Penguin

A roly bag is just the thing, to put a penguin in.
A council flat is not a place for it to do its penguin thing.
I filled the bath, it showed no interest.
I bought some fish. It ate them. Then it waddled round, had a nose (or a beak), maybe looking for more penguins.
But I only had need of the one.
I made the call: "The penguin has landed.
"How'd it go?
A sorry tale of a moonless night and a high wall, and a low trick with a doctored crabstick.
"Sit tight. With a penguin.
I put the telly on.
I searched for a nature programme, something nice and Disney, no cold-hearted killer-whales frolicking in the froth with pieces of penguin.
I found some cartoons. The penguin looked disinterestedly down at its feet.
I found a tennis ball, threw it across the room.
It looked at me, as if to say, "Why?
I went to touch it, give it a stroke. Nice penguin.
I think it liked that.
The phone rang again and a posh voice said, "Something's come up, you'll have to hold on to it, see out the end of the week.
Plip plap plop comes the penguin up the hallway, beak around the door and beady button eyes on me.
"That was your man, I tell it. "You're stuck here for the duration.
It stared some more, inscrutable, and waddled in.
And then it squawked and then I knew, a penguin has its very own noise, and it's not afraid to use it. A plaintive cry. This penguin is pretentious, a haughty looking birdy thing, casting a critical birdy eye on my grubby net curtains.
But we are on the ground floor, penguin. And you are not supposed to be here.
The penguin does not care, and demonstrates his nonchalance: four fish later and now I know about penguin poo.
We may fall out over this.
A penguin can fire its poo up and out over a distance of several metres. All over my bookcase. If you don't believe me, you can look it up. You learn about your penguin when you have to live with it.
The penguin looks defiant, but there's money to be had if it gets delivered in one healthy penguin shape, so I bite my tongue and practice tolerance and understanding as it shoots its poo and squawks its presence, waddles up and down the hall and pecks and flings my clothes and books and chucks its weight around.
I get some more fish. I eat one of them. It's a bonding exercise. And in the space of a week I grow quite attached, and am loathe to see it go. It will leave a penguin-shaped hole in my life, despite its poor manners, its poo and squawk, and its stubbornly standing in front of the telly.
But it had to go ' we'd been on the news. I got the call. It was time.
It was a sad moment as I zipped up the roly bag as far is it would go, and stuck a sock over its sticky out beak, and carried it out to the boot of the car, and drove out to the common. I felt it should be sitting up front with me, my short-term black and white stumpy winged companion, who would no longer waddle around my flat. No more fish suppers for two.