Entry 3: Duck Skaters
Around a street bend from The Café, there was a corner park. While Kookie was not a fan of nature, he frequented it sometimes and Louis wondered how much the local animals knew about him.
“Yeah, we know the guy,” one of the ducks he ran into said. He was wearing a skating helmet and holding a skateboard under his wing. So were the other four ducks flanking him. “Not a fan, personally.”
“Why’s that?”
“He usually stays clear of us. This one time, though, he had the bright idea of converting our creek into an ice skating rink. Can you imagine? Our creek. Called it a ‘business proposition’. We told him to shove off.”
“Yeah,” another duck said, his voice high and squeaky, “Not a fan of that kind of skating, mate.”
“And what kind is that?”
“Ice skating. Can you imagine, ducks who ice skate?”
The ducks watched as Louis scribbled in his notepad. It made him uneasy. They were too cool to be kept waiting. So he racked his brains for another question.
“You know anything about his huge debts?”
“Debts?”
“Yeah, he’s trillions in debts. Don’t know exactly how much though, he’s dabbled in so many businesses and scams. You’d need a mathematical genius to approximate it.” Louis chuckled but it didn’t land with the ducks. They just stared.
“Mate,” the head duck said. “We wouldn’t know anything about that. You’d need to consult the Duck.”
“The Duck…?”
“Yeah, he’s a mathematical genius. You were after one, right?”
“You just said mate, you just said,” the other duck squeaked at Louis.
“Oh, I didn’t realise there actual– Ah right, sure. So this duck–”
“The Duck for you mate.”
“Yeah…the Duck. He can put a number to Kookie’s debts?”
“I reckon yes. Not only is he a mathematical genius, he’s an accountant. He’s helped a few dozen small businesses around these parts – not Kookie though, he ain’t the type to file tax returns.”
“Of course,” Louis muttered. “So where can I find The Duck?”
The ducks glanced at each other then looked back at Louis. “You don’t just find the Duck. Here, rip off a piece of paper from your notebook and write out exactly what you need. We’ll get it to him.”
“And then?” Louis asked as he scribbled on a piece of paper. He passed it over.
The ducks ruffled their feathers and straightened up, ready to go.
“Then – you’ll get a message back. Be here again next weekend. 2pm, Saturday. We’ll rendezvous with you.”
“Yeah,” the other duck said as they got on their skateboards and charged off, “We’ll rendezvous. So be here or be square, mate.”
Louis was a nervous wreck during the week. Not only did “the Duck” sound like a shifty character, but in the meanwhile he had to figure out if Kookie had a line back to the Duck without being obvious he was asking any such question. In fact, direct questions didn’t work anyway (see why: Entry 2) – that was the real problem, not making Kookie suspicious and giving the game away. And the game was that Louis was an undercover spy/private investigator, only actually it was no game. No, this was Louis’ dream career, one he had dreamed of since he was a little lorikeet. Only he never had any bird role models to look up to, and no resources to speak of. Until one day, a human benefactor who had also been a spy gifted Louis his spying business upon retiring, making just one request of Louis in return: to make Kookie the topic of his first investigation. So that is what Louis did. And it was a small price to pay to befriend a cwazy bird for potentially years on end who ran scams and had a failed pencil factory, to build up a case against him slowly yet surely, all in the hopes of calling himself a bona fide spy.
On Wednesday, Louis arrived early at the Café. After a quick look around, he pinned up a poster on the community noticeboard. It was a poster he had made on his own. The plan was to take it down later. It read in massive block print: ‘Need a new watering can for your plants???! Contact the Duck – all kinds of watering cans, fancy patterns and explosive colours! Visit your friendly neighbourhood park – just around the bend at the end of Main Street (the dodgy end!)’
When Kookie showed up, Louis waited a while before pointing out the poster. “Huh, looks like an advertisement for watering cans. Who needs plants?” Louis laughed.
Kookie looked around at the poster and like too many times before, his expression was completely blank. Then slowly – painfully slowly – he registered what the poster read: “Watering cans…fancy patterns…” Then after a pause, with an excited stutter, “Explo– explosive colours?!” (“coooolers”).
Louis shuffled in his seat, not liking this unexpected turn of events.
“Contact the Duck…” (“duke”), Kookie continued. He paused and contemplated. “The Duck, hey?”
Louis looked at him keenly, his eyes shiny like knives.
“The Duck…I don’t know who that is.”
Louis exhaled in relief.
Then, Kookie said, “I must find the Duck. I will buy one of the watering cans with explosive colours.”
Louis scowled. He chose watering cans specifically as one of the least likely things Kookie could ever be interested in. All Louis wanted to do was confirm Kookie didn’t know the Duck. Now it had backfired for the stupidest reason.
“What will you do with a watering can?” he asked.
“If I have explosively colourful watering cans, like colours of…” Kookie grasped around for the perfect phrase, “Like a blind– blinding rainbow, then I can buy plants and make a whole garden of plants. Like a whole field of gardens!”
“That sounds extremely unlikely.”
“I must find this Duck, before the watering cans run out.”
Louis thought fast. “Heard he’s out of town till next week.”
“Next week?”
“Yeah until after this coming weekend, at least.”
“Next week? Okay, of course I will wait.”
Louis was determined. On Saturday, he had to make sure the Duck – and the duck skaters – were trustworthy allies who wouldn’t expose his true identity.
As Kookie continued studying the poster, Louis saw the duck skaters ride past the open café window. The most obnoxious one had a fresh scar and yelled out to another, “Yeah mate, it was worth the fight! Brush turkeys ain’t no friends of mine.”
The timing of this event was surely an unfortunate coincidence, not an ominous sign from the universe.
