And so it was with Sateen who came into my life when she was very young, taken into the bosom of our family as one of our own. She was much loved from the start and responded to the warmth and affection which was showered upon her by wriggling her tail and crapping on the floor. There were no bedrooms so she was forced to sleep in my bath but never did I hear a word uttered in complaint. There was, admittedly, the odd "quack" but never a word. We gave her the benefit of our life's experiences, my girlfriend taking it upon herself to be her moral guardian and set her upon the path of Catholic righteousness.

The time passed quickly and that day came, all too soon, when Sateen had outgrown my humble abode. She also had outgrown the bathtub and, quite frankly, I was getting just a little bit tired of sharing my bathroom with a duck. Yes, Sateen was a duck. A pleasant enough duck, as ducks go, but a duck regardless.

We had, we knew, taught Sateen all that we could, given that there were certain language barriers in place, and felt confident that she would be a source of ongoing pride for us as she made her way in duck world. Like all young ducks, she needed to spread her wings and so it was, at a friend's place out in the leafy vales of Wentworth Falls, that Sateen settled, there to enjoy a life of bucolic joy.

The early reports were encouraging and it seemed that she had embraced the rural life, strutting around the farmyard in peaceful co-habitation with her fellows. We smiled on hearing this, congratulating ourselves on having reared Sateen to be a good, God-fearing little duck.

Nothing further was heard for some time until late last year when disturbing reports began to filter through from Wentworth Falls' verdant meadows. Sateen, it seemed, was becoming quite the bossy duck and was attempting to assert control over her fellow farmyard dwellers. Horses, donkeys and indeed all creatures great and small were beginning to feel the weight of her iron will as she patrolled the yard, quacking furiously at anyone who dared to question her authority and giving those who moved too slowly for her liking a peck on the bum with her bill.

It was, our friend told us, quite entertaining to see her herding up the other animals and quack-quacking around the farm as if it were her fiefdom. "Ah well," we thought, "there's nothing wrong with being a strong character. Nobody respects a weakling. Sateen, obviously, was a natural leader and was merely asserting what was clearly a dominant personality."

No further bulletins were received and we presumed that the slightly idiosyncratic Sateen had modified her anti-social behaviour and was living harmoniously with her fellows.

Then my girlfriend called me in a state of distress. "It's Sateen," she said.

   "Oh God," I thought. "Sateen has come to an untimely end, run over by a tractor perhaps, or even worse, savaged by a murderous dog."
   "Don't worry sweetheart," I cooed down the phone. "She had a good life and thanks to your upbringing, she was a good little duck."
   "No," moaned my girlfriend. "It's not that. She's alive and well, that's the problem. Sweet little Sateen the girl duck is a boy duck and he's turned into a serial rapist. He's terrorising the farmyard."

It took some moments for me to assimilate this intelligence. Boy duck? Rapist? Sateen the strong-willed duck had, it seemed, undergone an extreme personality change and was terrorising Wentworth Falls.

"It's all my fault," wailed Kassya. "I brought him up badly. Now he chases the chooks and if he catches them he rapes them. No one is safe. He's the randiest duck anyone has ever seen. If anyone comes to visit, he gets into the house, jumps on their ankles and tries to mount their legs. He's disgusting."

"Crikey," I thought. "Sweet little Sateen. Who would have thought it."

I have since assured my girlfriend that we are not responsible for the sins of our ducks and that we have learned a valuable lesson in parenting.