Lucky

Part One here.

I guess the story starts a few years earlier. When I finished high school I didn’t really know what I was going to do for a job. I stumbled across a help wanted ad to be a nanny. Watch someone’s kids and get good money for it? That sounded easy enough to me.

A couple of interviews and I found a family. Or they found me. I guess we found each other. We were a perfect fit. Two children, a girl aged nine and a boy aged six. I’d rather not use their names. The mom and dad both worked as attorneys so their schedule kept them away from home quite a bit. Oh, they also had a pet duck named Lucky.

You hear horror stories about awful kids or abusive parents but none of that happened to me. The kids were nice enough. Their Mom and Dad were nice enough to me, if distant with each other. I’d take care of the kids during the day and when one of them would come home in the evening, I’d be done. After a few months, they cleared out a room over the garage and I became live in help.

It took all my time but the money was fabulous! I was saving plenty for school and not having to work very hard at it. I’ve always gotten along well with kids. We’d read together and I’d make sure they weren’t watching too much TV. We did activities together and I’d take them to the park. We’d feed the ducks there, just like we did the pet one back home.

I should tell you a bit about their duck. The boy won him at a school contest. The parents weren’t thrilled but they didn’t know how to tell him he couldn’t have it. He promised to care for it and he did (with help from me). He loved Lucky.

That probably helped when his folks split. Yes, that distance between them grew into dislike and contempt. That grew into court proceedings and a full divorce. She won custody and decided to move back out west and take them with her. He’d have them for six weeks in the summer and other weekends and holidays.

The important thing for our story is that she refused to bring the duck along. She wouldn’t have it. She maintained that she’d been against it from the beginning and that it wouldn’t live under her roof. The father saw an opening for his son’s love and declared that the duck would always be welcome with him and he’d take care of it so his son could see it when he came back. Just another one of those stupid things that people fight over when their children become weapons.

I think the father regretted taking care of the duck just as soon as it fell to him. Or maybe he just wanted to use it as leverage with his son. At least I don’t think it was an accident that he started sending duck themed things to the boy. Or that a recording of the musical ‘Pippin’ made it’s way to the boy. You remember that musical? It has a song called ‘Prayer for a Duck’ in which the lead tries to comfort a young boy about his sick duck. A nice little tune that had the effect of completely convincing his son that his duck could drop off at any minute.

This prompted frantic calls from mother to father. The duck would have to go out west to reassure the boy. Father was helpfully unhelpful in all of this. He couldn’t bring the duck, no. Someone else would have to. Yep, that someone was me.

I couldn’t drive it out there because I didn’t have a car. I couldn’t rent a car because I was underage. The train was out because they wouldn’t allow a duck. Flying wouldn’t work for the same reason. Or would it? I don’t remember if it was the father or mother who thought of smuggling it on a plane. What I do remember was that the price kept going up as I kept saying no. Finally, they hit a price I couldn’t refuse.

And that’s how I ended up with an aquatic waterfowl under my shirt. We’d talked to the vet and gotten some sleeping pills for the flight. We rigged a harness with plastic and canvas so that the metal detector wouldn’t go off. We planned the timing so that I could be dropped off at the airport with Lucky knocked out. If things went well, he wouldn’t wake until we arrived.

We worked on my appearance to make it look just right. One of my friends was studying stage costuming and make up and she loved the challenge of making me look pregnant. In my opinion, she did a great job. Maybe too good since I looked about ten gone. Everyone reassured me that it was tough to tell how pregnant a woman was. We forged the note to make it look like I had doctor’s permission. The planning went as good as you could ask for and it looked simple enough.

Until the flight became delayed.