Chap­ter 24: Duck Boy begins in a small kitchen where com­mu­ni­ty and food inter­sect to uncov­er dif­fi­cult truths. Sweet pota­to pie was the lure—everyone on Chick­en Hill knew Paper made it best. She gath­ered Nate, Addie, Rusty, and Fat­ty at the table, hop­ing Miggy would also join. Miggy, who worked at Pennhurst, even­tu­al­ly arrived wear­ing her nurse’s whites, no longer the daz­zling ora­cle seen days before. Her pro­fes­sion­al demeanor soft­ened upon see­ing Nate, though ten­sion lin­gered between their shared past. As they exchanged mem­o­ries and pleas­antries over slices of warm pie, it became clear this wasn’t just a casu­al reunion. The pur­pose was deep­er, heavier—Pie was the open­er to a con­ver­sa­tion about suf­fer­ing, injus­tice, and a child lost in the sys­tem.

Miggy began cau­tious­ly, deflect­ing direct ques­tions and focus­ing instead on her own life. She paint­ed Pennhurst not just as an insti­tu­tion but a labyrinth of sorrow—a sprawl­ing com­plex larg­er than Chick­en Hill itself, filled with dark cor­ners and bro­ken spir­its. She described the patients, the neglect, and the cru­el­ty, espe­cial­ly in the low­er wards like C‑1. Her first­hand obser­va­tions were hor­ri­fy­ing: adults restrained for weeks, women in strait­jack­ets, and chil­dren preyed upon by cor­rupt staff. One fig­ure stood out in particular—a man called Son of Man, a fel­low Low­god who used charm and intim­i­da­tion to rule C‑1. He abused his author­i­ty and the vul­ner­a­ble patients under his care. Miggy’s sto­ry was not mere­ly about what she had seen but about the deep spir­i­tu­al cost of wit­ness­ing such unchecked pow­er.

As the con­ver­sa­tion pro­gressed, she intro­duced the tale of a white boy, nick­named the Duck Boy, who quacked and couldn’t speak. Aban­doned by his par­ents and placed in the worst ward, the boy’s trau­ma wors­ened under Son of Man’s care. Miggy sus­pect­ed he had been repeat­ed­ly abused. But then, one day, the boy van­ished. Pennhurst searched high and low but nev­er found him. Miggy sug­gest­ed that tunnels—long-forgotten pas­sage­ways once used to move coal and supplies—might’ve offered the boy an escape. A pos­si­ble accom­plice? A man who deliv­ered hot eggs and cof­fee every morn­ing, faster than seemed human­ly pos­si­ble. A man who may have used those same tun­nels to spir­it the boy out, away from pain, and into a new life far from Pennhurst.

Miggy explained how food logis­tics at the hos­pi­tal were strange but reveal­ing. Pennhurst could grow veg­eta­bles, but it couldn’t man­age chick­ens, so eggs were brought in dai­ly. Four thou­sand eggs, hot and ready, by six in the morning—delivered by one man to four­teen build­ings. The only way this was pos­si­ble, she argued, was through the tun­nels. She hint­ed this egg man may have helped Duck Boy escape to the rail­way yard, where sym­pa­thet­ic union work­ers smug­gled him onto a freight train head­ed for New York. There, it was rumored, he still lived—safe, still quack­ing, but final­ly free. The sto­ry offered a rare thread of hope, though it came woven with sor­row.

Paper pressed Miggy for more, espe­cial­ly about chil­dren like the Duck Boy. Miggy warned of anoth­er child, a Black boy recent­ly placed in C‑1, deaf or pos­si­bly mute. Rumors sug­gest­ed he had already been injured and was now vul­ner­a­ble. Her con­cern was pal­pa­ble. She didn’t name names or call for imme­di­ate action, but the impli­ca­tion was clear: his­to­ry might repeat itself unless some­one inter­vened. Nate, deeply affect­ed, stud­ied the makeshift dia­gram Miggy had drawn from pieces of pie on her plate, rep­re­sent­ing build­ings and tun­nels. Her map, vague but sym­bol­i­cal­ly accu­rate, might be the only guide they’d get. The weight of what they’d heard set­tled into silence.

The broad­er con­text of Miggy’s sto­ry speaks to the real-life his­to­ry of insti­tu­tions like Pennhurst, which were known for both their scale and their abus­es. Reports in the 20th cen­tu­ry doc­u­ment­ed over­crowd­ing, mis­treat­ment, and lack of over­sight in sim­i­lar state-run facil­i­ties. The use of under­ground tun­nels, while sound­ing fic­tion­al, echoes infra­struc­ture real­i­ties of old­er cam­pus­es built dur­ing the Pro­gres­sive Era. Her sto­ry also reflects the unique cul­tur­al knowl­edge of the Lowgods—descendants of Gul­lah-Geechee peo­ple from the Carolinas—who pre­served oral tra­di­tions and spir­i­tu­al beliefs root­ed in African ances­try. In their world­view, all things connect—eggs to tun­nels, suf­fer­ing to redemp­tion, and the voic­es of ances­tors to acts of resis­tance.

Miggy end­ed her tale with a qui­et dec­la­ra­tion: “Eggs got every­thing to do with tun­nels. Every­thing got every­thing to do with every­thing.” Her words, lay­ered and sym­bol­ic, served as a bridge between the mys­ti­cal and the prac­ti­cal. In a com­mu­ni­ty where offi­cial chan­nels failed and silence often pro­tect­ed abusers, sto­ries became roadmaps. And some­times, pie became a blue­print for escape. The mes­sage was received: there was still time to help the next child before he too dis­ap­peared into dark­ness.