Told by Manda
When Pascale and I ran the idea for our duckumentary past Mr. Maloney at Film Fanatics club, he was completely on board. He even called Mrs. Mackie, the principal at Shady’s school, to ask if she’d grant us access to film there, and he got us time off from class to do it. We had two days and a lot of footage to gather, so we tried not to waste time setting up that first morning. Easier said than done though. The kids were all over us.
“Can I be in your movie?” a girl with red braids asked. “I acted once in a commercial for a shoe store.”
“What’s this button do?” Pascale had to swat away the hand of an overeager second grader who couldn’t take his eyes off the camera.
“Are you from Hollywood?” a wide-eyed, gap-toothed kindergartner asked.
“Okay, Zach. Come put your backpack away.” His teacher guided him toward the coat hooks, but the whole time he was watching us over his shoulder with his mouth hanging open.
“Let’s get a few establishing shots,” I suggested as the hallway emptied out. “Maybe some of these little snow boots and a few turkey crafts.” I pointed to a bulletin board that hadn’t been updated since Thanksgiving. “Stuff that screams ‘elementary school.’”
“Good idea.” Pascale loosened her scarf like she was ready to get down to business.
She held the portable LED light as I panned the handheld, high-definition camera slowly down the hallway. It was undeniable: we made a great team. Right from the concept, “a day in the life of a service duck,” to the execution, “strictly observational with narration, no interviews,” to the style, “dramatic but with a goofy, educational edge—like film noir meets Sesame Street,” we saw eye to eye.
It also helped that, right from the start, Shady was comfortable around Pascale. She never teased him or made a thing of it when he didn’t answer her questions or only answered them in his own way. The star of the show thought Pascale was pretty awesome too. Although that might have been because she started carrying a bag of peas in her pocket.
“Just keep panning until you get to the classroom door.” Pascale walked a few steps ahead while staying just out of the shot. She peered in the door of Room 9. “Then you can come in tight for a shot of Svenri sitting on Shady’s desk wearing…a tiny elf hat? For some reason?” Pascale said those last two parts like questions, but not in a weirded-out way. She seemed to take everything in stride—no matter what kind of odd things Shady and Pouya did—and they were definitely doing something odd that day. In fact, I might not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes and filmed it with my own camera.
I got the shot, then handed the camera to Pascale so she could review the footage on the display.
“Oh,” I said as I watched Mrs. Okah pick up a wrapper a kid had dropped on the carpet. “Svenri’s wearing the elf hat because it’s CandyGrams day.”
It had been almost five years since I’d been a student at Carleton Elementary. You’d think I would have overcome the trauma, but the sight of Pearl Summers and a bunch of other high-ponytailed popular girls walking up and down the aisles with big stockings full of little folded cards (each with a small candy cane stapled inside) still gave me the shivers.
“What’s CandyGrams?” Pascale asked with her eyes still on the camera display.
“It’s basically a Christmas popularity contest,” I explained. “Friends buy little candy canes for each other for twenty-five cents each. Then when they get delivered the next day, all the loners get to feel like nobodies because they don’t get any.”
I’d been there, done that. Especially after my best friend, Meghan, moved away halfway through fifth grade. Only—something was different this year. All the CandyGrams had been passed out, and Mrs. Okah was already partway into a lesson about words with silent letters before I figured out what it was: every single kid in the room was either sucking on a mini candy cane or had one on their desk. Some of them were different though. They looked like the cherry-flavored ones (the good kind), and nobody seemed to be on the verge of tears.
Then, as we were packing up our equipment to follow Svenrietta and the rest of the class to the music room, I overheard a boy named Jackson, who was sucking on a cherry candy cane, ask a girl named Aisha: “What’s your card say?”
“‘What do you call a duck that steals?’” she read slowly and carefully from her CandyGram.
“What?” he asked.
“‘A robber duck.’” She smiled, then read the rest. “‘Happy holidays from Svenrietta.’ How about yours?”
“‘What do you see when a duck bends over?’” He was already grinning from ear to ear. “Its butt quack.”
I heard a familiar burst of laughter from across the room. So familiar that it made my breath catch in my throat. It couldn’t be. But when I looked up, it definitely was…
Shady was sitting at his desk, doubled over—snort-laughing like the time our dad walked into the screen door with a plate of hamburgers. Meanwhile, Pouya was yukking it up beside him.
“What?” Pouya said when he caught me staring. “It’s funny!”
Shady managed to catch his breath, only to crack up again.
Was this honestly the same kid who’d been too anxious to even smile when class photos had been taken a few months before?
After music—where Svenrietta joined in by pecking at the triangle Shady was playing—the bell rang for recess, and things got weirder. Most of the kids rushed out, but Pascale and I stayed behind with Shady and Pouya to get shots of my brother putting on Svenrietta’s duck boots (another thing my mom read about on a message board and ordered online, since now, besides selective mutism message boards, she was also a lurker on duck-care forums). After that, Shady had to get Svenri settled into her sling. By the time we got out, recess was almost half over.
“It’s so pretty,” Pascale remarked.
It really was. The snow was coming down in big, fat flakes and had already completely covered the cracked concrete of the playground. Seen from a distance, anyway, there was something sweet and innocent about the scene—all those kids in their bright scarves and hats, laughing and running around. But it only took a second for the illusion to shatter.
One big kid in a gray coat and another wearing an orange hat came charging across the yard toward a snowman that a couple of little kids were building.
“Hiiiyah!” Gray Coat kicked the snowman in the head, then Orange Hat finished it off with a mitten-clad karate chop.
“Seriously, guys?!” Pascale yelled at them.
I shook my head, but I wasn’t surprised. Grade school hadn’t changed much after all.
That was when I felt Shady push past me. He marched straight toward the snowman.
“Yup. That’s what I was thinking too,” Pouya said as he followed. “Those kids are definite underducks.”
“Definite whats?” I asked, but Pouya was too far ahead to answer. Pascale and I had to run to catch up.
When we reached the snowman, one of the little girls was sitting on the ground with tears in her eyes. “Teacher!” she said plaintively to me. “They broke Mr. Snowy.”
“I’m not a teacher,” I said, but I was kind of flattered. Most people tell me I look young for my age.
“It’s okay.” Pouya offered a hand to help her up. “Look!” He packed some snow into his mitten. “It’s perfect snowman snow today. We’ll rebuild him. Even better than before. Right, Shady?”
My brother nodded, then took Svenri out of her sling and showed the girl how to gently stroke the duck’s head. She pulled off her mitten, and as she petted Svenri, she blinked her tears away. Her friend came over to see too.
It was amazing footage of a service duck in action, and Pascale and I got every second of it.
Meanwhile, Pouya was working in the background with a little boy to pat the snowman’s head back together. They were just finishing up when the big kid with the orange hat walked past. “Want to film us smashing it again?” he asked.
“Get lost!” I shouted, and I automatically stepped in front of my brother.
But Shady walked around me and stood in front. Then he set Svenrietta down in the snow and crossed his arms defiantly.
“Good idea,” Pouya said, coming to stand beside him. “We’ll guard it with our lives. Go pick on a snowperson your own size!” he shouted to the big kids.
Shady clapped twice, telling Svenrietta to stay close, then he began to lead her in a big circle around the snowman on her leash. Once the kids were a safe distance away, Pouya joined the march, defending the perimeter.
The kid with the gray coat pointed and laughed, but he didn’t come any closer, and when the class went out later to do a science unit on snowflakes as part of the water cycle, Mr. Snowy was still standing.
Then—and this was maybe the biggest deal of all—Shady raised his hand and pointed toward the hallway to ask to use the bathroom during final-period gym class. It meant we didn’t have to rush home right after school. Instead we took the long way, wandering down the main street through Summerside, filming as we went.
A family on their way home from school stopped to fuss over Svenrietta. Next, she sat for a while with a homeless man on the corner of Bloor and Sunnydale, letting him stroke her feathers. He told Shady and Pouya how he used to raise ducks and chickens on a farm when he was a kid. The memory made him smile widely, showing a broken front tooth. “You’re a good girl, aren’t ya?” he said to Svenri.
We went into a café and bought him a doughnut, and he clapped his hands when Svenri came toward him, carrying the bag in her bill. “Now that’s service!”
It was a good day. A really good day. One of the best I’d seen Shady have in, well, ages. Maybe ever.
Which made what happened next all the worse.