Daffy Duck sat on the lounge chair beside the pool, sunglasses perched on his head and a reflector held carefully under his chin at just the right angle to keep him from burning to a comical, featherless crisp if the sun hit it the wrong way. Which was likely. His luck was about that good most of the time. If Bugs was around, he thought idly, that’s exactly what would happen. The irascible old long-ears would flick the reflector just right—or just wrong—or nudge his chair or use his own reflector in a way that it amplified the rays on Daffy’s and he would be a smoking mess ready to tell him you’re dethpicable in a hoarse, resigned voice.
But Bugs wasn’t there. Hadn’t been by for a while, if Daffy was honest, and that was just fine with him. He was probably off starring in a role of his own, outwitting hunters or witches or vampires or soldiers or whatever the enemy of the week was. As long as it wasn’t Daffy.
Besides, this wasn’t technically his house, but as long as Bugs wasn’t here he could get away with using it.
There was a shift in the background music—most people, even most Toons, couldn’t hear it, but Daffy had always been tuned into the soundtrack of his life and could usually guess when something was about to go down by the new motifs. This one sounded like…Egghead?
Daffy lowered the reflector and half sat up, and sure enough, here came the little fellow riding on a bicycle, ringing his bell twice for attention. He pulled up alongside Daffy with a screech, reached under his coat, and pulled out a yellow envelope, which he handed to Daffy. Daffy flipped him a coin—he wasn’t sure of the denomination, that had never mattered, but it was silver—and ripped open the envelope. Inside, on equally yellow paper, was a telegram. (Daffy was at least vaguely aware that people didn’t really send telegrams anymore, but he’d never quite got the hang of text messaging, and neither had any other Toon he knew.) Anyway, this was good enough. Two lines of black text below the company header told him everything he needed to know.
COME TO LONDON ASAP
HAVE LEADING ROLE FOR YOU
NOT A TRICK—NO PRONOUN TROUBLE
B BUNNY
“A leading role!” he shouted in glee, jumping up and down and waving the telegram in the air as he clicked his heels together. “Count me in every time, brother! I’m on my way!”
He sped into the mansion—not his mansion, but there was a room designated as his anyway—sped out with a suitcase full of clothes and a hat clapped on his head, and whistled for a taxi.
“To the airport!” he yelled as the driver pulled to a stop in front of him. “And thhhhtep on it!”
“Yes, sir!” the cabbie said smartly.
Daffy reached for the handle, half expecting that the cab would pull away in a puff of smoke the second he reached for the handle. To his surprise, he not only managed to seize the handle, but actually open the door and climb into the backseat before the driver nodded at him and pulled away, smooth but fast.
“Huh.” Daffy settled back into the seat and beamed in the direction of the screen. “Thith could be my lucky day.”
———
Time was…weird. Every Toon knew that if you were traveling, you actually traveled in a matter of seconds—either by bouncing from place to place on a map, or because your plane or car or train zipped through impossible distances and times in the blink of an eye. And certainly the journey started out that way. But scarcely had they left the California airspace when the captain turned off the FASTEN SEATBELT sign and Daffy realized that he was…actually traveling. Maybe it was because he was going to London. London had a decent Toon population, but it was human first and more followed human rules than Toon rules, so he didn’t know what the deal was going to be. Anyway, it was no skin off his nose; he would get there when he got there, and if Bugs really wanted him there, he’d be patient with a little thing like a delay—or, well, a normal amount of travel. Daffy let himself stare out the window and imagine what kind of role he was going to be playing until he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of dollar bills and fame.
He woke up, ate a very nice breakfast, and watched the sun rise as the plane dropped below the clouds and began flying over the city. The overhead crackled to life. “Attention, passengers. We are beginning our final approach to London Heathrow Airport. The time in London is 7:12 A.M. At this time, we will be turning the seatbelt sign back on.” There was a pleasant ding as the light came back on overhead, and Daffy heard a few clicks around him (he hadn’t bothered unfastening his). “Please remain in your seats with the tray tables locked and the seats in the upright position until we have reached the gate and turned off the Fasten Seatbelt sign. Thank you for flying American Airlines.”
Daffy didn’t know what to expect when he landed, but to his surprise, there was a man standing at the foot of the escalator when he came down holding a sign that read DAFFY D. DUCK. Daffy hurried over, lugging his suitcase and trying to stand up straighter despite the weight.
“I’m Mithter Duck,” he said, like there were so many other ducks walking around Heathrow Airport.
“This way, sir,” the man said, courteous and polite. If he’d been wearing tails and been some degree of bald, Daffy would have assumed he was a butler—people who talked like that in cartoons were almost always butlers—but the man wore a neat brown suit and had a full head of dark hair, so who knew. Probably just a chauffeur, except he didn’t have a hat either.
While Daffy was still puzzling over that, the man led him outside to a sleek, expensive-looking black car. He took Daffy’s suitcase, placed it reverently in the trunk of the car, and even opened it to deftly tuck a few of the loose bits of clothing back inside before shutting the trunk and holding open the door to the back for Daffy to slide in.
Again, he was slightly unnerved by the fact that the driver didn’t step on the gas and jolt him around like a pinball before he could even get the belt fastened; instead, he waited for him to get himself strapped in before smoothly pulling away from the curb. Daffy busied himself with trying not to bounce too much from excitement as he watched the city pass by him. What kind of role could it be? Stage or screen? He didn’t know what kind of studios there were in London, but he’d heard of the West End, most people had. It was a step above vaudeville. Television and film were all well and good, but there was nothing like a live audience.
The car turned down a narrow street lined with trees, the river just visible on the other side, and finally pulled to a stop in front of a tall brick building. The building looked old—even older than the set of Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters, the headquarters of the paranormal investigation and ghost eradication firm his character had run. It didn’t look like a theater, so maybe a small studio?
Anyway, it had to be where they were going, because standing on the steps with his hands folded patiently in front of him was Bugs Bunny himself.
“Bugth, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal!” Daffy sprang out of the backseat as soon as the driver opened it and bounded up the steps, reaching out to shake Bugs’ hand enthusiastically with both of his own. “It’th tho good to thee you again! You look good. Tho, what’th thith about a tharring role?”
“Good ta see you, too, Daff.” Bugs smiled broadly, then looked over his shoulder. “Eh, t’anks, Ryan. Take the rest ‘a da day off.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bunny,” the man, presumably Ryan, said with a bow. “I’ll be back to get you at six as usual, sir.”
Daffy watched him go, then turned back to Bugs. “Of courthe you have a perthonal chauffeur,” he muttered, more for the form of thing than anything. He knew Bugs had a driver. He always had a driver these days.
“Came with the position,” Bugs said with a shrug. “Come on in and I’ll explain everything.”
Daffy stared around him as they walked in. The space they walked into was surprisingly open and large, made of light colored stone and honey colored wood. The ceiling was far overhead and held up by arched buttresses—thanks for teaching me that one, Cogsworth—and several halls and doors led off the main space, along with a flight of stairs going up to the next floor. At a half floor where the stairs opened to two separate flights was an open office featuring several filing cabinets and a sturdy desk topped with a computer and phone, and just off it was a closed door. The whole place was empty.
“Tho, what ith thith plathe, anyway?” he asked. “And where ith everyone?”
“Eh, it’s only quarter to eight, most people won’t be here for a bit,” Bugs said, a bit dismissively. “I’ll explain everything once we’re in my office.”
“Your office?” Daffy narrowed his eyes at Bugs’ back.
Bugs, as was his wont, ignored him entirely and led him up the half flight of stairs. Sure enough, the discreet metal plate on the door in the middle of the steps read B. BUNNY, immediately below the words HEAD OF INSTITUTE. Between the two lines was a gilded carving of an eye.
Daffy stared at it, but it didn’t blink as Bugs unlocked the door and ushered him into the office.
This was…nice. Very old fashioned, Daffy thought, but opulent and well appointed. Everything looked expensive. If Bugs had furnished it himself, the job must pay well, and if he hadn’t, it must come with some sweet perks. Him being the head of the institute made Daffy a little suspicious, but for the most part, he was too excited about his potential leading role. What could be better than that?
“Sorry for not telling you more, but it was a lot to explain in a telegram,” Bugs said, sounding actually apologetic. He gestured for Daffy to take a heavy chair in front of the desk, then walked around and sat behind it, folding his hands on top of it. “So. To answer your foist question—this, Daffy, is the Magnus Institute. It’s the foremost paranormal research community in the whole United Kingdom, maybe in the whole woild.”
“And you’re in charge of it?”
“Yep. Didn’t plan on it. I actually didn’t mean to be here at all.” Bugs shrugged and smiled slightly. The smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, which told Daffy it was probably a little bit of a trap. “Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that left toin at Albuquerque. But I did, and I wound up right here. The last Head was…a bit surprised. He died, and since I was here, I got his job.”
“Jutht like that?” Daffy narrowed his eyes and smirked for the form of it. He could guess what he was supposed to do here. Bugs was about to appoint him his second in command, and then he would go through a series of convoluted plots to kill him and take his place that would only damage him worse and worse as time went on, culminating in some big, explosive issue that would level the building and leave him a smoking wreck.
Bugs wrinkled his nose. “Eh…there was a little more to it than that, but essentially, yeah. Anyway, I had a meeting with the staff to let them know I was in charge and that I wasn’t gonna make a bunch of changes yet. Most of ‘em took it in stride. All but one.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a folder, talking as he did so. “There are a few different departments here—there’s Resoich, there’s Artifact Storage, there’s the Library, there’s—well. You get the idea. But the most important part of the Institute is the Archives.”
Opening the folder, he slid it over to Daffy. Daffy picked it up and stared at the personnel files for the Head Archivist, a photograph clipped to the front—a photograph of an elderly woman with serious eyes, grey hair drawn up in a bun, and tiny gold glasses perched on the end of her nose. Her name was listed as WEBSTER, EMMA.
“Granny?” he said, surprised.
“Dat’s right.” Bugs took the folder back from him and closed it. “She didn’t want to work for such a…hare-brained institution. Unfortunately, she had to be toiminated. Which leaves me without a Head Archivist.”
He slid a piece of paper and a pen over towards Daffy. At the top, in big bold type, it read CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT, with the position listed as HEAD ARCHIVIST.
His name was already filled out on the form.
“You’re offering me the job of Head Archivist?” Daffy asked, delighted but also slightly suspicious.
Again, Bugs gave one of those eloquent shrugs. “Sure, I could have hired from people already working here, but then I t’ought—why not give my best friend in the whole wide woild the chance at top billing?”
Top billing! Daffy had never, in his entire life, been billed first, not when Bugs was also in the picture. Even when his name was in the title, for crying out loud. There had to be a catch.
His eyes fell on the name plate on the desk, and he gave Bugs a slightly accusing glance. “You’re the Head of the Inthtitute.”
“Yeah, but trust me, Daff, I’m in like t’irty episodes tops, and it’ll be at least twenty before I even toin up.” Bugs tapped the contract. “Dis is your show.”
Excitement overrode caution, and Daffy snatched up the contract and pen. “Oh, boy, oh, boy! Thith ith my big break!”
Without even bothering to read, he signed his name on the dotted line.
Bugs took the contract and pen back with a broad smile. Standing up, he held out his hand to shake. “Welcome to the Institute, Daffy Duck.”