Knife's Edge
To say that Della was bored was, in her estimation, a severe understatement. She was mind-numbingly bored to death out of her freaking skull and even worse than being bored, she was restless. She'd read that it was normal for nesting mothers to feel that way, especially first-timers, but Della was also pretty sure most birds didn't have twitchy, reckless urges to abandon the next in favor of joyriding in a biplane through the Amazon rainforest seeking dangerous, treasure-filled, booby-trapped temples.
Yeah, she was pretty sure that wasn't normal.
She understood and agreed with the need to be landbound and not put herself in unnecessary danger when the eggs were still growing inside her body. She didn't want to take the risk of something going wrong and her ducklings not developing properly, but did she have to continue to be so careful after the eggs were laid? This wasn't the era of her grandmother's or even her mother's youth when the women of the family were the primary caretakers of eggs and hatchlings. There were reliably-controlled incubators that could keep eggs at the proper temperature with ease, and as long as they were turned regularly, it didn't matter if that someone was the mother of the eggs or not (1).
Della might not have found her situation so unbearable if she actually had somebody in her family who shared her views on the matter and was willing to help her get out for some fun. Even if it was just taking her biplane out for an afternoon performing some low-key stunts, it would still get her out of the house! Donald didn't get it at all. When she'd vented out some of her frustration at not being able to go on adventures like him, he'd accused her of being an adrenaline junkie and not caring about what happened to her kids. The resulting argument had gotten ugly and she'd barely spoken a word to her twin since, an easy enough feat to do since he started hanging out with José and Panchito more frequently in New Quackmore south of Duckburg (2).
Uncle Scrooge was more sympathetic to her plight, but had never been in a position to appreciate just how badly she needed to do something that didn't involve staying still in one place and babysitting eggs. Honestly, the most excitement she got these days was putting the eggs in the stroller and walking around town with them on the off-chance that maybe one of the Beagle Boys would be stupid enough to mark her as an easy target now that she had vulnerable offspring. Uncle Scrooge chided her for risking the lives of her unhatched ducklings in such a way even though they both knew she really wasn't. Ma Beagle was too smart to let her boys make that mistake, probably knew Della's motive was to burn off energy, and was having fun thwarting her efforts to do so. Uncle Scrooge cautioned her to be patient and promised that she would get to go on adventures with him again soon. Of course, whenever she bitterly asked him when that would be, he had no concrete answer for her. These days, Della often felt that the only duck who'd truly get her would be Goldie O'Gilt, a fellow female adventurer and high-stakes risk-taker who was kinda-sorta family by virtue of being Uncle Scrooge's not-girlfriend. Then again, as far as Della knew, Goldie had never made the mistake of ending up egg gravid (there were no McDuck cousins, but she wasn't certain Goldie was a one-man woman either), so maybe that was enough of an indicator of how she felt about the possibility of kids interfering with her dangerous life style.
Beyond her need to be doing something and to get out and have fun instead of staying still in one place doing nothing, the thing Della hated the most about her situation was how resentful it was making her feel towards her own eggs. That was the worst and she felt horrible every time she noticed her thoughts turning in that direction. She had inherited the McDuck clan temper and was more than willing to dish it out where it was deserved. She could find a way to blame anyone in the world for her landbound imprisonment disguised as motherhood. Anyone at all except her eggs. It wasn't their fault their father was a lazy layabout or that she was a poor judge of character in boyfriends.
And yet, in spite of herself, when she was particularly wired or stressed out, she did blame them: if she didn't have these eggs keeping her tied down, she'd be flying free through the sky once more, responsible for no one else's life but her own. Those were the days she genuinely hated herself and feared what kind of parent she would turn out to be. She shared this secret with no one. Her initial excitement at being a mom had been greatly reduced over time, especially after the fun stuff had been taken care of (the names would be April, May, and June (3) in that hatch order if they were girls and Hubert, Dewford, and Llewellyn if they were boys), and now the only thing that kept her flagging spirit alive was a little pet project she'd been working.
Della loved to fly. She'd known she wanted to be a pilot ever since she was a little girl. She'd traveled all over the world, but there was one frontier left to her that remained untouched: space. Modern space exploration was still nowhere near the level fantasized about in sci-fi novels, but it captured her imagination like nothing else. The images that space probes sent back to Earth of the planets and other cosmic bodies were awe-inspiring and when she felt optimistic about her future as a mother of three, she wanted her kids to have that same admiration. The thought of being able to travel the galaxy was her greatest dream and her kids, accidental and unplanned though they were, deserved her best self.
With nothing but time on her hands and an increasing desire to somehow prove to her unhatched children that she did not hate them, no matter how frustrated she was, Della worked on designing a super rocket designed exclusively for true person-piloted space exploration, the likes of which had never been accomplished before. It was a fun and engaging project that she easily spent hours at a time working on. It was yet another secret she kept from the family, though she did let on to Uncle Scrooge one evening when she was feeling wistful that she wanted to give her kids the stars.
Unfortunately, her pet project left a paper trail and her brother was the one to find out about it. He was furious, and he blew up at her about how the rocket was too dangerous, especially with three kids on the way. That was the last straw. She was already mad at Donald from before, and this time she let him have it. The incoherent rage-quacking was enough to summon the eldest McDuck in the mansion to break up the verbal and physical fight. Nothing was resolved, and Della only felt worse. Donald wouldn't apologize, and she refused to talk to him again until he did. On top of all that, one of the completed versions of her spaceship drawings had disappeared and for the life of her, she could not find it anywhere.
Even after a thorough search of her room, it hadn't turned up, and now Uncle Scrooge had started busying himself with some new secret project of his own. He was being extremely sneaky about it, so much so that most people wouldn't even notice, but she'd known him for half her life and she knew his tells. Granted, knowing he had a secret project in the works and discovering what it was were two completely different things.
With her design for the Spear of Selene already completed, there was nothing else to distract her mind from discovering the secret. She was like a bloodhound chasing the scent trail. Several times, she seriously considered breaking into his office for clues, but she never followed through. Not only did it feel wrong, but it would have detracted from the challenge she'd been presented. It fell in line with the family motto 'Ducks don't back down', or at least it would have fallen in line if that was the motto. She wanted that to be the family motto, but Donald thought it was stupid and they already had 'Family always helps family'. Whatever. She thought it was cool.
The pieces slowly started coming together. Scrooge was building something. Something big and expensive and ground-breaking, and his beak was sealed on the matter. Even when she tried to lean on him a little for a hint, he kept quiet, but she could see he was amused with her efforts. As he turned away with a satisfied smirk, an epiphany came to her. Could it be…? Was Scrooge actually building the Spear of Selene? Working off this hunch, Della started investigating for evidence that would support her hypothesis.
She made no breakthroughs until Friday, April 13th. As per usual on such days, Donald's luck – atrocious at the best of times – had been so abysmal that he'd been hospitalized (4). Uncle Scrooge had been present and was still with him now. When Scrooge had informed her of Donald's condition, Della had instantly offered to join him in visiting Donald. She was still mad at him, but that wasn't going to stop her from worrying about him and wanting to offer emotional support. However, Scrooge had instead told her to just concentrate on her eggs (she slapped her hand over her bill in annoyance), but he'd also asked her to go into his study and pull out the file folder detailing the entirety of Donald's medical expenses to bring at her earliest convenience. Della resented being sidelined due to nesting responsibilities, but Scrooge had given her permission to go into his study. Into his filing cabinets. It was an opportunity she couldn't afford to pass up.
Della found her brother's medical file with ease and then scanned through the names of the other file folders. She found nothing labeled 'spaceship', 'aerospace', 'rocket', or 'Selene', but she hadn't really expected to. Uncle Scrooge's business ventures didn't typically include space-related expenses and it would have been too easy if there was one file exclusively dedicated to the Spear of Selene's construction. She did find file folders labeled 'aircraft', 'projects', 'exploration', and her own file and laid them all out on the floor. One of these folders just had to contain what she was looking for.
There was nothing.
Nothing about the Spear of Selene in 'aircraft', 'exploration', or even in 'projects'. The lattermost had been her best bet, but no. Not even a sticky note hinted of the Spear of Selene's existence. Della was so frustrated, she could have picked up the filing cabinet and thrown it across the room. Of course she couldn't find anything! No wonder Uncle Scrooge had so readily granted her access to the filing cabinets; the documents she was after were probably sealed away with his office records at the money bin! In a gesture uncannily like her twin's, she threw her aviator's hat on the ground and squashed it underfoot. That was it! No more Miss. Nice Duck. She was going to break into Scrooge's office and find those records of the Spear of Selene's construction if it was the last thing she did!
She stomped out of the study and was halfway to the front door when a shrill voice yelled, "Della Duck, get your tail feathers back here right this minute, young lady!" It was Mrs. Beakley.
Della groaned aloud and turned back into the interior of the mansion. She'd had enough of her own family telling her what she should and shouldn't be doing, she didn't need to hear it from her uncle's housekeeper either! So, it was a furious, worked-up young pilot spoiling for a fight that burst into the salon Mrs. Beakley had called from, but the fight drained out of her in the face of cold dread when she saw her three eggs covered with blankets in their stroller and Mrs. Beakley standing behind them with her arms crossed and a disappointed glare on her face. The unspoken accusation that Della had been neglecting her eggs was as tangible as the nervous sweat beading on her brow. Silence filled the room. Della couldn't speak and Mrs. Beakley didn't.
At last, the elder woman said, "I get it."
Della frowned in confusion. Get what?
"Ever since you were a child, you have always been an active, free-spirited young lady testing your limits and challenging yourself to do better, to be better, and you are very much like your uncle in that respect. Anyone who didn't know better would quite readily believe that you were Scrooge McDuck's daughter rather than his niece. You've inherited the McDuck Clan wanderlust and in your eyes, this little mistake-" she gestured to the eggs and Della winced. "-of yours has clipped your wings and grounded you. I get it."
"You do?" Della repeated blankly.
Mrs. Beakley nodded slowly. "Before I started working as a housekeeper for Mr. McDuck, I was a secret agent-" Della's jaw dropped in shock (5). "-traveling all over the world, fighting criminals, maintaining order, and doing my part to protect civilians and nations. My work was fulfilling and I was happy. I was even lucky enough to meet the man who would become my husband and he supported my career as a secret agent. Not even marriage had hindered me and I naively thought nothing would, until the day I discovered I was with egg. I felt like my entire world had turned on its axis and I was no longer walking straight. Being a mother had not factored into my plans and I could no longer carry out my work as I once had. A new life was developing inside me and the risks I had freely taken with my own life were no longer viable options. Even after the egg was laid, we did not have the technology back then to adequately and safely control incubation temperatures, so full-time nest care usually fell to the mother. My husband, wonderful man that he was, promised to support whatever decision I made. I was very lucky; most men in those days wouldn't have given me the option, but I had to make a choice between my career and my egg. I could not pick both and choosing one would mean sacrificing the other. I chose my egg and retired from my career as a secret agent."
Up until that point, Della had been hanging onto Mrs. Beakley's every word with avid interest, but after saying she chose to give up her career for her egg, she crossed her own arms and looked away sulkily. "Good for you," she muttered bitterly.
"Hardly, Della," Mrs. Beakley said with a hard edge to her voice. "I had chosen my egg over my career, but I was bitter and frustrated with myself, my husband, and my egg. There were many times during the nesting period when I felt like I had made the wrong choice, that I was just squandering my life away when I could instead be out there defeating villains and protecting the world as I used to. During those times, I reminded myself that I had made my decision, I could not take it back, and I was going to see it through to the end. It was not a comforting thought in the slightest, but it kept me going all the way to my daughter's hatchday. I confess it was easier after that if only because I no longer had the time or energy to think of might-have-beens and roads-not-traveled. Times have changed since I was a young mother. Medical technology has improved significantly, and gender roles are not as rigidly-defined as they once were, but you made the choice to go through with having these eggs and it's your responsibility to follow through with that commitment. Whether you're a good mother or a bad one, you will hold that title for the rest of your life. Now, with that perspective in mind, I believe you have some serious reflection to do about your behavior as of late," Mrs. Beakley said sternly and pushed the stroller to Della.
Della took it without a word and returned to her room. She unwrapped the eggs from the blankets one at a time just enough to stick a thermometer in there for a temperature check. Then she turned them over on their sides 180 degrees so the developing ducklings wouldn't get stuck to one side of their shells. After she'd finished, she dragged the stroller after her and sat down in the desk chair while she examined her eggs.
She'd laid them one right after the other on three consecutive days and she had no clue which one had been first, but that didn't mean she couldn't tell her eggs apart. They were similar in size, weight, and color, but she could already see the differences. One of the eggs was lighter than the other two and was the classic white egg color. She had a feeling that one would end up being the youngest and she worried about that one the most. Lighter eggs sometimes took longer to develop if they were going to hatch at all. She'd taken to calling it 'wild card' due to its lack of color and uncertain fate. Her other two eggs were heavier, but similar to each other in weight except that one had a slight pinkish hue and the other had a slight bluish hue. Different egg colors were not unheard of, but they were rare, and having two at the same time was even more incredible. One of those two would probably hatch first, so she'd been calling them April and Hubert alternately.
She caressed the top of each egg absent-mindedly and murmured, "Mrs. Beakley's right. I've been an awful mother so far. I've been so consumed by my own dreams that I've given nary a thought to yours. For better or worse, I'm the only mom you've got, and I shouldn't be so selfish anymore."
Mrs. Beakley's scolding had been the cold dose of reality she needed. What was she doing? Maybe what Scrooge was working on wasn't the Spear of Selene after all. It might not even have anything to do with her and she was just going mad with all the restless, pent-up energy that was telling her to get out there and make her blood sing for the fire of adventure! Was it possible Uncle Scrooge was building the Spear of Selene? Absolutely, and it was equally possible he was building a theme park. Della had wanted it to be the Spear of Selene not because space was the last unexplored frontier, an adventure to rival her uncle's gold-prospecting days in the Klondike during the Gold Rush, but because she had seen it as her last-ditch attempt to escape adult responsibility for a little longer. Now she knew better. Her eggs were due to hatch sometime this week and there was no escaping that. For better or worse, she'd made her decision.
Remembering that she'd left a mess behind in her uncle's study, Della sighed and moved the eggs to the in-home incubator set up in her room before leaving to clean up the study. Once there, she gathered the papers strewn across the room and sorted them all into the correct folders, making sure to keep out Donald's medical expense history on Scrooge's behalf. She shoved all the folders into the filing cabinet in the correct order, but paused just as she was about to add her folder right in front of Donald's. She hadn't gotten around to opening her own folder the first time around when she was looking for evidence of the Spear of Selene's construction. She doubted there was anything in there. It was a project of her own design and if Uncle Scrooge was trying to keep it secret from her, he wouldn't have left the record of his finances in the folder with her name on it. Still, she was kinda curious about what kind of information Uncle Scrooge kept on her because she didn't have the expensive destructive mishaps that Donald did, so she shrugged and let the folder fall open.
Della gasped and her eyes widened. It was just a piece of scrap paper, like something torn out of a notepad, but the content written on it was monumental. There was no mistaking the outline of the spaceship nor the title in big words at the top that read 'The Spear of Selene'. It was her handwriting, but not her original drawing, just a photocopy. However, the list of dates off to the side were not in her hand, but Scrooge's, and were penned in after the photocopy was made. There were four dates and only the last one was circled, the date of April 15, 2007 which was two days away. Della's beak fell open in shock at her sudden comprehension. Scrooge had been building the Spear of Selene and it would be finished on April 15th!
Just like that, Della found herself standing on a narrow bridge caught between two poles. On one end was the Spear of Selene, the ultimate achievement, her greatest dream, the promise of adventure built just for her, lying ready and waiting for her to climb aboard. On the other end was Donald, Mrs. Beakley, and her three eggs. The two adults were gazing at her with anger and disapproval respectively and her eggs were already rocking back and forth. Little cracks were appearing on their shells and she could hear their tiny voices cheeping at her from within. It was domesticity, staleness, responsibility, and her life revolving instead around the three new ones that she had already chosen to give a chance at existence. She looked from one end of the bridge to the other and back again, but Scrooge was nowhere to be found in the vast, surrounding blackness.
The choice that loomed before her had never felt more real than in that moment. Della looked down at the paper still in her hands and focused on the circled date. Her eggs were due to hatch this week… and the Spear of Selene would be finished in two days… She frowned to herself, then slipped the paper back into her folder just as she'd found it before replacing said folder into the filing cabinet where it belonged. The only thing she took with her from the study was the record of Donald's medical expenses and her heavy thoughts.
(1) Not so much reptile eggs, but bird eggs need to be turned regularly so that the developing chicks don't accidentally stick to one side of the shell on the inside. Also, I know in the show, we saw the eggs in a stroller without any kind of covering, but that wouldn't be nearly warm enough, so I figure they were probably only put in there on a temporary basis for transportation purposes.
(2) Just me making a small reference to The Legend of the Three Caballeros. I hope I'm spelling that right. Anyway, I liked that show, and I know they're going to show up in some capacity in season 2, so they get to be here before the canon can laugh at my attempts to write.
(3) Obviously, since I watched The Legend of the Three Caballeros, I know about April, May, and June being Daisy's nieces. Since Della was lost in space before her eggs even hatched (and I don't think it's possible to tell the sex of egg embryos while they're still developing in the egg), I wanted her to come up with the names and she would have had to have both boy and girls names until they hatched. I thought it would be a nice callback if Della came up with girl names that ended up belonging to the other pair of triplet ducklings.
(4) Since the DuckTales universe treats luck as a force of nature, it would not surprise me in the least if Donald's luck became even worse on Friday the 13ths.
(5) In episode 2 of season 1, when Donald asked Mrs. Beakley how she knew so much stuff about electricity and she answered "I'm a spy", he didn't seem to know whether she was joking or not, which suggests that perhaps he (and Della by extension) never knew that Mrs. Beakley was Agent 22.
One more chapter left to go. You know what happens; it's a doozy.
