Pengu's Adventures in New Zealand Book 1

Chapter 2: Escape

Sunshine poured in my eyes. The sun was high when I woke up. I was planning how to escape. A keeper gave us the mashed-up fish and again lots of peachwaddlers watched my every move. The only thing I could do was take some fish to the cave to eat. No krill today.

When the peachwaddlers came I tested them to see if they would pay attention to me when I escaped. First, I snuck around the barrier. They saw me and just laughed. I assumed they saw me because they were following me with their big eyeballs. Next, I told Squeak that she would get fish if she acted crazy, so she did. All the peachwaddlers watched her while she ran around, none of them saw me. Interesting, so I needed a diversion when I escaped. Then, I gave Squeak some fish I had saved.

The peachwaddler keeper who takes a penguin to show waddled in, and I looked at her with cute eyes. The peachwaddler looked at me and she snatched me and Blue.

Her flipper-hands felt weird. Very weird. Anyway, before I got snatched, I had dipped myself in water and dropped a fish by "accident". When the peachwaddler came out, I slid from her paddle and out of the barrier while the penguin family all tried to get the fish I had dropped.

Squeak squeaked something inaudible, and I yelled back, "Tell mom and dad I'm leaving!" and I waddled under a bush to sleep till the moon was high up.

Too bad that today the moon was not up. It was dark.

In that time I was there, I did not know about moon phases; Blue told me that the moon, or what we call a 'white sunfish', would swim around the sky. Franny said that the sky was something even bigger than the ocean. The sunfish would swim around the world being chased by the penguin gods Dashi and Fuka.

It's just a story. I'll tell it. So, Dashi and Fuka were all-blue penguins. No white bellies. A storm with fish fell from the sky. Some were eatable size, but some were too big, like the white sunfish. Dashi and Fuka pushed the sunfish to the sky and because of the deed, the sky penguin gave them immortality to make sure the sunfish never came back. So, dashi became the sun, and Fuka became the clouds. That's how Dashi and Fuka chase the sunfish. They would eat the sunfish until no more, and then they would leave the sunfish be until it grew back.

Never mind that, so then I had to wander the whole zoo to find the exit. I found it. It had sticks supporting the roof and some flat animals. So, I slept near another bush until morning. It was short nap because I spent more than 3 hours looking for the exit. It's excessively big from a blue penguin's view.

I thought of a story Franny used to tell me. It goes like this: "I was once free on the beach then peachwaddlers caught me and put me behind the barrier. I would think about escaping but there was no way because I was locked in all this time. I am too old, these flippers are so old, so I couldn't preform but I hope one day you will escape from here."

I thought: "I did it, Franny."

The morning sun was shining brightly, and lots of peachwaddlers were entering the zoo. There were also some white things stuck to the wall and a flat me on it. It said, "Wanted". I couldn't read that time, but I knew someone wanted me. So, before peachwaddlers came in, I sped out and waddled as fast as I could.