Nothing Can Stop Taylor Hebert [Worm/Ducktales 2017]

What do you do after saving the world? After stopping an existential threat, after preventing the death of the multiverse by an entity that would wipe out all life as we know it? Is there a correct answer to that? Is there an answer that changes how things should have gone?

We are so small, in the end.

Two shots. Blackness. My life as I knew it, was over. Perhaps I was dead. Was there an afterlife? What did I deserve?

I just knew one thing for certain: I wanted to be reunited with my mother.

Mom was fearless. She might have been an English professor, but the way she taught about adventure, you’d think she’d actually been on a few herself. She spoke about the moon like she’d been there. There was so much that she told stories of, that she’d wanted to do…

She was indomitable. Nobody could stop her. Nothing could. Until it did. A car crash ended her life. All that was found of her body was her left leg. The rest of her body had been engulfed by the flames. Unrecognizable.

Annette Hebert had been a remarkable woman, and if I could have one wish for my afterlife, it would be to be with her, no matter where she ended up. Of course, it was highly unlikely that she ended up anywhere bad. She was too good a person for that.

Unlike me. I was a murderer, a bank robber, a former villain who had turned hero, who turned… whatever I was now. Scion was dead, and now, in all likelihood, so was I.

The blackness seemed to go on forever. Engulfing my body, wrapping around me like an inky blanket of shadow. Masses passed through me, causing a tingling feeling, like pinpricks in my skin. It wasn’t entirely unlike parahuman healing, but it felt remarkably strange.

I could remember words again. English, the language came back to me. My memories were mine again, I think, and my eyes began to adjust to the darkness.

Shadows were tied around each of my legs, my torso, and my body, pulling me forward, faster than I’ve ever traveled on my own. A portal, not unlike that of Doormaker, opened in front of me, albeit with the first bit of light I’d seen since I started traveling. Maybe I was alive? Maybe this wasn’t the afterlife after all?

Whatever this shadow realm was, I was about to leave it, or at least this area of it, as the shadows pulled me toward the portal. I could fight it, sure, but there wasn’t much point. If the shadows let me go, then I’d deal with it, otherwise, I’d see what I could do.

A shadow wrapped around my face for a second before whipping off, and I could see clearly. My mask, which at some point had disappeared, was back, lenses in place as I was pushed through the portal. The shadows righted me in the light of the rising sun.

The sun’s rays beat down on the area around me, as my feet touched down on solid ground for the first time in what seemed like hours. I was in a rundown amphitheater with broken marble columns and a stage where marble dust and chunks lay. I could hear the movement of water just beyond the edge of the amphitheater and smelled, through my mask, the salt water of a bay. It was a familiar scent, even if this definitely wasn’t Brockton Bay.

A tingling tickle at the edge of my senses drew my attention to a dark-haired someone holding a glowing green gem above her head. I almost had to do a double-take at her appearance. She was a duck woman with black hair, wearing a slinky black dress that hugged her body. She even had a cape that spread behind her. A cape. She spread the cape wide with a flourish, and started speaking.

“Behold! Now, with the gem of Tenu-Ra, I bring forth the god of the Morning Sun, who casts the greatest of Shadows, Khepri! Take my sacrifice, oh god of the sun, and in return, do my bidding,” she said. She actually spoke English. At least, I think it was English. I could actually understand it. I almost wish I hadn’t. Her voice softened as she continued to speak with her British accent. “It turns out I didn’t need you, Lena, to help get my powers back. With this gem, I am empowered… by the gods! And the gods will do the bidding of Magica De Spell!”

“You’ve gone crazy!” A younger girl’s voice said, and then I noticed the pillars. Six more birds, five of them ducks, one a purple hummingbird, were tied to one of the pillars with ropes made of green energy, the same green energy in the gem. The one that spoke was a taller duck with pink-tipped white hair in short punk-like style. “Aunt Magica, you shouldn’t be messing with things like that!”

“Besides,” a boy’s voice said, coming from a duck that I knew was one of three boys, wearing a red hat. “Didn’t you say that Khepri was a god, not a goddess? That’s clearly a woman. I’d check the Junior Woodchuck’s Guide, but you have me tied up.”

“Do not question the powers of the Gem of Tenu-Ra!” Magica shouted sharply. “God or goddess, this is Khepri, right?”

Oh. She was asking me a question now.

“I have been called such,” I said. Oh, hey. Words. I could do words now. Whatever that energy was, it certainly had helped. I didn’t even feel like I’d had two bullets placed into my brain. Nor was my passenger… well, it felt like it was there, but… I wasn’t sure how it was expressing itself right now. “I have been called many names.”

“Ha! Take that with your Junior Woodchuck Guide, McDuck brat,” Magica said, taunting the red hatted duck. “Or rather, since you are a sacrifice, perhaps you won’t even need to.”

So, she thought she was sacrificing these… children to me? That didn’t sit right. They weren’t being tortured in a time loop or anything. I wasn’t a good person, but I definitely didn’t like the idea of just killing children for no reason other than a crazed cape wanted to sacrifice them.

“Sacrifice?” I asked, taking another step closer to the Magica woman. My steps were steadier now, but my feet felt a little weird, maybe a bit wider. “You wish to sacrifice these children for power?”

“For your service, Khepri,” Magica said. “Together, with the Gem of Tenu-Ra in my hand and your power, we will crush Scrooge McDuck, taking sweet, sweet revenge upon him and his family! Starting with these.”



Power. My power. She didn’t know what my power was, but she assumed I was a god… or goddess, as the case may be. She wanted it, my power. Either for her own or under her direction, but I sincerely doubted she expected to get someone like me. Maybe if she’d gotten the actual Egyptian god, Khepri, she might have had more success. Of course, that assumed he was real in the first place.

The gem seemed to be key to all of this. It brought me here. It held the children. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Some piece of Tinkertech, maybe? Magic? It didn’t matter. I stepped closer to her.

The gem would allow her to do something, but I didn’t understand what. Would it allow her to seize control of my power? Or would I be able to do something to her instead? My power seemed to be what it had been before Contessa fired the gun, or at least that was how it felt. Sixteen feet. That was what I needed.

I took two more steps closer to her, stopping just barely over sixteen feet from her, more than that from the children.

“What are you doing, Khepri? Take the children! Take them to fuel your power and mine!” Magica sounded confused, and perhaps a bit on the unhinged side. She started to laugh maniacally.

“Perhaps I should just take you instead,” I said, stepping closer, and I felt my power take hold, just as if she had been one of the ones I’d used. One person wasn’t strenuous on my mind; my passenger helped me hold her in place, forcing the laughter to stop.

“Aunt Magica?” The older girl, Lena actually sounded concerned over this despite the fact that she had been about to be sacrificed to a so-called god.

“Yes?” I forced the words out of Magica’s mouth. I could feel her muscles tensing somewhat. Fear. The gem pulsed in her hand. “Is there something wrong?”

“You kind of stopped mid-rant,” said the duck in the green hoodie. He glanced over to me. A look of realization passed over his face, something that I couldn’t believe I recognized. “Oh, that’s why. Hey, Khepri, right? Think you can let us down?”

“Why do you think she’ll let us down, Louie?” asked the hatted one. “Magica’s the one holding us.”

“And she’s the one holding Magica.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” said the blue shirted one. “How does that even make sense, Louie?”

“Simple, Dewford,” the purple hummingbird girl said. “Magica summoned Khepri for use of her power. While complete control over someone is not within the purview of the god, Khepri, clearly this Khepri has other powers.”

“Dewford. Your name is Dewford,” I said with my own mouth. I shook my head, not bothering to question it further, and instead had Magica bring the gem closer to me. I held out my only hand and deposited the gem in it from Magica’s. The question was how to make it work. The gem continued to glow, and a tingling feeling passed in my hand and up my arm. I willed the feeling down and away.

The glow stopped, and the chains fell away from the children.

“How dare you take what belongs to Magica De Spell?” Magica asked, somehow free of my power. That… was new. Did the gem somehow do that? She reared back to try and take the gem.

My training rose to the surface, and I kicked the duck woman away in a spinning kick. Wait, was my foot… different? The boots seemed… webbed, but they certainly were my feet.

Magica bounced back on the ground, sliding away on the dock. She started to climb to her feet. “I brought you here, Khepri! I can send you away! Take care of those brats for me if you want to remain!”

“I don’t think so, Aunt Magica,” Lena said, and her eyes started to glow blue. A wave of similarly colored energy slammed into Magica, sending her flying into the water.

“You have not heard the last of me!” Magica’s voice faded as she flew off. That… was different. She was certain that she’d survive that, but she didn’t seem to have any sort of brute rating. Then again, she clearly was a duck woman in a world full of bird people. Maybe they were more resilient here.

“That was awesome, Lena!” the younger duck girl exclaimed. Then she came closer to me, a grin brimming on her face. “And you’re so cool! Khepri, right? Are you actually a god? Or goddess? What kind of power is that that you have? And what are its limits? Is that costume your godly clothing, and do you know Scrooge McDuck? Most gods seem to know him already.”

I blinked. I’m really not sure how she’d managed to say so much. That was practically a superpower in of itself.

“Breathe, Pink,” Lena said. “If she’s actually a goddess, there’s the chance she’ll actually get offended.”

“And how many gods have you met, Lena?” Dewford asked. “I mean, we know three already, all on Ithaquack. Selene, Storkules, and Zeus were all there.”

“I’m not a goddess,” I said. I did kill something that could be called a god, but that was beside the point. I had help. Organized by me and my passenger… my currently inactive passenger. I glanced down to the gem in my hand. Was this somehow the cause of that?

“So, what are you then?” Pink asked. “Is that a costume? Why are you wearing a mask? Why were you summoned by Magica as Khepri?”

“I guess you could say I’m a superhero,” I said, answering the question. “What about err… Magica? Is she going to come back?”

“Eventually, probably,” Pink said with a dismissive shrug. “But you’re a superhero? Like Gizmoduck or that hatted guy that Launchpad likes?”

“Webbigail, she clearly is not from Duckburg,” said the hummingbird girl. She then looked at me. “And we have been rude in not introducing ourselves. I am Violet Sabrewing, and this is my sister Lena. Our talkative friend is Webbigail Vanderquack.”

“I’m Huey Duck,” said the duck child in the red hat and matching red shirt. “These are my brothers—”

“Dewey,” said the blue-shirted one, Dewford. It must have been a nickname that he used. “The best looking of us, obviously.”

“And I’m Louie,” said the one in the green hoodie. He looked at my hand and nodded. “You should probably hold onto that for now. Maybe get it mounted into a necklace or something.”

Lena glanced at Louie. “What do you know about that thing?”

“Me? Nothing,” Louie said, raising his hands. “But Magica seemed to believe it’d do something to control Khepri or hold us still. It chained us up. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m a lot more comfortable with Khepri here holding it than anyone else.”

“What’s your angle on this?” Huey asked. “Usually you’re all over new jewels.”

“Uh, hello, Hubert. It’s magic. Scrooge wouldn’t go after that without a lot of preparation,” Louie said. “And Khepri seems trustworthy enough to hold it until Webby and Violet can do the research on it. Even if she’s still going to be masked up.”

I shrugged and stuffed the gem into the sewn-in pockets my costume had. I didn’t exactly have any sort of secret identity here, given I wasn’t from here to begin with. Removing my mask would probably go a long way in gaining their trust and trying to figure a way back to my world. But I wasn’t sure how they’d react to a human. Of course, the only sample I had of this world’s people were all birds, whether they were ducks or hummingbirds in Violet’s case.

“I’ll take the mask off,” I said. “Just please don’t freak out…” Honestly, the only reason I hadn’t been freaking out was because I’d worked with Case 53s. Bird people were hardly the worst or most unusual thing I’d run into.

“Why would we freak out?” Dewey asked, a grin on his face. “You’re a superhero and you’re showing us your secret identity. That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty much the third one we know,” Huey said.

Giving an internal shrug and a thanks to whatever god or whatever that my power was apparently not working at the moment, I removed the mask from my head. I had to tug a little further than normal, but I noticed that as I removed my mask, my glasses had appeared in its place. Weird. Something just felt off. “I just hope that I’m not too weird for you. My name’s Taylor.”

Huey, Dewey and Louie looked at each other and then back to me.

“That’s…” Huey tapped the chin of his bill.

“You look…” Dewey scratched his head.

Louie didn’t really have a comment, but he looked at me strangely just the same.

“You look just like their mom!” Webby exclaimed. “You could be the long-lost twin of Della Duck!”

“Isn’t Donald her twin?” Lena asked. “Pretty sure I remember hearing that.”

“Wait… Della…” I reached up with my hand and felt my face, my mouth… which extended out into an orange bill. I held out my foot out and, even with my costume’s boots on, I could tell my feet were webbed and duck-like. I was… a duck-girl.

This was too much. Being transported here, fighting a woman by the name of Magica De Spell that claimed to use magic, of all things, and now this?

Wait, if I looked like their mother, would that mean that somehow I was related to the boys? As a duck. That’s what I was. A duck.

The world faded around me.

 

Bill 1.2


When I next became aware, I could feel a soft pillow laying under my head, and I was on what had to be one of the best mattresses I’d ever laid on. Hands-down, it definitely won every sort of comfort contest I could think of. Of course, some of my time the past three years, I’d been sleeping on harder surfaces, so to wake up on something this soft was a bit jarring. Not that I opened my eyes. I wasn’t sure where I was, and that made things a bit difficult.

“I can’t believe that you did this,” said a vaguely familiar voice. Lena, if I hadn’t missed my guess, sounded a bit worried and upset. She’d had a relationship with Magica. “Why did you bring her here rather than the hospital or something?”

“Two reasons,” Louie’s voice said. At least I think it was Louie. The three duck boys had been nearly identical. “One, Magica brought her here, and she clearly has some sort of special ability. If it activated in the hospital, who knows what could happen?”

“And the second?” Lena asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dewey asked. “She could be a time travelling relative or something. Maybe she’s from the future. Obviously, she’s more related to me. Just the way she managed to Dew what she did to Magica… That’s classic Dewey.”

Time travelling relative? Descendant or otherwise, that didn’t really make too much sense to me, but then again, powers, magic, and the fact that I was now a duck person like them meant that the theory could be plausible. At least from their end, anyway. God, that was a strange thing to think about, but at least I was able to think. Those last moments on Earth Bet, I had lost most understanding of anything at all. Perhaps my passenger had done something or at least attempted to do something, but I really didn’t know.

Wait, did Dewey really just stress the “do” as “Dew” in what he said? How old was he? In human terms, not duck terms, if they didn’t cross over.

“I’m not sure that’s completely accurate,” said Huey. “The Junior Woodchuck’s Guide—”

“Yeah, I doubt it has anything for this situation in it,” Louie said. “Am I right, Violet?”

“Other than Rule 383: Time flows like a river,” Violet said, and then Huey joined her for the remainder of whatever the rule was. “It is foolhardy to swim against it.”

Well, good thing I wasn’t a time traveler then. Dimensional travel was probably different, and given that I wasn’t the one who intentionally came here, using Doormaker or otherwise, I was probably in decent shape. Still…

“I believe that your guest is awake. Her breathing rate has increased slightly, and her eyes have stopped their rapid movement,” said the cool logical voice of Violet. Then she addressed me directly. “Taylor was the name you introduced yourself as, correct?”

“Yeah,” I said, opening my eyes. Oh. Wow. The room I was in was big enough that you could fit four or five of my cells within it and still have room for a kitchen and bathroom. The walls were painted a lovely shade of deep forest green that matched the covers on the bed I was lying on, which was far larger than any of the beds I’d laid on in my life prior to this point. I’m sure there were paintings on the wall, but without my glasses, I couldn’t exactly see clearly what they looked like. The only lenses I knew I had were in my mask, and that definitely wasn’t within my arm’s reach. “… where exactly am I?”

“McDuck Manor,” said the only girl’s voice I hadn’t heard as Webby’s face popped into my line of vision. At least I think it was Webby. The pink bow was a giveaway, but her face was blurry because of no glasses.

Unfortunately, the invasion of my personal space had me react in a predictable manner. I lashed out with my good arm, grabbing the small duck by the hem of her blouse and I tossed her away from me.

“Webby!” Lena yelled. And immediately, I could see the build-up of a pink wave of energy. I rolled from the bed, just in time to get out of the way.

Webby, for her part, called out, “I’m okay, Lena! You don’t have to do anything.”

“Aunt Magica summoned her,” Lena said. “You can’t trust anything that she brings out.”

“We trust you,” Louie pointed out.

“And you shouldn’t have! Remember what happened a couple years ago?” Lena asked. “And she attacked you!”

“She was right by me,” I said. “It was instinct. I don’t react well to people getting too close to my personal space.”

“See, Lena?” Webby asked, and I saw her blurry form move over to the taller duck. “Taylor didn’t mean to do that.”

“I don’t know, Pink,” Lena said. “I’m not so sure that we should trust her.”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure you should either. I’m not a time traveler. That much I can tell you. The rest…”

“The rest, I believe, you will be telling to me,” said a Scottish voice from the door. The duck in the doorway looked far older than any of the other ducks in the room… including myself. It looked like he wore a top hat, and he wore something red on his chest. Like the other ducks, though, he definitely was not wearing any pants. What the heck was with that? “All right, kids. Filter out. I need to talk with this young lady alone.”

“Should we grab Mom?” Huey asked.

“Beakley too,” said the older duck. How much older, I couldn’t tell. Without my glasses in, all I got a sense of was his words. “I’ll talk with her, but I trust Beakley’s judgement.”

“What about Uncle Donald?” Dewey asked.

“Ach, don’t overwhelm her,” he said. “Just get out of here, kids. When we’re done, I’m sure there will be much to talk about.”

“Right, Uncle Scrooge,” said Louie. “Just… be careful.” I think I saw him looking at me directly. “And Taylor, I think that thing should stay with you.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said noncommittally. The thing in question, the gem, I could feel in my pocket. What I couldn’t feel at the moment were any bugs or anything else nearby outside of myself. I slowly allowed myself to come out of the defensive stance I’d been in.

“Ah, you look like you’ve seen a rough patch of it,” Scrooge said. “Perhaps you should sit down, lass.”

“I’ve been lying down,” I said, but I did follow his advice.

“Right, well you heard my name,” Scrooge said. “But I feel like a proper introduction should take place. I am Scrooge McDuck, and I’m the richest duck in the world.”

“The richest duck…” I frowned, squinting a bit to get a better idea of what he looked like. “Well, I’m Taylor Hebert.”

“Aye. Summoned here by Magica De Spell, correct?” Scrooge seemed to tilt his head after my nod. I really couldn’t tell. Maybe I should have put my mask on, but I didn’t really want to just do that. “Bless me bagpipes, you really do look like Della. Longer, darker hair, with curls, sure, but everything else is a spitting image.”

“Della would be the mom of the boys, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” Scrooge said, and then he frowned, or at least I think he did, walking to a dresser. He rummaged around in it for a few seconds before pulling out something. “May I approach you, lass? Ye seem like a bit of a jumpy sort. Then again, Webby does bring that out of people.”

“Depends,” I said. “What are you approaching for?”

“Something I think you might need,” Scrooge said, holding up what looked like a pair of glasses. “I’m not sure these are exactly your prescription, but they may do until you can get a pair of your own.”

I shrugged, and Scrooge came up to me, handing me the glasses. I put them on, somehow having them hold onto my head despite the lack of ears, and the world got clearer. Scrooge really was an older duck. With the pair of spectacles that sat on his bill, his cane, and the… sideburns, I still probably couldn’t guess his age. He seemed very spry for whatever age it was though. This wasn’t quite my prescription, but it was remarkably close.

“There, now can ye see okay?” Scrooge asked. The Scottish brogue of his wasn’t completely there, but it was obvious enough in his speech. At my nod, he smiled. “Good. Now, I would like to know your end of the story. What happened with Magica, and how did you come to be summoned by her?”

“I couldn’t tell you how I got summoned,” I said. “Where I was… what was going on… it wasn’t something I would have expected to be taken from.”

“What did you expect to happen?” Scrooge asked.

“I thought I was dying,” I said, honestly. I didn’t want to tell him the whole truth. If this world was unaffected by Scion, there was no real need to bring him into it. Even if I did need to explain my powers. “I was hoping that I’d be reunited with my mother, but clearly that didn’t happen.”

“Mmm… well, you’ve got the look of a member of Clan McDuck,” Scrooge said. “And Della’s old glasses seem to be working for you.” He looked me over again. “How did you lose the arm?”

“Fighting a supervillain,” I said. The costume was obvious enough, and there wasn’t any point in hiding that I was a cape, at the least. “Unfortunately, there wasn’t time or capability to get it replaced during that last fight.”

“You said that you were expecting to die,” Scrooge said. “Did you win?”

I nodded. It was an extreme cost, but we did manage to win. I’m not sure that any of those that had been under my control would appreciate the cost, but Scion was dead. The worlds were saved, and now I was here rather than back there. “The job is done. I had very few regrets.”

A sniffle came from the doorway, and as I looked, I saw three adult ducks standing there, one older than the other two… and taller. One wore what I could only describe as a sailor’s outfit, sans pants. He had a sailor’s hat and a blue sailor’s jacket on, but no pants. I didn’t get that. The female duck, the one that was his height, she had white hair down to her shoulders, wore an aviator’s cap with goggles, a brown coat with a blue scarf, and she actually had pants tied off on her legs, one of which that was metal.

The third duck was taller, broader-shouldered, and she wore a purple outfit that I could only describe as a cross between a maid’s and a businesswoman’s. She wore a skirt, and under her skirt, she had leggings, and unlike both of the other ducks in the doorway, she wore shoes. Her gray hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head. Okay, that was probably the weirdest thing. Duck people had hair.

I had hair, still.

The younger female duck was sobbing, and she quickly came over to me. “Oh, Taylor, I’m so sorry…”

Wait. I knew that voice. I hadn’t heard that voice in five years, but I knew it. When the duck woman wrapped her arms around me, I had frozen. No. It was impossible. It had to be, but the only thing we ever found of Mom was her leg. That’s what we buried. The rest of her body had been assumed to have gone up in the flames of the wreckage.

“… Mom?” God, I hoped I didn’t sound too hopeful. I’d feel very stupid if she wasn’t actually Annette Hebert, but she certainly sounded like her, and she was emotional over me like she was.

“Yes, Taylor,” she said. “I’m here, Little Owl, I’m here.”

Well, if anything confirmed it, that last bit did. “You’re here… and a duck?”

She pulled away and looked me in the eye. “You are too, hon. I’m reasonably certain that if your father were here, he’d also be one.”

Scrooge blinked. “So, she is yours, Della? I thought it might be the case, but how?”

“Remember about a week or two ago, when you managed to get me back from where that artifact had sent me?” Mom… or Della… asked. The other adult ducks in the room all nodded. “Well, I hadn’t been gone only a month like it seemed. For me it had been more like twenty-five years. I was on another Earth, called Earth Bet, and well, long story short, I met Taylor’s father, and we had Taylor together.”

“So, the car crash…” I started

“Whatever mumbo jumbo they had to do to get me back probably caused it,” Della said. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. What you and Danny probably went through… I can’t really imagine, and then whatever led you to accepting your death? Oh no.”

“Were you going to tell us?” Scrooge asked.

“Of course, I was!” Della… Mom said. “I was going to tell you so we could try and get back there to get Taylor and her dad here. I was expecting the boys to be much older when I got back, but I was happy they were the same age as when I left. Heck, I was happy that I looked to be about the same age.”

“Well, time between dimensions… it’s like this wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey ball of… stuff,” Scrooge said, and then at the look given to him from everyone in the room. “What? I’m not a scientist. I pay people to understand this sort of thing. Regardless, Taylor, let me be the first to officially welcome you to the family.”

“Thank you, Uncle Scrooge,” Mom said, and then she got excited in a very familiar way. If I hadn’t been sure from the voice and words alone, the attitude would have clenched it. “Oh, Taylor, I can’t wait to properly introduce you to everyone. I mean, I guess I should start with Agent 22.”

“Bentina Beakley, Mrs. If you would, Miss Taylor,” said the larger woman. “I am not a secret agent.”

I nodded. So, she obviously was a secret agent.

“Hey, what about me?” said the other duck, in a smooth voice. “Shouldn’t I have come before Beakley? Eh, Dumbella?”

“Take that back,” Mom said, gritting her teeth. Wait. We had teeth? She took a breath, looking back at me. “Taylor, the incomprehensible idiot over there is my brother, Donald. We’re twins.”

“I’m not an idiot, Della,” Donald said. “And it’s not my fault that people can’t understand me.”

I tilted my head. “Nice to meet you, Uncle Donald. What do you mean people can’t understand you? You’re perfectly clear to me.”

“Really?” Donald asked, and that was echoed by everyone else in the room.

“What, you mean you can’t?” I asked.

I really had no clue what I was stepping into.