The Battle of the Werepenguins

by Allan Woodrow

“Want, wounded, wrecked, wiped,” said Dr. Walzanarz with an unhappy sigh.

  Many penguins remained still as statues, but others surged forward, toothbrushes high. Grom stood, grimacing, trying not to put any weight on his leg. Together, he and Blackburn inched back, and Grom bumped into Bolt.

  “Watch it,” said Bolt, nearly falling backward. The heels of his feet hung off the metal grate and over the bubbling pool.

  Freeze! Bolt commanded, and one of the penguins froze. But more kept coming, more than Bolt could count, and these penguins had head mirrors firmly in place. Bolt knew shooting out commands was futile. He started to take a step back before reminding himself he was already at the edge of the retractable pier.

  “It was nice knowing you guys,” grunted Grom. “Well, not so much you, Bolt. I still don’t really like you.”

  Blackburn reached into his pirate frock and removed a large squeeze bottle, grinning. “Not so fast, fellas. I got me some floor wax from one of those mopping penguins. And lucky for me, I know plenty about floor waxin’.”

  He squirted the bottle, and wax gushed from its spout and onto the metal grating in front of them.

  Penguins charged forward and onto the waxy floor. Their feet slipped. Two banged into each other, bellies first, and they bounced off and flopped to the ground. Two more penguins did the same. Heads collided into heads, smashing head mirrors.

  Dr. Walzanarz screamed and ran forward, jumping over fallen penguins. She then sprung off a penguin’s stomach, flying up into the air and toward Bolt. “You are no longer my dahling! You are going to ruin everything!”

  She landed next to Bolt, her fingers curled, long nails scratching at him. He kicked her—he was crouching and holding his hands out to deflect her sharp-looking manicure, so a kick was the only thing he could do. It wasn’t much of a kick, really. But Dr. Walzanarz wobbled, just a little, forcing her to lurch backward, and she stepped right on a puddle of wax.

  She did a complete pirouette, her hands waving up and down to keep herself upright. She reached out to steady herself and clutched Bolt’s arm. For a moment he thought she might fall into the oil and take him with her. He looked up, staring into the eye of the whale dangling above them.

  Then Dr. Walzanarz’s bony fingers slipped from Bolt’s arm. Grom, who had been wrestling a penguin, broke away and shoved the doctor. Her feet slipped on more oil, and she spun once, twice, three times—an impressive triple axel, really—before colliding with a penguin next to her. The penguin’s bouncy belly sent her hurtling up, into the air.

  For a moment she seemed suspended over the hot oil, extending her arms as if they were wings and she wanted to fly, flapping them incessantly.

  She couldn’t fly, but one of her fingers caught the edge of the white sling covering the whale’s aching mouth. Somehow, she held on. “Help!” she cried.

  All action below stopped, as everyone stared up at the dentist. Blackburn lowered his mop, and Grom his fists. Penguins who still had head mirrors in place—there were only a few of them now—stopped swinging their toothbrushes. Even those penguins with shattered mirrors, many of which had seemed confused, stopped their aimless blinking to gaze at the swinging legs of the dentist.

  The only sounds were bubbling oil from the pool around them, a random penguin sneeze, and Dr. Walzanarz’s panicked screeches.

  A loud bang shook the walkway. A series of explosions came from the fryer’s controls, flames shooting out. Penguins scurried out of the room.

  And at that exact moment, the metal pier began to retract, taking Bolt and his friends, and the penguins near them, back toward the safety of the raised metal platform.

  “Wait! What about me!” howled the doctor, still dangling over sizzling hot oil. “Don’t forget about me!”

  At that moment Bolt realized, What about Annika? He had been so wrapped up in fighting he had momentarily forgotten about her! Through the rapidly rising smoke, he couldn’t see much of anything at all.

  26.

  One Last Fish to Fry

  So, what was happening with Annika? Well, three minutes earlier, she had backed up through the pantry doorway, the silver-fanged penguin following, chomping her beak and gnashing her dangerous fangs.

  Annika’s foot collided against one of the many barrels of bread crumbs that filled the room. Kiki charged, and Annika leapt out of her way. The penguin missed Annika and crashed into the wooden bread crumb barrel, which splintered into pieces, spilling crumbs across the floor.

  Annika sneezed. “Why is this so peppery?” she complained.

  The creature turned and dove at Annika again. Again, Annika jumped out of the way, and Kiki rammed into another barrel of bread crumbs. And again, Annika sneezed.

  She grabbed a broken wooden slat. It was about the same size and weight as her practice sword. Perfect.

  Annika swished her new weapon to the left and then the right. She jabbed. She poked. “En garde!” she cried. She had no idea what that meant, but she had heard Blackburn say it a few times, and it sounded cool. “Borscht!” she cried, but cringed. En garde was a far more appropriate battle cry.

  Kiki snarled. Annika’s pokes and jabs did nothing but make the penguin angrier. And Kiki looked plenty angry already.

  Annika swung her slat, and it made a satisfying thwack against one of the penguins’ wings, but the creature barely seemed to notice. Annika lunged, but the slat bounced off the penguin’s belly. Finally, she thrust forward and smacked one of the penguin's fangs with a loud crack!

  The wooden plank broke in half, and Annika dropped it to the ground. Had she effectively loosened the tooth? Annika didn’t have time to find out, because at that moment Kiki leapt. As Annika stepped out of the way she grabbed a fistful of bread crumbs from a broken barrel and tossed them into the air. Kiki began sneezing, slashing out with her wings to get at Annika, but momentarily blinded.

  Annika sprinted back through the swinging doors and out of the pantry. Kiki sneezed twice more and gave chase while Annika raced up the metal staircase, hoping it would slow down the monstrous penguin pursuing her.

  It didn’t. Kiki ran right up after her, snarling, fangs chomping.

  Annika reached the top of the stairs and surveyed the room. There were other penguins on the platform near Annika, but they were too busy pressing random buttons on the enormous control panel to pay attention to her. Some of the buttons they pressed made lights blink and horns buzz. Other buttons seemed to do nothing.

  Below her, Bolt, Blackburn, and every other penguin stood on some sort of metal pier that extended into the middle of that bubbling fish frying pool. Dr. Walzanarz was there, too. Above them dangled the whale—that unfortunate whale—moaning unhappily. Annika wished she could help them, but they were too far away, and she had her own problems to deal with anyway.

  Kiki hopped up the final staircase, snorted—and few things are more disturbing than a penguin snort—and rammed into Annika with surprising speed. Annika fell to the ground.

  Lying there, Annika caught another glimpse of Bolt, down below. He was looking at her, his mouth twisted in a pained expression. It was nice knowing you, Annika thought as Kiki crouched, preparing to belly flop on top of her like a professional wrestler, before plunging her fangs into Annika.

  “No!” cried Bolt. His voice reverberated through the room.

  Kiki sidestepped. Strangely, she seemed to freeze for a split second, but that was all the time Annika needed to scamper back to her feet.

  Whatever had slowed this fanged monstrosity wasn’t slowing her down any longer, though. The penguin rubbed her webbed feet on the ground, preparing to charge like a raging bull.

  Annika kept her eyes trained on the penguin. She tucked her head down to pick up speed, but that also meant she couldn’t see where she was going. She snaked left and right, getting closer and closer. At the last second, Annika deftly moved to the side. But not
before one of the penguin’s fangs sliced painfully through her thumb.

  Tears threatened to fall down Annika’s cheeks. But bandits are tough. They seldom cry, and never during fights. That was in the bandit code and everything, although Annika wondered if she should rewrite that part, too.

  No. That part would stay. She would not cry.

  What happened next happened so quickly, Annika would have to sort it out in her head later.

  Kiki dashed toward Annika, head down once more. Annika leapt in the air, legs out, spinning. Her foot collided against the penguin’s beak, cleanly knocking one of Kiki’s fangs out of her mouth—perhaps the one she had loosened earlier—and it flew up and embedded itself into the control panel behind Annika.

  Annika saw sparks. She heard a bang. Flames erupted from where the tooth was impaled into the fish fryer control panel. The flames spread, growing larger, and metal began to curl from the heat.

  Behind Annika, Kiki lay on the ground, groaning.

  Meanwhile, the fire burned out of control. Part of the console collapsed within itself. The smell of burning rubber and charred steel spread through the room. Loud snaps and booms erupted from inside the computer bank as the fire raged within its wires. Steam and smoke gushed out. Metal smoldered. The blinking lights began to shatter—Pop! Pop!—like popcorn. Random toots bellowed, garbled and slow, like a melting radio.

  The platform shook. The oil in the pool next to her bubbled and frothed, with small mini oil explosions erupting at random. Penguins scampered for the exits.

  Bolt! Blackburn! That teenager who looked somewhat penguin-ish! They were still on that metal pier! Annika hadn’t seen what had happened there, but surprisingly, Dr. Walzanarz hung in the air, her hands clutching the white sling wrapped around the whale’s mouth. Annika dashed to the end of the pier and smashed her hand against a big red button. The pier retracted toward her.

  “Hurry!” she shouted to her friends. “This place is gonna blow!”

  Fissures spread on a steel girder above Annika, which collapsed to the ground only a few feet away from her, amid a bed of glowing ash. A series of hanging lights shattered, one after another. Crack! Crack! Crack!

  Penguins with and without smashed head mirrors ran off the pier and toward the exits. Bolt and Blackburn came next. The boy who looked penguin-ish limped between them—his leg was cut.

  “Hurry!” Annika shouted as they rushed toward the exit. Annika could barely see anything but smoke. It was billowing everywhere, and she blindly staggered forward in the general direction of out.

  She heard someone, maybe the older boy she didn’t know, cry out, “Get down!” and then—

  BOOM!

  Annika felt a blast of hot air ram into her, sending her flying off her feet. And then . . . nothing.

  27.

  So, Now What?

  Bolt saw stars, but his ears didn’t seem to work. He was covered in white. Angels were white. So were clouds. He must be dead, that’s it. Death was sort of peaceful, actually. Still, he would have much rather been alive.

  But the silence became a hum, and Bolt’s numb joints ached, and he realized that soot was also white, and when he stood up the white flakes fell off him and he coughed. He also sneezed from all the pepper in the air. The explosion had dulled his hearing and senses for a moment, but things were now growing in volume, and his vision was clearing. It was nighttime, and ashes burned in the sky, flames jutting up from the parts of the fortress that still stood, although most of the building was completely gone.

  Bolt had been thrown clear onto the lawn, as had most of the fortress. Giant concrete slabs and broken machinery were feet deep, everywhere.

  Annika leaned over him. She was bleeding from a dozen small cuts on her face and arms, and her clothing was also covered in ash. “Are you OK?”

  “I guess it sort of depends on what you mean by OK,” said Bolt. “Achy all over and filled with soot? Is that OK enough?”

  Annika wrapped her arms around him. “It’s good enough for me. I thought we might have lost you.”

  “I feared I had lost you, too,” Bolt croaked back.

  Annika and Bolt had hugged before, but only with large groups of people. Bolt became aware that they were hugging only each other now, and Annika must have become aware of it at the same moment, because she quickly released her hold and stared awkwardly at the ground. “All right then. Good,” she mumbled.

  “Borscht! That was close!” said Blackburn, standing near them. Part of his waistcoat was burned, and he was missing one shoe. His cheeks were black and blue, and an eye was swollen shut. Still, it was a miracle they had survived. It appeared all the penguins had, too; they stood in groups of two or three on the lawn, agitated but unharmed. There was no sign of Dr. Walzanarz or of the whale—Bolt had no idea where either had gone.

  Bolt looked back at Blackburn and Annika, still barely believing their good fortune. He was alive! His friends were alive! And the horrible fish fryer was destroyed.

  But, despite this, Bolt didn’t feel happy. He had failed.

  They had risked their lives for nothing. The Stranger was still out there, and the Ealsay tooth was gone—destroyed or buried under feet of rubble, lost forever.

  The Stranger would live. The world would fall to his penguin army.

  Bolt wiped soot from himself, his nose filling up with congestion. “It’s gone. It’s gone,” he mumbled. His shoulders slumped. “The tooth is gone.”

  “We won’t give up,” Annika said with a look of bandit-like determination. “We’ll find another way to defeat the Stranger. As long as we stay together, we’ll fight. Right, Blackburn?”

  Blackburn looked away. “Well, about that. Remember when I was talking about retiring . . .”

  Bolt didn’t hear the rest of what the pirate said, as a small explosion from part of the fryer shook the ground.

  Bolt straightened, his heart rocking.

  “Grom! Where’s Grom?” asked Bolt. In the confusion of the blast, he had momentarily forgotten about his new non-friend. But now, Bolt felt panic. Grom rescued Bolt from Kiki. Grom shoved Dr. Walzanarz, keeping her from dragging Bolt off the metal pier. Grom even shouted, “Get down!” right before throwing himself on top of Bolt to shield him from the blast.

  Grom had complained he didn’t like Bolt, but in the end, he had risked his own life to save Bolt’s.

  “Grom! Grom!” Bolt yelled. No one yelled back. “You have to help me!” Bolt yelped to his friends, lifting random rocks and sheets of metal from the ground. Nothing. Over there? More nothing. And more nothing.

  Wait—what was that moving under that pile of large concrete stones? Bolt darted over to them. “Give me a hand!” he cried out. In a heartbeat Blackburn and Annika were there, lifting. “Hurry!” Bolt urged. The stones were heavy, and every part of Bolt’s muscles ached from the blast and the exertion, but he finally lifted one. And another.

  But all that they saw underneath was more rubble.

  Bolt moved from rock to rock, asphalt chunk to asphalt chunk, and so did Annika and Blackburn. Every time they didn’t find a human arm, Bolt was relieved—and more frightened at the same time.

  It would take weeks—months, maybe—to lift up every boulder. And then what? Bolt reached out his mind, hoping to connect to Grom’s, to sense his penguin blood, feel his breath, hear his beating heart.

  He heard nothing but silence. Deadly silence.

  Bolt sat down on a chunk of concrete and cradled his head in his hands. Grom was dead. There was no other explanation. And he had given his life to save Bolt’s.

  Bolt wiped wet debris from his eyes, ashes mixed with tears.

  “Wait. What’s that?” Annika asked.

  A low moan rumbled from across a pile of crushed metal, long tangled wires, and ragged hunks of cement. Bolt leapt to his feet and followed the noise, not sure where it came
from and less sure what was making it, not daring to hope.

  Bolt moved aside some rocks only to reveal more rocks. He slid over a metal sheet. Under it was another metal sheet.

  “Look at all this silver!” cried Blackburn from a few feet away. “You could fill a treasure chest with this stuff.”

  Bolt was beside Blackburn in a microsecond, hands digging, moving a large silver brick to the side. Under it was a space, a hole, as big as a person.

  And there was Grom, his face bloody, one eye half open. “About time,” he mumbled.

  Blackburn and Annika helped Bolt heave a concrete slab out of the way so they could get Grom out of the hole. Bolt’s relief was tempered by the painful squeals trembling from Grom’s lips as they gently moved him.

  “Grom, these are my friends. This is Annika, the band—”

  “Ahem . . .” Annika cut in.

  “Sorry,” Bolt said. “This is Annika, the greatest bandit who ever lived.”

  Annika grunted her approval.

  “The boy and I met already,” said Blackburn. “He admired me sideburns, he did.”

  “Well, guys, this is Grom,” said Bolt.

  “Nice to meet you,” Grom said through painful groans. “Did we win?”

  “Sort of,” said Bolt. “We destroyed the fortress, but the tooth . . .” He couldn’t say any more. Grom was alive, and that was more important than a silly silver tooth.

  “You mean this thing?” Grom asked, unfolding his hand to reveal the famed tooth of the Ilversay Oothtay Ealsay. He handed it to Bolt.

  Bolt stared at the tooth, his eyes wide with shock. “What? How?”

  “I grabbed it when I shoved the dentist lady,” said Grom.

  “You picked her pocket?” asked Annika, obviously impressed. “Are you a bandit, too?”

  “Just because I can pick pockets don’t mean I’m a bandit,” Grom mumbled.

  “It sort of does,” said Annika.

  Bolt felt like hugging Grom, except it would have been even more awkward than hugging Annika earlier. Besides, Grom still looked to be in bad shape.