Clever Duck by Dick King-Smith Page B

have to practice—it′s all part of my education.”
    â€œEd-u-cation?” said the duckling. “What does that mean?”

    â€œWhy, learning things, being taught things you wouldn’t otherwise know.”
    â€œWho teaches you?” asked Damaris.
    â€œMy mom. Doesn’t your mom teach you?”
    Does she ? Damaris thought. She didn’t teach me to swim. I did that on my own, and the same with walking and running and eating and speaking. Yet here was this dog being taught things, like herding sheep. I don’t suppose I could do that, but all the same, it would be nice to have a proper—what was it?—education. I wonder—could Rory teach me?
    And, indeed, that was how things turned out.
    That first meeting between puppy and duckling led, as time went by, to a regular friendship between dog and duck.
    Every day the young Rory would come and spend time with the young Damaris and pass on to his friend all the things that he had learned. And because dogs—and especially sheepdogs—
are highly intelligent creatures, and perhaps because Rory was a particularly bright sheepdog, and certainly because Damaris was most anxious to learn about the world in a way no duck ever had before, teacher and pupil worked wonderfully well together.
    One day, about a year after their first meeting, the two friends were chatting together out in the orchard.

    Conversation was something they much enjoyed, something that was denied the other ducks, who only ever spoke to one another in monosyllables.
    â€œGrub up” (when the farmer brought their food), “Nice day” (when it was pouring rain), and
such brief sentences were the limits of their conversational powers.
    â€œIn the matter of intelligence,” Damaris said, “to which creature on the farm would you give the highest marks?”
    Rory yawned.
    â€œMe,” he said.

    â€œDogs in general, you mean?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd the lowest?”
    â€œYour lot, I suppose,” said Rory.
    â€œAh,” said Damaris. “So I am one of the stupidest creatures on the farm?”
    Rory got to his feet, tail wagging.
    â€œNo, Damaris,” he said. “You’re different. You are a clever duck.”

3
    A Lovely Little Scheme
    Now, in summertime some months later, as they stood and looked at the seven sows, Rory said, “Why have you got your feathers in a twist anyway? What did they say to you?”
    â€œOne of them asked me the meaning of a word,” said Damaris. “Pretended she didn’t
know it. I was watching her before, going around to the cows and to the sheep, and she spoke to a hen, too, tried it on all of them, I bet.”
    â€œWhat word?” said Rory.
    â€œâ€˜Ignoramus.’ As if I didn’t know.”
    â€œTypical,” said Rory. “Trying to make other animals feel small. I’ve got a good mind to go out there and bite one or two of their fat backsides. Oh, they’re so smug!”
    â€œLook!” said Damaris. “There’s another one coming to join them.”

    â€œThat’s the boar,” said Rory, “and that’s exactly what he is.”
    â€œHow d’you mean?”
    â€œHaven’t you ever heard him? Wordy, pompous, opinionated, thinks he’s always right about everything, never listens to anyone else. The sows are bad enough, but he’s
the biggest bore of the lot. Listen to him now— grunt, grunt, grunt, snort, snort —what rubbish he’s talking.”

    In fact, the boar was indulging in his usual reply to his wives’ usual greeting. The registered name on his pedigree was Firingclose General Lord Nicholas of Winningshot, but the sows simply called him General.
    â€œGood morning, General,” they all said as he came squelching through the churned-up
paddock. Then, with an inward sigh, each one of them tried hard to put her mind into neutral, knowing only too well what was