Clever Duck by Dick King-Smith Page A

stopped. It was an ordinary sort of bird, brown and white in color, and looking, Mrs. O’Bese thought, as stupid as all of its kind. It stared at her with beady eyes.
    Then it said, “Quack!”

    At this moment Mrs. O’Bese heard the sound of heavy bodies squelching through the mud and looked around to see that Mrs. Stout and Mrs. Portly, Mrs. Chubby, Mrs. Tubby, Mrs. Swagbelly, and Mrs. Roly-Poly were all standing behind her.
    â€œListen to this,” she grunted softly at them, and to the duck she said, loudly and slowly as
one does to foreigners, “Now then, my friend. I wonder if perhaps you’d be able to help me. There’s this long word I’ve heard, and I’m just a silly old sow, so I don’t know the meaning of it.”

    â€œQuack!” said the duck again.
    â€œThe word,” said Mrs. O’Bese, “is ‘ignoramus.’”
    â€œIs that so?” said the duck.
    â€œYes. Can you tell me what it means?”
    â€œI must say,” said the duck, “you surprise me. I had been under the distinct impression that pigs were reasonably intelligent. If you don’t know what an ignoramus is, then you must be one.”

2
    Ed-u-cation
    The seven sows stood in shocked silence as the duck waddled away.
    Then a black-and-white sheepdog came trotting across the orchard and approached the duck, tail wagging.
    â€œGood morning, Damaris,” said the dog.
    â€œIt was a good morning, Rory,” said the duck,
“until just now. Those sows! They are so patronizing. They think that they’re so intelligent and that the rest of us are fools. They need to be taught a lesson.”
    Rory stared thoughtfully at the sows.
    â€œYou’re right, Damaris,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind wiping those smug smiles off their fat faces. I’ll think of something.”
    â€œI’m sure you will, Rory,” said Damaris.
    â€œYou’re miles cleverer than them anyway. I should know. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d just be an ordinary duck.”
    An ordinary duck Damaris certainly was not. That is to say, she was not stupid and thoughtless and empty-headed as most ducks are. On the contrary, she was educated, and her teacher had been Rory. It had happened like this.
    All sheepdogs are born with the instinct for herding things, and they begin as soon as they
can run around. Rory as a puppy had often come into the orchard, practicing his craft upon the chickens and ducks.

    The hens squawked and flapped and ran out of his way, but the ducks were slower moving and tended, like sheep, to bunch together and, like sheep, to protest loudly at being forced to go this way and that. Usually they managed to make their way to the pond, where the puppy could not follow, but one morning he came upon a mother duck with a brood of baby ducklings, and Rory set himself to keep these little ones away from the water.
    For some time he moved them here and there, while the duck quacked distractedly in the
background, but then a strange thing happened.

    One of the ducklings flatly refused to move any farther. It simply sat down in the grass, seemingly unafraid of what must have appeared to it a very large animal, while the rest hurried off to join their mother.
    The puppy sniffed at the duckling.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?” he said.

    â€œThe matter,” piped the duckling,”is that you’re a big bully and I’m tired.”
    â€œI was only practicing,” said Rory.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œHerding sheep. That’s what I will be doing. When I’m grown up. I’m a sheepdog, you see. My name’s Rory. What’s yours?”
    â€œDamaris,” said the duckling.
    â€œThat’s a nice name,” said Rory.
    Ducks were silly animals, he knew that, his mother had told him, but this one seemed quite sensible.
    â€œLook, Damaris,” he said, “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. Like I said, I