Jeanne Willis - Penguin Pandemonium - The Wild Beast

“We’ll never know now, will we?” said Rory.

Muriel stopped looking at her feet and turned on him.

“Oh my cod! Why is everyone blaming me? It’s not my fault – is it, Hatty and Brenda?”

But Hatty and Brenda were so upset about not having a surprise, they pretended to be deaf.

“No one is going to come and visit us now. Not after what you did,” said Blue.

Seeing that no one was on her side – not even her best friends – Muriel had no option but to try and win everybody back, including the visitors.

“I’ll make it up to you,” she said. “I have a brilliant plan. You’re going to love me for it.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Rory. “But let’s hear it, anyway.”

Muriel folded her flippers and took a deep breath.

“All right, I’ll tell you… in the morning,” she said. “Meet me at Waldo’s hutch at dawn.”

orning came, but there was still no sign of Muriel and her “brilliant plan” to bring the visitors back. Blue and Rory had been standing outside Waldo’s hutch in the snow since sunrise.

“It’s the weekend. Maybe she’s having a lie-in,” shivered Blue.

“She’s lying, all right,” said Rory, stamping his frozen flippers. “Muriel hasn’t got a plan; she’s all beak. She’s not coming.”

They were just about to leave when Waldo flung his door open.

“What are you doing out there, darlings?” squealed the chinstrap penguin. “You’ll catch your death! We might originate from the Antarctic, but this weather is enough to freeze the bits off an Inuit… Come in!”

He ushered them into the warmth of his hutch. It was too warm, if anything, because, among the numerous items of lost property left behind at City Zoo over the years, there was a disposable barbecue, which Waldo had just lit with a box of matches stolen by the elephant from its keeper’s pocket.

There was an unwritten rule among the animals that any items of interest they found should be passed to Waldo, who used them to create collages and sculptures with his fellow artists, Warren and Wesley. They were already in the hutch, sitting at the table in front of a box of bits-and-pieces, and were making something. While it came as no surprise to see the Arty Party Penguins there, Rory and Blue hadn’t expected to see the peculiar-looking creature perched on Warren’s knee. It was roughly the size of a fairy penguin, but had pink curly fur, a pair of antennae and a brightly coloured tail tied along its length with red ribbons like a fancy kite.

“Good morrow,” said Warren, looking up briefly from his handiwork.

“Hi,” said Rory, “What are you making?”

“A terrible mistake,” Warren replied, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of whoever it was on his lap.

Whoever it was gave his false moustache a sharp tug. “Oh my cod! It is not a mistake, Warren. It’s a brilliant concept!” it screeched.

Blue did a double take.

“Muriel, is that… you?” The voice sounded familiar, but it was hard to be certain because she was wearing a sequinned mask.

“No, it’s not me, Bloop,” said Muriel. “The visitors don’t want to see the likes of me and you, do they? They want to see something far more chichi than penguins, which is why I am now a parrot of Paradise.”

She hopped off Warren’s lap, did a little twirl and her tail fell off.

“Don’t you dare laugh, Rory!” she snapped. “It’s your turn next.”

Rory frowned. “What? Is this your amazing plan?”

“Yes! We are all going to disguise ourselves as rare exotic species,” she insisted, rooting around in Wesley’s box. She pulled out an old shuttlecock and wedged it on his head. “You can be a dodo.”

“I don’t want to be a dodo!” said Rory, pulling it off with a loud plop. “This is madness.”

Just at that moment, there was a knock at the door.

“That will be the others,” said Muriel enthusiastically as Warren glued her tail back on. “I told them to meet me here for a costume fitting. Don’t look at me like that, Bloop. We’re all in this together. You can be a purple-crested booby.”

Hatty and Brenda were the first to arrive.

“Where’s Muriel?” said Hatty, looking round irritably.

“I don’t know,” tutted Brenda. “Trust her to make us get up early and not be here on time.”

“That is soooo like Muriel,” said Hatty. “She is such a pain in the tail feathers.”

Blue was miming frantically to the fairy penguins to shush, but they thought she was waving.

“Hello, Blue,” waved Hatty. “You haven’t seen Bossybeak, have you?”

Blue cringed. “Who? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Brenda looked confused.

“You must do. You gave Muriel that nickname in the first place. ‘Muriel is such a bossybeak,’ you said, and we all laughed.”

It was an awkward moment. Even the Arty Party Penguins were shrivelling in their seats.

The parrot of Paradise whipped round, put its flippers on its hips and snorted. “Well, I think that Muriel is wonderful.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew her like we do,” said Hatty.

“She’s a nightmare,” agreed Brenda.

Muriel lifted her mask menacingly and glared at them. Brenda and Hatty gulped, clapped their flippers over their eyes and the room fell uncomfortably silent.

“We were talking about a different Muriel,” said Brenda finally, “weren’t we, Hatty?”

“Yes,” blurted Hatty, “weren’t we, Blue?”

“Were we? We were!” said Blue hastily. “We were talking about Muriel the… erm… the emu. You must have heard the bears talking about her. She’s so bossy, isn’t she, Rory?”

“Muriel the erm?” said Rory. “Yep… she’s a… real bossybeak. And always late for things, according to Orson.”

Muriel narrowed her eyes, but decided to carry on regardless.

“So! What do you think about my marvellous plan to dress everyone up to get the visitors back?” she asked the hutch in general. By now, Alaskadabra, the old emperor penguin, had arrived, along with Eddie, Clive and Oo-chi and Ku-chi, the chicks.

“I think it’s a great idea,” lied Blue, hoping to get back into Muriel’s good books.

“It’s not great, Bloop, it’s the work of a genius,” boasted Muriel. “Hatty and Brenda, aren’t I a genius?”

The two fairy penguins nodded so hard that Blue was worried their heads might come off.

“Genius. Love you, Muriel!” said Brenda.

“Love you more!” said Hatty. “Hate the emu!”

One of the chicks looked at Hatty sideways.

“What emu? There ith no emu!” insisted Oo-chi, poking her brother in the ribs. “Ku-chi, there ith no emu at Thitty Thoo, ith there?”

Ku-chi thought hard. “No. There’th jutht a thmelly old othstrich.”

Anxious to avoid a scene, Waldo whisked the chicks out of Muriel’s earshot and, encouraging them to form an orderly queue with the other penguins, he whipped out his tape measure. As he measured everyone up, Wesley and Warren rummaged through the box of hats, gloves and trimmings, trying to find stuff to make into the crazy costumes that Muriel had designed. Apart from Alaskadabra who liked to dress up at the drop of a hat – and he often dropped his hat – the rest of the birds were embarrassed.

“But I don’t want to be a beamingo!’ said Eddie as Wesley stitched him into a brown fur muff and snapped a party tooter on to his beak. “I don’t even know what one is!”