The game ended with a score of 27 to 8. The Feathered Hill Paladins arose from the game victorious, to the cheers of both sides of the audience. The team made their way back to the locker rooms with heads held high, while the Silverbeak team walked back to theirs sulkily, none of them making eye contact with the other team.
It was back in the room as the equipment was being packed up that the Feathered Hill coach, a grizzly bear by the name of Bellows, rounded up his players and told them, "Alright! It's no secret that Silverbeak wasn't exactly playin' well this game. In fact, one could say that they crapped a hole straight through the bed, panicked, and set their blankets on fire to cover it up!"
A chorus of chuckles came from the team, some more confused than others. Bellows waited for the laughter to die down before he added proudly, "But I want you know that even if they hadn't blown the game, you still would have won. You played like you were on fire today, and don't any of you forget it!"
As the team dispersed and continued packing up, Dewey heard from behind him, "I didn't. I missed, like, every ball they threw at me."
Dewey turned to face his friend, a short, scrawny duck called Simon, whose haircut seemed to be imitating Dewey's. Dewey patted him on the back with a smile, telling him, "Nah, man. You did great. We won, didn't we?"
"I guess." Simon replied with an uncertain shrug. "Feels like they kinda made it easy, though."
"Yeah, they did." Dewey replied, throwing a bag full of baseballs over his shoulder. "But hey, just because the other team sucked doesn't mean we didn't do great."
They walked over to where the rest of the gear was being piled, where he could see his friend Pete, a dark-feathered sparrow, packing up the protective gear into a bag. A tall duck named Ted stood behind him, leaning against one of the lockers with his hands in his pockets, his headfeathers swept back across his head.
"Yo." Dewey greeted them, chucking the ball bag on the bench beside them.
"Hey, man." Pete replied, looking up and shaking his head with a disbelieving chuckle. "What was that game, man?"
"I know, right?" Dewey exclaimed incredulously. "Like, seriously? Did they practice at all?"
"Yeah, we were just talkin' about that." Ted told him. "Like, they should have had time to practice, right? 'Cause they're the ones who wanted the rematch?"
"Yeah, and they kept asking it to be delayed." Pete added.
"Exactly!" Dewey said. "Like, what were they doing this whole time if they weren't training?"
"Maybe they were training, but they just had a bad coach." Simon suggested.
"Oh, dude, the coach of this team is a psycho." Ted said. "The way I heard it, the team's best players quit in protest, 'cause the coach was training them to death and wasn't respecting them."
"Right…" Dewey nodded. "And they were left with like, whoever they could get?"
"Seems that way." Pete said, zipping up the bag. "Works for us, I guess, but I'll be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed."
"Yeah, I kinda expected more of a challenge too."
The other two players expressed their agreement. Simon, hesitantly, stepped up to the group and said, "Hey, look, I know I-"
"Ah, dah-dah." Pete immediately interrupted him. "You played fine, man. Stop telling yourself otherwise."
"But I missed every ball! Like, consecutively!"
"You focus too much on what you do wrong, man. You gotta focus on what you do right." Ted said wisely. "Like, you pitched like a champ out there today! Focus on that!"
"I'd say."
The four young ducks turned to look at who had spoken.
Leaning against the lockers was an older duck, about nineteen or twenty, whose musculature was beyond that of any other kid their age. He was tall, very fit, had short-cut brown headfeathers, and he wore a cool, confident smile. He was dressed in a blue denim jacket, a white shirt, and a pair of black shorts, all of which seemed to only just fit his physique.
"Haven't seen pitching like that for a long while." The duck continued, his voice deep, yet relaxed.
The four players just stared at him.
"Ah, right!" Coach Bellows approached, patting the newcomer on the back with a grin on his muzzle. "Boys, this here is Trent Bosman, our star player from a couple of years back. You've all heard of him, I'm sure. He just so happened to be watching the game, and he wanted to speak with you four."
"Thanks for letting me back here, coach." Trent told him. "Really appreciate it."
"Think nothin' of it, son. It's the least I can do, with everythin' you've been through."
Trent turned back to the players, saying, "Yeah, so I'm sure you guys already have, like, celebration plans or something, so I don't wanna take up too much time. Uh, I was just impressed with how well you guys played out there, and I was wondering if you wanted to hang out some time? Say, after school tomorrow, at the Brew and Chew? It's this café at Wildwood."
The four players looked between each other, slack-jawed and disbelieving.
"Uh… sure!" Dewey spoke up quickly, trying to save face.
"Yeah, that- that sounds cool." Pete added.
"Super cool, yeah." Ted agreed.
Simon nervously squeaked something incomprehensible.
"Awesome!" Trent declared, clapping his hands together. "I'll see you tomorrow then. Great playing, my dudes!"
With that, he turned around and left, disappearing as suddenly as he appeared. Bellows left with him, giving the four youngsters a grin and a thumbs-up as he did.
Once they were alone, each of them turned to look at each other with beaks agape.
"…Holy shit." Pete murmured.
"That was Trent Bosman!" Ted gasped. "I completely forgot that he was coming to the game!"
"I did too!" Simon said breathlessly. He turned to Dewey, asking, "I thought you said your brother wasn't gonna do the thing with the pampering and the talking and-?"
"He- he didn't!" Dewey spluttered in excitement. "He said no, I- I thought there was no way he'd-" He turned to his friends with an impossibly wide grin. "Oh my God, guys, Trent Bosman just asked us to hang out with him!"
"I genuinely have no idea how to react to this! I'm in shock!" Pete exclaimed, standing up with his hands on his head.
"Were we seriously playing that good?" Ted asked.
"Wait, so- so, are we friends with him now?" Simon stuttered.
"I have no idea!" Dewey cried ecstatically, running his hand through his headfeathers. "Oh man, I- we gotta tell everyone about this!"
"Ah! Wait!" Pete grabbed Dewey's arm just as he was trying to leave. "Look- maybe we should keep this to ourselves for now."
"But Trent Bosman just talked to us!" Dewey said insistently. "We'll be the most popular guys in school!"
"Or, the most hated." Ted rebutted. "A lotta people would break an arm just to hang out with Trent back when he was at school."
"Yeah, I- I mean, we don't want to make anyone jealous or angry." Simon agreed nervously.
"…Good point." Dewey conceded.
Pete let go of him, saying, "Yeah. Just keep it low, at least until after tomorrow."
"Don't tell anyone. Got it." Dewey gave him a thumbs up, grinning. "Easy."
The family drove home from the game in separate cars, with Donald, Daisy and the girls going home in the jeep while Della and the boys were being driven home by Launchpad. As they drove, they couldn't help but marvel at how much Launchpad had improved as a driver, for the limo only swerved off the road every once in a while, as opposed to swerving constantly.
Dewey sat in the front seat, excitedly gushing to Launchpad, "And we're gonna meet up at a café in Wildwood, and we're finally gonna meet him! I've got so many questions for him, like- is he gonna give me batting advice, how to touch up our game? I don't even know what to say to him! We didn't expect him to show up at all!"
"Yeah, that must have been pretty unexpected." Launchpad said cheerfully as he drove. Looking down at his friend, he asked, "…Who is this guy again?"
"Oh, yeah, Trent Bosman." Dewey eagerly explained. "He was like, the top player of the baseball team at school. Like, I joined the team because I saw him play back when I was a freshman, that's how good at the game he was!"
"Wow. He sure sounds impressive!" Launchpad remarked. "He reminds me of younger me, even though I've never met him."
Dewey gasped, his eyes lighting up. "You were a high school sports star too?"
"Yep! I was the star player of our batterball team back in the day." Launchpad declared proudly. "That was the sport where one of us – usually me – stood in the middle of the school yard while all the other kids threw balls at me. I'm sure you've heard of it."
Dewey stared at him uncertainly. "…Uh… yeeaaaah."
In the back of the limo sat Della, Scrooge, Huey and Louie, the adults in the backmost seats and the kids sitting in the frontmost seats. Scrooge had his head buried in a newspaper, Huey and Della were both looking at the passing scenery as they drove, while Louie was looking down at his phone disinterestedly.
Della frowned as she looked out the window. "Wait… this isn't the way we usually go…" She looked over at Huey and began to ask, "Can you check that Launchpad's actually…?"
"No, it's alright. He's just dropping me off." Louie explained. "I've got a… 'appointment' with someone."
Della blinked. "Oh. Okay, uh… thing is, we were going to have a victory dinner for Dewey, so…"
"Yeah, and we were going to plan the next adventure, too." Huey pointed out.
"Hey, you can do both without me. You don't have to wait on my account." Louie told them. "Besides, I won't be long. I'll be back at like, five or five-thirty."
Della hesitated for a moment. She looked at Scrooge beside her, who simply gave her a grave nod.
"…Alright." Della told him. "But be back no later than five. Got it?"
Louie gave her a thumbs-up, still looking down at his phone. "Got it."
After a few more minutes, Launchpad pulled up to the side of the street, tires screeching as the limo came to an abrupt stop. Louie stepped out, bidding his family farewell, then watched them drive off. He stayed there until they were out of sight, and then began to walk towards the old park, marked by the cedar tree that loomed over it.
He arrived after a few minutes walking, pushing open the chain-link gate and making his way toward the park table. Chanda was already sitting there, glaring at him with a half-eaten protein bar in her hand. He gave her an unhappy glare of his own before sighing, putting hands in his pockets, and taking a seat on the side opposite her.
"How did you find out who my mother was?" She demanded the moment he sat down.
"The same way I figured out where I knew you from." Louie explained. "See, while you don't need to have a guardian present at Funso's, which is one of the factors that made it awesome, they did need to know who to call if something went wrong. So, I had a look at their records, saw your mom's name next to yours, and from there, it was an easy matter to match up her name in the phonebook." He leant back with a smirk he knew she would find infuriating. "So, now I know your mom's name. And her number. And where the two of you live."
Chanda didn't say anything, her eyes narrowed at him as she chewed on her protein bar.
"…How can you just 'have a look' at a company's records?" She asked.
"With enough dirt, you can have a look at anything." Louie replied casually. Then, he let his friendly façade drop, and he asked her, "Do you have the statue?"
Chanda shoved the rest of the bar in her beak, muttering, "I don't have it on me, if that's what you're asking."
"So where is it?"
"Somewhere safe." Chanda replied cryptically. "Somewhere where it won't get damaged or stolen."
Louie snickered humourlessly. "And that's all I'm getting, huh?"
"Yep." Chanda shoved the wrapper in her jacket pocket.
Louie sighed, his smile dying. "…Alright…"
"Hey, if it upsets you that I'm holding onto it, maybe you shouldn't have fucked up so badly."
"How, exactly, was I meant to know that Glomgold wouldn't show up?" Louie demanded angrily.
"Oh, yeah, that was the only thing wrong with your little plan." Chanda said snidely. "Not the fact that his maid saw right through your 'disguise', or the fact that we were going into the house of one of your uncle's biggest enemies!"
Louie actually burst out laughing at the last part. Seeing that she was starting to get angry, he forced himself to calm down, chuckling, "Okay, okay… a couple of things. First of all, Glomgold is far from my uncle's greatest enemy. Secondly, we were never going to go into his house because he never lets anyone inside, which I already knew. And thirdly, his 'maid', or whatever she is to him, hates his guts. She would have just stood by and let us rip him off without saying a word."
He pointed into the table heatedly as he told her, "My plan was perfect. Glomgold's absence was the only thing, the only little thing that was wrong with it."
Chanda didn't look remotely impressed with his speech. Impassively, she asked him, "Has he come back?"
Louie leant back, folding his arms and looking away. "…No." He admitted.
"Hm." A slight smirk appeared on Chanda's beak as she remarked, "Just a 'little thing', huh?"
Louie didn't respond. He looked into the distance, lost in his own thoughts.
Last I saw him, he was runnin' into the sewers declarin' revenge against me again.
Should we be worried about that?
The man's spent all his money and he's lost his job… I don't think we'll be seein' him for a while.
"Hey."
Louie blinked, looking back at Chanda. "Hm?"
"I said, what's the plan now?" Chanda asked him. "I told you before, I can't wait any longer for Glomgold to show up. I need to buy that medication soon. So, what's the plan?"
She watching him expectantly, and Louie found himself hesitating. He wanted to wait a little long for Glomgold, simply because he knew how easy it was to rip him off. If he could sell a desk toy to him for five-hundred dollars, there was no telling what he could get for a forty-thousand-dollar artifact.
He looked at Chanda, waiting impatiently for his response.
"…Okay." He muttered reluctantly. "Let's brainstorm, then. This is an expensive item. Ideally, the person we want to sell it to is both absurdly rich and obliviously stupid, so we can get as much money from this thing as possible. Aside from Glomgold, who else in Duckburg fits that bill?"
Chanda seemed to think about it for a moment, tapping the table in thought. "…Mark Beaks?" She suggested with a shrug. "He's loaded, right?"
"He was before Waddle imploded." Louie said wryly. "I think he does tech work for his mom's website now, and while she's loaded, she's also dealt with me before, so… that's not happening."
"Well, then, I don't know. I don't know many rich people." Chanda told him.
"Yeah, thought not." Louie sighed, rubbing his eyes. "This is why I want to wait for Glomgold. Every other rich guy in Duckburg deals with people like me on a near-daily basis. But Glomgold, despite everything that has happened to him, can and will fall for anything. If we just wait a little bit longer-"
"Which I can't afford." Chanda interrupted.
"-then we could get up to twice what that statue is worth!" Louie continued, ignoring her. "I'm talking eighty-thousand dollars! Nobody else in Duckburg can be ripped off like that!"
"…Okay." Chanda said, looking at him with a strange, almost inquiring expression. "What if we didn't rip them off?"
Louie stared at her.
"What if we didn't try to scam someone?" She suggested. "What if we just… sold it?"
"I don't follow." Louie replied flatly.
"Look, there are people other than millionaires who'd want to buy this thing, right? Like, an antiques collector or something? What if we just sold it to one of them?"
Louie shook his head. "No, a collector will know exactly how much that thing will be worth. There'll be no room for haggling, no-"
"So what?" Chanda demanded. "That's still forty grand! That's a lot of money!"
"Yeah, except you're not getting forty K, remember?" Louie reminded her, leaning forward as he talked. "You're getting ten percent. That's four thousand for you. Would you really be satisfied with four thousand dollars when there's the opportunity to make up to twice as much?"
"Yes." Chanda replied, without an ounce of hesitation.
"…Someone's ambitious." Louie muttered caustically, sitting back with his hands in his pockets.
"It's not about 'ambition', dickhead." Chanda snarled at him. "If my mother doesn't have the money by next week, she has to go the whole month without that medication. Any money is good money."
Louie didn't respond, biting his beak anxiously. He didn't like the idea of settling for less. He never had. He wanted to get as much money as he could from this thing. But Chanda was effectively the one running the show now. And as much as he hated not being in control of his own plan, he couldn't risk her doing anything impulsive, throwing away any money he could make.
There was also the matter of what this olanzapine stuff was used to treat…
He sighed reluctantly, standing up from his seat. "…I'll see what I can do." He told her.
Chanda remained seated, folding her arms and watching him with a heated expression. "Tell me when you've found someone."
Louie left without replying, heading for the nearest bus stop with his hands in his pockets.
Once the family had arrived home, Scrooge immediately went upstairs to his office, leaving the boys as they went into the living room, and Della as she went with Launchpad towards the Sunchaser's hangar. He'd developed a headache over the course of the game, the noise of the crowd getting to him, and he needed to take care of it before getting into the next leg of the evening.
As he made his way up the stairs, he was stopped by Bentina, looking at him with her usual expression of strict neutrality. "Ah, Beakley!" Scrooge greeted her. "Everythin' calm on the home front?"
"For the most part." Beakley replied evenly, pulling out a notepad. "You missed about half a dozen calls asking you to appear on some radio shows, discussing the 'terrorist attack' in Paris."
"Decline all of them!" Scrooge told her decisively, marching through the halls of the manor. "I'm not speakin' to any of those self-servin' scandalmongers until the situation dies down. Have you heard Duckburg Radio's piece on me? And that interview with Hogswilde?"
"I have."
"Scandalous, isn't it? I swear, modern journalism is killin' itself, takin' every tragedy and bout of ill fortune, and tryin' to twist it into a story… And that nonsense about the attack 'bankruptin' the Parisians, when I'm the one helpin' them rebuild! Oh, and don't even get me started on the Board's response to all this!"
They had reached his office now, the elderly billionaire opening the door and stepping inside. Beakley followed him, saying, "Yes, I've had some phone calls from them as well. And as much as I would like to move on from the Paris situation as well, I do want to talk about it. Specifically, about the part you've been avoiding all week."
Scrooge froze for a split second as he reached his desk.
He heard the crack of a gunshot, fired from his cane.
Finally showin' yer true colours, eh, McDuck?
"…Hm? And what would that be?" He asked her calmly, walking around to his chair.
"Webby." Bentina said simply.
"…Webby?" Scrooge frowned, hiding his brief surge of relief. "Well, sure, I haven't spoken to her much, but the lass is stricken with heartbreak! Best to keep my distance, rather than-"
"This isn't about that, and you know it." Bentina interrupted him impatiently. "This is about what you said at the hotel."
"Oh, come on. That?" Scrooge scoffed, saying evasively, "I told you, it was far easier to explain to the bellhop that she-"
"Scrooge."
Her tone shut him up instantly. She walked up and leant over the desk, saying in a low voice, "Webby has been calling you her father for five years. At no point have you told her 'no', at no point have you suggested that you do not feel the same. So, tell me honestly…"
Bentina leant forward even further, her eyes narrowed. "Do you, or do you not, think of Webby as your daughter?" She asked him quietly.
Scrooge looked down at his desk, struggling for words. He opened his beak a couple of times, but no explanation or comeback offered itself. He looked over Bentina's shoulder towards the door, seeing that the two of them were alone.
"…What am I supposed to do?" Scrooge demanded in a whisper. "Tell her to stop? Break her heart?"
"That is exactly what you should have done at the very start!" Bentina hissed furiously. "It would have been kinder than leading her on like this!"
"I am not leading her on!" Scrooge argued. "I'm just… tryin' to be delicate, that's all."
"…Delicate." Bentina repeated, unimpressed.
Scrooge sighed, explaining to her, "Look… I'll admit, when she first called me… 'dad'…" He hesitated at the word, like he was confused by it. "…It had already been a long day, for both of us. The last thing she needed in that moment was more emotional turmoil, so… I didn't say anything. I hoped that she'd come to her senses or grow out of it, but when I realised that wasn't goin' to happen, I…" He winced, scratching the back of his head. "…Well, there was never a right time to tell her."
"And there never will be." Bentina pointed out.
"Exactly! So, why cause pointless angst and unhappiness by stoppin' her?" Scrooge shrugged, offering a weak smile. "She's happy, isn't she? Let's let her be happy."
Bentina simply looked at him, her gaze critical and her voice harsh. "So, your 'plan' is to lie to her about how she fits into the family and rely on the fact that she trusts you to avoid telling her the truth. Because that worked so well when I tried it."
"Oh, come on. This is nothin' like the wool you tried to pull over her eyes." Scrooge growled defensively. "Besides, when you think about it, nothin's really changed about her relationship with me. I don't treat her any differently, and neither does she. The only thin' that's changed is what she calls me. That's all."
Bentina's expression didn't shift. Her gaze didn't waver, and her intensity didn't fade. Scrooge didn't back down, keeping his stance and glaring straight back at her.
"…I won't give you any sympathy when this backfires on you." She told him, standing up and turning out of the room.
Scrooge watched her leave, only reaching up to massage his temple once he was sure she was gone. Grimacing, he opened his drawer and pulled out his pill bottle, Dr Gutefeder's warning printed across its exterior. He downed one of the pills and swallowed, letting out a breath of reprieve as he felt the headache fade.
