Duck's Missing Case Case
By Kimberly Price
Copyright © Winter of 2000, Keepers
Company
The fifth dimension, what could be said of it other than it was truly
the land of the insane? If any being knew this the best, it was Duck, the
crazy sidekick of the Raptor's who always took things for what they were.
Now it must be understood that Duck was not a duck. She was, instead, a
green silk dragon that stood about two feet high, with yellow belly scales,
two long horns that protruded from the back of her head and then curled sharply
at the end, and a foot long tail that had a heart-shaped point at the end
of it. Silk dragons were not very well known and just where and how this
one came about here is still unknown to this day. Nevertheless, silk dragons
were described as being small, gentle creatures, with a fairly good intelligence,
and with no weapons except for claws, horns, and teeth. Duck was the exception
of all exceptions. She was gentle, but could be very persuasive time and
her intelligence was off the wall, at least to those who knew her well. To
everyone else, she was just a child who was long past time growing up. Enough
about her, though, she might as well be introduced, along with her story:
"What that?" Duck pointed to a magnifying glass that a man dressed
in a plaid brown suit was wearing.
"It is a magnifying glass," He answered, looking at the small dragon
with it.
"Ohh . . . What's that?"
"It is an object I use to look at things closer with."
"Why?"
"So that I can see them better."
"Why?"
"So I can see if they are any clues."
"To what?"
"To the case I have to solve."
"What case?"
"That is what I am trying to discover, my dear."
"Oooohhh . . . Me help?" Duck leapt from the ground and started to fly
around the man excitedly.
"This is a job for professionals," the man said as he put a pipe in
his mouth and started to blow soap bubbles from it.
She landed on the ground again before him and frowned, "But me'sa want
to find out what a case is."
"No, I'm sorry, you are too young. Good-bye," and with that, the man
walked away bent down close to the ground, looking though his magnifying glass,
and blowing a stream of bubbles as he went.
Duck took wing again and started to fly away, muttering unhappily to
herself, "Me want’um to find case and solve it." She suddenly stopped short
in the air and shouted, "Me'sa know! Me find’um case and me will solve it!
Then me knows what case is."
Duck flapped her wings as hard as she could, but she was not moving.
She looked down and saw that the glass like floor below her with a large
blue grid on it was not moving. Duck looked up and watched as a school of
flying fish glided by her.
She blinked once, "Silly me. No fly here, only swim." She gave a little
kick with her feet and shot though the air like it was water.
Duck muttered to herself, "Now, to find a case, me have to first find
the case, but where would’um the case be? Me'sa know that cases like to travel
because cases like’um to move around because cases are like that because if
they'um no change places then they no get solved so me'sa have to travel too."
She suddenly changed directions and started to head toward a man dressed
as a pilot of an airplane. He was a plain man with nothing special about
him.
Duck landed on his head and looked at the man upside down, "How me get
to 'nother plain?"
"You have to buy a plane ticket."
"Ooohhh . . . Do you’um have one?"
"Yes. I am a plane man after all."
"Okay, how much?"
The plain man thought for a moment, "A pie."
Duck blinked at him. She then pulled out a piece of paper and drew
a mathematical pi symbol and handed it to the pain man.
The man looked at it and nodded. He then handed Duck a plane ticket
that was nothing more than a plain slip of paper.
She took it as she flew into the air, "Thank'um."
"You're welcome."
Duck looked back to the man, "No I'm not, me’sa Duck. Get it right."
She flew off again, the paper in her hand. She was quickly approaching
the edge of the blue grid and in the far distance, another grid was coming
into view. She landed at the edge of the grid and looked down the gap between
the two grids. The gap looked infinitely deep and all the way down it was
hundreds of thousands of grids. Duck looked up and saw the same thing above
her also. Still looking up, she stepped out into the gap, but she did not
fall. She walked all the way to the other side like this.
Duck spun around when she got the other side and grinned. She then
spun back around and looked out over the new grid that she was on. It was
covered in blue grass and distinctly in the distance, a band playing off
key could be heard. Duck jumped into the air and flapped her wings, but
she could not take off. She crashed to the ground, landing with a soft thud
on the grass.
Duck leapt up and scratched her head, trying to figure out just what
law had changed. The fifth dimension was like that. Laws changed from plain
to plain and it was often hard to tell just what law had changed.
She shrugged and started to walk toward the band, wondering if they
had a note for her. Duck blinked as a post sticking in the ground came
from behind her, pasted her, and started to go away from her.
"Oooo . . . Me’sa know this one," Duck grinned as she started to walk
backwards instead of forwards. Sure enough, the post was getting closer to
her and she soon passed it up. Even the sound of the band was getting closer.
The band itself soon came into view. It was a simple blue grass band,
with a tuba, a guitar, a banjo, and even a harmonica. Sitting beside the
band was a giant, black note. Duck ran backwards as fast as she could. She
stopped once she got close enough for the band to hear her.
"STOP!" She yelled as load as she could, but the band kept playing.
Duck fluffed her wings around, thinking. Suddenly, a little light bulb
flew up and hit her on the side of the head.
"What’um was that for?" Duck said, looking to the little bulb.
The bulb had turned on when it hit Duck and now it was glowing brightly.
The bulb said nothing and handed Duck a thin white stick. It then flew
off again.
Duck looked down at the stick and grinned. She then lifted into the
air and made a wide circle with her hands, cutting the band off. Sure enough,
the blue grass band stopped playing and looked to her.
Duck lowered her hands, looking to them, "Me need a note."
The tuba player nodded, "What key?"
"Ummm . . . Flat."
"M flat?" The banjo player blinked, "I have never heard of M flat.
Have you Joe?"
The harmonica player shock his head, "Maybe she means F flat because
if you go up the scale making notes be letters, then you get M in place of
F. See?"
Duck nodded her head, "No."
The tuba player shrugged and put his lips to his instrument, but he
did not play.
"Why’um no play person?" Duck tilted her head at him.
The tuba player did not answer, but the guitar player did, "Because
you have to tell him when to."
"Ooohhh . . ." Duck lifted her hands in the air and then brought them
down. The tuba player played a sour note until Duck cut him off. A crocked
black note rose into the air and floated over to Duck. She blinked at it
and then reached up and popped it. The tuba player frowned.
Duck pointed to the large black note sitting beside the band, "Why'um
you no play up there?"
The guitar player answered her again, "Because we have to play off note."
"Why?"
"Because that's what we are."
"Well, well, can't'um you play on note instead?"
All the band members blinked once and then turned toward each other,
talking quietly. Duck waited until they turned around again.
Joe spoke this time, "After a short debate, we have decided that we
should play on key instead of off."
Duck watched as the four musicians stepped up onto the note. She raised
her hands in the air again and conducted them. The band stated to play again,
and this time, it was in tune. Duck cut the group off just as a little,
black note floated over to her.
"Ooo . . . Thank'um peoples," she said as she picked the note from the
air.
The musicians answered her simultaneously, "You're welcome."
She blinked at them and shook her head, deciding that is was best not
to tell them that she was Duck and not a welcome. Duck walked backwards and
headed forwards again, away from the band. She looked at the note in her
hand and found that it was really a card. She opened it and read what was
inside out loud:
The case you must find,
Is a case of the mind.
So now you must mind,
The case you must find.
Duck scratched the top of her head, wondering what it meant. "Maybe,
maybe," Duck started to ramble again, "Maybe me have to find’um my mind to
mind the case and that I can find the case. Wait'um. I now have a case to
find, but if me'sa have to mind the case to find’um the case, but me must
find my mind. So do’um me really have two cases that need a mind or do I
just have to find the case?" She stopped walking to think about this a moment,
"Me'sa thinks me will just mind the case of finding the case’um so that me
not have to find my mind because if I mind finding my mind, me goes normal
and normal evil."
Duck grinned and started to walk again. She watched as a dark, gloomy
forest came into view.
"Ooo . . . Me no think me want’um to go in there. It all dark and evil
looking and stuff." Duck pulled out her plane ticket and looked at it, "Me
wana' go home."
The ticket reminded as it was, plain.
She gave it a hard shake and yelled, "Me'sa wana' go home!"
Suddenly, the plane ticket turned into a golden ticket. Duck grinned
as she vanished from this plain and appeared in her own. She looked up at
a familiar signpost that pointed in four different directions: Somewhere,
nowhere, anywhere, and everywhere. On top of the signpost was a little green
sign that said 10-B.
Duck grinned again and spun around. Standing before her was the man
dressed in a plaid brown suit, with the magnifying glass, and pipe that blew
bubbles.
He reached down, took hold of Duck's three-fingered hand, and shook
it as he spoke, "Congratulations. You solved the case of you finding a case.
Here is your prize." With this, the man handed her a black brief case.
Duck's grin widened. "Thank'um person."
"You're Duck."
She giggled, "Hehe . . . Me like person, person silly."
The man just shook his head slightly and walked off, blowing soap bubbles
as he went.
Duck sat the case on the ground and opened it. She looked inside as
a slight glow came from the inside the case, "Oooo . . ."