Penguin Pandemonium

by Jeanne Willis

  “We?” said Rory.

  “You always think of something,” said Blue. “You’re brilliant at it.”

  Frosty wrapped his paws round Rory and gave him a massive bear hug. “Thank you, thank you! You will make me the happiest polar bear in the universe.”

  Rory fixed him with a cheesy grin as his eyes bulged and he struggled to breathe. “Yes, brilliant.”

  “No pressure there then, Rory,” snickered Muriel.

  But by the time they got back to the penguin pool, Rory had already decided what to do.

  “Is it something terribly brave?” asked Blue.

  “Yes,” said Rory. “I’m going to ask Big Paulie for help!”

  ory got up at dawn after yet another dreadful night’s sleep, but it wasn’t snowbeast nightmares that kept him awake this time, it was the thought of admitting to Paulie that he had gone over the wall against his wishes. He decided it was better to get it over with earlier rather than later, and went to call for Blue.

  “Maybe you should wait,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Paulie isn’t exactly an early bird.”

  “He’ll go nuts whatever time of day I tell him,” shrugged Rory. “Coming to back me up?”

  Blue linked flippers with him. “OK. Chill out; what’s the worst he can do?”

  Rory didn’t like to think about it. Once, when he’d disobeyed Paulie, the boss warned that he would introduce him to his friend, Mr Tiger. It was a thinly disguised threat and one that was never carried out – but there was always a first time.

  “Don’t be silly. Paulie’s beak is worse than his bite,” said Blue. “He would never peck another penguin. He loves us. We’re family.”

  When Rory finally plucked up the courage to knock on the palace door, Paulie was rather muzzy headed.

  “Whaddya want? Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” he yawned.

  “Yes, it can!” said Rory, turning on his heel.

  “No, it can’t!” blurted Blue, preventing him from leaving. “Paulie, please don’t be mad at us, but we went over the wall with Brenda and she read the sign on the new enclosure and the animal inside it is a—”

  “Polar bear! Woo hoo!” whooped Rory in a state of nervous excitement.

  Before Paulie had a chance to react angrily or otherwise, the noise woke the brown bears.

  “Did you hear that, Ursie?” said Orson. “It’s a polar bear.”

  “I thought it was a bear all along,” said Ursie. “Only a bear could command so much attention.”

  They seemed to have forgotten all about the abominable snowbeast and, insisting that polar bears were their closest cousins, they wanted to know all about him.

  “He’s called Frosty,” said Blue.

  “Excellent name for a bear,” said Orson.

  “Not as good as Ursie, though,” sulked Ursie.

  Paulie tried to open his beak to ask a few very important questions of his own.

  “Rory, this polar bear… Is it—”

  “As handsome as me?” interrupted Ursie, posing against his tree and flexing his biceps. “Is it as tall? Is it as furry? Is it as—”

  “It’s a cub,” said Blue. “A sad, lonely little cub with a sore paw. It needs our help and we didn’t know what to—”

  Ursie stuffed both paws in his mouth and sighed. “Orson, it’s a baby! How adorable.”

  “I think we should—” muttered Paulie, only to be interrupted by Ursie yet again.

  “Oh, but the poor lickle thing is sad and sore, I can’t bear it.”

  Unable to get a word in edgeways, Paulie tried to usher the penguins inside to talk about Frosty in peace and quiet – but that was never going to happen. The bears got very uppity and accused him of being selfish.

  “Don’t you go into one of your private penguin huddles!” grunted Orson. “You might think you’re Mr Big, but that cub needs us. You know nothing about bears.”

  “I know they’re very irritating and nosy!” shouted Paulie. “Especially the brown variety.”

  Annoying as it was, Orson was right. The penguins knew nothing about polar bears. If they really wanted to help Frosty, they needed advice. Reluctantly, they waddled back outside and asked the bears’ advice about the best way to cheer up a cub that was missing its mother.

  “That’s easy, isn’t it, Orson?” said Ursie. “Bake him a cake.”

  “Cake?” said Orson, poking him in his pot belly. “That’s not for him, it’s for you, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a small piece,” admitted Ursie. “What did you have in mind?”

  To everyone’s surprise, Orson threw some shapes and broke into song. “Shake, shake, shake, shake your boooooty. Throw him a disco party!”

  The penguins stared at each other in disbelief.

  “A disco?” said Rory. “Are you sure? Do polar bears have discos in the wild?”

  “They have wild parties,” insisted Orson, breakdancing round the trunk of his tree.

  “Excuse my friend,” said Ursie, taking Orson to one side. “You’re being irresponsible, Orson. Frosty is too young to go to a disco. Your average bear doesn’t go dancing until he is at least five.”

  “What about karaoke?” said Orson.

  By now, it had become perfectly plain to Big Paulie that, although Orson and Ursie knew a lot about how to cheer brown bears up, they had no idea what baby polar bears liked any more than the penguins did. It was a problem because, as Blue pointed out, they couldn’t leave him like that – not now they’d promised to help.

  “A penguin never breaks its promise,” agreed Paulie.

  “If only we knew what Frosty ate,” said Rory. “I thought it was penguins, but when I was in his enclosure, he said that…”

  Paulie narrowed his eyes. “You went in his enclosure? Bad penguin! Broke your promise!”

  “I went in too,” confessed Blue. “It was only Muriel who promised.”

  Paulie threw his flippers in the air.

  “First, the pooping. Then you go over the wall. Now this!” he stamped. “Stop giggling, you bears!”

  “You said poop,” tittered Ursie, clutching his sides.

  “Ah, grow up and make yourselves useful!” grumbled Paulie. “Try and think of some sensible ideas to help Frosty.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud squawk from above, and a strange bird landed on the roof of the palace.

  Orson peered at it curiously. “Am I seeing things?” he said. “Is that a new kind of gull or am I having one of my funny turns?”

  “I’m an Arctic tern, not a funny one,” it replied. “Anyone seen a polar bear cub around these parts?”

  “Who wants him?” said Paulie. He was suspicious of strangers and wasn’t about to give away any information lightly. “What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your mission—?”

  “Coo-eee… Are you looking for Frosty?” interrupted Ursie. “He’s down the steps, to your left.”

  “Cod give me strength!” screeched Paulie.

  The tern lifted its foot, wiped its beak, then hopped down by the frozen penguin pool and sipped some water through a small hole in the ice.

  “Cor, I was gasping for that,” he said. “I’ve flown all the way here from the Arctic on my annual migration. I thought I’d overwinter here because I heard penguins were sociable birds. My name’s Thermal, by the way.”

  “Big Paulie,” said the boss, shaking him firmly by the flipper. “If you’d care to come this way, you can explain your business over breakfast – a platter of sprats’ eyes, perhaps?”

  “That would go down nicely, Biggy,” said Thermal, following him inside.

  Away from the bears, it was much easier to conduct a conversation and, as Rory and Blue settled down in the luxurious hutch, Thermal explained himself. It seemed that he was a good friend of Frosty’s mother and, knowing how worried she was about him, he’d offered to combine his visit abroad with a trip to City Zoo to keep an eye on the little cub.

  “I do hope he’s all right,” he said, helpi
ng himself to another sprat eye. “I’d hate to go back to his poor old ma with bad news.”

  Blue and Rory put him in the picture as best they could. Frosty’s paw was on the mend, but he was still underweight – mostly because he’d been pining. He needed to build up his strength before the zoo would allow him to go home.

  “Mr Bruin doesn’t like to rush things,” said Blue, “but in the meantime, Frosty is sad and lonely. We want to help him, but we don’t know what makes polar bears happy.”

  The tern stretched his wings. “Lucky I dropped by then, isn’t it?” he said. “Got any more of those eyes, Mr Big?”

  “I have squid rings,” said Paulie, refilling the dish.

  The penguins waited patiently as Thermal chewed his way through the snacks, then finally he spoke.

  “That’s better – I’m stuffed to my gizzard. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, polar bears. What I don’t know about them isn’t worth knowing. You can’t move for polar bears where I come from.”

  They ate fish, he told them. Lots of fish. They loved it. They loved fishing and swimming and chased after shoals of fish in the sea.

  “We love fish too,” said Rory.

  “And we love swimming,” said Blue.

  The tern continued. Sometimes, he said, polar bears would sit by a hole in the ice for days, waiting for a seal to come up for air, and then they would whack it and eat it.

  “Good,” said Paulie. “I hate seals. A leopard seal ate my best friend, Chubby O’Neil!”

  Now Rory had a burning question. “Do polar bears like to slide on the ice?”

  The tern nodded enthusiastically. “It’s their favourite game, my son! They slide; they toboggan; they ski.”

  “Me too!” said Rory. “And I snowboard with my friends.”

  “Good for you. I bet little Frosty would love to have a go at that,” said Thermal.

  As Blue swallowed another squid ring, it crossed her mind that, although polar bears and penguins lived poles apart, they had a lot in common – they liked the same food and they were really into winter sports and swimming. “Rory, polar bears are just like us, really, aren’t they? Only big and furry.”

  “Yeah!” agreed Rory. “Knowing what we know now, it’ll be easy to come up with ways to amuse Frosty. Let’s go and make a list.”

  “Not so fast!” said Paulie.

  Their hearts sank – he was going to tell them off after all. They hung their heads and waited to hear what their punishment would be.

  “Furious as I am with you both,” he began, “I’m very grateful that you brought the suffering of little Frosty to my attention. I would like you to spread the word and come up with some ideas to speed up his recovery by this afternoon. Whaddya say?”

  “We promise!” chorused Rory and Blue.

  And this time, they meant it.

  aving briefed the other penguins about coming up with ways to help Frosty, Rory was struggling with his own list. Now that he knew what polar bears liked, he was stuck for choice: should he take him rock-hopping, tobogganing or swimming? He couldn’t decide, so he went to run it past Blue.

  “Tricky one,” she said. “Swimming is the best all-round exercise anyone can get.”

  “I know,” said Rory, “but Frosty is used to swimming in the sea. Won’t he get bored just doing laps of the pool?”

  “Not if we turn it into a race,” said Blue.

  Rory thought about it. A race would be fun – and fun was just what the little cub needed – but would it be as exciting as rock-hopping? Maybe jumping about would be the best thing to build up his muscles, but would it be good for him so soon after his operation?

  “I don’t think Mr Bruin would have let him out of hospital if he couldn’t put weight on his foot,” said Blue. “But tobogganing might be safer.”

  “Not the way I do it,” said Rory, who liked to think of himself as the ultimate stunt-penguin.

  “Frosty’s still a baby,” said Blue. “He’s weak from his injury, so we’ll have to build him up slowly. How about doing a bit of all three?”

  Rory mulled it over.

  “You mean like a triathlon? Penguins versus polar bear. That would give Frosty a great workout. Nice one, Fish Face! I’ll go and tell Eddie and Clive. You want to be in the team?”

  Blue looked surprised. Usually, Rory had to bribe his mates with mackerel to let her join in. She was every bit as good at snow sports as they were, but they liked things to be Boys Only, even though they secretly fancied Hatty and Brenda.

  “Won’t Eddie and Clive mind?” she asked.

  Rory held something up in a small bag. “They’ll do anything for a squid ring.”

  He’d saved a few from Paulie’s palace, knowing that a situation like this might crop up. His friends wouldn’t be able to resist them. There were three each – they’d be like putty in his flippers.

  “Come on then,” grinned Blue.

  They made their way across the enclosure to organise the triathlon, but, as they got near the penguin pool, they were distracted by the sound of music coming from a transistor radio and somebody shouting orders.

  “Oh my cod, Hatty! It’s six star jumps to the left, not the right. Keep up, Brenda!”

  Rory and Blue watched in amused silence from behind a rock as Muriel tried her best to put together an aerobic dance routine with her two fairy friends. It wasn’t going well, as she was the only one with any sense of direction.

  “Three steps forward, three steps back!” shouted Muriel. “Did I ask you to do a knees-bend, Hatty?”

  Hatty tugged miserably at the crotch of her leotard. It was the one Waldo had made her for the talent show to do synchronised swimming in, but it had shrunk and was pulling in all the wrong places.

  “I’ve got a wedgie!” she wailed.

  “Live with it!” snapped Muriel. “We need to learn this routine fast, so we can teach it to Frosty.”

  Rory and Blue spluttered with laughter and gave their hiding place away. Muriel snapped the music off and marched over.

  “Oh, it’s Bloop and Boyf. I might have guessed,” she said. “You can take those silly grins off your beaks. Cod knows what ridiculous idea you’ve come up with to help that poor cub, so it’s just as well someone knows what they’re doing.”

  “I don’t know,” muttered Brenda. “Is that way left, Hatty?”

  “It’s right, Brenda,” said Hatty.

  Muriel spun round and flapped her flippers at them. “It’s wrong!” she screeched. “Get back in line and follow me! The zoo will be opening soon; we need to crack this before the visitors arrive.”

  She turned the radio up full blast.

  “One-two-three and a leg-kick, and a shimmy and— Hatty, stop fiddling. If you’d come to my Fat Camp in the summer, your leotard wouldn’t be so snug!”

  Little wonder that the fairy penguins were confused. It was a difficult routine and Muriel kept changing it. As she had her back to them, Brenda and Hatty kept pulling faces, making rude gestures and messing about.

  “I don’t remember Thermal saying that polar bears could dance,” said Rory, lowering his voice so as not to wake Orson and Ursie. “The brown bears like to think they can, but has Frosty got the legs for it?”

  Just then, Paulie went past. Hearing the music, he waddled into reverse and watched, agog, as Muriel put the girls through their paces. Having spotted him, Brenda and Hatty were now on their best behaviour, but they still hadn’t got to grips with the routine.

  “Early days, I guess,” said Paulie, trying hard not to laugh as Brenda kicked Muriel up the bottom. “Had any ideas yet, you two?”

  “Three,” said Blue.

  “A triathlon,” added Rory. “Swimming, rock-hopping and tobogganing, only like a race.”

  Big Paulie tugged at his chin and nodded encouragingly.

  “I like it! Maybe a bit of healthy competition will bring Frosty out of his shell.”

  He clicked his flippers and called to Muriel over the beat of the music. “This r
outine of yours. It’s… very ambitious. You may have to dumb it down a little for the cub.”

  “It’ll be hard not to with these two ninnies,” puffed Muriel.

  Paulie tried to be positive, but seeing the hilarious display of clumsiness in front of him, it wasn’t easy. Penguins were graceful in the water, but not on dry land and certainly not if they couldn’t tell left from right. How on earth would they be able to teach Frosty?

  “Ten out of ten for effort, Muriel,” he said. “But try and keep it simple.”

  She was just going to say something about Brenda and Hatty being simple, when the Arty Party Penguins arrived, pushing a huge block of ice in an old doll’s pram.

  “There you are, dear boy,” said Waldo, shaking Paulie by the flipper. “We’ve been looking all over for you. Wanted to tell you our idea.”

  “I’m intrigued. That’s a lot of ice,” said Paulie.

  “Well, it’s not to go in my gin and tonic,” said Warren, twirling his false moustache.

  “We’re going to make an ice sculpture of a polar bear,” said Wesley, pulling out a nail file and chiselling a chip off the block. “But not just any old polar bear – Frosty’s mother!”

  “And I have written a poem to be recited in conjunction with the great unveiling,” said Waldo.

  “He means he’s going to read it out when we show Frosty the ice sculpture,” explained Wesley.

  “That’s what I said, darling,” snapped Waldo, opening his notebook with a flourish. “Will somebody please turn that frightful music off and I’ll begin?”

  He stood on the rock with all the penguins gathered round him and began:

  “It’s natural to miss the wild,

  Poor lonely cub, poor only child.

  Your mother waits and cries for you

  And she howls, boo hoo. Boo hoo—”

  “Yoo hoo!” interrupted Ursie, who’d been woken by the sound of sobbing penguins.

  Orson had also been disturbed. “What’s with all the blubbering?” he grunted. “Who died?”