Baby Penguin's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Morning came gray and cold at the window. Valerie lifted Baby Penguin from the towel and set it on the floor. She moved fast, pulling a canvas knapsack from a hook and dropping cans into it one by one. Small fish cans, the kind Baby Penguin had eaten the night before. She added a metal can opener and a bottle of water. She knelt and looped the straps over Baby Penguin's short flippers, then adjusted them so the pack sat high on its back. "Food for the walk," she said. "Water when the snow is far." Baby Penguin felt the weight settle. It was heavier than a fish, lighter than a fear. Valerie carried Baby Penguin to the back door of the clinic and opened it. The low sun was in front of them now, climbing. She turned Baby Penguin around so the sun sat behind its head. "South," she said. "Straight. Don't switch." She crouched. She smoothed the feathers on the top of its head with two fingers, then pressed her lips there for a second. Her mouth stayed tight when she pulled back. "I can't walk you there," she said. "The permit. The papers. If they come and I'm gone, the clinic closes." She looked at the knapsack, then at the horizon, then at the knapsack again. "This is what I have." She stood and stepped back into the doorway of the Pawcare Clinic so her shadow would not fall across the path. Baby Penguin looked at her once. Then it turned its back to her and faced the direction she had named. It took a step. The cans clinked. It took another. The grass was wet and cold on its feet, better than the warm floor had been. Behind it, the clinic door clicked shut. Baby Penguin did not look back. It walked. The sun climbed at its back and pushed a small shadow out in front of it, and Baby Penguin followed the shadow the way it had once followed a fish. By the time the clinic was out of sight, the path had ended and the ground had gone soft, and Baby Penguin was alone with a bag of food, a bottle of water, and a straight line it had promised to keep.