A children's story written to inspire altruism and courage. |
In the Land of the Penguins at the bottom of the world, everyone was gathered to celebrate the birth of Mr. and Mrs. Pebble’s first baby. The Pebbles were so proud when their baby broke through his shell to join their family. Soon, however, the entire colony could see that Percy Pebble was no ordinary penguin. “He’s HUGE!” cried Mrs. Wobble. “What’s the matter with him?” asked Miss Mina. “It’s an abomination!” declared the Emperor. It was true. Percy Pebble was at least twice the size of a normal adult penguin. What was worse, when he opened his beak to great his parents for the first time, his voice came out a terrible deep growl. “Oh this just will not do!” cried the Emperor, who did not like anything out of the ordinary in his colony. “I must send him away,” thought the Emperor, “but how?” The Emperor decided to scare poor Percy into leaving. He decreed that all the penguins must yell and flap their wings at Percy whenever they saw him, and that is exactly what they did. Poor Percy was very sad and he felt all alone. Percy didn’t want to leave the colony, because he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his parents, who were the only penguins who had ever loved him. One evening he went out into the snowy night to be alone and think about what he should do. The Emperor had chosen that same night to walk by himself and think about his decision to scare Percy away. As he was walking, he heard a terrible growl behind him. When he spun around, he was terrified to find himself face to face with an enormous polar bear. The Emperor was very frightened, as everyone knows that even an Emperor Penguin is no match for a polar bear. “Oh someone please save me!!” screamed the Emperor. Luckily for the Emperor, Percy heard his cry for help. He ran toward the sound. Percy was very scared, but he knew that he was the only penguin who was big enough to save the Emperor. Percy drew himself up to his full height (which was really quite big). He growled his deep, terrible growl and flapped his wings at the polar bear, just like the other penguins had done to scare him away. The polar bear, for his part, was very confused to see such a large penguin. He was afraid of Percy, so he turned around and ran away, with Percy still flapping his wings and growling his deep, terrible growl. As soon as the polar bear had left, the Emperor threw his wings around Percy and cried, “Oh Percy! You saved me!” When they got home, the Emperor called an emergency gathering of the colony. He told them what Percy had done and how grateful he was. Then the Emperor asked Percy to be his Personal Protector from then on. The crowd cheered so loudly that they didn’t even hear Percy accept his new position. They were no longer mean to him. In fact, they would come over to his parent’s house to visit every day. Because of his heroic act, Percy earned the respect and love of the entire colony. They learned to love him just as he was. He was never sad or lonely again. The End. |