“What’s going on out there?” Zemya asked, hurrying into the room with Blackburn, a red apron around her black robe. Blackburn wore a matching apron around his waistcoat.
The door burst open, and Topo tumbled inside. He slammed the door behind him, his face twisted in wild panic. “The penguin dentists! They’ve found us!” He tossed a pair of rubber scissors onto the floor. “I tried to stop them, but these are no help at all.”
32.
Three’s Company
“There are three million penguins in our hallway!” Topo cried out. Zemya arched an eyebrow. “Well, maybe twenty.”
“They must have found one of our holes,” said Zemya. “It’s a miracle they didn’t find us years ago.”
No, it was me, thought Bolt. Guilt poured into his head like an April shower.
The last few nights, while swimming in the sea, he had spoken with many penguins. He had learned a lot, both good and bad. Mostly bad.
The good news? The whale had survived—which was a big relief—and was seen swimming in the sea with other whales. It didn’t have teeth, but whales can swallow quite a bit without needing to bite anything.
But in the bad news category, Dr. Walzanarz had also survived the explosion. She was living with a waddle of penguins that remained loyal to her despite their head mirrors being smashed. She was angry, demanding Bolt’s head on a platter or, since all her platters had been broken in the explosion, in a seashell. Really, the container that kept Bolt’s head wasn’t as important as the head itself, which she hoped would be breaded and fried even though she no longer had a fish fryer.
“Be careful,” one of the penguins in the sea had warned Bolt as they sat on the beach, bellies full after a festive feeding.
“I’ll be fine,” Bolt assured the penguin. “I’m staying underground with some moles, but I’ll be gone in a few days.” The dentist would never find him.
But then Bolt saw a glint in the distance. Squinting into the sun, he saw it reflected off a massively large toothbrush. The penguin carrying the brush took off in the opposite direction now, too far for Bolt to catch up.
Had the penguin seen Bolt? Had it overheard his conversation? Was it running back to Dr. Walzanarz, to tell her he was living underground with moles?
Bolt’s heart raced. He had been foolish to talk so openly. He and his friends needed to leave. Even if the conversation had not been overheard, the longer he stayed, the more danger he brought to the labour of moles. Bolt had been careful to keep his thoughts guarded, especially from the Stranger, but werepenguins can sense one another. Eventually, Bolt would let his guard down and they would be discovered.
It took Bolt a while to find his way back to the mole hole. There were many holes, but most didn’t lead anywhere. By the time he scampered down the right hole and found Zemya’s apartment, half the morning was gone. His birthmark had tingled the entire time, and it tingled more now.
They needed to go.
But he had been too slow. The penguins had found them.
More barks rang from the hallway. A terrified scream. Running footsteps. Someone yelled, “Grab a handful of worms and flee!”
Bolt headed toward the door, but Annika grabbed his hand. “You’re not going out there, are you?”
Bolt shrugged off her hand. “If I surrender, maybe they’ll leave everyone else alone.”
Annika held a knife, a gift from Zemya. “Then we’ll both go. What you did earlier—when you ditched Blackburn and me when we were running from the penguins? That wasn’t OK. We’re a team, Bolt. Promise you’ll never do that again.”
Bolt didn’t answer. They had promised to never lie to each other. So instead he merely smiled.
But as Bolt reached for the doorknob, Zemya shouted: “Stop! You’re a mole now, and moles stand together.”
“But it’s me they want,” explained Bolt, “not you.”
“Zemya is right,” said Topo. “I may seem scary with my menacing floppy rubber scissors—”
“Not really,” said Annika.
“—but I’m a mole, and proud. Moles are solitary creatures, usually. But we support one another. That’s one of the things that makes our clan special. If we have to fight to save you, then we’ll fight.”
“No,” declared Zemya. “What we need to do is leave.”
“What about your home?” asked Bolt.
“And what about our beet tarts?” asked Blackburn. “They’re still in the oven.”
“We’ll have to leave the tarts,” said Zemya, and Blackburn groaned. “And we can always build another home. No, we must go.”
“They’ll track me,” Bolt warned. “I can hold off the penguins for a time, but eventually I’ll be discovered.”
“That’s why you’re taking your ship, leaving this island, and going far away,” said Zemya. “If you’re gone, they’ll leave us alone. But it’s Grom I worry about. He won’t make it through the tunnels with us. He can barely move. You need to take him with you. He’s a good sailor. If he survives, he could be helpful.”
“Of course.” Bolt already felt terrible for luring the penguins down into this hole. He certainly couldn’t refuse Zemya’s request to take Grom with him.
They followed Zemya to her back bedroom. Bolt hadn’t seen Grom since the day they’d arrived in the burrow. He was thinner now, his face greenish, his long, thin nose droopy. Bags were under his eyes, so big they were more like shopping bags. Bolt and Blackburn helped Grom to his feet, but he could barely put any weight on them. It was like holding up a sack of potatoes.
They could still hear loud noises from the main tunnel. Bolt felt a group of penguins hesitating outside Zemya’s door, about to burst it open. Bolt closed his eyes. Go away. We are not here. We are not the droids you’re looking for.
He wasn’t quite sure why he thought that last part.
The commotion muted as penguins continued racing down the tunnel. It would take the penguins a while to search the entire burrow. The moles would make their escape. Most probably already had.
Zemya instructed Blackburn to slide the nightstand in the corner out of the way, which revealed a large dark hole dug into the earth. “All of us have emergency escape holes,” Zemya explained. They scurried down it, with Blackburn and Bolt carrying Grom.
They turned left and right in a seemingly random way, but Topo and Zemya appeared to know where they were heading. The tunnel was smooth, without divots, and so wide it fit three people side by side.
“We are almost there,” said Zemya.
Sure enough, they soon pushed aside some branches that had been laid across the hole’s entrance as camouflage, and emerged into the daylight. They were now in the cove where Bolt and his friends had first landed. The pirate ship was still anchored in the harbor, and the smaller rowboat they had used to get ashore was resting on the sand.
Blackburn carried Grom to the rowboat and carefully placed him inside it.
“Good luck to you all,” said Zemya, bowing. “Take care of my brother.”
“Yes, good luck!” cried out Topo, holding out his scissors. Snip, snip, snip. “Would you like to take my scissors with you?”
“No thanks,” said Bolt.
“Borscht!” said Blackburn, walking over to Zemya and Topo and waving to Bolt and Annika.
“Hurry up, Blackburn,” Annika said as she and Bolt pushed the small craft back into the water.
Blackburn stood where he was. He glanced at Zemya and Topo and then to Annika and Bolt. He glanced back and forth again. He smiled at Zemya, and she returned it. Finally, he turned to Annika and Bolt. “Find the Stranger,” he said. “Save the world and all of that, aye? I’ll miss ye both.”
Annika rolled her eyes. “Stop joking around and give us a hand with this boat.”
Blackburn still didn’t move. “I’m goin’ to stay here and live underground with Zemy
a and the other moles. I might not be the fighter I once was, but I can help protect them. I think this is what I was born to do.”
“Really?” asked Bolt. “You were born to live underground and protect a bunch of mole creatures? That seems like a rather odd reason to be born.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Blackburn. “But then again, ye were born to free the world’s penguins, and that’s odd, too.” Zemya was now walking back to the mole hole with Topo. She turned and exchanged a knowing glance with Blackburn. A loving glance? “A lifetime eating borscht and worms. What more could an old pirate want?”
“Adventure?” guessed Annika. “Sunlight? Just about anything else? No offense to Zemya, who seems very nice, but she turns into a mole every night.”
“Well, we all have our quirks,” said the pirate. “For example, I sometimes get bunions on me toes.”
“You can’t abandon us!” Annika rushed to Blackburn and clasped her hands in his. “You’re a pirate. The sea and adventure are in your bones!”
“Having sea in yer bones is actually quite uncomfortable,” admitted Blackburn. “It’s better to have bones in yer bones.” Annika still held his hand and tried pulling Blackburn toward the boat, but he didn’t budge.
“How will we defeat the Stranger without you?” Annika asked, her voice tiny and desperate.
“Ye are a mighty swords-girl and an even cleverer bandit. Bolt is a powerful werepenguin with a silver fang. And perhaps Grom will recover. I told ye I wanted to quit the adventurin’ life.”
Annika had tears in her eyes. She let out a loud, creaky wail that sounded, sort of, like a heart breaking. “But I thought you were just complaining because sometimes it’s fun to complain. I didn’t think you were serious about quitting. Not really. You’ve still got plenty of pirate in you.”
Bolt didn’t quite share Annika’s surprise. He had doubted the pirate would join them in their voyage to find the Stranger all along. Still, Bolt wished he had been wrong.
“Ye don’t need me,” said Blackburn.
“But we do need you!” Annika insisted, her watery sniffling turning into choked-up sobs. “I need you. You’re like a fourth father to me. My adopted father is my second father, and his assistant bandit chief, Felipe, is like a third father to me. You’re right up there, though.”
“And yer like a daughter to me, although I never really wanted a daughter. Still, if I had one, ye would be it.”
“But what about the treasure I promised you?” Annika asked, although it sounded more like a pleading than an asking. “I still owe you treasure chests.”
“It was a treasure having ye as my friend. That’s enough. Besides, there is so much silver from cracked head mirrors around here, I could buy a dozen treasure chests. So I’ll give ye a treasure: me pirate ship. I’ll miss her, and I’ll miss ye, too. And I’ll miss calling ye missy, missy.”
“You can call me missy anytime you want, if only you’ll come with us!”
Barking interrupted the conversation. Penguins marched down the cliff’s edge, along the path. Bolt and his friends had been discovered. The penguins would be upon them in a few minutes.
“Go!” Blackburn ordered.
“But . . .” Annika began.
“Go!” Blackburn said again, swiping his hand from Annika’s clutches and turning to join Zemya. Topo had already disappeared down the hole.
Grom moaned from the bow of the small boat as the sounds of approaching penguins grew louder. The tops of their heads could be seen bobbing along the footpath.
Bolt and Annika didn’t have time to linger. They finished pushing the small rowboat into the water. Grom groaned, only half awake.
As the boat splashed into the waves, and as Annika picked up the oar to paddle them to the pirate ship, Bolt looked back at Pingvingrad one last time. Part of him wished he were escaping down a mole hole too, and not heading across the sea to fight the most powerful werepenguin in the world.
33.
Curses
Neither Annika nor Bolt were experienced sea travelers, but both took turns at the wheel.
“Two degrees starboard,” said Bolt.
“What does that mean?” Annika asked.
Bolt had no idea; the directions just seemed to come to him. He was linked, somehow, to the wind and air. Or maybe it was the Stranger—it was as if the Stranger were a magnet, pulling Bolt toward him.
They had been on the sea for two days but were still far from the Stranger’s polar home. They both thought of Blackburn often—everything in the boat reminded them of him. After all, the entire deck smelled like grog, there was a treasure chest filled with eye patches and old borscht recipes in the hold below, and a sign over the main cabin read:
this is blackburn’s boat. don’t forget about me!
Annika seemed to miss the pirate more than Bolt did. Blackburn and Annika had grown close; while Bolt was thinking of penguins, they would be practicing sword fighting or arguing about whether bandit codes or pirate codes were more admirable. And Bolt now had the entire penguin-verse to keep him company. Annika spent much of her day looking over the railing, staring out into the water. Bolt did the exact same thing, but he was reaching out to the penguin cosmos at the same time.
Grom lay in a cabin down below. He had turned a seaweed-green color that was fitting for the sea but not for a person. There was not much Bolt and Annika could do for him, as they knew even less about medicine than they did about navigating a ship.
His groans wiggled up through the wood and onto the deck. “He won’t live much longer,” said Annika. “It’s a miracle he has survived this long—the guy’s a fighter, that’s for sure—but he’s not getting any better. Seaweed-green people seldom do.”
Bolt nodded slowly, scratching his chin. “I could save him, you know.” He had thought about it ever since Grom had first been injured.
Annika stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I could bite him. Turn him into a werepenguin. He’d live. All of his wounds would heal.” Another moan floated up from down below. “But then I’d just be creating another monster. All werepenguins are monsters.”
“But you’re not a monster.”
“I sort of am. I’m just good at ignoring the eagerness to be evil that’s inside me. If I bit Grom, I could be creating another Baron, or Earl, or Dr. Walzanarz.”
“Gesundheit.”
“And I’d be just like them then, spreading more rottenness in the world.” Bolt shuddered at the thought of creating evil.
Annika laughed. “Bolt, don’t you see? You’re not the same as them, I mean, other than turning into a penguin at night.”
“That’s a lot to have in common.”
“I guess so,” agreed Annika. “But think about it. The Stranger bit the Baron out of hate. The same thing with the Earl. That’s why they are evil. But you would be biting Grom out of love, out of a desire to save him. How could a werepenguin born out of love be the same as those monsters? How could a werepenguin born from love be controlled by the Stranger? He couldn’t, because he would be different. Because he would be a part of you.” She tapped his chest. “He’d have your penguin-ism, sure. But he’d also have your heart.”
“Do you really think that? That my heart isn’t crusted with evil?”
“Of course I do. You’re not filled with evil; you’re filled with love, Bolt. Don’t you think so?”
“Maybe. Kind of. I don’t know.”
The seer had sung, way back in the first chapter:
But you won’t win unless you take this advice—
Born from love may entice, but a bite’s twice as nice.
And now, here was Annika using the same words: born from love. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the next part—a bite’s twice as nice—still didn’t make much sense.
So Bolt remained unconvinced as the ship
bobbed along the waves.
Annika went down to check on Grom as Bolt set the wheel on its course. The sky had turned dark. Bolt stood near the railing and closed his eyes, feeling penguins across the sea. He sensed small nuggets of hate in every one. Bolt tried to pry some of those hate chunks out, but they were too deep, too tightly wedged.
Bolt had always felt a barrier between the penguins and him, a cavernous gulf he could never cross. That barrier came from the Stranger’s dark, misguided evil-nugget planting. Was there any way to dislodge it? Bolt didn’t know.
Bolt kept his eyes closed, feeling the air around him, sensing penguins near and far, dipping into their minds to say hello before jumping out. As the sky continued to darken, the moon rose and filled the nighttime sky. It was a full moon. This was not an unnatural, always full moon like the ones in Pingvingrad, but an ordinary one, smaller but also purer. This moon was not evil; it just was.
“Grom isn’t doing well,” said Annika, emerging from the cabins below. “His seaweed green is now more of an emerald green. It’s actually a very nice shade on him, although I suspect it means he won’t last through the night.”
Bolt pointed to the sky. “It’s almost midnight. And it’s a full moon.”
Once, Bolt would have worried about turning into a werepenguin while on a boat in the middle of the sea. What if he hurt Annika? What if he attacked her? But he did not worry about that anymore. He could control the evil, mostly. At midnight he would go into the sea, feed, and return in the morning.
But his turning meant more than feeding, didn’t it? It meant he could spend time with his penguin family. Sure, it was a flawed family with hate nuggets, but it was still a family he could love.
Love. There was that sappy word again. Love, born from love, and all of that. Was Annika right? Would a good werepenguin be created if it came from such a wonderful emotion?
The Battle of the Werepenguins Page 16
