"There is no treasure of Mt. Neverrest…"

"Nope! Already out. Louie gone" Somehow, in the time it took for Huey and Dewey to process his words, Louie was already sitting back at their cafe table and waving. "Have fun!"

Dewey laughed and waved back, turning with a chuckle to keep walking. He walked straight into Huey, who seemed to be short circuiting.

Huey stood still, map open in his hands, staring blankly at Louie. Huey wasn't laughing.

"You're out? " He yelped. "What do you mean, you're out!?"

"I mean I'm not coming!" Louie called back, lifting up a mug of steaming cocoa and pointing at it with his other hand. "Yeah, I'm going to spend my Christmas down here with hot cocoa, and not freezing my tail feathers off on the deadliest mountain known to duck, actually. Thanks!"

Huey spluttered a bit more as Dewey grabbed his shoulders and gently steered him back to the path, giving him a little push. "Come on, Hue." He said brightly. "Let Louie have his cocoa. We can't all be intrepid adventurers!"

Huey didn't put up much resistance, clutching his map to his chest.

.

They'd barely begun the climb, and everything was already horribly wrong . First, they lost Launchpad. But it was worse than that. Huey kept turning over his shoulder to point something out to his brothers - only to find them gone. Normally, Dewey and Louie would be at either shoulder, trying to take the map from him, trying to (incorrectly) correct his mistakes. Teasing him for his naming conventions, doing anything they could think of to get on each other's nerves.

Louie wasn't here.

Webby kept trying to throw herself off the mountain.

And Dewey… Dewey was more interested in Webby than in Huey. Of course he was. Webby was practically like a girl version of himself. They had so much in common. They were so much more alike. Adventurous Dewey, adventurous Webby, adventurous Scrooge, and… nerdy Huey. Huey was only here for his merit badge. But cartography suddenly seemed a lot less fun when nobody cared about the map he was making.

Merit badges had become a lot less fun when his brothers had stopped collecting them.

When Louie stopped coming to Junior Woodchucks, Huey threw himself into it even harder. As if he could prove how fun it was and make him come back. Dewey still came to the cookouts… usually… and he came along for most of the overnight trips. But he hadn't cared about badges since they were kids. He didn't follow rules, and he wasn't interested in learning. He just liked a good excuse to get out of the house and do something exciting.

Huey loved it too much to quit. He just wished his brothers loved it as much as he did. But he couldn't make them like something they didn't.

He clutched the cartography badge more tightly and told himself it didn't matter.

If he sniffled, it was only from the cold.

.

"Ow!" Huey was so focused on the map, he walked straight into a sheer wall of ice. His eyes snapped up from the paper… and up. And up. The ice stretched a hundred feet into the sky. Huey looked straight back down at his map, shaking his head anxiously. "Oh no, no no no. That's not right. This shouldn't be here. This isn't on the map!"

Dewey frowned. "Aren't you making the map?"

Huey snapped his beak shut. "Yeah, but-"

"This is an unmapped mountain?"

"Well, yes but-"

Dewey snatched the map from him. "Also, this is an illustration, not a map."

Huey glared and snatched it back. He opened his mouth to reply, but Dewey's eyes widened and he ran off past Huey, shouting at Webby and tackling her into the snow.

If Huey's hands were shaking, it was only from the cold.

.

Despite everything, Huey's grin as Scrooge reached down and lifted him over the lip of the cliff was genuine. Huey might get typecast as 'the nerd', but he wasn't the type to stay in and do nothing but read. Yes, he loved to read, but all that information had to come from somewhere. From real people going out and learning it! Doctors, scientists, botanists, geologists, astronomers, zoologists! Huey's dream wasn't to stay inside and read books. It was to go and see as much of the world as he could, make some incredible new discovery, and write it all down in a book of his own. Someday, some kid somewhere just like him would be reading his books. Someday, he'd have his own papers published in a real journal.

All of this was to say, Huey was a doer, just as much as Dewey. Maybe for very different reasons, but, he loved the natural world and wanted to see every part of it.

He was exhilarated.

Sure, they had all sorts of fun adventures before , but since Scrooge, that all felt like… kid stuff. Trying to steal the houseboat was probably the craziest thing they had ever done, and they only wanted to go as far as Cape Suzette. (And they hadn't even succeeded).

Now? He was scaling the most dangerous mountain in the world! He was doing something. Something real.

"What a rush! I've never felt so alive!" Huey cheered. "I thought we were done for!" As Scrooge pulled Dewey and Webby up after him, Huey scooched towards the edge on his hands and knees. The drop was dizzying. He couldn't believe he just climbed that! With Scrooge's help, of course… but still!

He gave a giddy laugh and pulled his map and marker back out of his backpack. "We must have gained some serious altitude from that climb!" He rattled on to nobody, and ignored the fact that he was talking to himself. "We should be closer than ever, and- wait." Huey's eye twitched. "Is that Bunny Rock? This can't be right. Maybe we should backtrack to figure out where we went wrong."

Nobody cared. Scrooge didn't listen. Huey crossed his arms, shivering, and followed. What other choice did he have? He cast a look back over his shoulder at the ominous rock. Not only ominous in shape, but…. Huey shivered. Something was wrong. He knew something was wrong, and nobody was listening to him.

This was a real adventure. Everything he'd ever dreamed of. And he was hating every minute of it.

.

Huey sat against the cave wall, tuning out his brother and Webby as they explored. He stared down at the map in his hands, trying to find where he went wrong. It didn't make sense. He wished Louie was here. He had a feeling Louie would see what he was missing. He wished he could talk to Dewey, but Dewey was looking at cave paintings with Webby.

He wasn't smart enough to figure this out on his own.

His map was covered in red lines, words scratched out and rewritten. It was practically illegible. And even if it wasn't… what was the point? It was obviously wrong . He'd made a mistake somewhere. Dozens of mistakes. And he couldn't even figure out where he went wrong or how to fix them. He wasn't cut out for this cartography badge after all.

Huey's hands shook, and it wasn't from the cold. He was frustrated. With a grunt, he ripped the map in half, and crumpled the pieces together in his hands. He raised a hand to toss it, before quickly thinking better of it and shoving them in his coat pocket. This mountain was stupid , but that didn't justify littering.

Huey sat and quietly seethed. He was angry at Louie for staying behind. Angry at Scrooge for throwing away their supplies. Angry at Webby for coming along and taking all of Dewey's attention. Angry at Dewey for giving it to her. He was angry at himself for not being smart enough, and for messing up his map. He was angry at this stupid mountain for-

"I found an opening!"

Huey blinked. He shook his head to clear it. He looked down and realized what he'd done. He'd gotten angry and destroyed his map. He sighed. He wasn't angry anymore. Now he was just sad.

.

"Whatever happened to your map?" Dewey asked, as the boys were buckled into their seats on the plane.

Huey's stomach twisted. He was relieved that Dewey noticed, angry that it took him so long, and anxious that he had to answer now.

"It doesn't matter." Huey mumbled.

Louie glanced up from his phone. He didn't say anything, but he kept his eyes on them as he pretended to scroll.

"What?" Dewey tilted his head. He knew something was off , but he wasn't sure what, just yet. "But don't you need that for your badge?"

Huey's shoulders rose and he sank into his chair. "Yeah…"

"So where is it?" Dewey prodded again, curious.

"What do you care!?" Huey snapped. His eyes widened and he slapped his hands over his beak. "I'm sorry."

Dewey and Louie were both staring at him openly now.

"Hue… are you alright?" Dewey's voice dropped to the quiet and concerned tone he so rarely adopted, but that suited him so well when he did.

Huey didn't want to be angry, but he was, and he couldn't keep it inside no matter how much he tried. He dug out the crumpled map and threw the pieces at Dewey. "Here, it doesn't matter, I'm not getting the stupid badge anyway."

"Huey-"

"Leave me alone! You did it all day, why is it so hard for you now!?"

Louie winced, but Dewey only grew even more confused, upset, concerned. He wanted to help Huey, but he had no idea he was part of the problem.

"Huey… are you mad at me?" Louie asked softly.

Louie's small, uncertain voice was enough to snap Huey out of it. His eyes cleared and he looked at his two brothers, one staring at him in concern, and one looking guilty at the floor. He sighed.

"... No. I mean, not really. I'm…" He crossed his arms over his chest and shrunk in on himself. "I'm kind of mad at both of you, but I know you didn't do anything wrong. I shouldn't be angry."

"But you are." Louie pressed.

Huey nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. But I'm always angry… it's not your fault." He deflated slowly. He didn't get everything off his chest, but he told himself he didn't need to. His anger wasn't justified. He didn't need to take it out on them. He just needed to…. Stop being angry. He had nothing to be upset over. If he repeated that enough, it would go away.

"Huey, maybe you're angrier than you ought to be, but all those emotions still gotta come from somewhere. You don't just get angry for no reason. So? What's really wrong?"

Huey slowly looked up at Louie, and saw the sincerity in his eyes. He reluctantly glanced over at Dewey, and his other brother was also leaning forward towards him, full of concern. They were both right here. They hadn't gone anywhere. They weren't going to go anywhere. Feeling absolutely childish but unable to stop it from happening, tears welled up in Huey's eyes that he frantically tried to scrub away. "It's silly." He whispered softly, and he could see that now. His brothers loved him. It had been silly to get so upset.

Dewey shook his head. "Not if it made you cry, it isn't!" He argued. "... Please?" He asked, a little more tentatively. "What did we do wrong?"

Huey sniffled into his feathers as he kept wiping at his tears. "It was supposed to be the three of us against the world. But now it's Dewey and Webby. She's so much more fun than me. Now Louie bailed on us. He's never bailed. We've never - we've never split up like that before. Now it's just Huey. Everything was going wrong and nobody else cared. Nothing was making sense and I- I couldn't ask for help. If we were all together, we would have solved that problem right away. I bet Louie would have figured it out the very first time we got turned around. But I couldn't. I can't. I'm not smart enough on my own. I'm not anything enough. I'm just Huey ." Unexpectedly, his voice cracked on the last word and his tears came even harder. He thought saying it would help, but it only made everything feel worse. It was real now, and he couldn't take his words and put them back in his mouth.

"Webby isn't more fun than you!" Dewey defended immediately. Then his brain caught up with his mouth, and he took a deep breath. "I mean… you're different kinds of fun. And yeah, she's a lot more like me than you are, but… you're you . Being Huey isn't a bad thing. We…" He trailed off, gesturing vaguely with his little feathered hands as he tried to hold onto a thread of thought. As he tried to come up with something helpful to say. He shot a pleading look over at Louie, begging his wordier brother to step in and save him.

"What Dewey is trying to say is that we need you too. We just… don't need each other all the time . Dewey making new friends isn't going to make him any less your brother. And me not wanting to spend my day scaling a deadly ice mountain doesn't mean I'm not still gonna be here for you. It just means I have common sense."

Huey laughed wetly at that, and sniffled again as he nodded. "I know. I know that now, and I probably knew it then too. I was just…"

"Angry?"

He shook his head. "Upset. I think angry is just the easiest way to be upset. But I think I was more sad, and scared. We just keep growing apart. Don't you guys… don't you ever miss when we were little?"

Louie immediately groaned. "I don't miss the matching outfits."

Dewey laughed in agreement.

It only made Huey feel even more alienated. "...I don't think I'm like you guys." He realized quietly.

The laughed faded and their attention was back on him.

"Of course you aren't." Dewey said. "You're Huey. I'm Dewey. We aren't the same. Huey, that's okay ."

Huey shook his head. "No, I'm… I'm really not like you guys." He mumbled, eyes shining with unease. He had to swallow the words he wanted to say, because he wasn't ready to make them real.

His head didn't work like everyone else's. And it was only getting worse as he got older.

There was something wrong with Huey.