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The resident ducks of St. James’s Park were a rather peculiar sort, to say the least.
On an outward appearance, they weren’t particularly out of the ordinary, but they were far more intelligent than the average waterfowl treading on The Almighty’s green earth had any right to be. Though, to be fair, perhaps that had more to do with the angelic and demonic influences that have been frequenting the park over the course of centuries, and less with the actual ducks themselves.
They were also very particular when it came to the types of nibbles they deemed acceptable. It was as if they’d learned to develop a preference for the finer foods in life, like peas from Tesco’s frozen food section. Not even the Russian cultural attaché’s stale pumpernickel crusts were able to tempt them, even though it might have been favored by the beady-eyed, ornery goose that hung out primarily on the East end of the pond, as the ducks knew better than to settle for such rubbish.
It had gotten to the point that the diplomats and undercover spies using the park for their clandestine meetings began to suspect that the ducks weren’t actually real ducks at all, but duck-shaped listening devices based on how resolutely they ignored the soggy pieces of white bread being tossed right under their noses. The ducks had, of course, found this to be quite amusing, and happily continued turning their beaks up to the subpar snacks.
They weren’t concerned with wasting their time on old, boring bread when they knew the absolute best nibbles, at least according to the stories passed down from generation to generation since 1665, came from an odd pair of human-shaped swans that visited the park every Tuesday afternoon just before lunchtime—except in the winter, as the darker of the two swans didn’t seem to do too well in the cold weather.
The swans themselves, one with dark sunglasses and the other with a bow tie, were about as strange and unnatural to the ducks as the ducks were to the various diplomats and spies. And while they might have appeared human to the less discerning duck, the mallards and hens of St. James’s Park weren’t so easily fooled—not that it had been particularly hard for them to notice the shadows of huge wings being cast behind the swans’ backs as they walked down the cobbled walkway with their arms linked.
But despite there being something clearly off about the not-quite-swans, the ducks had no trouble whatsoever turning a blind eye to the pair’s oddities in order to keep the steady supply of edible goodies coming.
It was a nice day in St. James’s Park.
The late-morning light caressed the mirrored surface of the pond, bathing the various trees and bushes around it in a warm, golden glow. A faint breeze rustled through the leaves, carrying with it the gentle honks and quacks of the local residents.
It was also Tuesday, which meant that the swans would be by the park. And, as soon as the ducks paddled their way back over towards the muddy banks after a morning swim, they were just in time to see their favorite pair taking up their rightful place on the third bench overlooking the pond, sitting side by side and holding hands.
The swans usually sat close to each other, but it appeared that this time they were even closer than any of the ducks had ever seen them sit before. They were so close, in fact, that their shoulders even brushed ever so slightly when the dark swan with sunglasses reached into his jacket. The ducks would have explored what that meant, if they hadn’t immediately become distracted as the swan produced a paper bag from his pocket with a mild flourish.
A symphony of webbed feet slapped against the muddy banks of the pond as the ducks quickly waddled over to the pair, quacking excitedly all the way.
“Hello, dears,” the fluffier swan cooed down to the rambunctious crowd of ducks as they went about surrounding the bench, then went on to stick his hand into the bag his mate had placed between them. “Hungry this morning, are we?”
The ducks readily quacked in agreement, eagerly awaiting the rain of treats that would soon be upon them. Luckily, they didn’t have to wait long before peas were being flung into the grass by the handful.
Chaos erupted through the group as they tripped over each other in their squabble for as many nibbles as they could get. The dark swan seemed especially amused by their antics, but the light one hurried to attempt damage control by shucking more and more peas out into the grass.
“Greedy little buggers, aren’t they?”
“The greediest, I’m afraid. You wouldn’t happen to have had any influence in that, would you?”
“Nah, I had nothing to do with it. They’re like that all on their own.”
While some of the ducks raised their heads in mild offense at such blatant slander, the others proved the statement to be true, as they gladly took advantage of the momentary lack of competition and doubled their efforts to gobble up every treat in sight.
“Do you think they’ll miss us?” the one with the bow tie asked suddenly, turning towards his partner. “You know, after we leave for the cottage tomorrow?”
Each of the ducks, save for the truly gluttonous juveniles that were barely out of the duckling stage, paused in their snacking to tilt their heads to the side, unanimously curious as to what the fluffy swan was referring to.
“They’re ducks, angel,” the dark swan answered, flicking a pea at a particularly scruffy-looking hen near the outskirts of the group. The tasty treat bounced off her beak before she managed to catch it on the rebound, swallowing it whole. “They probably forget about us as soon as we run out of snacks. That’s just how they are.”
“Oh, yes, you’re probably right on that.”
“‘Course I am.” The dark swan stood from the bench, crumpling the paper bag as he went, and completely missed the waste bin he tossed it at. “So, what’s for lunch?”
“What would you say to the Ritz? I believe a table for two has just miraculously become available.”
“Yeah, sounds good to me. Let’s go.”
And with that, the ducks went about their day, scrounging through the grass for any peas they might have missed long after the swans had left their bench.
Eventually, Tuesday rolled around again, same as it always did, and the ducks had gotten quite comfortable in expecting the swans would come strolling down the pathway soon enough.
But this time, they never actually came.
Puzzled, the ducks waited near the empty bench, racking their brains for a reason as to why the swans weren’t there when they’d never missed a Tuesday before. It wasn’t exactly unusual for only one of the swans to show up on many occasions. Be it the dark one or the fuzzy one, at least one of them always made a point to stop by with a bag of pea or oats or freeze-dried mealworms—or even a delightful mix of all three—each week without fail. Until now, evidently.
After the initial period of forlornly quacking up at the sky about their unjust abandonment, they regretfully spent the entire afternoon fending for themselves. But the more they thought about the situation they’d found themselves in, the more things didn’t seem to add up.
Something had changed, they were sure of that much, but were the swans ever coming back? Did something happen to them? Or could it have been their collective faults that the swans left? Had they been too demanding in the face of the swans’ generosity? Too greedy, as the one clad in black had said?
But before the ducks could work themselves up enough to start plucking at their feathers, they turned over the last conversation they’d overheard the pair talking about. While none of them remembered any of the specifics of what had been said, they vaguely recalled that the fluffy swan had mentioned something about leaving. And so, with that little bit of information in mind, the ducks smoothed down their ruffled feathers and kept an ear out as they clumsily navigated their new day to day without the swans.
A whole month passed before the ducks heard a promising rumor from a nightingale in Berkeley Square that the swans—though she hadn’t called them swans, she’d called them humans, of all the awful things—had been spotted in the South Downs, somewhere near a place called Devil’s Dyke.
Wasting no time, the ducks packed up their things—a couple of twigs, some wildflower seeds, and a sandwich one of the mallards had nicked from an innocent businessman that had unfortunately chosen the park as the perfect place for his lunch break—and took off south in hope of reuniting with their swans.
The journey was rough at first, as the ducks weren’t used to the strain of migration after ignoring the natural call of it for so long. But considering the overall good health of the group, it wasn’t too bad. After the third day in flight, however, they were beginning to feel the toll it was taking on them in earnest, wings aching as they struggled against the blustery English winds that constantly turned on them.
In total, it took nearly a week for them to get to the South Downs from London, needing to make frequent stops along the way for rest and to scrounge for food as the meager sandwich hadn’t lasted past the first day.
They were absolutely exhausted by the time they flew over a picturesque little cottage that was nestled on the outskirts of a quaint English village. The cottage was older in style, but it appeared to be well-kept with flourishing gardens taking up most of the backyard and the adjacent field next to the property, and rows of hedges that had obviously been trimmed to create a natural fence of sorts.
But it wasn’t the cottage itself that had caught their attention. No, it was the familiar black car that sat pride of place in the drive.
Tucking their feet and wings close to their little bodies, the ducks hurtled through the air and prepared to splash down into a pond that was in the process of being filled with clean, cool water coming from a garden hose. Immediately, their suspicions of who owned the property were confirmed when the fluffy swan looked up from his comfortable place on the porch swing at the disturbance.
“Ah, dearest,” he called to his mate, covering his lips with a hand to physically hold back an amused chuckle. “It would appear that Tracy and Shadwell weren’t the only ones to follow us out of London.”
The dark swan raised his head from the patch of vegetables he was in the process of fertilizing, then wiped sweat from his brow. A smudge of dirt was left smeared across his forehead.
He had just enough time to make a vaguely inquisitive noise in his throat before a merry band of ducks were storming over, making a beeline for the green pods that no doubt contained delicious peas, without regard for the young courgette plants at their webbed feet.
“Wh—Hey! Stay out of the garden,” he squawked, brandishing the hose as if that would be enough to stop them. “You’ll trample all my…hng, too late.”
And so, from that day onwards, the ducks moved in with their swan friends and took great pleasure indulging in freshly picked peas each and every day, instead of only once per week.