Huey, Dewey, and Louie were exactly the same age, except for the few seconds between their hatchings. But those seconds didn't count. They always told each other they didn't count, except for whenever Dewey did the "when I was your age," joke to Louie, or when he did the "I can't wait till I'm as old as you," joke to Huey. But those were just jokes, so they didn't count, either. Even though, whenever they told people their hatch order, they went, "that makes sense," and spent the next hour nodding thoughtfully at what they said and did. But as far as they were concerned, and as far as Uncle Donald was concerned, Huey, Dewey, and Louie were exactly the same age.
So why did Louie look so much smaller and younger and breakable now?
The answer was that there'd been another stupid cave-in in another stupid cave, and as much as caves made the perfect places to have treasure-finding adventures, Dewey had already decided that he was never setting foot in another one again.
But that wasn't the real answer. It wasn't the right answer. Yes, that's what had happened-there had been another cave-in which had caused a rockslide that had carried Louie down to a lower part of the cave-but it still didn't explain why Louie looked as fragile as a bubble. One false move and POP! One small touch and POP! Heck, just wait long enough, and POP! There goes Louie.
It probably didn't help that he was lying in a huge, king-sized bed in one of the many unused rooms of McDuck Manor. On the airplane ride back to Duckburg, Dewey had overheard Uncle Scrooge quietly call Mrs. Beakley, telling her to clear out the dust and freshen up one of the rooms. And once they'd landed, they'd gone over to the hospital, where Louie had been poked and prodded and scanned until the doctors declared he had a concussion and a broken arm. And then they'd taken Louie home and Scrooge arranged for regular house calls, claiming that this way he'd save money on the hospital bills, but Dewey was pretty sure he preferred having his family close by when one of them was sick or injured. Which didn't make a whole lot of sense, since he'd just gone the last ten years having no contact with his family, but also that might be why he wanted to keep them so close. Either way, there was no way keeping Louie at home was cheaper than keeping him at the hospital. Not that Dewey was complaining.
And now Dewey was standing in the door of Louie's room, hardly daring to breathe just in case he burst that bubble, watching Uncle Donald softly stroke his brother's hair as he watched him sleep. There was no way that Uncle Donald wasn't freaking out right now, but he just had a contented smile on his face, stroking Louie's feathers as if he were just taking a nap rather than potentially slipping into a coma. He knew by the way that Uncle Donald's eyes had flickered when he came in that he knew Dewey was there, but they hadn't said anything to each other. Dewey wasn't sure whether his uncle had completely lost it or was keeping his freaking-out inside (which was a very un-Uncle-Donald-like thing to do).
"Dewey?" Uncle Donald said gently, and suddenly Dewey realized that he was doing that weird breathing thing where you were trying so hard not to cry that you forgot how to stop doing that and let it all out. He tore his overly-bright eyes away from his brother and turned them to his uncle.
Uncle Donald patted his lap. "Come here," he said, and Dewey rushed over as the floodgates opened and he began to sob, huge, ugly sobs that he couldn't stop and would probably wake up Louie and-
"Shhhhhh," Uncle Donald said, wrapping his free arm around him using that hand to pet Dewey's feathers the same as Louie.
"Is Louie gonna be ok?" Dewey asked between huge, shuddering breaths.
Uncle Donald was quiet for a moment, turning his attention back to his other nephew. "Yeah," he finally said. "Louie's gonna be ok."
Dewey looked at his brother, too. If Uncle Donald said Louie was gonna be ok...why did he still look so breakable?