"You can! Almost like..." She looks at Astrid 'suspiciously.' "you're a duck!"

"I am a duck!"

"I knew it! Your nose job and plucked feathers and ticklish toes couldn't fool me!"

"I've been saying I'm a duck!"

"Reverse psychology, of course. What duck would say they're a duck?"

"Ducks don't usually say anything."

"Exactly! And they don't proclaim to people they meet that they are ducks. So you had me fooled."

"I'm an odd duck."

"You are, indeed. But that's okay, all ducks are a little odd when you get to know them."

"They are?"

"You have to get to know them really well. Get them to start talking. And then they'll tell you the most absurd things."

"Do you talk to ducks besides me?"

"Maybe."

"Whooooo?"

"My sources have asked to be left unnamed and uncited."

"Why? I won't hurt ducks."

"Well of course not, you're a duck. But they don't know that."

"I wouldn't hurt ducks even if I was a not a duck."

"Well, that's very good of you, but you recall the aviophopic people."

"But is that very many people?"

"Probably not. Ducks are notoriously paranoid."

"I didn't know that."

"And now you are enlightened."

"I'm not paranoid."

"Well, you're an odd duck, and not all ducks are paranoid."