The Rime of the Moulting Penguin
Euuurgh. Another day standing around waiting for my feathers to fall out, getting bombarded by Johnny’s bad poetry. I found a funny rock to shelter behind - it’s big and rectangular and green. Can I even see in colour? Strange extra-tall penguins go in and out of it all day. Their feathers are weird, I think their moult isn’t going so well . . .
Jimbo looked like such a fluff-nut the other day. Had a bunch of feathers sticking right up out of his head like a micro tuxedo galah. Bad hair day, that one. Nearly as good as Joe’s glam-rocker feathered shoulder pad look. But damn, the itch! I had to run around in small circles until I tripped over a rock because the itch was so bad. Nice rock though. Might have to remember that one for next season to impress the ladies. There’s a rock or two around this place, that’s for sure . . .
Saw an iceberg the other day. Told Jimbo and he told me to shut up. Apparently he’s heard that joke too many times. I reckon he’s just hangry, because he hasn’t had a mouthful of fish in weeks. Too busy moulting. Legend has it we sink if we try to swim while moulting. I saw Kenny try it the other day and he didn’t come back so maybe it checks out . . .
The girls are moulting behind the rocks and keep squawking at us to go away and not look at them. I mean, true, moulting is pretty embarrassing. We had a competition to see who could do the best dejected look. I definitely won. But Bert reckoned he did. So we just hunched our shoulders and looked the other way. This time the dejection was for real. I got so low I ended up on my belly. But then I could tuck my feet into my rolls. Nice. There’s always an upside.
Bert also reckoned tonight’s sunset would definitely be the best one. A real cracker. But he’s been saying that every afternoon for about six weeks and he hasn’t been right yet. Starting to think his eyesight is going. I suppose it’s all a matter of interpretation and most of us are just too grumpy to care.
The big weird penguins are hard at work making us a huge heated bath for winter. Kenny knows it’s warm because he put his flippers on it last night. Only thing is they forgot to put in a door, but we’re all sure its coming soon. That’ll be nice for warming the feet. Bit of a hike from the edge of the pack-ice though. Silly big penguins. Why didn’t they think of that?
I overheard one of the big penguins tell another one that we have an IQ of about three, and the other one said “really, that high?” That’s just rude I say. I can fly underwater losers!! Noot noot!! Beat that.
