Bye-bye Birdies
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
Psst! Pennyadodumuss over at Deviant art com! I was inspired by your "Birdsnacked" story! Thanks!
If you've read "Back Home Again" by Me, you MAY remember the passenger pigeons eggs Mr. McDuck was having carefully incubated. Some of them hatched and were being raised in a dove cove (1) with normal city pigeons.
This was because one reason passenger pigeons became extinct in the first place was because they won't breed unless there are plenty of their fellow passenger pigeons around. (2)
As their numbers dwindled due to hunting, and deforestation, they stopped reproducing because there weren't enough other passenger pigeons around. By raising them with normal pigeons, it was hoped they would think they were normal pigeons and be willing to mate with other passenger pigeons as long as plenty of normal pigeons were around.
Mr. McDuck wasn't telling anybody about the passenger pigeons, yet. Mr. McDuck was waiting to let them reproduce until there were plenty of passenger pigeons. Mr. McDuck was having pros play with their genes to "create" test tube chicks. But somebody swiped the passenger pigeons!
And ONLY the passenger pigeons, leaving the ordinary pigeons behide, which showed whoever did it knew enough about birds to tell the difference.
It had taken the crooks a little while to move the passenger pigeons to the plane without hurting them and making sure that they had ALL the passenger pigeons and ONLY the passenger pigeons.
A great number of ordinary pigeons escaped in the robbery which also distracted the crooks a for a few minutes making sure that none of the passenger pigeons escaped.
By sheer coincidence, Launchpad had taking off in his plane from the Money Bin a few minutes prior. Launchpad saw an unauthorized plane take off from Mr. McDuck's private zoo right next to the McDuck Mansion.
Launchpad also saw any number of pigeons flying around. Launchpad somehow figured out something fishy was going on here. So Launchpad contacted Mr. McD via the radio to ask Mr. McDuck what the bleep was happening here.
"That plane is full of crooks who stole my priceless passenger pigeons! STOP THEM! GET MY BIRDS BACK!" Mr. McDuck hollered.
So Launchpad followed the plane. Launchpad was trying to figure out how to stop the plane without hurting the priceless birds inside. Or the crooks, if he could help it.
MEANWHILE, Gizmoduck was just about to come on duty, was on his way to the Money Bin. Giz saw a plane- NOT one of Launchpad's plane- taking off and saw Launchpad's plane chasing it. Giz thought the first plane was flown by crooks (True) and that were trying to rob the Money Bin or the Mansion (not quite).
Giz activated his jet pack and started chasing the stranger's plane.
"Giz! No! That plane has stolen Mr. McDee's passenger pigeons! And I'm not sure if all of them are old enough to fly yet! They might get hurt or killed! Then Mr. McDuck will kill ME!" Launchpad shouted, via the radio.
But Giz DIDN'T have his radio on. Giz didn't hear Launchpad. Launchpad maneuvered his plane to cut Giz off.
"Launchpad, what are you doing? You should be stopping those crooks, not me!" Giz's voice came thur Launchpad's radio.
" Oh, NOW you talk to me? Those crooks stole Mr. McDee's passenger pigeons! Some are just chicks! And they're all priceless! We can't risk them being hurt! I HAD to stop you before you hurt them, trying to stop those crooks!" Launchpad replied. "I TRIED to warn you, but your radio wasn't on."
"Oh. Sorry. I assumed they were stealing money or treasure!" Giz replied shamefaced.
Meanwhile, the bad guys had made good their get-away and our heroes had to report their failure to Mr. McDee.
I'll give Giz credit, he admitted his mistake.
"Well?" Mr. McDuck asked icily "Where are my birds?"
"It was MY fault the crooks got away, sir, not Launchpad's. I saw a plane that wasn't one of Launchpad's taking off," Giz began.
" I thought they were stealing money from the Bin or treasure from the Mansion." Giz continued.
" I pursued them with my radio OFF. I might have used weapons to disable the plane if Launchpad hadn't stopped me..." Giz started.
"You could have killed my priceless passenger pigeons!" yelled Mr. McDuck.
"I didn't know about them. My radio wasn't turned on. Launchpad tried to warn me, but I couldn't hear him." Giz continued " Launchpad had to fly in front of me to stop me from possibly hurting your birds."
"If I had my radio on, we might have stopped them...as is, they got away." Giz admitted.
"Did is done. Let's concentrate on getting my birds BACK, shall we. Those crooks will want to ransom those birds back to me or to sell them to collectors. They'll want to keep the birds alive and healthy- I hope." Mr. McDuck replied, impressed by Giz's honesty.
"They'll need a place to keep the birds, food for the birds, a place to keep the plane..." interjected Launchpad.
" And they'll want to keep the cops from finding them." Giz said. "They'll keep it hidden or camouflaged."
"Well, split up and start looking!" ordered Mr. McDuck.
So, Giz searched out every zoo, poultry farm, aviary, bird sanitary, park...
Launchpad checked out every hanger, airport. Air field, questioned pilots...
They could practically hear the bad guys laughing at them, they KNEW they were overlooking something but didn't know what.
Meanwhile, on a rooftop near the river, the passenger pigeons were being kept in an ordinary pigeon coop. The kind people raise homing pigeons in.
The plane was hidden in a garage. During low tide, the river retreated enough for the crooks to land their plane on the riverside. The plane was quickly taxied into the garage before notice could be taken. When the tide came back in, the plane tracks were washed away.
Giz and Launchpad reluctantly went to report their lack of success to Mr. McDee. I went with Launchpad as moral support and to take photos for the the Duckburg News. Mr. McDuck was finally permitting the thief of the pigeons to be reported to the media, since keeping it quiet wasn't helping getting them back.
"Where could those pigeons BE?" Mr. McDuck sputtered, frustrated by their negative reports.
"In NY, people keep pigeons in coops on rooftops..." I said. (3)
As a native New Yorker, I kept thinking of rock doves with all this talk about pigeons.
" People do that in Duckburg, too! So what? Those are ordinary pigeons! Not priceless passenger pigeons!" Mr. McDuck snorted.
"Wait a minute! Mr. McDuck, I checked everyplace ELSE birds might be kept- but I never thought of checking for coops on rooftops. " Giz said. "I didn't know people did that."
"Well, check it out then! I suppose them being birds, somebody might have done that!" Mr. McDuck asked.
"Nobody tried to ransom off the pigeons, then?" Launchpad asked "Why'd somebody take them, then!"
"That's what I'm worried about! Crooks will sell them to the highest bidders! To collectors who might eat them or stuff them or lord know what!" Mr. McDuck replied "Now split up and start searching! And Launchpad, Sharan- that means going in separate planes in different directions!"
"Can I ask Duckblur to help now that you're no longer trying to keep this a secret?" Giz asked "We will search separately, too- in different directions. Promise."
"Fine, fine! The more eyes, the better! Now go!" Mr. McDuck consented.
So Launchpad flew me back to our hanger where I took another plane and we separated. Giz went off to find Duckblur so she could help search.
Launchpad had the idea of first talking to Duckburg Pigeon Fanciers, a club of "people" that raise pigeons. They told Launchpad there were a lot of homing pigeons coops on a lot of roofs. Some were empty, some had rock doves in them, some were hard to find, but all had to be searched.
They told Launchpad where the coops were, but as to which coop held the passenger pigeons -if any THEY knew about- they didn't know.
"Pigeon fanciers move just like other people. They take their pigeons with them or sell them to other pigeon fanciers." Club President said.
"Maybe we're going about this wrong?" Launchpad asked, trying to narrow things down "whoever stole the passenger pigeons had a plane. They'd need a place to keep a plane and a place to land."
The Club President showed Launchpad a map of pigeons coops in Duckburg.
"This shows all the coops we know about. Some may be vacant. There are others we don't know about, most owned by non-club members." Club President said.
Launchpad looked at the map and asked for some copies. Launchpad faxed them to me and Giz, who took a copy to Duckblur and touched base with her.
Launchpad told us which coops to check out and which ones to ignore.
"Some have no place to land a plane, no place to put a plane." Launchpad said "They are located near too many other buildings, you can't land a plane there."
So we separately searched the coops near where it was possible to land a plane.
"Was it a seaplane?" Duckblur asked via the radio "Should I search near the river?"
"No, it wasn't a seaplane" Launchpad began
"Wait! They might have landed on the riverbank at low tide!" Launchpad continued" THEN, there is room to land a plane on the riverside! I didn't think of that before."
"You saw it wasn't a seaplane and eliminated the river without really thinking about it." I replied also via the radio.
"Well, let's check it out now." Launchpad replied.
Luckily, it happened to be low tide so we could see where you could land a plane by the riverside. Unluckily, it was low tide, so we could SMELL the exposed mud. P-U!
"Hey, there's a pigeon coop on that rooftop! A big, fancy one, too!" I said, spotted it.
You couldn't see it from the street, it was only visible by air. Even from the air, you'd only see it if you were looking for it. It looked like some sort of fancy storage shed, but when I looked at it thur binoculars I could see birds inside it.
And they didn't look like normal rock dove, neither. Even I couldn't get a good enough look at them to tell what kind of birds there were, I was pretty sure they weren't ordinary rock doves.
So Launchpad landed on the riverbank just to see if it was possible. It was easy. The hard part was finding a place to put the plane where it would be safe once the tide came back in.
While Launchpad was taxing around looking for a safe spot, he spotted an unusually large garage. Large enough to be used as a hanger. And there were muddy wheel prints that looked like PLANE tire prints, not car tire prints in front of it.
Launchpad radioed us and told us about this. We agreed it sounded highly suspicious. Launchpad "parked" his plane in the driveway of the garage, I did likewise. Giz and Duckblur soon followed.
"Duckblur, can you spy on the birds without being seen?" Giz asked her "Describe the birds to us..."
"I already asked Mr. McDuck what passenger pigeons look like and he "sent" me a photo of one to my cell phone!" Duckblur boasted, proud of her cleverness "Want to see it?"
And she showed us the photo by "sending" it to us.
"Good idea!" Giz said "I'm glad ONE of us thought of that!"
So Duckblur sped up time for herself alone and went to check out the pigeon coop, using Giz's old copter helmet to fly up and around it. Duckblur peered thur the slants and saw a few of the older birds trying to fly in the safety of the coop.
Then she flew back to us.
"They're the passenger pigeons, all right. " Duckblur said. "I think I can get them out, but I need help. Launchpad, Sharan, can you ready your planes?" Duckblur asked. "I can fly them to your planes a little at a time, then you can take them back to Mr. McDuck."
"Is there anything I can do?" Giz asked.
"Yes, could you keep the bad guy busy so I can steal the birds back and get away?" Duckblur asked. "And find out what he/she was going to DO with the birds?"
"Bad guys LOVE bragging about their evil schemes!" declared Giz, who had already noticed that " THAT will keep him busy for quite some time!"
So we split up again, Duckblur went to free the passenger pigeons, Launchpad and I readied our planes to take them out of here, Giz went to keep the bad guy preoccupied so he wouldn't notice Duckblur.
Since Duckblur can speed up time for herself or slow it down for everybody else till all anybody can see of her is a blur, that wasn't too difficult. Giz just smashed his way into the building and headed up towards the pigeon coop until the bad guy tried to stop him.
Giz was only about halfway up when somebody stood in front of him, clearly intending to NOT allow him to pass.
Bad Guy looked distressingly normal. Normal clothes, normal appearance. Joe Average, himself.
"You will not free these birds. I shall destroy them first!" Bad Guy declared.
"WHY?' Giz asked "Passenger pigeons were extinct before they hatched! Why do you WANT to destroy them?"
"Because they are the end of my life's work! I am Bob Gross! Never heard of me, have you?" Bob asked "Neither has anybody else."
"All my life, I have labored in obscurity, trying to restore extinct species! I gathered samples of their DNA from bones, fossils, even from their descendants- like gathering bird DNA to try to create a '"throwback" dinosaur!" Bob continued.
"And every time, Scrooge McDuck has made a mockery of my work! He has found living dinosaurs in the Lost World and the South Pole!" Bob groused (4)"That was bad enough. But dinosaurs are often huge and expensive to feed. But then, he found and hatched passenger pigeons...that was the last straw."
"I have spent my whole life trying to bring passenger pigeons back from the dead...only to see Scrooge McDuck do so without even trying!" Bob stated. " By accident! By dumb luck! I couldn't stand it! I and some of my students stole the birds, I will gather DNA samples from them, then kill them. This way I, and I alone, shall restore them to the world."
Giz realized the poor snook had been working too hard for too long with too little thanks and had gone off the deep end. Bob was clearly having some kind of nervous breakdown. Which means Giz had to figure out how to stop him without hurting him.
"Sir...don't you realize many of the passenger pigeons that have hatched so far are brother and sister?" Giz asked " Scrooge McDuck has been trying to figure out how to safely mate them. If what you say is true...you could be of immense help!"
Giz continued laying it on thick, realizing the poor man was badly in need of a little recognition for all his hard work.
"If you can create MORE passenger pigeons that are NOT related to the ones that hatched so far, they could be mated to the ones that exist already." Giz continued "Otherwise, there is no need to kill them. They will die of old age, eventually and become extinct once more. Is that what you want?"
"But..." Bob began.
Just then, the noise of a plane- my plane- taking off quite close interrupted them. Bob ran to the window to see my plane taking off with the passenger pigeons in it.
Launchpad insisted that Duckblur load the birds on my plane so if the bad guy objected, he could protect me. Since I can't punch my way thur a paper bag, I did NOT have a problem with that. Heck, I was flattered to know I mean that much to my Launchpad.
"No! You tricked me! My birds are being stolen..." Bob screamed.
"To prevent them from being harmed." Giz said, blocking Bob's way.
Launchpad came up to see what was going on.
"The last of the birds have been airlifted to safety, Giz. " Launchpad "Who's he?"
"Me? I'm the bad guy! I stole those passenger pigeons! I blackmailed some students I caught stealing test answers into helping. I was going to extract their DNA, and kill them so that I and I alone will be responsible for bringing them back to the world!" Bob said.
And Bob tried to attack them.
"Don't hurt him, Launchpad..." Giz said "he's not thinking clearly."
"So I see." Launchpad replied.
Bob was crying and trying to fight, but he was tired, so tired...
The hard part was restraining Bob without hurting him. Launchpad held Bob still while Giz tangled Bob up in a net from Giz's helmet.
Soon, the authorities came for Bob to take him away for a long rest.
"I was hoping he could help bring back the passenger pigeons for good." Giz said.
"Maybe someday he will." Launchpad replied.
THE END.
(1) City pigeons are also known as rock doves.
(2) I think so, anyway.
( 3) Our kids are now old enough for day care and that's where they were. Mr. McDee pays Launchpad to be CEO of Quackworks, (Disney's idea! Not mine!) That's how we can afford it.
Both Donald and Gladstone had been bugging Mr. McDee for the job. Both Gladstone and Donald expected to get the job, but not do any work, nor care if the work got done. So Mr. McDuck decided to give the job to Launchpad since Launchpad would at least see to it that the work got done.
Launchpad told Mr. McDuck that he, Launchpad, doesn't know anything about running a business. Mr. McDuck got stubborn and insisted Launchpad take the job. Finally, Launchpad agreed to take the job as long he could go on piloting for Mr. McDee.
Even Launchpad knows a CEO hires people to work for a company on the company's dime. So, Launchpad had Quackworks hire Poupon to do the actual work. since Launchpad doesn't know how. Poupon has a meaningless title and gets paid very little money- any more and he and his monks would lose their tax free status.
(4) See the Ducktales episode "Dinosaur Ducks" and the Ducktales book "Dinosaur Valley".