Penguin Pandemonium - The Wild Beast. Жанна Уиллис

wouldn’t say that if you knew her like we do,” said Hatty.

      “She’s a nightmare,” agreed Brenda.

      Muriel lifted her mask menacingly and glared at them. Brenda and Hatty gulped, clapped their flippers over their eyes and the room fell uncomfortably silent.

      “We were talking about a different Muriel,” said Brenda finally, “weren’t we, Hatty?”

      “Yes,” blurted Hatty, “weren’t we, Blue?”

      “Were we? We were!” said Blue hastily. “We were talking about Muriel the… erm… the emu. You must have heard the bears talking about her. She’s so bossy, isn’t she, Rory?”

      “Muriel the erm?” said Rory. “Yep… she’s a… real bossybeak. And always late for things, according to Orson.”

      Muriel narrowed her eyes, but decided to carry on regardless.

      “So! What do you think about my marvellous plan to dress everyone up to get the visitors back?” she asked the hutch in general. By now, Alaskadabra, the old emperor penguin, had arrived, along with Eddie, Clive and Oo-chi and Ku-chi, the chicks.

      “I think it’s a great idea,” lied Blue, hoping to get back into Muriel’s good books.

      “It’s not great, Bloop, it’s the work of a genius,” boasted Muriel. “Hatty and Brenda, aren’t I a genius?”

      The two fairy penguins nodded so hard that Blue was worried their heads might come off.

      “Genius. Love you, Muriel!” said Brenda.

      “Love you more!” said Hatty. “Hate the emu!”

      One of the chicks looked at Hatty sideways.

      “What emu? There ith no emu!” insisted Oo-chi, poking her brother in the ribs. “Ku-chi, there ith no emu at Thitty Thoo, ith there?”

      Ku-chi thought hard. “No. There’th jutht a thmelly old othstrich.”

      Anxious to avoid a scene, Waldo whisked the chicks out of Muriel’s earshot and, encouraging them to form an orderly queue with the other penguins, he whipped out his tape measure. As he measured everyone up, Wesley and Warren rummaged through the box of hats, gloves and trimmings, trying to find stuff to make into the crazy costumes that Muriel had designed. Apart from Alaskadabra who liked to dress up at the drop of a hat – and he often dropped his hat – the rest of the birds were embarrassed.

      “But I don’t want to be a beamingo!’ said Eddie as Wesley stitched him into a brown fur muff and snapped a party tooter on to his beak. “I don’t even know what one is!”

      “It’s a cross between a beaver and a flamingo,” said Muriel. “People will pay good money to come and see that. Now keep still, shut up and put these leather mitts on your feet.”

      Waldo walked among the disgruntled penguins, adjusting elaborate crests made from hat bobbles, pinning on fabric wings and fashioning magnificent horns out of walking-stick handles.

      “Me ith a pigmy rhinotheroth!” giggled Oo-chi. “What ith you, Ku-chi?”

      Ku-chi scratched his fluffy head and gazed at his sister as if she was stupid. “Me ith a penguin, thilly.”

      Oo-chi wiggled her tail and pouted. “No, you ithn’t, ith he, Mithster Waldo? Not any more. You ith a… fluffy hamthster.”

      “Yes, he’s a fluffy hamster,” agreed Waldo, stroking the mohair on the cardigan sleeve he had pulled over Ku-chi’s head. Ku-chi, however, had other ideas and threw a tantrum.

      “I doethn’t want to be a thoppy hamthster. I wanth to be an emu!” he cheeped.

      Waldo took no notice and sewed him into the costume.

      “You’ll be a hamster and like it, darling,” he said. “We’ve got limited props. It’s just a bit of fun.”

      Just then, Rory caught sight of himself in a wing mirror that had fallen off a zoo truck and was now attached to the wall of Waldo’s hutch.

      “I look a right sprat!” he exclaimed.

      “No change there, then,” smirked Muriel, preening her new tail. “Is everybody dressed? Good, because we need to practise our growls and squeaks.”

      The penguins looked at each other in bewilderment. Even Alaskadabra – disguised as a glider monkey – looked a bit worried.

      “Oh dear,” he said, “I didn’t realise it was a speaking part.”

      Muriel groaned. “It’s called method acting, love. We’re no longer penguins, so we mustn’t sound like penguins.”

      Alaskadabra put his head on one side. It was hard to see or hear out of the balaclava that had been pulled over his head. Warren had made a pair of woolly ears by wrapping two elastic bands very tightly round the knitted fabric, which had made the eyeholes shift – the only way Alaskadabra could see out now was through the gaps in the stitches.

      “That’s all well and good, dear,” he said, “but I don’t know what a glider monkey sounds like.”