The Curse of the Werepenguin

by Allan Woodrow

  “And how does that help me?”

  “I don’t know. It probably doesn’t help at all. I just wanted to give you a final word.”

  Bolt stood up from the creaky chair and walked out to the street. He wandered aimlessly, plodding forward, barely paying attention to the shabby buildings he passed. So many people were counting on him, and for what? For him to do the impossible? Bolt pushed the thought away, but other thoughts flowed in.

  Was the housekeeper safe?

  Had Annika escaped the whale folk?

  Had his orphanage pants shrunk? They felt tighter than usual, and it made wandering aimlessly quite uncomfortable.

  The wind picked up and the clouds plunged the world into an even more despairing dimness. Bolt stumbled from the cold gale beating against him. It grew so dark, it almost looked like night. The thunder rumbled and lightning snapped its electrical tentacles. Strangely, more tumbleweed blew.

  Bolt trembled. He was not brave or mighty. He was not a thunderbolt. He was just a boy who liked to bolt from danger.

  Why did he think he could ever be anything else?

  If the Brugarians and the penguins were counting on Bolt to save them, then they had better also be counting on despair, gloom, and living the rest of their lives under the Baron’s ruthless control.

  39.

  Brothers in Arms, or Fins

  As Bolt stumbled forward, lightning flashed in the distance and thunder rumbled closer. But Bolt was barely aware of the sky. He was barely even aware of where he was walking, and strolled into a tree. He rubbed his nose, and then veered left, now paying a little more attention to where he walked.

  But he had so many more things to worry about than walking into trees, and so little time to do it. Midnight came nearer every second.

  Nearer.

  Nearer.

  Nearer.

  Although it was dark, violent flashes of light filled the too-close stormy skies and peeled the blackness back, revealing gray and violet clouds. A soft snowfall began, a few flakes, but a sign of things to come.

  Up ahead, through the gloom, Bolt spied a small group of penguins huddled together. He could feel their angry and hate-filled thoughts. As Bolt grew closer, he saw they were rummaging through something.

  It was a bowling-ball bag, and Bolt assumed they had stolen it. One of the birds was trying to slip into a pair of shoes, but his webbed feet were too big. Another penguin kept trying to pick up the ball, but it was too heavy. Another penguin pecked at a bag of food on the ground. The bag read Flounder Chips. Bolt’s stomach growled in hunger, but his eyes flashed with anger at the scavenging beasts.

  “That’s not yours!” shouted Bolt. “Shoo. Get!” He had no patience for these penguin ruffians. They scowled back at Bolt. He reached inside their addled, rotten brains. He had spoken to a single penguin at the festival, ordering it to attack. Could he control an entire group? I said get! Go!

  The group hissed, but obeyed. They scurried off, one grabbing the bowling shoes and one pushing the ball, rolling it in front of them.

  One of the birds remained. It looked up from the flounder chips it had been eating and stared at Bolt.

  “I said get out of here! You and your kind aren’t in control yet. I can stop you, maybe. It’s quite doubtful, to be honest. But that’s beside the point. Scram!”

  The penguin was shorter than the other penguins Bolt had seen, and fluffier. This bird was younger—not a child, but not yet an adult, either.

  This penguin’s mind was less coated with anger than that of the others. The Baron’s evil thoughts were there: that dark wall of hatred storming inside the bird’s brain was pure Baron. But there was something else. Friendliness? Innocence?

  Hope?

  Perhaps the Baron’s dark presence was not as strong as Bolt feared. Where there were a few untainted thoughts, there must be more. Perhaps the other penguins had not completely gone to the dark side, either.

  Perhaps twisted penguin brains could still be untwisted.

  Bolt knew, then and there, why he was the chosen one.

  He had been chosen because of his talent, and it wasn’t a talent to sing or know state capitals, but the talent to be a penguin. To understand penguins. To understand the importance of family.

  All his life, Bolt had known that his real family was waiting for him. And it was true. He had just been imagining the wrong family. This was his family, and it always had been.

  Bolt had to break his curse or the penguins might never be saved. But if he broke his curse, he would no longer be a penguin.

  He shook his head at the irony. He had finally found his real family. And the only way to save them could be to lose them.

  The younger penguin waddled up to Bolt. The bird stared at him, its mind confused. It poked Bolt with its wing. Are you our BFF?

  Bolt laughed. “No.” He rested his hand on the bird’s shoulder. “I’m your brother.”

  The penguin put its flipper around Bolt, and hugged him. Brother.

  Bolt stood, feeling awkward, his orphanage clothes growing damper from the wet, clammy penguin hugging him. But Bolt returned the hug. He couldn’t remember ever hugging someone before, or being hugged.

  He had a lot to learn about having a family. It was too bad he might never have time to learn it.

  After hugging for a few moments, Bolt gently nudged the penguin away. Above, the thick clouds continued to gather, and the clock crept closer to sundown, and midnight.

  He needed to march to the manor.

  The penguin followed him.

  “Stay here,” Bolt said to the bird, waving his hands and stomping forward. The penguin stomped toward him. “I said stay. You understand? I have to do this myself.” The penguin nodded.

  Bolt marched three steps forward and turned his head to see the penguin marching three steps toward Bolt. “I mean it. Don’t follow me.” Bolt plodded four steps forward. The penguin plodded four steps closer. Bolt hopped two steps. The penguin hopped two steps. Bolt pranced six steps ahead, while spinning. The penguin pranced six steps toward Bolt, and spun, despite the trickiness of prancing and spinning with webbed feet.

  “Oh, come on. Now you’re just doing that to be annoying.” Bolt moaned. “I mean it. I must do this on my own.”

  Loud barking echoed in the distance. More penguins, angry penguins, were out there, calling their brethren to join them.

  A cry for war.

  It would start tonight unless Bolt was successful in his mission.

  The penguin twisted its head toward the sounds. Bolt dashed away, and this time the penguin did not follow.

  Now Bolt walked forward, not aimlessly but with purpose. The penguin barks faded. He needed to find the Baron. For his brothers. For his family.

  Up ahead, the statues of the four saluting penguins rose in their proud, stony glory. Bolt was back in the penguin cemetery. A flash of lightning lit the dark day, unveiling a person standing by a tombstone amid the penguin statues. Another lightning bolt revealed the back of Frau Farfenugen. The lowly housekeeper wore a thick wool coat.

  Bolt approached her, and at the sound of his footsteps, she wheeled around. When she saw it was Bolt, she bowed. Her mouth turned up in an odd smile, as if she knew a secret.

  “Why are you smiling?” asked Bolt.

  “No reason.” She stopped smiling, and pointed to the sky. “Storm coming.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  Thunder boomed and, just then, the sky cracked. The flakes that a moment before were sprinkling down became a blanket so thick it turned the world white.

  “Never mind. Storm’s here,” said Frau Farfenugen. Bolt kicked his shoes, already covered in white fluff. He had never seen such rapid snowfall, although it didn’t slow the thunder and lightning that sizzled all around them. Lightning and snow. Thunder snow.

 
A fresh bouquet of flowers lay on the ground at the grave marker next to them, although it was already covered in white. “I didn’t take you for a penguin lover,” said Bolt. “Whose grave are you visiting?”

  “See for yourself,” croaked Frau Farfenugen, her voice quivering.

  The enormous flakes had already obscured the marker, so Bolt had to bend and wipe off the snow with his hand. He leaned down to see the writing on the stone.

  The marker was blank.

  “I don’t understand,” said Bolt.

  Frau Farfenugen buried her head in her hands. She might have been sobbing, but through the sheets of snow, it was impossible to tell. Her voice broke in a wail of despair. “This grave is my mother’s!”

  “Why is her grave unmarked?” Then he gasped. “Was—was your mother a penguin?”

  “Of course not,” snapped Frau Farfenugen. “How would that even be possible? Do I have a beak? My mother was the Baron’s housekeeper before me. If I stayed with the Baron, my eternal reward would be an unmarked grave in a penguin cemetery, too. I will have a different future even if, as a lowly housekeeper, I deserve nothing but misery.” She shivered. “And I’m terribly sorry about your head.” She smiled again, the same knowing smile.

  Bolt narrowed his eyes, confused. “What about my head?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, tapping her head and grimacing. “It can’t feel much worse than someone slamming a tray of dead fish on your head.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bolt saw something flying toward his head; it might have been an apple.

  Then he felt no more.

  40.

  If You Listen Carefully, You Can Hear Nothing

  Before an apple hit his cranium, before Bolt wandered into the graveyard, before he accepted his fate as the chosen one and embraced the penguins as his real family, in fact even before he met with the Fortune Teller, he had left Annika to face the Prince of Whales and Franz by herself.

  Annika stood before them, holding her knife.

  “Go away. We want the whale-hating boy, not you,” growled Günter.

  “I’m going nowhere. Bolt is our only hope to save all of Brugaria,” said Annika. “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t hate whales.”

  “You must think I was born yesterday,” yelled Günter, jabbing his bread at Annika. “What day is it?”

  “Sunday,” said Franz.

  “Then Saturday. You must think I was born Saturday.”

  “I was born on a Saturday,” said Franz. “Not yesterday. But a while ago.”

  “I’ve never thought about what day you were born,” said Annika. “I promise.”

  “You lie!” cried Günter.

  Annika might not have been the greatest bandit, not yet anyway, but she was the fastest bandit, so she crossed the ground quickly. The menacing sky had not yet shed its first snow, but the ground was still slippery, and ice crunched under her feet as thunder roared in the distance.

  She hurled her knife toward the weathered whale prince. Her knife-throwing pillow practice came in handy as her weapon sailed swiftly and surely. But the whale prince was no pillow. Günter parried with his French bread. The knife sank deep into its crust and stuck in place.

  Annika groaned, and then jumped back as Günter rushed forward, waving his stale bread loaf.

  Annika was not only quick but also nimble. She would have jumped over candlesticks easily. She ducked, and the loaf missed her head by inches. She danced back, out of the whale prince’s reach, while slipping the bobby pin from her hair. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but bandits often had to make weapons from ordinary objects.

  Naturally, some ordinary objects made better weapons than others. Irons, for example. Irons made great weapons. Hammers, rakes, and various household poisons could also be quite handy in a fight, the latter if you were serving dinner.

  But bobby pins? If Annika had been allowed to attend Felipe’s weekly Making Weapons from Ordinary Objects bandit classes, held right after knife-throwing practice, she would have known that bobby pins made awful bandit weapons, along with postage stamps, toenail clippings, and pianos. Pianos were far too heavy to hoist while fighting.

  So, clueless, Annika leapt into the air, her bobby pin in her hand. Günter guffawed at the weapon, swiftly twirled his French bread, and swatted her away. The bobby pin sailed into a bush.

  Annika flew back, too. Before she could plop onto the ground, arms grabbed her from behind.

  Annika thrashed, but Franz was as strong as he was wide. He lifted her into the air, her legs kicking.

  Kicking legs can be dangerous, as Franz learned when Annika’s heel crashed into his kneecap. Franz’s knee buckled, and Annika, free from his grasp, performed three quick aerials backward. Her gymnastic performance surprised even her.

  “I give you an 8,” said Günter, clapping.

  “I say a 7.5,” said Franz, also clapping while hopping on one leg.

  “I thought it deserved at least a 9,” said Annika, frowning.

  The Prince of Whales held his French bread loaf over his shoulder, wiggling it like an anxious baseball batter. “You’re quick and nimble, but you don’t stand a chance against my French bread.”

  “Let’s make her our prisoner,” said Franz.

  “No, I’ll knock her out with my bread,” countered Günter.

  “Prisoner!” shouted Franz.

  “Bread!”

  “Prisoner!”

  “Bread!”

  “How about if you hit her with your bread and then we keep her prisoner?” suggested Franz.

  Günter shrugged. “I can live with that.”

  While crouching, Annika held her hands out in fists. She didn’t need a weapon to fight these men. The greatest bandit who ever lived didn’t need a weapon to fight anyone. “Bring it on,” she hissed.

  As Günter straightened, his eyes blinked. His finger pointed. Franz’s mouth opened wide, and a whimper trickled out.

  Then, they turned and ran.

  “We will be back,” shouted Günter. “The war starts tonight.”

  Annika stood up straight, scratching her head as the two men disappeared around a corner. She licked her thumb, which had a slight cut on it. “Wow, I really am a great bandit,” she muttered to herself. She couldn’t believe she had scared them away. She only regretted her father had not seen her victory.

  “We’ve been looking all over for you,” said her father. “We thought you might have run away.”

  Annika turned. Her father stood behind her, along with Felipe and six other forest bandits. That was why the whale men had run. “We were watching,” said Felipe. “You showed real bravery.”

  Annika kicked the snow, and her face flushed. “Ah shucks, I didn’t do anything.”

  “You stood your ground. That’s the first step,” said Vigi Lambda. He smiled. Was it a smile of pride? He seemed to stand a little taller. “You shouldn’t have tried to use a bobby pin, though. Maybe I should let you attend the next Making Weapons from Ordinary Objects class. You’ll also learn that postage stamps, toenail clippings, and pianos make poor weapons. Pianos are just too heavy.”

  “I sometimes fight with pianos,” said Brutus, the tallest and strongest of the bandits.

  “But what are you doing here? Where have you been?” Vigi asked his daughter.

  “I planned to run away, but I was captured, and then I was going to be hanged but I escaped, and then the Baron caught me and I escaped again, and then I was going to head back home but the whale folk tried to stop me. It’s been a long couple of days. But more importantly, the Baron has prepared the penguins for war. He’s going to attack. We need to fight him.”

  Her father frowned. “We have a truce.”

  Annika clasped Vigi’s hand. “He’ll never respect it, Papa. He’ll turn on us. We need to battle.�
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  “We will do no such thing,” said Vigi. He stomped his foot on the ground. “It’s too dangerous. I will not put my men at risk. I will not put my daughter at risk. Besides, there’s no war coming. Those are just rumors because the Baron is so disturbing and discombobulating. I know there have been a few harmless penguin attacks, but that means nothing.”

  “That’s how the Great Bird Battle began a hundred years ago,” said Annika.

  “Nonsense. Do you have proof he plans to start a war?”

  Annika’s shoulders slumped. She loved her father, but she hated his stubbornness. Bolt was her proof—if he were here, her father would have to believe her. But without her penguin-transforming friend—and she had to admit, they were friends—she would never convince the bandits to take up arms against the Baron.

  Head down, she followed her father and the bandits back through the forest and toward the bandit campsite. It was all up to Bolt now.

  All their lives were in his hands.

  She just hoped he would have hands to save them, and not penguin wings.

  41.

  A Housekeeper Adrift

  Annika and the bandits trudged through the forest. Most forest trudgers would have found the path too dark and desolate to follow. But the bandits knew the way well. A gnarled knot on a tree told them to turn left. A bush with black, poisonous berries meant they needed to go straight for twenty paces and then turn right. A dead duck, or at least a rubber duck that looked like a dead duck, was their cue to duck under a tree branch.

  Rustling up ahead startled them. Instinctually Annika stopped, ready to run. A bandit was always ready to run from rustling. The leaves of a bush moved. Annika bounced on the soles of her feet. A bandit was always ready to bounce away from bush moving. A loud THUD followed, the sound of a head hitting a branch, and then an “Ow! My head!” from someone who did not know the duck meant to duck.