How Launchpad and I met
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
Based very loosely on "Mickey and the Magic Cloak" (I should want to take Mickey away from Minnie? That would be mean.) And the Ducktales episode "Scroogerello"
Psst! Angie Sage! How's about writing a book starring QUEEN Jenna?
One day I was walking and it got cold. I wasn't dressed warmly enough, so I turned around for home. But it got colder and windy, too. Then I saw a perfectly good coat caught in the branches of a tree. I took it down, examined it. It was clean and handsome. I put it on.
"I wish I was a humanized duck who met and married the real Launchpad McQuack as early and as soon as possible." I said.
I wish that a LOT, I wasn't sure why I was wishing it now. There was just something... magic about that coat.
Next thing, I knew, I was on Launchpad's Earth. I was a female talking duck. All my memories of ever being human were gone, replaced with memories of growing up as a female talking duck.
I found myself in a gigantic castle, and in front of me was a giant. A VERY big, VERY mean-looking giant.
"Ah! The magic coat I stole works! It brought me a girl!" the giant said. "What's your name, girl?"
"Sharan." I replied, too terrified to lie.
"What's THAT mean?" giant asked.
"Princess." I replied (1)
"Good! A princess! Just want I wanted! I will send a ransom note ! I will hold you captive until your parents the King and Queen abdicate in my favor." giant stated.
"But..." I began.
"Silence!" giant ordered. "There! Now you can't talk until the spell wears off. I have no time to listen to lies."
I wanted to explain my parents aren't a king nor a queen. That Sharan is just my name and a very common name, too- but I found I was mute. Couldn't make a peep.
The giant locked me in a tower, very high up. Later a servant of the giant, a captive named Sally brought me a meal. When I automatically said: "Thank you" I realized the spell had worn off. I explained to Sally I wasn't really a princess.
"Don't tell the giant that! He'll kill you if he thinks you're no good to him. I cook his meals and clean up after him and he doesn't want another servant. " Sally warned me.
"If we work together, do you think we could escape?" I asked.
"Don't you think I've tried?" Sally began. "I was kidnapped Sunday morning. It's Saturday already, my family and friends must be going frantic."
"We're in an tower, far away from people...to US. My people have searched for the giant, hoping to kill him, but never found him. Sally said. "The giant comes to our village to steal food regularly. So apparently my village is walking distance to HIM. Last Sunday, he took ME, too. Stuffed me in a bag and took me here. "
"I can climb down to the ground easily enough. There is plenty of good, strong ivy on the walls. But it does me no good. " Sally continued.
"We are in the middle of no place, the middle of a pine forest. There's no sign of people in any direction. No food, no water down there." Sally elaborated.
"Not unless we could kill an animal. I don't want to kill an animal. I don't have weapons to kill an animal. And I don't have the slightest idea of HOW to kill an animal." Sally lamented.
"Even then, every time I tried to escape, I kept getting lost and walking around in circles until I give up and come back here. The trees all look the same...and I strongly suspect the giant cast a spell so if I try to escape, I get lost." (2) Sally finished.
Meanwhile, the giant sent a ransom note to the same tree the coat had been caught on. The giant waited for my parents the "king" and "queen" to send a message of surrender, not realizing he waited in vain.
The giant had hung the magic coat up. But as soon as the giant wasn't paying attention to the coat, it went off to grant my wish. The coat was a item of GOOD magic, it didn't like belonging to a wicked giant. It was hoping to find a way out.
Back in Duckburg, Launchpad was polishing the joyrider, his bi-plane when the magic coat POPPED up out of no where. The ransom note followed it a second or two later.
"What the?" Launchpad sputtered, surprised.
The two items hovered in the air in front of Launchpad until he grabbed them. Launchpad read the ransom note.
"A princess who needs rescuing! And this must be a magic coat! Hmm. It's a too obliviously a magic coat. Better hide it." Launchpad said.
So he put the coat on under his leather jacket. And got into the joyrider.
"Magic coat, can you take me to the Princess Sharan?" Launchpad asked.
Launchpad instantly found himself on top of the giant's castle, on the roof of my tower.
"Some service." Launchpad joked.
Still in his bi-plane. Launchpad got out of the plane and walked around the roof. There was no way off the roof. No stairs. So Launchpad went back into the plane and tossed down the rope ladder and climbed down the rope ladder, right into the room the giant had locked me into.
"Princess Sharan?" Launchpad asked me. "I'm Launchpad McQuack, I'm here to rescue you. Your magic coat brought me here."
"I'm not a real princess. My name is Sharan, which means Princess, sort of...the giant wanted to capture a princess so her parents the King and Queen would abdicate in this favor, so he could rule their non-existent kingdom. " I began.
"The giant didn't let me explain that, he believed what he wanted to believe." I said. "Even the coat's not mine, I just found it...or maybe it found me."
"Good! I'm glad you're not a real princess. I like you. A real princess wouldn't have anything to do with me." Launchpad replied.
"I like you, too. But let's get out of here...but we have to take the giant's servant, Sally with us. She doesn't want to be here, neither." I said.
"No problem." Launchpad said.
He went to the door of the room, which of course was locked. Launchpad took a jackknife out of his pocket. I watched as he cut into the wooded door until he cut the door off it's hinges. And opened the door.
"After you!" Launchpad said.
"I'll find Sally." I said.
"I better see what the giant's up to." Launchpad replied.
We tiptoed down the stairs. Sally was in her room, which was right under mine. Sally grinned from long ear (3) to long ear when she saw the two of us together. We explained the situation to her.
"Psst! I already got a boyfriend! So don't worry about me, I can tell you like him. Fine by me." Sally whispered to me.
The giant was starting to get impatient. What was taking my parents so long to surrender to him? He started to mutter about that. Loudly enough for Launchpad to hear him.
Then Launchpad walked into the giant's chamber and bowed right before the giant, very lowly for quite some time before arising.
"Hail, giant! I am a messenger of the King and Queen of Zo! (4) A rich and powerful kingdom!" Launchpad said talking quickly before the giant realized that "Zo" had sounded like "Zoo".
" They are willing to surrender to you for the sake of the lovely daughter. But I must see the Princess Sharan with my own eyes so I can report that she is unharmed and that you do, indeed, hold her captive before they will reluctantly surrender the crown to you." Launchpad said, making it up as he went along.
"Hmp. About time you got here. Fine, fine. I'll show you the Princess. Then you can radio the King and Queen." the giant replied.
The giant got up and TRIED to walk towards to my cell. But Launchpad had tied the giant's bootlaces together when Launchpad bowed before the giant. As the giant tried to walk, Launchpad gave the giant a well-placed kick for insurance. (5)The giant fell down and his head hit a wall. Out cold.
Launchpad ran back to us.
"The giant's napping! Let's get out of here, pronto!" Launchpad said.
We ran back to my cell, climbed out the window and up the rope ladder. Soon we were in the Joyrider heading for Duckburg, since that's where Sally lived. And it was closer then NY. But the giant soon woke up, untied and retied his boots and chased after us.
"Bother! I took the Joyrider because it's small and I just put a new engine I designed in it so it's fast, too! I thought we could get away so far and fast and he'd not be able to see us from the ground!" Launchpad said. "That giant must have eyes like an eagle."
We were going VERY, very fast. But the giant had a huge stride and followed.
"If I can just get to the ocean...maybe he can't swim." Launchpad muttered. "Wait! The magic coat! Magic coat, take the giant to place he can rule as king, without hurting anybody...someplace far, far away from anybody!" Launchpad wished.
Instantly, the giant found himself in an abandoned giant's castle in the clouds. (6) It had been abandoned for many, many years but since it was above the clouds the weather couldn't hurt it.
It was in excellence shape, only needing minor repairs. The castle had drifted over the years and was now held by the coat's magic far, far away from anybody. Here, the giant could rule over the castle to his heart's content.
It was a magic castle and provided food for it's master. The giant was now it's master.
"Don't need this anymore. Magic coat, go back to your rightful owner!" Launchpad wished.
The Magic Coat returned to good witch it had been stolen from.
Launchpad and I dropped off Sally at her home. Her parents thanked us. Then Launchpad took me home to NY where my parents thanked him.
That Saturday night, Launchpad took me out on a date for the first time. But not the last. In time Launchpad and I got married and moved to Duckburg. And lived happily ever after. (Couldn't resist.)
The End.
(1) I was named after my Grandma Sara. Sara means Princess. Close enough.
(2) I always thought THAT was why Rapunzel had to wait to be rescued. Rapunzel could get down from the tower, but it didn't do her any good without a means of transportation, without knowing which way to go.
And since the witch didn't want Rapunzel to leave the tower, why would the witch give Rapunzel any SHOES, never mind a coat, hat or gloves? There's a difference between being helpless and needing help.
(3) Sally's a talking dog.
(4) Oz spelled backwards.
(5) Quote Launchpad in "Launchpad's civil War" (NOT one of my favorite Ducktales episode. Scooped out his brain and served it on toast.) "Let's kick him in the pants!" May I point out the giant still came too way too soon?
(6) Since there aren't terribly many giant's castles in the sky, I assume it's the same one from "Mickey and the Beanstalk " which has been abandoned since it's owner fell to his death a LONG time passing. I saw the movie as a kid and it was old then.