Secretary's Day
Based a lot on "Mad Secretary", Author: Em O'Gilt ,with thanks for her Official Permission to do so.
Re-written by Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
Dedicated to Joan Jameson, Captain Marvel's secretary, one of the few people who know that Billy Batson is Captain Marvel and visa-versa. This is appropriate, as "secretary" is from the Latin meaning "Keeper of secrets".
Mrs. Emily Featherby (1)is Mr. McDuck's overworked, underpaid highly efficient secretary. She is patient and even-tempered and does NOT allow her boss to rattle her.
"As long as I don't lose MY temper and don't let him scare me, his bluster does me no harm. It's just his way, he's like that with everybody." Emily thinks.
Emily has been married to Ben Featherby for decades. They have children, long grown and married and on their own. They have grandchildren on whom they dote.
They live in a little house quite close to the Mansion. Mrs. Featherby bought it when Mr. McDuck was considering buying some foreclosed houses cheap, but skipped on this one because it was too small.
Mr. and Mrs. Featherby bought it for practically nothing and have lived there ever since. They might not ever have found it if she didn't work for Mr. McDuck and she can walk to work, which saves her time and money.
Not that this was the only time Mrs. Featherby bought into a good deal that Mr. McDuck was offered but was too penny-ante for him to bother with. It's amazing how honest people can feather their nest without hurting anybody else or bothering anybody else.
Ben was visiting HIS favorite sister and would not be back for a few days, he did this once a year, every year. But Emily never did get along with her sister-in-law Mary, so Emily stayed home.
"Mrs. Featherby!" Mr. McDuck said into the intercom.
"Yes, sir?" Mrs. Featherby replied
"Come into my office." Mr. McDuck ordered.
"Right away, sir." Emily replied.
"Someone has found a dime from the same year as Mine and minted in the same mint. Such dimes have gotten rare. I'm considering buying it as a decoy dime- I've used an ordinary dime to trick Magica in the past, but she's catching on. This one may look enough like Mine to continue confusing her. Please get my Dime so I can compare it to the photos of this one its owner sent me." Mr. McDuck requested. "You're the only one I can trust with my Dime."
At Mt. Vesuvius, Magica was watching this episode from her magic mirror.
"Scrooge trusts her withthe Dime?! Hold on a minute!" Magica asked. Mirror- reshow that scene again. The mirror obeyed and re-ran the scene:
"You're the only one I can trust with my Dime," Scrooge said again.
"He really said it, alright," Magica muttered, amazed.
"Right, sir." She proceeded to fetch his Dime.
"Maybe I can make this work for me- if secretary can get her hands on the Lucky Dime, then if I control secretary...I can get MY hands on Lucky Dime! Then, I can use it as a magical charm and rule the world!" Magica thought.
Magica cast a spell to invade Mrs. Featherby's brain with evil, wicked thoughts and thus control her.
Meanwhile, back in Duckburg... Magica's wicked spell hit Emily. It felt like the mother of all migraine headaches.
"Something wrong, Miss Featherby?" Mr. McDuck asked.
"No...Nothing." Mrs. Featherby replied.
This wasn't quite true. Magica was putting all kinds of nasty, evil thoughts into poor Featherby's brain. Only Featherby kept suppressing them and ignoring them and kept counting to ten and biting her tongue and did everything EXCEPT act on the nasty, evil thoughts bombarding her.
"A pox on honest people! My magic can't make people act contrary to their natures! I suppose I could get her to steal office supplies or put salt in Scroogie's coffee instead of sugar- if I keep this up for the next ten years! But I have better things to do! I'll pick her brain for the information I need, instead!" Magica thought.
Magica then crept her evil thoughts in Featherby's brain, seeking the location of the key to the Money Bin, the location of the alarms and how to turn them off- anything Magica needed to know to steal the Dime. If it wasn't for Magica's evil thoughts attacking Emily, Emily would never let Magica know what Magica needed!
But there was only so much the poor old woman could fight. It was all she could do to keep from acting on the evil notions Magica kept percolating in Emily's brain, she could not fight them and Magica's brain-picking ,too! Soon, Magica had the info she needed.
"Now, I'll just capture her and take her place, that's all!" Magica said.
So Magica waited until Mrs. Featherby went home. And then Magica jumped Emily, tied her up and shoved her into a closet and locked it. The next day, Magica made herself look and sound exactly like Mrs. Featherby and went to work.
Magica waited until Mr. McDuck left for a loooong business meeting and went into the Money Bin with "her" spare key. Mrs. Featherby was the only employee that Scrooge trusted with a key. And conveniently (at least as far as Magica was concerned) Emily also knew the combination to his vault, just in case Mr. McDuck forgot.(2)
Magica had managed to gleam that information from Mrs. Featherby while she, Magica TRIED to puppet-master Emily. Mrs. Featherby knew it well and would normally protect it with her life- but with Magica's evil thoughts plaguing her, Magica had managed to steal that secret from her mind. Magica had also found out where the alarms were and how to shut them off.
Magica had no problem getting into the Money Bin or in opening the safe. It took her a second to spot the Dime in all that money. Then she saw the glass case that held the Dime and grabbed it.
"Hee hee! It's all mine!" Magica grabbed the Dime and ran for the door.
But remembering alarms would go off, she turned them off. Picking Scrooge's head secretary's brain sure paid off!
Meanwhile, the REAL Mrs. Featherby was still locked in her closet. Emily managed to reach the nail file in her pocket and she used it to saw thru her bonds and pick the knots and free herself from the rope. But she was still locked in the closet.
Fortunately, the hinges were on her side of the door and she used the round end of the nail file like a screwdriver, and removed the bolts from the hinges. The locked door still held in place, so she opened it backwards to the way it was intended to open
Emily grabbed her phone and called Mr. McDuck. She is one of the few people who know his DIRECT phone number.
"Mr. McDuck? This is Mrs. Featherby..." Emily said.
"Where are you? I came back to my office from a meeting to find you gone!" Mr. McDuck demanded.
"I never went to work today! Magica DeSpell locked me in my closet- she must of taken my place! Sir- she must be after your Dime!" Mrs. Featherby warned.
"WHAT? How could this be?!" Mr. McDuck asked.
Mr. McDuck ran to the Money Bin, but the Dime was long gone.
Mr. McDuck quickly called Launchpad, his pilot.
"Launchpad! I need a plane!" Mr. McDuck commanded.
"Be there in nothing flat, Mr. McD!" Launchpad replied.
Launchpad hurried over to McDuck's and when Scrooge got in the plane, Launchpad said:
"Where to, Mr. McD?"
"Mt. Vesuvius!" Mr. McDuck ordered.
"Magica troubles, eh?" Launchpad replied.
Launchpad's been thru THOSE before, Lord knows.
"She's got my #1 Dime!" Mr. McDuck said.
"How did that happen?" Launchpad asked.
You can hardly blame him, it's better protected than Fort Knox.
" Magica captured and then impersonated Mrs. Featherby! And got into the Bin!" Mr. McDuck answered.
"Sheesh! Now Magica's picking on nice little old ladies?" Launchpad asked.
Scrooge marched right into Magica's lair and sputtered, "Give me the Dime, witch!"
"Oh, Scrooge! How nice to be seeing you again! How's your secretary by the way?" Magica asked.
"You shoved her into a closet and took her place and stole my Dime and I want it back!" Mr. McDuck screamed. "Give back the Dime!"
Meanwhile, nobody was paying ANY attention to Launchpad. So what ELSE ain't new?
Launchpad saw the Dime at the far end of the room. It was sitting in a place of honor, in plain sight. There was no way anybody, never mind somebody as big as my Launchpad could get close to it without being seen.
Then Launchpad remembered he had some marbles in his pocket the Triplets had asked him to hold for them that they had forgotten about.
Launchpad took a shooter and a gray-glass marble out of his pocket. He took careful aim and the marble hit the Dime. The Dime flew thru the air and landed not far from where Launchpad was standing. The marble rolled into the place the Dime had been and stayed there. Magica and Mr. McDuck were so busy squabbling, neither of them noticed a thing.
Launchpad pretended to scratch his head and accidently-on-purpose knocked the aviator's cap off his head. He bent down to pick it up and picked up the Dime, too. And put the Dime in his pocket.
Magica saw Launchpad picking up his hat and gave him a dirty look. But Launchpad did not go anyplace close to where she THOUGHT the Dime was and when she looked, she saw the gray-glass marble in the slot intended for the Dime and mistook it for the Dime from a distance.
" NOW what do I do? I have the Dime, but Mr. McDuck doesn't know that! How do I get us OUT of here without Magica frying us and without fighting Mr. McD- he thinks Magica still has the dime and he ain't going to leave without it!" Launchpad thought.
Just then, hundreds of thousands of ordinary "people" stormed Magica's hideout. Along with the local cops, who TRIED to maintain order.
"What is going on out there?" Magica demanded.
"Sorry, lady- some kook has been e-mailing people, saying that you're giving away money and prizes! Half of Italy must be here!" local cop replied.
Launchpad took advantage of this distraction to grab Mr. McDuck.
"Let's get out of here!" Launchpad yelled.
"Not without my Dime!" Mr. McDuck screamed back.
"it's in my pocket, let's scram!" Launchpad whispered.
And Launchpad picked Mr. McD up and carried him to the plane.
"My Dime!" Mr. McDuck wailed.
"Here! Take the silly thing!" Launchpad replied, handing him the Dime.
"Why...it IS my Dime! How?" Mr. McDuck inquired.
"I took a page from your nephews' book and used marbles to shoot it free!" Launchpad explained.
"Thank you, Launchpad!" Mr. McDuck responded.
"Be sure to thank Mrs. Featherby...who do you think sent out those e-mails?" Launchpad replied.
"Of course! Mrs. Featherby knows how I'm always being pestered by chislers and glad hands! SHE sent out those e-mails so MAGICA would be pestered by greedy people!" Mr. McDuck replied.
And when got home, he did thank Mr. Featherby. Mr. McDuck also changed the combination of the Money Bin, and got it a new lock. Only Mr. McDuck has the key and the combination is written down as a fake phone number someplace in Mr. McDuck's address book. Even Mrs. Featherby doesn't know that, never mind which name and phone number is bogus.
The End.
(1) Check the voice actor credits for "Last Lamp", it's MRS. Featherby.
(2) Remember what happened in "Scrooge's Pet"? Mr. McDuck does NOT want a rerun of that!