Family Emergency
"Oh before I forget!" the teacher said hurriedly as the final bell began to ring. "Girls, here are the flyers for the annual Duckburg Elementary Father-Daughter Dance this Friday!"
The boys in the class unanimously made a "blech!" sound before running as fast as they could to escape to the outside world. The girls cheered and nearly pummeled their teacher as they grabbed at the papers she was holding. Webby secured one in her hands, looking at the pretty pink paper that featured a drawing of a little girl happily dancing with her smiling daddy. Information about the event was printed on the bottom in fancy writing.
"I wonder if I'll need a new dress," Webby thought to herself as she headed for her locker. "If Uncle Scrooge will let me have one, that is."
"Why did you even bother getting one, Webbifail?" she heard Mona Hennington, the meanest yet also most popular girl in class, say in her snotty voice. The snickering laughs of Mona's friends joined in. "Everyone knows you don't even have a daddy."
Any enthusiasm Webby had before quickly diminished. "I-I was gonna ask my u-uncle-"
"Sorry, your uncle? You mean Scrooge McDuck, the richest duck in the world, who your grandma cleans house for?" Mona laughed and her cronies echoed. "Poor Webbifail, you do know that you're just a charity case to him, right?"
The flyer was getting crinkled in Webby's sweating hands, her heart in her throat. "That's not true!" she insisted, trying to sound braver than she felt. "Uncle Scrooge loves me!"
"Yeah he loves the good publicity he gets from taking in an orphan and her out-of-work grandparent. You live in a fantasy world if you think he's gonna show up to some elementary school dance with you in a public setting," Mona sneered, tossing her hair over her shoulder before she pranced out of the classroom along with her friends.
Webby felt the sting of oncoming tears, wiping her eyes with her thumb as she went to her locker. She looked forlornly at the flyer that was now badly wrinkled and shoved it into her backpack, zipping it up. She knew Uncle Scrooge wasn't really her uncle, she wasn't a fool, but he had always treated her like she were his own. Surely he wouldn't dismiss her invitation to something as special as this dance.
The boys were spending the afternoon at baseball practice, so Webby walked herself home. Coming up the driveway, Webby perked up upon seeing the exact person she wanted to see at that moment.
"Uncle Scrooge, I need to ask you something!" Webby said once she ran up to him. "Could you maybe-"
"I'm sorry, Webby dear, I have to go settle an important matter down at the bank," Scrooge said to her with a quick pat on her head. "Come along, Duckworth, no time to spare."
"But Uncle Scrooge!" Webby teared up before she started coughing from the dust trail left behind from the speeding limo. "He didn't even look at me," she sighed sadly. "Maybe I can ask him at dinner time when he isn't busy."
She trudged into the house, going into the kitchen where her grandmother, Mrs. Beakley, was busy getting a head start on dinner. "Hello, Grammy," she said as she slid onto the bench at their breakfast table.
"Hello, sweetheart," Mrs. Beakley smiled as she mixed up vegetables for a salad. "How was school today?"
"It was all right," Webby said with a shrug. "Um, there's a dance at school on Friday. It's for-"
The phone rang before she could finish her sentence. "Oh, hold that thought, dear," Mrs. Beakley said as she went to answer it. "Hello, McDuck residence. Oh hello, Cynthia. What happened? Oh my, you don't say!"
Webby sighed loudly. Once her grandmother got to gossiping on the phone, there was no stopping her. "I'm going to my room," she said, dragging her backpack lazily behind her.
Once there, she shut the door, the peace and quiet enveloping her. It made her feel extremely lonely. She took her Quacky Patch doll out of her backpack, unzipping the hidden compartment in her back. Inside was a photo of her parents and herself as a baby. She wondered if they would have time for her if they were still around.
"Well if they can't come to me, then I'll just go to them," she said to herself. She dumped all her school stuff out of her backpack, the father-daughter banquet flyer along with it. She stuffed a canteen of water inside along with a small box of animal crackers. She decided a sweater might be useful in case it suddenly got cold. She zipped it up and held her dolly to her chest as she walked into the foyer, her grandmother still gabbing away in the kitchen unaware.
"Maybe I should tell Grammy where I'm going," she said to herself before almost immediately shaking her head. "No...she'll get upset like she always does when I bring them up...I won't be gone long anyway..."
"Curse me kilts! Idiotic blunderheads," Scrooge fussed as he came into the house later that afternoon. "That's two hours of me life I'll never get back."
"Uncle Scrooge!" the nephews all called out as they raced towards him for a group hug. "Welcome home!"
"Haha, hello, boys!" Scrooge chuckled as he hugged them back. The children always managed to make him forget his bad mood.
"I hit a home run in baseball practice today!" Louie said proudly.
"Good for you, lad," Scrooge said, patting his head. "Now where's Webby? She needed to ask me something earlier."
"We haven't seen her," Huey shrugged.
"Yeah we figured she's upstairs playing with her tea set or somethin'," Dewey added.
"Very well. Go wash up for dinner now, boys, I can already smell Mrs. Beakley's cooking." The triplets ran off while Scrooge headed upstairs. He got to Webby's room, tapping on her door. "Webby darlin', it's Uncle Scrooge, can I come in?" He didn't hear any response. "Hmm, maybe the wee lass is takin' a nap."
He opened the door to peek inside. "Webbigail?" She wasn't playing with her toys and she wasn't in her bed either. "Webby, did the boys trick you into playing hide and seek while they ran off again?"
He checked inside her closet only to come up empty. Getting increasingly anxious, Scrooge started calling for her while checking every room upstairs.
"Mr. McDuck, what's going on up here?" Mrs. Beakley asked as the rest of the household raced upstairs. "Is something wrong with my granddaughter?"
"I'll say, she's either turned invisible or gone missing!"
"Gone missing?!" she screeched, Duckworth putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"There there, madam, she can't have gone too far," the butler told her.
"Quackaroonie, where would she even go?" Huey asked as the boys searched her room.
"Hey, what's this paper over here?" Louie pointed out as he picked up something off of Webby's floor. "Father-Daughter Banquet?"
"What have ya got there, lad?" Scrooge wanted to know as he took the flyer from his nephew. When he realized what it was, he felt his stomach sink. "Toss me tartans..."
The boys stood around looking around uncomfortably as if they'd rather be anywhere but there at the moment.
"Oh the poor dear, and I was too busy talking on the phone to pay her any attention when she came home," Mrs. Beakley said tearfully, blowing her nose into a handkerchief Duckworth loaned her.
"Don't you worry, Mrs. Beakley, I'll find Webbigail if it's the last thing I do," Scrooge promised her. If anything were to happen to that kid, he'd never forgive himself. "Do you have any idea where she might go?"
"Well, um, she may have gone to our old neighborhood but that's so far to walk from here..."
"Aye. Boys, you search around the school and playground here. Duckworth, drive Mrs. Beakley and I around town. Hopefully she didn't wander too far."
Webby looked around at the nearby buildings, not recognizing any of them. "I think I took a wrong turn...maybe two...this was a big mistake," she said to her doll. Her stomach started to rumble. "Good thing I brought a snack with me."
She situated herself down against a corner of a building, taking out her animal crackers and water. She had managed to get a few down when suddenly someone grabbed them from her.
"Well well, if it isn't the resident crybaby!" Bully Beagle, the youngest of the Beagle Boys, sneered at her before he munched the rest of her food down. "Thanks for the snack!"
"Hey! Those were mine!"
"If you still want them, feel free to get them out," he laughed as he pointed to his stomach.
"You big bully, I'll tell my uncle on you!" Webby scolded him.
"Oh boohoo, I ain't scared of him!" Without warning, he snatched her doll from her hand. "Nice doll, I bet it'd make good target practice!"
"Give that back!" Webby demanded, jumping up in the air to try and grab it from him.
"Haha, nice try, pipsqueak," Bully laughed as he held the doll up above his head. "You should have stayed at home to play like a good little girl!"
"I said give that back!" Webby yelled at him, kicking him in the shin.
"Yowch!" he screamed, grabbing his leg in pain. He dropped Webby's doll, the little girl able to grab it up and run away. "Hey, get back here!" Bully snarled, chasing after her. He was much older than she was so he caught up to her pretty quick, grabbing at the doll's little arm.
"Hey, let go of her!" Webby cried out as a tug of war session ensued. A ripping sound was heard and then both parties fell backwards. Webby groaned and then gasped in horror at the sight of her beloved Quacky Patch doll having only one arm. "YOU BROKE HER ARM!"
That did it. First Mona, then getting ignored at home, then getting lost, and now this. She started crying heavily right there on the sidewalk, everything finally weighing down on her. Bully Beagle winced at the sound.
"Geez, kid, just buy another one!" he said as he threw the torn off arm at her feet.
"BUT MY PARENTS GAVE ME THIS ONE!"
"Just ask them for another one then!"
"I CAAAAN'T!"
Just when Bully thought he was going to have to clobber her to shut her up, a large figure appeared behind Webby with their hands on their hips. "Uh, well gotta run, kid, I think I hear Ma callin' me!" he spat out, taking off running in the other direction.
Webby quit crying long enough to crack her eyes open, wondering what made Bully run off. That's when she noticed the large shadow over her, turning her head to see who was behind her.
"Never fear, little Gizmo-buddy!" said none other than Gizmoduck himself. He picked Webby up to sit on one of his broad metallic shoulders. One of his many chest compartments opened up to give her a tissue box. "I, Gizmoduck, am here! To dry your tears! Hehe I love a good rhyme, don't you?"
She couldn't help but giggle. "Thank you, Gizmoduck!" Webby told him after she dried her eyes, then gave him a kiss on the side of his helmet.
"Aw shucks, kid," the superhero chuckled in his normal voice. "Er, I mean, you're welcome!" He corrected himself in his deeper voice. "Nothing is too big a job for Gizmoduck! Now what are you doing so far from home? And on a school night at that!"
"I was...um...trying to...fuhmaprens," she said in a tiny, quick voice.
Gizmoduck tapped the side of his helmet. "You're going to have to speak up, I didn't catch that."
Webby sighed. "I was...trying to find my...parents..."
The hero blinked behind his reflective visor. He had heard Webby and Mrs. Beakley's story from Scrooge once before. He had to clear his throat before he could speak again. "Well if there's one thing Gizmoduck is good at, it's finding lost parents," he said boldly, starting to sweat uncomfortably under his suit. "I'm also pretty good at sewing dollies' arms back on."
"You know how to sew?" Webby asked him in amazement right before a very tiny pair of robot arms holding a needle and thread came zipping out of his suit.
"Sure, M'ma taught me, I MEAN, ahem, YES, Gizmoduck can do anything, after all!"
He finished performing the "surgery" on the Quacky Patch doll, Webby hugging it tightly afterwards. She still felt sad about everything that was on her mind, but this did make her feel better. "Thanks, Mr. Gizmoduck!"
"Anything for one of my little Gizmo-buddies!" he said with a grin. "Now how about I give you a personal escort to your, uh, destination?"
Ring Ring
"Scrooge McDuck's limo line."
"Oh hey, Duckworth! This is Fen, uh, GIZMODUCK. Is Mr. McDuck there?"
"It's for you, sir, it's Master Gizmoduck."
"Aye, why didn't think of him before! I have an emergency, Gizmoduck, my Webby's gone mis-...you found her? Haha, bless me bagpipes! Where are ya, lad?"
After picking up the boys, Duckworth drove the family to where Gizmoduck said to meet him at. The robotic duck waved his arm upon seeing the vehicle to let them know where exactly he was.
"Great Scots, the old Duckburg Cemetery," Scrooge said as he took his hat off in show of respect to the dead. "Haven't passed this way in years."
"Kinda spooky, Uncle Scrooge," Dewey chattered his teeth from his spot in the limo.
"Y-yeah, we'll just stay here," Huey gulped while Louie tugged his hat down over his eyes.
Mrs. Beakley closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. "Let me go in alone, Mr. McDuck. I am overdue for a visit here anyhow."
"Of course," Scrooge told her with an understanding tip of his head.
Without another word, Mrs. Beakley headed through the wrought iron gates. Even though she had not been by in a couple of years, she remembered the way exactly. Up ahead, she spotted Webby's pink bow, the little girl sitting in front of a large gravestone.
Webby didn't turn her head when she heard her grandmother approach behind her, as if she knew that's who was there. Mrs. Beakley knelt down, sighing shakily as she looked at her daughter and son-in-law's names engraved on the large stone before them.
"I miss them," Webby said quietly.
"I know...so do I." Mrs. Beakley dabbed at her eyes. "Sweetheart, please don't ever run off like that again, you had us all worried."
She hung her head. "I'm sorry, Grammy...I didn't think anyone would miss me...but then I got lost..."
"Did...something happen at school, Webby? I...well, we saw the paper you brought home, about the banquet and-"
Webby jerked her head up, her eyes big. "Did, uh, U-Uncle Scrooge see it too?"
"Well, yes, we all did."
How embarrassing. "Was he mad?"
"Mad?" Mrs. Beakley tilted her head a bit. "Why would he be mad?"
"Oh well I had thought that...that he...um...nevermind," she squeaked out, wishing she hadn't said anything now.
It was killing her not knowing how to help her obviously hurting granddaughter. "Webby, you know you can tell me anything. I want to help."
Webby wrung her hands together, inhaling a bit before she got up on her tiptoes to whisper in her grandmother's ear.
"Oh, I see," Mrs. Beakley said once she was finished. She felt like an idiot for not realizing this on her own.
"Please don't be mad, Grammy..."
"Darling, no one is mad at you," she said gently, hugging her tiny grandchild to her. "It's quite all right. Your parents would agree with me if they could. And I'm positive if you asked your uncle Scrooge, he'd say yes."
Gizmoduck had taken the boys to get some ice cream so they wouldn't have to be in the middle of the sensitive goings-on. Scrooge paced back and forth in front of his limo, Duckworth stoically guarding it by staying put in the driver's seat. Scrooge stopped in mid-step when he saw Mrs. Beakley approach.
"Where's Webby?" he couldn't help but ask when he saw she was alone.
"Mr. McDuck, she really needs to talk to you," Mrs. Beakley insisted. "I know I have no right to ask you to do anything, but please."
"Mrs. Beakley, you two are family to me, you don't have to ask me to do anything when it comes to that little girl," he insisted.
"I appreciate that, sir," she smiled gratefully at him.
He found her sitting on a bench, kicking her feet back and forth idly. He had thought he was being quiet, but seeing as how she picked her head up, apparently he wasn't. Without much hesitation, Webby zipped over to him, nearly crushing him in a hug and burying her face against his shirt.
"There, there, lassie," Scrooge said to her, petting her little head when she started crying.
"Uncle Scrooge, you don't think I'm a, a, charity case, do you?" she suddenly blubbed out in a muffled voice.
"Charity case?" Hearing the words made him shudder in disgust. "Where did you ever hear such a foul phrase?"
"Mona said you didn't care about me or Grammy and that we only lived with you because you felt bad for us and wanted to look good in front of everyone else and she made fun of me for not having a daddy for the daddy-daughter thing at school and I wanted to ask you if you could come instead but then I got scared and, and-"
"Whoa whoa, one thing at a time." Scrooge picked her chin up so she would look at him, using his thumbs to wipe under her eyes. The fact that someone had the gall to tell his Webbigail such an awful thing made his blood boil. "Now I don't know who this rude little scamp is, but she sounds like she needs a whoppin' across her tailfeathers for spinning such a tall tale. As for the other..."
Webby gulped, almost not wanting to hear what he had to say.
"I would be more than happy to take you to your school's dance," he said with a fond smile.
She blinked her big eyes up at him. "Really?"
"Well of course, love, you're my wee darlin' after all." He threw her up in his arms, making her giggle, then kissed her cheek a couple times. "I know I'm not really your uncle, but you and your nan are both family to me. And no little brat saying otherwise is going to make that any less true."
Webby smiled so hard she thought she might crack her beak. "I love you, Uncle Scrooge," she said as she hugged his neck.
"I love ya too, lass," he told her with a hug of his own.
Webby smoothed out the skirt of her new yellow dress that Uncle Scrooge had bought for her (off the sales rack of course, but she didn't need to know that). She could see Mona with who Webby assumed was her father just up ahead, the man dressed in a tacky plaid suit while mingling at the punch bowl. Her stomach flipped when the man spotted them and began to stride his way over there, his daughter looking bored as she followed him along.
"Well hello there, Mr. McDuck!" Mr. Hennington said as he roughly shook the rich duck's hand. "Say, I didn't know you had any kids of your own, I thought-"
"I don't, but my niece Webby needed me so here I am," Scrooge said, putting an arm around Webby to keep her close. Webby smiled at him calling her his niece like that. "Do I...know you from somewhere?"
"Oh sure, you've probably seen my commercials!"
"Daddy, let's just dance," Mona whined, looking embarrassed.
"In a minute, kid. Hennington Motors Inc, c'mon, surely you've heard the jingle!"
Scrooge looked about ready to get away from this loon. "Eh, oh, those commercials..." He wanted to say they were as tacky as the man's suit.
"I'm gonna tell Mommy you're ruining my night!" Mona stomped her foot.
"Look, I'm trying to do business here, hon, give me a second. Hey here's my card, Mr. McDuck, maybe I'll see ya some time!" He turned to walk off with his daughter. "How many times I gotta tell you not to interrupt Daddy when he's talking?"
"But Daddyyyy."
"Gee whiz, Uncle Scrooge, I feel sorry for Mona having a daddy who won't even spend time with her," Webby frowned.
"Some parents aren't fit for raisin'," Scrooge agreed with her. "I wouldn't be too concerned with her anymore."
"I won't! Hey can we do that dance you taught me? The one you said everyone did in Scotland?"
Scrooge let out a laugh. "Aye, my bonnie lass, no one to do it better with."
Duckworth parked the limo in its usual spot before getting out to open the door. Webby was so tuckered out that she had fallen asleep on the short ride home. Scrooge picked her up, carrying her to the mansion. Mrs. Beakley had stayed awake, turning on the outside light as she opened the door.
"Did she have a good time?"
"Aye, we both did," Scrooge told her with a tired smile. "I forget I'm not as young as I used to be sometimes. These long nights were easier on me back in the day."
"I did expect you both home a while ago," Mrs. Beakley had to admit. "Thank you for this, Mr. McDuck."
"It was no trouble at all, my pleasure. Get some sleep, madam, I'll tuck her in."
Mrs. Beakley nodded her head at him, heading on to her own room. Scrooge yawned, adjusting the sleeping girl in his arms before ascending his staircase. Luckily, Webby's bedroom wasn't nearly as messy as his nephews' room so he didn't have to watch his step while going inside. He laid her down on the bed, putting her Quacky Patch doll beside her before tucking her in. He gave her a kiss on the head before he saw himself out.
Both of them really were the richest ducks in the world.