Midas Gold
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
Psst! Guest of Ram Man's Origin: I'm sure Duncan meant it as a reward for Rammy's courage against Skeletor. This way, Rammy had a job with the palace guards, a place to live (the royal palace no less, albeit the palace guards quarters) food to eat, clothes to wear. Otherwise without his memory, Rammy might have ended up homeless and hungry, a poor reward for courage.
"Launchpad, those wild parrots that were sold as pets, I tracked down those that survived." Mr.
McDuck began.
" Most of them have been pets too long. They would never survive in the wild. Might as well dump a city adult in the wild and expect them to survive." Mr. McDuck continued.
"But some were raised in a wild animal park by parrots and are young enough to adapt to the wild. I want you to take them to that island and release them there." Mr. McDuck finished.
So Launchpad took the young parrots to Parrot Island, found the wild parrots who lived there and asked them to look after the newbies. The native parrots promised to do so.
Then, the wild parrots conferred. They decided to reward Mr. McDuck and Launchpad. They gave Launchpad two ears of golden corn. Made of real corn.
"Give one to Mr. McDuck. It's made of real, live gold. Not for eating. And whatever you do, DON'T plant it." top wild parrot instructed.
'I'll tell him. I'll probably sell him my ear of gold corn, too." Launchpad replied.
Back home in Duckburg, Launchpad gave Mr. McDuck one ear of gold corn and sold him the other one.
"Don't plant it." Launchpad said.
"It's not real, it's gold." snorted Mr. McDuck.
"The parrots insisted I warn you not to plant it." Launchpad shrugged. "It does look like real corn, I guess they didn't want us breaking our beaks on it."
"It does look like real corn. A real work of art." Mr. McDuck mused.
Mr. McDuck examined the gold ears of corn with a magnifying glass. They looked just like real corn even close up. One kernel even accidentally fell off. It looked like a real kernel even close up.
You guessed it, Mr. McDuck could not resist planted that one kernel. He felt silly, but could not resist doing so.
The next day, a gold corn plant was growing there, growing ears of real gold. However, Mr. McDuck also received word that the corn fields he owned were turning into gold.
"We have no idea what started this horror or how to stop it!' said the underling who reported this to him.
"Horror?" asked Mr. McDuck asked, who was already thinking:() () Ka- ching!()()
"Sir...you can't eat gold. If this keeps up, a lot of people are going to starve to death." Underling explained.
"And it's spreading. Other fields are being effected, there's even word that fields of other grains may be effected. If that's true...world wide famine could result." Underling said.
Mr. McDuck thought. And contacted Launchpad.
"Fly me to Parrot Island. I uprooted all my golden corn and I'm flying it back there! I have to find out how to stop this!" Mr. McDuck ordered.
"No problemo!" Launchpad replied.
But there was a problem: Flintheart Glomgold found out about this and wanted more gold. Glomgold didn't care if others starved to death or not.
MEANWHILE, Mr. McDuck has returned the gold corn to Parrot Island and is talking to the head parrot.
"PLEASE tell me that returning this corn has ended this curse!" Mr. McDuck begged.
"It has. All effected grain has now turned back to normal. But why did you plant it in the first place? Did not Launchpad relay our message, warning you not to?" Birdbrain, the head parrot asked.
"Yes, he did. But that's why I planted it. I HAD to find out what would happen if I did plant it. I let my greed and my curiosity get the better of me." Mr. McDuck admitted.
"Is that why your rival, Flintheart Glomgold has stolen the effected other grains you forgot about?" Birdbrain asked.
"Eh?" Mr. McDuck asked.
"Glomgold stole the gold grains- wheat and rye- you forgot about." Birdbrain began.
" Flintheart stole those fields. He tried to buy them, and denied, he ripped up the golden grain, stole it. Flintheart tried his best to hush up the existence of that stolen gold grain. " Birdbrain continued.
"Without meaning to, Flintheart helped you end the curse. If all the gold grain had not been ripped up before it could come to ripen, the curse would not of ended." Birdbrain stated.
"Now you know why I save Flintheart's life. Sometimes he does a little bit of good. Usually without meaning to." Launchpad muttered.
"That grain has also turned back to normal. A fact Flintheart Glomgold has just discovered. He is furious and is on the way here." Birdbrain said.
"How do you know this?" Mr. McDuck asked.
"I know all that concerns this Island. Flintheart is coming here, he has bribed air traffic controllers to tell him where you are." Birdbrain said.
"Flintheart's done that before, I bet." muttered Launchpad.
"Can you help us? Flintheart's liable to do anything to get that gold back and to get even for losing the golden grain." Mr. McDuck asked. "You parrots could get hurt or killed by him, out of spite."
"Or we could hide and not involve ourselves like that." Birdbrain suggested.
"You tried that when the pirates came here to hunt parrots. Didn't work. It's hard for birds with brightly colored feathers to hide." Launchpad pointed out.
"How can we fight? We have no arms, just wings. No teeth. No claws or talons. "Birdbrain lamented.
"You can confuse them. Like zebras do." Launchpad suggested. "I can teach you how to fly stunts, like my Dad taught me. Only you can fly on your own wings. Like I always wished I could."
So, being a born Teacher, Launchpad taught the parrots to fly like stunt pilots do.
When Flintheart arrived on Parrot Island, he was bent on revenge. Flintheart had tried to buy fields of gold. Had been denied.
Then Flintheart and his flunkies had stolen the fields. Flintheart's flunkies had ripped them up, gotten away. Then the golden grain had turned back to normal grain. Flintheart KNEW this was Scroogie's doing..who else? Flintheart was full of "I will get even."
Mr. McDuck came to meet Flintheart as his plane touched down on Parrot Island.
"Flintheart! Listen to me!" Mr. McDuck said.
"You destroyed my gold grain! I'll get even! Boys! Start killing any animal you see! Scroogie HATES that." Flintheart snarled.
The timid parrots were TRYING to hide. But even in the thick forage, their bright red or yellow feathers gave them away. And some of the younger parrots could not resist making rude comments at the invaders. Flintheart and his henchmen started shooting at them.
Seeing hiding wasn't working the parrots flew around and around in circles, looping, diving like pilots in a stunt show. Their bright colors seem to blur together until it was harder to draw a bead on a particular parrot then it is for a lion to aim at a single zebra as they zigzag.
The bad guys fired and missed. The embolden birds "attacked" the villains like city birds – ahem!- "attack" a parked car, if you catch my drift. The parrots tried to slash the baddies with their beaks, only to get that close, the baddies could fight back. So the parrots slashed the trees, dropping leaves, branches, nuts on the intruders.
"Enough!" screamed Flintheart "This is getting us nowhere!"
"Listen, Flintheart! The golden grain was a curse. All grain was turning to gold. ALL of it. People would have starved to death if I had not stopped it. You have to eat, too. " Mr. McDuck told Flintheart.
"I'm supposed to believe THAT?" Flintheart asked.
"I ripped up my fields of gold. Check if you doubt me. Would I have done that unless I had to?" Mr. McDuck stated.
"No. No, you wouldn't. "Flintheart admitted. "But you still owe me..."
"For what you stole?" Mr. McDuck asked.
"For helping destroy the gold grain before the curse could spread past stopping." spoke Birdbrain, as he landed.
" If we knew this would have happened, we never would have given you that golden corn in the first place." Birdbrain continued.
" This time, we have a better reward. You , Mr. McDuck get this corn. You, too, Launchpad. Even you, Flintheart, get this grain." Birdbrain said.
And Birdbrain gave Mr. McDuck and Launchpad ordinary looking seed corn and Flintheart ordinary looking oat and wheat grains.
"Bah! What do I want with THIS?" Flintheart asked.
"I'll buy it from you, Flintheart, if the price includes you leaving these parrots in peace." Mr. McDuck offered.
"That price is high, Scroogie." Flintheart snarled.
"Better take what Mr. McDee offers and scram." Launchpad began.
" I just called the coast guard on my plane's radio" Launchpad continued.
"These parrots are a protected species. If the coast guard find out you've been shooting at the parrots and you're still here..." Launchpad stated. "Take the money and go and I'll pretend you were never here, since no parrots were hurt.
Flintheart took the money and left, snarling. Then, in spite, Flintheart threw the grain on the ground.
"Launchpad! Pick up that grain! And do na miss any of them!" Mr. McDuck ordered.
Launchpad did so.
Mr. McDuck planted the corn and other grains. It grew faster, much faster than ordinary grain. It stayed ordinary grain...almost.
Bugs did not eat it, disease could not kill it...at least for the first three years. Then, insects and diseases adapted, as they do. But Mr. McDuck made a lot of money out of these tougher grains, the price of food went down, amount of food available went up. Scientists had a field day studying the new grains, trying to duplicate its original resistance to disease and bugs.
Launchpad got his own reward from me, with a little help from SHUSH. A few days later, I surprised him with a brand-new shed right next to his main hanger.
"A shed? My surprise is a shed?" Launchpad asked.
"What's inside the shed." I clarified.
Inside the shed was...
"My workshop! From St. Canard! This is the workshop I had in St. Canard when I was body guarding DW! How?" Launchpad inquired.
"I've been trying to get them to move it here since I found out you loved that workshop. And nobody was using it." I explained.
"Bruno can fly planes, but he can't fix them. Gos has been fixing the Thunderquack and the Ratcatcher, but she can't use your tools. Too big and heavy for a ten year old." I continued.
" After you helping stop this gold famine and doing so fast enough that the public never found out about it...SHUSH was sufficiently grateful to you for me to swing this." I finished.
"AND... they're paying you at their usual rate." I added.
THE END.