Quack

by Anna Humphrey

“Dinner!” Dad called again, louder. “Now.”

  I went up alone. “I can’t get him out. You try.”

  But Mom and I were nearly done with our Salisbury steak pies when Dad came back to the table, alone.

  “Leave him!” he said when my mom started to get up to try dealing with the situation. “He’ll come up when he gets hungry enough.”

  Mom didn’t look happy, but there’s a certain tone my dad gets sometimes that you just don’t argue with, even if you’re my mom.

  Anyway, Dad changed the subject.

  “So, Manda…” he started. “I saw Oscar Lebretton at a lunch and learn today. You know, Matthew’s dad?”

  I knew Matthew Lebretton. Vagueishly. He’d sat in front of me in math the year before. He wore a leather jacket, even in the summer.

  “Apparently he just joined a film club at school. His dad says they’re studying the classics—like Citizen Kane and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. They’re working up to making films to enter into some kind of contest.”

  I knew all about it. Ever since I’d watched the 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz with my uncle at a rerun cinema, I’ve been addicted to old films. There’s something so clean and classy about them. Like, who needs to sit through two hours of explosions and cheesy dialogue when you can get the same drama from a single longing look between Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind?

  Mr. Maloney started the Film Fanatics club because of a contest from the National Film Society. There was going to be a weeklong international student cinema fest in New Orleans next year, and rumor had it the winner got to go—all expenses paid. A bunch of kids at school were already desperate to win, including my friends Carly and Beth. Not because they cared about cinema. They were mostly in it for the free trip. And (probably because they figured I could help them win), they’d been trying to talk me into joining with them. But, as cool as it sounded, I knew I couldn’t. And, honestly, I didn’t really want to anyway. I wasn’t a school club person.

  “Why don’t you sign up?” Dad said. “You love old films.”

  “I don’t know. They meet after school, so…” I took a sip of milk.

  “So…what’s the problem?” Dad asked, but all it took was a look from Mom across the table to remind him what the problem was.

  “We could ask Angie Murray to watch Shady and Pouya,” Dad said. “How often does the film club meet? Once a week? Didn’t Angie just do her babysitting course?”

  Angie Murray lives two houses down. Her voice is so loud that she practically yells when she talks, and once, at a neighborhood garage sale, I’d caught her teasing Shady by trying to make him talk into some old walkie-talkies and then pretending they were broken.

  Luckily, Mom didn’t even consider it.

  “I don’t think Shady’s ready for that quite yet,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t accept that,” Dad answered.

  “Excuse me?” Mom tried to level him with a look.

  “How is Shady supposed to get ready if we don’t push him?”

  “Dr. Nugget specifically said we shouldn’t try to force him into new situations,” Mom countered.

  “And Dr. Nugget also specifically said we should let him keep that duck. So you’re going to pick and choose from his advice now?”

  Mom was boiling. I could almost see the steam coming out her nose holes.

  “It’s okay.” I hated it when they argued. “I don’t really want to join anyway. I can just watch movies at home. It’s no big deal.”

  And it really wasn’t. Shady was more important. School was a nightmare for my brother. Except for Pouya, kids ignored him or, worse, teased him—especially after he’d wet his pants at the beginning of fourth grade. His teacher had insisted that Shady had to make some kind of hand signal if he wanted permission to go use the bathroom, and he had been too scared to do it. You’d think signaling his teacher would be no big deal, but it breaks Rule Number 2, which is that he does everything he can not to call attention to himself. Although, in this case, it totally backfired. Just try wetting your pants in fourth grade without everyone noticing.

  By the time he got home, Shady needed someone he could trust and talk to, and I was one of his only options. I wasn’t going to abandon him with Angie Murray. And even if I did join Film Fanatics…and on the off chance I did win the trip, there was no way I could leave him for a week to go to New Orleans. So what was the point of signing up?

  Dad had his eyes locked on Mom. “Look. All I’m saying is, the things we’ve been doing aren’t working. So maybe it’s time to try something new.” He turned to me. “You’re joining that club, Manda. I’ll write you a check for the registration fee after dinner.”

  Mom glared at Dad across the table.

  “Manda, if you’re finished, would you go upstairs?” Her voice was balanced on a thin edge between anger and tears.

  I nodded and cleared my plate.

  It took hours, and there were raised voices. It was already past Shady’s bedtime when Dad came and got me. He asked me to come down to the basement, where Mom was waiting outside the bathroom door.

  Dad knocked, then went in, but Mom stayed a safe distance back. Sven was out of the tub now, curled in my brother’s lap in a towel, fast asleep. I could tell from Shady’s eyes that he’d been crying.

  “We’ve agreed to try keeping the duck,” Mom said. At those words, my brother’s face lit up. “Provided it’s healthy and doesn’t cause problems,” she went on. “It needs to be checked by a vet. And it stays outside or down here in the bathroom.”

  Shady stood up and handed me the swaddled duckling, then stepped past Dad and threw his arms around Mom. Thank you is one of the things he just can’t seem to say—even to us—but the message was there in his arms. “I’ll take such good care of him,” he said instead. “You won’t have to worry about anything.”

  “And, Manda, we’ll try having Angie babysit Shady and Pouya once a week so you can join the film club,” Mom said.

  At that, my brother shot me a panicked look, and I shot one right back, but in the end, his happiness about the duck seemed to outweigh his worry about Angie. Maybe mine did, too, because with the duckling now nestled in my arms, I felt calmer than I would have expected about the whole thing.

  Mom sighed. “Now come and get ready for bed. Both of you. It’s getting late.”

  The next afternoon, a lady with a long, gray braid stopped by. She was a wildlife specialist from a mobile animal clinic that Dad found online. She went to the basement bathroom to see Sven, and when she came back up, she pronounced the duckling healthy and told us how to look after it.

  “No bread,” she said. “Bread is very bad for ducks. Lots of veggies, like the frozen peas you’ve got downstairs. Corn is good too. No citrus fruit. And you’ll need to pick up some special feed called duck crumble. You can buy it from a farm-supply store or order it for her online.”

  Shady, who’d been taking notes, looked up. The question was in his furrowed eyebrows.

  “Her?” I asked.

  “It’s a female duckling.”

  And that was how we ended up with our first family pet—which wasn’t a pet, exactly. She was a service animal. An “emotional support duck.” And her new name was Svenrietta.

  CHAPTER 5

  A Duck at School

  Told by Pouya

  Right from the start, Svenrietta was more than your average duck.

  I never thought Shady would get to keep her, but he told me the news first thing at school on Monday.

  He started by pointing at the ground in front of him.

  “Sidewalk?” I guessed.

  He bent his arms inward and flapped his elbows.

  “Chicken?”

  He shook his head, pointed at the ground again, and when that didn’t work, he cradled his arms across his chest and rocked them back and forth.

  “Oh! The baby duck!”

  He pointed down again as if to say here and now.

  “You sti
ll have it?”

  He grinned. Nodded hard. It was the most excited I’d ever seen my best friend. Even the time we traded his dad’s lawn mower to an old guy down the street for a real, working go-kart, Shady hadn’t been this pumped.

  I asked questions all day, but it was hard for him to explain. I only found out the details later.

  Basically, Svenrietta was a duck with a job—in charge of helping Shady feel better. Less freaked out about stuff. And she was really, really good at it.

  Her main duty was to go places with him. Like out for ice cream, to his therapy appointments, and even to the grocery store.

  She learned to walk on a leash with a special harness, and she was better behaved than some dogs I’d met. Not only that, but Shady managed to train her, because she’d do just about anything for the green peas he kept in his pocket. When Shady closed his hand into a fist, she had learned to sit. When he opened it and tilted his palm upward, she got up. He only had to clap twice for “come here,” and she’d come booping across the room to him, wiggling her fuzzy butt.

  The only thing she didn’t do on command was poop. Ducks are constant poopers, so she had to wear special duck diapers that Shady’s mom ordered online. Svenrietta’s diapers had different patterns: hearts, stars, even ones with tiny skulls for the days she wanted to look tough. Shady had to change them, and it was gross, but he didn’t mind. That’s how much he loved her.

  Actually, before long, everyone loved her. Even Shady’s mom. You could tell because she kept a special certificate from Shady’s psychiatrist in her purse and threatened to report people—like the guy at the pizza place, or the taxi driver who claimed to have a “no ducks in my cab” rule—if they wouldn’t let Svenrietta go wherever Shady went.

  Shady’s mom is the kind of lady who gets things dry-cleaned and wears a real diamond necklace. She expects things to be the way she expects them. Everyone—including the taxi driver—gave in quick. Everyone except our principal, Mrs. Mackie, who said a duck would disrupt the learning environment. That didn’t fly with Shady’s mom. She went straight to the school board office, then she called a lawyer.

  It took a while. We spent our summer afternoons watching Svenrietta paddle around in Shady’s old kiddie pool in his backyard and teaching her tricks for peas. The fall of fifth grade started. Shady wore a pair of ripped overalls and tucked Svenri under one arm for the world’s easiest and most legit farmer’s costume that Halloween. The first snow fell, and Shady’s mom ordered a pair of special duck boots so Svenrietta could walk in the snow.

  She’d grown from a fluff-poof into an almost full-size duck—but, finally, at the beginning of December, Svenrietta was allowed to start school on probation. That meant she could come, but if she was too distracting to the other kids, she’d get banned.

  Wednesday, December 3, was her first day. It was good timing, because I needed some cheering up.

  “Hey,” I said dully when I met Shady in front of the school that day. He was getting out of his dad’s car. “You got her?”

  Shady gave me the A-OK nod.

  He was carrying Svenrietta in a special sling, tucked inside his coat to keep her warm. From certain angles, it made him look like a pregnant lady.

  He must have noticed the dead tone of my voice because he raised his eyebrows like You okay?

  “Have you seen this?” I pulled a folded-up piece of newsprint out of my pocket.

  He read the headline. Bit his lip. Shook his head sadly.

  I sighed heavily in response.

  What were we so bummed about? Oh, nothing really. Just the end of the world.

  According to internet sources, Planet Q—also known as the planet Quaninbar—was hurtling toward us at a speed of 1,000 light years per hour. Astral-science experts theorized that it would make contact with Earth at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, probably blasting us all to smithereens.

  The whole thing was spelled out in an ancient Mayan prophecy. When I’d heard about it two months before, I hadn’t exactly believed it, but the first three signs had already come to pass.

  First: The sea will turn black, and many living things will die.

  There was a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a month ago. They showed pictures on the news of dead birds washed up on shore and volunteers cleaning sea turtles with toothbrushes.

  And, okay. Oil spills happen. But, two weeks later: An unholy racket will rattle the skies. Fireworks went off for no reason what sounded like a few blocks away. It wasn’t even a holiday! The windows in our apartment building shook for almost an hour.

  Then, just that morning, I’d nearly choked on my cereal when page four of the world news section reported that in Wyoming, a sinkhole the size of an Olympic swimming pool had opened up in a highway, and a van carrying puppies to a local shelter fell right in. The third sign, clear as day: A crater will open and swallow the innocent. What could be more innocent than puppies?

  There were only two signs to go, which made it official: the human race had about four weeks left before Planet Q struck on New Year’s Day. That was less than 28 days…about 665 hours. The clock was ticking—and the worst part was, most people didn’t even care.

  “Come on,” I said to Shady, because the first bell had already rung. “Let’s go line up before Svenri gets cold.”

  “Yo, Gavin!” I said, once we were in line. “Have you seen this?” I held up the newspaper article. “It’s like I told you! The end is near.”

  Gavin, who’s one of the smartest kids in our class, glanced up from the book he was reading. He sighed. “Are you still talking about Planet Q?” he asked. “It’s a total hoax. You know that, right?”

  “Is it?” I pressed the article closer to his face. I pointed to the part about puppies, but he didn’t seem impressed, so I tried Wendel Munch. “It’s the third sign,” I said, showing him the article.

  “Oh shut up, Pou,” he answered, turning back to face the front of the line.

  Then Pearl Summers got in on tearing me down. “Nobody believes you, okay?” She glared at me. “It’s what happens when every second thing you say is a lie.”

  “Yeah,” her friend Monica agreed. “Like, we all know your uncle didn’t really invent crackers.”

  Okay, yes. That was something I made up one day to be funny, but was it that impossible to believe? Someone invented crackers. Why not my uncle?

  “Fine!” I threw my hands up and turned to Shady. “See if I come to their rescue when the next sign comes to pass, and winged machines start falling from the sky.”

  The second bell rang, and we all filed in.

  “Good morning, Shady!” Pearl Summers cooed, once we’d stopped in front of the coat hooks. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but since that day in Shady’s front hall when we’d first brought Svenri home, Pearl had upped her annoyingness. Over the last few months, she’d gotten meaner and meaner, especially when her friends were around to impress. (The week before, she’d asked DuShawn, a boy in our class who has long hair and likes to wear dresses sometimes, if she could borrow his outfit, then laughed out loud with Monica and Rebecca when he said yes.) And, I swear, she purposely walked past Shady’s house with her prancy little hamster-sized dog every day, just so that it could yap at Svenrietta. And now this routine…

  “Yeah. Good morning, Shady!” Pearl’s friend Rebecca echoed.

  “Would you stop doing that?” I yelled it straight into their faces because, like I said, I was in no mood. “You know he hates it.”

  At least, Pearl should have known it. She used to be Shady’s best friend. Their families had rented mansions on the beach together and stuff when they were little. Shady showed me a picture of them at some kind of fair, grinning with pink and blue teeth while they ate sticks of cotton candy that were bigger than their heads. She knew his deal. But since she’d started hanging out with Rebecca and Monica, she liked to act as if she didn’t.

  “Okay. First of all, we weren’t talking to you, Pou.” Pearl wr
inkled her nose like my name smelled. “And second, saying good morning is the polite thing to do.”

  Is it though?

  Pearl knew Shady wasn’t going to answer. She knew it made him squirm when people talked right at him. And still, she and her stupid friends did this every day, like it was a project. Like if they just kept chipping away, they could extract words from him.

  Or maybe they were just trying to make a point that they were better people than him because they said it and he didn’t say it back.

  I didn’t know exactly. Just trust me. It was the meanest kind of good morning, and I was done with it. That’s why I stomped on Rebecca’s foot. Not hard. And she was wearing snow boots. It couldn’t have hurt that much, but first she screamed like a baby and then she shoved me, sending me flying straight into Shady.

  “Watch it!” I yelled after I’d found my balance.

  “Yeah. Careful, Rebecca,” Pearl sneered. “If you bump into Shady too hard, he might pee himself.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” I yelled. “He’s got his duck inside his coat. You could have squashed her.”

  “Oh whatever, Pou.” Rebecca rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah. Stop lying,” Pearl added.

  I’d been telling people for weeks that Svenrietta would be coming to school soon, but they acted like I was making it up. And even though Pearl knew it was true, she was acting like it was a lie just to annoy me.

  Finally, I had a chance to prove myself.

  “Does this look like a lie?” I reached over and unzipped Shady’s coat.

  Svenrietta poked her head out of the sling.

  Wak.

  Both girls screamed.

  “Oh my God!” Shushanna said, catching sight of Svenri from across the hall. “Shady has a duck!”

  “Awwww! That’s so cute!” her friend Sara squealed.

  “Okay, everyone. Into class.” Our teacher, Mrs. Okah, managed to break up the crowd that had started to gather around Shady and Svenrietta, but as soon as we got into Room 9, the uproar started again.

  “Can I pet it?”

  “What’s its name?”