They were strange ducks. And I know strange ducks. I guess that’s why they liked to hang around with me. Birds of a feather flock together.

As I said, they were strange ducks and they were not the most attractive ducks to ever set webbed foot on the earth. A Muscovy duck is not the Robert Redford or the Meg Ryan of the waterfowl world. We had a lot of them (the ducks, not Redfords or Ryans) on the farm while I was growing up. They multiplied like feathered rabbits. They had red faces and a habit of making puffing and hissing sounds whenever anyone got close to them.

Many of these ducks had taken up residence in our dairy barn. One morning, I had just finished milking the cows and had tiptoed my way through the gathering of ducks begging for food by the Dutch doors on the front of the barn. I stepped outside, shutting the doors behind me. I had walked but a few feet when a Muscovy drake came sailing in. These ducks were pretty decent flyers and they could glide a good distance, but they weren’t equipped with much for brakes. The duck obviously hadn’t noticed that the barn door was now closed.

The poor old drake hit the door like a June bug hitting the windshield of a Buick. It bounced off the door and hit the ground with a sickening thud. I picked the duck up, expecting it to be a dead duck. I was surprised to notice a bit of life in the duck, so I set it inside the barn on a bale of straw.

When I came back later to check on the Evel Knievel of duckdom, I discovered that it was very much alive and appeared none the worse for the experience. It was then that an idea formed in my teenage brain. I had the occasional idea in those days &045; my friends and family referred to them as &uot;brain cramps.&uot; I shared my idea with my best friend, Crandall. I explained to Crandall that my sister had just been to a convention and that she had a pile of those, &uot;Hello, My Name Is…&uot; nametags with the sticky backs left over and that I had an overabundance of Muscovy ducks. I laid out the rest of my plan and we carried it out to perfection.

First, we caught four of the big ducks. Then we used a magic marker to fill out four of those nametags. On the first, we printed &uot;Duck Number One.&uot; We scribbled on the other three so that we ended up with four nametags and put one each on a wing of the four ducks. The name tags read, &uot;Hello, I’m Duck Number One,&uot; &uot;Hello, I’m Duck Number Two,&uot; &uot;Hello, I’m Duck Number Three&uot; and &uot;Hello, I’m Duck Number Five.&uot; Yes, there were ducks numbered 1, 2, 3 and 5, but none numbered 4. That was the genius of my evil plan.

Then we contacted the Keyman. Keyman’s father was a custodian at the local high school that Crandall and I attended. Keyman, in an obvious concern for the well being of his fellow man, had had a duplicate key made of every key that was on his father’s key ring. He did this in case some kind of a disaster struck. If such a calamity should have happened, he would have been able to open all the doors and free the students trapped in a burning or collapsing school. Crandall and I asked Keyman if it would be possible for us to borrow a key to the back door of the school. Keyman was more than willing to help. What a guy.

Under the cover of darkness on a Sunday night, Crandall and I opened the back door of the school and released ducks number 1, 2, 3 and 5 into the institute of learning. When Crandall and I arrived at school the next morning, we found the entire place in an uproar. Everyone was in a tizzy.

School administrators, teachers and custodians were all scrambling about like chickens with their heads cut off.

&uot;What is going on?&uot; I asked our high school principal with as much innocence as I could muster.

&uot;Oh,&uot; he growled. &uot;Some idiot let five ducks loose in the school. It was obviously somebody with too much time on his hands. He even labeled the critters. We found the first three ducks and we found the fifth one, but we are still looking for that fourth duck.&uot;

And as far as I know, they are still looking for Duck Number Four.

Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.