Joel joined Nina at the doorway, the chicks in his arms. He gently leaned down and released them onto the cold ground. They looked around, panicked, and then tried to retreat into the hut—until Nina closed the door behind them. They oorked in protest.
“This is for your own good,” Joel explained. “You have to get used to other penguins!”
The chicks looked out at the cold sea. It wasn’t hard to imagine what they were thinking: Wouldn’t it be so much nicer to stay in bed?
Patch tobogganed over and stood, toddling toward the frightened chicks. “Jook!” she said with a toss of her beak.
Ernest dived under Mae. Mae, though, looked bravely up at the strange penguin. Then she made her first adult penguin noise. “Ork!”
Patch clacked her beak against Mae’s a few times. Clearly feeling emboldened, Ernest emerged and held his beak out, his eyes widening in delight when Patch clacked his, too.
Then the penguin walked along the beach, looking over her shoulder. The message was clear: Come with me!
That’s just what Ernest and Mae did. After looking up at Nina and Joel for approval, they toddled after Patch.
“I think we’d better go along!” Joel said as the three penguins made their way along the beach.
“Mom, we’re exploring with Mae and Ernest!” Nina called out. “We won’t go far.”
“Be very careful!” Mrs. Popper said. Another mother might not have let her children wander an Arctic island on their own. But Mrs. Popper knew that her kids would be careful.
“We’ll be back by breakfast!” Joel called as he and his sister scrambled along the beach after their chicks and their new friend, rocks crunching under their feet.
“A penguin wants to show us something!” Nina huffed as she jogged along the beach, ice breaking and tinkling under her boots. “How exciting!”
SHOW AND TELL
AS THEY HIKED along the frozen beach, more and more of the Popper Penguins emerged from the surf to join them. Each time a new penguin neared, the chicks would go motionless, making their baby-like oork sounds, until they summoned enough courage to let out an adult ork. The process would repeat itself each time a new Popper Penguin joined the procession.
For such sleek creatures, the penguins were ungainly on the shore. They tipped over this way and that the moment they hit a slippery patch, more often than not knocking over another bird in the process. Joel and Nina kept near the chicks, so they wouldn’t inadvertently get squished by a rolling stranger.
Patch led them up a bank of rocks between the rough surfaces with her flexible feet. Many of the other penguins tried to make the jumps but gave up after a few dramatic falls. They made orks of outrage as they retreated into the surf.
Mae courageously tried to make the first leap, but bonked her head on a protruding rock. She glared at it sternly. “Gaw!”
“Seems like you still need us,” Nina said as she and Joel each picked up a chick and clambered up the rocks.
They drew their coats and scarves tighter as they crossed a windswept plateau. The ocean wind carried sprays of ice that stung their cheeks and noses. When they released the chicks to the ground, the birds seized up, holding their little wings tight to their bodies and scrunching their eyes closed. Joel and Nina each tucked a chick into their warm coats.
All the while, Patch led them along.
Popper Island wasn’t large. Before twenty minutes had gone by, they were at the center. There, the penguin made a sharp turn, then brought them to the eastern edge.
Patch reached a precipice and turned around, making a loud ork as she gestured with one flipper.
Nina and Joel went to join her and saw that here the ground turned into a sharp cliff. Nesting down the vertical rocky surface were birds that looked a lot like penguins. They had the same white-and-black coloration, only they were smaller and had clown-like faces that ended in bright red bills. Joel felt like they looked like inferior penguins. Then one spread its wings and swooped over the sea far below. They could fly. That was definitely a point in their favor.
“I think those are puffins!” Nina said. “Neat. I’ve always wanted to see a puffin.”
The kids released Mae and Ernest so the chicks could see the puffins, too. It was clearly still too cold for them—they stuck to the warm nooks between the kids’ legs. They did look out curiously, though, making startled little gasps whenever a puffin took flight. “I hope we’re not making them jealous,” Nina said, “not being able to fly and all.”
Joel noticed that Patch kept pointing at the puffins with her wing. She wanted them to notice something.
He looked more closely. The puffins all seemed quite skinny. Some had tufts of hair sticking out in random places. They didn’t look sleek like the island’s penguins.
“I see eggshells around, but no chicks,” Nina said. “That’s odd, right?”
“And look!” Joel said. “The puffins will make short flights over the water, but they never return with any fish.”
Mae and then Ernest toddled over to Patch, taking shelter beneath her belly. The penguin patiently accepted the chicks while she continued to point at the puffins. She made sad orks, opening and closing her beak.
“I think I get it,” Nina said, looking at the penguins and then the suffering puffin colony.
“What is it?” Joel asked.
“The puffins were the only birds around before. So they were the only ones eating the local fish. But now there are all these penguins here.”
“… and the penguins are eating all the good fish,” Joel said, “which means there’s not enough food left for the puffins.”
Patch made a satisfied-sounding ork. These dense humans had finally figured out what
