Baby Penguin was still chasing the fish when the ice ran out. One moment there was a silvery, half-see-through shape flickering under the frost. The next moment the frost was gone, and Baby Penguin's short flippers were brushing wet grass. The fish was gone too. Baby Penguin stopped and looked back for the colony. It saw only a big painted sign at the edge of a path, and past the sign, trees it had never seen before. Its parents were somewhere behind the last blizzard, on the tundra. This was not the tundra. Baby Penguin picked a direction and waddled. The ground felt wrong, so it switched. It switched again. Every direction smelled like mud and warm leaves. A red and white flag hung from a steel pole above the path, still in the flat air. Baby Penguin did not know the flag. Baby Penguin did not know anything here. A green shape stepped out from the reeds. He was tall and wore blue overalls. A coil of rope hung from his left pocket. He looked down at Baby Penguin the way a person looks at a small problem he does not have time for. "You're lost," said Alligator Sam. Baby Penguin nodded. Sam crouched. "I pull people from the mud. Storm knocked three into the swamp this morning. One is chest-deep." He pointed with his snout down the path, toward a low building with flower boxes and a paw print on the sign. "Clinic's that way. Vet is inside. Brown hair. Blue scrubs. Tell her Sam sent you. Wait there." Baby Penguin looked at the path, then at the reeds, then back at Sam. Sam was already standing. "I can't carry you. I need both hands for the rope." He waited. "Can you walk?" Baby Penguin nodded again. "Then walk. Straight line. Don't switch." Baby Penguin waddled down the path without turning. It reached the door with the paw print. A woman in blue scrubs opened it before Baby Penguin could figure out the handle. She looked at Baby Penguin, then past Baby Penguin at the empty path. "Where did you come from?" Baby Penguin opened its beak and closed it. "Sam," it said. Valerie the Veterinarian crouched, the way Sam had crouched, but softer. "You're a long way from cold," she said. She lifted Baby Penguin under the short flippers and carried it inside. The door closed. Baby Penguin was warm and dry and somewhere it had never meant to be. Its parents were still on the tundra, and the tundra was not out this door.

Inside the clinic, the air was warm and smelled like soap. Valerie set Baby Penguin on a soft towel on the counter and looked at it for a long moment. "You need cold," she said. "Cold is south." She said it like she was working it out for herself. Baby Penguin did not know south. Baby Penguin knew the tundra, and the tundra was where its parents were, and the tundra was not through the door it had come in. Valerie went to a drawer and came back with a folded paper. She spread it flat on the counter. It was a map, drawn by hand in dark ink, with a swamp and a road and a wobbly line of coast. She tapped a corner. "Clinic." She dragged her finger down the paper, past the swamp, past the coast, all the way to the bottom edge. "South Pole. Where you live. Where the others are." Baby Penguin looked at her finger, then at the door, then back at her finger. Its short flippers pressed the towel. "You can't walk it," Valerie said. "Not today. Not alone." She paused. She looked at the door too. Then she picked Baby Penguin up under the flippers and carried it to the window at the back of the clinic. She pointed past the flower boxes, past the path, at the low sun. "That is west. Turn your back to it. That way is south. When you leave, you go that way. Only that way. Don't switch." Baby Penguin stared at the sun until its eyes watered. It turned its back. The direction behind it felt like nothing yet. But now it had a name. Valerie set Baby Penguin down and crouched to its level. "You stay tonight," she said. "I feed you. In the morning I find someone going your way." She stood and went to write something on a clipboard, then stopped with the pen above the paper. She did not write. She put the clipboard face down on the counter. Baby Penguin watched her, and understood only that she had chosen not to do a thing she had meant to do. It was warm. It was fed soon after, small pink fish from a tin. Baby Penguin ate them and wanted another. Outside, the sun dropped behind the trees, and the way home was a straight line at Baby Penguin's back, held there by a word it had just learned. Tomorrow, it would walk.

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.

Baby Penguin stood between its parents on the flat grass behind the clinic. The tall one pressed a wing against its back. The other bent low and touched its beak to the top of Baby Penguin's head. Valerie watched from the step of the Pawcare Clinic with her hands pushed into her pockets. She had signed a paper. She had said the word discharged. Now she said, "South is that way. The sun sets there." She pointed with one finger. "Walk together. Don't stop until dark." Baby Penguin's parents thanked her in low sounds. Valerie nodded once. She crouched and looked at Baby Penguin. "You did the walk," she said. "You can do the rest." She stood and stepped back. She did not wave. The three penguins turned toward the low sun and started to move. Baby Penguin kept close to its mother's leg. When a gust pulled at the grass, it pressed closer. It did not pick a new direction. It followed the two big shadows in front of it, and its own small shadow ran along beside theirs. They walked all afternoon. The grass thinned. The ground turned to sand, then to hard stones. The sun dropped and the wind sharpened. Baby Penguin's feet slowed. Its father saw and stopped. Ahead, on a low bluff over cold water, stood an old fishing hut. The planks were gray. Ropes hung from the rail. A paddle leaned by the door. Baby Penguin's mother tested the step. It held. She pushed the door with her beak and it swung. Inside, the floor was dry. A stove sat cold in the corner. "Here," she said. "One night." They ate a can of fish from the knapsack. Baby Penguin's father worked the opener with his beak. Baby Penguin sat between them on the dry planks and chewed slow. Outside, the water slapped the posts under the hut. Baby Penguin thought of the fish under the ice, and of the clinic door clicking shut, and of the long walk still ahead. It leaned against its mother. She folded a wing over it. "South tomorrow," she said. "All the way to the ice." Baby Penguin closed its eyes. The tundra was still far. But tonight the wing was warm, and no one was walking away.