-th-thanks, Tweety.”
“Weww, go on, den,” Tweety said dryly. “Daffy’s waiting fow it.”
“Eh…he can w-wait a little longer.” Porky stared at the recorder.
“Dweat!” Tweety dropped a stapler into his hands; startled, he caught it. “Tanks fow vowunteewing to hewp me.”
“I g-g-guess I owe you.” Porky shuffled a stack of papers and stapled it.
For a while, they worked in silence. At last, however, Porky asked, “Any w-w-word from , eh, G-Granny?”
Tweety paused for a moment, then said softly, “No. Nothing. It’s been months, she should have been in touch by now.”
“Do you, eh, d-do you think something, eh, h-happened to her?”
“I can’t imagine what couwd have happened to hew. You can’t huwt a Toon, and she’s Dwanny.” Tweety viciously stapled the latest pack and dragged it back to the folder. “She must have come up with some ovew way to quit.”
Porky was quiet for a moment before he said, “Are, eh, a-are you okay with this?”
Another vicious staple. “Why wouwdn’t I be?”
“Oh, c-c-come on, Tweety. We both eh-kn, eh-kn, eh-know you’d make a better Archivist than Daffy.”
“Bugs must not have tawt so,” Tweety said bitterly.
Porky snorted. “Eh-B, eh-B, eh-B—Bugs just wants eh-Di, eh-Di, eh—Daffy to be under his, eh, c-control.”
“You tink so?”
“I kn-know so. Bugs Bunny has n-never ceded the starring role in his eh-l, eh-l, eh-l-life,” Porky pointed out. “Not unless he, uh, g-gets to be the t—uh, tormentor. I should kn-know. He’s got some eh-p-p-plan to make his life eh-m, eh-m, eh-m, eh-m, eh—eh, hell.”
Tweety sighed. “Dis nevew wouwd have happened if Bob Cwampett was stiww in chawge.”