No Joyride
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
It was Sunday afternoon and the Trins and Webby were bored.
"Why don't we go over to see Unca Donald?" Huey suggested.
They did so. But Donald was with Daisy...but his mail boat was moored near his house, on Duckburg River. They went to look at it. Then they started to play pirates on it. And somehow, because they were all playing and getting in each other feathers, the boat somehow got untied and floated down the river. For quite some time, the kids were having too much fun to notice. By the time they DID notice, they were far downriver, in a wide part of the river...far away from home.
"Can't we drive this thing?" Webby asked.
"It's a motorboat, not a sailboat! We know how to sail a sailboat, but we're too young to drive a motorboat!" Huey answered.
"Can we signal for help?" Dewey asked.
"You mean like make smoke signals? Light a fire in a BOAT?" Louie asked sarcastically.
Then Webby ran for her little pink plastic purse and she took a small mirror out of it.
"Don't tell me you're worried about how you LOOK at a time like this!" Huey asked.
Webby ignored him and caught the sunlight with her mirror and aimed it's flashes at the shore. She tried her best to make three short flashes, followed by three long flashes, followed by three short flashes. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. S O S.
MEANWHILE, Donald got home from his date with Daisy. To discover his boat missing. Donald throws a temper tantrum, calls the cops, nearly gets arrested himself because he's so angry...
"Somebody stole my boat! Why are you mad at ME?" Donald asked.
"There are some footprints near where the boat was. It looks as if some juveniles stole the boat, sir." an ordinary cop reported to his superior officer.
And the ordinary cop pointed out four sets of duck footprints. Child-size duck footprints.
Just then, Mrs. Beakly came.
"Donald, have you seen Huey, Dewy, Louie and Webby? They're not in the mansion. I thought they came over here to play." Mrs. Beakly. "They told me they were going to, but I don't see them."
"Ut-oh. I just came home from a date with Daisy. And my mail boat is missing. You don't think...they took it on a joyride? They're only ten years old!" Donald asked.
So Mrs. Beakly ran back to the mansion and contacted Mr. McDuck. Who sent Launchpad and Gizmoduck out searching for the missing kids. Donald argued with McDuck about loaning him a boat that Donald could look for the kids in.
"They're MY nephews, too! Heck, they're my nephews and your GRAND-nephews!" Donald yelled. "I don't think I've ever met this "Webby' person I keep hearing about!" (1)
"I was GOING to say that I'll gladly lend you a boat as long as you TAKE ME WITH YOU!" Mr. McDuck thundered.
"Oh." Donald replied, shamefaced.
Elsewhere, on the shore of Duckburg River , some people saw the flashes. Most people just ignored them. But some of those people were Jr. Woodchucks or had been when they were younger. They knew Morse code and recognized it as an SOS. They called the cops. The cops investigated and recognized the boat as Donald's missing boat.
HOWEVER...some members of the Beagles Boys had been listening in to the police band. They were hiding out from the cops and wanted to make sure the cops had no idea where they were hiding. They heard the cops talking about finding the boat and that MR. MCDUCK'S NEPHEWS were believed on it!
"Did ya hear that? Old Moneybag's nephews! How much RANSOM do you figure we could get for them?" Bicep asked.'
"Never mind ransom! I figured we could rob the Money Bin while Mr. McBucks and Gizmoduck are someplace else paying the ransom! We could get the ransom AND empty the Bin in one fell swoop!" Big Time schemed.
"Those cops were in a CAR. It'll take them a little while to get to a boat! If we 'borrow" a boat and get to them first..." Bicep suggest.
So the Beagles proceeded to find a boat and "borrow" it and they motored down the Duckburg River, looking for the mailboat with Webby and the boys on it. Of course, the Beagles found it first. The cops had been pussyfooting around. Nobody wanted to arrest Mr. McDuck's nephews for grand theft of a boat owned by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. It was a "YOU arrest them" "No, YOU arrest them" moment.
"Look! A boat's coming this way!" Webby said.
"Are we being rescued?" Huey hoped.
"No such luck. BIG TIME BEAGLE is steering the boat! And I see Bicep Beagle right next to him!" Dewey said.
"Well, let's fight 'em off with the fire hose here to fight off pirates! Unca Donald told us about it!" Louie said, running to find the hose. (2)
"He also said he couldn't handle the hose! It's flow was too strong! And if it was too strong for him, how are we going to manage?" Huey objected.
"Unca Donald said he adjusted the flow , later! The water doesn't come out that strong anymore!" Dewey said "At least, not to the person handling it! Just at the pirates it's aimed at!"
"I found the hose!" Louie said.
"And I found this! Can you put it in?" Webby asked, handing Louie a large bar of brown LAUNDRY SOAP!
"GOOD IDEA! " The Trins chorused.
So they opened up the little metal barrel the hose was attached to and chucked the laundry soap into the barrel.
And all four grabbed the hose and hung as tight as they could. they aimed it at the Beagles and turned it on, full force. Soapy water hit the Beagles, drenching them, giving them their first bath in MONTHS. The kids nearly let go of the hose, it's flow was so strong, but they held on tight and braced them against the rim of the boat. But this just got the Beagles MAD.
"Aim it at the wheelhouse!" Webby suggested "Maybe we can short out something electric!"
The boys nodded and re-aimed the hose to the wheelhouse, where all the electrical equipment needed to operate a motorboat is kept. But since it's in a BOAT, such equipment is made as waterproof (3)as possible. It's made to resist shorting out in a storm, when the equipment is bound to get wet. And the Beagles, not being TOTAL idiots, quickly closed the wheelhouse's door and windows to keep the water out. So Webby's idea, while sound, didn't do any good. You can't win them all.
ELSEWHERE...Launchpad and Gizmoduck were looking franticaly for the missing mail boat with four kids on it. And were NOT finding them. Because by now, the Beagles had overtaken the missing mail boat, tied the kids up and taken the boat UPriver. Since the both Giz and Launchpad assumed, correctly, that the boat had accidentally gotten untied, they were looking DOWNriver for it and them.
The kids were locked up in the Beagles' "borrowed" boat. The Beagles had draped dirty tarps over the mail boat and hooked it to "their" boat. It looked as if they were towing an old wreck.
"Giz- Mrs. Beakly told us the kids left the Mansion two hours ago, right? Well, they COULDN'T have gone any further down river than this. Not in two hours. " Launchpad stated.
"So where are they, then? Neither of us have seen them or their boat and we've looked everywhere!" Giz replied.
"Except UP river. I think maybe they started the motor and tried to steer the boat back They do know how to steer a sailboat, they might have tried to steer the motor boat. " Launchpad said. "I'm heading back up river. I'll double check where we already searched, in case we missed something."
"OK. I'll keep searching downriver until I get to the sea. There's a coast guard station there, the kids couldn't have gotten past them without being noticed. " Giz said. "They might have gotten further downriver than you think. Even if they did try to steer the boat, they might have accidentally headed downriver instead of up."
So Giz and Launchpad separated.
Meanwhile, back at the Beagles' "borrowed" boat, Burger Beagle was watching the kids while Big Time was steering the boat and Bicep was keeping watch.
The boys, knowing Burger, started talking about food, especially fattening food like hamburgers, pizza, fried chicken, etc. It didn't take long before Burger left them to go raid the galley. But they were still tied up tight.
But Huey squirmed around until his head was near Dewey's hands.
"What are you doing?" Dewey asked.
"I have a jack knife in my baseball cap! I didn't want Uncle Scrooge to know about it, I was afraid he wouldn't let me keep it, so I hid it!" Huey said. "Can you reach it?"
Well, it wasn't easy to reach the knife with his hands tied, nor to open the knife, but Dewey finally managed. The jack knife had three blades and none were that sharp, but Dewey kept at it till he cut thur the rope. Once he was free, it was easy to free his brothers and Webby.
The boys and Webby went to the door, fully expecting it to be locked...but this was a boat, a pleasure yacht and the door didn't lock. Burger propped a heavy chair in front of the door , but since he was in a hurry to eat, he didn't do it properly.
The chair was too far from the door. The door opened a bit before it hit the chair. All the kids had to do was push against the chair. It took all four of them to push the heavy chair. As soon as they did, they ran, looking for someplace to hide.
The Trins and Webby were soon doing what little kids do best: driving grown-ups crazy, But since the grown-ups in question were the Beagle Boys, I say: more power to them. The kids were running from hiding place to hiding place, throwing things, breaking things, insulting the Beagles...
Then, the kids hid behide a tarp. The tarp fell down. The Beagles went ballistic and very carefully put the tarp back the way it had been. Naturally, the kids declared war on the tarps, tearing them down ever chance they had.
The Beagles kept putting the tarps back in place as quickly as possible, saying unprintable things to LITTLE KIDS (like they don't hear worse in any given rap "song"). The kids had no clue WHY the Beagles didn't want them messing with the tarps, but the mere fact they did guaranteed the kids would tear them down, even if the Beagles just put them back up.
Then Webby remembered a pair of feather scissors she had in her little pink purse. Webby took it out and started cutting up the tarp. Dewey took Huey's jack knife and started doing likewise. Huey and Louie ran into the galley, got knifes and followed suit.
They also brought knifes for Webby and Dewey since Webby's scissors were blunt and lame. THIS really drove the Beagles crazy, since once the tarps were cut up, they could no longer be put back up.
Which meant the tarps were no longer covering up the markings on the boat that identified it as a mail boat.
People started to wonder why a fancy yacht was towing a mail boat. They also wondered why somebody kept tearing tarps off, then putting them back up. They also noticed the tarps hid the boat's markings as a government owned boat,. Somebody called the cops and told them about this. Someplace down river, Giz was listening to the police band radio, hoping to hear word about the kids. Giz heard this, and radioed Mr. McDuck and Launchpad.
Soon, the Beagles were surrounded. Mr. McDuck and Donald were coming downriver in a yacht. Launchpad and Giz were coming up river. The cops were waiting on both banks of the river. The kids saw this, and seeing their Uncle, ran out of hiding.
"Yah!" they cheered.
But the kids rejoiced too soon. The Beagles grabbed the kids and dragged them into the wheelhouse. They tied up the kids and barricaded the door by leaning that heavy chair against the door and by sitting in the chair.
"Try to break down the door all ya likes! We have a chair leaning against the door and we is sitting in it! Ya can't break the door down! Physics!" taunted Big Time.
"Physics, eh?" asked Launchpad.
And he ran towards the door and jumped just before he got to the door so he hit the TOP of the door, full force. Launchpad pushed against the top of the door with both arms and one leg. (4) The top part of the door swung in, the bottom part swung out, chair, Beagles and all. (5)
"Physics." Launchpad snorted.
Launchpad picked himself up and put the door on the side. He quickly got out of the way. Mr. McDuck and Donald ran to their nephews and Webby and freed them. I won't say there wasn't a lot of kissing and crying on everybody's part, because there was.
Giz drew a bunch of handcuffs out of one compartment or the other. And snapped them on to the Beagles.
Giz turned the Beagles over to the cops and our heroes went home.
"Promise me you'll never play with my mail boat when I'm not there again." Donald scolded.
"We promise." The Trins and Webby chimed.
"And remind me to teach you to send a message by radio, later." Launchpad added.
"The radio! We didn't even think of that!" the kids groaned. "Not that we know how to send a message. But we didn't even think of looking for the radio!"
The End.
(1) Not in the TV show. The gang was going to meet Donald in "Christmas at the North Pole" (which I just rewrote as "Christmas at the Arctic Circle") but the book didn't actually show them meeting.
(2) So I swiped this idea from "Top Duck", or "Launchpad's Family Reunion" as I call it. I've never seen the Tom Cruise movie. Honest.
(3)Even from SALT water, since the mis-named Duckburg River is an Estuary.
(4) The other leg he pushed off with.
(5) At least I got a good idea from the tiresome movie :"The Three Investigators in "The Secret of Skeleton Island".