This Is Why I'm Like This: The Duck Lady.1972

This is coming from a place that is new. I'm making my LA11 kids write a multi genre, multi voice memoir. As I always do, even with theatre, I join them so I can use my own garbage as an example. This is my attempt to tell the story, stream of consciousness, from my seven year old first person perspective.

YAY, Saturday! Immma go over to Jeffy’s house and see if he’s up yet. We can watch

The Bugaloos together at my  house, mom bought Super Sugar Smacks and chocolate milk.

Usually I don't need the chocolate milk, especially if it's Count Chockula because that turns

into chocolate milk, and if you put chocolate milk in that it's just chocolate soup. Super Sugar

Smacks and chocolate milk make sugar sludge. Which is the best, but I have to go outside

after cartoons or I just go back to sleep with an upset tummy.

Jeffy’s mom said he’s still sleeping, he had an upset tummy last night, so she’ll

send him up after cartoons if he’s better. I went home and watched The Bugaloos and

ate my cereal but Jeffy never came over. My sisters weren't up yet, or they were up and

being secret in their room which they do, I'm not invited. One time I broke my sister's

Barbie Camper by riding it around the house. I bet that's why I'm never invited into

their secret mornings. Mom and Dad weren't up, either, but that never matters, I just

go play after cartoons. I decided to walk down to the park. I’m not allowed to

cross Jewell, luckily the park is on my side of the street.

There’s nothing to do if Jeffy isn’t with me, we play on the monkey bars and skip stones

and feed the ducks, but we're always together. I hardly go alone at all, but sometimes I'll

see friends from school there and we'll play. It's fine, as long as the ducks are out. I love

the ducks. They’re so pretty and calm, and they only quack when they’re grumpy. Or

warning against predators, I learned that last year. Bunnies do that by flashing their

white tails, and ducks and geese quack. Humans yell I guess, though it’d be cooler

if we quacked. Ducks just glide along the water, like their legs aren’t paddling under the

water like wild. When I was little I didn't know ducks had legs, I thought they just floated,

like bath tub duckies. I saw one walk out of the water onto the shore and started screaming

and pointing, mom couldn't figure out what I was saying, because I was like two and

nobody uses their words when they're two. But I remember it, and I learned in

school that their feet paddle like crazy under the water where you can't see it, but their bodies

float all calm and pretty on the water. I like that, I think it’s how I’d like to be when I grow up.

Nobody knows how hard I’m working because I am pretty and gliding along the pond. I want

to be pretty when I grow up. I’m not pretty now, I have freckles everywhere and my hair is

cut short. My mom cuts my hair with the kitchen scissors, and it’s fine, just sometimes my

bangs are uneven or there’s a chunk missing. I use my safety scissors in my room to even

it out sometimes, if it bothers me. Mom says I’m a “Tomboy”, I’m not sure if that’s because

I like to ride bikes with Jeffy or because I’m not pretty. I think "Tomboy" is a way to say

you aren’t pretty without being mean.

I get to the park, and it’s one of those perfect Colorado days that you can’t explain to anyone

who doesn’t live here. That's what my Nana says, and I didn't understand until I was six

what she was talking about. How can you not explain something to someone? But now

that I'm older and I'm writing stories and learning about science, I understand. I can't

explain why I understand, which is frustrating, but I do. It’s September. I can see the

duck family on the pond, mom said I shouldn’t give them bread any more, so I went

to the library and looked up “ducks” and learned that they eat lettuce and corn. Also,

our backdoor kitty corner neighbors have a duck. Her name is “Quackline”. It was

“Quackers”, but then she laid eggs and they changed her name. They go to a special

store in Wheatridge to get duck food, but they also give her corn and lettuce from their

garden, so I think it’s OK. I wanted to give them carrots, because we have a lot of carrots

in our garden, but mom said they wouldn’t eat them, and Mrs. Eckley said it would make

them sick and if they weren’t shaved really thin they could choke. Last November Quackline

flew away and I thought she ran away, but she came back in April. Mrs. Eckley said she

guessed she wanted to migrate with the flock, but she doesn’t have a flock, she has a

backyard and the Eckleys. I learned about migration this year, and it’s confusing to me.

How do they know what pond to go to? How do they find their way back from Florida?

Dad says they go to Florida,which is also where Jeffy’s grandparents are. Mine are in

Genoa, on their farm. I don’t know why people go to Florida when they could stay in

Colorado. Unless you migrate there with the ducks, that’d be OK. I miss them in the winter. 

Sometimes they stay until the water freezes and I watch them float between the ice and it

makes me sad because their friends left them. Mrs. West says it’s because people feed

them and they don’t know when to leave. I don’t feed them after September because

I want them to go to Florida with their friends.

There are two bigger boys at the edge of the duck pond. I know them from my walk to

school, they live on my way and they go to the main building, they’re fifth graders. I go

to the cottages, we only go through third grade there. I’m in second grade. I love my teacher

Mr. Weisheit and my music teacher Mrs. West. These boys both live on the block across

the street from the cottages, I see them on my way to school and on my way home

sometimes.They never talk to me,which is fine with me because I think they’re scary.

I don't like older boys. I always walk home with friends because older boys scare me. When

you leave sixth grade to go to the junior high, the older kids from the junior high will

chase you on the last day of school, "Smear Day", and some kids get cut with razor blades.
I heard they even do it when you leave the cottages to go to the main building. I'm really
scared for next year.

I'm afraid of big kids.

At Halloween they put on their mom’s lipstick as clown makeup and go trick or treating

with pillow cases. Mom says I can’t do that, I have to use my pumpkin. She says it’s greedy

to use a pillow case. I don’t want to go anywhere near those boys or any big kids, they’ve

never done anything or said anything but I don’t like them. I don't have to do anything I don't

want to, and I don't have to talk to anyone I don't want to.

I stand on the playground at the park, my Super Sugar Smacks and chocolate

milk swishing around in my tummy, and wish Jeffy was here. I see the older boys are

throwing something in the pond. They’re throwing rocks. At the ducks! At the duck family. 

“Hey!” I yell, before I realize what I’m doing. They turn around. One has a rock in his hand.

I think he’s going to throw it at me.

“What?” he says, turning to throw his rock at the duck.

“Stop throwing rocks at the ducks,” I say. Without me realizing it, my feet have started

walking toward them. I don’t want to walk toward them, they’ll throw rocks at me! I’m still

walking, now I’m running and I’m yelling and I can’t hear anything,it sounds like when the

TV isn’t on a station in my ears. Static. It sounds like static. I can’t see very well, either,

my eyes have started to tear up.

“Stop it. Leave. The. Ducks. Alone.” I’m screaming at them, and as I charge towards them,

they drop their rocks and start to walk away.”Duck Lady!” they yell at me, but I keep
charging, head forward, arms back. I can’t hear myself over the static in my head, but I know
I’m not using words any more.

I’m quacking.

I am running full on at older boys, and I am quacking.

 I am almost at the pond’s edge, and the boys have run off toward the neighborhood.
I can hear them yelling “Duck Lady!” from a block away.

I stop at the edge of the pond and look at the duck family. The dad duck is swimming

toward me. He’s so pretty. All ducks are pretty, it doesn’t matter if they’re boys or girls,

they’re just pretty. I rub my eyes, which are itchy and filled with tears, which is weird,

‘cause I’m not sad, I’m mad. The sound of the static in my ears is going away, but I can

still hear “Duck Lady!” I can’t tell if I have supersonic hearing or if it’s just an echo in my brain.

I smile at the duck and tell him how pretty he is, and that it’s going to be OK. I have some

corn in my pocket, I always carry some to the park with me. I make this clicking noise with

my teeth and tongue, I do it to all animals, though it sounds a lot like a horsie “giddyup”

sound. The dad comes up on the shore, and there are babies behind him.I know he’s the

dad because he flapped at the mom and babies to warn them when the boys threw rocks,

and the mom swam away with them. They know I have corn, I bet they can smell it. I wish

Jeffy was here, he would have chased those boys away so I didn’t have to. Why would

anyone throw rocks at a pretty duck?