How the Penguins Saved Veronica

by Hazel Prior

  “Looks great,” says Dietrich. “And smells great. Let’s get started. I can hear my tummy rumbling.”

  Patrick passes round the cheese sticks. I twirl mine into a greenish creamy mixture and nibble on it. It is rather toothsome.

  “So, which film have you decided on?” he asks.

  “We haven’t. We got distracted,” answers Terry. “What do you fancy? We’ve seen them all before, so you and Veronica should decide.”

  Patrick scans the shelf and reads a few titles out. “The Return of the Pink Panther. Quantum of Solace. Mission: Impossible. The Green Mile . . .”

  I prick up my ears. “That last one sounds nice.”

  “I don’t think you’d like it, Granny. It’s kind of . . . well, not nice. How about . . .” he considers . . . “Vanity Fair?”

  “I should think that will do very well.”

  The film is indeed thoroughly enjoyable, at least as far as I am concerned. There is much to be savored in a good costume drama, and the characters interest me. I notice Patrick shuffling in his chair and sighing a bit, however, and realize he has chosen it in view of my preferences, not his own.

  * * *

  —

  I have managed a good breakfast today, including porridge and toast. The remains are by the bed on a tray. Now I am assailed by exhaustion again and in need of a nap. Patrick and Terry are by the door of the bedroom, talking in hushed tones.

  “Shall we take Pip out again, then?” I hear Terry ask softly. “I think he’s getting restless.”

  “Sounds like a good idea. Should we wake Granny, though?”

  They’re standing close together. I can tell by their voices.

  I fight off sleep in order to listen.

  “No,” answers Terry. “She’ll only put herself through the stress of trying to come with us, and there’s no way that’s possible yet. Best if we just slip out.”

  “But we’d better leave her a note, otherwise she’ll freak out to find Pip gone.”

  “You’re right. Good plan.”

  Patrick and Terry are getting on well. Could there be a whiff of romance in the air? Patrick doesn’t give his feelings away, but I can discern a growing eagerness, like a tree beginning to leaf in the early warmth of spring. Terry cares for him, too, that’s obvious—but then Terry cares for everyone. She treats everyone as if they are special. She is quite the opposite of me.

  I hear Patrick walk across to the wastepaper basket and lift Pip out. “C’mon then, little blighter. You’re coming with us today!” Terry and Patrick make cooing noises. I know they’re caressing the chick, stroking his belly and chin. He’ll be loving every moment of it. I slyly lift an eyelid to peek at them. They’re like two parents fussing over a newborn baby.

  I mull it over as they take Pip and move outside, closing the door quietly behind them. Patrick and Terry. Terry and Patrick. A quirky little duo. Pip and I have created a close connection between them. The more I ponder it, the more I am convinced of it: Patrick and Terry go together like a cup and saucer.

  I’m hazy about how much time has passed. The calendar tells me it is still January. I know I’ve now missed the date I was originally booked for my journey back to Britain. There has been talk of another ship arriving in a week’s time, and, as I am significantly recovered (they had a phone consultation with the doctor and he agreed), Patrick and I are supposed to depart on it. This is most unfortunate in view of the Patrick-and-Terry possibilities, which will simply not have time to come to fruition. There is no way Patrick will be permitted to prolong his visit, even if he wants to. He is neither a scientist nor a millionaire.

  Terry and Patrick will inevitably be ripped apart.

  That is exactly the kind of mean trick that Fate likes to play. I know, through long and bitter experience, how much strength is required to resist Fate when it is engaged in such brutality.

  Patrick and Terry, however, are both too young and feebleminded to realize this or do anything about it.

  • 48 •

  Patrick

  LOCKET ISLAND

  Much as I’m glad she didn’t kick the bucket, it’s still not exactly going to be fun accompanying Granny V home on the ship, plane and everything. At least I’m more used to her little ways now. I’ve just got to expect the unexpected, haven’t I?

  “I bet you’ll be pleased to see the back of us,” I say to the guys. We’re just finishing breakfast, and I’m wondering what to take through for Granny. There are some half-decent slices of bacon left, and I’ll brew her a pot of Darjeeling.

  Dietrich smiles. “It will be a relief that we don’t have to worry about Mrs. McCreedy anymore, for sure. But it’ll seem very dull without you both.”

  “We’ll miss your cooking,” adds Mike.

  Deet winks. (Top man, Deet. I told him about Gav’s daughter, Daisy, and he did one of his penguin drawings just for her. I e-mailed it over to Gav yesterday.)

  “We’re used to changes here,” he tells me. “In another few weeks, the chicks will have their new feather coats and start heading out to sea along with their parents. That’s when we’ll begin to feel really sad.”

  Terry fixes her gaze on the far wall. “Every year you know it’s coming, but it’s always weirdly emotional.”

  Mike sighs, picking up on her mood. “It’s going to be even worse this year, knowing it might be our last.”

  He looks like he’s got mixed feelings. He’s got that girlfriend in England, and if the project winds down, he’ll be able to go and live with her, maybe do all the marriage and children stuff. Still, I get the feeling he’s in his element being independent and immersed in penguin business out in the ice and cold. His comfort zone is here.

  I learned an interesting thing from Deet the other day. It was Mike who discovered Granny V lying in the snow that fatal day, although they were all out searching for her. It was Mike who did first aid and carried her back to base. Mike who, basically, saved her life. He’s nowhere near as nasty as he makes out. He’s just got this ton of chips on his shoulder, enough chips to fill three fat fryers. But he’s OK. I can even hold a pleasant conversation with him now and then.

  Terry starts clearing away the dishes. She seems so sad. Man, she cares for those penguins a lot. I want to suggest us meeting up in England if the Locket Island penguin project ends and she goes back there. It would be fantastic if I could spend some more time with her. I don’t say anything, though. I don’t want it to sound like I’m hoping the project ends.

  When I go into her bedroom, Granny is up and on the chair, a rug over her knees. Pip is flopped on his belly asleep, molding himself into her lap. Man, he looks blissful. Granny’s gazing down at him, a fond smile on her face. I have to say, it’s a sight that makes me glad I’ve got a granny. Even a bit glad she’s stark raving bonkers.

  She looks up at me. Her eyes flash with purpose. “Now, Patrick. It’s good that you’re here.” She pats the chair beside her. “A few practical things.”

  I sit down. “You seem a load better, Granny.”

  “I am. I am a great deal better. In fact, I am pretty sure I shall live at least a while longer. Years, possibly. I might even be so generous as to give myself another decade.”

  “Yay! I’m glad to hear it!” I leap up again, launch myself over and hug her. I can’t seem to help it, even though she’s hardly a huggy type of person. To my surprise, she puts her arms around me and sort of hugs back, briefly. Pretty sure I didn’t dream it.

  The movement wakes Pip up. He hops off her knee onto the floor and starts preening his chest with his beak. Little scraps of fluff come off, revealing more of the new, sleek feathers underneath.

  Granny is fumbling about in her handbag, which is beside her chair. Not the scarlet handbag (which was apparently attacked by a penguin) but a hideous bright pink and gold thing. She pulls out a handkerchief, blows her nose loud
ly then looks me in the eye. “Well, to business. I feel it is only fair to let you know that my intention is to make a will as soon as I get back home.”

  “Righto,” I say. Here goes.

  She fixes her eyes on me. I never noticed before how many colors they are. Sort of slate gray and sea green but with gleams of pure gold.

  “I decided a while back that I’d make provisions to leave my entire inheritance to the penguin project,” she tells me.

  I nod. I can’t say I’m surprised. “OK.”

  “I have formed a particularly strong bond with the Adélies,” she goes on, “and I believe it is essential to keep the species going somehow. If I can make a small contribution to help, I would like to do so.”

  “Granny, you don’t need to tell me this.” She thinks I must be well peed off not to get her money. I’m not, though. The important thing is that she’s OK.

  “These scientists, on the whole, know what they are doing, and I trust them,” she goes on. “I shall provide for them amply when I die—”

  “Granny, stop it!”

  “There’s no point in mincing my words, Patrick. We both know it nearly happened. It will happen sooner or later anyway. In the meantime, I will supply the penguin team with a monthly stipend to keep them going.”

  Just as I’d hoped. Sort of. But it means all three scientists will stay here on Locket Island for-bloody-ever.

  “Terry will be pleased,” I say. It’s true. She’ll be ecstatic. She won’t spare a thought for little old me back in the bicycle shop in Bolton.

  Granny goes on. “I shall provide amply for the future of the project with this one proviso,” Granny announces, “that every year the scientists must save at least one orphaned penguin chick. To remind them that they have hearts.”

  I laugh. “You certainly like to make life difficult for everyone, Granny.”

  She looks chuffed, as if it’s a compliment.

  * * *

  —

  Terry’s sitting on the floor in the lounge, wriggling into her waterproof trousers. “Chuck me the crampons, would you?”

  I study them in mock horror. “You could do some serious damage with those.” She takes them from me, straps them on then waves a foot at me. The spikes pierce and slash the air. She cackles like a witch.

  “Nice try, but evil doesn’t come naturally to you, Terry.”

  I scramble into my jacket and Mike’s spare snow boots, which, to be fair, he’s never commented on.

  “You two going out together?” Mike asks, hovering by the door.

  My hackles rise at his tone of voice.

  “He needs to get out,” Terry says. “Veronica’s managing fine now. I thought I’d take him up to the north end of the colony. He’s never been there before, and I guess it’ll be his last chance. And we could see how Sooty’s getting on.”

  “Want to come?” I ask Mike.

  “No. I’ll leave you to it. I have guano analysis to do.”

  We fetch Pip from Veronica’s room. Terry says we need to expose him to the colony all we can. He’ll have to go back and make a life for himself there pretty soon. Sometimes now we leave him in the “crèche,” which is the name they give to a bunch of kiddo penguins left together while their penguin parents go out fishing. Pip’s getting braver and braver. He trundles around with the other chicks, plays chase and hop-the-puddle and so on. Every time we take him out, we have to promise Granny we’ll keep an eye on him. I don’t know how she’s ever going to part with that penguin.

  Terry and I walk slowly. Pip follows a few paces behind us, like a waddly kind of puppy. Today it’s not actually that cold, just kind of bracing. The snow is patchy. In some places it’s gathered in blobs like marshmallows, and in others it’s tissue thin, with sharp spikes of grass and rounded pebbles showing through.

  “I hope you don’t regret coming out here,” Terry begins. “If we’d known Veronica had such tenacity, we never would have summoned you.”

  I look up at the sky. It’s a porridgy color and looks kind of pixelated.

  “Terry, it’s all good. You did the right thing.”

  “Did I? I’m never sure.”

  Granny’s told her and the others that she’s going to be funding the Locket Island project from now on. They were so grateful they didn’t know what to say. Even Mike. It’s a bit awkward, though, isn’t it, all this generosity stuff?

  “Please believe me when I say I never asked Veronica for anything,” Terry urges. “I really didn’t expect her to hand out all this money, even though she’d mentioned something about her will. You don’t think I’ve been exploiting her, do you?”

  Terry just has no idea how great she is. “Jeez, Terry, no! If anything it was the other way round! You’ve always been true and honest and good and . . .” It’s my turn to stop mid-sentence. I look at her and everything goes a bit weird. I don’t know what’s happened, why the atmosphere is different. Normally, we’re completely at ease in each other’s company.

  I rush on, gabbling fast. “You’ve helped me get to know Granny V more than anyone else could. You’re the only person who she warmed to, who she opened up to. She didn’t even open up to her carer, Eileen, in all those years.”

  This is important. I see now how much I want Granny V in my life. Both my mum and my dad abandoned me, they left me in different ways. But my granny—well, she found me, didn’t she? It took her a while, but she did it.

  We’ve reached the top of the slope now, and the sun has edged out from behind the clouds. In the distant lake, there’s a pale pathway of sunlight stretching across the water.

  “Getting to know Granny has been one hell of a revelation,” I tell Terry. “Maybe it was crazy of me to come all the way out here, but I’m glad I did. And anyway, if I’d stayed in Bolton, I never would have seen all this!” I wave my hand round at the scene: the jags on the horizon, the colored splatters of lichen covering the rocks, the colony of penguins spread out beneath us, its own busy metropolis of life, love and pain.

  “Besides, if I hadn’t come to Antarctica I’d never have met . . .” I stop myself and know that my eyes are flicking toward hers, wondering if it’s possible she could be feeling the same. No clues in those eyes. But how shimmering and deep they are . . . Man, you could drown in those eyes. I look away quick before it happens. I turn right round to face Pip, opening my arms out wide as our flippered friend struggles to catch up.

  “. . . I’d never have met this little guy!”

  I whisk him into my arms. He lets out a squeak of surprise. I roll onto my back in the snow, lifting him above me. I hold him in a mock-flying position, his stubby feet sticking out behind, flippers arcing outward. A gurgling sound comes from Pip’s beak, as if he’s laughing, too. Terry swings the camera off her shoulder and points it at us to catch the moment. “Hey, I love it!” she calls. “Great mix of glee, childishness and human-penguin affection. Nobody could fail to be touched by it.” She dashes over to the other side to try and get another shot but trips over a stone. The jolt forces a sharp cry from her mouth and sends her sprawling to the ground.

  “Are you OK?” It was quite a thump as she landed. Is she hurt? There’s a moment of silence.

  I set Pip down. Terry’s head is twisted, her face is down in the snow. She doesn’t move. The quickest way to reach her is to roll, so that’s what I do.

  I pull her round, toward me. Her glasses have been knocked sideways. I carefully remove them and lay them beside us. She’s smiling. No, she’s laughing. There is just whiteness, Terry and me, her face close to mine, her mouth close to mine. Under mine. Our bodies are separated by layers and layers of weatherproof clothes, but our lips meet and press together.

  She can’t speak for a while. When her lips are free again, she answers my question. “Yes, Patrick. I’m very OK, thank you.”

  • 49 •

  Patr
ick

  LOCKET ISLAND

  Circumstances just kind of collided in that moment, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  But . . . hey! Result!

  We carried on walking until we were in the middle of the penguin colony. Every so often she stopped walking and put her mouth up to be kissed. It felt a bit public with our audience of small tuxedoed gents, who weren’t shy about staring at us. But when a girl like Terry puts her mouth up to be kissed by you, hell, what you do is you kiss it. And with each kiss I got more and more panicky about her expectations and how I wouldn’t be able to fulfill them, but at the same time I just wanted more of her. I wanted every bit of her, physical, mental, emotional, the whole shebang. If God had come up to me right then and said, “Patrick, my son, you have two choices. Choice A: I will grant you world peace, or Choice B: you can stay with Terry in Antarctica forever,” I swear I’d have decided on staying with Terry in Antarctica forever. I’d have said yes to that one straight off, no kidding.

  After about the twentieth kiss, Terry said, “This is going to be hard to hide from the guys.”

  “Um, hate to disillusion you, Terry, but I think they already know,” I told her, sweeping my arm round at the thousands of beaked faces looking at us.

  “Not the penguins, you dope! The other scientists.”

  “Do we need to hide it?” I asked. I was sort of in the mood of shouting it from the rooftops. Or iceberg-tops, or whatever.

  “Yes, Patrick, we do,” she replied as if it was a no-brainer.

  “Terry, sneaking about really isn’t my style.”

  “Nor mine,” she said, “but needs must.”

  “Why must needs?”

  “For starters, they’ll worry. They’ll think I might desert them and the work. They may even worry I’ll go back to Britain with you.”

  Why does the future always have to come busting in and spoil everything? Life always throws problems at you, doesn’t it? Just when everything’s going swimmingly, another problem pops up, and there you are, trying your darnedest to work out what the hell you can do about it.