By: Yiling Sun

As the sun climbed high into the sky, a group of baby ducks gathered together to play hide-and-seek tag. They met in a small pond surrounded by tall grass, called the Pond of Light. As soon as every duck showed up, they chose the duck who would be it: Bubbles the Inflated Feather, a plump, yellow-feathered baby duck.

Once the game commenced, another duck, Flucky the Floofed Mohawk, immediately swam into a thick patch of tall grass as Bubbles began counting down from ten. It wasn’t the ideal hiding spot, but the good ones were all taken.
“10, 9, 8…” Bubbles quacked excitedly.

Flucky quickly splashed his head with water as silently as he could, trying to flatten his natural yellow mohawk on top of his head. It was sticking out from the top of the tall grass, but no matter how desperately he patted his head, his stubborn feathers stayed upright.
“…6, 5…”

Flucky grumbled to himself, still smearing water all over his head. Why did he, of all the ducks, have to be the one to have to have a mohawk?

“…3, 2, 1! Ready or not, here I come!”

Flucky immediately plunged his head underwater, watching as Bubbles’ feet paddled around in place, searching for ducks to tag. After a few seconds, the webbed orange feet began moving towards Flucky. Flucky shut his eyes and forced his muscles to stay still, hoping Bubbles wouldn’t spot him, but after a few seconds, he felt a tap on the tip of his bum.

Bubbles was laughing. “Your hiding spot is to stick your butt up high in the air in plain sight?”
Flucky’s head resurfaced and he splashed Bubbles indignantly. “My butt was not sticking up! It was perfectly hidden behind the grass!”

“Oh yeah?” Bubbles shook the water off. “Even a blind old duck could see you from the other side of the world!”

Flucky just grumbled as Bubbles swam off, satisfied with his joke. “I swear, I’m going to drown this inflated feather one day.”

Flucky sulkily paddled after Bubbles, following him into the openness of the pond. Bubbles was highly focused, scanning the tall grass for any more ducks. He thought he spotted something after a few seconds of scanning, and froze, staring at one spot.

Flucky, not realizing that Bubbles had stopped swimming, slammed beak-first into his side and sent both of them toppling over into the water. When they recovered, Bubbles splashed Flucky violently before sprinting off into the grass. A few moments after, Hunter the Silent Chaos, a baby duck with black feathers, came zooming out of the greens, Bubbles right on his tail. As they paddled by, Flucky was splashed violently again.

“Can you watch your kicking!” Flucky squawked as Hunter was tagged. “This is my third time being splashed!”

Hunter rolled his eyes. “Dramatic little immature thing.”

“HEY!” Flucky swam over, aiming a splash at Hunter. “Don’t call me immature!”

To Flucky’s disappointment, Hunter dodged the splash. “What, I can’t be honest?”

Flucky slammed his wing on the surface of the water as Lily the Magnificent Splash, a gray baby duck with a yellow “splash” on her back, and Jade the Fierce Beak, a grayish-white baby duck, plummeted into him. Bubbles, who was swimming after them, poked them both and shouted, “tag”, then immediately smacked a wing across Reef the Pattern Pro’s striped, brown head as he was rushing past to switch a hiding spot.

“I just tagged three ducks at once!” Bubbles boasted. “Five down, four more to go!”

Flucky spat out some water that had got into his mouth. He fluffed up his feathers, frustrated with all the splashing and bumping. And—did Bubbles just say that he only needed to tag four more ducks? How was he so good at tagging?

Bubbles slowly and quietly swam around a large rock. He paused at the side of the boulder, before dashing forward violently. There were two squawks, a flurry of feathers, and then Finn the Slippery Foot leaped over the top of the boulder and belly-flopped into the middle of the pond. Spikey the Dusty Flamingo emerged from behind the rock then began clambering on top of it as Bubbles failed to reach him from below.

Flucky flinched as Finn’s belly flop splashed him. “What in the feathers of the webbed foot is going on with the splashing today!”

Finn was gasping for air. “Ouch…that hurt…so bad…I def…definitely should not have…done that…”

Jade snorted as Flucky shook off all the water on his feathers, showering the ducks around him. “Did you get tagged?”

Finn nodded. “Unfortunately. Bub…Bubbles is so…so extremely super duper fast…”
Meanwhile, Spikey’s feathers were spiked upright as Bubbles’ wings skimmed his foot, tagging him. “Aww, darn it! If I had just climbed a little bit higher!”

Suddenly, a tiny sliver of laughter came from a patch of tall grass, before Bubbles dashed into the tall green stalks and proudly swam back out with Lilac the Sprouting Belly at his heels.

Having tagged all ducks but one, Bubbles danced around in a circle. “This means that the winner is…who’s missing from the group? Flucky?”

Flucky huffed. “I was tagged first.”

Bubbles twirled around. “Oh right. So the winner is…Hunter the Silent Chaos!”
Hunter pecked the water next to Bubbles. “No, not me! Are you seriously blind?”
Bubbles laughed. “I was just kidding. I know who’s missing. It’s Finn the Slippery Foot!”

Finn groaned and unsuccessfully spoke through his belly pain. “Dude, irtollmack fetagrobe trassoo gwataloobedoov.”

Bubbles blinked. “What?”

Lily and Jade burst out laughing at the gibberish coming out of Finn’s beak. Finn whimpered and limply floated on the water, holding his stomach with his wings.

“Well if Finn is tagged…oh, right! Willow the Hairy Tree!”

The most awkward and confusing silence followed. Finn was rubbing his stomach, Flucky was doing his best to get unsoaked, Jade and Lily were silently playing rock paper scissors, and Spikey was panting on top of his boulder. Reef was examining his foot, Hunter was elegantly staring into space, and Lilac was folding a blade of grass.

Another few moments of awkward silence passed, before Hunter sniffed. “I don’t think she’s coming out of her hiding spot.”

Bubbles turned around in his spot, searching for any signs of Willow’s white feathers. After yet another long moment of waiting, a small, unclear voice was heard from above.

“…climbed…dumb…(blurry gibberish)…pond…please…me…”

Bubbles screeched up into the air. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?!”

Silence, and then Willow came falling down from the top of an adult redwood tree, shrieking, “OH MY GOOFBALL OF A FEATHER, WHAT IS GOING ON!!”

Bubbles casually shifted to the side a little before Willow splashed into the pond. Water spewed everywhere, but since Flucky was closest to Willow, he felt like he was momentarily being drowned.
“Pffftthhhplackkaaahhhpppffffffppp…ffffff….fffpleh!” Flucky aggressively spat out a bunch of water. “Why am I the only one who got splashed five times in one game of tag?!”

Willow pulled herself onto a rock near Flucky and sat there, panting for a moment. Everyone was watching her recover from that huge fall. A little while later, she managed to begin breathing normally again, and shook all the water off her fully soaked feathers, spraying Flucky right in the face.

Flucky snapped. “That’s it! I have been splashed six times! I’m gonna go take a break!”

He climbed onto shore, not even bothering with his wet feathers anymore, and stalked off away from the pond.

“Wait!” Hunter called after him. “No, stop walking! That’s the direction of the Snapflowers! Don’t go there, you’ll get eaten!”

Flucky ignored him and continued on his way.

“Hey, stop it!”

Flucky’s stubborn mind continued commanding his wet feet to carry on pattering along the path towards the Meadow of the Carnivorous Snapflowers.

Soon, he reached the huge meadow of huge, colorful flowers with huge leaves and huge stems. He cautiously walked through the meadow, careful not to touch any of them. The only sound that could be heard was the blowing of the wind and the slapping noise of a duck’s webbed feet on dirt.

Flucky continued walking, swiveling his head here and there to take a look at all the large petals of the flowers. The flowers were facing the sky, as if they were waiting for something to fall into their mouths.

As Flucky stared at the foliage around him, he stopped focusing on where he was stepping and soon tripped on a twig. He fell face flat onto a stem, puncturing a small hole through it with his beak. Pulling his beak out from the stem, he heard an eerie screech from the flower he had fallen on top of.

It was a Bloodpetal, the most dangerous flower of them all.

Flucky froze in place as the huge Bloodpetal bent down to face him, ready to eat him. It slowly inched its way towards the trembling yellow duck with a mohawk, and in an instant, pounced forward, snapping its petals. But, because Flucky was so small, the only thing that hit him was the dark red petals of the flower, restarting his muscles and making him flee for his life.

The stem of the Bloodpetal seemed to stretch as it trailed at a surprising speed after Flucky. Its petals snapped every now and then, each snap getting closer and closer to Flucky’s tail. Flucky’s feet pattered desperately on the dirt, trying to escape the fate that Hunter had tried to warn him about.

Suddenly, Flucky felt a few feathers being torn out from the top of his head. He whipped around in pain, and to his horror, saw the Bloodpetal munching on his fluffy yellow feathers. A Lavencore, a lavender-petaled flower with blueish-purple pollen, bent down to watch the Bloodpetal eat the feathers, and turned towards Flucky, its thick lavender petals quivering eagerly.

Flucky flapped his wings desperately and stumbled forward as both flowers began chasing him, eventually being joined by a Dawnpollen, an orange thin-petaled flower, and a Navyleaf, a dark blue flower with large round leaves. A Nightstem snapped at Flucky from the front with its sharp purple petals, blocking his path. Flucky began panicking and whirled his head back and forth between the incoming group of flowers and the huge Nightstem. He saw a Magroot, a dark magenta flower, peering over the top of the mayhem to see what was going on. He had attracted an army.

While most ducks lost their ability to fly, there are some exceptions (Muscovies, Calls, East Indies and domesticated Mallards can all fly to some extent). Flucky is an American Pekin, which do not have the ability to fly, due to their heavy bodies. They do still have hollow bones and strong wings though. Even if Flucky was one of the ducks that could fly, he is still a young baby duck. Plus, even if he could fly, he can only fly to a certain extent, which is obviously not enough flight to escape the snapflowers.

All at once, the Snapflowers dived towards Flucky, who screeched in terror and face planted onto the ground, feet beneath his stomach, wings covering the back of his head. There was a flash of lavender as he was thrown upwards by the Lavencore, then he saw the clear, cloudless sky, probably for the last time. Then a bright and blinding orange petal filled his view, then the perfect sky again. Almost immediately, the dark blue color of the Navyleaf replaced the light blue color of the sky.

Flucky was being passed around between the flowers.

Finally, he landed in the Bloodpetal’s mouth. Flucky watched, horrified, as the dark red petals slowly began to close. In pure panic, he drove his beak into the flower, making the flower howl. There was a whirl of red, blue, and green, before Flucky was sent falling into the Pond of Light.

Flucky flailed around helplessly in the air before his feet slapped the surface of the pond. A surprised “woah!” came from Lily as he was submerged into the water. He waved his wings around frantically in the water until his head broke the surface, gasping for air.

“AHHPLJTDPPLESIOFOTEEHH!!!” Flucky caterwauled. “YALPLCKFFFTPLEH!!”

He silently floated on the water as the other ducks gathered around him. He panted, gulping in big chunks of air, eventually choking on it and coughing. After a few coughing fits and some awkward breathing, he slowly calmed down.

Willow clucked quietly. “…what happened to his mohawk?”

Almost immediately, all the ducks swarmed in front of Flucky to see his head. It was a little awkward for the other ducks to see a friend with an entirely different hairstyle.

“He got lucky,” Hunter whispered hoarsely. “The Snappers only ate his mohawk, by the looks of it.”

Flucky raised his head to look at all his friends, who were dead silent. They were staring at his new hairstyle with horrified faces.

Reef silently paddled forward a little. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I went to…I went to the Meadow of the Carnivorous Snapflowers,” Flucky said, trembling slightly. “A…a Bloodpetal chased me because I accidently poked a hole in its stem. Then a Lavencore, a Dawnpollen, a Navyleaf, a Nightstem, and a Magroot all began chasing me. Then they started throwing me around in the air, and then…and then the Bloodpetal was about to, about to eat me alive, but I beak, I gave it my beak, no, I didn’t give it my beak, I ate…I didn’t—I punctured another hole in its petals and it trumped, I mean, it threw me all the way back here.”

Flucky slowly regained his energy and watched the other ducks’ faces, searching for a reaction. They were watching him with a sort of mix of admiration and fear.

“…so what happened to your mohawk?” Lilac asked, still staring at Flucky’s head.
“My mohawk?” Flucky rubbed his head with his wing, wincing as he touched the painful area. “Right…the Bloodpetal was definitely jealous of my beautiful hairstyle. Too bad it’s gone now…but on the positive side, I can hide better in the next round of hide-and-seek tag!”

All the ducks laughed.