If you’ve never heard about the duck named Mr. Quackers, I recommend that you read the story before this one to get acquainted with him. It’s called Mr. Quackers and the Sand Witch. You’ll need to know about the Sand Witch for future stories, anyway. But not for this one…

Mr. Quackers and the Water Queen

There was once a Water Queen who had a serious problem.

You may not know what a ‘Water Queen’ is, so I’ll take a moment here to tell you. Most bodies of water (rivers, lakes, swamps, springs, ponds…) used to have spirits or goddesses or nymphs watching over them. Nymphs were magical beings who lived a very long time, but probably not forever. They were always female. No one knows what happened to them. At some point people stopped believing in them, or maybe they just stopped talking about them. Whatever the reason, most people these days have never heard of water nymphs and don’t seem to know much about them.

Some people believe that if nymphs really did exist, and if most of them faded away over time or just disappeared, maybe a few of them decided not to fade away or disappear. It may be that some of these stubborn nymphs kept living in or near their favorite body of water for centuries. It may also be that as they grew older and wiser they became something more than ordinary nymphs—something we might call Water Queens.

All of this makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m the one telling this story, so I’m going to say that the Water Queen in this story was one of those nymphs from a long time ago who was now the queen of some body of water somewhere.

She was a very powerful queen, and had many underwater subjects (many of whom you will meet in a future story) who loved her very much. Her kingdom (deep beneath her body of water) had been kept secret for many centuries, and that kept it safe from all kinds of troublemakers. Almost no one knew he location of her kingdom, except those who lived there, of course.

The Water Queen hardly ever left the safety of her palace, but at the time of this story she decided that she definitely had to leave it because of the nature of the serious problem she had: The Water Queen had somehow become allergic to water.

As you might imagine, this wasn’t just a terrible problem for her; it was the worst problem imaginable!

The Water Queen had heard that Mr. Quackers was the smartest and wisest of all the ducks in all the Duckingtons. She decided to find him and to ask him if he could find a cure for her problem.

One day, Mr. Quackers was enjoying a quiet game of chess with his friend Mortimer when the Water Queen knocked on his door. He knew as soon as he saw her that she was a Water Queen. He invited her in, of course (Wouldn’t you if a Water Queen knocked on your door?), and offered her some tea.

“I’m afraid I can’t have any tea,” she replied, “as I have a serious…problem at the moment. I have heard many tales of your wisdom in my part of the world, and I’ve come to see if you might be able to help me with that problem.”

“I’ll do my best, your majesty,” Mr. Quackers assured her. “Mortimer, why don’t we continue our game later this evening.”

Mortimer took the hint and quickly waddled out of the house without even a ‘goodbye’ to anyone. Mr. Q asked the Water Queen to tell him about her problem.

“Somehow I’ve become allergic to water,” she said.

Mr. Q thought for a minute or two (or three), and then told her that he’d need some time to come up with a solution to her problem. He said that if she’d come back the next day, he’d try to have something prepared that might help her.

The Water Queen happily agreed, imagining that Mr. Quackers would spend all day and night mixing up a strange potion of strange plants, strange roots, and strange herbs that would cure her. She said ‘goodbye’ (unlike Mortimer) and wished him good luck with his work.

When the Water Queen came back the next day, Mr. Q told her that he was still working on the solution. He said that he didn’t have the cure yet, but he did have a simple ‘experiment’ he wanted her to try. He asked her drink one drop of water from the tip of his wing-feather.

She didn’t want to do it, of course, because she was severely allergic to water. He pointed out that it was just a single, tiny drop, and that no one had ever been harmed by a single drop of water.

She thought about it for a long time, and was more than a little afraid of what might happen, but she did as he asked and drank the little drop of water. And she was fine! Then she asked Mr. Quackers if that had helped him figure out the cure for her problem.

He said, “Come back again tomorrow and I think I’ll be able to help you.”

She was disappointed to have to wait another day, but she promised to return the next morning.

The Water Queen arrived early the next morning and asked Mr. Quackers if he had found anything that might cure her. He said that he believed he was making progress but that he would need her to help him with another small experiment while she was waiting. He then asked her to drink two drops of water from the tip of his wing-feather.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Water seems to cause a most severe reaction when I—“

“But you had a small drop yesterday and you were okay,” he reminded her. “This is just one drop more than that. No one’s ever been harmed by a single drop of water.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” she said, and drank the two drops of water. And she was fine!

“Come back tomorrow," Mr. Quackers told her, “and I’ll let you know if I’ve discovered the cure.”

The Water Queen agreed to come back again the next day. She was a little disappointed that she still didn’t have her answer after two days, but she knew that Mr. Q knew all sorts of things about strange water plants and strange seaweeds and other mysterious ingredients that might make a strange potion that could cure her. She decided to be patient and keep coming back to see Mr. Quackers, even if it took him five days to figure out how to solve her problem.

On the third day, Mr. Q still didn’t have a cure for her, but he did ask her to drink three drops of water from the tip of his wing-feather. She didn’t see how these experiments were helping him make a strange potion that would cure her, but she did what he asked, and once again, she was fine.

“Come back again tomorrow," Mr. Quackers said, “and I might have a cure for you.”

The Water Queen agreed to come back the next day.

This continued day after day—not for five days, or ten days, or even twenty days, but for thirty days!

On the thirtieth day, he had her drink thirty drops of water from the tip of his wing-feather, and she was fine. Then he told her to come back the next day, when he might finally be ready to share his cure with her—but she would need to bring a cup.

The Water Queen thought that this was a strange request, but then she realized that it could be a very good sign! He had never asked her to bring a cup before. Maybe it meant that he would need the cup to give her the wonderful medicine he had invented!

She agreed, and arrived bright and early the next morning with one of her favorite cups.

Mr. Quackers put a little water in the cup and told her to drink it. She said that she couldn’t possibly do that, because she was allergic to water. He reminded her that she had drunk thirty drops of water the day before and she had been fine. He showed her that the amount of water in her cup at the moment was only a teensy bit more than thirty drops.

She saw that he was right. She took the cup from him and drank the water.

And she was fine!

Over the next few days Mr. Q put a little more water in her cup each day, and soon she could drink a whole cup of water!

On that day, he told the Water Queen that she was cured.

She said that she hadn’t had any kind of strange potion or strange medicine yet, so she couldn’t possibly be cured. He asked her to trust him and step down into some nearby water.

She was more than a little afraid to do it, but she trusted Mr. Quackers and stepped down into the water.

And she was fine!

“I’ve been cured!” she shouted. “Thank you, Mr. Quackers! I knew you could help me!”

She was so happy about being cured that she told Mr. Quackers the secret location of her water kingdom, and she told him that he was welcome there any time. Then she rushed home to tell her subjects the good news: Their queen had been cured!

That’s how Mr. Quackers became friends with the Water Queen and learned the location of her secret kingdom. (And I should mention that that information may turn out to be quite useful to him in a future story!)