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"You quack me up."

"What'd you say, Uncle Bob?"

"Oh, nothing Jesse. Finish your coffee. I want to be on the road before the morning traffic starts."

My Uncle Bob sure was a queer duck. Most of the time we didn't agree on anything, and some of the time I didn't think he liked me very much. I spent all of my spare time working for our local conservation club. My Uncle Bob spent all of his spare time working on his XXXX rack and his decoy ducks. So why was he being so nice to me now?

I was trying to figure that out when I noticed that the room was getting kind of dark. Then the coffee cup kind of slipped right out of my hand. Next thing I knew my head was lying down in a pool of warm coffee, and then everything went really black.

 At first, I thought I must've somehow fallen back to XXXX again because I woke up sitting in the back of Uncle Bob's pick up truck and I couldn't remember how I got here. I wanted to ride up front with my Uncle Bob, but when I tried to move, I discovered that I had these ropes all over me. I was tied up! And then I saw my Uncle Bob's smiling face looking down at me while he checked to make sure that all of the ropes were knotted good and tight.

"Mmhat mar mou gooing goo me?" I couldn't talk. There was some kind of sticky tape plastered all over my mouth.

"Sorry, I don't speak duct ­ duct tape, that is." Uncle Bob laughed at me.

Then he patted me on top of my cap and took the sunglasses off of my eyes.

 "You won't need these rose-colored glasses any more. I'm going to show you the world the way it really is, Jesse-boy."

"Mmwhat? Mmo! Met me gho!" I tried yelling at him, but I couldn't get my lips to move with all of that sticky tape stuck all over my mouth.

"Sorry Jesse-boy. Your lips are camouflaged so I can't see what you're saying."

That made me a little mad and I started pulling and twisting at the ropes that were all around my wrists and my ankles and my knees, but the knots were really tight and I couldn't get loose. Then Uncle Bob grabbed me by my feet and pulled on them until I was lying down more or less flat and out of sight on the hard truck bed.

 "Now you be a good boy, Jesse, and lay quiet. I'm going to take you out into the woods so that you can meet some of your friends." Uncle Bob laughed and laughed as he climbed into the cab and started up the truck. Then the truck started moving and we were off to I don't know where.

I didn't want to go, but the inside of my head was still pretty fuzzy, and I was feeling weak all over, and those ropes were tied so that I could hardly move anything at all. So I did my best to get comfortable on that hard bed and started watching all of the nice clouds racing by up above me. I think I must've dozed off again because when the pick up bounced to a stop again we were somewhere out in the deep woods.

 Uncle Bob dropped the tail gate. Then he grabbed me by my feet and dragged me over until I was sitting on the tail gate with my tied feet hanging down over the side.

"Mmhere mar me?" I worried my lips against the tight layers of tape that kept on pinching them tightly together.

 I looked around and all I could see was lots of trees everywhere. I had been out in the woods before, but I didn't recognize this place at all. And I was a little bit scared, not knowing where I was, or what was going to happen to me. Then Uncle Bob wrapped his big hand around the back of my neck and squeezed me just hard enough to let me know that he could squeeze a whole lot harder.

"Now listen, Jesse-boy. I'm going to untie your feet and then we're going to take a little walk. You give me any trouble and I'm going to tie your feet again so that you'll have to crawl all of the way like the little snake that you are!"

"Mmghes ghir," I mumbled into my tape plaster. I had never seen my Uncle Bob so angry before and it kind of scared me not knowing what he was capable of.

 Then Uncle Bob put his big arm around my shoulders and started shoving me along down this narrow trail through the woods. I couldn't move very fast because my knees were still tied together and my hands were tied down to my knees. So all I could do was to take these little baby steps with my feet which made the rest of me waddle like a fat duck. Then the dark woods were all closing in all around me and, the further we got away from the truck, the more scared I was getting.

"This is far enough," Uncle Bob said finally. Then he grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed my back up against this big tree. Then he took another coil of rope and began wrapping it all around my arms and my chest and that big tree, tighter and tighter until I could feel the rough bark of that tree digging into my back through my favorite shirt. Then he tied my feet tightly together again.

 "There, that ought to hold you, Jesse-boy. Now you can spend some time with all of your little animal friends. Pretty soon all of the nice ducks and bears and rattlesnakes will all be coming by to say hello to you. Oh, and Andy Fox said that he saw a pack of wolves out here recently. You be sure to say hello to all of them for me."

"Mmhat? Mgho! Mmou man't goo ghis goo mmee!" I screamed.

But Uncle Bob just laughed and waved good-bye. "I'll be back some time tonight or maybe tomorrow to see what's left of you and your know-it-all mouth after they've had their little visit."

 "Mmho! Mmease, Mmoncle Mob! Mmon't meave mee!"

But my Uncle Bob didn't even look back. He just kept on walking back up the trail to his truck.

Everything got really quiet.

And then I could hear them! All kinds of little chirps and chitters and whirrs and the rustle of unseen things all moving through the grass and the trees ­ all coming toward me ­ coming closer and closer. I struggled and strained against all of the tight ropes that were tied all around me, and I tried screaming for help past all the layers of camouflaged tape that were sealing my mouth shut, but it was no use.

And now all that I could think of was, after all of the nice things I had tried to do for all of my animal friends, now I was going to be their ­ lunch!

Well, Not Quite.

Jesse played by Rod

Photography by Caitiff

Date of Production: 07/25/2002