“I think we should take it outside,” Rose Noire said. “I can set up a nice place for it in one of the sheds and—”

“No,” I said. “It’s not staying. It needs to go back to wherever it came from as soon as possible, before the boys see it and want to keep it.”

“Oh, dear.” Rose Noire glanced toward the kitchen.

I suddenly realized that I could hear Spike barking in the kitchen.

I had a bad feeling about this. I strode down the hallway and burst into the kitchen.

The duck was in the middle of the kitchen, inside the plastic fencing that we had used as a portable playpen for the boys before they figured out how to climb over it. The boys were inside the pen, petting the duck. Spike and Tinkerbell had deserted their heated cushions to inspect the newcomer. Tinkerbell was just sitting outside the pen, sniffing occasionally, and wagging her tail. Spike was scurrying around the outside of the pen, growling nonstop, except when he erupted into brief fits of barking. Rob was standing just outside the pen with his hands in his pockets, looking worried. Mother was setting the kitchen table. Michael was tending two pans on the stove, and Dad was slicing ham. From the haste all the adults were displaying—well, Michael and Dad, at least—I deduced that the boys had returned from rehearsal hungry and perhaps a little cranky, and they were hurrying to get food ready before the distraction of the duck wore off and they remembered their tummies.

“Rob brought him down,” Rose Noire said. “And I left him there while I went out to fix a place for him…”

“I get it,” I said. “I’m more interested in where the duck came from in the first place.”

Rob and Michael both winced. That surprised me; I hadn’t suspected Michael of any involvement in the duck’s arrival. Mother and Dad looked as if they’d also like to hear the answer.

“Mom sent a grocery list of things she wanted for her Christmas dinner,” Michael said. “I was pretty busy yesterday, so Rob offered to get everything.”

“And I did,” Rob said. “Except for the duck. The market didn’t have fresh ducks. And she was very specific—not a frozen duck.”

“You should have gotten a frozen one,” Michael said. “We could have taken the wrapper off and hid it till it was thawed. She’d never have known.”

“Now he tells me,” Rob said. “Anyway, I ran into one of the Shiffleys who said he could get me a fresh duck. Said he’d deliver it this morning. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Unfortunately, the duck is a little too fresh,” Michael said.