PART 1 – Mr R. Pato

“Oh, that’s bliss.”

The words escaped from Mr R. Pato’s mouth as he put his feet into the pleasantly cool waters of Lake Wānaka for the first time.

“This is exactly what I was promised in the guidebook, and more…”

Soon Mr R. Pato was up to his waist in the water, swimming around like he’d always been there. You could see the stresses of his life flowing away from him with the ripples he created in the water.

Mr R. Pato had a very busy and stressful job in Hollywood and he really needed a break. All of us will have seen him in one of his many great blockbusters, but he was one of those amazing character actors who is so different in each role that he was very rarely recognised on screen and even less so when he was himself. He’d asked around some of his actor friends for a place to go to and chill on holiday with good scenery, good food, good water and a relaxed way of life. New Zealand was top of their recommendations. A friend convinced him that Lake Wānaka was the first place he should go. The friend had spent a couple of years filming a trilogy in New Zealand and talked with such passion about the place that it soon became the only choice for Mr R. Pato, even considering the long distance he would have to fly. He was not at all disappointed with the decision.

Yes, it had been a long journey for him to get to New Zealand, and he had made it longer than it needed to be by starting his holiday back home. Mr R. Pato flew from his current home, LA, to his real home back in Yorkshire to visit his family in Newmillerdam at their lovely lakeside house. Wakefield is distinctly in the wrong direction for travelling from LA to New Zealand and added a good day each way onto his travel time. But, he hadn’t seen his family since he was last in the UK filming a very well-known wizard film and he really did miss home, so it was additional travel he was happy to make. It was slightly ironic that it would have been much quicker for him to fly through the centre of the earth to get from Wakefield to New Zealand, but that’s just the stuff of sci-fi which he bitterly regrets is a genre he never seems to land a role in.

Now he was here in New Zealand, Mr R. Pato had three weeks to enjoy it. He’d planned on spending a week in Wānaka, mainly on this glorious lake before heading off to explore further, so he decided to get to know the locals. He found them to be such a friendly bunch and he was soon integrated into their group activities and they filled him in on all the things he needed to do whilst he was here.

His week in Wānaka was going very well. He spent his evenings in great company, telling stories around the campfire with his new friends. He’d been fully accepted by the locals, and they liked him a lot. They found it difficult to believe this Hollywood star was so down to earth, nice and friendly and such great fun. He spent his daytimes mainly on the lake, enjoying the water and the stunning views of the southern Alps, but he also ticked off the list of things he’d been given to do. He sat on the lake pontoons to catch some rays, swam round that Wānaka tree, visited the leaning towers of Wānaka and went down the dinosaur slide.

He was having a wonderful time, relaxing, eating and feeling very happy. That was until that fateful Wednesday morning.

Whilst Mr R. Pato was swimming along near to the shore front, he saw a stranger with a Canon camera. He thought that it had a CN10X25 lens which in his mind put the stranger as an enthusiastic amateur and not a professional. As he was looking directly at the camera, the stranger caught his eye and called out to him.

“Can you swim into my frame please? I need something in the near field to make it a good shot.”

Mr R. Pato was very used to being in front of the camera and so was happy to comply with such a request. If truth be told, he very much enjoyed having his picture taken. As he started to swim over, he heard the second part of his sentence.

“I’ll buy you a muffin if you do.”

Well, that was a kind offer, thought Mr R. Pato, and the muffins here in New Zealand were amazing. As he swam across into shot, he thought that he would very much like a savoury muffin, which were a new discovery of his here in Wānaka.

“Maybe one with some courgette in it,” he concluded as he turned his head to the camera to give the stranger his moody stare to match the surroundings. Then there were a few camera clicks, and after checking his camera screen, the stranger turned round and walked off.

How rude, thought Mr R. Pato, but then maybe he’s off to the café and I’m meant to follow him. So, Mr R. Pato got out of the lake, walked across the car park, crossed the road and headed round the corner to find his target sitting at a table ordering coffee.

Ah, it all makes sense now, he thought as he sat next to the table in expectant joy.

The coffee and muffin arrived in due course, only one of each and it was a lemon and poppy seed muffin.

Shame he didn’t ask me which muffin I wanted, but hey ho, I’m not going to complain at a free muffin, thought Mr R. Pato. I could buy one myself a savoury one, but I have principles and I shouldn’t have to.

Then to his absolute horror, the stranger scoffed his muffin down and sipped the coffee with relish.

“You promised me a muffin, I swam into your shot,” said Mr R. Pato angrily.

To his utter surprise the reply he got was, “I can’t give you any… muffins aren’t good for you.”

Something inside Mr R. Pato snapped.

How dare he, how dare he just buy one muffin. And a sweet muffin at that. How dare he just eat the whole thing in front of me.

“What do you mean? Muffins aren’t good for me>” Mr R. Pato shouted angrily. Instead of parlay, the object of his anger upped and left the table.

Incandescent with range, Mr R. Pato followed him back to his motel, which turned out to be the Clear Brook Motel at the other end of the high street. The motel, as you may guess from its name, had a lovely trickling little brook by it and Mr R. Pato was very pleased to see that his target’s room opened straight onto the grass just by the brook. He set up watch by the brook and festered in his own un-holy thoughts.

That night, when he returned to the lake, the locals were shocked by the change in Mr R. Pato. Gone was his happy go lucky attitude, his love of all things and his sunny personality. He seemed to be consumed by rage and was quizzically muttering something about muffins to himself. In fact, this was the last time they saw Mr R. Pato. After a few weeks, they stopped worrying about him and assumed that he’d gone back home and expected to see him on the big screen again soon.

How wrong could they be…



PART 2 – Mr I. Canard

What a view! Mr I. Canard thought to himself. Even better than in the movies. I’m really glad that I came over a few days early to just soak in the sights and get over the jetlag. Why do all the good places to visit have to be so far away?

Mr I. Canard was standing on the shore of Lake Wānaka looking over to the majestic Southern Alps and he desperately wanted to take a photo. He’d come out to New Zealand to do a photography tour so he could thoroughly engross himself in his passion. He looked through the eyepiece of the camera and tried to sort the focus out, but it just wasn’t not going to work without something in the foreground. Something in the foreground would make it perfect. Not being bothered to walk to his right where he could use a jetty for this purpose, instead, as a joke, the resourceful Mr I. Canard said to a duck to his left, “Can you swim into my shot please? I need something in the near field to make it a good shot… I’ll give you a muffin.”

Sure enough, just as if the duck could understand him, it swam into shot and turned what could only be described as a brooding look towards his camera. Mr I. Canard took some stunning photos, checked they were as stunning as he thought they should be on the LCD display, nodded his head, switched the camera off and walked away.

Now the seed of an idea of a muffin had been planted in Mr I. Canard’s head, wherein it took over and grew roots into a flourishing poppy. By the time he’d walked across the car park and waited for a gap in the traffic to cross the road, he was fully gripped by muffin fever. As if compelled by an outside force, he found himself sitting at a table outside of the nearest café with an order of a lemon and poppyseed muffin and a latte on its way to him.

Then to his surprise, a duck walked up to his table and looked quizzically at him.

Can a duck look quizzical?’ he thought to himself. This one certainly did to Mr I. Canard, but then his order arrived, taking his attention away from the duck. The muffin was exceptional, and Mr I. Canard congratulated himself on his choice of sweet muffin. Of course, the coffee was excellent, he was in New Zealand after all.

Towards the end of his muffin, the duck started to quack angrily at Mr I. Canard who in return just looked blankly at the duck for a moment until it dawned on him.

It wants some of my muffin, he thought. Well, who wouldn’t? This is delicious.

Mr I. Canard said out loud to the duck, “I can’t give you any. Muffins aren’t good for you.”

At that, the duck went off into what can only be described as a quacking rage. Mr I. Canard thought that it really sounded like the duck was saying, ‘What do you mean? Muffins aren’t good for me’, but that surely must be the jet lag playing tricks on him. Either way, he was a bit perplexed and was now sitting next to an angry duck, so he decided to go back to his motel for an afternoon nap to work on his jetlag.

After the most wonderful nap, Mr I. Canard was feeling very refreshed and ready to go out to investigate further. Throwing the curtains wide, he got a shock. Just by the brook outside his hotel room, he saw a duck staring straight at him. If he didn’t know better, he would have said the duck was surveilling him. Only this morning he had thought how lovely the brook was, but now he was beginning to change his mind if it was going to attract ducks. Well, not any duck, that duck. He was sure that that duck was the one asking for a muffin at the café earlier.

Over the next couple of days, Mr I. Canard couldn’t shake a feeling of being followed. In a town on a lake with a lot of ducks, there seemed to be just one duck always near him. It was swimming around that Wānaka tree when he went to get the obligatory photo… it came to sunbathe with him on the lake pontoon… it kept indicating which way to go with its wings in the outdoor maze in Puzzling World (never the right way though) and it even appeared at the far end of the lake when he was on a jet boat tour. But soon the time came for him to leave Wānaka on his photography tour, and he was very happy that the duck would be left behind.

“Did anyone else hear the noise last night?” Mr I. Canard asked at breakfast on the second day of his photography tour.

“No,” came the response chorus. Everyone else on the tour had had a lovely night’s sleep again. But Mr I. Canard was very tired, having been woken up at daylight by an incessant quacking outside his window. It was the second night in a row that this had happened. Probably not that unusual, except that he’d spent the last two nights in different hotels miles apart, neither of them near any water. He’d not seen a duck for two days, but again had a feeling of being followed all the time. But today would be different, he knew it. As he drank his third coffee, he knew that today was going to be a good day.

“Nooooo, not again,” cried Mr I. Canard in anguish. Yet another one of his carefully set up photos had been ruined. He was taking time to frame each photo perfectly, moving around to get the light right, the correct view, the correct near field, the correct far field then working with the camera to set everything up perfectly. Just as they were being taught to do on this tour. Painstakingly,you could say. Then just at the instant he pressed the button to take a photo, the duck appeared out of nowhere. Flying past, waddling into view, sticking its head out from behind a rock or wiggling its bum at the camera. You name it, it had happened, and it had ruined every photo from the past three days. Milford sound, ruined. Mount Cook, ruined. The Remarkables, ruined. The helicopter ride up a mountain to a remote lake used as a film location, ruined. To make things even worse, there wasn’t a hint of a duck in anyone else’s photos. They were all trying to console him, and saying the duck really added to the pictures, but all he could see was rage. His own rage, and the rage in the face of that duck.

Slowly, but slowly the days passed, and Mr I. Canard enjoyed the tour less and less. No sleep, no decent pictures, and images of ducks swimming in front of his eyes literally and metaphorically. Well, not ducks, a duck. Rather uncharacteristically, the only thought that recurred in his mind was how soon he could go home. Normally he loved holidays, but this was turning out to be a bit of a nightmare.

Finally, the glorious day came, and he got on the plane to go home. Halfway round the world he was travelling. No way a duck can fly that far, he thought.

I bet that duck doesn’t even know England exists, let alone where Watford is, he smugly thought to himself.

Even if it did, there was no way the duck would be able to find where he lived. Mr I. Canard doffed his cap at the silhouette of a duck sat on top of the slowly spinning airport surveillance radar dish and settled down for a peaceful sleep on his flight home.

Never before had Mr I. Canard found the two weeks at home after a holiday more relaxing than the holiday itself. Work was always super busy, more so after a period of absence, and he had everything he’d missed in his personal life to catch up on as well. Normally his only pleasure was showing off his stunning holiday photos, but there was none of that this time. That evening he caught up with some friends at the cinema and had a bit of a shock when he thought he saw a duck in the carpark, but then relaxed as he realised it was just a murder of crows. He also wasn’t totally sure about the choice of film as a duck played quite a prominent character in the film. But, after what was overall a thoroughly enjoyable evening, he went home relaxed and happy. As he drew the curtains, he had a bit of a turn as he thought he saw a shadow in the garden. Whilst brushing his teeth, he thought he heard a distant familiar sound, but he dismissed it. But it was when he got into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin that his blood ran cold. He’d heard it clearly that time.

“Quack.”



WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

This is your weekly catch up with where those stars are now.

We all remember Mr R. Pato and his string of blockbuster film roles. His glamorous red-carpet appearances with his suave A list co-stars. Well, this week, we find out WHERE THEY ARE NOW.

Multiple recent sightings of a strange duck in Hertfordshire lead our journalists to go and investigate. Imagine our shock when it turned out to be Mr R. Pato all dishevelled, with feathers everywhere and caked in mud.

WHERE THEY ARE NOW managed to snap him on a windowsill having a go at the occupant of the house. His speech was not his usual clear carrying voice, but quite slurred and hard to follow. It wasn’t clear what was going on, but we think it had something to do with muffin. We are as puzzled as you are as to what has happened to this once dapper duck.