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Authors: Jack Gantos

BOOK: Jack Adrift
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But before I could get her a picture to put up, she got in touch with me first. The next day the phone rang and I picked it up.
“Henry residence,” I sang into the mouthpiece.
“Remember your duck, Quack?” she asked right away.
How could I forget? She had made me clean smelly cages for two weeks as payment for flipping his feet around. “Yes,” I replied. “How's he doing?”
“His feet are fine, but he seems a bit depressed. I think he needs some help building up his self-esteem.”
“What do you mean,
building up his self-esteem?
” I asked.
“I mean, he is feeling insecure from having such a rough start in life and I think you should help build up his confidence.”
“How?” I asked. I just couldn't imagine what I'd have to do to make a duck feel more self-confident.
“There's a Pet Parade coming up,” she said. “You march Quack in the parade and if he is the best-looking pet, he wins a blue ribbon. And that would make him feel better, I'm sure.”
“Would a duck even know he had won something?” I asked. “I mean, how does a duck know about
self-esteem
?”
“Animals are very mysterious,” she said carefully. “Researchers are not yet sure what they feel and don't feel. But one thing they have in common with humans is that they respond to love and attention, and that leads to better self-esteem.”
“Well,” I said, “are his feet strong enough to make it through a whole parade?”
“They are facing front and center,” she said, like she was captain of the duck brigade. “And they are fully healed and ready to waddle.”
“Are you sure this will work?” I asked.
“It can't hurt,” she reasoned.
“I have one little problem,” I said sheepishly. “My parents won't let me have a pet.”
“He's not a house pet,” she said. “You can keep him outside in a plastic kiddie pool.”
“We have a little swamp,” I suggested. “Will that work?”
“Perfect!” she said. “You can think of him as an animal that you are reintroducing into the wild.”
That sounded like a good science project for Miss Noelle. “Okay, I'll take him to the parade.”
“He'll need a little work,” she said. “You'll have to groom him.”
“Sure,” I replied, not having any idea what went into grooming a duck for a contest. But I figured it couldn't be much, and then he'd be gone.
I was wrong. When I went over to her office to get Quack, he looked like he had been living in an oil slick. He was filthy. His lower beak was still scratched up from hitting the pavement, and there were two thick red
scars where his little legs had been broken and twisted back into place.
“He looks awful now,” she said, picking at his stubby gray feathers, “but you have a few weeks to get him ready.”
“Weeks?” I said. “I thought I'd just take him to the parade, build up his self-esteem, and then he'd fly off with the other ducks. My parents won't let me have him for weeks.”
“You'll have to talk them into it,” she said. “Because it will take weeks to artificially stimulate his winter plumage to grow so he'll look plump and clean and healthy.”
“How do I do that?” I asked, knowing I wasn't going to like the answer.
“Every day you put him in the freezer for five minutes. That's all it takes. Just five minutes of winter weather, and you'll see, after a few days new feathers will start growing.”
I couldn't believe my ears. “My mother will kill me if I put a duck in her freezer. Please don't make me do that,” I pleaded.
“Where there's a will, there's a way,” she said breezily, then got back to grooming the duck. “Just before the contest you'll have to polish up his beak and feet.”
“With what?” I asked.
“Car polish,” she said. “It's the best.”
“And what about the scars and scratches?”
“Wax crayons should help,” she suggested. “Don't you know anything about grooming animals for contests?”
I didn't. It was all I could do to take a shower, brush my teeth, and comb my hair each day. I hadn't polished my shoes all year, and now I was going to have to buff a duck's feet until looking at them made you squint. And worse, I was going to have to sneak him into Mom's freezer every day. If she caught me, she'd kill me. And if Betsy caught me, she'd never believe I was trying to get his winter feathers to grow. She would accuse me of torturing animals by freezing them to death. Even Dad would think it was weird. And the only reason I wasn't afraid of Pete is because if he caught me I'd threaten to put
him
in the freezer, and that would keep him quiet.
“One more thing,” I said to the vet. “Could you sign this paper?” It was my pet prescription. “The school shrink wants me to have a pet,” I said.
“I can see why,” she remarked. “Taking care of a pet might be good for
your
self-esteem.”
Little did she know. Walking a duck on a leash in a public parade is going to crush my self-esteem, I thought, as she signed with a flourish. Next year the duck will have to walk me.
 
 
On the way home I renamed him King Quack because I thought it would be good for his self-esteem to come from royalty. When I got him home I tied one of his legs to a small tree outside. I decided to take the direct approach with Mom and Dad instead of trying to be sneaky. As soon as I entered the house I looked at them and said, “I have something
unbelievable
to tell you.”
“Try me,” Mom replied.
I told them about King Quack and his self-esteem problem and how I was going to help him out with the parade. “We'll only have him for three weeks,” I promised. “Only three and then he goes.”
“We used to eat ducks,” Dad said. “Pluck 'em and grill 'em.”
“He's not the eating kind,” I said. I knew Dad was thinking that if we ate him it would save money. One less chicken to buy.
“You can't bring him in the house,” Mom said sternly.
“I promise he'll never step foot inside,” I said, knowing that I was lying a little bit because I had to put him in the freezer and, technically, the freezer was inside. But I would carry him.
“Well,” she considered, “taking care of an animal is a
maturing
experience.”
“And it will be good for my self-esteem if I do a good job,” I said.
Mom leaned forward and gave me a kiss. “I think
you're right,” she said quietly. “But just for three weeks.”
“Thanks,” I said.
After dinner Dad got me some chicken wire and I made a cage for King Quack out on the edge of the swamp so he wouldn't walk or swim off, and so no other animals would hurt him.
That night, once I was sure everyone had gone to sleep, I sneaked down the hall and out the side door. I walked over to King Quack. He was sleeping. I took the big rubber band out of my pajama pocket and quickly reached down and snapped it across his beak. “No quacking allowed,” I whispered, “or I'll be living out here with you, and Dad will be thinking of how to pluck and grill me.”
I quickly carried him inside and opened the freezer door. “Don't worry,” I said. “I'll be right here.”
I set him in and closed the door and started counting the seconds. “One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three …”
Suddenly Betsy walked down the hall and saw me. “What are you doing?” she asked, heading for the bathroom.
“Just getting a drink of water,” I rasped with a fake parched voice. When she left I had no idea how much time had passed. I skipped a minute and started counting
down two hundred and forty seconds. When I heard the toilet flush I squatted in the shadows. Betsy padded down the hall and went back to her room. I forgot how much time passed again so I skipped another minute. When I had counted down one hundred and eighty seconds I opened the freezer door. King Quack was in the same spot where I had left him. “Sorry,” I whispered. I pulled him out and held him in my arms. He was really cold, but I wanted him to know that I cared about him. I tucked him under my pajama top so that we would be cold together.
I kept this up for a whole week without getting caught. But one day Mom was waiting for me when I came home from school.
“I found
this
in the freezer,” she said, holding up a duck feather.
“Oh, I can explain,” I said, trying to think fast. “It must have been stuck on my shirtsleeve and fallen off when I reached in for a Popsicle.”
“What about the webbed footprints?” she asked, and opened the freezer door. “Well?” There were footprints all over the TV dinners.
I broke down and told her everything. “I know it sounds odd,” I said, “but it's supposed to work. In fact I think it
is
working. I saw some new white feathers poking through the dirty ones.”
“It sounds sick,” she said.
“I'm just following directions from the vet,” I said. “She wouldn't want me to do anything dangerous.”
Mom gave me a perplexed look. “Well,” she said, throwing her hands up into the air, “at least put some socks on him when you put him in the freezer.” Then she walked down the hall mumbling to herself. “I must be losing my mind,” she said over and over.
The next two weeks were strange. On the one hand, getting the duck ready for the parade was about the weirdest thing I ever did. But on the other hand, as a result of taking care of him, feeding him, petting him, cleaning him, giving him his top-secret five minutes of winter weather in the freezer with doll socks on in the middle of the night, I fell absolutely in love with him. While I talked to him in baby-duck talk and cared for him, my mind began to drift and I found myself thinking about my family and how much I loved them, too. Especially Pete. I was the older brother and here I was spending more time taking care of a duck than I was my own brother. I petted the duck. I never petted Pete. I hugged the duck. I never hugged Pete. I gave the duck good advice—
don't blow your nose under your wing—stay away from dogs that are foaming at the mouth—stand with your head up and shoulders back—keep your beak closed unless you are speaking—always walk in a straight line with purpose—sleep only while floating in the middle of a pond.
The
only advice I gave Pete was to stay on his side of the room, not to speak to me unless I spoke to him first, and not to run through the house with his toothbrush in his mouth because if he fell down he could drive it through the back of his head.
And to my surprise I began to think of Betsy, too. I hadn't been very nice to her either. When she left the house I'd sneak into her room and move all her things around. I put dead bugs in the toes of her shoes. I glued pages of her diary together. I erased the phone numbers in her address book and made up phony ones. When her friends stopped by to visit, I began to fake cry and told them we were just on our way to the hospital to claim her body which had been identified only from dental records. It occurred to me that I no longer knew how all our meanness had started. Was I mean to her first, and was she mean as a result? Or was she mean first, and was I mean in retaliation? I didn't know, but it was worth thinking about.
I knew Dad thought I was a bit of a loser. But if I listened to him and did what he wanted me to do once in a while, I thought he would lighten up on me. When I borrowed tools from him I never put them away properly and left them all over the house and yard. And when I washed the car I always managed to leave his window cracked open and soak his seat so the next time he sat down the bottom of his pants got all wet. He
didn't like that—especially when the guys at work teased him about peeing in his pants. And every time he asked me to get something for him I always said, “In a minute.” After a few times of saying that in a row, he would get steamed at me for not being respectful. He was right. I just wasn't that helpful. He was trying to make ends meet and provide a good home and I was just letting everything unravel.
And with Mom I figured if I helped around the house more without always having to be told what to do ten times in a row, and stopped my whining and complaining while I did anything useful, then I bet she would be in a better mood and have more fun with me instead of looking at everything I needed as a big chore for her. She was counting the days until Dad finished his duty and we could move off this “sand dune,” and I was just making each day longer for her instead of shorter.
I looked at my little duck and thought he was very good medicine. The psychologist was a lot smarter than I thought. Taking care of a pet was making me feel very
mature.
 
The morning of the parade I got up early, before anyone else. I put on my clean jeans and a white T-shirt and sneakers. I went outside and got King Quack out of his cage. First, I fed him a couple slices of stale bread. As he ate I examined his feathers. They were fuller and
clean. When he finished eating I sat him on my lap. I polished his beak and feet with car wax that I took from Dad's trunk. I had to use only a little bit and he shone right up with the buffing cloth. The scratches on his beak seemed okay to me so I left them alone, and his red scars were fine. I thought they were decorative, kind of like red lightning-bolt tattoos. I figured if he looked clean and healthy and happy, then that was the best we could do. Even if he didn't win a blue ribbon, he knew I loved him. I put his glitter collar on that I had bought at the pet store and snapped on his matching leash. He looked great to me.

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