Deleted Scenes

There wouldn't be any deleted scenes for this book, would there? It's so short and so simple, not at all the kind of book that would ever need big structural changes. Not at all the kind of book that someone might have originally written, say, 13,000 words for, all the while knowing that was way too long and so cutting it down to 10,000 before sending it to her ever-patient editor who replied that that was all well and good but that it really needed to be about 8,000.

Well, as I commented on my blog a while back, if there's one thing I've learned it's that writing simply can be very difficult indeed.

It wasn't only the word count that needed fixing in my first draft of this book. I had my usual problems with the ending and there were altogether too many adults playing too-large roles in the story, so I had to do a major re-think. As a result, I have many, many deleted scenes across numerous drafts.

In the scene I chose to include here, you'll recognise some elements from the book - the kids competing for the duck, the many demands of Mrs Melvino, and so on, but also others which didn't make it into the final draft - the chocolate (fatal to ducks, apparently - oops!), the kids collecting duck-related words to add to their vocabulary and spelling lists in order to prove the duck's usefulness to the principal, and preparations for the Easter Assembly, which is where the final scene of the book originally took place.

So, here it is:

Abby hated the hole.

She dug the hole every afternoon. She dug it until her hands were aching from the shovel and mucky from pushing the sides back up when they kept crumbling in and filling up the bottom.

She dug it quietly when she heard Noah in his backyard, so that he wouldn’t stick his head over all the time and say, “Still digging are you? Better hurry up.”

Every day, they learned new things about the duck. About its demands.

They learned that a photo offered as proof of a tropical environment must be a photo of your own backyard. That Mrs Melvino was not easily fooled by photos of the local park, or pictures of palm trees and lakes which had been cut out of magazines.

“It’s the hula dancers in the background that give it away,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.

They learned that the parents who agree have to be your own parents, and not some random people from down the street you suckered into believing they were signing a petition to save the native tree frog. And that even if your uncle in Darwin has stayed overnight at your house before, a letter from him doesn’t count either.

“It took me ages to get that letter,” Noah muttered, aiming yet another piece of paper at the bin across the room.

They learned that backyard pools would not do, that the chemicals would not be good for the duck, and in fact, that it would be better if none of their neighbours had pools either, just in case.

They learned that the duck was not interested in cheap, grainy chocolate from Mad Monty’s Bargain Bin.

“Belgian chocolate only,” said Mrs Melvino. “Silver wrappers.”

They learned that under no circumstances would the duck’s demands be negotiated. That even though negotiate was a very useful word and well worth adding to their list, Mrs Melvino would set her jaw and shake her head if you tried to actually do it.

Finally, Mrs Melvino said she didn’t want people lining up at her desk every morning. “One attempt each per week,” she said. “Give it your absolute best shot. Wait until you are 99.9% sure you are ready.”

One day, Dale was so sure he was going to get the duck that he brought a cage to school with him.

Abby held her breath. She was so close to being ready.

But Mrs Melvino pointed to Demand #25, in tiny print on the bottom right hand corner of the list:

Appropriate Duck Transport

“This is appropriate,” said Dale. “It’s a real animal carrier and everything.”

Mrs Melvino nodded. “Yes, but I believe” – she wrinkled her nose – “that it has been used to transport cats?”

“Not for ages, though.”

Mrs Melvino shuddered. “The duck will be traumatised.”

Dale sighed and wrote traumatised on the whiteboard.

Mr Prescott came past every now and then and checked up on the duck.

When he saw the list on the board, he raised his eyebrows.

“Waterfowl. Species. Very impressive.” He stared down at the duck. “Remember, though. Not a foot wrong.” He looked back at the board. “Predator. Wow.”

At her desk, Abby stifled a grin and kept on working.

Mrs Melvino was keeping them busy making the duck a vibrant and essential part of their learning journey. They were copying the words down and using them in sentences. They were having duck-word spelling tests. They were doing duck-word-searches and making posters full of duck-facts.

Abby was doing something else, too.

They were making posters for the Easter assembly, like they did every year. Most people were drawing rabbits and chickens. A couple were doing bilbies, just to be different. And Max was doing a hammerhead shark, just because he was Max.

But Abby was doing a duck.

She was doing the duck.

She was drawing with her hand across her work so no-one would see what she was doing. Because if they saw that she was drawing a duck, they would probably say, “Umm, a duck has nothing to do with Easter, you know.”

They would be wrong, though.

Abby knew, because she had seen it in a book, because she had been reading about ducks and their demands.

And it turned out that a long time ago, people used to blow duck eggs and decorate them for Easter. It turned out that the duck was a symbol of new life.

So she was drawing a duck. She was drawing the duck.

The picture was taking her a long time. It was hard to draw and cover your work at the same time. Every night, she had to take her pencils home and work on it some more.

Her mother was very pleased that she was doing so much homework. “What’s come over you?” she said.

“A duck,” said Abby, looking out the window at her half-dug hole. “A duck has come over me.”

Her mother looked puzzled, but when Abby asked her if they could buy some pellets, and some more ink for the printer, she nodded her head.

“If this is the effect the duck has on you,” she said, “I am 100% on board.”

And Abby grinned, because 100% was even more than 99.9999% and that was excellent.

This weekend, everything was going to come together. The clamshells were going to fit into the hole. She was going to smooth the dug-out dirt over the edges and lay out some straw on the ground nearby. She was going to set out the pellets and the plastic, and wait until the sun was in just the right place so the yellow from the lemon-tree would reflect off the water.

She had ink in the printer.

She had chocolates in the cupboard.

Her parents were on board.

The duck was coming home.