Momma Duck woke up one morning, and found another duckling in her nest,
in addition to the seven that she had proudly hatched yesterday.
This duckling was huge. It seemed to have no wings and four feet,
none of which were webbed. If it had feathers at all, they were
those scrawny, skinny, floppy things that grew all over its body (and
stuck out of its nose at all angles,) and would clearly never shed
water. It had no bill, but many white, pointy teeth, which showed
when it opened its mouth to let out one of its ear-piercing
whimpers. And its tail flailed about like it was trying to
separate from its body.
Even Momma Duck (who was well known for being so sweet and accepting,
and loving all her babies unconditionally) thought it was astonishingly
ugly, but she had a reputation to keep, so she exclaimed, “Oh, isn’t he
adorable!” and proudly led her waddling (and scrambling) brood to the
water’s edge, where one-by-one, the little ducklings hopped in and
bobbed happily on the surface. When it was the ugly duckling’s
turn to attempt this feat, he hopped in confidently and sank to the
bottom like a stone. Fortunately, he was rescued by a kindly
goose.
It’s a wonder that the ugly duckling didn’t drown by the time he was
old enough to run away. Somehow, he managed to learn to swim, but
eventually, the taunting of the other ducklings got to him.
“Ugly-bones!” they called him, and “Leggy-poo!” and “Dog-face!”
“You don’t look like a proper duckling at all!” they would gloat.
And so one day, the ugly duckling, having had enough of it, ran off.
He wandered around the forests and glades, following his preposterous
nose wherever the scents of food led him. He ate voles and mice
and occasionally even dog food from the nearby farmhouses, thinking all
the while that a real duck would never stoop so low.
For a while, he found lodging with a nice old woman and her cat, but
her pet chicken was too obnoxious for him, so he moved on.
He found a pond, and, remembering his roots, hopped in and began to
paddle around. But it was winter, and the pond was growing icy,
and he was getting kind of cold, when a hunter popped out of the brush
nearby and hollered, “Hey there, old boy! What are you doing
paddling around like that in my pond!? Get yourself over here,
boy!” The ugly duckling was a bit confused and continued his
paddling. But when the hunter shouted, “Come!” some primeval
instinct in the ugly duckling’s brain took over, and, led as if by some
invisible force, he left the pond and heeled at the hunter’s side.
The hunter took him to his cottage in the woods, where they spent an
afternoon staring at each other. But when the ugly duckling tried
to quack as a he sometimes did with his other family, the hunter said,
“No! Bad dog!” and then the ugly duckling had an epiphany.
“Woof,” he said.
From that point on, the ugly duckling
made quite a good dog. Imagine that. Back
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