Chapter Text
The Curse of Krampus!: A Christmas Paraducks
By Rowena Zahnrei
Chapter 1: The Day Before The Night Before Christmas
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me:
Twelve days of Christmas
Eleven planes a-flying
Ten days of Christmas
Eight days of Christmas
Oops – forgot the Ninth day
Seven Samurai
Six comes after Seven
Lots of Christmas days!
Huey Duck raised his rolling pin in high-pitched song, sprinkling the kitchen counter and his red baseball cap with flecks of flour off the gingerbread dough he'd been flattening. Reaching for Mrs. Beakley's festive tin of Christmas cookie cutters, he fished out a snowman, a bell, a snowflake, and a Christmas tree, but hesitated when he found a Santa Claus-shaped cutter.
"Eh, why not," the tween said, cheerily adding Santa and a reindeer shape to the pile.
"Brave move," a voice quipped behind him, nearly startling the young duck off his stool. "Then again, Uncle Scrooge did make up with the guy last year. I'm sure he won't mind biting Santa's head off."
"Louie!" Huey eagerly greeted his brother. "You're just in time to help me—"
"Don't get excited," Louie said, slouching his way to the fridge with his hands in the pockets of his green hoodie. "I just popped in for a Pep."
Huey frowned, watching Louie open a Pep can and pour the florescent purple fizz into his open beak.
"Well, what about Dewey?" he asked of their fellow triplet, his eyes turning nostalgic under his cap as he cast his mind back to a Christmas long past. "Remember, before we moved into Uncle Scrooge's mansion? That time Dewey insisted blue was a more Christmassy color than red or green? He decorated the houseboat's entire kitchen with blue cookie icing, and when Uncle Donald—"
"Nerp." Louie swiveled on his heel, his sloshy Pep can aimed pointedly toward the exit and a couple back-ups poking out of his pockets. "Dewey's busy with Dewey stuff. And I gotta get back to the tube. It's the rebooted Ottoman Empire Christmas Reunion Special, and Johnny, Randy and their dad are—"
"Whatever!" Huey exclaimed, flinging out his arms. "Go, watch your dumb show. But tell Dewey, I do want to talk with you both. I have a plan to make this Christmas really special for everyone…aaaand he's gone…"
Huey stared at the still-swinging kitchen door, gritting his teeth as he slowly lowered his hands.
"Fine," he muttered, taking in a sharp breath and releasing it as he worked to shake off his frustration. "I don't need them for this. I just…need a little music," he sang, his voice growing louder as he tried to recapture his earlier excitement. "I need a little laughter! Need a bit more flour, so I can roll this faster!"
Chuckling a little, Huey set his rolling pin aside and started arranging the cutters on the ginger and cinnamon-scented dough. "There we go. The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook's recipe for gingerbread cookies promises Christmas cheer in every bite! And when Dewey and Louie see my plans for our Christmas Breakfast Surprise, I know they'll want to pitch in! It'll be the three of us working together, just like we used to. After all…"
Huey arranged his cookies on a parchment-lined baking tray, laying out the festive shapes in rows of three. He shoved them in the hot oven, set the timer, then crouched low to watch them bake through the little glass window, a smile slowly spreading over his face.
"…good things always come in threes."
*******
"What do you mean, you want us to wake up at 6 a.m.!" Louie exclaimed, breaking eye-contact with his phone long enough to launch a crumpled ball of paper at Huey's whiteboard diagram: ULTIMATE PLAN FOR A PERFECT FAMILY CHRISTMAS!
"Not cool, bro," Dewey agreed from his middle-bunk perch. "Let Mrs. B. cook Christmas breakfast. It's, like, literally her job. This Dewd needs his rest."
Louie cringed hard at 'Dewd.' "Eerg," he winced. "No, don't do that. No."
Huey stood defensively in front of his work.
"Guys, come on," he coaxed. "Where's your Christmas spirit? Don't you remember when we were little, and we wished it could be Christmas every da—"
"Yipe!" Dewey yelped.
"Uh, uh, stop right there!" Louie leaped up from the braided rug and pushed Huey aside, erasing half his whiteboard plans before the red-clad duck fully realized what was happening.
"Hey! What do you think you're—"
"Look, Huey," Dewey said, jumping down from his bunk to keep Huey from shoving Louie away from the board. "I know what you're thinking, and you're not gonna rope us in. Not this time. Now, calm down and hear us out, OK?"
"Yeah, we made that boneheaded wish," Louie acknowledged, replacing the eraser and pushing the empty whiteboard firmly against the wall. "That conniving Christmas star granted it, too."
"And it was a nightmare!" Dewey exclaimed, grabbing hold of Huey's shirt. "Reliving the same day – the same Christmas! – week after week, month after month—until we totally lost count! We'll probably never know how long we spent trapped in that awful repeating time loop!"
"Years? Decades, maybe?" Louie groaned and cradled his head. "Seriously, the three of us could technically be older than Uncle Scrooge!"
"Glurg!" Dewey shuddered at the thought. "That's the kind of timey-wimey stuff that really breaks my brain."
"Come on. I'm sure it wasn't that long," Huey said, pulling away from his brothers' grasp. "Besides, I'm not talking about the repeat days. I'm talking about the last day. The one that broke the loop."
He pulled a photo album from their precariously overloaded shelf and flipped to an image of the triplets and their Uncle Donald gathered by the piano at the old Bear Mountain cabin. The warm memories it triggered made Huey's heart swell so much, it nearly choked him.
"The perfect Christmas."
Holding up the photo, he confronted his brothers. "That Christmas happened because we worked together to make it happen. All I'm asking is we do it again. Here, at the mansion. I know, if the three of us put our heads together, we can make this the best Christmas, not just for us, but for the whole family!"
"Huey, Huey…" Louie shook his head. "If that monstrosity of a temporal anomaly taught us anything, it's that it's no good trying to go back and relive what's past." He gestured to the photo. "Those ducklings there… That's not who we are anymore."
"Louie's right," Dewey said. "That was us back when our greatest adventure was a snowball fight against Unca' Donald."
"We're real adventurers now," Louie agreed. "Our dreams are bigger, and so are we."
"What are you saying?" Huey asked, deeply unsettled to realize he and his fellow triplets really weren't on the same page.
"I'm saying, cookies are fine," Louie said, "but cash – that's the gift that keeps on giving! Take a look at this." He held out his phone to Huey, who frowned in confusion.
"A plastic statue of GizmoDuck?"
"They're not 'statues.' They're limited edition collectable figurines!" Louie exclaimed. "And it's not just GizmoDuck. They've got Darkwing, Megavolt – even Launchpad and Uncle Scrooge!"
"And the point is…?" Huey prodded.
"Resale, brother!" Louie exclaimed. "Look at the prices on these babies! They might be thirty/forty bucks now, but in a few months I'll be able to sell them on e-Auk-tion for, like, ten times that!"
Huey scoffed. "Seriously? You think someone would buy a plastic statuette of Uncle Scrooge for three hundred simoleons?"
"At least!" Louie affirmed, shoving an e-Auk-tion listing in his brother's face. "This one came out last year, and it's listed at almost five hundred! And this one, from the old Darkwing TV show, is worth over two thousand!"
"That's nothing," Dewey snorted, busily tapping at his own phone. "The early Darkwing comics can go for millions! I heard Drake Mallard's got the whole run – not that he'll ever sell 'em. Still, talk about a nest-egg…"
"It's the perfect scheme," Louie said gleefully. "I get the figurines for Christmas - for free! - then turn around and make a fortune off the things online! Now that's a merry Christmas!"
"Nah," Dewey said, "it's the sweet networking opportunities that make a holiday truly great! Between Uncle Scrooge and Uncle Donald's girlfriend Daisy, I've got an inside ticket to practically every major party from here through New Year's! So: like, subscribe, and watch my social media following skyrocket!" He laughed with wicked delight. "Oh yeah, that is how I 'Dewey' it!"
"Ugh." Huey shook his head. "You're missing the point entirely!"
"Nerp," Dewey said dismissively. "We get it."
"Yerp," Louie agreed. "Family. Togetherness. Ho ho ho."
"And a cartridge of printer ink!" the pair sang, capping off Launchpad's version of 'The Twelve Days of Christmas.'
Huey scowled and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on his brothers' laughter.
"If you really did 'get it', you'd be helping me," he growled as he stomped down the stairs. "Not selfishly skulking around the internet scheming for fame and fortune."
"What was that, Huey, dear?" the housekeeper, Mrs. Beakley, asked as he finished his descent, busily pouring mixed Christmas nuts into bowls set around the mansion's great hall. Her young ward Webbigail trailed after her, tapping at a few nuts and cracking them seemingly at random, then piling the shells by the towering Christmas tree.
"Nothing, Mrs. B.," Huey lied glumly, and squinted curiously at Webby. "What are you doing?"
"You never know," Webby said, in her cryptic way. "A walnut shell could contain a coded message, a tiny treasure map – even a magic ring!"
"Sure, why not," Huey said, and flopped hard onto the nearest couch. "Hey, Webby… You still believe in the Christmas spirit, don't you?"
"Of course I do!" the girl exclaimed. "In fact, I just got the greatest Christmas wish I could ask for!"
"Yeah?" Huey asked, starting to brighten.
"You bet!" Webby cheered. "Uncle Scrooge told me: we're going to spend Christmas at McDuck Castle. In Scotland! Isn't it wonderful? It'll be my first time going to our ancestral home as an actual blood-relative of Clan McDuck!"
"Because you're Scrooge's clone," Huey realized.
"Because I'm Scrooge's…yeah!" Webby laughed. "Scrooge's parents already know, and they've promised to answer all my questions! Isn't it exciting!"
"Actually, this is the first I'm hearing about this," Huey said, sitting up straight even though he felt like his soul was sinking. "I thought we were spending Christmas here, at the mansion."
"Oh, you are!" Webby told him. "You and your brothers, anyway. Donald's planning a trip to Bear Mountain with Daisy and my clones, May and June. And, Launchpad will be celebrating the holidays with his friends Drake and Gosalyn in St. Canard – after he's done flying me and Scrooge to Scotland."
"Wait…what are you telling me?" Huey said, his voice coming out sounding oddly tight. "Everyone's leaving? Right before Christmas?"
"Your mom will be here," Webby said. "She got a gig flying at Molly and Kit's Christmas air show! Aw, don't look like that." She tilted her head, trying to capture Huey's frozen stare with her smile. "I'm sure Christmas at the air show will be lots of fun!"
Huey's attempt at a careless laugh was more like a strangled cough.
It couldn't be true, what Webby was saying. Christmas without Scrooge… That was bad enough. But a Christmas without his Uncle Donald! Huey couldn't wrap his mind around it.
Sure, Donald had seemed a little distant since the triplets' mom – Donald's twin sister, Della – had returned to the family after being marooned on the moon for a decade. OK, so he'd taken Daisy, May and June on a trip around South and Central America in his houseboat while Huey and his brothers stayed at the mansion with Scrooge and their mother. But, Uncle Donald had been the triplets' sole guardian for ten years. Before moving to McDuck Manor, the four of them had barely spent a day apart. And Christmas…
That was special. That was theirs. How could he… How could any of them…!
"Excuse me," Huey managed to whisper, groping blindly for the coffee table as he struggled to climb to his feet. "I need…"
"Hey, Huey," Webby called after him as he lurched across the carpet toward the door to the corridor that led to Scrooge's office. "You OK?"
"Peachy!" Huey strained through his teeth as he grappled with the door handle. Bursting his way through, he shouted, "Merry Christmas!" and slammed the door behind him.
To Be Continued...