Same Summer

The same summer that Allie adopted Birdie, she also "rescued" a duckling that had been injured in an attack of some sort. His name was called "Duckie" and he was as downy soft as a downy, soft thing. Since the neighbor whose elderly mother I had been attending on weekends was in the medical field, Allie sought her help with Duckie's broken leg. Darlene fashioned a little splint out of popsicle sticks and medical tape, but it eventually had to be removed as it impeded Duckie's progress worse than his actual twisted limb. With time, the leg got better, but Duckie was never fast enough to escape Allie's love.

And escape was the engine that powered his dark little heart. He did not want protection and work-free meals; he wanted liberty and junk. When sleeping, he was slightly more enjoyable, allowing Allie to cradle him close to her side; but waterfowl ruin everything by pooping indiscriminately in their sleep. And though Ben enjoyed having duckie's soft, downy self  tucked underneath his chin as he slept, it was, ultimately, for this reason he lobbied energetically for Duckie's release from captivity. Ben whined so unmanfully about having to duck-sit, you would have thought it was his own child.

One afternoon, for Duckie's lunch, Allie and I spent over an hour harvesting larval specimens from a muddy rivulet beside our neighbor's pond. He snatched them violently from our fingers, despicably trying to escape after each morsel. Allie desperately scooped him up each time, but began to see that he would inevitably succeed in his tireless bid for freedom. The only answer was to ride around the curve to the Dacus' pond where there were flocks and flocks of ducks and ducklings. Mayhap we could foist........... I mean dedicate Duckie to another young mother.

So, we biked around that curve and found just the right location to liberate our crabby, young adoptee. He hatefully swam away as quickly as possible, hiding ungratefully among the jumbled roots and keeping us watchfully in his mistrusting line of sight. We cut our eyes at each other ruefully, then wondered where all the other ducks were hiding.

As we crept off our neighbor's land, he pulled up beside us in his jeep. Blushingly, we pointed in the direction we lived, explaining our situation with Duckie, and our hopes that he would be happily assimilated into a worthy duck family. It was then Mr. Dacus shrugged his shoulders, saying it was actually too bad, but their entire duckling population had been decimated by bass.

Oops.