Mr. Quackers and the Moss Monster

If you know anything at all about the land of the ducks and their many Duckingtons, you probably know all about Picnic Days.

Just in case you don’t already know what those are, I’ll tell you: Picnic Days are a lot like human holidays, but they don’t fall on specific dates during the year. For one thing, most ducks can’t remember dates. For another thing, the weather in the Duckingtons is almost always sunny and nice, so why not have a Picnic Day whenever you want to?

This was the regular habit of all the ducks in the Duckingtons, and it was a nice way for them to keep in touch with friends and relatives who didn’t live in the same town as them.

One sunny day there might be a picnic in South Duckington, and ducks from all the other towns would come and enjoy food and each other’s company in South Duckington that day. Several days later, there might be a picnic in East Duckington. A few days after that, there might be one in New New Duckington. And so on.

None of these picnics were planned in advance; they just happened, and somehow all of the ducks knew where to go to be part of the fun. If you’ve ever seen a bunch of ducks suddenly land near the same pond and start quacking among themselves as they poke around in the soft mud looking for bugs or worms to eat, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Anyway, there was a picnic in South Duckington one sunny day, in a park near some woods. The ducks were throwing frisbees, playing Duck Tag, and doing all of the other fun things that ducks do at picnics. One of the young ducklings waddled to the edge of the park to find a frisbee that had flown off into the woods. His name was Sammy.

Before you ask me, yes, his parents (Marie and Pete) should have been keeping a better eye on him, but it was a Picnic Day and they were probably distracted by a bit of watermelon or cream pie or boring grown-up duck conversation. Most ducks are very easily distracted.

All young ducklings knew that they should never waddle off into the woods on their own, because who knows what sorts of dangers could be lurking there?

Unfortunately, Sammy did not heed that rule and he let his curiosity get the best of him. He couldn’t see the frisbee anywhere, but there seemed to be a new bush between some trees that Sammy had never seen before. It didn’t look like a normal bush; it was more like a green lump of something that wasn’t a bush but was trying to look like a bush.

Sammy thought that the missing frisbee might be somewhere behind the strange bush, and he was also curious about what kind of not-bush the thing might be. He was sure he hadn’t seen it there during their last picnic in that park. He went closer to get a better look.

Some time later, the other ducklings began to wonder where Sammy was—but they kept playing.

Sammy’s parents, Marie and Pete, finally thought to ask about him, and they were told, “He went looking for a frisbee and never came back.”

The adults quickly realized that Sammy was missing. At first there was a widespread duck panic, with much flapping about and quacking. Mr. Quackers put a stop to that, though, and told all the ducks to search all around the park for Sammy.

No one could find him.

Mr. Quackers walked past the strange bush while he was searching, and since he knew every leaf and corner of that park (and the woods around it), he knew that the strange bush had not been there before.

Mr Quackers quickly called off the search and called everyone together for an emergency meeting in the middle of the park.

“Why have we stopped searching?” Pete asked Mr. Q. “Did you find Sammy? Where is he?”

“I didn’t find Sammy,” Mr. Quackers explained, “but I had to get everyone away from the woods. I believe the Moss Monster is here.”

“The what?!” many of the ducks quacked, starting to sound very panicked.

“The Moss Monster,” Mr. Quackers said. “I believe it’s disguised as a bush, hiding in the trees among the greenery. It’s very dangerous. I think Sammy might have waddled a bit too close to it, and got…chomped.”

The other ducks began quacking and waddling about, afraid and unsure of what to do. (Ducks usually have the same response to any kind of trouble: mindless panic, lots of wing-flapping, and lots of quacking.)

“Can he be rescued?” Marie asked Mr. Quackers.

“Maybe,” Mr. Quackers said. “I think you should all just go home and I’ll see what I can do.”

After everyone left, Mr. Q approached the not-bush and said, “Moss Monster, I know it’s you. Stop pretending to be a bush!”

The bush quivered and shivered and unfolded itself a bit, growing quite a bit larger. Then a deep, grumbly voice from somewhere in the bush said, “Come closer.”

Mr. Quackers did not ‘come closer’. He simply asked, “Where’s Sammy?”

The Moss Monster growled, “Sammy duck?”

“Yes,” Mr. Quackers said. “Sammy’s a duck. Where is he?”

“Sammy delicious,” was all that the Moss Monster said.

“You ate Sammy?” Mr. Quackers shouted. “Spit him out right now!”

“Too late,” the Moss Monster said. “No spit out. Come closer.”

“Why do you want me to come closer?” Mr. Q asked.

“Come closer find out,” the Moss Monster rumbled.

“I’m the smartest duck in all of the Duckingtons,” Mr. Quackers said. “I’m not falling for whatever trick this is.”

“No trick,” growled the Moss Monster. “Trying help you.”

“Help me?” Mr. Q asked.

“Help you get Sammy out,” the Moss Monster said. “No can spit. You reach in. Grab duck. Pull out.”

At this point I have to pause this story for a moment to ask : What would you do? Would you trust the Moss Monster? Would you think it was really trying to help you get Sammy back? Would you run away and leave Sammy to his fate? Would you go and get other ducks to help? What would you do?

What Mr. Quackers did was tell the Moss Monster, “I’ll take one step closer, but that’s all.”

He stepped one step closer.

“Not close enough,” the Moss Monster growled. ”Come closer.”

Mr. Quackers took one step closer.

“Now I’m close enough,” he said. “I can probably reach from here.”

“No,” the Moss Monster rumbled, “one step closer.”

Mr. Quackers took one step closer.

“Okay,” Mr. Quackers said, “this is close enough. Spit out Sammy.”

“No can spit,” the Moss Monster said. “Come closer. I open mouth. You grab duck.”

Mr. Quackers took one step closer.

The Moss Monster moved slowly and a large opening appeared on the front of it that sort of looked like a mouth—but not really. It opened up so wide that it looked like it could easily chomp down on Mr. Quackers and eat him in one chomp.

Looking into the mouth-hole-thing, though, Mr. Quackers could see a little, orange, webbed foot of a duckling, deep in the mossy green depths of the Moss Monster. He began to wonder if it might actually be possible for him to reach in there—really, really quickly—and grab Sammy’s foot and pull him out…before Mr. Quackers could be chomped himself.

Mr. Quackers decided to risk it. He dashed forward as fast as he could. He grabbed Sammy’s foot in his bill and pulled on it as hard as he could, flapping with his wings to move back out of the Moss Monster’s mouth quickly.

As Mr. Quackers fell backwards, Sammy popped free of the creature and flew over Mr. Quackers’ head, rolling safely onto the grass behind him. As Mr. Quackers landed on his bottom, though, both of his duck feet went up in the air, and…CHOMP!

Sammy squealed, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Quack, quack, quack!” and ran off towards home.

Mr. Quackers looked down and saw that both of his feet were trapped in the Moss Monster’s mouth-hole. The mouth began to chomp, chomp, chomp as the Moss Monster slowly pulled more of Mr. Quackers into his mouth.

Luckily, Mr. Quackers' mouth was still on the outside of the Moss Monster.

“Hold on a minute,” Mr. Quackers said. “You don’t want to eat me.”

The Moss Monster didn’t want to open its mouth to ask ‘Why?’, because that might allow Mr. Quackers to get away. The Moss Monster was happy to have traded one very small duck for one much larger duck. It wasn’t about to risk losing its new, bigger lunch. It opened just one corner of its mouth and carefully asked, “Why no want eat?”

Mr. Quackers said, “There’s something about me you don’t know.”

The Moss Monster carefully opened that one corner of its mouth again and asked, “What?”

“Have you ever heard of mossicide?” Mr. Quackers asked.

“No. What is?”

“It’s like weed killer, that stuff that kills weeds in your garden but leaves the grass and other plants alone. It’s called ‘mossicide’ because it only kills moss and doesn’t harm anything else. When someone has a problem with moss in their tub or somewhere around their yard, they just spray some mossicide on it and it kills the moss.”

“Sounds bad stuff,” the Moss Monster said.

“You’re about to find out how bad it is,” Mr. Quackers said. “Ducks love mossicide. We think it’s delicious. I’ve been eating mossicide on my breakfast cereal for three or four days now. And I made some mossicide soup yesterday, with carrots. And I had some mossicide on my ice cream just now at the picnic. So my whole body is full of mossicide. If a creature made of moss were to eat me, they’d be eating a LOT of mossicide and it would immediately start turning them into goo from the inside out.”

“Lies,” the Moss Monster said. “Not true.” But it didn’t sound so sure.

“Okay,” Mr. Quackers said, “if you don’t think it’s true then just go ahead and eat me and see what happens.”

The Moss Monster said, “YOU LIE! I EAT!”

The Moss Monster started chomping again and pulled Mr. Quackers deeper and deeper into its mossy mouth and body.

Now if this were happening to me, or to you, we’d probably start screaming and kicking and doing whatever we could to try to get away. But Mr. Quackers did not scream or kick. Instead he started laughing as loudly as any duck ever laughed.

The Moss Monster stopped chomping with Mr. Quackers half in its mouth and half out of its mouth and asked (with a mouth-half-full kind of voice), “Why laughing?”

“I just think it’s funny that you don’t believe me, and you’re about to get mossicided. Enjoy being goo!”

The Moss Monster was still for a long time, thinking and thinking. Finally, it decided that it didn’t want to take a chance by eating a duck that might be poisonous and turn it into goo.

The Moss Monster spit Mr. Quackers out onto the grass (apparently it could spit things out!) and Mr. Quackers ran around in circles laughing and quacking and flapping his wings.

Then Mr. Quackers looked at the Moss Monster and said, “Now get out of here! And don’t ever try to eat any duck ever again, because all of us had the same ice cream today and we eat things with mossicide on them all the time!”

The Moss Monster turned away and slowly went ‘shlunk, shlunk, shlunk’, off into the trees.

Mr. Quackers went back to the picnic area and found Sammy and his parents (Marie and Pete). He told Marie and Pete that they should try to keep a better eye on Sammy in the future. Sammy was happy to see Mr. Quackers, of course, and told everyone about how Mr. Quackers had pulled him out of the Moss Monster and how he had been so brave.

Everyone saw the moss marks on Mr. Quackers legs and asked if he had almost been eaten himself. Mr. Quackers told them that he had almost been eaten, but that he had escaped from the Moss Monster after Sammy had been freed.

“How did you escape from the Moss Monster if that thing was eating you?” many ducks asked.

“I told it that ducks like to eat mossicide and that I had eaten a lot of it on my cereal lately, and that I had put it in my soup recently, and that all of us had eaten it on our ice cream today.”

“What’s mossicide?” one of the ducklings asked Mr. Quackers.

“Oh…” Mr. Quackers said, “just something I made up.”

So that’s how Mr. Quackers used some quick thinking to trick the Moss Monster, save Sammy, save himself, and save a lot of ducks from ever having to worry about the Moss Monster ever again (hopefully).