Baby Penguin's Arc

Chapter 5 of 10

Morning came gray and cold. Baby Penguin woke between its parents on the dry planks. Its father stood at the door and looked out at the long land. Its mother folded the empty can into the knapsack. "We don't know this country," the father said. "South is a direction. It is not a path." The mother nodded. "We could walk a week the wrong way." Baby Penguin listened. It had learned that picking a direction was not enough. The big ones needed more than a pointing finger. Boots scraped on the porch outside. Baby Penguin froze. The door pushed open and an old man stepped in, ducking under the frame. He wore a wide brown hat with a feather stuck in the band. A red scarf hung at his throat. He held a coil of rope in one hand and a paddle in the other, like he had come to fetch them from the wall. He looked at the three penguins and did not seem surprised. "My hut," he said. He set the paddle by the stove. "Didn't figure on guests." Baby Penguin's father lowered his head. "We took shelter. We will go." The old man waved a hand. "Sit. You ate my fish?" "Our own," the mother said, and showed the empty can. He grunted, pleased. "Good. Where you headed?" "South," the father said. "To the ice. We came up from the pole in the last blizzard and lost the trail." The old man scratched his beard. "South is easy to say. Hard to walk. Between here and the ice is bog, then stone flats, then a river you can't cross where it's wide." He looked down at Baby Penguin. "Short legs. Long trip." Baby Penguin's mother stepped closer. "Do you know the way?" The old man laughed once, dry. "I've walked it forty years. I'm Trailbreaker. I guide who needs guiding." He tapped the paddle. "I'll take you as far as the ice edge. Not for coin. For the company." The father's shoulders dropped. The mother pressed her wing against Baby Penguin's back. Baby Penguin felt the shake in her feathers go still. Trailbreaker knelt to Baby Penguin's height. His eyes were pale and steady. "You walk when I walk, little one. You stop when I stop. Deal?" Baby Penguin bobbed its head. "Deal." He tied the rope to his belt and looped the loose end once around the father's wing, then the mother's, then, gentle, around Baby Penguin. "So we don't lose each other in the wind," he said. He opened the door. The cold pushed in. Trailbreaker pointed with the paddle, not at the sun, but at a low notch between two far hills. "That's the gate. We go through there by dark." He stepped down off the porch. The three penguins followed, roped together, and the hut fell behind them.