“‘Nectar,’” Mr. Prendergast called out as the chick gave the leg of Nina’s desk an experimental peck.
Nina slunk down in her desk, slipped onto the floor, and got up on her hands and knees.
What are you doing? the girl next to her mouthed.
Nina reached her hands around the chick. It was so fragile and light, bits of egg still stuck to its feathers. The chick disappeared entirely in Nina’s hands. It felt like holding a Christmas ornament. Nina eased back into her chair, hands cupping the baby penguin. It pecked at Nina’s palms. It tickled.
“Is everything okay, Nina?” Mr. Prendergast asked, looking over at her.
Nina nodded emphatically.
As Mr. Prendergast called out “‘Adapt,’” Nina delicately lowered her hands into her backpack and released the chick. Before it could get out again, she zipped the bag shut.
She could still hear the chick making its squeaky oork sounds inside. The girl next to her had given up on her quiz and was staring at Nina’s shaking backpack with astonishment. This situation was soon going to… what was the word…
“‘Escalate,’” Mr. Prendergast called.
Yep! That was it!
Nina had just written an e down on her paper when Joel appeared at the classroom door. He looked sweaty and out of breath, wearing his backpack on his front. If Nina wasn’t mistaken, Joel’s bag was shaking, too.
“Can I help you, young man?” asked Mr. Prendergast, clearly irritated at the interruption.
“I’m sorry,” Joel said. “My name is Joel Popper. Nina is my sister, and I have to go home sick. Our mother is on the way. The front office said I could come get Nina, so we could go home together.”
“Are you sure? That’s most unusual,” Mr. Prendergast said, folding his arms over his sweater vest.
Nina looked from her brother to Mr. Prendergast, her mind racing. Then she coughed. Her hand was already reaching for her backpack. “Yes, I’m feeling sick, too!”
ERNEST AND MAE
“KIIIIDS,” MRS. POPPER said as she walked them home, “are you sure that you’re both sick?”
“Yes, of course we are,” Joel said quickly.
Nina coughed pointedly.
Their mother was carrying their backpacks for them, which she always did when they weren’t feeling well. Joel watched the bags to see if the chicks were moving. But they weren’t, and he couldn’t hear any oorks. Maybe the chicks had fallen asleep.
Mrs. Popper chose her words carefully. “I wonder if maybe you two were overwhelmed by your first day, and you called out sick because you wanted to come home.”
Nina coughed again, shaking her head at the same time.
Joel always felt terrible whenever he lied, so he took the opportunity to clear his conscience. “Yeah, that might have been it, Mom. We just wanted to come home.”
Nina stopped coughing.
“I wish you had told me the truth from the start.”
Nina took their mother’s hand in hers and squeezed. “Sorry, Mom. They might not have called you if we didn’t say we were sick.”
Mrs. Popper ruffled Nina’s hair. “I know this move is hard on you both. None of us expected your father to leave, that I’d have to find a way to get by on one income. But we have a house we can call ours now. We own it. Everything is going to be different from here on out.”
“I bet you’re right, Mom,” Joel said. “That sounds nice.”
“I love you two,” Mrs. Popper said.
“Do we have any tuna fish?” Joel asked.
“Oh!” Mrs. Popper said, surprised. “We… do have tuna fish.”
As soon as they were inside, Joel and Nina dashed upstairs and huddled in Nina’s room, where they unzipped their backpacks and peered in.
“Oh, thank God,” Joel said as he pulled his chick out. It sat on his palm quietly, peering up at him with its deep, dark eyes.
“Mine’s okay, too!” Nina cried. Her chick was far more energetic, hopping out of her hand and wandering around the room, checking out the corners, oorking away. Nina sighed. “It’s so cute!”
“It is. They both are,” Joel said, lowering his chick to the ground. It chased after Nina’s, and once it’d caught up, it huddled against the other penguin, little fuzzy wing reaching out for comfort. They both kept oorking. “I bet they’re hungry.”
“I’ll go get the tuna fish,” Nina said, and ran downstairs.
Joel kneeled on the floor. Tears of joy filled his eyes while he watched the chicks. They were so perfect. Then he leaped to his feet. The penguins were heading right out of the bedroom! Joel shut the door just in time, before the chicks wandered out into the hallway. They hit the wood and turned around. The startled chicks oorked even louder. Two baby penguins were going to be a lot of work.
“Here, you two,” Joel said, lying on his stomach so he was eye level with them. “Come say hi.”
The penguins waddled over awkwardly, passing right by Joel’s head and wedging into the space between his neck and the floor, one on either side. Joel laughed. “You guys want to feel like you’re under an adult penguin’s belly, don’t you?”
“Oork! Oork!”
Fuzzy feathers tickled Joel’s throat. It was all he could manage not to laugh out loud.
The door creaked open. Joel didn’t want to disturb the nesting penguins, so he didn’t dare look up to see who was coming in. He was relieved to see Nina’s sneakers coming toward him, not his mother’s loafers.
Nina set down a plate of tuna fish. “We’re lucky Mom is so distracted by moving in,” she said. “She didn’t even notice I was making a plate of plain tuna. Come on, birds, it’s lunchtime!”
The chicks wriggled out from under Joel’s throat. They waddled over to the plate, brought their eyes close to the fish, then looked up at Nina and Joel expectantly.
“What are they waiting for?” Joel asked.
“In the books from the library, it looked like the parents fed the chicks.”
“I don’t remember that part. How do
