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Huey Duck sat in their shared room holding onto a poster. It was unusual for him to be holding such a large picture of his own face. That was more a Dewey thing, or a Louie thing if Louie was feeling particularly aggressive in his corporate branding that week. The poster was a tasteful three quarter body of of him standing boldly on an unseen boulder, with his trusty Junior Woodchuck’s Guide in one hand and his other raised to shade his eyes. It was the picture of a duck striding into the future, ready and willing to lead all who would follow. Emblazoned across the top in his signature red were the words, ‘Huey Duck for Student President’.
It was a great poster. And it was great because it was more than just a glossy bit of paper. His fellow students had believed in him enough to design it. They cared enough to dedicate their time to hanging it in the halls. To stand by him as he canvased the school and during the rally where Dewey stole the show.
The paper crumpled as he hugged it close, squeezing his beak tight shut as he fought back tears.
It wasn’t fair.
A knock came at the door.
“Huey?” Della’s voice drifted through the room. “Are you in there? I brought your dinner.”
Huey took a deep breath and set down the poster on the bed beside him. “You can come in, Mom.” It still felt vaguely alien to use that word.
Della slipped into the room, a plate of lasagne in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. She shot him a bright smile. “Hey, Champ, how’s it going. We missed you at the dinner table.”
“I wasn’t feeling hungry,” Huey said automatically. Della just kept smiling at him and after only a moment he cracked. “Did you hear?”
“That Dewey resigned as Class President?”
Huey nodded.
“Yeah, he was pretty vocal about it. He’s focusing on his jazz career now.”
That caught Huey up short. “He plays jazz?”
Della shook her head. “No~o. No he does not. Isn’t stopping him though, he’s a real chip off the old block sometimes.”
She chuckled to herself and set down Huey’s dinner on the bedside table. With a little awkwardness as she briefly caught her bionic leg on the ladder, she climbed up onto his bunk. Huey scooted over to give her space to sit.
“I kind’a figured that you’d be happy,” Della continued. “If Dewey’s resigning, doesn’t that mean you get to be Student President now?”
Huey hung his head. “Violet was his running mate, he made her his Deputy, she gets the job.”
“Ooo…” Della looked around the room for a distraction from the awkward moment, before biting the bullet. “Well, I guess she’ll have a better plan for the school than Dewey.”
“Plan!” Huey exclaimed, rounding on her. “Dewey didn’t have a plan! He a big party float at the rally and promised that he’d buy every kid in class ice cream if they voted for him! Which he didn’t even do! I had a seven bulletpoint list of key issues to resolve with the school board. Now Violet is going to get her way with her seventeen Rs reading program and my extracurricular initiative is going in the trashcan!”
“Easy there, easy there,” Della cooed, rubbing her son’s back as he breathed heavily. Slowly he leant into her, his fists clenching on her jacket. “You don’t need to let this control you.”
“I know, Louie already told me. It’s just a popularity contest.” He spat out the last word. “It’s not worth it.”
The bit that really hurt was that there’d never been any question who’d win such a contest between the triplets. The adults all loved Louie, the kids their own age loved Dewey, and Huey was just tolerated by everyone. The moment Dewey had decided that he wanted the throne it had been over and no amount of fancy posters, or diligent plans, or carefully assembled slide shows would ever overcome the ‘just Dewey-it!’ attitude.
Huey leaned in further. “It’s not fair,” he murmured.
“I know.” Della sighed, still rubbing his back. “I know.”
“He cheated.”
Silenece greeted him.
“He cheated,” Huey repeated, a little louder and a lot more pointedly. He looked up at Della who’d taken a sudden interest in the light fitting. “Mom. He cheated.”
Della let out a long sigh. “Huey, Donald raised you kids better than I dared hope. Probably better than I would have managed. He taught you all the right lessons. Lessons about the value of family, and kindness, and the importance of being yourself, and fairness.”
A beat passed as Della stared into space. Moon eyed Louie called it, unkindly.
“Mom?”
She shook herself. “I have a tough lesson for you. There world isn’t fair.”
“I know that,” Huey protested. If the world was fair there wouldn’t be an evil villain threatening to end it on a quarterly basis.
Della shook her head and barrelled on. “I don’t think you do. Because the thing is, while I have had words with your brother about his actions, you were cheating too.”
It took a moment for that statement to sink in. “I didn’t cheat!” Huey exclaimed, recoiling. “I filled in all the right paperwork, I kept to my assigned speaking time, I definitely did not attempt to bribe the entire school body with ice cream, I—“
Della held up a hand and Huey stopped himself before he could get fully through his rant.
“You’re my son,” she said simply. “You’re the nephew of the richest duck in the world. You’ve had no small part in saving this city and the entire planet on more than one occasion. I could not be more proud of you, but you’re also in no way an average middle schooler.”
“But, but, but… I didn’t say a thing about any of that!” Huey protested.
His mom shook her head. “People are more than capable of reading between the lines. You’re famous, so’s Violet. Answer me honestly, did any of the other kids at school stand a chance against either of you?”
Huey opened his mouth. A few names came to mind, popular kids, kids who won trophies or got straight A’s, or ran clubs. None of them had bothered to sign up after they’d seen who was running, though.
“And, honestly, when you first chose to run against Violet, did she stand a chance against you?”
“Well, as Dewey’s deputy she is now Student President,” Huey pointed out, no small amount of bitterness in his voice.
Della froze mouth half open. “Huh… Yeah. Smart kid. Scary smart.” Shaking herself, Della got back to her point. “But what I’m trying to say is that yes, your brother made an ass of himself and now has to pay back Scrooge for five hundred tubs of ice-cream. Which is going to take a long time if busking is his best idea. But if he hadn’t, would you have won because you were the best person in the school for the job or because you were the most famous duck running?”
For a long time Huey tried to find a way to deny that, but he’d never been much of a lier even when he was trying to lie to himself. He hung his head. “I had a great plan for the school,” he muttered, pressing closer to her side.
“I know, honey, I know.”
There was only one thing left to say. “It’s not fair.”
“No.” Della sighed. “And, Huey, the fact that you care about it being fair is wonderful. The world should be fair, but it’s not. Because of who you are and who your family is you will always have advantages and disadvantages that the people around you don’t. You will meet people smarter than you, but be more successful than them because of your name. You will meet people so intrinsically good that they deserve everything in the world, but you’ll always have more. You’ll come across people who’ve spent their entire lives achieving something you could do in an afternoon because of your uncle’s money.”
Della pulled him into another side hug, her eyes distant and misty. Somehow, Huey didn’t think that they were all just imagined scenarios.
“It’s not fair, I know,” she concluded. “But life isn’t fair on it’s own and it’s up to you whether you see unfairness in the world and get sad or whether you see it and get angry. So, Huey, my advice is to be sad. Tonight. Your brother hurt you and that’s not okay, but tomorrow I want you to get out of bed and do something—no matter how small—to make the world a better place. How’s that sound?”
Huey screwed up his beak but, then let out a long held breath. “Okay, Mom. Okay.”
Della kissed him on the hat. “That’s my boy. Now, eat your dinner before it gets any colder and I’ll see you when it’s time for bed. Alright?”
“Alight.”
With only another bone crushing squeeze to remember her by, Della let herself out of the bedroom. Huey made no move towards his dinner, instead staring at nothing for a long while. When the ticking of the clock grew unbearable he went to jump down from the bed, only to find paper crinkling beneath his palm.
A sudden resolve came across him. Huey vaulted to the floor, crumpled poster in hand and went to his desk. Slowly, with a ruler and glue tack, he began to methodically remove the cresses and imperfections from the paper. It was almost impossible to completely expunge the little imperfections he’d made so carelessly on the page, but the end product was almost the same Huey Duck that he’d started with, looking so boldly out at the infinite future.
Huey realised he’d been staring at the poster and sighed. Reaching under his hat he pulled out his phone and dialed Violet’s number.
Violet answered swiftly, as if she’d been waiting for his call. “Hello, Hubert,” she said, in her familiar flat tone.
“Hey…” Huey was silent for a long moment, trying to find the right question. “Violet, can I ask you a question?”
“You mean another, but yes.”
Huey huffed. “Did you convince Dewey to run against me?”
Silence answered him. Just as he was about to repeat himself Violet spoke.
“Apologies,” Violet said testily. “I believe my sister is indicating that I should sleep.”
The smack of Lena’s palm meeting of her forehead was audible even over the phone. “Lie, Violet, lie!”
“Ah, yes that makes more sense.” Violet paused. “I did. I did not anticipate quite how out of hand things would get, but I did induce your brother into running.”
Huey took a deep breath and let it out as a huff.
“I believe I was ‘riled’ by your may the best duck win comment,” Violet continued, still dancing around the point. “But I am… sorry for the destress that I then caused you.”
“It’s—fine. Just fine,” Huey ground out. It hurt to say, but they didn’t give badges for taking the easy way out. “You were right, we shouldn’t have fought each other just because we had different ideas for the school.”
Violet hummed in agreement. “If you are amiable, I do find myself in need of a Deputy. I stand by my initial assertion, we can do more together than we can apart.”
Huey almost rejected her out of hand. Losing hurt. It hurt less each day but it was still painful to admit that he’d done everything he could and still failed. Taking the runner up prize never felt as good as going home with the trophy. But if Della had proven anything in life, it was that you never got anywhere by sitting down and feeling sorry for yourself. Life wasn’t fair, that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying.
“What do you think about the extracurriculars?”
“There was merit to your proposals. How about after school tomorrow we discuss things further?”
Huey sat back in his chair, sparing one last glance for the discarded poster. “It sounds the a great start.”