Chapter 9

Are you paying attention? ‘Cause if you’re not paying attention then I’ll stop telling this story and go watch a movie or something. Let me see a show of hands of all the millions of readers who are paying attention. Hold ‘em up so I can count, one, two, three-- okay, three’s enough, I’ll get on with my story now.

Scottie watched as Merlin flew high in the sky, first to the west, then north, then east, and finally turning south to complete a big circle before coming in for a perfect three point landing right there in front of Scottie. Wait a minute, that’s not right, only airplanes can make three point landings. Ducks only have two feet so I guess Merlin came in for a two point landing. Either way, it was still a perfect landing. “Did you see the bench?” Scottie asked.

“Quack,” Merlin replied meaning that it wasn’t all that far away.

“Good,” Scottie said, “it sure seemed like a long ways yesterday when we were on that wild goose chase.”

“Quack?” Merlin asked. He was asking, what wild goose? All he remembered chasing was the hopping box.

“That’s what I meant,” Scottie answered.

“Quack?” Merlin questioned why Scottie didn’t say that in the first place.

“It’s just an expression,” Scottie said. “Why don’t you lead the way?”

“Quack,” Merlin answered, and with that they started towards the east.

It only took a few minutes before they made their way back to the bench where the man had given them the strange hopping box the day before. Both of them set down and Merlin said, “Quack.”

“Yes, I’m hungry too, “ Scottie replied. Let me look in the bag and see how much food we’ve got left.” Scottie pulled the peanut butter jar and the cracker box from the bag and looked inside each of them. In the jar was one bite of peanut butter and in the box was one lone cracker. “I’ll eat the peanut butter and you can have the cracker, okay?”

“Quack,” Merlin said as Scottie handed him the last cracker then used his finger to scrape the last bite of peanut butter from the jar and placed it in his mouth.

“Do you think we’ll have to wait long?” Scottie asked.

“Quack,” Merlin said, shrugging his shoulders. I guess you know what he meant.

“I’m still hungry?” Scottie complained.

“Quack.”

The two of them waited there on the bench listening to each other’s stomachs growling for most of the morning in hopes that the man would come back for his hopping box which Scottie clutched tightly in his hands. Merlin ate a couple of bugs and even offered one fat grub to Scottie but Scottie thought better and allowed Merlin to eat the grub himself. When the sun was almost straight up in the sky they saw a motorcycle come roaring up the street towards were they were sitting. It was still pretty far away when Scottie asked, “Do you think that’s him?”

“Quack,” Merlin replied. You know, Merlin never was one to waste a lot of words and that day was no different. When the motorcycle got closer they could see there was a lady riding the motorcycle and it wasn’t a regular motorcycle but a motorcycle with a sidecar, but not just any old sidecar, this sidecar was shaped like a box with letters painted on its side.

“What’s it say?” Scottie asked.

“Quack!” Merlin excitedly replied, “Quack, quack!” What Merlin was saying was that the words painted on the side of the sidecar read, “Hot Dogs 50 Cents Each.”

“Wow!” Scottie replied as he jumped from the bench to run towards the motorcycle, “I sure would like a hot dog!”

The two of them stood there and watched as the lady parked her motorcycle, opened the box and placed a red, white, and blue umbrella above the box shaped sidecar. Then she turned towards Scottie and Merlin and asked, “Would you like a hot dog?”

“I sure would,” Scottie said with a grin so big it looked as if the top of his head might fall off.

“Quack?” Merlin asked.

“I can fix ‘em any way you like ‘em,” She answered.

“I’ll have mine all the way,” Scottie said.

“Quack,” Merlin said, flapping his wings in excitement.

“Two hot dogs coming up,” the lady said, “one all the way and one plain bun torn in duck sized bites, hold everything. By the way, my name's Sally, what's your names?”

"I'm Scottie."

"Quack."

"Well Scottie and Merlin, it's nice to meet you both."

"It's nice to meet you too," Scottie added.

"Quack."

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