Funny Frank Read online

  First they took Frank out of the rabbit hutch and made careful notes of his measurements — the length of his back, the breadth of his breast — and then they held the hot-water bottle up against him to try it on for size.

  With her dressmaking shears, Jemima's mother cut off the mouth of the bottle and cut right round the edges of it to make two rubber panels. “One for his front, one for his back,” she said,“and then I'll stick them together.”

  “Remembering,” said Ted, “to leave a hole at the end for his head and neck to stick out. Oh yes, and two holes for his legs and another for his tail.”

  “What about his wings?” Jemima asked.

  “Oh yes, and two holes for his wings. He can use those to pull himself along through the water, like an oarsman. It won't matter if they get wet.”

  “Well, I can't guarantee,” said Jemima's mother, “that the finished article will be completely waterproof, of course, but it should keep most of him pretty dry.”

  Between the three of them they managed to hold a protesting Frank and place the two rubber panels against him— front and back—testing for size.

  “It'll be miles too big,” Jemima said.

  “It will now,” said her mother, “but don't forget Frank's going to grow. And I'm not making him a whole lot of different-sized wet suits. This one will have to do.”

  “Let me know how you get on,” said the vet.“I must be off.”

  Carrie Tabb had never before set out to make a wet suit for a chicken, but before long Frank was having his first fitting so that she could see exactly where to make the holes for neck, wings, legs, and tail. This done, the two panels of the old hot-water bottle were put on Frank, front and back, and then the two halves were stuck together with superglue.

  At first Frank protested loudly at the treatment he was receiving, but once the finished wet suit was finally fitted on him, he seemed to be quite pleased with himself and walked about and flapped his wings and shouted, “Frank!” in a loud voice.

  Later, when Tom Tabb had finished milking his cows, he called his brother, the vet.

  “What time will you finish at your office, Ted?” he asked.

  “About four, I hope.”

  “Well, come on over then. We're going to try out Frank's new suit.”

  “On the duck pond?”

  “Yes. Seeing as it was your crazy idea, you'd better come to the ceremony. You're invited to the launch of Frank.”

  So, later, the four Tabbs stood at the edge of the duck pond, wet-suited Frank in Jemima's arms. Around the pond Frank's brothers and sisters were standing, and Gertie and Mildred, and all the other hens of the flock, and the big cockerel. They knew something was going to happen because gossipy Mildred had told them. On the water the ducks and their ducklings cruised.

  Now Jemima, in her wellies, waded out into deeper water and carefully lowered Frank onto the surface and let go of him.

  He floated.

  Loudly, the ducks on the pond quacked in amusement. A chicken that floated— weird!

  Around the rim the hens squawked in amazement and the big cockerel gave a loud crow of surprise, while Frank's brothers and sisters scampered up and down in excitement.

  “He's swimming!” gasped Gertie to Mildred as she gazed upon her wet-suited son.

  “Well, not exactly, dear,” replied Mildred. “He's floating, certainly, but he's not going anywhere much. He'd have to have webbed feet for that.”

  Frank was indeed trying to swim. He bashed on the water with his wings and he kicked about with his legs, but neither method propelled him very far. It was plain that Mildred was right, and the watching Tabbs came to the same conclusion.

  “You said he'd pull himself along with his wings like an oarsman,” said Jemima to her uncle,“but he can hardly move.”

  “He's too heavy with all that gear on,” said her father, and then farmer and vet said with one voice, “He needs webbed feet.”

  “Right,” said Jemima's mother. “Then it's back to the drawing board!”

  Chapter Six

  “We can't just leave him there, floating about,” said Jemima.

  “Go and get some corn and feed the rest of the flock,” said her father.

  “Yes,” said her uncle. “Frank will come out of the pond quick enough then.”

  And indeed, once Jemima had scattered some handfuls of corn in the orchard grass and the rest were all pecking away at it, Frank managed slowly to scull his way to the pond's edge until at last his feet touched bottom and he could, very clumsily, run to join the others.

  All this time Jemima had been watching, and now she saw that all the corn had been eaten, leaving none for Frank. So she fetched another handful just for him and kept the rest away while he ate, scratching at the little heap of corn with his long toes. Great for scratching, thought Jemima, great for running on the grass, but useless for swimming. How could they help him?

  She watched as Frank pecked up the last grain of corn and then looked up at her inquiringly, head on one side. “You're a bright boy, Frank, aren't you?” she said.“You look at me as though you can understand what I'm saying. I just wish you weren't such a worry to us, wanting to swim like a duck. I suppose you're going to go straight back on the pond now?”

  As an answer, Frank did. He walked right in till he was out of his depth, and then he floated out toward the ducks.

  The ducklings were the first to greet him.

  “Hi there, chick!” they cried. “Love your gear, man! It's cool!”

  “Actually,” said Frank,“it's rather hot in the sunshine — when I'm on land, I mean.”

  “East, west, water's best,” chorused the ducklings, and away they swam.

  Frank worked his legs madly in an effort to follow his young friends, but his clawed feet simply could not propel him along, and fluttering his wings was little help and very tiring. If only I had feet like a duck, he thought, so that I could thrust with my feet like they do and push the water away behind me and go sailing along instead of just floating. If only those humans would realize that that's what I need. They were clever enough to make me this wet suit. Surely they could think of some way to make me webs?

  Jemima's mother had been thinking. How could she design a pair of artificial webbed feet? She racked her brains for some way to do this, and then by sheer chance, the answer came to her as she was cleaning the bathroom later that evening. She was wearing a pair of rubber gloves as she filled the sink and scoured around it. They were bright yellow, these gloves, and some combination of thoughts about yellow gloves and ducks' feet and water

  gave her the idea. She could — she would—make a pair of artificial webbed feet out of the rubber gloves. I'll put something inside the fingers and thumbs to stiffen them, she said to herself, to help Frank walk (or waddle, rather) on dry land. Then I'll get a sheet of something solid — plywood perhaps, no, plastic, that'll be lighter—and I'll cut out two pieces the shape of a duck's foot and fix one inside each glove like a sort of insole. Then all we shall have to do is stick Frank's feet inside and tape the cuff of each glove around his legs so that no water can get in, and hey presto! Frank will have webbed feet!

  Chapter Seven

  One of Jemima's jobs about the farm was to shut up the hens and the ducks in their respective houses in the evening, to keep them safe from foxes. She left her mother working on the artificial webbed feet and went out into the orchard.

  Sleepy murmurs from the henhouse told her that the flock had already gone to bed, and automatically she bent to close the pophole when she thought, Oh, Frank! Is he inside? She opened the door of the henhouse. He wasn't.

  She went to the duckhouse, outside which several ducks and the big white drake were still pottering about, preening and gabbling softly to one another.

  Jemima hooshed them into the house and looked inside, to see all the ducks and all the ducklings—but no Frank.

  Quickly she shut the duckhouse door and ran to the duck pond. There, still floating hap
pily out in the middle, was Frank.

  When the ducks had begun to leave the pond and waddle away toward the duck-house, Frank had been in no hurry to follow. He had become rather hot, wearing as he was a rubber suit over his plumage, and now floating on the nice cold water as the heat went out of the day and the sun sank was so refreshing.

  “You coming, chick?” the ducklings called out as they swam past, following their mother.“It's time for beddy-byes.”

  “I think I'll stay here for a bit,” Frank replied.“I'm enjoying it.”

  “Wicked, man!” they said. “Let's just hope that someone else doesn't enjoy you.”

  “Who?” asked Frank.

  “Mr. Fox!” cried the ducklings, and they scuttered off.

  For a while Frank continued to float about on the pond, trying to decide what to do. Surely I'll be safe out in the middle here, he thought. Foxes can't swim—can they? Just then he heard his name called.

  “Frank!” cried Jemima. “Come off the pond, you silly boy.”

  When he made no move, she found a long stick and waded in till the water was near the tops of her wellies, then reached out and managed to hook Frank with the stick and pull him to shore. Jemima picked him up and carried him to the henhouse, but when she went to open the door, he kicked and struggled and squawked and shouted, “Frank!” in an angry voice. So she took him to the duck-house. As soon as she opened its door, he jumped out of her arms and rushed in.

  When she had closed the door, Jemima listened for a moment. Inside, the ducks were gabbling quietly and the ducklings peep-peeping, in a show of welcome, she thought.

  In reply her young cockerel said his name several times.

  Strange, Jemima thought. It's beginning to sound more like “Quack!” than “Frank!”

  “What d'you think of these, then, Tom?” said Carrie Tabb to her husband, holding out the results of her handiwork.

  The farmer picked one up and inspected it. “By golly, that's a duck's foot and a half,” he said.“Grand pair of flippers they'll make.”

  “More like galoshes really,” said Jemima's mother. “Don't forget that Frank has to be able to walk in them as well as swim in them.”

  “When are you going to fit them on him?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Jemima can catch Frank when she lets the hens out.”

  “No, she can't,” said Jemima, coming in.“He wouldn't go to bed with the hens.

  He's in the duckhouse. Anyway, why must I catch him?”

  Her mother and father pointed—one with pride, one with amusement—at the strange pair of artificial webbed feet, bright yellow with five stiffened claws (which had been four fingers and a thumb). Inside each rubber glove, a piece of stout plastic had been cut to the shape of a duck's foot.

  “Oh, Mum, you are clever!” Jemima said. “I can't wait to see if they work properly.”

  “Well, wait till I've finished tomorrow morning's milking,” said her father.“This is something I don't want to miss.”

  When, the next day, the farmer came into the orchard, his wife and daughter were ready and waiting. They had fitted the new feet to Frank and taped the cuffs of the gloves securely around each leg. He was quite a sight, with his brown head and wings and tail poking out of his green hot-water-bottle wet suit and his yellow rubber-glove webs.

  Jemima put the young cockerel down on the grass. For a moment Frank stood still, puzzled by the strange things that had been put on his feet. Then he began to walk, lifting each foot high and then putting it down again flat on the ground, rather like a man in snowshoes. He tripped himself up once or twice due to the size of his new webs, but then he got more used to them and began to make his way toward the duck pond. He sploshed in the shallows and walked on in till he was floating.

  Jemima held her mother's hand tightly. “Oh, Mum, it will work, won't it?” she said.

  “Fingers crossed,” said her mother, and they all three crossed them.

  Then, as they watched, Frank began to make strong thrusts with his long legs— just the movements he would have made to run on dry land—and immediately he began to move forward, slowly at first, then faster, faster, till he was swimming around the pond at a speed no duck could hope to match. In fact, all the other ducks got hastily out of the way lest they be rammed by this speeding water bird.

  “Wicked!” the ducklings cried as he whizzed by.“Cool, man, cool!”

  Farmer Tabb summed up the general amazement.“Luvaduck!” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  Gertie and Mildred had gone into the henhouse to lay their day's eggs, and so knew nothing of Frank's new feet.

  They were sitting in adjoining nest boxes, and Mildred — mindful of the rebuke she had recently received for speaking while Gertie was laying—kept her beak shut.

  Once Mildred had performed and gone out, Gertie laid her egg and then had a look at Mildred's in the next box. It was, she was pleased to see, a white egg of rather a poor size. Badly bred, Mildred is, she said to herself with satisfaction. I always knew it. Suddenly, outside, she saw Mildred scuttling back hastily.

  “Quickly, dear,” Mildred panted. “Come and have a look at your Frank!”

  “I want nothing more to do with the boy,” said Gertie. “He's nothing but an embarrassment to me.”

  “But you must come and look,” said Mildred.“He's really swimming!”

  Curiosity is a strong instinct, and Gertie could not resist making her way to the duck pond. At the farthest side of it, she saw, was her son, sitting upon the water, quite still.

  “If you call that swimming, my dear Mildred,” said Gertie in a very sarcastic voice,“you need your brains examined—if you've got any. Frank is simply floating as he has done before, thanks to that awful rubber suit.”

  Frank was in fact getting his breath back after a great number of high-speed circuits around the pond, but when he saw his mother on the opposite side, he shouted, “Mum! Watch this!” and set off toward her as fast as his webs could drive him. Which was very fast. Up out of the water he surged and stood proudly before his mother in his wet suit and new yellow footwear.

  “What d'you think, Mum?” he said.

  As an answer, Gertie gave a loud squawk of horror and ran quickly away. What had her son done now? Mildred ran away too, eager to tell the rest of the flock about this latest development.

  Frank turned sadly back toward the pond. Over its surface there still ran the waves caused by his recent rapid dash, and on them the ducklings bobbed.

  “Wow, chick!” they cried. “Ain't you the greatest!”

  “Greatest what?” asked Frank.

  “Why, swimmer, of course,” they said. “Speed of light, man! Fantastic!”

  Frank felt a glow of warmth. His mother didn't want to have anything to do with him, nor did his brothers and sisters, nor the big cockerel, nor any of the hens in the flock. But these little ducklings— they were his friends.

  “I really can swim now, can't I?” he said.

  “And how!” cried the ducklings.

  “Can I come for a swim with you all now?” Frank asked.

  The ducklings looked at each other.

  “Sure thing, man,” one said.

  “On one condition,” said another.

  “What?” said Frank.

  “Take it a bit slow, chick.”

  “There's no hurry.”

  “Nice and easy does it.”

  “You may like the high-speed stuff—”

  “—but we don't.”

  “Oh, I see what you mean,” Frank said. “If I'm dashing about, it makes the water rough, so it's not so nice for you. Is that it?”

  “You got it,” they all said.“It's enough to make us pondsick.”

  So Frank launched himself back into the water very carefully and began to swim gently around the duck pond with slow, measured thrusts of his big yellow webbed feet, and the little yellow ducklings swam with him, like a flotilla of small boats escorting a big ship.

  Then the b
ig white drake and all the other ducks, seeing how the ducklings were enjoying the company of the strange chicken, came out onto the water and swam along too, so that Frank found himself at the head of a great armada of ducks.

  At last, he thought happily, I am in my element!

  Chapter Nine

  It so happened that later that day one of Tom Tabb's best cows was having difficulty in calving, and so he sent for his brother the vet. Later, when the calf had been safely delivered—a heifer calf at that, which pleased the farmer—Ted Tabb asked how Jemima's Frank was getting on.

  “You'll be amazed,” Tom said. “Carrie has made him artificial feet. I'll just go and get a bowl of corn and we'll go down to the duck pond and you'll see.”

  By chance all the ducks and the ducklings were pottering about in the orchard grass, so that the pond was empty of birds except for Frank.

  He had been trying to copy his friends, who were so good at putting their heads below the surface to pull up weeds or snap up wiggly things. If I'm going to be a proper duck, he told himself, I've got to be able to do that, and so he had been practicing. But somehow he didn't seem to have the knack of it. He could put his head under all right (though not very far—the wet suit would not allow it), but he wasn't too clever at holding his breath or keeping his beak closed, so that the water got up his nostrils and down his throat. Altogether he was fed up and glad to see the two men approaching, one holding a bowl of corn and calling him by name.