Duck Boy

by Bill Bunn

  “So, what’s your greatest fear?” Steve asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, actually.”

  “Fair enough,” he agreed with a nod.

  “So now, we should both spend some time thinking, trying to discover our greatest fear. Then we can begin to look for our Benu stones.”

  Steve sat back in his chair. Lindsay stood and approached the window, watching the crime scene through a small gap in the curtains. His mind rolled through everything he was afraid of. None of the fears he could imagine were great enough to stand out from any other fear.

  As he thought, police processed the crime scene. When they finished, they bordered the property with yellow crime scene tape. A fresh patrol car parked across the street as the others left, one by one.

  “A police car is watching Shannon’s now,” Lindsay observed. “It’s going to be tricky if you have to get back into your aunt’s house.”

  “It might be a problem getting back into my own house if I need to get anything done, too. I’ll bet they’re over there by now. What am I going to do?”

  “I think I should set up your sleeping quarters downstairs in the furnace room. My dad never goes in there, and you’ll be safe.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Lindsay nodded seriously, still studying Shannon’s house.

  “OK. Actually, now that you mention it, I’m beat.” Steve followed Lindsay downstairs.

  She tossed him a sleeping bag and rolled a cot into a narrow little room beside the furnace and the hot water heater.

  “‘Night, Lindsay. Sorry for the trouble.”

  Lindsay smiled. “No problem. Stay in this room until I come and get you in the morning, all right?”

  “Sure.” Steve managed a smile. “And thanks.”

  The morning came quickly somehow. Steve woke and opened his eyes as the furnace motor clunked to begin its work. For a moment he forgot where he was. The room was absolutely dark, except for a small glow from the furnace front as the gas flames ignited.

  What time is it?

  His empty stomach barked with hunger.

  “Keep it down,” he replied.

  His heart warmed as he thought of Lindsay. He slipped out of the sleeping bag, sat up on the edge of the cot, and pulled a string attached to a dim bulb. He opened the door and peeked outside of his room. A dull morning light glowed through a small basement window. The day looked overcast, possibly stormy.

  Steve heard a set of feet come down the stairs. He pulled himself back inside the furnace room and clicked off the light. The footsteps came closer.

  Duck Boy. Duck Boy.

  “Hello, Steve. Are you up yet?” It was Lindsay’s voice, talking at a normal volume.

  Steve opened the door to the furnace room and stepped into the family room. Lindsay smiled and passed him a bowl of cereal with milk already in it.

  “Thanks,” he said. He sat in a chair and scooped the cereal hungrily into his mouth.

  “You’re a criminal now,” Lindsay said. She took a newspaper out from underneath her arm and unfolded it to reveal the headline: “Nephew Wanted for Questioning in Great Aunt and Uncle’s Disappearance.” Steve’s vision blurred as he stared at the headline. He blinked hard to bring the letters back into focus.

  “You’re spilling your cereal,” Lindsay said with a laugh. “You don’t happen to have your aunt and uncle in the furnace room with you, do you?”

  Steve couldn’t reply.

  “Woah. This is some deep doo-doo,” he exclaimed. A smaller headline read “Son Played Role in Mother’s Disappearance.” Another small headline read “Boy Steals Evidence.”

  Steve set the bowl of cereal down and scanned the newspaper, devouring every word. After he’d finished reading about himself, he returned the newspaper to Lindsay and picked up the bowl of cereal, now mush, and began to eat. After a few mouthfuls, he stopped and considered Lindsay’s smiling face. “I can’t believe it. I’d have to be some kind of evil genius to pull off all that stuff.”

  “It makes sense that you’re the prime suspect. But just looking at you now, how could anyone possibly think that you would be capable of doing something like this?”

  “Thanks, I think,” Steve said hoarsely. “It’s funny, kinda. Except I’m in some serious trouble here.” He thought of what his dad would say after returning from his trip. “I can’t possibly imagine a worse Christmas.”

  He pulled the paper from Lindsay’s hand and balanced it on a knee next to his cereal bowl. As he resumed eating, he scanned the stories again. “Oh no!” Steve dumped his spoon back in the cereal bowl. “That’s the clincher. I was pretty stupid.” He slapped his forehead with his free hand. “I touched the ransom note.” He slumped back into his chair and covered his head with his hands.

  Under the headline, Steve’s picture displayed. His hair a tornado of confusion. Only one of his two eyes was looking at the camera. Head oddly angled to the left. Wearing pajamas? Yes. Pajamas. It was a photo taken of him when he and his dad had gone to report his mother missing.

  “You what?”

  “The kidnappers left a ransom note behind. I picked it up and read it and then left it behind. They found my fingerprints on it. It says so right here.” Steve twisted his finger into part of the newspaper story.

  “But they don’t have your fingerprints on file, do they?” Lindsay asked.

  “They sure do,” Steve muttered. “They took my fingerprints when my mother disappeared, so when they dusted the inside of our house for fingerprints they could tell whose was whose.”

  Lindsay let out a low whistle. “Touching the ransom note wasn’t a bright move.”

  Steve winced. “No, not smart at all.”

  “Are you going to straighten things out with the police?”

  “I don’t think I can. The ransom note said that if I talk to the police they’d kill Uncle Edward. Besides, Detective Garner will never believe anything I say now. He thinks I’m the one responsible for taking the pictures from the file, along with making people disappear and trashing houses. My picture makes me look like a baby killer. And they mention accomplices. Doesn’t that make you a criminal, too?”

  “You’re right.” Lindsay sighed. “You’re the inside guy for the kidnappers. I’m an accessory to kidnapping because I’m letting you hide at my dad’s house.”

  “Yeah. If you’re right and they did tap the phones, the gang would have heard everything Aunt Shannon and I said on the phone for the last few days.” He paused as his thoughts gathered into a new insight. “I just thought of something. If they were listening to the phone conversations, then these guys will know about you, too, because we talked on the phone earlier tonight. You can bet that they’ll find out where you live and pay you a visit.”

  “Geez. I never thought about that.” A look of surprise crossed her face. “You’re right. And they’ll know that I know how to make a Benu stone, too.”

  “So we’re both in the same boat,” Steve suggested glumly.

  “We’re in the same boat,” Lindsay agreed. “We need to find our Benu stones today and start experimenting. Get your notebook and let’s move.”

  “Is your dad upstairs?”

  “Nah, he’s not even home yet from last night.”

  “Wow, he likes to party.”

  “Yeah, he sure does,” Lindsay scowled. “I think I know what my fear is,” she added. “So we should begin to look for my stone first. We’ll look for yours afterwards because we might have to go to your house and stuff.”

  Steve nodded. “So where do you want to begin?”

  “I’m going to go collect a bunch of things and do the clock-lock test. Come on upstairs. We’ll experiment in the living room.”

  “Can I get a bit more to eat?” Steve asked cautiously.

  “Sure. The fridge is all yours.”

  Steve packed up his things, stuffing his coat, hat, and gloves into his backpack. Backpack in hand, he followed her up the stairs, to the main floor, toward the
kitchen. Steve made a beeline for the refrigerator as Lindsay headed down the hall to her room.

  Steve could hear Lindsay walking through the house dropping things into a cardboard box. As soon as he’d found some reasonably fresh ingredients and thrown together a ham sandwich, he made his way to the living room, munching. Lindsay arrived a few minutes later with a box loaded with items.

  “I found a few things to experiment with. We can speed things up if you hand each of the things to me. I’ll try them. If they don’t work, I’ll pass them back to you.” She looked up from the box of objects and met Steve’s eyes. “Keep track of which objects I’ve tested. I don’t have the time to experiment any more than I need to. We don’t have time to waste.”

  “Umphkay,” Steve said, the sandwich in his mouth garbling his words. She took a seat in an armchair. In one hand she held a clock. Steve handed her a belt.

  “Clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock,” Lindsay spoke firmly to the belt. Nothing happened. She checked her grip and tried the words again. “Clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock.”

  Still nothing. She passed the belt back to Steve. He passed her a silver dollar. She spoke the words while touching the coin. Nothing. She gripped the coin in her fist and retried the experiment a second time.

  “Why are you doing each experiment twice?” Steve asked.

  “I want to be sure everything is just right,” Lindsay replied. “I want to make sure my connections are good. We can’t afford to make a slight mistake and accidentally miss finding it.”

  “Good point.”

  The two worked steadily for more than an hour. Steve passed her every object she had in the box. She experimented with each thing and passed it back. Steve passed all kinds of objects to Lindsay—mugs, stuffed animals, Christmas decorations. Nothing worked.

  “Let’s take a break,” Steve suggested after they’d finished the last object. “You’ve been working pretty hard.”

  Lindsay nodded tiredly. She seemed worn out by the experiments. They chatted a bit and then looked over at Aunt Shannon’s house. A patrol car sat dutifully out front. Lindsay got up and walked through the house, replacing old objects to their proper locations, and finding new ones to test.

  “If I had time to think more about this experiment, I’d have a better idea of what to look for. But since we’re in a hurry, I have to count on luck a little more.” She passed Steve the new box of things and they began their experimentation again. He picked a small doll out of the box and passed it to Lindsay. So it began.

  An hour and a half later they were both exhausted and still hadn’t found what they were looking for. “Did you miss anything?” Lindsay asked angrily.

  The tone of Lindsay’s words jolted Steve out of his tired daze. “I’ve been careful,” he said quietly. “You experimented with everything in this box.”

  Lindsay’s features relaxed quickly. “Sorry, Steve. I’m just frustrated.” She took the last object—a plastic dollhouse—tossed it into the box, then slumped forward with her head in her hands, looking discouraged. “This isn’t easy. I’ve tested everything I could think of. I can’t think of another thing to try.”

  Steve’s part in the experiments had given him a few clues as to things she might be looking for. “Why don’t I look around for some stuff? I might see something you missed.”

  “All right,” Lindsay agreed. Steve looked around the house and collected a few things that they hadn’t tested. Steve brought them into the living room where Lindsay sat resting.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yup, give me the first thing,” Lindsay requested. She resumed her grip on the clock. Steve handed her an empty bottle. Lindsay snorted a laugh when she saw it. She tried it, but like the rest of the things they had tried, it didn’t work. Steve went to take the bottle from her hand and replace it with something else. But Lindsay wouldn’t let go of the bottle.

  “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I was thinking that the object had to be a ‘special’ thing to me. But it might just be an ordinary thing, too. If a thing represents my greatest fear, I probably wouldn’t like it, right? It could be just any old thing?”

  “I suppose so,” Steve shrugged.

  “I’ll be right back.” She disappeared for a moment and returned with a key in her hand. She held it overhead triumphantly. She bounced into the armchair with a new energy. “I’m going to try this.” She grabbed the clock and squeezed the key with her fingers.

  “Clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock.” Lindsay stared at the clock. The clock sat quietly for a moment and then began to shake in her hand. She opened her hand wide, like the clock had somehow shocked her. The clock dropped onto the floor. Lindsay and Steve heard a giant ripping sound. The room filled with a brilliant kaleidoscope of light. A tight vortex of wind swirled around the room. And then it all stopped. A pleasant earthy smell filled the room as Lindsay and Steve sat together silently, struck dumb by their success.

  “It worked,” Lindsay whispered hoarsely.

  “Unbelievable.” Steve shook his head.

  “One down, one to go,” Lindsay sighed with a grin.

  Steve returned the smile. “I’m still amazed that this actually works.”

  Lindsay gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean? You just saw what happened, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. I saw it. I don’t mean to say that I don’t believe in this kind of thing. It’s just that I was brought up to believe that things like this weren’t possible. That’s what I learned in school. That’s what my dad tells me at home. That’s what Larry says. If you listen to those people long enough, this alchemy stuff is a big surprise.”

  Lindsay’s puzzled look gave way to an understanding smile. “Shannon always said that we ought to be surprised that life rumbles along as normally as it does. She was always surprised that she wasn’t surprised. She told me once that she was surprised at how many miracles it took to give someone a boring life.”

  “Yeah. That’s true—I’m beginning to see her point. You get so used to those little miracles that you take them for granted.”

  “We really should leave and work on your stone.”

  “I think we need to go to my house.”

  “Great, then that’s where we’ll go.”

  “I’m a little nervous. The police will probably be watching my place. I don’t know how we’ll get in.”

  “That’s a good point.” Lindsay added, “You might be recognized on the street, too—your picture was in the paper.”

  “Right, I forgot about that. What should I do?”

  “Just wear a hat to cover your hair and use one of my dad’s coats instead of your regular one. That should fool the general population.”

  “What if there is a police car in front of my house?” Steve asked again.

  “Let’s worry about that when we get there. Do you have your house key?”

  Steve patted his pocket. “Yup.”

  “Then let’s get going. I’m going to write a note to my dad so he knows where I am—not that he’ll care.” She sighed.

  The two of them cleaned up the objects Steve had selected for Lindsay’s experiments and prepared to leave. Steve slid into a long wool overcoat belonging to Mr. Locket. It was far too big, but it did alter his look fairly well. He wore one of Mr. Locket’s hats, too, pulled low over his brow to cover his hair and shade part of his face. His own gloves and hat he removed from his backpack and pushed into the coat pockets. Then Steve placed his notebook in his backpack, alongside Aunt Shannon’s and his mother’s, and slid the pack onto his shoulders. “This might not be so bad…” he started to say, but his words were cut short by a loud bang.

  The front door to the house swung open and Walter Locket walked in.

  “Hello Lindsay, I’m back. How’s my little girl?”

  The two teens froze in the living room. Lindsay grabbed Steve’s sle
eve and whispered harshly into his ear, “Hide quickly. My dad will get really mad if he knows you’re here. He’ll think… well… just hide, OK?”

  Steve whipped his head around the room looking for possible places to hide. He selected some heavy drapery that shrouded the far corner of the picture window in the living room.

  “Hello, Dad,” Lindsay called in a honey-sweet voice as Steve headed for his hiding spot. “How was your night?”

  Mr. Locket jogged up the stairs. “Why, you’re in a pleasant mood today.” He smiled vacantly towards her and headed into the kitchen to open the fridge. “I am absolutely starved.” He poked through the contents of the fridge. “Did you eat all the ham, Lindsay?”

  “Umm. Yeah. I guess so.”

  “You should know so. You ate almost all of it.” He looked up from behind the fridge door. “I thought you hated ham.”

  “Most of the time I do, but today I was in a weird mood,” Lindsay said with a weak smile. Steve’s heart pounded as he listened to the exchange.

  “Hmm. Teenagers.”

  Mr. Locket pulled a few bits of food onto a plate and headed into the living room. He flopped onto the couch right beside the drapery where Steve was hiding. Still wearing Walter’s coat and hat, Steve felt like a furnace. He carefully slid his hand up beside his body and removed the hat, quietly stuffing it into a pocket of the coat.

  Lindsay stood nervously surveying the whole scene.

  “Did you have something to say?” Mr. Locket inquired. “You have a weird look on your face.”

  “Umm, do I?” Lindsay returned hesitantly.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Mr. Locket asked. “If you’re feeling all right, I’d like you to go out for a while. I’m having a friend over. You look like you were going somewhere, anyway.” Lindsay glanced down, noticing that she had her coat on, too.