Chapter 1: A Sexta e Sexagésima Sexta-feira treze
Chapter Text
Donald woke up to a metallic crash somewhere in the houseboat, startling himself out of bed in the worst way possible. The blankets were somehow completely tangled to his limbs, so when he rolled out the edge of his hammock, there was nothing he could do as he saw the floor quickly approaching his face. Luckily – or the next best word for something that happens conveniently, – the morning greets him with a faceful of hardwood more often than not, so it doesn’t faze him.
He quacked madly, not even aiming for words, while trying to kick the blankets off him. Eventually, he’s free, and slaps an arm over the bedtime table for support standing up, accidentally knocking his clock to the ground. It didn’t break though. He tilted his head and squinted through his morning blurry vision to read the numbers on it.
“6:44,” he mumbled. “That’s just a minute before–”
–the alarm goes off. 6:45AM. It rings in a piercing, corrupted sound, vibrating crazily on the floor before it finally does break apart. Donald flinches and watches it deconstruct itself almost numbly. He turned to the calendar on his bedside table.
Ah. Friday 13th.
More specifically January Friday 13th.
He’d lived through nearly sixty Friday thirteenths throughout his life, but this was only his sixth January Friday 13th. The amount of sixes involved feels symbolic. It doesn't help that they call Friday the “sixth-fair” in Portuguese.
Regular Friday thirteenths were already bad enough. The last one was all the way back in May, at the end of Panchito and José’s one-month stay for the triplets’ birthday, when they decided to take the boys kayaking. After noticing they’d grown apart in more ways than physical throughout the years away from each other, they thought an hour or two alone in one boat would do them some good. It didn’t. The adults had fun on their own kayak, but the boys got lost at sea and didn’t return until nightfall, fighting and begging the adults to separate them again.
It broke Donald’s heart.
And if regular Friday thirteenths broke his heart, January Friday thirteens stepped and spit on it.
The last time a January Friday 13th happened, he’d been raising the triplets in a definitely tight but cozy one-bedroom apartment at the docks of Hookbill Harbor with José and Panchito for the last five years. Well, the boys weren’t five yet, but José and Panchito had been there since they were eggs. He couldn’t keep a job for the life of him, but his partners could, and the three of them managed to give the boys a decent childhood.
That day, they were supposed to move to Cape Suzette. He’d gotten an excellent job offer as a sailor for cargo ships there, they had packed half of their belongings and sold the other half to rent a nice little place near the shore. The boys were thrilled.
Until Panchito got a phone call at the breakfast table.
“Oh…”
“Who was it?” Donald had asked carefully.
Panchito shut his phone and slowly set it back down to meet his family’s concerned looks and tell them,
“It was Tío Juni. Mamá had another accident. He said he can’t handle watching over our abuelos and our parents while taking care of Romito.”
Donald grimaced.
José straightened up at the same time Panchito hunched over. “What happened?”
“She fell off the stairs. It wasn’t a big fall! She’s fine, but,” his voice started trembling, “he said he’s going to put them all en una residencia for good if I don’t move in.”
“Um lar de idosos?!” José shot up hauntedly. “That- Well, that is cruel! Just cruel! He has no right!”
“But he has a point. He’s older than Mamá, it’s not fair for him. This should be my responsibility as the youngest adult in the family!”
Panchito turned to Donald before he’d even opened his mouth to ask, “But what about Cape Suzette?”
“You should go.”
“What?! No! We can’t–”
“Tío Panchito isn’t coming with us?!” Dewey understood.
“What?!” Louie looked between his brother and Panchito, shrinking into his seat. “What- You can’t leave!”
“Yeah, we should all go with you!” Huey suggested desperately, frowning. “I like the granja! I can help Abuela Maria down the stairs!”
“What?! No,” Dewey argued, “he has to come with us to Cape Suzette!! The granja is boring!!”
“But Abuela Maria needs help going down the stairs.”
“Just tell them to move her bedroom downstairs! Duh!”
“That’s not the point! Louie, tell him he’s being unreasonable!”
Louie began tearing up. “I don’t know!”
“Calm down! We’re not going anywhere if we start fighting,” Donald said. José tugged Louie into his side. “Panchito, if it’s not fair for your uncle to take care of all of them by himself, it won’t be fair to you either.”
“So, you…”
He nodded. “I think we should go with you.”
“What!!” Dewey protested.
“But your job offer, the flat with sea view! It’s everything you ever wanted!”
“Yeah!!”
“I’m sure there’s a Mexican version of that somewhere,” Donald joked.
“The granja is nowhere near the sea! And the sea is your whole thing!”
He pursed his lips. “I can survive without the sea, Panchito.”
José put a hand on the rooster’s shoulder. “Through fair or stormy weather.”
“Guys…” Panchito broke out a watery smile, pulling them both into a hug. “I love you so much!”
“So we’re not going to Cape Suzette?” the middle triplet asked.
Donald gave him a sheepish half smile. Dewey grunted and sat back with his arms crossed, so hard his chair would’ve fallen over if Donald hadn’t instinctively reached out to hold it.
“Why can’t we just bring the abuelos to Cape Suzette?!”
“The flat we rented isn’t big enough for everyone, kiddo,” José told him. “It’s barely big enough for the six of us.”
“So is the granja! We have to sleep all in the same bed and share the room with Tía Michelle!”
“But the house at the granja is a lot bigger than the flat. Everyone would have to share the same room!”
“Everyone plus Mamá’s cows and chickens!” Panchito helped him out, grinning for Dewey’s sake. “Can you imagine that? Sleeping with the chickens and waking up with an egg on your head?”
“Ugh!! This sucks!! I hate the granja!” Dewey slid off his chair and stormed off to his room.
“Ah, I believe I’m done with breakfast too,” José smoothed things over, like always, and stood up to start clearing the table.
Donald and Panchito followed suit, taking over the task while Huey and Louie scuttered away to their own devices, and José found himself idly picking up misplaced things here and there until he found a letter stuffed through the mail slot. Donald paused his chore to glance at the parrot as he flipped the letter over in his hand.
“José?”
“É da vovó.”
“Mrs. Oma? Don’t tell me your grandma fell off the stairs too!” Panchito croaked, putting down the dishes to approach him. Donald did the same.
José shrugged and tore the envelope open. He read the letter out loud in mumbles, and then fell very, very silent.
“My grandmother is fine. My sister, however, seems to be hospitalized at the moment. That leaves little Zico and Zeca in my care until she’s discharged…”
“Aw phooey- I’m sorry..”
“We can… take them with us? To the granja?”
José looked at them somberly and turned the envelope over. A set of keys fell on his hand.
“She’s left the house under my care too.”
“Oh-”
At that moment, there was a mutual understanding, some sort of agreement as they looked at each other, that they would be separated. Panchito left for the granja to look after his parents and grandparents, Zé to look after his baby nephews, and Donald, well, he left for Cape Suzette. The Three Caballeros, a sweet side-job of a band, broke up. The triplets? For the first time in their lives, would be sleeping in separate rooms. Very separate. Huey insisted on going with Panchito, Dewey on staying with Donald, and Louie might’ve been forced by circumstance to tag along with José, unable to choose between his brothers.
José’s sister never came back from the hospital. Panchito’s abuelos weren’t getting any younger.
It also turned out, when they arrived at Cape Suzette, that the “sailor” position waiting for him was actually a job as a tugboat captain, which he blew up almost immediately. Literally.
His formerly crowded, lively home was soon reduced to just him, Dewey, and video calls with shitty connection in a houseboat.
It wasn’t that bad, not anymore. They were happy now. But that day had pulled the rug from under his feet and, at the time, he’d felt completely at loss. He’d felt like a worthless person, a terrible friend and an even worse uncle.
The January Friday 13th before that hurt to think about.
He was fresh out of the Navy. Everything was harder to deal with and nobody could understand him, both literally and figuratively.
Della had just laid the eggs and suddenly began rambling on and on about “giving them the stars”. She had big plans for the adventures she’d take the boys on, big exciting plans. Much too ambitious. They fought, he doesn’t remember exactly what about – some crazy idea she mentioned, some crazy place and how she’d manage to take the boys there before they’d even learned how to read. He remembers finally snapping at her. He remembers how heated and hurtful the following yelling match was, and remembers hating her and himself and Uncle Scrooge with a burning passion the rest of the day.
They didn’t stop fighting throughout the months until she was gone.
He hasn’t forgiven her nor himself nor Uncle Scrooge for it.
On the January Friday 13th before that, he was eleven.
His parents died. He and Della moved to Grandma Duck’s farm, which used to be a fun, homely place where they’d spend weekends and school breaks at. But their grief tainted every square inch of that house, and soon, when even the dirt out in her garden made him depressed, they’d be sent to Scrooge McDuck’s mansion for a change of pace.
On the January Friday 13th before that, he was five.
Meeting Fethry ruined his day. He learned how to love him over the years, but at first Fethry was a very needy and troublesome baby (like any other). Donald did not like babysitting him, and up until today he doesn’t see why he even had to.
On the January Friday 13th before that?
Donald had hatched from his egg kicking and screaming.
Still in his pajamas, he forced into himself some will to live and dragged his feet to what he suspected was the source of the noise that’d woken him up. And just as suspected, Dewey was up messing around in the kitchen.
The duckling let out a shriek at the sight of him, startled, and the bag of flour in his hands slipped to explode upon contact with the floor. Coated white in flour, he smiled tentatively, arms open wide, and greeted his uncle,
“Happy birthday, Uncle Donald!!”
Chapter 2: Poca Cabana
Summary:
Since Xandra's Golden Atlas and the Aracuan Bird are just Isabella Finch's journal and her Tittertwill Bird of Knowledge, they're not going to show up at all. I also just hate Xandra. Webby will fill her role.
Chapter Text
“Dewey…” He sighed, approaching his nephew. “What’s all this?”
A little discouraged, Dewey said, “Um, I’m making you a birthday cake? It was supposed to be a surprise. Surprise!”
Donald glanced at the phone on the counter. It showed a simple confetti cake recipe, and according to the batter inside (and outside) a bowl, Dewey was halfway done. Ever since the triplets separated, he’d gotten the impression, more and more, that Dewey somehow pushed himself to fill up the space three kids would. That duckling was everywhere. Consciously or not, he’d overcompensate and nothing Donald tried would help him settle down. Seeing it was too late to stop him anyways, he hugged him and decided they’d finish making the cake together.
Once it was in the oven, they had five minutes to have some cereal before Dewey’s school day started.
“Aw man! I wanted to have cake for breakfast…”
“We’ll eat it when you’re back from school.”
“OH, maybe it’s a good thing we’re not having it for breakfast then, because we gotta buy the buttercream and the candles first.”
Donald frowned. “I’m pretty sure we still have some birthday candles.”
“Yeah, but you need thirty-three candles!”
He grimaced. “I’ll just get two ’3’ shaped ones.”
Then, after Dewey was dropped off, he allowed himself to worry. He cleaned the flour and loose batter from the kitchen’s floor, ceiling, walls and countertops, he did the dishes, he made sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Every sharp objects in the houseboat was tucked away in a cardboard box inside his closet, all the furniture was bump proofed. Dewey liked to joke that he was cursed with the Law of Murphy, everything that could go wrong would go wrong around him, but that wasn’t quite true. It didn’t matter if something could or couldn’t go wrong, around Donald even the laws of physics, time and reality would bend to torment him. He was sure of it.
For example, the moment he convinced himself that maybe, maybe this would be a normal January Friday 13th for once, his phone rang.
It could be anybody, but it couldn’t be anything good.
“Ah, hello??”
“Donald,” his boss’s voice answered, “WHERE ARE YOU.”
“Mister Macklemore?!”
“You’re late for work. AGAIN!”
“But it’s my birthday! I thought I had the day off!”
“Day off?! You’ve used up all of your day offs for this year! With your ’family emergencies’!”
“But–”
“I got a line of shaggy toddlers around the block and no barber! Get down here this instant or you’re fired!”
The call ended with an infuriating beep.
“Aw phooey.”
He chucked his phone to the couch in frustration. It bounced off the cushion to the floor.
The call could’ve gone worse. It could definitely have gone worse, what with his Friday 13th record, so he was actually relieved he’d merely been threatened of losing his job.
His phone rang again though, and he had to race across the boat to get it.
It could be someone from Dewey’s school now. Something might’ve happened to him. It could be Panchito or José calling about bad news too.
“And one more thing!” Mr. Macklemore grunted through the speaker before hanging up again, “Happy birthday.”
Donald cursed his tail feathers out.
He got dressed up in a flash and ran to the salon, where he started fixing some toddlers’ haircuts. At this point, there wasn’t a single worker job in the world Donald wasn’t experienced at. Raising the triplets gave him half of the experience he ever needed though. Customer service, repair service, cooking, cleaning, manual labor – you can learn all of that from raising a child. Hairdressing too.
He was dealing with a particularly difficult, wiggly toddler when he noticed his phone vibrating in his pocket. The number was saved as Dewey’s school secretary’s office. There were a couple of missed calls too.
A chill ran up his spine and he was not prepared for the worst when he answered her call.
“Hello? Is Dewey alright?!”
“He’s fine, but, Mr. Duck, his class doesn’t have school today. Mrs. Odette called in sick.”
Okay! Not the worst case scenario!
“What?! What about the other teachers?!”
“This is Cape Suzette. Every sane person does shipping for a living. She is our only elementary school teacher.”
“Can’t he stay there with the older children?”
“Sorry, Mr. Duck, usually I would see no issue with that, but er, Dewey is a very active kid and–”
“You don’t trust him not to disturb the class.” He didn’t try to keep the bite out of his tone, and he didn’t try to keep his voice down, “Dewey’s not a hurricane or a wild animal, he’s a kid!! A good kid!!”
“Donald,” his boss growled from the counter. “I don’t pay you to be on the phone.”
It was a fair warning.
“Just put him in the gym if you’re so worried he won’t sit still!!” he yelled one last time at the secretary, who was just doing her job, and ended the call.
The toddler on the chair wouldn’t sit still.
“Huh?!”
Donald tried to work around his wriggling, but it looked like the pup was actively avoiding the scissors. Any children’s hairdresser will have experienced that at some point, especially Donald, who used to be responsible for the triplets’ haircuts. Toddler Huey was deathly afraid of scissors, or rather the snipping sound they made – he’d flinch at the metal parts scraping against one another, bristle at the feeling on his feathers, and the buzzer was an absolute no-go, – Dewey on the other hand, used to be all too invested in Donald’s careful work, always moving his head to check himself out in the mirror.
He had a trick for both scenarios.
Pulling out a huge irresistible one-dollar lollipop, he sing-sang,
“If you behave, you’ll get a lolly~!”
“I hate lollipops!” the toddler retorted.
He cursed, resorting to just holding the kid still. But he ducked and ran. Donald ran after him, round and round the chair until the pup finally stopped and. Spat on his face.
“Why you little–” he hissed, grabbing him by the hair maybe a bit too aggressively and slicing it off to a decent length.
To his mortification, the pup’s hair fell back to reveal a massive bald spot. He started wailing for his mother, who was twice Donald’s height and easily around four times his weight too. In muscle.
“Uh-oh.”
“Today is school picture day, you horrible man!” the mother told him.
“Don’t worry! I’ll fix it!”
And fix he did, with a bit of hair gel and a clever swirl, the boy’s hair was picture perfect.
“Ta-dah!”
Both the mother and the boy were pleased until the kid started violently scratching his scalp.
“Ow, ow, ow ow- It burns!!”
“What burns?!” his mother fretted as he began breaking out in hives. She snatched the bottle of hair gel out of Donald’s hands. “This isn’t hypoallergenic sulfate-free gel! Is this what you use for children?! I’m telling ALL of the other moms about this on our Facebook group, and we’re never setting foot in this place again!!”
“Wait–”
“That’s IT!” his boss roared, yanking him out the door by the collar. “You’ve snipped your last whippersnapper! YOU’RE FIRED!”
The door was slammed on his beak.
Then reopened,
“And happy birthday.”
As if the universe really had to rub it in.
His phone rang again and he wanted to crush it under his feet before anything else went wrong.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Duck, please come pick up your nephew from detention as soon as you can.”
“Detention?! Why’d you put him in detention?!”
“Not me, the P.E. coach. Apparently, he hit another kid.”
“Dewey hit a kid older than him,” he asked skeptically. It wasn’t characteristic of his kid to hit kids of his own age group, much less older kids he wasn’t even acquainted with. “Can you hold him until lunchtime? I promised him I’d have our cake ready at home.”
“The principal wants to have a word with you though.”
Of course she did. Of fucking course.
“I’ll be there in a few,” he grumbled, slamming the door of his car open.
At least nothing world-shattering had happened yet. He’d lose a job once every other week, and Dewey got in trouble at school at least once a month. Those weren’t January Friday 13th things, not even regular Friday 13th things, just… normal bad luck stuff.
“Deuteronomy Dingus Duck is getting suspended,” the principal told him when he arrived at her office, Dewey in tow.
“What?!” he and his nephew squawked at the same time.
“You see, we have a very strict policy of no punching other children in the face,” she deadpanned.
“He started it!” Dewey argued, eyes watery and bloodshot. “He tripped me and then held me down!”
“You should have deescalated the situation or informed the teacher.”
“He HELD. ME. DOWN!!”
“HE’S NINE, HOW WAS HE SUPPOSED TO ’DEESCALATE THE SITUATION’?!” Donald asked Dewey, “How old was this kid?!”
“He was a seventh-grader!”
“HE WAS A SEVENTH-GRADER!!” he repeated to the principal. “He should be getting suspended, not Dewey!!”
The old woman stared down at him through layers of mascara, seeming uncomfortable.
“You see, your nephew is very gifted at…” She checked a paper on her desk. “...P.E. and–no, that’s it.”
“I’m great at Social Studies and Music too,” Dewey mumbled, arms crossed. “The teachers just don’t like me enough to give me an A.”
The principal hummed noncommittally and continued, “He is very participative and shows.. interest. But he’s also had a running reputation of disturbing the learning environment since we welcomed him in.”
“What are you saying?” Donald asked carefully.
“I just think a ten-day break would do Deuteronomy some good. I know of how busy you are, Mr. Duck, so clearly you haven’t gotten enough time to dedicate to your nephew’s education. You could use the suspension to build a stronger relationship with each other and–”
Donald saw red. “You think- You–”
He cut off into quacking gibberish, throwing one of his classic temper tantrums.
“Hey, Uncle Donald is a great uncle!” Dewey yelled at her, standing up. “He dedicates ALL of his free time to me!!”
By the pitiful look on her face, she didn’t believe him. In a flurry of rage, he hauled Dewey under his arm like a gym bag and finished off,
“I’M TRANSFERRING HIM TO A BETTER SCHOOL! If you can’t handle children, you should consider transferring yourself to a better job too!!”
He slammed her door on the way out. That was the best school he could afford in Cape Suzette, but he would work something out.
“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Duck,” the secretary called as he stormed out to his car.
“Likewise!” he snapped. It wasn’t a lie, the secretary proved to be a fine friend over the years.
Dewey, buckled nice and neat on the back seat, sniffled. Donald was still panting, holding the steering wheel in a white knuckle grip. He turned the review mirror just in time to see the tears burst out of his nephew’s eyes, and immediately unbuckled his own seatbelt to reach out.
“What happened, Dewey..?” he asked gently, rubbing the tear tracks off his cheeks.
The boy wormed out of his seat into his uncle’s arms, whimpering. After a while, he stammered out,
“The teach- The teacher said I could just run laps around the gym, but they were playing basketball and I love basketball so he let me play with them, but- But they were like, twice my height so that didn’t work so well-”
“That’s when he tripped you? They were picking on you for not being as tall as kids two or three years older than you?!”
“No, um, I quit playing so I could run laps around the gym–”
Donald raised an eyebrow. Dewey pulled away to look at him seriously.
“–in roller skates.”
“Oh.”
“I- I was actually killing it, like, I almost managed a biellmann spin.”
“That’s when he tripped you?”
“Yeah.” He kicked the front seat, scowling. “Fell square on my stomach and his stupid friends laughed at me.”
He cursed unintelligibly under his breath. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know. I think only emotionally.”
“Well, I know just how to fix that!”
“What!!” Dewey brightened as Donald pulled out the lollipop he’d offered the toddler that got him fired. “I thought you said those were for work?”
He eagerly took the lolly anyways and Donald smiled through a wince. “I won’t need them anymore. Let’s go get some buttercream and candles, ay? And blue food coloring.”
“NO WAY! Best uncle ever! I love you, Uncle Donald!”
That small reassurance reminded him that his day was actually going great so far. To Friday 13th standards, this was smooth sailing.
The parking lot was a bit congested though. There was a line of cars waiting for spots, and after a few minutes without movement, Donald left his car to knock on the window of the car before him, grumbling.
“Why’s the market so full today?!” he asked the couple.
“You don’t know? It’s Black Friday sales!”
“What?! Black Friday’s in November!”
The couple shrugged.
Donald grunted and went back to his car, opening Dewey’s door.
“Let’s go, this line isn’t moving any time soon.”
“Okay! But what about the car?”
“We’ll be quick!”
They ran into the shopping center, Donald straight for the cooking aisle and Dewey for the candles. He found some blue food coloring easily, but the buttercream frosting tubes were all out.
“Huh? Come on! Who even needs all this buttercream?!”
Figuring they’d just make it at home, he got some confectioners sugar and butter instead. Dewey met him at the checkout and they rushed back to the car. Within those three minutes, the line had cleared out in front of them, but behind them, it doubled. Standing by his car, there was a police officer waving a paper at them. Someone else was in the process of towing his car away.
“Aw phooey.”
“Mr. Duck,” the officer greeted. “I fail to comprehend how you manage to do everything you do sober.”
“Me too.”
“You know the drill.” When Donald took the ticket, he adjusted his pants, saluted, and pat Dewey’s head on his way out. “Morning, chap.”
Dewey glared after him.
“I hate cops.”
“He’s just doing his job, kiddo.”
“But it’s like he’s always waiting around the corner for something to fine you for! We were so quick! He has to have done this on purpose.”
With his luck, it could be either way.
They settled for walking home, not without hearing some dirty words from the people in line.
The day was still going fine —bad wording— the day was still going well.
Until he arrived at the docks and noticed a big black cloud of smoke coming from a boathouse at the port, none other than his, of course.
“MY BOAT!!” he dropped his shopping bag and scrambled into a crowd of firefighters.
“Why should we use foam if the boat is surrounded by water?” one firefighter said to the other. “Just go get buckets.”
“This may have been an electrical fire though, or something wrong with the fuel. Both cases call for the foam.”
“Is it safe to use foam where it may wash into the ocean? Isn’t that stuff highly toxic?” another firefighter piped in.
“What?! Why do we use highly toxic chemicals to put out fires?!”
The colleague between them was holding his head in his hands. “How does a boat even catch on fire?! It’s in the water!!”
They were all just standing there!
“Get out of my way!!” Donald yelled, picking their fire foam hose and spraying it all over his boat.
The end result wasn’t pretty, but it was prettier than seeing his home actively on fire. He carried the hose inside too, the firefighters trailing after him like ducklings. Dewey, his actual duckling, was intercepted by a firefighter who was afraid to enter. Spraying everything, he caught a good idea of what had survived the fire, and it wasn’t much. The portraits on his walls were blackened, but the pictures – of the triplets, his friends and him – might’ve escaped the fire inside the frames. He picked one up and scrubbed the glass hard. They did survive. Maybe the utensils in the kitchen drawer did too, the food in his fridge, one thing or another in the bedroom.
The source of the fire was clear, imprinted on the walls. A firefighter pointed it out,
“Hah, just another idiot who left the oven on.”
The cake.
He screamed from the top of his lungs in frustration, eyes squeezed shut. It wasn’t the first time something like this happened to the houseboat; in fact, that’s how he’d gotten the houseboat in the first place. Accidentally blowing up the boat on his first job in Cape Suzette, as a tugboat captain, emptied his wallet. He knew he wouldn’t be able to pay his rent or his bills, so he’d asked to keep the wreckage and built his home there instead.
At least the engines were fine. If the engines were fine, he could rebuild the house on top of the hull again.
When his breath ran out though, his scream continued ringing in his ears.
It was getting louder actually, not fading away.
“What the–”
“Are you guys hearing this too?” a firefighter asked.
Donald’s face paled.
“OUT! OUT! EVERYBODY OUT OF THE BOAT, NOW!”
He got everyone out just before the boat exploded from whatever fire had gotten into the engines. Well. There was no hull now.
Happy birthday, Donald Duck.
Curled up on the dock, he slowly blinked away the shock. He hadn’t had time to cover his ears, so he wouldn’t be hearing well for a while. He only realized he was still holding on to something when he uncurled to lie on his back.
It was the portrait he took from the wall, the most recent one of Huey, Dewey and Louie, from last Spring. They weren’t enthusiastic about taking a picture together, not if it meant they had to stand less than an arm’s length apart from each other, but they were smiling up at him. Because they still loved him after everything, with a forgiveness only achievable by a child’s innocent heart. A forgiveness he didn’t deserve, not for tearing them from each other the way he’d been torn from his twin, because God, being away from her hurt. A forgiveness he didn’t deserve because he’d never managed to spare them more than the bare minimum.
Taking a shaky breath in that then came out in a sob, he forced himself to sit up and go check on Dewey.
Dewey was standing right behind him, gaping at the spot where the houseboat sunk. Catching his eye, he said something, one or two words, but Donald couldn’t read his lips.
“I can’t hear you. The explosion,” he vaguely explained, getting up to block Dewey’s view. He held him tight and let him crumble down to tears against his stomach. “Don’t worry… We’ll work something out.”
What a day. It wasn’t even 1PM yet.
“–ter Duck–”
Where were they going now? There was nothing left for them in this city. They were by themselves now.
“–a Donald Duck? The post–”
No, wait, there was someone else.
Donald looked up to see a postman.
“Hey. Do you know a Donald Duck?” the postman asked.
“That’s me,” he replied, terrified.
“Oh, good! There’s special delivery for you, Mr. Duck!”
A letter was handed to him and he opened it one-handedly so that he wouldn’t have to stop rubbing Dewey’s back.
Dear Mr. Duck,
On this, the blessed event of your birthday, your great-grandfather, Clinton Coot, has left you a sizable inheritance. The nature of said–
“Inheritance?!” he jumped. “Oh boy, oh boy!! Has this day turned around!!”
“What? What inheritance?” Dewey perked up, rubbing his tears and snot off on Donald’s suit before pulling away to peek at the letter. “Which one of my grandmas died?!”
“Don’t know, don’t care! Taxi!”
“Wait! I just remembered I left my backpack at school.”
“What do you need a backpack for, we’re getting a new house! A ’sizeable’ one at that!”
“The only belongings I have left are in my backpack though.”
“Oh. Alright, we’ll go grab it first.”
After a quick humiliating visit to the school he’d stormed out of promising never to return, they took a taxi to the address on the letter – uh, 122 Sheldgoose Square – and it seemed to be some fancy research institute campus, a beautiful place that screamed “wealthy”. Then, they saw their new house.
Correction: a mansion.
“We’re rich!!” he squawked at the sight of it.
Dewey made an extremely high screeching sound like a balloon being emptied and rushed to the door.
“DIBS ON THE TOWER BEDROOM! Everyday I’m gonna rappel from the window to school! Or slide all the way down on the HANDRAILS!!”
Donald laughed, running inside and looking at everything. “Well, I’m gonna sleep in the jacuzzi every night! There’s got to be a jacuzzi in here somewhere.”
“There’s so much space! You know what, in this house I’m only wearing roller skates! On second thought, the floors are so smooth I can probably skate on my bare FEET.”
“We could fit everyone in here! José’s nephews, Panchito’s abuelos and their cows and chickens!”
“But not Huey and Louie, right?”
“Of course they’d fit too!”
“Daw! Okay, but their rooms have to be in the basement.”
“Come on, I’m starved!” Donald found the kitchen. He flicked every cabinet door open, amazed to find each filled to the brim. “What are you feeling like? I think I can cook anything with all of this!”
“In that case, I feel like EVERYTHING!”
He grinned, picking an armful of good stuff. “Everything sandwiches coming up!”
Lunch was ham, cheese, chicken, lettuce, steak, tomato, tuna, onion, eggs, jamón ibérico and brie slices stacked between two pieces of fancy bread with abhorrent amounts of sauces and butter. The end result was too big to bite into. The lunch most men could only dream of having. They had it by the warm, readily lit fireplace, on the comfy armchairs.
When they were done, a butler showed up immediately,
“Excuse me?”
They handed him their dirty plates and Donald dismissed him, “You’re excused.”
The butler dropped the plates though, snapping,
“Who do you think you are?!”
“Uh, your boss?” Dewey sassed, digging Donald’s pocket for the letter. “See?”
“Why, you boiled brain buffoon! This is 122 Sheldgoose Square!”
“I know, I live here!”
“You live next door at 122 ⅛!”
“What?” He re-read the letter. Indeed, it said 122 ⅛. Sweating, Donald grinned sheepishly. “Uh-oh… Uhh- H- Hello! I’m Donald Duck!”
He shook his hand, then quickly realized his hands were a goopy mess of sauces from the sandwich. Both of them pulled away with a yelp.
“Listen, you common commoner! I am Baron von Sheldgoose, president of the New Quackmore Institute.”
“Ooh!” he cooed when Sheldgoose pulled out a handful of dollar bills.
“And you, sir–”
Donald quacked when he used the dollar bills to wipe the mustard and ketchup off his hands, and promptly discarded them at the fireplace afterwards.
“–are trespassing on my property.”
He soon found himself getting thrown out the door of course, with Dewey safely trotting out after him.
The house that he’d actually inherited wasn’t even a house. It was a wooden cabin, with hay roofs and yellow tape blocking the door. It was bigger than the houseboat at the very least.
“Oh,” Dewey said, sagging.
“Hey, it may not be a mansion, but it’s plenty enough for the two of us! It’s bigger than the houseboat!”
“Mr. Duck, I presume,” a tall chow-chow lady said from behind them.
“Yeah?”
“I am the executor of your great-grandfather’s estate,” she told them. That must be Debbie then, the sender of the letter. “Will the others be joining us?”
“Others? What others?”
As if on cue, a plane flew over them, dropping someone off on parachutes. Someone who became increasingly familiar as they approached the ground, playing a cheerful tune on their umbrella, and eventually landed upright with the graciousness of an autumn leaf pecking a puddle. Dear lord.
“JOSÉ?!”
José, who usually manages to tackle every unexpected turn of events with an expression of pleasant surprise at worst, actually stumbled back a little.
“Nossa senhora…” he breathed, shocked, then his face melted into sheer delight. “Donald!!”
They crashed into each other and oh, José’s hugs were the best. Hugging him felt like the encompassing serenity of summer holidays as a child. In the. Most platonic way possible. They laughed incredulously as they parted, leaving room for Dewey to hug him instead, and Donald was the first to ask,
“What the hell are you doing here?! The- Where are Louie, Zico and Zeca??”
José merely turned around, revealing Louie, clung to his suit for dear life.
“Ugh!” Dewey stepped away from the parrot.
“Are we on the ground yet?” Louie asked José, muffled.
“Open your eyes, parceiro.”
The duckling did squint one open warily, then both of his eyes blew wide at the sight of Donald.
“Uncle Donald?!” He peeled himself away from José to Donald’s open arms. All his tension dissolved to the feeling of safety. “Oh, this is nice.” A breath in. “This is nice. I missed you.”
While Donald nuzzled his head affectionately, Dewey stuck by José out of spite.
“Zico and Zeca are at Vó Oma’s for the time being,” José told him. “We couldn’t afford plane tickets for them. I sold my sister’s couch and TV for ours.”
“Yikes. Why did you come here of all places, anyways?”
“I’ve come to claim my inheritance, which is most fortuitous, as my personal finances expired roughly 20 miles ago. We.. don’t have any means to buy return tickets.” He raised his eyebrows contently and leaned on his umbrella. “It seems fortune has smiled upon the two of us.”
“The two of us?”
“Actually, there’s three of you,” Debbie said.
“Three??”
That’s when a bus arrived and kicked no one but Panchito Pistoles out the door. He managed to do a somersault for a – not only safe – but spectacular entrance. Panchito smiled triumphantly and bowed before checking who was watching.
“Ya-HOO! Nothing like twenty minutes of skillfully avoiding the ticket collector for a good shot of adrenaline!”
Hurriedly behind him, considerably less enthusiastic, came out Huey clutching a suitcase.
“Uncle Donald? Tio José?!” he noted, freezing in confusion. The bus left. “What’s happening?”
“Huh?” Panchito finally noticed them. “HEYYY!! How did you know I was coming here?!”
“Tío Panchito!” Dewey and Louie cheered.
They both ran to the rooster, but when Dewey got there first and wouldn’t let Louie have a turn, Panchito hauled him up to his shoulders so he could hold them both at the same time.
“How have you been treating your uncles, you little piojosos? I’m looking at you, Dewey~!”
As they laughed, Huey dropped the suitcase and ran to tackle José and Donald in a silently appreciative hug.
Debbie cleared her throat.
“If we’re all quite through, allow me to do my job and read the will.” She cited, “I, Clinton Coot, bequeath my museum collection and explorer’s cabana to my great-grandson Donald Duck, and the other direct descendants of the Three Caballeros.”
“Um, we aren’t the descendants of the Three Caballeros, we are The Three Caballeros,” Panchito said, tilting his head. “How did your long deceased great-grandfather even know about our college band anyways?”
“Panchito,” José called calmly, “do you not remember who we named our band after?”
“The legend of the Three Caballeros?”
“Wait, what?” Dewey perked up. “What’s the legend of the Three Caballeros?”
“There was this evil witch in ancient stories all across the seven continents, Magica DeSpell, that was said to rule over the nations with an iron fist, abusing her magic to oppress her subjects!”
“But the Three Caballeros stepped up,” José carried on the dramatic tone. “Using the power of three magic amulets, they trapped Magica inside her own magic staff for all eternity!”
“Whoa!” Dewey knocked Panchito’s sombrero over in his excitement. It fell directly onto Louie’s head.
Louie readjusted it so it didn’t cover his eyes. “And why exactly did you name your band after those guys?”
“...Because they were a duck, a rooster and a parrot,” Donald said, frowning, “like us.”
The three of them realized it at the same time:
“We’re hereditary best friends!!” Panchito pulled them both into a crushing hug. “So that’s how we get along so well!”
“Welcome to the New Quackmore Institute.” Debbie cut the yellow tapes blocking the door. The door detached from its hinges and fell, but it was too dark in there to see anything, especially through the cloud of dust the door lifted. “And now, gentlemen, having spent the remaining vestiges of my retainer, I’m outta here!”
She cackled and ran off, shouting a “So long, suckers!” in the distance.
They walked into the cabana. Panchito tore away the barricade of a window to let some light in, and the place was a mess. When his great-grandfather said “museum collection” on his will, Donald didn’t think all of those old miscellaneous items would be just scattered over the floors and furniture in piles.
“What a dump,” he grumbled.
“But it is our dump,” José said, checking out an armor set.
“And it’s full of cool stuff!” Panchito added, picking up some items to juggle.
Louie snatched one of them, a goblet.
“This is gold,” he said somewhat exasperatedly, then laughed in hysterics. “This is gold and it’s- It’s embedded with emeralds! And this–” he picked up the rest of the jars and such from Panchito’s hands with the care you’d reserve for newborns, “–and this, and this- Hah! We’re rich!”
“What? We can’t sell any of this, didn’t you hear what Clinton Coot said?” Huey examined another bunch of items with admiration. “This was his museum collection!”
“Yeah, but now it’s our museum collection and we do whatever we want with it.”
“Everything here must hold decades or even centuries of history, Lu!”
“We’re broke! Who cares!”
Huey pursed his lips, frustrated. “We don’t have to sell it though, we could.. build his museum and get the money from the entrance tickets.”
“Sorry to be the one to burst your bubble here, Hubert, but 6 dollars a person is not 1000 dollars a GOLDEN GOBLET.”
“Ah, if I may…” José strode in between them, lazily tucking the red duckling under his arm. “We’re sort of in an urgent need of this inheritance money.”
Huey wilted. “But-”
“We have stumbled into something very special. Say, why don’t you boys each pick something you want to keep?”
“Only one thing?”
“We will naturally keep what doesn’t sell, so…”
“...Okay.”
“This is the most important decision of my life,” Louie said seriously.
“Can we pick something too?” Panchito asked eagerly, while Dewey climbed down from his shoulders to start his own hunt.
José raised an eyebrow, amused. “Sure?”
“Yay!”
“Why don’t we move the things out to the yard while we’re at it?” Donald suggested, finding some cardboard to write on.
“What? Why?” Panchito asked.
Donald turned the piece of cardboard around to show him a makeshift sign for a “YARD SALE”, smirking.
“YARD SALE!” Panchito and José celebrated, throwing their arms up.
Within half an hour, they had most of the piles outside, sending flyers for advertising. Louie took pictures of every item too, confident that selling them on eBay would be more efficient. Now the boys were rummaging through the remaining stuff inside while the adults managed the shop outside.
“Priceless objects at discount prices!” José purred to passerbys.
“Low, low prices!” Donald added.
“Hey, hey!” Panchito waved his flyers around, handing them to everyone who walked by. “Cheap, cheap, cheap!”
No one spared them a second glance.
“Uh.” Donald looked at himself, noticing how disheveled he looked in comparison to the wealthy residents of the New Quackmore Institute. “I don’t think ’cheap’ means to those people what it means to us.”
“Oh,” José understood. “Priceless objects with a price!”
“The most pricey price!”
“Hey, hey! Expensive, expensive, expensive!”
Every other person approached now, even people who’d been disinterested before.
“Is this actual gold?” one of them asked, holding up the same golden goblet that’d caught Louie’s eye.
“Uh,” Donald hesitated, “probab–”
José put a hand around his beak, shutting him up to tell the customer, smugly, “Sorry – you can’t tell?”
The customer blushed in embarrassment and pulled out their wallet, “Will 5000$ suffice?”
“Mightly!!” Donald chirped, taking the stash. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!”
“Is this music box vintage?” another customer asked.
“More than that, it’s an antique!” José said.
Another purchase, 6000$. 7000$.
“At this rate, we’ll be able to afford a house big enough for the whole family!” Panchito grinned.
“A mansion!”
Then a man – Sheldgoose, their neighbor – came running at them like a poked goose.
“A YARD SALE?!” he screamed.
“Amazing idea, yes?” José spoke mellowly, putting an arm around Donald’s shoulders. “People here have tremendous amounts of cash.”
“And we have tremendous amounts of yard!” Panchito threw a thumb at the cabana.
“You are in violation of New Quackmore etiquette!” Sheldgoose hissed, panting. “If you do not stop this instant, you will be EJECTED FROM THE INSTITUTE!”
“Aw, come on,” Donald said carefully, shrunk into José. “Is this about the sandwich?”
“What? Sandwich? No! It is about decades of tradition that you are stamping upon with your…”
He trailed off, looking at one of the ring boxes they were selling. Donald raised an eyebrow.
“With your… With your…”
“With our what?” Panchito asked. “Our feet?”
“Feet are traditionally used for stamping,” José agreed.
“I’m sorry. I think we got off on the wrong webbed foot,” Sheldgoose came down from his angry spell, chuckling pleasantly. “What did you say your name was? Donald Duck? Scrooge McDuck’s nephew, if I recall correctly?”
“Yeah?”
“This may be the start of a wonderful friendship!”
“Okay!”
“How about I take some of this old junk off your hands right now? I’ll buy you this ring for fifty dollars.”
“Aw, what?” Panchito frowned. “But that would break our four-digit streak!”
“Er, one thousand?”
“Do you know what type of gem this is?” José showcased the ring. Something told Donald he didn’t know about the gem either, but the prodding efficiently got Sheldgoose antsy.
“Ten thousand!”
“Sold!” Donald handed him the ring box in exchange for a check.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Sheldgoose mumbled, gazing at the ring in its ring box. He snapped out of it a moment later, “Ah, when is your uncle coming to visit?”
“Scrooge doesn’t visit family,” Donald said with the least amount of disdain he could manage.
“Oh, of course, haha! And, when are you visiting him?”
“Not in another ten years at least–” he cut himself off suddenly, realizing something rather uncomfortable:
They could stay out reaping their inheritance all afternoon, but there was a literal museum’s worth of items left both in and outside the cabana – this would take more than one day, especially since they planned to sell that rundown shack itself too. There were no beds in there, or electricity or water. The only creatures that had proved to be able to survive in there were silverfishes, termites and plaster bagworms.
They would need somewhere to spend the night, and this cabana wasn’t it.
Duckburg was a twenty-minute ride away though.
“Today,” he corrected himself, pretending not to notice José and Panchito jolt in surprise at his sides. As their eyes bore into him, he explained, “He owes me.”
“Some evening tea?” Sheldgoose assumed. “Do you think he would mind if you took, ah, a companion?”
Sending a meaningful glance to his friends, he decided, “He won’t have a say in the matter. Besides, it’s my birthday.”
“Good! Happy birthday! I’ll see you there at five?”
“Huh?”
“At the McDuck Manor?”
“Oh, uhhh-” Donald blinked, “Yeah! Actually, we could use a ride! Can you fit six people in your car?”
Inside the cabana, Louie had gathered a dozen different artefacts to choose from while Huey and Dewey were still searching for something that’d be more valuable than money. Well, Dewey was, Huey saw every book in the bookshelves as more valuable than money, but he still had to pick one out, and such a choice had to be made wisely.
They were mostly history books – not story books – and while Huey appreciated that as much as the next person —or, significantly more than the next person,— he couldn’t just pick one thing he’d like to learn about. Choosing one piece of wisdom meant choosing ignorance to all the rest. So he was trying to speed-read through every first chapter of the most interesting-sounding books to say that, at the very least, he’d gotten an introduction to every topic.
“Out of all of the awesome stuff we have here, you’re gonna pick a book?” Dewey commented disapprovingly after watching him browse through yet another shelf.
Huey rolled his eyes without turning around. “What could possibly be ’cooler’ than knowledge forgotten by time?”
“Literally anything! Like this vase, I’m pretty sure it’s magical.”
To prove it, Dewey took a pair of golden shoes and shoved them inside the vase, then let his brother see that they had completely vanished. Huey was unimpressed with what he assumed was a party trick, but Louie panicked, yanking the vase from his hands.
“NOO! Those shoes were on my list, Dingus!”
Annoyed at the use of his middle name, Dewey scowled. “You know you’re supposed to pick only one thing, right?”
“Yeah, but, I can’t choose! What if I end up picking the most valuable thing this old man left us?”
“Then you say hurray?”
“No, we’re supposed to sell the most valuable stuff, not keep it!”
While they argued, Huey found a book that.. felt different. Not physically, somehow mentally it called to him. The covers were leathery with a yellow, green and red stripe crossing it horizontally, the spine of the book was held together with tape. On the front cover, the was a diamond-shaped illustration of a wooden emblem, “WJW”. He opened it after a moment of consideration. “This is your Junior Woodchuck Guidebook,” the first page said, with a line for you to write your name on, “Here, you will find everything you will ever need to know. Don’t be discouraged to add your own notes however, because the more knowledge the better!”.
That settled his conflict. He pulled out his pencil to scratch Clinton Coot’s out of the name tag and write “Hubert D. Pistoles” over it, feeling fulfilled.
The first page told him a Junior Woodchucks is always prepared, with a list of items. Water, non-perishables, a flashlight and extra batteries, a first-aid kit, and so on. He saw a matchbox somewhere in the cabana, a starting point.
“Ugh.” The middle triplet walked to the other side of the cabana, finally done with the back-and-forth with Louie.
Louie’s nose wrinkled in offence. “What are you gonna pick anyways?”
The way Dewey whipped back around startled Louie so bad the vase slipped from his hands. He scrambled to catch it though and did it just before it could hit the floor.
“Isn’t it obvious?!”
“...No?”
“I’m looking for the Three Caballeros’ amulets!”
“Those were just myths, Dewey.” Huey told him, pocketing the matchbox he’d found (after checking it for spiders).
“Oh yeah? Then how do you explain the fact all seven continents had stories about them?”
“The same way all seven continents had stories of sirens, dragons and witches.”
“Wait, really? That means sirens, dragons and witches are all real!”
“I mean,” Louie walked into their conversation, “our uncles are literally the direct descendants of those guys. They were real.”
“That doesn’t mean they fought an evil witch with magical amulets.”
“Then how do you explain the magical vase, huh?” Dewey poked him.
Huey slapped his hand off and turned away to move on to the next survival item. “It’s not magical and you’re wasting your t– AY!”
He’d tripped on a loose floorboard and faceplanted on the ground to the harmonic sound of his brothers’ laughter. Dusting himself off as he stood, fighting an unreasonable bubbling well of betrayal in his stomach so it wouldn’t bring tears to his eyes, he grumbled,
“Hilarious. That’s why you didn’t come help at the granja, because you think people falling is funny?”
The atmosphere did a 180° from light to suddenly serious. Huey didn’t mean to bring it up, sometimes it just tumbled out of his beak when his brothers were involved because that was something he was yet to forgive them for. Dewey and Louie glared at him, and Dewey opened his mouth to riposte, but the floor under Huey’s feet tilted.
He yelped and scrambled backwards just before a trapdoor opened where he’d been standing. A staircase led into the darkness.
Dewey rushed in.
“Dewey!” Huey called. “Come back! We need to tell an adult about this!”
“I thought you were a duck!”
“I am a duck!??”
“Then stop acting like a chicken!”
Louie cackled. Huey glared. He grabbed him by the wrist and towed him downstairs.
It was dark. Louie was going to turn on his phone flashlight, but Huey noticed there were lamps on the walls and stopped him.
Huey opened his new book. “Junior Woodchuck Guidebook Rule number 2: a Woodchuck is always prepared for dire situations.”
“Thanks, hearing that makes me see better,” Louie joked.
Smiling appreciatively at the guidebook before tucking it under his hat, he struck a match and lit up the closest lamp. Louie “oh”ed. All the other lamps in the room lit themselves up too.
“Que chido. They must have a connected system inside the walls.”
“Sure, nerd,” Dewey rolled his eyes, happy to be able to run the rest of the way downstairs. “Whoaaa!”
The cabin upstairs was falling apart, but this place was unaffected by the years passing. There were more piles of artefacts there, but they were mostly armory and weapons. In fact, in the middle of the room, elevated on a podium, were three sets of armors in front of a giant painting of a parrot, a duck and a rooster wearing them. Hung on each armor, there was an amulet.
Dewey sent him a look. Huey deadpanned,
“Go ahead and say it.”
“I TOLD YOU SO!” Dewey shouted into his ear, making him wince, while Louie went for the amulets. “Hey! The blue one is mine!”
“What- I don’t want the green one, it’s silver! Gold is more my thing, yunno?”
“No?? Green is more your thing!”
That’s right. Huey approached them. The amulets were all different. The one with the green gem was square-shaped, lodged into silver to match with its respective armor. The blue one was golden and round, the red one was bronze, and triangular. They each picked the one that corresponded with their colors.
“Don’t put them on,” Huey advised. “If they really are magical, we could hurt ourselves. We don’t know how to use them.”
“Uh, you’re not the boss of me?” Dewey immediately slipped his amulet on, taking a posture of extreme concentration, aiming a hand at Huey. He flinched, but after a while it was obvious nothing was going to happen. “Aw, what?”
“Maybe they only work for Tio José, Uncle Donald and Tío Panchito?” Louie said, disappointed.
“Or maybe they’re not magic at all,” Huey added, making his brothers eyeroll. “We should still let our uncles know about them.”
He put his on now that he knew they were harmless, and
that’s when something changed. He wasn’t sure what it was, something inside of his soul, something just… clicked in place? Not like he was missing this amulet his whole life, but the other way around – it missed him. Looking up, he realized Dewey and Louie had felt it too, each staring off into the distance, clutching their amulets.
“I…”
“Um.”
“So…” Dewey started. “Everyone felt that, right?”
“Yeah,” Huey and Louie replied.
“Magical amulets!!” Dewey assumed his concentration posture again, and now his amulet did respond. It shone and Dewey started glowing a blue aura. Some blue sparks fizzled off his fingers, but that was all he could do before he sagged in exhaustion, panting. “Man.” Huff. “This magic stuff is hard.”
Huey was just glad he wasn’t beamed. “We probably need practice before we’re able to do anything.”
“Boys?” they heard Uncle Donald distantly. “Come out here!”
They exchanged a glance.
“Anybody else think we should keep this to ourselves?” Louie suggested, raising his shoulders.
Dewey grimaced. “Yeah, Uncle Donald would never let us wear possibly dangerous amulets around. He’s kinda like Huey, but WAY worse.”
Huey rolled his eyes. He ultimately agreed to keep the amulets a secret, but only because his Tio José had told them to pick only one thing and he’d already picked the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. They hid their amulets under their shirts and closed the trapdoor on their way out.
“What’s up?” Dewey asked their uncles once they arrived outside.
“We’re done for today, so we gotta start carrying this stuff back in,” Donald told them, receiving displeased grunts as feedback. “This yard sale is going great!”
“Yeah!” Panchito showed them the box where they were keeping the yard sale money. It was a lot. “All of this, minus the price of two wheelchairs and a walker for the abuelos,–”
“–of a good elementary school for Zico and Zeca, which they are, ah, a bit overdue,” José added, “and the money I owe way too many people in my hometown,–”
“–and the money I need to get my car back, maybe a backup car too,” Donald added on, “and what I’ll need to recover all the documents I lost on the houseboat,–”
Louie’s eyes widened. “You lost the houseboat?!”
“–plus the salary we’ll owe the nice lady I left watching after the entire granja in our absence,” Panchito added on. “Oh! Your future college tuition!”
“And a special little birthday surprise for a special someone,” José finished, winking at a flattered Donald.
“What! Really? What is it?!”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Come on!”
“Ooh, don’t forget the money for everyone’s plane tickets, for when we have the house!” Panchito noted. “Ahhh, that’s roughly 1000$ for the abuelos all together.”
“And another thousand for Zico and Zeca.”
“Todo eso?”
José nodded solemnly.
“Well…” Donald grabbed from the box the little money they actually had. “All of that leaves us just enough for the best ice cream you’ll ever have in your lives!”
The triplets cheered.
“But only after this junk is back in the cabana~!”
They got to work immediately.
“Oh, did you pick anything?” José remembered to ask once they were finishing up.
“Yeah!” Dewey produced the sword he’d gotten off the golden Caballero armor.
“Absolutely not,” Donald argued.
“Aw, come on, Donald!” Panchito nudged him. “At his age I already owned my first escopeta!”
Donald frowned, not surprised, but displeased. “You’re a hazard to society.”
“I thought you Americans loved guns!”
“Deixa o moleque, Donald,” José purred, patting his shoulder. “A sword’s never hurt anyone before. It’s not like he’s taking it to school.”
Dewey frowned at José. “Oh, I am definitely taking this to school.”
“Um, I picked this book,” Huey said, pulling the JWG out of his meshika hat. Seeing Donald freeze with recognition, he blinked and asked hopefully, “Do the Junior Woodchuck scouts still exist?”
“...Yeah,” his uncle admitted. “Do you… want to become a Junior Woodchuck?”
Huey nodded. Since he was unable to identify the emotion in his uncle’s voice, he didn’t want to sound too enthusiastic in case the answer was no.
“Alright. I’ll- We’ll check if they have any spaces available.”
He smiled. “Thanks.”
“I picked this,” Louie announced.
Everyone turned to see him wearing an oversized silk robe with gold thread and green patterns.
Donald was startled. “Where are you gonna wear that to?!”
“To sleep?”
“...O..kay- Looks like we’re done here! The limit is three scoops, we don’t want you to get sick!”
Panchito whispered, “No limit for toppings though!”
They cheered again.
“Excuse me,” a goose called from outside. “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” Huey frowned.
Dewey seemed to be the only triplet who knew the man. He stomped outside to shout, much to the stranger’s alarm, “Get out of our lawn, buttface!”
“Buttface?!”
“AH!” Donald pulled Dewey back, standing in front of him. “Hahh, sorry about him, Sheldgoose sir! We’re ready!”
“For what?!” Dewey snapped, confused. “He’s taking us to get ice cream?!”
“Ice cream?” Sheldgoose repeated, just as confused.
“Yes, evening ice cream!”
“It’s just better than tea!” Panchito said.
“I.. see. And Scrooge McDuck, he will be there?”
“Scrooge McDuck?!” the triplets repeated.
“We’re gonna meet SCROOGE MCDUCK?!” Dewey screamed. “The bajillionaire?!”
Louie wiggled in excitement. “That guy’s amazing!”
“I heard he’s so epic he defeated a rock giant and carved a statue of himself out of its LEGS!”
“I heard he’s so smart he solved the mystery of the chupacabra,” Huey said. “Turns out it was just a shaved bear!”
“I heard that he’s so rich he only hunts for treasure to swim in it!”
Donald deliberately ignored them to tell Sheldgoose, “Uncle Scrooge doesn’t like ice cream–”
“Uncle Scrooge?!!” the triplets shrieked, vibrating.
“–but we’ll meet with him afterwards!”
Louie laughed like people who dance in the rain in movies. “This is the best day of my life!”
orbot55 on Chapter 1 Fri 29 Aug 2025 02:05AM UTC
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Wont on Chapter 1 Fri 29 Aug 2025 08:16AM UTC
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SunflowersAndSarcasm on Chapter 2 Sat 26 Apr 2025 05:07PM UTC
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Three_lechuzas_in_a_trenchcoat on Chapter 2 Mon 28 Apr 2025 12:47AM UTC
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heymickiemaus on Chapter 2 Wed 30 Apr 2025 04:33PM UTC
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Wont on Chapter 2 Wed 07 May 2025 09:21AM UTC
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gothamghosts on Chapter 2 Wed 07 May 2025 10:56AM UTC
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Sle3pyKing on Chapter 2 Mon 26 May 2025 11:00PM UTC
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Wont on Chapter 2 Fri 13 Jun 2025 11:05AM UTC
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AstroGold on Chapter 2 Sat 14 Jun 2025 02:12AM UTC
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