The Battle of the Werepenguins

by Allan Woodrow

  The crane lowered.

  Up! urged Bolt, keeping his thoughts firmly wedged into the head mirror’s crack.

  The crane went up.

  “Fry it!” demanded the dentist.

  The crane went down.

  Up!

  “Fry it!”

  Up!

  “Fry it!”

  The crane jerked up, down, up, and then with a loud BANG! shook, and stopped. The whale hung in its harness, five feet over the pool, swaying. The penguin at the control console stopped twitching and barked, “Gears are jammed.”

  Bolt stood, sweating, eyes watering, and not just from the oil.

  Dr. Walzanarz grunted with displeasure. “Not sure what happened there, Bolt. But I see your eyes are watering you’re so upset. Don’t worry. We’ll have plenty of time to fry whales later. Besides, frying the whale isn’t even the best part of our plan. Well, maybe it is the best part. There are two parts, and I can’t quite decide which one is better. Let me know what you think. Come with me, my dahling Bolt. You’ll love the next room.” She cackled.

  Bolt threw her a dirty look. He didn’t like it when seers cackled, and he liked evil werepenguin dentists cackling even less, although he would have welcomed a lifetime of cackling if it meant no more whales being fried.

  Still, he had saved the whale! At least for the time being. Sure, he had just gotten lucky. But he needed his luck to continue if he was going to not only save the whale but himself. And the world.

  You’ll be OK, thought Bolt, taking one last look at the whale.

  Really, dude? You’re not the one hanging over a steaming pool of oil.

  As Bolt followed Dr. Walzanarz out of the room he said, “The whale was toothless. Which means you pulled all its teeth, right?” Dr. Walzanarz nodded. “But why bother, if you were just going to fry it anyway? Is it just because you’re an evil dentist and enjoy hurting helpless whales?”

  “Well, that’s partly the reason, sure. But not the main reason. You’ll see for yourself in a minute!” They walked down a back stairway, through a narrow hallway, and stopped in front of a steel door. Bolt glanced at the sign over it:

  our secret-plan-to-rule-the-cosmos room.

  Dr. Walzanarz grinned and pushed open the door. “Victims first.” She cleared her throat. “Sorry. I mean guests. Guests first.”

  Bolt entered the dark room, wondering what horrors he might see next.

  22.

  The Whale Teeth

  Fluorescent lights flickered from the ceiling, revealing a spacious laboratory filled with microscopes, test tubes, and, most of all, dozens of large teeth, maybe hundreds of them.

  Dr. Walzanarz picked up one of the teeth. It must have been six inches long. She rubbed it gently against her cheek. “Whale fangs,” said the dentist, closing her eyes. She seemed to be lost in the moment. Then, as if remembering she wasn’t alone, she opened her eyes and chuckled. “Did you know that some whales have nearly two hundred and fifty teeth? Of course, some whales have no teeth at all. But a whale without a tooth is like a werepenguin who doesn’t want to rule the world. Pointless.” She gently rolled her finger over the edge of the tooth, sighed, and then placed it back down. “Whale teeth can be all sorts of sizes, dahling. The narwhale only has one tooth, but it’s nine feet long. That’s a bit too long for my needs, but still interesting, or at least interesting if you’re a whale dentist.” She beamed. “In whale dentistry school I got an A on the Guess the Size of the Whale Tooth test. It was the only test I passed in school.”

  “If you flunked all your other tests, how did you become a dentist at all?”

  “I didn’t say I was a good dentist, did I? Besides, whales seldom ask to see diplomas.”

  A group of dental chairs, each as big as a whale, sat on the opposite side of the room. Next to each of the large chairs was a much smaller, mini dental chair. “Are those for baby whales?” Bolt guessed, shivering. Pulling the teeth of adult whales was horrifying enough. But little whale calves?

  “Do I look like someone who would pull the teeth of baby whales?”

  “Sort of. Yeah.”

  “I guess you’re right,” agreed the dentist. “But those little dentist chairs aren’t for babies. No, they are the key to our entire operation.” She giggled. “Get it? I said our operation, and this is where I perform mysterious whale operations? Oh, I’m so clever. But those chairs are the size of something else. Can you guess what?”

  “Inflatable clowns? Smallish mannequins? Very large cantaloupes?”

  “Not even close, dahling. Take a look over there.” She pointed just beyond the chairs.

  There wasn’t a wall on the far side of the room but a small metal railing overlooking a vast expanse of darkness. Dr. Walzanarz clapped her hands, and a light turned on.

  Bolt approached the railing and looked down onto a room with gray walls and a bare gray floor except for a small rainbow-colored plastic kiddie pool in the middle of it, and a large mound of fish skeletons.

  Next to them was a penguin. It looked up at Bolt. Bolt looked down and gasped.

  This penguin was an ordinary, run-of-the-mill penguin except for one horrible feature. Or rather, two horrible features. Twin six-inch fangs hung down from its beak. The penguin hissed.

  “But penguins don’t have teeth!” Bolt cried out.

  “They do now!” said Dr. Walzanarz, clapping, and the lights turned off. “Sorry.” She clapped again, and the lights turned on. “As I was saying, yes! Whale fangs! It took a while to get them to stay in place—they fell out every time we implanted them. Finally, I tried dental glue instead of masking tape. And ta-da! If I hadn’t flunked the How to Put in Tooth Implants test back at dental school, I might have figured that out sooner. But better late than never, dahling.”

  Bolt thought never would have been far better than late. This was a monstrosity!

  “Imagine how marvelous our penguin army will be when all the penguins in the world have giant whale fangs!” exclaimed Dr. Walzanarz. “Sure, our penguins can probably take over the world without them, but penguins with fangs are so much better than ordinary ones—just like fish hexagons are better than your basic fish sticks—don’t you agree?”

  The penguin wasn’t wearing a silver head mirror, so Bolt confidently reached out with his thoughts into its head—Are you OK? Does your mouth hurt? I’m so sorry they did this to you!—but his thoughts bounced back at him. Again, he shot out his questions. Again, they went nowhere. The penguin’s twin teeth shone brightly. Too brightly.

  “Its teeth are silver!” Bolt exclaimed.

  The dentist smiled. “Yes. Inspired by the silver tooth of the Ilversay Oothtay Ealsay.” She tapped her jacket pocket, where the Ealsay tooth Bolt had handed to her earlier remained. “It makes penguins harder to control, of course. And the teeth implants make them so cranky, they just want to destroy everything. But that’s OK with me!”

  Bolt tried to force his mind into the penguin’s head again, but to no avail.

  “What do you think, dahling? Option one: join our army, help lead our penguins to victory, rule the world, and eat whale sticks forever! Option two: be bitten to death by a whale-toothed penguin. It’s a pretty easy decision, I think.”

  Bolt set his jaw. “You’re right. It is an easy decision. I will never help you!”

  Dr. Walzanarz took a deep breath. She shook her head and sighed. “I didn’t expect that answer. The Stranger will be disappointed. Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”

  With whatever bravery he could muster, Bolt glared at her. “Yes, I’m sure. That’s not a penguin down there—it’s an abomination!”

  “A shame for us. A bigger shame for you. Kiki hasn’t had dinner, you know. She’s a bit hungry.”

  Dr. Walzanarz shoved Bolt in the back and—not expecting to be pushed—he stumbled forward, his stomach banging
hard into the railing. Bolt flipped headfirst, his momentum carrying him over the side. Reaching back, he attempted to grab the rail, but failed. His fingers touched nothing but air.

  For a moment Bolt felt weightless while he toppled down. His stomach lurched. But then the feeling subsided and he landed hard, directly inside the kiddie pool.

  Splash!

  Bolt stood up, dazed. Cold water cascaded off his clothes, his drenched shirt clinging uncomfortably to his body. The penguin snarled at him, saliva dripping from its fangs.

  From above, Dr. Walzanarz cried out, “Bolt, meet Kiki. I’d love to stay and watch her eat you, but I hate the sight of blood. Another reason why I flunked dental school. I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Goodbye, Bolt dahling. It’s a shame that things didn’t work out for you here. But, frankly, I would have been surprised if they had.”

  23.

  Hi-Yo Silver

  “N-nice to m-meet you, K-K-Kiki. You’ve got really nice fangs,” said Bolt, stepping out of the pool as water rained off him. His voice shook, and he raised his hands in a sign of peace. Bolt spread his thoughts toward the fanged beast. We are family.

  But as he expected, the words did nothing but bounce off the penguin’s teeth.

  Kiki looked angry. Bolt couldn’t blame her: he would be angry, too, if whale teeth had been implanted in his mouth. Kiki jabbed forward with a wing. She was quick, but Bolt hopped backward and out of the way. As he did, one of the penguin’s fangs nicked Bolt’s arm, leaving a small gash. It wasn’t deep, but it hurt.

  The penguin rushed at Bolt, fangs first. This time Bolt twisted to his side and the fangs missed him completely. Bolt shot thoughts of love and kindness, but they merely deflected off the creature’s teeth. Bolt’s foot slipped on some water from the kiddie pool, and he fell.

  He landed on the hard ground, bruising his butt.

  Kiki stood above Bolt and roared a ferocious roar. “Please don’t hurt me,” Bolt whimpered.

  The penguin roared again.

  Bolt cringed, waiting to be eaten or at least hurt badly, as Kiki howled over him. He couldn’t blame Kiki for her madness. If anything, he felt sorry for her—warped and deformed for some evil werepenguin purpose. He only regretted he couldn’t help her. But then again, he couldn’t help any of the penguins if he was eaten by Kiki. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t save anyone,” mumbled Bolt as the penguin lurched forward, beak first, and Bolt closed his eyes.

  And then Kiki collapsed on top of Bolt.

  Bolt squirmed out from under the unconscious penguin. He opened his eyes to see a figure standing in the shadows, shuffling toward him. Bolt tensed, ready to fight again.

  “Just because I saved your life doesn’t mean I like you,” said Grom.

  “What? Why? Where? How?” Bolt had so many questions and they all wanted to come out at once, so it sounded more like WhWhWhyHuh? “I thought you abandoned me. I mean, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.”

  Grom put down a metal wastebasket that he had used to knock Kiki out. “As I ran down the hall and back toward the mole hole, I thought about what you were doing. Moles help one another, even if I’m not a mole myself, just the brother of one.” Grom looked down at Kiki, who lay unmoving. “What’s with the fangs?”

  “Implanted. If they put more silver whale teeth inside the mouths of penguins, nothing will be able to stop the Stranger’s army.”

  “Then I guess we not only need to steal that seal tooth you want, but also destroy this lab.”

  “And the fish fryer, too. This whole place is evil.” Bolt could barely believe the words coming out of his mouth. Destroy the fish fryer? That could mean he would never again eat a fish dodecahedron!

  No. He had to destroy it. And steal that tooth. Bolt took a deep breath. This was more important than eating.

  Bolt could do this, too. He and Grom. Together! I’m not the boy who bolts every time there’s danger, he told himself. Not anymore. I’m ready to fight.

  “Let’s go,” said Bolt. “We have work to do.”

  24.

  But Who Will Rescue the Rescuers?

  Annika sat on the floor, her back resting against a cinder block wall in the PEWD waiting room. They had been stuck here for a day and a night. “We need to get out of here.”

  “What’s the point?” said Blackburn, twiddling his thumbs. Annika had to admit he was quite good at it. “Bah, I knew this was a mistake. I should never have agreed to come with ye. I wanted to quit adventurin’, and I should have.”

  “You’re a pirate. Adventuring is what you do.”

  “In me youth, maybe. I’m too old for this sort of thing.”

  Annika looked away. She was still mad at Blackburn for surrendering so easily. Once locked away, the pirate said it was better to live and fight another day, especially the part about living. To Annika, that sounded like a poor excuse. Bandits never surrendered! It was written in the Code of the Bandit, and she had no plans to change that section.

  And what of Bolt? While they sat here, waiting, he could be anywhere. Captured. Hurt. All alone. He needed her; they were a team! He couldn’t defeat someone as powerful as this werepenguin dentist without her help. “Arrgh!” she screamed in frustration. It was the eighteenth time she had screamed in frustration that morning. “Arrgh!” she screamed again. Nineteen.

  The waiting room was big but sparse. It had ten long plastic sofas, each the length of a whale. There was also a television in the corner that didn’t work, a telephone with no dial tone, and a radio that played only shrieks of terror. After turning it on, Annika had switched the dial off. There were layers of dust everywhere, and spiderwebs, and it smelled like mold.

  There was one door into the room, but it had been locked after Annika and Blackburn had been pushed inside. They could hear a penguin guard on the other side of the door, wheezing. The guard had snored for a while, and Annika thought that was her chance to pick the lock and escape. But as soon as she had inserted her bobby pin into the keyhole, the penguin began wheezing again.

  She heard commotion outside—a horde of penguins barking and running—and tensed. Maybe the birds would rush inside the room. If so, she would fight them. Although she didn’t have her knife—that had been taken away, as had Blackburn’s swordfish—she still had her bandit training.

  But the outside sounds trailed away. Was something going on? Maybe something to do with Bolt?

  She stood up, rigid, and went to the door, pressing her ear against it. She couldn’t hear any sounds now, not even heavy snoring. Had their guard run off, too? If she and Blackburn were ever going to escape and help Bolt, this was their chance!

  She glanced at Blackburn, still twiddling his thumbs but in the other direction now. “I’m going to make a break for it.” She slipped a bobby pin from her hair.

  “And then what?” asked the pirate. “Stealin’ that tooth is crazy. I say we go back to our boat and get out of here.”

  “And leave my best friend?” She inserted her pins into the lock. “Never.”

  “Can I tell ye a story?”

  “We’re kind of in a rush,” said Annika, maneuvering the clips, listening for a click.

  “I knew a pirate once,” said Blackburn as Annika continued to play with the lock. “Fancy John, they called him, because he always wore jackets with frills and silk shirts. But he had no time for the ladies—for he was obsessed with findin’ the Buried Treasure of Barney the Terrible. Ye’ve heard of it, yes?”

  “Nope.” She almost had the lock, she thought. She felt it giving way.

  “Fancy John had a treasure map, and he traveled across the world to find that treasure. And ye know what happened then?” Annika shook her head. “He found the treasure and retired.”

  “And what does that story have to do with you running back to the boat?” demanded Annika.

  Blackburn s
cratched his chin. “Never mind. That was the wrong story. I meant to talk about Redbeard the Pirate. He died searchin’ for treasure, so the moral was supposed to be somethin’ about wasting yer time searchin’ for things instead of livin’ yer life and escapin’.” Blackburn scowled. “Let me start over again. I knew a pirate once . . .”

  “Got it,” said Annika, removing her bobby pins from the doorknob as the door swung open. “Come on.”

  “Fine. But yer missin’ a great story.” Blackburn trailed Annika into the corridor. “I’ll follow ye for now, mind ye. But I’m not doin’ any fightin’.”

  “Then I’ll fight without you, and thanks for nothing,” said Annika, letting her frustration boil over. Why was he acting like this? Bolt was counting on them. The world was counting on them! She knew Blackburn could be heroic, so why was he choosing to be a coward now of all times?

  They rushed down the hallway. Thankfully, it was empty. Annika ran soundlessly in her well-padded bandit boots. Blackburn was loud, but at least there weren’t any accordions or alarm clocks on the ground for him to step on.

  Flppt! Pop! Snap! Blupp!

  “Sorry,” said Blackburn, after colliding with a bunch of balloons and bursting most of them. “Didn’t see those there.”

  Penguins approached from a different corridor—Annika could hear their floppy webbed feet—and she and Blackburn hugged the wall to avoid being seen. Annika stood still, as quiet as she could. Blackburn belched.

  Fortunately, the penguins hurried past them without stopping.

  Annika turned left, following in the same direction as the penguins.

  “Shouldn’t we run the opposite way?” Blackburn asked.

  “If Bolt’s here, the penguins could be running to capture him.”

  “Exactly. So we should go the opposite way.”

  Annika didn’t answer and kept her pace down the hallway. She was both surprised and glad that Blackburn followed her. “I’m still makin’ no promises about fightin’ and savin’ people,” he reminded her.