QUACK!!!

"Quick! Grab him!" I lunged forward, but the quacking mess of feathers made a dash for freedom just past my outstretched fingertips. Lydia backtracked from her hasty walk, barely managing to turn our quarry away from the direction of the open pasture.
"He's making a beeline for divider gate!" She yelled to me.
"Good! If Matt can turn him around on the other side, we can trap that stinker between the gate panel and the fence." I called back.
"Won't he remember that tactic?"
"Oh, sure, but this is Steve we're talking about. He's only running for the principle of it. Soon as we get him properly trapped, that duck will leap right into our arms." We hurried towards the divide line, where Lyd's older brother Matt was bent over, arms out the the sides, carefully herding Steve the duck into our usual trap for him. On any typical day, as soon as the bird realized where he was, his quacks would drop in volume and he'd just wait and glare at whoever came to pick him up. Today, though, I noticed he wasn't slowing down. Lydia and I both stopped and stared, dumbfounded, as that stupid duck wriggled through the gap made by the hinges holding the gate panel to its post. Fully satisfied with himself, Steve started to waddle away... Until he heard Lydia's boots thudding into the ground behind him. Then he quacked again and took off once more.
I stayed where I was, trying to figure out what had the duck so worked up. Mom and I were working a petting zoo later in the morning, and Lydia and Matt had agreed to come down and help us gather up critters. We'd already gotten everyone else, and ahead of schedule too, which is very rare. If things had kept going like that, it would be the herald of a very good day.
Steve was not cooperating.
The three of us had been set to trying to catch him, while my Mom hooked up the trailer to her pick-up truck. I took a glance over my shoulder to see that she was just about done, and my eyes landed on one particular pet carrier in the back of the truck. Suddenly, I new why Steve was so worked up.
"Oof!" Matt did a belly flop in the dirt, earning a disdainful gust of air propelled by Steve's flapping wings. The duck did a 180 to avoid running straight into Lydia's legs, scooted under some loops of scrap wire, and ended up in the one place no one would catch him: right under the metal feed shed.
"Well, there goes the rodeo." I heard Lyd say as she bent to look down at the duck. Smiling, I walked past her with my secret weapon in the crook of my arm. Kneeling just a few feet away from the shed, I lowered the critter I had retrieved from her cage in the truck. She hadn't even gotten to cluck twice before Steve exploded from his hiding place and came waddling at his top speed. As soon as the love-struck duck got within arm's length, I scooped him up with my free hand and headed for the vehicle. Lydia and Matt both chuckled when they saw who I had gotten: Ruby, the chicken who was Steve's girlfriend, and constant companion on the farm.
Mom was waiting for me with the open cage. "Well, I'll admit, I was a little worried you didn't think of Ruby a bit sooner." She told me as I walked up.
"Why didn't you say anything, then?" I asked, slipping both birds into the carrier.
"I was having too much fun watching you guys run around on your wild duck chase!"
Parents. Pfff.
-Triscribe