My sister and I watched as the wood duck paced around her pen restlessly. It was our first duck for the new pond that had been dug at our house, and we couldn’t wait to see her swimming and diving in it. When my parents had discussed getting this particular duck, I had imagined that we would bring her home, turn her loose, and she’d immediately hit the water. As far as my knowledge of ducks went, all you had to do was show them the water and they would stay there, as happy as a pig in mud.

Once my daddy brought her home, however, my mental image was shattered. This was a new place that she had never seen before. If immediately turned loose, she would try to take off back to her old home. This would be bad for both her and us; we’d be out of a duck, and she’d be taking off on a dangerous journey alone, one that she would most likely be unable to complete. So, in order to get her used to living with us at our house, she would have to stay in her pen until my parents were confident that she wouldn’t take off at the first chance she got.

Every day we would feed her, change her water, and oftentimes mist her off with the water hose, since she didn’t have any water inside her pen. She loved being misted off and would fan out her wings and shake her head in delight whenever we had the hose pointed in her direction. My older sister and I would sit and spray her off until she seemed to get tired of it, all the while discussing how sad we felt that she couldn’t swim in the big new pond.

We constantly asked our parents if we could turn her loose in the pond or if there was something we could do to get her in the pond to swim while still keeping her locked up. Our parents continuously gave us the same answer: Don’t turn the duck loose. Keep spraying her off and taking care of her in the pen. We, of course, were extremely dissatisfied with that answer. As we viewed it, they weren’t the ones who had to sit and stare at her every day, stuck in the pen with no water to dip her webbed feet in. So we hatched a plan. In our 9- and 11-year-old minds, it seemed foolproof.

The plan was to transfer the duck from her pen into a dog crate. We had several plastic dog crates that had cutouts on the side to allow ventilation, so the water would be able to get in it. We would then attach a rope to the door of the crate, and set the crate in the water, so that she could swim in the pond, if only for a short while. A key part of our plan was to not tell our parents. We knew that if they found out, they would quickly put an end to it. So we waited until the time was right and went through with our plan.

It wasn’t long before we realized what a horrible mistake we had made. At first everything was OK: She was swimming, and the crate was at a good level in the water. But it quickly sunk from that good level, continuously going deeper and deeper in the water. At first we thought we could stop it, but as the crate kept filling with water, we realized we couldn’t pull it back in. We began to panic. Soon the water was high enough that the duck began to get antsy. She wanted out, but we couldn’t pull her back to shore.

We began to shout for help, but no one could hear us. Our parents had trusted us with the simple task of feeding and spraying a duck, and here we were, giving her a coronary. We knew that if we ran to the house for help, we’d be in huge trouble. But if we couldn’t get the crate out on our own, who knows what would happen to the poor duck who hadn’t asked for any of these problems. My older sister made the executive decision to run and get my mom, while leaving me to hold the rope that was attached to the crate. It seemed like the longest two minutes of my life, up until that point, wondering how we’d let ourselves get into such a predicament.

It didn’t take long for my mom to come running back to relieve me of my rope-holding duty, and she didn’t say much as she brought the duck back in and put her back in her pen. As part of our punishment, we had to explain the entire situation to our daddy. He was quite disappointed in us, and while telling him the story, I remember feeling so ashamed. We thought we knew better than them, so we tried to make our own decisions. In doing so, we disobeyed our parents and gave our duck a panic attack. We received our punishment, and while we of course didn’t want it, we knew we both deserved it. We did learn our lesson that day about obeying our parents. The duck stayed in her pen just a few more weeks before she was able to go free range. She would come up to my mom and eat straight out of her hand; she would follow her around, and just hang out with my mom. Another lesson I learned that day is that ducks don’t easily forgive. She never liked being around me, my sister or dog crates after that.