Valerie the Veterinarian's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

Valerie stayed up all night. She spread the correction notice on the counter and drafted new plans for the back shelter, sketching the pad, the pulley, the drainage line Harvey had suggested. She marked measurements. She erased and marked it again. She had let a baby penguin wander off toward a tundra two thousand miles away. She had given him a knapsack of food and water. She should never have let him go. She grabbed her keys. She was halfway to the front door when she heard the shuffle on the step. Small feet. A pause. Another shuffle. She opened the door. Baby Penguin stood on the mat with one flipper held tight to his chest. Blood beaded along the edge of the flipper where something had cut him. His belly was streaked with dirt. He looked up at her. "I found the fish," he said. "The fish was a leaf. I fell on a fence. It hurt." Valerie knelt. She scooped him up with both hands and carried him to the exam table. She washed the cut with saline. She checked the joint underneath. Nothing broken. She wrapped the flipper in a thin bandage, snug but not tight. She warmed a dish of thawed smelt and set it under his beak. He ate four fish without stopping. She watched him eat and felt her hands stop shaking. By sunrise the bandage was clean and the chick was asleep against a folded towel. Valerie sat down at the counter and looked at the half-finished plans. She had two things now that were hers to keep alive: a shelter she had to legalize in thirty days, and a baby penguin she felt guilty about. She picked up the pen. On a fresh intake page she wrote his name, the cut, the treatment, the time. She clipped the page into the file next to Sam's map. Then she walked to the back door and closed it. She turned the bolt. The clinic was quiet. The chick breathed in small even puffs. Valerie went back to the plans and drew the drainage line one more time, this time without erasing.