One day, I was in the barn with some of my friends, while Lars, our farmer, was doing the evening milking. He likes to watch the news, on the little TV, while he milks the cows.

The news guy said, “Over in Mudtown, Ohio, the city council has passed a law that citizens cannot feed homeless people.

“Quack! What?!” I said, not realizing that I was speaking English.

Lars knocked over the wash bucket, a hen fluttered and the bull at the back of the barn fainted.

I thought they were just as outraged as I was. “Now that is really stupid, and mean too,” I yelled.

“When,” Lars gasped, “did you learn to talk?” He was looking right at me.

Just then Mike, (if you look at the picture’ he’s the one on the end with the orange beak), came rushing into the barn, feathers flying everywhere, “What’s all the cacophony about,” he said in English.

Lars sat down on the milking stool. On the TV, the Mayor of Mudtown was talking; “it’s bad for business. They never wash behind their ears. Those people need to learn to pull themselves up by their bootstraps!” He had an ugly sneer on his face.

“What!” Squeaked Mike. “That’s really dangerous! Look what happened to Nancy’s boy! He broke his leg trying to do that!”

Lars looked around. There was not a person in sight, “Can we keep this to ourselves?” He begged.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” I exclaimed. “This is way too outrageous to ignore.”

“Outrageous?” Lars whimpered.

It was then, that we realized Lars was not paying any attention to the news at all. Poor Lars thought he was losing his mind, because his animal friends were talking.

I looked at Mike. We both knew we had to do something, so we waddled over to Lars. Looking up at him, I said, “it’s okay Lars. We’re a little surprised ourselves.”

Lars bent over and stared, distraught, at his feet and started to sob. “I need a vacation,” he finally said.

“A very good idea!” Said Mike, “You and Ingrid could go to Atlantic City for a week. Have Nancy come over and do the milking?”

“All right,” said Lars. He got up from his stool. Staring straight ahead, he walked out of the barn. He left the milking machine still connected to three cows, and 21 more waiting to be milked.

“Better go get him,” said Mike, “we can’t do this by ourselves. We don’t have hands.”

Well, it seems Lars was taking this pretty hard. Ingrid came out to the barn unhooked the cows. Then, she called Nancy.

We gathered the rest of the flock and settled down to watch the news and keep quiet.

Later that night, in the loft, we held our first meeting.

Some of us thought we should just forget the whole thing and stop talking, as it caused a lot of trouble for everyone. But Mike and I insisted that something had to be done about this problem over in Mudtown. How is it possible that they could pass a law that you couldn’t feed somebody? Now, it was hard for anybody to answer that question. So, after a lot of quacking and a lot of talking, it was decided that we would have to go to Mudtown and convince them that they just couldn’t let people go hungry.

But how were we going to deal with humans hearing us talk, was a real problem. Would they all have trouble like Lars did? It wouldn’t do us any good if everyone ran away. There was a lot of arguing and cacophony. We didn’t even notice Nancy, when she came up into the loft.

“You guys are waking the sheep,” she said, in an annoyed tone of voice.

“Quack- quack- quack,” several of us replied.

“Sorry guys,” Nancy said, “you’ve already spilled the beans.”

“But you’re not freaking out,” said Mike, looking at her sideways.

“Heck no,” said Nancy, with a chuckle, “my cat’s been pulling this stuff for weeks now.”

“So, how come we didn’t know about it?” I said indignantly.

“I suppose she just didn’t want to tell you,” said Nancy.

So, we all looked at each other for a while. And then Bob said, “any ideas about how we can handle this talking thing?”

“Well if you’re going to Mudtown to try to make some changes, you’re going to have to decide who you can talk to, and who you can’t,” said Nancy calmly.

“Oh, that should be really easy!” Said Mike, like he didn’t really mean it.

“How do we know this? How do we figure it out?” I asked.

Nancy, who is usually quite wise, replied, “well if I were you, I’d start with the children and I’d come right out with it. Say something like: ‘look I’m a duck and I know ducks don’t talk, but as you can see, I’m talking. I need your help. It seems that the adults in this town have a problem.’ And then go from there.”

“But what if the kids get scared?” Asked Jane.

“Well kids are usually more open-minded than grown-ups,” said Nancy, cheerfully.

Well what choice did we have. We had to try something. But that was only a start. How were we going to get them, that is the people there in Mudtown, to see that they shouldn’t obey the law and that it was wrong not to feed their neighbors? We couldn’t feed them. We don’t have hands and we didn’t have all that food. After all, we’re ducks.

So, one night after the milking, Nancy got a hold of a key to the library and we all went in and got some books, so we could read up on good strategies for changing things. We found some books on how to change things if you’re not very powerful or rich. We couldn’t find any books exactly on how to change things if you’re a duck. But we got some pretty good ideas.

So, the very next week, we were ready to set out for Mudtown. It’s kind of a long flight and were farm ducks- not the usual migrating type. Therefore, we needed flight jackets and aviator goggles. Mike insisted that he was the leader, and we all just went along with it.

It took us several days to get to Mudtown. One night, Fred thought he spotted a good place to sleep. It turned out to be the pool house at a motel. There were lots of nice soft towels in there. And there was grass around with lots of seeds and insects to eat. But someone inside the lobby noticed us and started making a fuss. Pretty soon, people wanted to feed us breadcrumbs. And Jane said “don’t eat them they’re not good for us, and if you eat too many, it will make it hard to fly.”

When one of the kids came out to look at us, I said to him quietly “what we really like is birdseed and maybe some fish?”

And then Fred added, “that salad doesn’t look too bad either”

The kid went right back in and right away a tall man in the turban, came out with the big silver bin full of salad greens, “well my friends here you are, enjoy,” he said and walked off. That was the best meal we’d had in weeks.

The next night, we found a nice field with some trees and managed to get through the night pretty well. And after one really rough day and another sleep-out in a barn, we found Mudtown.

We arrived in Mudtown in the early morning hours. It was not like the farm. There were people sleeping outside even though it was not summer time. They were sleeping close to the buildings and under some trees. Some of them were men but some of them were also families with small children. Mike and I and Jane walked around in circles. We were trying to figure out what to do about this. It didn’t really seem like a good place for people to sleep.

Pretty soon the sun came up and people started to wake up. One of the men got up and stretched and brushed off his clothes. He sat on the bench and tied his shoes.

Then, one of the families started to gather up their things. The mother and father found a water faucet and started to wash their children’s faces with their hands. And then the father said, “time for school; let’s go.”

“What about breakfast?” Said Nathan, our youngest member. None of the people heard him and the rest of us just looked and shrugged.

We followed the family down the street. In about two blocks, a lady, who looked like she was going to work, handed a sandwich to the little boy. Just then a policeman blew his whistle. He came and grabbed the sandwich away from the little boy and said to the woman, “it’s against the law to feed the homeless! If you do it again, I’ll have to arrest you.”

We all started quacking loudly! We didn’t know what else to do. We were afraid to talk. The little boy and his family looked pretty upset. I wanted to run up to the policeman and grab the sandwich from him.

We followed the police officer down the street. We continued to quack and follow. I could see it was making him feel nervous.

“Well, It’s the law! What can I do anyway? He pleaded

“That child was hungry, Man. Don’t you have a heart?” said Nathan. Mike bit his tail, but it was too late.

“You talking to me?” The Policeman, turning around quickly.

“Quack,” we all replied at once. The policeman ran off down the street.

What can the ducks do about this situation? Children are going hungry and people are sleeping outside without even tents.  The next episode will have some surprises and show how some children are able to help.