Like few stories before it, this one is about a duck.

It begins with me, a video game designer for a notable Montreal gaming firm. I am well-known in my field for my creative game plotlines and ingenious objectives strategies. This is why a rival corporation, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, lured me away from Montreal with a high salary, a Lexus sedan for a company car, and lavish corner office in Canada Place, with a spectacular view of picturesque Burrard Inlet. Personally I liked Montreal, and from what I remembered of business trips, the whole West Coast was very rainy. But the salary was almost double what I was being paid, and I did have a wife and two children to think about, so I took the job.

My former employer, M. Leblanc, was distraught. "I really wish you'd reconsider, Daniel," he said anxiously in his accented English when I gave him my two weeks' notice. "What is it about our company that dissatisfies you?"

"Nothing against you, M. Leblanc," I said politely. "I just need a change."

So in early March, when Montreal was caught in the icy throes of a typically bitterly cold winter, my wife Daphne, my children Katy and Jonathan and I packed up and shipped off to Vancouver, where flowers were already blooming and the landscape was lush and verdant.

Daphne and I had selected a large home in a new housing district called Mallard Beach. The name evoked visions of a sandy ocean shore, lined with modern, airy houses, over which would fly some kind of duck (I was from the city and knew next to nothing about wildfowl). Instead we found a residential, landlocked tree-lined neighbourhood of large nondescript brick houses. The "Mallard" part of the name came from the original avian tenants of that territory, which was a soft, swampy land that had been filled with dirt and rocks for the construction of this housing district. The only remains of this marshland were in the reed grass-rimmed pond down the street, inhabited by a few geese. The "Beach" part seemed to be meant ironically. We were the first buyers on our street. It was fairly daunting, especially at night, with all those dark windows like watching eyes.

My children hoped that families with other young children would move in soon. "You said there would be mallards," seven-year-old Katy said sulkily at breakfast one morning. "I don't see any mallards."

"Eat your cereal, Katy," said Daphne, sipping coffee.

Jonathan thundered down the stairs. "Dad, there are noises in my ceiling."

"In your ceiling-on the roof you mean? A squirrel," I guessed. I opened the patio door and stood in the backyard, staring at the roof.

For a few moments it was silent. Then a little head of glossy dark green feathers popped out over the roof ridgepole, and the orange beak opened.

"Quack," it said to me.

"What the devil-?" I ran inside. "Daph, there's a duck on the roof."

"What?" All four of us rushed outside and gazed at the duck. One more honk, and then it vanished again.

"There you go, Katy, there's a mallard," Daphne said.

"Can we keep him?" Jonathan asked eagerly.

"What? No!" I said, bewildered. "That's a wild duck, Jonathan. It's-it's a Lone Ranger type, it doesn't want to stay here, and anyways it can't. It's illegal to take wild animals as pets in this province." What I knew about British Columbian wildfowl laws could have fit in a thimble, of course, but I had to make up something.

The dark head reappeared. "Quack quack," said the duck.

"He likes our roof, Daddy, look how happy he is!" Katy pleaded.

"Katy, it probably has." I struggled to think of animal diseases. "Rabies," I finished lamely. "We'll have to shoot-"

"A game of pool later in the basement," Daphne interrupted, staring hard at me. She looked pointedly at her watch. "Kids, you'll be late for school, and Daniel, you and I will be late for work."

The kids ran into the house and Daphne looked at me with wide eyes. "Shoot him, in front of the kids? The duck will have flown away by the time we get home, and the kids will forget all about him. If they still want a pet we'll buy some goldfish."

I was placated-until that evening, when I pulled up to the house and my two children rushed out shouting, "He's still here!"

I groaned inwardly. "The duck?"

"He's on the roof," Jonathan said. "He's pacing. I can hear him from upstairs. He must be thinking about something important."

Faint quacking sounds could be heard from around the chimney. "Get off my roof!" I yelled. Rapid-fire quacking was his response. It sounded almost like-duck laughter? I sighed and went indoors.

The next evening Katy and Jonathan approached me. "We need to go to the library."

I was surprised. "Projects already, in the first week of school?"

"No," Jonathan said impatiently, "we're looking up books about mallards."

"Of course, how silly of me," I said, grimacing discreetly at Daphne, who responded with a wry smile.

But I took them, and we spent an hour searching for books about ducks and Vancouver wildfowl. I later regretted it, because both Katy and Jonathan would talk of nothing else for a week.

"Dad, did you know our mallard is a surface-feeding duck?"

"Jonathan, do you think our mallard is a mallard drake? He has that little white ring on his neck and greyish-brown feathers on his body. What do you think, Daddy?"

"I really don't know," I said.

"It's just a phase," Daphne whispered. "They'll get tired of the mallard soon."

But they didn't. Nor did the duck tire of my roof, or of leaving little white spots on the brand-new shingles, or of presiding over the place like a Duck King. I'd have liked to get up there and chase him off with a stick but I didn't have a ladder long enough.

"I should call Animal Control," I grumbled one warm night in June as I got ready for bed. "The government will come get rid of it."

"Oh, don't, the kids would be heartbroken," Daphne said. "And he's not such a bad little guy."

I rounded on her. "He? How do you even know it's a he? That overgrown weathervane is a friend of yours, perhaps?"

"Daniel! Katy told me he's male. She and Jonathan are learning a lot about ducks from those library books. Daniel, he's just a little duck. He's not doing us any harm."

"He's wrecking the shingles up there, and he's leaving his poop all over the roof, and he's a filthy wild bird," I said sourly.

"Oh, come on, Daniel! The shingles are still in the place. One little duck won't move them. His-leavings-get washed off by the rain, and it rains plenty here. And as for him being filthy, well, you don't know that. He washes every day. I've seen him in the mornings, standing on the roof and cleaning his feathers."

"Why can't he live in the pond down the road like other ducks?"

"He doesn't like the pond! He likes our roof!" Daphne said in the petulant tone adopted by the children whenever I brought up the subject of removing the roof duck.

The summer came and went. A few families bought the houses at the other end of the street, near the pond. We went on vacation to Seattle for two weeks, and when we returned the duck welcomed us home with happy quacking.

Over time I grew used to the little fellow. He was a constant in my life. Daphne's schedule at the hospital changed frequently, and the kids were always at a friend's house, or at soccer/lacrosse/band/ballet practise; but the duck, the duck was always home when I pulled into the driveway. We had something of a routine every morning. "Get off my roof, you mangy bird!" I'd shout, shaking my fist in mock anger, and the duck would engage in what I supposed to be duck guffaws.

Fall came to Vancouver and the kids went back to school. The streets were full of orange and red leaves. Jonathan raked the lawn for two dollars an hour. The duck would quack amiably at him for the duration. "He's a conversationalist," Jonathan said indignantly when I chuckled about the perpetual quacking. I wondered what they talked about-the weather? Migration patterns? Lady ducks?

In October the rains returned. Winter, I knew, was the rainiest season on the West Coast. I wondered whether the duck would join its avian brethren in a southward migration. The kids would miss him and his constant quacking. So would Daphne. And so would I, maybe. But he wouldn't be going for another couple of months-we still had time before he left, I said to myself, and then immediately demanded, For what? Heart-to-heart talks?

One night I came home from work early. Daphne was working late at the hospital, and Katy and Jonathan were still at school. It was raining quite heavily, so I ran to the front door with my briefcase over my head.

I was shaking the rain off my overcoat when the phone rang. "Hello?"

It was the real estate agent who had sold us this house. "Mr. Reynolds? Thank heavens someone is finally home. This is the third time I've called in an hour."

"What's wrong?" I said, fear mounting inside me. What emergency could a real estate agent be calling about? Had he given us the wrong title deed? Had he found out that I had used an illegal poison to kill the grubs in the yard?

But it was something much, much worse. "Earlier this afternoon, I was showing the house across the street from yours to a potential buyer when I happened to glance out an upstairs window and saw a duck on your house, making a mess on the roof. Can you beat it? A duck!"

My stomach turned to ice. "What did you do to him?"

"I called Animal Control, of course. They came by straight away and shot him down. No need to worry, Mr. Reynolds-Mr. Reynolds? Hello?"

I slowly put down the receiver and stood in shock for a moment. Then I turned and ran outside. I didn't bother with my shoes or jacket, just rushed out with my socks slap-slapping on the wet front steps. The rain soaked me in an instant. It was always raining in Vancouver.

I ran over the wet leaves strewn across the lawn and stopped dead at the sight of a single turquoise feather on the grass next to the house. The feather was lustrous, and slick from the rain.

I picked it up and held it silently in my hands. The duck whose head it had once adorned was probably rotting in a landfill in the rain.

I closed my eyes. What was I going to tell Daphne and the kids?