Penguin Problems Read online

  “Um, Mrs. Webber?” I say.

  She cuts me off. “No. I’m going to call your mom. She can deal with you.”

  “But—”

  “Get with your group. We’re leaving.”

  I go to Lexie and Breezie and Mrs. Hammerdorfer. I use my brain power to tell Pingy to not wiggle or say piu.

  “Want to see my dolphins?” Lexie asks. “I won two of them!” She thrusts the fuzzy blue one at me. “You can touch it if you want.”

  I frown. Lexie broke the rules, and she won two stuffed dolphins.

  I broke the rules, and I got yelled at by a guard and Mrs. Webber.

  “Touch it!” Lexie commands, wiggling the stuffed dolphin in my face.

  I touch it. It feels nothing like a real live sea creature.

  CHAPTER NINE

  On the drive back, Pingy fills up Mrs. Hammerdorfer’s car with a fishy smell. In the aquarium, I didn’t realize Pingy had a smell. In Mrs. Hammerdorfer’s car with its rolled-up windows, I realize he does.

  “Ew,” Lexie says. “What’s that stink?”

  “It’s Ty,” Breezie says. “Ty, you stink.”

  I hold my backpack tight. “I’ve given up baths,” I say. “I’m going for the Olympic world record.”

  Lexie laughs. “Gross.”

  Mrs. Hammerdorfer makes a disapproving sound.

  We arrive at school just in time for pickup. Mom is waiting in her station wagon—not Sandra, but Mom—and I’m so glad to see her. So so so so glad, even though she’s not going to be happy when she learns about Pingy. I’m even glad to see Teensy Baby Maggie in her car seat.

  “Mom?” I say as I climb into the backseat. I'm still not allowed to sit in the front. It's a law. “There’s something I—”

  “Ty, hush,” she says. “Do you know why I had to come pick you up today? Do you know why I had to wake Maggie up from her nap so that I could drive out here to get you?”

  “Um, but—”

  “Not. A. Word,” Mom says. Her fingers are tight on the steering wheel. “I can’t believe you would run off from your class like that! What were you thinking?”

  She said not a word. Does she want a word now? Or will it make her yell more?

  “You could have gotten lost, or kidnapped . . .” Her air comes out in a big burst. “Mrs. Webber had to call security! She had to call security to look for you!”

  “But I wasn’t lost or kidnapped.”

  “You could have been.”

  “But I wasn’t.”

  She glares at me in the rearview mirror. “Not another word. And when we get home, you’re going straight to your room, and you’ll be staying there all night.”

  Her nose twitches.

  “No, strike that. You’re going straight upstairs to take a bath, because you smell awful. Why in the world do you smell so awful?”

  “Well, that’s what—”

  “Never mind. Home. Bath. Bed. Do you understand?”

  “But Mom, I really need to—”

  “No,” she snaps.

  Teensy Baby Maggie starts crying. Pingy starts piu-ing. Mom is scaring all of us.

  At least Teensy Baby Maggie’s wails cover up Pingy’s noises.

  I let Teensy Baby Maggie hold my finger. She doesn’t let go.

  “Shhh,” I whisper to both of them. I say it again. “Shhhhh.” It sounds a little like a wave sounds when it rolls in at the ocean.

  • • •

  In the bathroom, I close the door and unzip my backpack.

  “Come on out, little guy,” I say to Pingy. There’s a tremble in my voice, and it surprises me. I wedge my hands around his feathered body. Except not exactly feathered. More like . . . fuzzy.

  But he’s warm, and he doesn’t seem banged up, and I am so glad about this that my muscles go loose.

  “Piu?” he says.

  I laugh, although the tremble is still there. But Pingy isn’t worried. He’s as cute and happy as ever. He twists his head from side to side, like, So this is where I live now? Cool. Do you have any more peanut butter?

  I set him on the fluffy yellow bathmat.

  He pees, making a dark spot.

  “Ack! No! You have to pee in the toilet, okay?” I lift him up to show him, but I realize that he’s too small. He would fit all the way in, and what if he got flushed?

  Bathtub, I think. He can pee in the bathtub, and even though he’s already peed, I put him in there anyway. I let go of him, and he takes two slippery steps. Then he squirts out a green squishy poop.

  “Ew,” I say, giggling. “Pingy!” I wipe it up with toilet paper and flush it down. I soak up the pee stain as best I can and flush it down, too. Then I settle onto my knees and prop my arms on the rim of the tub. Pingy waddles and slips and flaps his wings.

  I love him so much. But I’m worried about him, too. About him being here. I don’t think a penguin can live in a bathtub forever. And what do penguins eat besides peanut butter?

  Fish.

  Where do I get fish?

  “Piu?” Pingy says. “Piu, piu?”

  “Ty!” Mom yells. It sounds like she’s at the bottom of the staircase. “I don’t hear the water running!”

  I stay quiet. I put my finger to my lips to tell Pingy to be quiet, too.

  “Winnie, would you go make Ty take his bath?” I hear Mom say.

  “Mo-o-m,” Winnie calls from her room. “He’s seven years old. He can take a bath by himself.”

  Of course I can, I want to tell them. BUT NOT WITH A BABY PENGUIN IN THE TUB!

  “Winnie, please. I really can’t deal with him right now.”

  A hole opens up inside me. I rock from my knees onto my bottom. I pull my legs to my chest and wrap my arms around them.

  She’s mad because she thinks I acted like a baby on purpose, like by running away at the aquarium. Like not taking my bath. But she gets mad when I don’t act like a baby, too. Like when I do things all by myself, like get my pacifiers down.

  She is being a Big Fat Meanie Mommy. I hug my shins tighter and bury my head between knees.

  There are footsteps in the hall, followed by a quick rap on the bathroom door.

  I unpretzel my body.

  “One sec!” I cry. But before I can hide Pingy—in a towel? in the cabinet beneath the sink?—Winnie strides in.

  “Ty,” she starts, “you’ve got to take your—” Her words trickle off. With super-wide eyes, she takes in Pingy. Pingy takes Winnie in, too.

  Winnie turns to me. I try to make my face to look sweet and innocent.

  “You have a penguin,” she states.

  I smile hopefully.

  “There is a penguin in our bathtub.”

  “His name is Pingy.”

  She presses her hands to her eyes, then drops them. “Holy pickles, Ty.” She kneels by the tub.

  “Isn’t he so cute?” I ask. “Did I tell you his name is Pingy?”

  “Pingy?”

  “You should say hi to him,” I say. It’s better having Winnie in here with me. I didn’t think it would be, but it is. It makes me excited again.

  “Um, hi, Pingy,” Winnie says. She glances at me. “Wait—how do you know he’s a he?”

  “I just do?”

  Winnie reaches her hand out, then draws it back. “Can I . . . touch him?”

  “Sure. Just be gentle.”

  Winnie strokes Pingy’s head. He nudges up against her palm.

  “Piu. Piu piu,” he says.

  “Awww,” Winnie says. “He likes me!”

  “He might be hungry.” I pause. “He likes peanut butter.”

  Winnie grins. Then all at once she pulls her hand away and wipes off her grin.

  “So you stole this baby penguin from the aquarium?” she demands.

  “
I didn’t mean to.”

  “You can’t steal penguins. You can’t steal, period.” She looks at me. “You know that, Ty.”

  I hunch my shoulders.

  “Don’t you think his mom is missing him?” Winnie asks.

  “She wasn’t even paying attention to him. She was just picking at her feathers.”

  “That doesn’t mean she won’t miss her baby when she realizes he’s gone.”

  “Piu piu,” Pingy says.

  I hold very still. There’s something about his pius that sounds . . . different.

  “He doesn’t sound happy,” Winnie says.

  “Yes he does,” I say. But he doesn’t. This is the first time his pius have sounded the opposite of happy. Unhappy. For some reason, I think of Price, and also of Price’s mom, walking out of Trinity after dropping him off.

  “What’s wrong, Pingy?” I say.

  “Maybe you’re right and he’s hungry,” Winnie says. “You say he likes peanut butter?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She gets to her feet. “I’ll go get it so Mom doesn’t see you out of the tub. And you should . . . ack. Can Pingy swim?”

  “I don’t know. Probably?”

  She pulls her hair off her neck, holds it there for a second, then lets it fall back over her shoulders. She does that when she’s thinking.

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll go get the peanut butter. You hold Pingy in your lap—not in the tub—and turn on the bathwater so that Mom doesn’t come barging in. You don’t want her to come barging in, believe me.”

  “Then what?”

  “Don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

  “But what if he poops on me?”

  “Then you’ll have penguin poop on you.” Her hand’s on the doorknob, but she hasn’t yet opened the door. “I can’t believe you stole a penguin from the Georgia Aquarium.”

  “It has over eight million gallons of water,” I offer.

  “And you’re telling me that because . . . ?”

  “Because that’s a lot of water. With a lot of sea creatures in it.” I bite my lip. “So maybe they won’t miss one teeny-tiny penguin?”

  “Believe me, they will,” Winnie says.

  Strangely, that makes me feel better.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Winnie comes back with peanut butter and our older sister, Sandra.

  “Here’s the thing,” Sandra says, after a lot of finger-drumming on her jeans.

  “Yes?” Winnie says.

  I look up at the two of them and wait.

  The tub is full of water.

  I’m sitting cross-legged on the bathroom floor, and Pingy is in my lap. Each time he says “piu,” I give him a lick of peanut butter. Each time he finishes, he says “piu” again. He’s saying “piu” a lot. I think he misses his mom. I feel REALLY bad.

  But I’m glad Sandra and Winnie are here. Together, we’ll figure something out.

  Sandra collects air in her cheeks, then blows it out. “Okay. Mom is stressed. The last thing she needs is to find out she’s harboring a stolen penguin.”

  She zeroes in on me. “Ty, you’ve learned your lesson, right? That you shouldn’t steal a baby penguin ever ever again?”

  “He has,” Winnie says.

  “I have,” I say. “I have totally learned that lesson. I promise.”

  “Hmmph,” Sandra says.

  “I think you’re suggesting that there’s no reason to bring Mom into it—or Dad—and personally, I agree,” Winnie says.

  “I do, too!” I say.

  Sandra puts her hands on her hips. “Yeah, but how are we going to get Pingy back to the aquarium without bringing Mom into it?”

  “We just will,” Winnie says. “You can drive us there. We’ll say we’re going on an errand. And then . . . um . . . you’ll use your feminine wiles to hand Pingy over to someone who works there.”

  “Why do I have to use my feminine wiles?” Sandra says. “Why can’t you use yours?”

  “I will. That’s why I’m coming, too,” Winnie says.

  I don’t know what feminine wiles are, but I do know that my big sisters can pretty much do anything they set their minds to.

  “Do I have boy wiles?” I ask. “Should I use them when we get to the aquarium?”

  “No, because you’re staying here,” Sandra says.

  “But—”

  “You have to take your bath,” Winnie says. “Plus, you’re already in enough trouble. No way will Mom let us take you out of the house.”

  I pout, but not for long. I cuddle Pingy close and say, “You’re going home! Hurray!”

  “Piu-piu!” he says in lonely piu-piu language.

  “Ack.” Sandra groans. “Does he have to keep making that sound? How can we sneak him out of here when he’s being so loud? He only shuts up when he’s got peanut butter in his mouth, and we can’t keep giving him peanut butter all the way out to the car.”

  “It would look weird if I keep dipping my hand into my messenger bag or whatever,” Winnie says. “Mom would ask questions.”

  “We could put the container of peanut butter in there with him,” Sandra says. “Except, no, because he’d flop around trying to get to it, and flap his wings and stuff, and . . . no.”

  “Oh, Pingy,” Winnie says. “Can’t you just stay quiet?”

  “Piu,” Pingy says, and with his dark eyes he looks at me.

  Not Sandra.

  Not Winnie.

  Me.

  A lump rises in my throat. I have to fix this. I have to come up with an idea. I scrunch my forehead and push hard with my brain muscles—and I do!

  “I know what to do!” I say, doing my standing-up-without-my-hands trick and passing Pingy to Winnie. “Here, hold Pingy. I’ll be right back.”

  I dart to my bedroom. I feel around on my sheets. Yes!

  I dash back to the bathroom and wave ol’ greenie proudly.

  “Your old pacifier?” Sandra says.

  “Yep.” I dip it into the peanut butter and pull up a big blob. “This’ll last for a long time. And if he’s got peanut butter in his mouth, he’ll be quiet in Winnie’s backpack. See?”

  Winnie and Sandra look at each other.

  “Watch,” I say. I stick greenie into Pingy’s beak, and right away he goes suck-suck-suck. He stops fidgeting in Winnie’s arms, too.

  “Brilliant!” Winnie says. She kisses me. “Ty? You are brilliant.”

  I grin.

  Sandra pushes herself off the sink. “Right. We better go, then.”

  I pet Pingy’s head. “Bye, Pingy. You’re a good Pingy.”

  He keeps sucking greenie. He looks so cute, sucking a real live pacifier.

  “You can visit him next time you go to the aquarium,” Winnie says. She tucks Pingy under the bottom of her shirt so that she can sneak him to her room, where her messenger bag is. Mom’s downstairs, but just in case.

  “Don’t forget me, ’kay?” I tell Pingy.

  “Take your bath, squirt,” Sandra says. “We’ll keep Pingy safe.”

  They leave, and for a long time I stare at the ceiling, thinking of things that could go wrong. But for every wrong thing, there’s a way they could make it right.

  Like, if the aquarium is closed, they’ll find a security guard.

  If the security guard gets suspicious, Sandra will make up a good story. Or Winnie will, because she’s awesome at stories, and Sandra will look wise and responsible like someone who’ll be going to college next year.

  And if Pingy doesn’t want to go back to his aquarium pen . . .

  Well, he will, because that’s where he lives. And his exhibit won’t be under construction forever. When Mom isn’t so mad, I’ll see if she’ll take me to the aquarium just for fun, and Teensy Baby Maggie can come, too. I won’t mention
Pingy. I’ll just say how much Maggie will love it there.

  • • •

  I’m pretending I’m a jellyfish when Mom knocks on the door. “Ty?” she says. “Can I come in?”

  “Um . . . I guess,” I say.

  I sit up and squeeze my legs together for privacy reasons. Water sloshes over the edge of the tub.

  She steps into the bathroom with Teensy Baby Maggie in one arm and Teensy Baby Maggie’s bouncy seat in the other. She puts the bouncy seat on the floor and puts Maggie in it. She closes the lid on the toilet and sits down.

  “Sweetie, I’m worried I haven’t been paying enough attention to you,” Mom says.

  I raise my eyebrows. I thought I was going to get yelled at some more.

  “It’s just that new babies take a lot of work,” she goes on.

  “So I’ve heard . . . and heard . . . and heard,” I say.

  She lets out a small laugh, but her eyes are sad. “Is that why you ran away at the aquarium?”

  “I didn’t run away! I just wandered away. Accidentally.”

  “I don’t want you wandering off from your teacher ever again,” she says. “When Mrs. Webber told me what happened, I couldn’t believe it. That kind of behavior . . . it’s just not like you.”

  “Because it wasn’t me. It was a fake me.”

  “A fake you?”

  A mad me, that was the real reason. Mad and sad and other things, too. Like everything was wrong inside of me.

  Mom’s waiting.

  “I won’t run away from Mrs. Webber again,” I promise. “Or wander.”

  Mom looks at me. I look at her.

  “Hmm,” she finally says. “Well, do you think you need to be punished some more, or do you think you’ve been punished enough?”

  Parents ask dumb questions sometimes.

  “I think I’ve been punished enough,” I say. “But, Mom?”

  “Yes?”

  “You do pay too much attention to Teensy Baby Maggie. Not always! And I know, I know, she’s a baby.”

  Maggie burps.

  “But maybe you could do things with just me sometimes?”

  “I like that idea,” Mom says. “Special time, just for us.”

  “Yeah! Special time just for us. But other times, we can do stuff with Maggie and Dad and Sandra and Winnie, too.” Like the aquarium, but I’ll mention that another day.