Jeanne Willis - Penguin Pandemonium - The Wild Beast

“It’s a cross between a beaver and a flamingo,” said Muriel. “People will pay good money to come and see that. Now keep still, shut up and put these leather mitts on your feet.”

Waldo walked among the disgruntled penguins, adjusting elaborate crests made from hat bobbles, pinning on fabric wings and fashioning magnificent horns out of walking-stick handles.

“Me ith a pigmy rhinotheroth!” giggled Oo-chi. “What ith you, Ku-chi?”

Ku-chi scratched his fluffy head and gazed at his sister as if she was stupid. “Me ith a penguin, thilly.”

Oo-chi wiggled her tail and pouted. “No, you ithn’t, ith he, Mithster Waldo? Not any more. You ith a… fluffy hamthster.”

“Yes, he’s a fluffy hamster,” agreed Waldo, stroking the mohair on the cardigan sleeve he had pulled over Ku-chi’s head. Ku-chi, however, had other ideas and threw a tantrum.

“I doethn’t want to be a thoppy hamthster. I wanth to be an emu!” he cheeped.

Waldo took no notice and sewed him into the costume.

“You’ll be a hamster and like it, darling,” he said. “We’ve got limited props. It’s just a bit of fun.”

Just then, Rory caught sight of himself in a wing mirror that had fallen off a zoo truck and was now attached to the wall of Waldo’s hutch.

“I look a right sprat!” he exclaimed.

“No change there, then,” smirked Muriel, preening her new tail. “Is everybody dressed? Good, because we need to practise our growls and squeaks.”

The penguins looked at each other in bewilderment. Even Alaskadabra – disguised as a glider monkey – looked a bit worried.

“Oh dear,” he said, “I didn’t realise it was a speaking part.”

Muriel groaned. “It’s called method acting, love. We’re no longer penguins, so we mustn’t sound like penguins.”

Alaskadabra put his head on one side. It was hard to see or hear out of the balaclava that had been pulled over his head. Warren had made a pair of woolly ears by wrapping two elastic bands very tightly round the knitted fabric, which had made the eyeholes shift – the only way Alaskadabra could see out now was through the gaps in the stitches.

“That’s all well and good, dear,” he said, “but I don’t know what a glider monkey sounds like.”

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