Little Penguin Rescue Read online

  For Elise and Fleur, who love birds of all feathers – Rachel

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Copyright

  “It’s snowing! It’s snowing!” Ella was shouting so loudly that Fliss had to hold the phone away from her ear. “This is the best day of my life!”

  “You said that last time it snowed!” Fliss replied, watching the thick flakes falling outside the window.

  “Yes, but this snow day is going to be the best. We’re going to toboggan down the road and throw snowballs in the garden and drink hot chocolate.”

  “And get wet bottoms again?” Fliss giggled, remembering how last time they had slipped off their plastic-bag toboggans and skidded down the road laughing.

  “Maybe not that,” said Ella. “But all the rest of it, definitely! I’ll be over as soon as I’ve had breakfast.”

  “OK, see you soon!”

  Fliss grinned as she put down the phone and pulled on her coat, gloves and boots. She couldn’t wait to tell her neighbours, Kamal and Alisha, that Ella was on her way. They could all have a massive snowball fight!

  When she opened the back door, the cold hit her face with an icy blast. She blinked away the snowflakes and stepped out into a world she hardly recognized. It was as if a huge white blanket had been thrown over everything. Thick snow had settled on the tops of the fences. Tree branches bowed under its weight. Smaller bushes were completely covered, so they looked like strange, lumpy white monsters.

  Fliss hoped all the wild animals had found somewhere safe and warm to stay, because apart from the crunch of her footsteps on the fresh snow, there was no sound. It was all so peaceful. Almost too peaceful… Just a few minutes ago she had heard Kamal and Alisha screaming and laughing outside. Where were they now?

  “Hey, Felicity!”

  It was Kamal. He always called her by her full name.

  “I’ve told you before – friends call me Fliss!” she said, still unable to see him.

  “We’re not friends,” came the reply. “Not when we’re having a snowball fight!”

  Suddenly – WHOOSH! – a snowball whizzed past Fliss’s head. It was an ambush! Kamal and Alisha had been hiding all this time, waiting for her to step outside. Fliss shrieked and ducked as another one flew by.

  “Hey! Stop a minute!” she called. Two faces peered over the fence. Fliss quickly scooped up a snowball and threw it back at them. It broke apart in mid-air and showered snow over their heads.

  Kamal’s eyes twinkled with excitement. There was snow on his nose.

  “That’s it!” he grinned. “I’m really going to get you now! Come on, Alisha, make as many snowballs as you can. We’re going to win this fight.”

  “Ella’s coming over soon. You’ll be in trouble then!” Fliss shouted.

  “We’ll be two against two,” said Alisha. Pretty white flakes decorated her dark hair. “That will make it even.”

  “It’ll be nowhere near even. Ella fights like an angry yeti!” laughed Fliss.

  While she had been chatting to Alisha, Fliss hadn’t noticed Kamal picking up two more snowballs. They flew at her now, one hitting her ear.

  “Oh, sorry, Fliss, did I get you?” Kamal grinned naughtily.

  “Yes, you did,” Fliss said, pretending to be grumpy. “And I don’t like being wet and cold.”

  “I thought you wanted to be a vet when you grow up?”

  “What’s that got to do with being hit by a snowball?” asked Fliss.

  “Well, vets have to go out in all kinds of weather. If you can’t take a bit of snow, I’m not sure you’ll cope with being a vet.”

  Fliss wanted to be a vet more than anything and Kamal knew that. He was smiling, waiting for her reaction.

  “I can take snow,” she said boldly.

  “Take this then!” said Alisha, throwing a snowball that hit her on the forehead.

  Fliss calmly wiped the drips from her eyes and held up her hand. “Wait right there,” she said.

  “What for?” asked Alisha.

  “I need my vet equipment to sort out a couple of wild animals – you!” Fliss laughed and ran to the shed at the bottom of the garden. She planned to get a shovel and a bucket so she could collect loads of snow and tip it over the fence and on to their heads.

  Inside she found what she needed. She also found a fishing net, which would be perfect for catching snowballs and flinging them back – that would surprise them! Laughing to herself, she opened the door, ready to do battle.

  A huge gust of wind forced Fliss to close her eyes. When she opened them, she saw snow-topped black mountains in the distance, glistening beneath the sun, and a steel-blue sea littered with what looked like scrunched-up tissues. Fliss’s face tingled and it was so icy cold that it took her breath away. She didn’t know where she was – only that she was a long way from home. Freezing and a little frightened, Fliss went back inside the shed and closed the door.

  When Fliss had got over her shock, she looked around and saw that the shed was no longer filled with plastic plant pots and Dad’s rusty tools. It wasn’t made of wood any more and it definitely wasn’t small.

  She saw that she was in a hallway with a plastic floor. She walked down it, pushed open a heavy door and found herself in a large, brightly lit room. There were rugs on the floor and several large sofas. She spotted some binoculars in the corner and put a pair around her neck. Doors led to other rooms and there were small round windows looking out at the sea.

  Where on earth was she? Fliss put down her bucket and fishing net and started to examine a long desk that held several computers. The machines were on and blinked with information. The first one had a document open on the screen. It read:

  The New Captain Scott Research Station.

  Survey to measure the effects of rising temperatures on the pack ice of Ross Island, Antarctica.

  Antarctica! She really was far from home. She was at the South Pole! And those things that looked like scrunched-up tissues – they were icebergs! This building must be where the scientists live and work, Fliss thought as she looked around her. Although there was nobody here now. Maybe the scientists were out on the ice, taking their measurements.

  Fliss’s fear melted away as her attention was drawn to a map on the wall, showing Ross Island. Most of the island was white and it had very few landmarks – just the names of mountains and peaks, and dots to show the location of various buildings. There weren’t many: there was a black dot on the west of the island marked “Shackleton’s Hut” and – aha! – a red dot below, which meant “you are here”. It showed she was inside The New Captain Scott Research Station. Right next door was another dot: “Captain Scott’s Hut”.

  Fliss gasped as she absorbed the information. Shackleton was a famous explorer; Captain Scott was even more famous. He made it to the South Pole two years before Shackleton. They had trekked all this way just to see if it was possible. But why had she come all this way?

  Well, she wouldn’t find out by just sitting around. She knew that the special thing about the South Pole was its landscape, which had hardly been touched by humans. She needed to get out there and see it for herself! Fliss shivered as she remembered the icy blast that had frozen her skin. She was going to need protection.

  She looked around and found a wardrobe full of all-in-one suits, glasses, gloves and hats. They were too big for her but she took the smallest-looking suit and slipped it on over her clothes. Then she took a pair of gloves, snow goggles and a beanie hat. She felt like a spaceman crossed with a giant marshmallow, but it would do for now.

  Fliss opened the door to the outside and the wind whipped round her ears, whistling loudly. She pulled down her hat, snuggled her face inside the top of her snowsuit and looked about. She was high off the ground! She hadn’t realized the building was raised on stilts. A balcony ran all the way round it, with steps to the ground. When her eyes got used to the bright sunlight she could see it all clearly.

  The South Pole!

  There were large pieces of ice floating in the sea and the shore was a mixture of ice-blocks, rocks and brown soil. For a moment Fliss wondered why the ground wasn’t covered in snow. Then she realized – it was summer! Of course, she was on the other side of the world. Although summer here was still far colder than any winter at home.

  A movement down below grabbed her attention. The earth was shifting. At first she thought it was a trick of the light, but no – the whole shoreline was definitely moving!

  Fliss went out on to the balcony. She held tightly to the handrail and leaned forwards, hoping to find out what was happening. Ideas flashed through her mind. Perhaps it was a landslide, or lava oozing from a slow-erupting volcano, or maybe the station was built on drifting ice… She thought about going back inside and using the radios and computers to call for help. But suddenly the wind dropped, the whistling in her ears stopped and the air filled with noise. And it wasn’t the creak or crack of land breaking apart. It sounded more like ducks and geese.

  Fliss looked again at the moving mass. After a short time, she started to see the tell-tale black and white bodies of …
penguins! Lots and lots of penguins! The moving land was a mass of penguins – hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.

  She lifted the binoculars to her face, twisting the dials to bring them into focus. Aha, there they were! Sweet black and white penguins, waddling around.

  But Fliss didn’t want to just look at the birds through binoculars. She wanted to get up close to them. Her heart leaped at the thought of being right there, walking among the penguins of the South Pole.

  She ran inside to return the binoculars. As she was coming back out, she noticed a poster on the wall – Animals of the Antarctic. Even though it was summer on this side of the world, she’d seen the outside temperature was minus 15. Minus 15! There weren’t many animals adapted to that kind of temperature. The poster had pictures of foxes, fishing birds, seals, orcas and – there! – penguins.

  There were only four types of penguin that lived this far south: Emperor, Gentoo, Chinstrap and Adélie. Fliss could see right away that these weren’t Emperors – she hadn’t noticed any blushes of yellow or orange on their chests or necks. This colony had to be one of the other three types. She memorized the pictures so she could identify them when she was up close.

  Feeling a bit clumsy in her oversized suit, Fliss carefully made her way down the steps. She was going to meet some penguins – her mum’s favourite animal! She felt so warm with happiness that she hardly felt the sting of the freezing air.

  As Fliss walked towards the penguins, their shapes and features became clear. They didn’t have the strange markings of Chinstraps, or the wispy white eyebrows of Gentoos. These were Adélie penguins – small, compact and jet-black, apart from their ice-white tummies. She giggled at their funny white-rimmed beady eyes. They were just like the googly eyes she used for her craft projects!

  Fliss walked closer, not knowing how they’d react to a human dressed as a giant marshmallow. She expected them to part either side of her, frantic with fear, or flap at her, fiercely protecting their families. But the Adélies were too busy to notice her arrival…

  Fliss couldn’t see what they were doing at first. It looked as if they were rounding each other up, but soon she saw they were just playing and bickering.

  Suddenly, right in front of her, a little Adélie approached a neat heap of stones that another penguin seemed to be guarding. When the guard penguin turned its back, the little penguin quickly snatched up a stone in its beak and waddled away as casually as it could, as if it hadn’t done anything wrong.

  The guard penguin spotted the pebble-robber and began chasing it at full speed, with its flippers held out and beak open. Fliss imagined it was squawking “thief, thief!” While it was chasing the naughty Adélie, other penguins began to pinch more stones from the unguarded pile. Fliss couldn’t help laughing.

  She also couldn’t understand why the penguins were so protective of their stones. It’s not as if they were diamonds and pearls! Besides, they were everywhere. Looking more closely, however, Fliss noticed that the pebbles were stacked in little piles or laid out in small circles. They were nests! And if they were nests … there must be chicks! But Fliss had seen pictures of fluffy grey and white penguin chicks before, and there weren’t any here.

  Just then a penguin waddled so close to Fliss that it stood on her foot.

  “Sorry!” she said. “Did I get in your way?”

  The penguin ignored her, but Fliss saw a clump of tufty grey feathers on its otherwise sleek black head.

  “Aha! So you are chicks,” Fliss said. “But your baby feathers have already moulted.”

  Many of the chicks had lost most of their baby feathers and only had a couple left, sticking out at odd angles on their heads. None of them seemed to have as many as this funny, clumsy penguin. Some had finished moulting altogether, and as the chicks waddled and chased and flapped, the downy feathers drifted around Fliss like a feather storm.

  The chick that had stepped on her foot – the one with baby feathers still stuck to its head – waddled back towards her and trod on her foot again.

  “Oi! Watch where you’re going,” teased Fliss.

  The little Adélie lifted its neck to look up at her. It flapped its flippers, made a short sharp honking noise and scuttled away again.

  Fliss laughed so loudly that the Adélie stopped and turned round. It honked again. Was it copying her? Fliss couldn’t stop laughing!

  Then she heard another longer, deeper honk behind her, and Fliss turned to see an adult penguin running after the little one. It was having trouble because of a foot that seemed to be hurt. Its flipper was damaged too – ripped halfway down the middle. Fliss wondered what had happened. Penguins didn’t tend to have land predators and they didn’t usually hurt themselves falling over on the ice. It must have been something more serious, like a close shave with a leopard seal.

  The quacking and honking sound of the colony calmed down and Fliss could see that more parents had arrived. Most of them were rounding up their chicks and guiding them back to the nests. Nearly all the chicks had two parents and they huddled together in their stone circles. Something was happening…

  Fliss felt the wind suddenly pick up again. To her right, she saw a huge black cloud swiftly approaching and within seconds it was above them. Snowflakes began to fall. Not like they had in her garden, sprinkle-soft. These ones came in sideways and fast. In minutes it was impossible to see anything.

  Fliss retreated back to the research station. Penguins were built for this but she wasn’t. She could do with a hot drink.

  Inside the station, Fliss found packets of hot chocolate powder and a kettle. Just what she needed!

  With hands around her mug, she sat on a sofa and watched the blizzard through one of the round windows. She couldn’t see the penguins now, or even the black mountains. Just the blinding-white gusts that swirled and swept across the landscape. And then, as quickly as it had arrived, the snow was gone.

  Fliss jumped up and pressed her nose against the glass.

  “Where are you, little Adélie penguins?” she murmured, searching the shore. But it wasn’t a waddling mass any more. There was only white. “Where have you gone?”

  With a giant quiver, the mass of penguins shook off the snow that clung to their backs, revealing their beautiful dark feathers once again.

  Fliss breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment she’d thought they had somehow got swept away, but of course they hadn’t. They were penguins and this was their land. If they could look after themselves so well, then why was she here?

  It must have something to do with keeping these Adélies safe, she thought. But what?

  She didn’t have time to think about it for long before a movement down on the shore caught her eye. Not a bustling motion like before. This time it looked as if the colony was forming a line. Fliss watched as they stretched across the landscape, like spilled black paint. The penguins were on the move!

  Fliss grabbed the binoculars. The parents were bustling around, steering the chicks ahead of them. This wasn’t playtime, it was an organized march. Fliss was so fascinated she was frozen to the spot, even when the silence inside the station was interrupted by the crackle of the communication radio. She made herself listen to the voices. There were two scientists talking. Maybe she would find out why she was here.

  “Copy that… The pack ice is completely broken up and coming ashore.”

  “It’s not a surprise. The temperature is way above the norm for this time of year, which means the ice is breaking up. The warm air is bringing rain. A cold front turned it to snow just now – did you see it? Every year it’s getting worse. I worry about the penguins.”

  “They’ve started their migration north. I’ve seen three colonies on the move.”

  “Let’s hope they make it past the pack ice.”

  Fliss, who had been watching the blipping lights on the radio transmitter, turned back to the window. So that’s what’s happening, she thought as the final few penguins left the rock nests down by the shore. They’re migrating!