Oliver Fibbs and the Abominable Snow Penguin

by Steve Hartley

  ‘That’s right, miss,’ I said. I reached into my bag, and slowly revealed the heavy black satellite phone. ‘My uncle’s going to call me every day on this, to give me an update on his expedition. I’ve got a special codename: “LIFELINE”.’

  The kids went, ‘Ahhhhhhhh.’

  I held up the big red envelope. ‘And if he gets in trouble, I have special instructions to get help: the “CODE RED RESCUE PLAN”.’

  The kids went, ‘Wooooooowww!’

  Bragg pulled a face at me, but said nothing. It was going better than I could have hoped.

  But then Miss Wilkins spoilt everything.

  ‘I’ve got an idea!’ she said. ‘We can use your uncle’s expedition for a class project on the Antarctic. Some of you can research the animals, or the science and geography, or the history of polar exploration.’

  Miss Wilkins was on a roll now.

  ‘We can think about how Sir Randolph will survive on his expedition. What food will he take? What clothes will he need?’

  ‘How will he go to the toilet?’ wondered Leon Curley.

  ‘Maybe he wears a big nappy!’ shouted Bobby Bragg.

  The class laughed, while I tried not to think about it.

  Too late!

  ‘Maybe Oliver can ask his uncle if he’ll talk to us about his adventure when he gets back. Then he can answer all our questions!’ said Miss Wilkins, clapping her hands and giving a little of . ‘For the next three weeks, we won’t have . Instead, you can all give updates on your Antarctic projects. You can work on them in class, do homework each night, then prepare your presentations each weekend. Won’t that be fun?’

  All the Super And Special Kids went, ‘Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!’

  Miss Wilkins thought they were all joking and laughed.

  But it was no joke. Just like the fire-eyed demons in , the hot, angry eyes of the SAS GANG were fixed on me, willing my body to melt and turn into a huge, sloppy blob of Oliver Tibbs.

  ‘I’ve not got time for homework!’ hissed Bobby Bragg as I sat down at my table. ‘I’m doing ice-hockey training with the Riptorn Assassins next weekend.’

  ‘And I’m at a spelling-bee camp,’ added Hattie Hurley.

  ‘And I’m creating an iceberg in the bath,’ complained Toby Hadron.

  Bobby snarled. ‘Thanks for nothing, Fibbs!’

  Peaches didn’t seem to mind. ‘This is so !’ she said as I sat down. ‘I’m going to make you a special holster out of a recycled cushion cover, so you can carry the phone around on a belt.

  After lunch, everyone hurried outside, as Toby’s machine covered the entire playground in a thick layer of , like icing on a cake. Fine flakes swirled around in the air. I looked up, but was by the sun, shining in a cloudless blue sky.

  Half an hour later, the playground was crowded with snowmen, snow-women, snow-cats and snow-dogs. Peaches and I had made a snow-octopus, and I have to say it was pretty amazing. None of the sculptures were as amazing as the gigantic snow-penguin Bobby, Toby and Hattie had built in the middle of the playground. They won the competition easily.

  Toby’s snow-machine kept chucking out streams of dancing white flakes and, while it was melting fast in the sun, there was still enough snow left for a mass snowball fight before we went inside.

  Bobby Bragg ambushed Peaches, shoving a handful of slush down her neck.

  ‘Ollie, help!’ shouted Peaches.

  I began to run towards them, but slipped and fell – – in the snow. I skidded and slid helplessly, only stopping when I clattered into the back of Peaches’s legs. Arms flailing, she tumbled backwards over me and sat down heavily in the lake of grey slush that now covered the playground.

  ‘Cold, wet knickers,’ she moaned. ‘Not nice.’

  ‘I’m going to be soaking for the rest of the morning,’ I complained to Peaches.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said, pulling a spare pair of pants and socks from her Eco Warrior shoulder bag. ‘I always carry spares, just in case.’

  ‘What, in case you sit in a puddle of artificial snow?’

  Peaches just smiled and shrugged. ‘Well, it happened, didn’t it?’

  Sometimes, even DABMAN can’t argue with Captain Common Sense!

  A week later, there was a real buzz of in the class when I stood up and told everyone that the expedition was under way. Uncle Sir Randolph had parachuted on to the ice (how awesome is that?) and transmitted his first position.

  I proudly stuck a red pin in the map of Antarctica on the wall at the back of the class to mark where he was.

  ‘Tell us more about your famous uncle, Oliver,’ said Miss Wilkins. ‘Tell us about the places he’s been and the adventures he’s had.’

  ‘He’s explored all over the world,’ I began.

  I counted them off on my fingers. ‘When he STROLLED across the Sahara, he was attacked by bandits and found the lost pyramid of King Tutti-Prutti.’

  The class went, ‘Oooooooooo!’

  ‘And when he HIKED up the Himalayas he survived an avalanche and found the lair of the legendary Not Yeti.’

  The class went, ‘Ahhhhhhh!’

  ‘And when he PADDLED across the Pacific looking for the buried treasure of the fearsome pirate Captain Bluenose, he ran out of water and had to drink his own wee!’

  The class went, ‘Eeeewwwwww!’

  ‘In the Rockies, he fought off mountain lions and found the secret gold mine of Grumpy Gordon McGrundy.’

  The class went, ‘Woooooowwww!’

  ‘And when he tiptoed through the tulips, he got stuck in the slime-trap of the Dutch Assassin Slug that was guarding the Magical Dancing Clogs of the ancient Queen of Cleves.’

  Some of the kids went, ‘Oooooooooo,’ a few went, ‘Ahhhhhhhh,’ and the rest went, ‘Wowwwwwww!’ so the sound came out as a seriously impressed-sounding ‘Woooaahhhhooooooowwwwow’.

  I thought, Thanks, Uncle Sir Randolph.

  ‘He’s a rubbish explorer,’ shouted Bobby Bragg. ‘He always gets lost and has to be rescued!’

  Actually, my uncle did have a habit of wandering off in the wrong direction, but I wasn’t going to let Bobby make fun of him.

  ‘Real heroes don’t care if they get lost,’ I countered. ‘And anyway, sometimes Uncle Sir Randolph gets lost because he follows the directions on his wooden compass.’

  ‘Joke! Joke! Your nose is broke!’ sang Bobby.

  ‘There’s no such thing as magic,’ said Toby Hadron. ‘Just science.’

  ‘It’s real,’ I told them. ‘One day, not long after he’d decided to become an explorer, my uncle got lost trying to find the gift-shop at the Royal Society of Wanderers. He wandered into a dark room full of objects from around the world. In the centre of the room, sitting on a velvet cushion, was a battered, ancient wooden compass . . .

  ‘As Sir Randolph picked up the compass, it began to glow with a light,’ I said. ‘The needle sprang to life, swinging and circling around the face. Then the compass spoke, its deep voice echoing around the vast room.

  ‘That’s how Uncle Sir Randolph discovers all these legendary places when he goes wandering,’ I explained.

  ‘How unlikely!’ said Miss Wilkins, smiling as I sat back down in my seat. ‘Oliver, I’d like you to give us all a daily update on your uncle’s progress. It’ll feel like we are almost on the expedition with him: trudging through blizzards, climbing steep JAGGED ice cliffs, huddling in a flimsy tent as an icy gale howls outside!’

  If only that’s what actually happened . . .

  Every night, ‘SUPER SNOWMAN’ phoned me on the satellite phone with a progress report and, every morning, I stood up in front of the class, and gave them the update.

  Monday: ‘Walked thirteen kilometres. It snowed.’

  Tuesday: ‘Walked nine and a half kilometres. It snowed.’

  Wednesday: ‘Walked five kilometres. It snowed a bit more.’

  Thursday: ‘Walked seven and a quarter kilometres. It snowed a bit less.’

  The r
eaction of the other kids got worse each day.

  On Monday, they were sniggering.

  On Tuesday, they were shaking their heads.

  On Wednesday, they were rolling their eyes.

  On Thursday, they were yawning.

  The trouble was, while my snow reports were getting more and more Dull And Boring, the rest of the class was doing projects that were getting more and more Super And Special.

  Melody Nightingale showed us a picture of a COLOSSAL squid that lives deep in the Southern Ocean around the Antarctic. She said it grows to about 14 metres long, has got the biggest eyes of any animal on earth (about 40 centimetres across!) and long tentacles with massive suckers on the end to catch its prey.

  ‘How scary!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Hattie Hurley told us that her favourite Antarctic words were ‘circumpolar’, which means ‘around the pole’, and ‘phytoplankton’, which is the name for all the tiny plants that live in the sea.

  ‘How informative!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Leon Curley told us that Antarctica is covered in ice over one and a half kilometres thick, and the temperature once dropped to minus 89.2 degrees Celsius.

  ‘How shiver-some!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Then Millie Dangerfield showed us a map of the Antarctic with great patches coloured in red around the edge. ‘Global warming is making huge chunks of ice as big as islands fall off and melt,’ she cried. ‘But, if all the ice melts, the sea-level will rise, and we’ll all be drowned!’

  She like a gerbil, ran back to her seat.

  ‘How alarming!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Peaches was studying penguins (her favourite animal). Pea told us that there are about nineteen different types of penguins, and that they only live in the southern part of the world, not the north. She said the emperor penguin is the biggest (over one metre tall), and the fairy penguin is the smallest (about 30 centimetres tall).

  She was wearing a pair of black wellington boots with curving cardboard claws stuck on the toes. ‘I’m making an emperor penguin suit,’ she explained, ‘but so far I’ve only done the feet.’

  ‘How realistic!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Bobby Bragg stood up next.

  ‘Killer whales are the best animals in the Antarctic,’ he said. ‘They’ve got HUGE sharp teeth and they eat penguins. Leopard seals eat penguins too. And big birds called giant petrels eat penguin chicks.’

  Peaches glared at him, and the class went, ‘Awwwwww.’

  ‘How gruesome!’ said Miss Wilkins.

  Bobby puffed up his shoulders. ‘Nothing would eat me, miss,’ he said. ‘If I came face to face with a killer whale, I’d chop it in the fins – SMACK! – and kick it in the flippers! – POW!’ Then he did a karate demonstration (as usual).

  I was dreading Friday’s project time, but then on Thursday night things got even worse. My uncle phoned me and said, ‘Hello, LIFELINE, SUPER SNOWMAN here! Walked ten and three-quarter kilometres today! It snowed. Saw a penguin . . . (crackle). It was . . . (crackle) . . . and . . . (crackle-crackle) . . . but then . . . (screeeeeeeeeeeech).’

  Silence.

  I pressed a few random buttons, but the phone was as dead as my Antarctic project. I stared at it, willing my uncle to call, but there was nothing. I tried to call him again before I went to school the next morning, but I just got crackles and hissing.

  What was I going to tell my class? I didn’t even have Dull And Boring stuff to report: I had Zip. Zero. Nothing.

  As I stood up, many of them were grinning already, getting ready to burst into laughter at my latest Dull And Boring instalment. This was just like my normal time. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but it was as though my mouth had a life of its own. I couldn’t stop myself. The words just tumbled out.

  I thought, . . . the crackles and screeches I heard over the phone were actually the sound of some horrible ice that were attacking my uncle?

  ‘Just as Uncle Sir Randolph started to give me his latest report last night, I heard a terrifying shrieking noise . . .’

  Toby Hadron frowned. ‘It’s a scientific fact that there are no ants at the South Pole.’

  ‘Why do you think it’s called Ant-arctica?’ I asked.

  ‘The word means “opposite the Arctic”,’ explained Hattie.

  ‘That’s what everyone thinks,’ I argued. ‘But the name actually means “land of the Arctic ants”.’

  ‘That sounds right,’ said Peaches, trying to help me out.

  ‘Now, Oliver . . .’ said Miss Wilkins.

  ‘Arctic ants are a legendary species of insect with pointy POISONOUS pincers, and hairy feet to keep their toes warm in the ,’ I went on quickly. ‘They live in massive burrows hundreds of metres below the ice, and hunt whales, and walruses and . . . wanderers.’

  A few of the class were smiling at me, but some, like Millie Dangerfield and Leon Curley, sat forward on their chairs, listening intently.

  ‘When they go hunting, millions of ants wait at the edge of the ice and rub their back legs together to make a loud chirruping sound. Seals and other sea creatures are hypnotized by the strange music, and when they poke their noses out of the water the ants swarm over them . . .’

  I heard Millie gasp.

  ‘Then the ants drag their prey on to the ice, and start munching,’ I continued. ‘So I knew my uncle was in big trouble . . .’

  ‘What’s happened to him, Oliver?’ asked Millie. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I replied. ‘But I had to find out.’ I stuck a pin in the map to show my uncle’s last known position. ‘This was a job for someone Dashing And Brave, Daring And Bold. This was a job for . . . DABMAN!’

  Millie and Leon cheered.

  Bobby Bragg groaned. ‘FIB Alert! FIB Alert! Tibbs has got a girly skirt!’

  ‘Go for it, Ollie!’ laughed Jamie Ryder.

  ‘This is impossible,’ said Toby Hadron. ‘Antarctica’s thousands of miles away – it takes weeks to get there.’

  Toby was right: how could DABMAN get to the Antarctic in seconds? Think, think, think! Then I remembered the lucky snow globe my uncle had given to Algy. . . .?

  I paused, and gazed around the class. Everyone was silent, gripped by my story, except Bobby Bragg, who pretended to fall asleep and snore.

  ‘There was only one way you can say thanks to a giant squid when he’s just saved your life: give him a Snik-Snak chocolate bar.’

  ‘It’s a good thing DABMAN saved the day once again,’ said Miss Wilkins. ‘Otherwise, the expedition would have been over, and we’d have had to cancel all your project homework over the weekend.’

  Then she gave me a playtime detention for FIBBING.

  So at playtime I sat on my own in the classroom and wrote down my ant-attack tale as Miss Wilkins cut out paper snowflakes to hang up around the classroom, to give it a feeling for our project.

  At the end of the day, Constanza was nine minutes late picking me up. ‘Mamma mia! Tragedia! Emma tears her tutu, and Gemma loses her leotard. Boo-hoo! It is end of world, I think!’

  Miss Wilkins took her to one side, and they whispered to each other. I caught a few words: ‘ants’, ‘snowflake’, ‘hero’ and ‘plum pudding’.

  Constanza tutted and shook her head at me. ‘Sir Randolph is a hero,’ she said as we walked back to the car. ‘You have no fib with him.’

  ‘They’re not FIBS, Constanza – they’re stories,’ I reminded her.

  ‘Cattivo!’ she replied. That’s one of the few Italian words I know, because she says it all the time. It means ‘bad boy!’

  The twins were slumped in the back seat, their eyes and faces red from sobbing.

  ‘Madame Picamole will mark us down on care of equipment,’ blubbed Emma.

  ‘And Eugenia Lovelace will get a higher mark than us,’ sobbed Gemma.

  ‘Whaaaaaaaaaaaa!’ they bawled.

  Algy rolled his eyes and grinned a naughty grin. I knew that look. What had my sneaky little brother been up to this
time?

  ‘You think you’ve got problems,’ I yelled at them to make myself heard over their miserable wailing.

  As we drove home, I stared out of the window. If only Uncle Sir Randolph WOULD get attacked by vicious Arctic ants, I thought, then I wouldn’t have to make up stories.

  After supper, I told my family about the satellite phone not working.

  ‘All sorts of things can affect radio signals,’ explained Algy. ‘Like bad weather, where you’re standing and which way you point the phone. Try pointing it south towards the Antarctic. Also, the signal might be stronger in different rooms. You could even try using your body as a big aerial!’

  So I roamed around the house, and eventually managed to get the phone to work in my Thinking Room by holding it upside down and standing on my head in the bathtub with my right foot sticking out of the bathroom window.

  ‘Come in, SUPER SNOWMAN,’ I shouted into the phone.

  Uncle Sir Randolph’s voice was crackly and faint. ‘Hello, LIFELINE!’ he answered. ‘Good to hear from you at lost . . . (hissssssssss) . . . These phones are a nuisance . . . (crickle-crick-crackle) . . . Are you ready for my Friday update?’

  ‘Have you seen any Arctic ants, or COLOSSAL squid?’ I asked hopefully, wobbling and slipping on the smooth surface of the bath.

  His laughter boomed back at me from the speaker. ‘Sorry, Ollie,’ he roared. ‘All I can see is snow! I made good progress today: I ambled 9.5 kilometres. But then my compass went on the blink, and it snowed, so I pitched my tent and stopped for a nice cup of and a .’