On April 2nd, members of The MacDuffie School community were shocked by the sudden appearance of a giant inflated duck with sunglasses when they passed the hallway in front of the business office. Resembling an April Fool’s prank, the story of the duck at MacDuffie had its root in the fall of 2016.

It was a regular fall morning for Business Manager Andrew Parker. He got up early and drove his Volvo to school. When he was waiting at the stop sign on Brook Street in Granby next to a house where ducks live, a duck leaped onto the hood of the car. Instead of honking the horn, Parker stepped out of the car and picked up the duck with his bare hands. He was driving his wife’s car, and he didn’t want the duck’s feet to scratch the car.

When Parker’s duck story spread in the MacDuffie community, people started to put miniature ducks in his mailbox.

“It begins with a rubber duck, standard, yellow with orange bill and painted eyes, and then in the interest, I assume, of diversity, expanding into green ducks, blue ducks, orange ducks, purple ducks, striped ducks, speckled ducks, spotted ducks, starred ducks, ducks with duck pox,” said Parker, as he smiled proudly.

After Parker built up his collection of ducks over time, his ducks started to disappear. In fact, the blue striped duck was the first one missing. However, not long after its disappearance, Parker started to receive pictures of the duck on “vacation.”

“This was the first photo that was left anonymously in my mailbox,” Parker said as he took the picture out of his piles of documents and started to analyze it. “You can tell from the background, from Mr. Pilgrim’s truck, as he always parks in the same place, this is the hallway directly outside of the library. This is between two of the succulents that were being brought up by the Mudslingers [MacDuffie’s gardening club].”

The second duck photograph shows that the duck was in a “geranium plant,” as Parker speculated.

The third photo shows that the duck was on the bread rack in the dining hall.

The duck had a companion in the fourth photograph. Parker said, “This photograph is recently identified as being in Mr. Hillman’s room, as you can tell by the chicken who is normally at rest on the window ledge in Mr. Hillman’s room next to a miniature Eiffel Tower.”

The duck is in a water puddle in the fifth photograph. “Although this looks like it’s atop undulating waves, you can probably recognize the dot-like surface next to the door from the rear of the building exiting towards the gym. This is the reflection of the staircase of the main entrance doorway at the rear of the building,” Parker said.

The sixth photo shows that the duck comes back to Parker’s office for a visit. As Parker commented, it is “adding insult to injury.”

Parker has yet to find his blue-striped duck, but he does not seem to be concerned. He said, “it appears to be a fun vacation.”

On April 2nd, the giant inflated duck appeared on Parker’s office desk. “I was dumbfounded, flabbergasted, speechless, can’t think of any superlatives at the moment, but it was unexpected,” said Parker, and he had to drag the duck off of his desk, squeeze it through his door, and place it in the hallway as a temporary solution.

The duck tale, however, did not end there. On Parker’s birthday, April 5th, members of faculty quacked the birthday song and gave him a duck birthday cake.

“It made me feel loved, even if I am not a duck,” said Parker.