“Again! Again!” said Frosty, skidding down a mountain on his bottom. “Not sleepy! Let’s do sliding!”
It was impossible to wear him out. In the end, Blue decided enough was enough and thought of a way to make him sit still for five minutes.
“Tell us what it’s like to live in the wild, Frosty,” she said.
“Oh, yes, do! We’d love to hear all about that, wouldn’t we, everybody?” said Waldo, taking the cub by the paw and settling him down next to the ice-bear sculpture. All the penguins gathered round. Apart from Paulie, they’d all hatched in hutches in City Zoo. They had never lived in the Great Outdoors and, although polar bears didn’t live in the same place as penguins, they were keen to learn all about it.
“It’s wonderful in the wild,” said Frosty dreamily. “Where I live, it’s nice and freezy. Not like here.”
Given that he was sitting in the snow in the middle of a very harsh winter, it seemed a funny thing to say. The penguins were used to the temperature and it seemed plenty cold enough to them.
“How cold is it at the North Pole?” asked Rory.
“It’s… brrr!” said Frosty.
Brenda waddled off again to check on Frosty’s notice, then squeezed back through the rails. “It says it’s minus fifty-five degrees celsius!”
“What’s celsius?” asked Eddie.
“It means you need to take a cardy,” said Muriel.
Frosty fanned himself with his paw. “It’s too warm for me here,” he said. “Mummy would hate it in her thick fur coat.”
He cuddled up to the ice sculpture and closed his eyes.
“Don’t go to sleep yet,” said Clive. “I’ve got a question. What kind of animals live at the North Pole?”
“I bet it’s polar bears,” said Eddie.
Frosty sat up. “It is polar bears,” he said. “But also caribou.”
The penguins looked at each other and shrugged.
“Cari-who?”
“Bou!” squealed Frosty.
“Argh!” said Eddie, jumping out of his skin. “Boo to you too!”
“I think a caribou is a deer,” said Warren, who had a large collection of leaflets about animals that the visitors had dropped.
“I think you are a dear,” said Muriel dreamily. “I bet it’s ever so romantic in the wild.”
“It’s very beautiful,” said Frosty. “The sky reaches from heaven all the way down to the sea and there are icebergs as big as mountains.”
“In the sky?” wondered Eddie. “Clive! Imagine if there were icebergs in the sky at City Zoo. We could do the best stunts, couldn’t we?”
“The icebergs are in the sea,” said Frosty. “They look like sparkly palaces.”
“Like Paulie’s palace?” asked Eddie.
“Bigger, I should imagine,” said Waldo. “Tell me, Frosty. What else is in the sea?”
“I bet there are mermaids,” said Brenda. “I read about mermaids. You lent me that lovely book about them, didn’t you, Warren?”
Muriel shot her an angry glance. “He better not have done!”
“He… didn’t!” fibbed Brenda, suddenly realising her mistake. “Silly me! The erm… the emu gave it to me, didn’t he, Hats?”
“Yes, for your birthday,” nodded Hatty. “It said ‘love from emu’ on the inside.”
Muriel narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to have words with that emu,” she said. “I bet there aren’t even such things as mermaids.”
Frosty put his head on one side.
“There might be,” he said. “There are many strange creatures. There are walruses with great big tusks and moustaches.”
“Moustaches, you say?” said Warren, twiddling with the fake one he always wore. “Are they longer than mine?”
“Much longer,” said Frosty.
Warren looked a bit put out until Waldo gave him a comforting squeeze.
“I expect it’s the climate, dear fellow,” he said. “If you lived in the wild, I’m certain you could grow a better moustache than any mermaid, or any walrus, for that matter.”
“I’ve a good mind to book tickets!” said Warren excitedly. “Is anyone else feeling the call of the wild, or is it just me?”
All the penguins’ flippers shot up in the air.
“We want to see the mermaids!” shouted Brenda and Hatty.
“I want to snowboard off an iceberg!” said Rory.
“I want to go and swim with the caripou!” yelled Eddie.
“Cari-bou!” bellowed Clive, causing Eddie to leap into the air again.
“Jeepers, do you have to keep making me jump?” he said peevishly.
Even Muriel seemed to think it would be fun. “I bet they have great shops,” she said. “Much better than the gift shop at the zoo.”
But Waldo wasn’t so sure. “I like a wild time as much as anybody, don’t I, Wesley?” he said. “But I think the North Pole would be rather extreme. No penguins live there for a very good reason, I expect.”
The others weren’t convinced and, if Rory was honest, as much as he liked City Zoo, he was an adventurous penguin and he wished he could go with Frosty to see what it was like in the wild. He couldn’t stop thinking about it on the way home. His head was so full of icebergs and oceans, he almost bumped into Big Paulie, who was waiting up for the latest report on Frosty.
“Whoa… you almost had me over there, Rory. How is the little guy?” he asked.
“Frosty’s doing really well. He’ll be going back to the wild in no time, the lucky thing.”
The others began to chime in.
“Yeah, I wish we could go with him,” said Clive.
“Me too!” said Muriel. “I’ve always fancied a little place in the country.”
Paulie shook his head slowly. “You think the grass is greener on the other side? There is no grass! I lived in the wild, so I should know. You wouldn’t survive more than a day.”
Rory pushed out his chest. “I would. I’d be fine. I’m cunning and brave.”
Paulie nodded solemnly. “You are all those things, Rory, but the wild is not all fun and games. It is tough out there. Fish doesn’t arrive in a bucket twice a day. You have to hunt for food and, if you’re not careful, you become someone else’s dinner. Plenty of animals prey on penguins. There are no cages in the wild, but there are no safety bars either.”
“But it sounds so exciting!” exclaimed Rory.
Paulie put a fatherly flipper round his shoulder. “Rory, when you get to my age, you will learn that sometimes the best adventures happen right here on your own doorstep.”
Somewhat deflated, Rory walked Blue back to her hutch.
“Maybe the wild isn’t for us,” she said, “but we can still have fun.”
“How?” he muttered.
She bent down, scooped up some snow and rubbed it in his face. For a moment, he stood there looking stunned, then his beak split into a grin and he picked her up and dumped her in a drift.
“Sure we can, Fish Face!” he laughed. “Let’s have a snowball fight with Frosty on Saturday, shall we?”
“Yay!” giggled Blue.
Saturday night came and, as usual, the penguins escaped over the wall and down the icy steps to visit Frosty. But he wasn’t swimming in the pool or rock-hopping or tobogganing. He was nowhere to be seen.
“He’s probably playing hide-and-seek,” said Blue.
“I taught him that,” said Eddie proudly. “You’ll never find him.”
It wasn’t easy to spot a white polar bear in the snow, but they tried their best. They split up and looked behind every rock and cranny, but they still couldn’t find him.
“I think we ought to call it a day, darlings,” said Waldo. “I’m afraid Frosty’s gone.”
“He’s asleep in here!” called Blue, standing on Rory’s shoulders as she looked through the small viewing window in his cave. “He’s been shut in.”
She tapped on the window as the others ran over. “Frosty, wake up! Are you OK?”
The little bear cub swivelled his ears and his head spun round. Seeing his friends waving at him, ran over, pressing his nose against the pane.
“Why aren’t you allowed out?” mouthed Blue.
It was hard to hear his reply through the thick barrier of glass, but as he pointed up at the sky and smiled, she guessed.
“You’re going home tomorrow?”
Frosty nodded, touched his heart and waved.
“What’s he saying?” said Rory.
“Goodbye,” said Blue.
Blowing him a kiss, she jumped down and, one by one, the other penguins climbed on Rory’s back and said their own goodbyes.
“Have fun chasing the carimou,” sniffed Eddie.
“It’s bou!” blasted Clive, causing Eddie to fall over.
Rory was the last to say farewell.
“Jump an iceberg for me, Frosty. But look out for the traps, OK?”
Frosty put his paw against the window and patted Rory’s flipper through the glass.
“Thank you too,” said Rory.
The penguins trudged back home with heavy hearts.
“We should be happy,” said Rory. “Frosty’s going back to the wild where he belongs.”
“It’s what he wanted,” added Waldo. “We should be proud that we helped it to happen.”
“Thanks to me,” said Muriel. “It was my idea, wasn’t it, Brenda and Hatty?”
But Brenda and Hatty were too upset to care.
“I’ll miss him!” sobbed Brenda. “He was our friend!”
“So friendly. So… fluffy!” wept Hatty.
“So get over it!” snapped Muriel, wafting her tears with her flippers. “You’ve still got me!”
There was no answer to that and when Thermal arrived in the morning, he was greeted by a very sad cluster of penguins.
“Hey, turn those beaks up. This is the best of days! Frosty is going to be with his mother at last. He said he’d never forget you.”
“We’ll never forget him either,” said Blue. “I wish we could keep in touch.”
“No problem,” said Thermal. “I’ll be back every year and let you know how he’s doing.”
Just then, an aeroplane went over.
“He’ll be on that flight,” said Thermal. “See you all!”
As Thermal flew off, the penguins waved at the jumbo jet until it disappeared behind a cloud.
“Bye, Frosty,” whispered Blue. “Stay happy… What shall we do now, Rory?”
Rory shrugged. “I dunno. It’s going to be boring without him.”
But the mood didn’t last for long. Just after lunch, the brown bears pitched up with some very exciting news.
“Have you heard?” bellowed Orson. “There’s a new animal arriving!”
“Oh no,” sighed Eddie, “I hope it’s not another abdominal snowbeak.”
The rumour travelled fast around the penguin pool. Muriel was particularly annoyed.
“Great! That’s all I need – even less attention,” she grumbled. “I had my feathers done specially! I thought the visitors would flock back now Frosty’s gone, but they’ll all want to see the new kid on the block.”
However, it was just as well that Muriel had preened herself, because, by feeding time, an enormous crowd had gathered by the penguins.
“I knew they couldn’t stay away from me for long,” she boasted. “Didn’t I say my fans would come back to see me, Hatty and Brenda?”
But they hadn’t come back to see Muriel – not this time. They’d come to see the latest arrival. As the visitors waited expectantly, the keeper wheeled in a small crate. As he lifted the lid, Muriel’s beak dropped open. Inside was a yellow-eyed penguin – the rarest penguin in the world – and it had come all the way from New Zealand.
It straightened up and looked around, then, friendly as anything, it waddled over to the astonished penguins and shook them warmly by the flippers.
“G’day! My name’s Shane… Do you guys fancy a game of cricket? Who wants to bat first?”
Fun, games and a brilliant new playmate! The penguins could hardly wait for closing time.
“I told you that the best adventures often happen right here on your doorstep,” beamed Big Paulie as Shane fired up Waldo’s barbie and cooked the best meal the penguins had ever tasted.
“Forget the wild,” said Rory. “It doesn’t get any better than this!”
“Ripper!” said Shane. “Will you teach me the famous ‘Windy Song’ I’ve heard so much about, sport?”
Rory didn’t need asking twice and, as the night air filled with barbecue smoke and the sound of prawn-fuelled parps, everyone agreed that City Zoo was the only place to be.
Copyright
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2013
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Penguin Pandemonium: The Wild Beast
Text copyright © Jeanne Willis 2013
Inside illustrations copyright © Nathan Reed 2013
Cover illustration copyright © Ed Vere 2013
Jeanne Willis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
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Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780007498116
Version 1
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