Sunny’s Adventures

by Jessica Teeter

After making the long, cold trek to our native nesting grounds I was ready to doze. Instead I would build a nest for my soon to be mate, Ruby. At least, I believe Ruby should be my mate. Yeah some might say I am obsessed with Ruby. Ruby is sweet and compassionate yet one of the most honest and hard working penguins I know. Yes, I know it seems funny that I, Sunny the penguin, have never met the penguin of my wildest visions, but oh is it so very true. Ruby is very kind and understanding and all but… well I get tongue-tied around Ruby. I turn so red in the feathers Ruby says I appear as if I were a fresh drop of blood on the ice.

I was an Adele penguin and many other penguins do not know I must build my nest out of pebbles. I began searching for the pebbles. I knew that Ruby would not be my mate if I didn’t even have a nest for her to lay our precious egg in. I searched and searched, but there were evidently no pebbles left. I searched more and more, and the more frantically and thorough I searched, the more I knew that there was not a single pebble left. I crept into a corner and silently wept over the fact that I had failed to build the most essential necessity of an egg, a nest. I figured that I probably didn’t even have a chance of being Ruby’s mate even with a nest. I was a rotund penguin that was also one of the shortest penguins around. I looked over as I watched Ruby babble with the many other majestic birds that surrounded her. Ruby probably already had a mate that was better than me.

I slowly began wobbling my way over to Ruby. I had to find out who her mate was. Was he big like the ice mountain that surrounded us or was he small like the tiny puddles that dotted the ice in our nesting grounds? As I was about five yards away from Ruby, I noticed a speck of black against the unforgiving white mountain that couldn’t hide a speck of dirt on it if it tried. I began waddling now like a fish that just escaped a penguin’s mouth. Then, I saw the dreadful creature. It was tall and broad. It was taller than two Adele penguins on top of one another and it was as broad as my flippers spread out in the frigid air. Suddenly, as the animal reached the peak of the ice mountain I realized that this monster was Revere a King penguin from about one hundred treacherous waddles away from our grounds and his egg eating birds. Revere had now nearly reached the mountain’s peak and was clearing his craw and ruffling his feathers for a proclamation. Revere then recited the bone chilling words that he had probably been thinking about for hours. He guffawed evilly and roared, “Adele penguins of the southernmost Antarctic please listen to this dreadful announcement. If you are not gone within three weeks when my colony comes for their nesting season I will talk to my dear friend William the killer whale, and he will break through this wretched ice and eat every last penguin in sight. One more thing, if I do not find any eggs for my dear girls to eat I will do something that will make you regret ever laying any eggs at all.” Then, Revere slowly wobbled away with his egg eating birds or girls as he calls them.

The penguins were in ah. They could not leave. They had nowhere to go and going back to the ocean was out of the question after the journey they had endured just to get here. Since Revere was quite a bluffer in the first place the other penguins just resumed to their normal activities.

Three weeks later, the penguins were going frantic. Three weeks time was up and they were not gone. Although they had resumed normal activities most of them were absolutely terrified of any King penguins. Even though they had now laid their eggs all the penguins began wobbling back to the ocean as soon as they saw the egg eating birds come towards us. I stayed behind though, for I still believed that Revere was just bluffing, but just in case I hid in a nearby ice cave. To my surprise I saw Ruby with no mate at all in the ice cave too. We sat for many hours until - as it was nearing high noon - Revere appeared. He was satisfied with the fact that all the penguins appeared gone, but to assure himself that no one came back for an egg without his notification, he did not let his girls eat the eggs. He left in haste, so Ruby and I left the cave to do the only thing we knew we could do with the eggs. I approached the steaming cave as did Ruby to place the first eggs in the steamy room. It was in as white man would call it the only volcano in all of Antarctica. After we got all of the eggs into the cave Ruby and I thought of what we should do to replace the now empty nests. Then, an idea hit me with such a force I almost fell over. There was a chunk of ice on the ground in front of me and that was when I realized that the ice looked like the silvery white eggs that the penguins laid. Ruby immediately caught onto my idea and we began putting ice chunks from the ice mountain into the nests.

After we had finished this strenuous task, Ruby said that we needed to find Revere and get him away from our nesting grounds forever. Although I wasn’t sure about the whole ordeal, Ruby began waddling for the ocean as fast as she could. I followed her not completely even knowing what we were doing. When we reached the ocean, Ruby searched the waters for the animals that brought immediate despair to any penguin they even looked at. Soon after we came to the realization that no killers were to be found, we dove into the icy waters to find Revere. Ruby dove and swam with a speed and accuracy even unknown to penguins twice her age. As it became apparent we were swimming closer and closer to a faraway iceberg, I noticed the slightest glimpses of black on the iceberg. Amazingly, Ruby seemed to be able to find her way to this iceberg as if she had been there a thousand times. As we went on our way, Ruby told me that I was mistaken about the housing of Revere. Revere now lived here after he had gotten into a quarrel with his colony. Then, Ruby told me the astounding news that she had been to this iceberg with her father hundreds of times. Ruby’s father had been to this iceberg after he had accidentally been placed on a scientist’s boat. The scientists had dropped him off here and he had had to find his way home. After that he had showed only Ruby where this divine iceberg was. Supposedly, the fifth time Ruby came here with her father they noticed Revere and his egg eating birds. They had come back many more times to spy on him but, had never heard him talking about his evil plan and had never found reason to destroy his evil lair.

As I was thinking these thoughts, we arrived upon the massive ice sculpture. We spotted Revere sitting in an air pocket inside the ice only three yards away. Ruby and I crept three feet closer to him until we see his whole figure in the icy shadows he cast upon the ice. Ruby then did an amazing thing; she screeched such a high pitch screech that I could see Revere holding his flightless wings up to his ear holes. Then I did it too. I screeched too. Suddenly, there were more and more penguin screeches from all around. The ice structure began to shake and make noises as if it were in a hurricane that sometimes came within twenty miles of our precious home. The ice shook more and more violently and; then, it cracked and fell into the abyss of water below us. Ruby and I had jumped off the iceberg right before the above-water part broke but, dear old Revere had fallen deep into the ocean with his fortress of ice all around him, never to be seen again.

Ruby and I squealed with delight as we swam home. We gathered around our colony, and we began on the trek home to a problem-free nesting ground. Yeah we would still have our little quarrels but, they would always be easy to solve. Now, I had a mate for next year, Ruby. The penguins retrieved their eggs and soon everything was back to normal. At least, close to normal; Ruby was my mate for next year after all. We had to play with the penguins a little just for fun. Everyone ended up living a penguin life after all.

-End-