Mrs Duck Week: Wello

Mrs Duck Week: Wello

Poor, dead Wello.

Killed to death by my own hand.

Killed to death because I was tricked by the evil duck-killer I married.

Poor, dead Wello.

Ducks have always had a hard time in our household. First there came Quacky, a small fluffy duck that belonged to my brother, that went from dog basket to the oven, then frozen solid until his beak fell off. Poor Quacky. What made me think things would be any better for Wello?

Wello wasn't always called Wello. He was originally called Duck a la Orange, bought for 4.99 from the chemist shop opposite work, along with a packet of Hangover-Be-Gone, as a "Sorry" present to Mrs Duck after I had pissed all over her dressing table (and my Christmas presents) the previous night.

Duck a la Orange was a small, grey cuddly duck with an orange beak and flippers, and he was the best little duck ever.

Mrs Duck hated his guts.

Mrs Duck hated him so much, she would throw him out of the window whenever she saw him. We lived in a top floor flat next to a railway at the time. I would, then, hide Duck a la Orange in places where he was guaranteed to be found, such as her underwear drawer, or next to the milk in the fridge. And then, once she'd locked him away at the bottom of her wardrobe, I would wear a "Free Duck a la Orange" T-Shirt round the place until she relented in much the same way T-Shirt wearing activists got Nelson Mandela out of the slammer.

Even in my possession, poor Duck a la Orange wasn't safe. Discovered staring back at her from the bathroom cabinet, a cheeky little smile on his bill, she exploded.

"RIGHT! I'm gonna cut his bloody beak off!"

While she thrashed about for some scissors, I hid Duck a la Orange in the one place I knew he would be safe. Down the front of the "Free Duck a la Orange" T-Shirt.

Wrong!

The next thing I knew, a mad woman was lunging at my chest with a pair of terrifying tailor's scissors, slashing her way through on the way to her pecky arch-nemesis. My life flashed before my eyes (which you can now purchase, at no risk to your body or well-being, in book form, you lucky people), and then, the shower scene from Psycho forced itself to the front of my brain and refused to leave.

Luckily, by the time she had got through my T-Shirt, some sort of sanity had prevailed, and she settled for throwing Duck a la Orange out of the window, where he bounced of the 1132 train to Basingstoke.

I suffered only minor injuries.

After that, we lived as an uneasy menage a trois, on the understanding that The Duck Wasn't Seen, and in the main, he wasn't.

It wasn't until years later that Duck a la Orange was renamed Wello by my daughter Scaryduckling that things started going downhill. He gained something of an entourage of similar ducks, who started appearing in the underwear drawer, fridge, and on one memorable occasion, showering out of the loft hatch. You won't believe how long that one took to set up. Bongo. Dingo. Honky. Tyoko. Megaduck. I shall never forget their names. Unless I have a lobotomy, or crash a jet-car at 300 miles per hour, or something.

As we geared up to move house again, evil duck-killer Mrs Duck set her plan in motion.

"Here, Scary," she said, "Get some milk from Asda, and while you're at it, could you put this large sack of old coats into the Oxfam clothes bank in the car park?"

"Why, yes. Yes I will."

So I did.

It was only when I got home that the Evil Duck-Killer Woman told me the truth.

"You know what else was in that sack?"

"No. What?"

She told me.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
/


How can one woman harbour a grudge against a poor innocent duck for so long?

I'm over it now. Wello. Poor, poor Wello.