The Curse of the Werepenguin

by Allan Woodrow

  “I guess everyone ends up in a graveyard eventually,” Bolt said. “Unless you are cursed as a werepenguin for eternity. Then, maybe not.” He looked down, sighed, and then looked up at the large statues. “Why are they saluting?”

  “Who knows? They’re just stupid statues. Everyone knows penguins don’t salute. Come on. Cemeteries sort of creep me out.”

  Bolt followed Annika past the grave markers. Walking with Annika, a girl his age who sometimes did nice things for him although she insisted she wasn’t nice, he could almost imagine a life that didn’t end in horror.

  Almost, but not entirely. Bolt was still pretty much convinced his life was going to end in horror.

  “You know, you’re the first real friend I’ve ever had,” said Bolt.

  Annika frowned. “We’re not friends,” she spat.

  Bolt slowed and he kicked a rock. “But you saved my life and now you’re going to help me find the Fortune Teller. That’s pretty friendly.”

  Annika sighed and kicked another rock. “Fine. We’re friends. Just don’t tell anyone, OK? I have my reputation as a cruel bandit to think about.”

  They jogged a long way. Bolt was not used to jogging long distances, but running with a friend—his first real friend!—gave him energy he’d never imagined he had. Or maybe it was the penguin blood stirring inside him. Or both those things.

  Large gray clouds filled the sky, blotting out the sun.

  “Do you think it will be easy to break the curse and stop the Baron?” asked Bolt. “Some secret spell or something?”

  “I have no idea. I’m not a fortune teller.”

  “But what if it’s too hard? What if it’s impossible? I know I’ll probably always be unwanted. I’ve sort of accepted that, I guess. But what if I’m doomed to be a monster forever?”

  “You might not always be unwanted.” Annika threw him a smile, but one mixed with so much pity it looked a bit more sneer-ish than smile-ish. They walked in silence, Bolt’s unanswered questions lingering in the icy air.

  They soon arrived at the edge of the town. It was hard to believe this was the same village that had been so alive with music and laughter the day before. The souvenir stands were gone, as was the scaffolding in the town square. The only sound was the cold wind blowing through empty streets.

  As they walked through the barren village, Bolt stared at the penguin signs hanging in front of every building, rocking back and forth in the wind. Beautifully painted, artistically designed, these penguins smiled with cheerful grins.

  These were penguins in their natural, peace-loving state—not twisted with demands to wage war.

  A few townspeople watched Bolt and Annika from windows, peeking through closed blinds. Every time Bolt turned to meet someone’s gaze, the eyes would vanish back into an unlit room. The people seemed scared.

  Up above, the skies turned darker, mauve and violet, and distant fearsome clouds flickered with lightning. The wind grew even windier. A storm was brewing, still far away, but when it hit, it would be terrible.

  Bolt’s penguin blood made him immune to the icy breeze, but he shivered anyway. It felt like the appropriate thing to do. Tumbleweeds blew down the street. That was odd, since there were no tumbleweeds in Brugaria. Still, they tumbled by.

  Catapults sat on the roofs of the buildings, unused. Bolt remembered the dead fish flung from their powerful arms just yesterday, and his stomach growled hungrily. The fish were gone now. Bolt’s stomach was disappointed.

  “Do we have far to go?” Bolt asked.

  “Not very,” said Annika. “The Fortune Teller lives in the Old and Seedy Part of Town. It’s past those buildings and then down the hill.”

  They turned the corner and saw, up ahead, a store in tatters, its front window shattered. Splintered wood and broken glass were sprayed over the sidewalk.

  This felt familiar. A wave of recognition swirled inside Bolt’s brain. Bolt had been here last night. He had helped destroy this seafood market. He had barked gleefully.

  Annika and Bolt stood in the shadow of an awning as they stared at the scene. What looked like penguin prints remained on the sidewalk—dozens of them. Fish bones were everywhere. Bolt could almost taste the plump, delicious fish meat.

  Two men stood in the middle of the mess. One of the men was Günter. The whale prince wore his robe, although the hood was lowered. He was still armed with his loaf of French bread. Bolt trembled at its crustiness.

  The second man was younger and much wider. He had two teeth. Bolt recognized this man, too.

  “Where are you going?” Annika hissed. Bolt slunk closer to the men. He wanted to hear their conversation. He wanted to know more about the damage around their feet, as guilt for his part in the store’s destruction burped inside him.

  A clap of thunder sounded from the distance. The clouds were moving quickly. The skies directly overhead looked increasingly threatening.

  “Storm coming,” said the younger man, scanning the skies.

  “It is another sign, Franz,” said Günter. “Ludwig is in the hospital after defending his seafood shop. One of the penguins even crept upstairs and pulled mattress tags off the bed. It all points to the way things were before, just as I warned.”

  “Maybe it was an accident. A few bad eggs.”

  “Eggs did not do this. No, fully hatched penguins performed these wicked deeds. Franz, you are always seeing the world sunny-side up. But this was how the Great Bird Battle began—with looting and terrorizing couples out on strolls. The penguins are getting their feet wet for something bigger.”

  “Penguins love getting their feet wet,” agreed Franz.

  “They want to rule us. They want our homes, our food, and to force us to sit on their eggs and bake them fish sticks. The Mystical Brotherhood of Whales, or Sisterhood of Whales, or whatever we are now, must fight for our freedom. If not—then you and I will fight alone!” He thrust his French bread in the air. “Are you with me?”

  “Of course,” Franz said. “Anything to stop would-be bowling penguins.”

  “It’s them or us.” Günter raised his fist. Bolt leaned forward, and his foot slipped on some stones. Hearing the noise, Günter and Franz turned.

  “Who is there?” cried Günter, raising his bread.

  Bolt lowered his head and turned to leave. “No one at all,” said Bolt in a high, disguised voice. Unfortunately, Bolt did not have much practice disguising his voice.

  “It’s the Baron’s boy!” cried Günter. “The whale hater! Spying on us again!”

  “I’m just a harmless villager,” called out Bolt, now walking away at a faster pace. “And I don’t have anything against whales. Really.”

  “Capture him!” cried Günter.

  Bolt ran. Günter and Franz chased him, screaming for Bolt’s head.

  “Blubber, blubber, blubber!” shouted Franz.

  Wide, frightened eyes stared out from windows as Bolt raced through the streets. Bolt’s burlap Oak Wilt shoes had poor traction on the icy ground. He slipped. Günter and Franz grew nearer.

  Above, the clouds continued growing closer, too. Soon they would both gain: the attackers and their menacing bread, the storm and its dangerous skies.

  Bolt stopped at the top of a steep hill, and a feeling surged inside him, a feeling of anger and hatred, and then a love of fish sticks, which he did his best to ignore. He turned and gnashed his teeth at his pursuers. “Who are you to stop me?” he howled.

  Günter and Franz halted, looked at each other, and then at Bolt, as if uncertain what to do. Bolt stared back, hissing.

  “He’s cursed.” Günter raised his loaf of French bread. “The Brotherhood must defend Brugaria!”

  “Or the Sisterhood or something else,” added Franz.

  Bolt felt a hand grab his arm. Annika stood beside him. “What are you doing?” she asked.


  “I’ll whittle them into toothpicks and then pick their bones from my teeth! They are making me very angry. And they don’t want to see me very angry!”

  Annika gasped. “What are you talking about?”

  Bolt gasped, too. As suddenly as it had coursed inside him, the alien craving for violence oozed out of Bolt. He stood, blinking, as scared of what he was becoming as he was of the two men who faced him. “Actually, I won’t do that. I don’t even know how to whittle.”

  “Then stop standing here and run!” Annika ordered, facing Günter and Franz. “I’ll slow them down. Get help. The Fortune Teller is down the hill.”

  “But what if Blazenda can’t help me?”

  “Just pray she can.”

  Bolt stared at the hill, still shaking from the all-encompassing evil that had briefly overwhelmed him. The hill sloped down, steep and covered in a thin sheet of ice. At the bottom were trees and buildings that were smaller and shabbier than the buildings near where he stood. As Bolt looked, his instincts took over.

  Bolt kicked his feet back, stomach out, and landed on the ground, belly first, like a penguin. He slid down the icy hill, gaining speed. The slush whipped through Bolt’s hair as he plunged downward faster and faster.

  Behind him, he heard Günter cry out, “You can flee but you’ll never escape us, whale hater! The war begins tonight!”

  38.

  Forsooth, the Tooth!

  Bolt zoomed like a greased toboggan. He reached the bottom of the hill but kept skidding, through the snow-spotted grass and into the deserted street below.

  Finally, his momentum ceased. Bolt stood and wiped the snow from his jacket.

  A wooden sign read Old and Seedy Part of Town. In smaller words was Please forgive our seediness!

  True to the sign, the stores were older and significantly seedier than those at the top of the hill. The cobblestones on the road were cracked. Penguin pictures hung in front of stores, but were crudely drawn and colored outside the lines.

  Above, the clouds grew darker. The storm would soon begin.

  Up ahead, two rocking chairs creaked next to a small table in front of the worst-looking building on the block. The front door leaned off its hinges, barely attached to the frame. The wooden walls on the building seemed unbalanced. The place needed painting. And a new roof. And new walls. Actually, it would probably have been easier to just tear it down and start over.

  A sign said Fortune telling by a cackling fortune teller.

  One of the creaking rocking chairs was empty. In the other sat Blazenda. She wore her black wedding dress and floppy witch hat, as well as the chains around her neck holding their various charms and animal feet. Her chains still clanged like wind chimes, although this time they played “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” She napped, or maybe she was dead. Either way, she was still, her eyes closed. Bolt approached warily. “Hello?” he whispered. “Strange, disturbing fortune teller? Hello?”

  He stood only a few feet away. The Fortune Teller had not yet moved, and whether or not she was breathing was difficult to tell. Bolt reached over to poke her. His finger crept toward Blazenda’s shoulder.

  Poke.

  Before Bolt could move his finger away, the Fortune Teller grabbed his hand, and her eyes popped open. Bolt had forgotten how quick she was, and how powerful her grip. He grimaced as her nails dug deep into the flesh of his palm.

  “Never awaken a sleeping fortune teller,” said Blazenda, growling.

  “I need your help,” said Bolt.

  “Of course you do,” the Fortune Teller hissed. “I knew you would come.” Above, thunder clapped and lightning cracked. “The storm is coming.”

  “It’s still a bit far off,” said Bolt.

  “Not that storm, fool!” barked the Fortune Teller. “The storm inside your soul. The storm of penguins and the evil of the night!” She cackled.

  “Really?” said Bolt. “Do you have to cackle all the time? It’s still a bit creepy.”

  She released her grip and waved toward the chair next to her. “Sit. I will tell your fortune, without cackling.”

  “I don’t need my fortune told. I need to know how to stop the Baron and my curse. You told me to come to you. I’m here. Tell me what to do. Save me.”

  “You must save yourself. Sit.” The Fortune Teller stabbed her finger at the empty chair across from her. Bolt sighed, but did as he was told. The Fortune Teller looked down at the animal-tooth necklace around her neck and rubbed it gently. With a deep breath she removed a pack of Brugarian tarot cards hidden within the folds of her dress, and placed them on the table. She spread four cards facedown in front of her and turned the first one over.

  On the card was a picture of a herring.

  “The herring stands for possessions,” said the Fortune Teller. “Someone wants to keep you in their power like a herring being eaten.”

  Bolt licked his lips. Herring made him hungry. Blazenda turned over another card. The word Uno was on it.

  “Sorry, that’s from the wrong deck.”

  She turned over the third card.

  “The penguin. The mightiest of the cards. It means you are strong and meant to rule. Or it means you like to eat fish sticks. So, at least one of those two things.”

  She turned over the fourth card. It read Deth.

  “Deth?” asked Bolt. “What’s that?”

  The Fortune Teller cackled. “It means you face certain death, boy!”

  “But that’s D-e-a-t-h. This just says D-e-t-h.”

  Blazenda picked up the card and stared at it. “You’re right. It’s probably just a mistake. I think it’s supposed to be death, as in dying. You’re going to die.”

  “Or it could be deth.”

  “Yes, you’re right.” She tossed the card over her shoulder, stood up, and shook her finger at Bolt. “No matter. You are cursed! Cursed by the moon! Cursed to live the rest of your life as a werepenguin! Cursed to follow the Baron’s evilness forever! Unless . . .”

  “Unless . . . ?”

  The woman smiled and chanted.

  “When the moon is high, beware the mark,

  Where danger lurks and penguins bark.

  For you shall change, you shall transform,

  When penguin spirit inside is born.”

  Bolt stared at Blazenda. “I know that already, and the second verse, too. We’re way past that.”

  The Fortune Teller nodded. “But you may not know this part—

  Before three days and three nights are done,

  ’Fore change’s course has ceased its run,

  There is one truth: Impale the tooth!

  And freedom will be won.”

  “OK, I don’t know that part,” admitted Bolt.

  “It’s from the extended dance mix. The meter is slightly off, and few know it.”

  “But what do those lyrics mean?” asked Bolt.

  “Must I spell it out for you, boy?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  “Y-O-U M-U-S-T . . .”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Spelling it out.”

  “Just say it without being so confusing, please.”

  “Fine,” she said with a sigh. “But it takes all the fun out of things. You must find the werepenguin that bit you within three days of being turned and then, at night, while the creature turns into a penguin, stab him with the tooth of a killer whale. The curse will then be lifted, the werepenguin destroyed, and the penguins freed. Simple as pie.”

  Bolt stared at Blazenda. And then he stared longer. “Three days?”

  “Yes, three days.”

  “How is that simple as pie?”

  “Because pies are actually quite difficult to make.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Blazenda growled. “Pay attention. While the
Baron transforms into a penguin, but before he does completely, you must stab him with a killer whale tooth. What part don’t you understand?”

  “Everything!” cried Bolt. “How am I supposed to do that? There must be another way.”

  “Why must there be?”

  “OK. I suppose there mustn’t, necessarily. Has anyone ever succeeded in breaking the curse and slaying a werepenguin?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then how can you be sure that it will work?”

  “I’m not. People aren’t turned into werepenguins every day, you know. But at least it is a chance. What other option do you have?”

  Bolt gulped. He needed to confront the Baron tonight, at exactly the stroke of midnight, and kill him, all while he was also turning into a penguin at the same time. How was that even possible?

  “Remember,” said Blazenda. “Only you can stab him and no one else or your curse will remain. And it must be from a killer whale’s tooth, not any other weapon, or the curse will remain forever.”

  “What if I stab him but then someone else kills him?”

  “Still cursed.”

  “Someone else stabs him and I kill him by chopping off his head?”

  “Still cursed.”

  “I stab him with a tooth at the exact same time someone else chops off his head?”

  “I have no idea. You got me on that one.”

  That didn’t help very much, since Bolt couldn’t possibly imagine any of those things happening. “Where can I find a killer whale’s tooth?” he asked, but he already knew the answer.

  The Fortune Teller grabbed the tooth necklace on the chain around her neck, lifted it off, and placed it around Bolt’s neck. “Take the tooth. Unless you know of a good whale dentist?” Bolt shook his head. “Then take mine.”

  Bolt felt the tooth’s sharp edge. A drop of blood emerged from his finger where he pricked it.

  “The tooth is the Baron’s only weakness. Now go! May you end the curse. For yourself, and for all of us!” She cackled but then Bolt threw her a dirty look. “Sorry, bad habit.” She put her hand on Bolt’s shoulder. “One final word. The curse comes from the moon. You can only transform when it shines.”