What-do-I-do-now o’clock
How can I get to know my sworn enemy if I can’t see her?
How can I train my army if I can’t bite her?
I decide to follow them.
The door refuses to open, even when I give it the death stare. So I scout around the back of the school, tossing a few insults at the school chooks as I pass their pen.
And there it is! A hole in the wall, just big enough for a duck.
I launch myself into the air, quick and stealthy. I fly straight through the hole and into the—
OW!!!!!!!
The hole is not a hole.
As I lie on the ground beneath it, I remember Aunt Charlene telling us about something called ‘glass’.
I think I have just met it.
Half past glass
I lie there until my beak stops hurting. A couple of magpies fly overhead, and I pretend I’m hunting for worms.
When they are out of sight, I peer up at the glass. If I flew at it with twice the speed, could I force it open?
No. One of General Ya’s most famous sayings is, ‘Avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.’
The glass is strong.
What is weak?
The school chooks? Perhaps I could throw one of them at the glass …
No, I don’t think that would work.
Hmm.
General Ya also said, ‘If you wish to invade the pigsty, you must fool the pigs into thinking you are going to attack the cowshed …’
Sneaky o’clock
The school chookpen has trees on one side and a wire fence all around it. I fly some distance away, catch an air current and glide back to the trees, as silent as a dead frog.
Below me, the chooks are going about their morning business. Most of them are taking dust baths, but a few have moved on to hunting for earwigs.
I wait until two of them are almost directly under the tree.
Then I say, in a low voice, ‘So what’s the plan?’
In a different voice (based on Aunt Marcia) I answer myself. ‘Wait until they are all in a bunch. Then we attack from above.’
The chooks’ heads jerk up. They stare around. I rustle the leaves, then hop over to another branch and rustle some more.
One of the chooks stares up at the trees and nudges the other with her wing. ‘Ducks,’ she whispers. ‘Listen.’
‘What about the wire over the top of the pen?’ I say.
‘There’s a hole in the corner,’ I reply in my Aunt Marcia voice. ‘We’ll dive through it and attack before they know what’s hit them.’
There’s no hole in the corner of the wire, but the chooks don’t even check. Instead, they squawk at the tops of their voices, ‘Spike! Spike! The ducks are coming to attack us!’
Their rooster, who was stretched out in a dust bath, leaps to his feet and comes tearing over. ‘What? Where are they?’
‘Up in the tree! Up in the tree!’ cry the chooks.
It’s hard to make myself heard over the noise they are making, but I shout, ‘AND ONCE WE’RE IN THE PEN, WE’LL CALL IN THE FOXES.’
‘Foxes?’ Spike’s shriek of alarm is so loud it nearly deafens me. ‘Ladies!’ he cries. ‘Back to the coop! Bar the door! Top perch only! No dawdlers! Tuck your legs up! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!’
The chooks run for their lives, still squawking. Spike prowls the edges of the pen, his feathers puffed up to twice his usual size. His neck is curved in fury. His spurs gleam.
‘Where are you, foxes?’ he shrieks. ‘Show yourselves, you stinking red dogs. I’ll tear you apart!’
I take one last look at the chaos before I glide out of the tree, making sure Spike doesn’t see me.
As soon as I’m out of sight of the chookpen, I race around to the front of the school, and get there just as an adult human sticks her head out the door.
I dive behind another rock.
A voice from inside the school calls out, ‘Hey Daphne, why are the chooks making that awful racket?’
‘Might be a snake,’ says Daphne. ‘I’d better go and check.’
She hurries out the door, which begins to swing closed behind her. I make a dash for it, and get through the gap just in time.
Half past more-sneaking
I have never been inside a human building before. But I have heard about them from Aunt Charlene’s stories. So I was expecting the strangeness.
But still I feel as if the sky has dropped down far too close, and someone has stolen all the earth and grass and left nothing behind but nasty flat rock, which I believe is called a floor.
Hard sky above me
hard floor below me
already I am missing
the squish of worms
and the soft
friendly puddle
of—
STOP!
NO!
NO NO NO!
I march across the floor, muttering, ‘Ducks do not write poetry. Which means I do not write poetry! So that wasn’t a poem, it was a description—’
That’s when I notice a room with glass across the front of it. Standing in front of the glass are two humans – one big and one small.
The small human is looking at me.
‘Duck,’ it says.
I dive under a four-legged thing.
The big human turns around. ‘What was that, Chloe?’
‘Duck,’ says the small human, pointing at me.
‘No, darling, that’s a chair. Can you say chair?’
Behind me, the front door opens again and Daphne comes in. ‘No sign of anything,’ she says. ‘Maybe a hawk flew overhead. Anyway, they’re calming down now. I’ll let them out for their morning scratch soon.’
While she’s talking, I slip out from under the chair and race down the corridor.
‘Duck!’ screams the small human.
No one takes any notice. I have infiltrated the enemy’s headquarters undetected.
Where-is-my-sworn-enemy o’clock
I creep through the school, diving for cover whenever I hear humans. Legs hurry past me as I crouch behind a door. Feet almost trample me when I hide under a rug.
To my surprise, there are several armies gathered here. In one room they appear to be drawing up battle plans on large sheets of paper. In another, they are experimenting with strange weapons.
I sneak past them, searching for Clara – and find her in a room at the far end of the building, with her army seated all around her.
If I stay in the doorway for long, I will be spotted. But there is a box next to it, with a flap on top. I nudge the flap a little wider and dive inside.
The flap closes, leaving just enough room for me to see out.
Hehehehehehehehehe.
I spy on Clara.
I spy on her army.
I spy on my army, who is sitting by herself at the back of the room, writing on a piece of paper.
I expect she is describing our first meeting, and the thrill of being chosen by a duck.
