The question was, is the duck ok?
She did not want to leave home on Sunday for fear of the duck's health. How seriously would the boarding school take her worries?
She apprehensively waits for news, settling into the same school her mother, aunts and cousins attended. Anxieties increase as she heads to the bedroom, a spectacular room in a Victorian mansion.
She spots a note on the bedspread. Written in the refined hand of an ancient little housemother it announces:
"Duck OK".
What relief in those healing words!
Months earlier she had witnessed her father shaking hands with the garrulous new owner of the family business. Then, as a sign of good faith and to close the deal, her father gives the gift of a duckling.
Later she answers the phone.
"May I speak to your father?" asks the buyer.
"How is the duck?" she asks.
"Dead. May I speak to your father?"
"Oh!!"
2 comments:
ok - i'm trying to comment again. hope it takes this time!
i luv ducklings, and i luv the name of your blog!
have lots of fun with it!
I lucky enough to have flocks of ducklings over the years...We always had a bunch of ducks, dogs, adopted fawns, baby quail, snakes, tarantulas and blue jays. Even ravens. Hunting and fishing were popular with the boys, and one time they brought home a tiny pet octopus, squirting a tiny bit of ink in the bucket of ocean water.
How many puppies we raised! These experiences made my world!
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