Amazing Adventures of Sir Croakington

The Unexpected Adventures of Sir Phillip Croakington



-Chapter 1-

A Mysterious Disappearance


Everyone in the Great Green Pond was proud to say that they knew Sir Phillip Croakington. The blue herons knew him for his deep, rolling voice, which thrummed across the meadow whenever the moon came out. The goldfish knew him for his magnificent backstroke, and for the great silver ripples that he made with each kick of his stubby legs. The dragonflies knew him for his lumpy brown skin, which they thought looked just like the pebbly bank of the pond. And the bluebottle flies knew him for…well, no one is quite sure what they thought of him.

Sir Phillip Croakington was a toad. A very special toad. You might even say he was a remarkable toad. But whatever you called him, one thing was certain: Sir Croakington wasn’t like any toad you ever saw.

For one thing, he had perfect manners. He always said “please” and “thank you” at all the right times. He wiped his mouth with a napkin after every meal. And if he bumped into someone while he was swimming, he said, “Excuse me!” or “How clumsy of me!”

He was also remarkable because he liked to wear fancy clothes. He was especially fond of hats and plaid vests, and he often carried a long walking stick that had a bright silver handle. “I like my walking stick,” Sir Croakington would tell people. “It makes me feel like I have three legs. Very stable when you’re on dry land, you know!”

Sometimes Sir Croakington gave surprise gifts to the other animals that lived in the Pond, even when it wasn’t their birthday. The most famous example of this occurred on the day Sir Croakington almost tripped over old Peddy Tenderfoot on the edge of the pond.

Peddy Tenderfoot was a large and cranky centipede who was forever complaining about how much his feet (all 100 pairs of them) hurt. Because Peddy was so crabby and so mean, most of the animals who lived in the pond avoided him as much as they could. But that was just fine with Peddy. He didn’t much like the other pond folk anyway.

In any case, on this particular day, Peddy was resting in the grass when Sir Croakington came along humming a little tune to himself. He was just about to step right on Peddy’s head when the centipede sat up and yelled out, “Hey there, you big oaf, watch where you’re puttin’ those floppy flippers.”

This, of course, shocked Sir Croakington terribly. He jumped a foot into the air and let out a very embarrassing “RIBBIT!” “Good heavens, Peddy!” Sir Croakington said after he caught his breath. “What on Earth are you doing down there? You gave me quite a start!”

Peddy frowned up at the old toad. “If you watched where you were goin’, I wouldn’t have to yell at you, now would I?”

Sir Croakington patted his forehead with his pocket handkerchief. “Yes, well, I suppose you’re quite right about that Peddy, quite right. Please accept my apologies.”

Peddy grumbled something that Sir Croakington couldn’t hear and flopped back down on the grass.

Wishing to change the subject, Sir Croakington asked, “And how are those feet of yours feeling these days?”

“Same as they felt yesterday, and same as they’ll feel again tomorrow,” Peddy replied, looking even grumpier than before. “Number 57 on the left is killing me.”

“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Sir Croakington said.

“It’s these lousy shoes,” Peddy continued, waving a hand at his many feet, each of which was covered by an ugly, ragged piece of canvas. “You just can’t find quality footwear anywhere in this stupid pond.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Sir Croakington said with a chuckle. He lifted up one of his webbed feet and moved it around in a circle. “I myself have never had much use for shoes. They make it hard to swim, you know.”

Peddy let out a small groan. “Aren’t you the lucky one,” he said.

“Hang in there Peddy,” Sir Croakington said. “Sometimes good things happen when you least expect them.”

“Fat chance,” said Peddy.

Sir Croakington said good-bye to the centipede and hopped away, leaving Peddy to rub his sore feet and moan into the grass.

The very next day, a large box arrived at Peddy’s door. When the centipede opened it, he found 100 pairs of brand new sneakers, each with special soft padding on the bottom. On top of the shoes Peddy found a note, and this is what it said:

[B]A centipede without good shoes needs nourishment for his sole. Enjoy!
P. Croakington[/B]

From that day on, Peddy was a much friendlier centipede, and he never again complained about having sore feet.

That’s the effect Sir Phillip Croakington had on people. He was a very generous toad. But he was special in other ways, too. He didn’t make you feel creepy by staring at you with his big googly eyes. He didn’t eat with his mouth open so you could see the bits of flies and worms he was chewing. He wasn’t too slimy, and he never, ever, burped in anyone’s face. Of all the toads that ever lived, Sir Croakington was almost certainly the most polite.

In one important way, though, Sir Croakington was just like everyone else: he dearly loved the Great Green Pond. In fact, he never hopped beyond its banks. “Why should I?” he sometimes said to his neighbors. “Everything I need—my home, my friends, my food—is all right here. There’s no reason for me to go anywhere else!” And then he would let out a deep toady laugh and leap into the water so he could swim his magnificent backstroke for the delighted goldfish.

But Sir Croakington wasn’t really being honest when he said these things. Oh, he did love the pond, that much was true enough. But the real reason Sir Croakington never left it is that he was afraid of what might happen to him if he did.

You see, Sir Croakington was absolutely terrified of running into any of the strange creatures that he just knew lived outside the pond. He’d never seen them, of course, but sometimes he imagined being chased by all sorts of odd and frightening animals: bobcats, skunks, coyotes, snakes, armadillos, groundhogs, hedgehogs, even regular hogs.

There were lots of things that worried Sir Croakington. What if these animals didn’t like him? What if they made fun of him? What if they wanted to eat him? At night, when everything was dark, these thoughts made him squish down into the mud and cover his eyes with his webbed hands.
And then there was the problem of wide open spaces: Sir Croakington was afraid to death of them.
The Meadow that surrounded the pond couldn’t have been safer, but it still made him very nervous to look out over such a huge patch of land. He couldn’t explain it. Although he was very proud of the fact that he could swim around the entire pond in a single morning, the idea of hopping even a few feet on dry land was more than he could bear. It shamed him to admit it, but Sir Phillip Croakington was a scaredy-toad.

Of course, all the pond folk knew that Sir Croakington was afraid to leave the pond. It really wasn’t a secret, no matter how hard Sir Croakington tried to hide it. But nobody ever talked about it openly. It would have been rude. Besides, no one cared at all if the old toad didn’t like open spaces. That wasn’t such a strange thing to be afraid of, was it? After all, wasn’t everyone afraid of something?

And that’s why it came as a complete surprise when, one hot day in August, the inhabitants of the Great Green Pond woke up to discover that Sir Phillip Croakington was no longer there. The toad who never went anywhere was nowhere to be seen. He left no note. He provided no explanation. Sir Croakington had simply vanished.


 
-Chapter 2-

Anatole Finds a Clue


It was Sir Croakington’s best friend, a green lizard named Anatole, who first noticed that the dear old toad had disappeared.

As he did most mornings, Anatole had stopped by Sir Croakington’s house with a big, juicy earthworm for them to share. He stood outside Sir Croakington’s mud hole and called out to his friend.

“C’mon you lazy bum, it’s after seven o’clock,” said Anatole. He waited a moment for Sir Croakington’s to answer, but no answer came.

“Honestly Phillip,” said Anatole, growing impatient, “how long does it take to put on a hat?”

Again, Sir Croakington gave no reply. After another minute or two, Anatole stuck his head inside the mud hole and saw that Sir Croakington wasn’t there.

“That’s strange,” thought Anatole, “the old toad never misses breakfast, especially when it’s free.” Anatole pulled his head out of the mud hole and began searching around the edges of the pond. He found a snake skin, a bottle cap, and what looked like webbed footprints (strange ones), but there was no sign of Sir Croakington anywhere.

After a while, Anatole gave up his search, sat down on a small stone, and ate the earthworm he had planned to share with Sir Croakington. “The crazy old amphibian is probably on the other side of the pond,” Anatole thought to himself as he swallowed the last piece of earthworm. “I bet he’s talking to Miss Ribbut right now. I think I’ll go see.”

Anatole walked up the east side of the pond until he reached the northern edge. There, he found Miss Ribbut’s little house tucked away in a thicket of cattails. Anatole peeped inside and saw Miss Ribbut sitting at her kitchen table snacking on some little black beetles.

“Good morning dear,” Miss Ribbut said when she noticed Anatole’s face in the window. “What brings you to this side of the pond?”

“I’m looking for Phillip,” Anatole said. “I thought he might be here.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Miss Ribbut said, “but Sir Croakington hasn’t been this way for quite some time. I do wish he would visit more often, though. He’s such wonderful company.”

“Yes, well, if you do see him Miss Ribbut, would you please tell him to come find me?” Anatole asked. I have something very important to tell him.”

“Yes dear, of course,” said Miss Ribbut. But at that very moment, Miss Ribbut jumped up from the table. “Oh my! How rude I’m being!” Won’t you come in and have some beetles?” She dashed over to her pantry and started bustling around. “They really are quite tasty. I just caught them yesterday, over by the rotten stump. Now, where did those beetles get off to…”

“Thank you Miss Ribbut,” Anatole said, “but I really must be getting back. Much to do today, you know.

Miss Ribbut peeked her head out of the pantry. “Are you sure, Dear?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” said Anatole. “Another time maybe?”

“Any time you like!” said Miss Ribbut.

Anatole said goodbye to Miss Ribbut and began his long walk back to the other side of the pond. Along the way, he started to worry about Sir Croakington. It wasn’t like the old toad to disappear without a note or a word to anyone. He was a creature of habit, and he never did anything unusual or unexpected. Anatole hoped that something bad hadn’t happened to him.

As morning wore on, many of the other pond folk began to notice that Sir Croakington wasn’t popping his head out of the water and greeting them, as he usually did about that time of day.

“It’s not natural,” said the blue egrets. “Sir Croakington should have started chatting away a long time ago.” But the only sounds the egrets heard were the morning songs of the sparrows and the weak peeps of some of the smaller frogs.

Around noon, the goldfish swam up from the bottom of the pond and started looking around for Sir Croakington’s silver backstroke ripples, but no matter how hard they looked, they saw nothing but smooth, still water.

Alarmed, the dragonflies began to flit around the pond, scanning the water for any sign of Sir Croakington. When they didn’t find him, they returned to their cattails and moped.

The only ones who didn’t seem to be upset that Sir Croakington was missing were the bluebottle flies, who began to buzz freely and happily around the reeds.

Two days passed without any sign of Sir Croakington. All the pond folk now began to fear the worst. And then, on the third day, Anatole made a startling discovery. He had gone once more to Sir Croakington’s house to see if he could find any clues that might explain the toad’s disappearance. He opened Sir Croakington’s front door and went inside.

At first glance, everything looked like it always did: There was Sir Croakington’s favorite reading chair in the corner; there was the pantry where Sir Croakington kept his supply of flies, grubs, and other tasty treats; there was his bed, and his wash bowl, and his book case.

“Nothing. Not a single clue,” Anatole thought. He was just about to leave when he noticed something in the far corner of the room. He scurried over and picked up a strange-looking feather. It was short and fluffy and bright orange. “This doesn’t belong to any birds that live around here,” Anatole murmured. He thought for a moment. He looked at the feather again. Suddenly, an idea came to him. Maybe Sir Croakington hadn’t just disappeared on his own. Maybe he had been taken.

Anatole then started looking around the room more carefully. Sir Croakington’s reading chair, which at first appeared completely normal, was not in its regular place. Some of the pictures on the wall were crooked, not perfectly level the way Sir Croakington liked them to be. Over by the kitchen, a small glass container had fallen into the sink. Sir Croakington never left things in the sink. And was that a crack in the wall next to the front door? Anatole silently scolded himself for missing that bit of evidence.

There seemed to be no doubt about it: Sir Croakington had been toad-napped. Anatole held the strange orange feather up to the light. In the struggle, whoever had taken sir Croakington had left that feather.

He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but Anatole promised himself right then and there that he was going to find Sir Croakington. He stared at the orange feather and got angrier and angrier. “If there’s anything I hate,” Anatole said at last, “it’s fowl play.”


 
-Chapter 3-

A Most Uncomfortable Journey


The first thing Sir Croakington saw when he opened his eyes were snow-covered mountains. They were far, far, below him, and they stretched away in every direction for miles and miles.

All that space! Sir Croakington began to feel faint, and a little bit sick. He’d never seen that much open land in all his life. Not only that, but the land was strange. It was unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

And the wind! It wasn’t like the warm breezes that eased across the Great Green Pond on those happy June days. It was icy cold and sharp, and it whipped him left and right and around in circles.
“Around in circles?” Sir Croakington thought to himself. “Yes, I most definitely am being blown around in circles. But how is that possible? What an odd feeling…”

Sir Croakington’s head felt funny, like he had a really bad cold. Everything seemed blurry and confused. “Am I dreaming?” he wondered.

Then he noticed that his legs felt funny, too, like they were being squeezed and pinched. He tried to see what was gripping him, but his head felt so heavy that he couldn’t move it. He started to feel afraid.

“This has to be a dream,” Sir Croakington said out loud. “At least, it feels like a dream.” He paused a moment, trying to make up his mind. Then he said, “Yes, I’m sure it’s a dream, and I wish to wake up…right…now.”

Just then, a gruff voice said, “I hate to break it to ya pal, but this ain’t no dream.”

Sir Croakington shrieked. “Who…who’s there?”

The voice laughed. “It don’t matter who I am, pal. But if it’ll put your mind at ease, you can think of me as the guy that’s flying you to the emperor.”

“Emperor?” Sir Croakington thought. “FLYING?” he screamed. “No! Oh no!” Sir Croakington then had what he would later call “a royal ribbit fit.” He squeezed his eyes shut. He closed his hands into tight fists. He screeched, gagged, belched, and made all sorts of strange noises, like “DOH!” and ERF!” and “GAH!” and “HOO-HOOO-HOOOOO…!!!” Once or twice, he farted.

After about ten minutes of this, the voice said, “Hey pal, if you don’t stop that racket right now, I’m lettin’ go of you. I’m not even kidding.”

It took every bit of courage he had, but Sir Croakington immediately snapped his mouth shut, covered his eyes with his hands, and shivered.

“Now, that’s more like it,” the voice said. “You stay like that for another hour or so and we’ll get along just fine.”

And for the next hour (or so), Sir Croakington remained perfectly quiet. The only thing he could hear was the wind as it whooshed past his ears, and the only thing he could see were the blue and white mountains passing beneath him. He had never been more out of his element (or more afraid) in his entire life.

Ten minutes went by, then twenty. Sir Croakington was getting colder and colder, but he soon felt himself becoming a little less afraid. And the less afraid he became, the more thinking he started to do. He wondered, “What in the world happened?” He searched his foggy mind, but try as he might, Sir Croakington couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten into this mess. The harder he tried to remember, the fuzzier things got. It was very frustrating.

But eventually, and very, very, slowly, Sir Croakington’s memory began to return to him. At first, all he had were feelings—surprise and terror mostly. Then some hazy pictures began to blend with the feelings. Things were coming together, and it wasn’t long before whole memories started flooding into Sir Croakington’s mind.

The first thing Sir Croakington remembered was waking up and thinking, “I really should pay Miss Ribbut a visit today. It has been much too long. I do enjoy her company.” Then he remembered that he was going to have breakfast with Anatole. The lizard wanted to discuss something important, but Sir Croakington didn’t have the slightest clue what it was. Finally, he remembered putting on his housecoat and slippers and walking to his kitchen to make a pond scum smoothie (with dried mosquito sprinkles on top).

Sir Croakington was just about to reach for a glass when he noticed a tall, shadowy figure standing in the corner. Before he could react, the figure darted from the corner and grabbed Sir Croakington by the arm. The figure’s grip, though very strong, was wet and kind of rubbery, and Sir Croakington managed to wriggle free. As quickly as he could, he hopped over his sink and landed on his reading chair. The shadowy figure followed him. Sir Croakington tried to jump back to his bedroom, but the shadowy figure caught him in midair and they both crashed into the wall next to the front door. Everything went black for Sir Croakington then, and he remembered nothing more.

“And now here I hang,” Sir Croakington thought to himself, “carried by some terrible bird over all these cold mountains to meet ‘The Emperor,’ whoever that is.”

After a few minutes of feeling sorry for himself, Sir Croakington was startled to hear the voice call down to him.

“So pal, you got a name or what?”

Sir Croakington thought it was a trick. “He’s testing me! If I answer, he’ll let go of me! I’d better keep quiet.”

“Hey, I asked you a question,” the voice said a moment later.

“I don’t want to crash into a mountain!” Sir Croakington thought, so once again he decided not to reply.

“Okay pal, last chance,” the voice said. “You tell me your name or I drop you, see?”

Then Sir Croakington began to get a little frustrated. “How could someone threaten to drop you for being loud, and then threaten to drop you for being quiet?” Sir Croakington thought. It didn’t make sense. Besides that, it was unfair.

But he saw that he had no choice. He let out a sigh and said in a small voice, “My name is Sir Phillip Croakington, of Great Green Pond, in The Meadow.”

“Surfip Coo Coo Don of Gravy Pound-the-Mad-Cow?” said the voice. “Now that’s a strange name.”
“No, no!” said Sir Phillip, a little louder. “SIR PHILLIP CROAKINGTON, OF GREAT GREEN POND, IN THE MEADOW.”

“Sir Phillip Croakington, eh?” said the voice. “What are you, some kind of prince or something?”

“Well, no,” Sir Croakington replied. “But a distant cousin of mine is. He says he is, anyway. He spends most of his time trying to get pretty young maidens to kiss him. He says he’ll turn into a real prince if they do. Not a single one ever does kiss him, though. It’s a funny story, really…”

“Yeah, yeah,” said the voice. “I’m sure it’s hilarious. Maybe they’ll make a fairy tale out of it.” But before Sir Croakington could respond, the voice said, “Hey! There’s the runway! Hold on to your flippers, pal, we’re about to land!”

For the rest of his life, Sir Croakington would regret not holding on to his flippers. In an instant, he was falling. Not swaying gently down to Earth like a leaf, not gliding down like a dragonfly, but dropping like a cold stone. The flippers he should have been holding onto fluttered around his head the entire way down.

The voice above him was laughing. “Wooo-Hoooo!! This is the best part of flying!”

Sir Croakington couldn’t have disagreed more. As soon as they began their dive, Sir Croakington’s stomach did a flip. Then the wind started rushing past him so fast that it blew his long, sticky tongue right out of his mouth, where it flapped away behind him like a frightened fish. He was whirling around in the air like a kite with a broken tail, and he was as cold as a snowball inside a chunk of ice plummeting down the side of a glacier.

Just when he thought that things couldn’t get any worse, Sir Croakington hit snow. He hit it really, really hard. He didn’t know snow could be so hard. It had snowed once at the pond, many years before. The snowflakes that floated down that day were soft and fluffy, and they melted almost as soon as they touched the ground. But this snow was like rock.

Sir Croakington and his flying companion tumbled across the ground for what seemed like a very long time. As he cart-wheeled over and over, Sir Croakington caught brief glimpses of black, white, and orange feathers and odd yellow feet tumbling right along beside him. “Whoever this guy is,” Sir Croakington thought, “He’s about as clumsy as I am.” Somehow, he was comforted by this.

Finally, Sir Croakington came to a stop. He was dizzy and sore, and he had a mouthful of snow.

“Not a bad landing, if I do say so myself!” said the voice. Sir Croakington looked up, and for the first time he saw clearly who had taken him from his home.

“Impossible!” Sir Croakington said, spitting snow out of his mouth. “It can’t be!”

Standing in front of him, brushing snow off his stubby, rubbery wings, was a large penguin. His sharp black beak was covered with ice, and his tiny black eyes blinked in the sun.

“Welcome to the arctic!” the penguin said.


 
-Chapter 4-

Emperor Apten Dytes Forsteri


“But penguins can’t fly!” Sir Croakington shouted. He was walking away from the arctic runway with the large penguin who’d carried him there. “You’re…you’re flightless!”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone thinks,” said the penguin. “Now you know different. By the way, now that we’re here, you can call me Fezig.” The penguin held out his flipper to Sir Croakington, who hesitated for a moment, and then slowly reached up to shake.

“Hey,” said Fezig, “No hard feelings about all that business awhile back, eh pal? You know, about me saying I’d drop you and all that? You were just going a little, uh, crazy, that’s all. I had to do something. You understand.”

“And what else should I have done?” Sir Croakington huffed. “I was rather frenzied, you know. What if it had been you who was taken from your home and then flown across the mountains to who-knows-where? You have no idea what you’ve put me through, or what you’ve kept me from today.”

“All right, all right,” Fezig said. “I see your point. For what it’s worth, I was just following orders. I guess you don’t have to like it. I wasn’t really going to drop you, you know.”

Sir Croakington and Fezig walked on in silence for a few minutes. Although Sir Croakington was still a little angry at Fezig, and very nervous about all the open space around him, he just couldn’t get over the fact that penguins knew how to fly.

At length, Sir Croakington said, “Fezig, I must say that I don’t know what to think about all this. Every book I’ve ever read and every television program I’ve ever watched said that penguins are land birds and can’t fly.”

Fezig chuckled. “You know why that is? It’s because whenever those National Geographic guys come along with their fancy cameras, all of us penguins just line up and waddle around, maybe catch a fish, or slide down a hill on our bellies for a laugh. It’s cute, you know? But as soon as those guys pack up their cameras and leave, off we go, hugging the sky from dawn to dusk. No better feeling in the world, I tell you!”

“Then why hide it?” said Sir Croakington. “Why not let those National Geographic guys see what you can do?”

“No can do, pal,” said Fezig. “It’s the emperor’s rule. He insists that we remain flightless to the rest of the world.”

“But why?” said Sir Croakington. “Why would your emperor make up such a silly rule?”

“Hey pal, we don’t question The Emperor, okay? It’s not something we do around here. The Emperor commands, we obey. It’s as simple as that.”

Sir Croakington could see that they were making their way toward a group of small snow mounds whose tops were glowing pinkly in the setting sun. It was hard to say how far away they were, but Sir Croakington guessed it might be as much as 500 feet (which was a very long way to him). He was very cold and very tired, and he really wanted to stop and rest, but he trotted along and tried to keep up with the penguin as best he could.

After a few moments, Fezig said, “I bet you didn’t know it was us who taught the sea gulls to fly.”

“Nonsense!” Sir Croakington said between puffing breaths.

“It’s true,” said Fezig. “You can ask any one of ‘em. They’ll tell you the whole story.”

Instead, it was Fezig who told the story. “You see, it started like this…”

Sir Croakington tried to pay attention, but the more he walked, the less he was able to concentrate. For some reason, he didn’t feel cold any more, even though he was wearing only his housecoat and one slipper (the other one had blown off some time during the flight). In fact, he was beginning to feel rather warm and comfortable, like he did back at the pond when summer began turning into autumn.

Sir Croakington started giggling to himself. He couldn’t believe it, but the wide open arctic space wasn’t bothering him so much anymore. Soon, though, his vision began to blur, and he started to get light-headed. Fezig’s voice seemed to change, too. It now sounded far away and hollow, like it was coming from the bottom of a very deep hole, or at the far end of a very long tunnel.

Sir Croakington stopped and flopped down in the snow as Fezig droned on about the seagulls. He was so tired. “Maybe just a short nap…” Sir Croakington said. He curled up in a ball and instantly fell asleep, while off in the distance, Fezig’s voice drifted away on the cold arctic air.

“…So the seagull says, ‘Wait, show me that flapping thing again, that thing you do with your wings…’, and I says…” Fezig turned around and saw Sir Croakington lying on the snow.

“Whoa! Hey pal, not a good idea…” He rushed over to the sleeping toad and patted him on the shoulder. Sir Croakington didn’t even twitch. “I mean it pal, you really don’t want to be sleeping here. We’ll rest when we get to the mounds.”

“Oh boy, am I going to get it if this toad don’t make it,” Fezig said, picking Sir Croakington up and tucking him safely under his right wing. “All I had to do was get him here in one piece, that was it. Why did I have to forget he was cold blooded?” Fezig waddled as quickly as he could toward one of the larger snow mounds, from which a warm light glowed.

For the second time that day, Sir Croakington opened his eyes and saw something he couldn’t believe. Three large penguins were standing over him with concerned looks on their faces. Every few seconds they reached down and took big flipperfuls of some yellowish goo, which they splatted all over Sir Croakington’s body.

Sir Croakington blinked a couple of times and looked at each penguin in turn. The penguins stopped what they were doing and blinked back at Sir Croakington.

“I think he’s coming around,” one of the penguins said. All three penguins leaned in closer, until their beaks were right over Sir Croakington’s face. Sir Croakington could feel (and smell) their fishy breath on his cheeks.

“RRRRIIIIBBBBBBIIIIIIITTTTTT!!!!!! Sir Croakington blurted out suddenly and unexpectedly.
The three penguins jumped back in alarm. One of them slipped and fell to the floor with a wet, penguiny “splat!”

“Where…where am I?” Sir Croakington said weakly. “What happened?”

“You’re a very lucky toad,” said the tallest of the penguins, returning to Sir Croakington’s side. “A few more minutes and we wouldn’t have been able to help you.”

Sir Croakington looked around. “I must be in one of those snow mounds,” he thought. He was surprised by how bright and warm it was inside. He remembered that the sun had been setting when he curled up in the snow. It was almost certainly dark outside now, so where was all that light coming from?

“Thanks to Fezig’s quick thinking,” the penguin continued, “we’ve been able to stop the freezing process with this walrus blubber.” The penguin lifted up his flipper and showed Sir Croakington some of the gloopy yellow fat that they’d smeared all over him.

“Uugghh!,” Sir Croakington said as he looked at his arms and legs. “This smells horrible!”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” the penguin said. “But it holds in body heat better than anything else we know. We’ll wash it off when your temperature rises.”

Sir Croakington then noticed Fezig on the far side of the room, pacing back and forth with his flippers clasped behind his back. He looked very nervous.

“He’s been that way ever since you arrived,” the large penguin said, following Sir Croakington’s gaze to Fezig. “It’s okay,” the penguin called over to Fezig. “You can come on over.”

Fezig waddled over to where Sir Croakington was lying. “Hey, pal,” he said.

“I understand I owe you my life,” Sir Croakington said.

Fezig shook his head. “Forget it. I ain’t no hero. I mean, first I threaten to drop you on the way here, then I forget that you toads don’t handle the cold so good and you almost freeze solid.”
“Well, no harm done,” said Sir Croakington, cracking a little smile and wiggling his fingers and toes. “I’m feeling much better now, but I do think it’s about time to get this stinking walrus blubber off me.”

After talking together for a moment, the three tall penguins (who turned out to be doctors) began cleaning Sir Croakington. When they were done, they told the old toad that he was free to go. Then they gave him a pair of special boots, a small hat, and a thick warm coat, all made out of polar bear fur. Sir Croakington couldn’t imagine where the penguins had gotten these toad-sized clothes, and he didn’t ask, but when he stepped out into the cold twilight, he was very grateful to have them.

Sir Croakington looked around him and was surprised that the sun hadn’t set yet. There it was, still sitting on the horizon, glowing with a dull orange light. “But isn’t it night?” he asked Fezig. “I thought it was getting dark right before I fell asleep.”

“Nah,” said the penguin. “It won’t get any darker than this for three more months. Come on. I’ll explain it over some grub.”

Fezig led Sir Croakington toward another snow mound a little way off from the hospital. Now that he was warmer (and much less afraid), Sir Croakington was able to take a good look around.

The first thing he noticed was the icy ground. It was light blue in color, and so smooth and so flat that Sir Croakington thought he was walking across a giant pane of glass. Off in the distance, he saw what looked like three huge white mountains rising up from the ground. They were the only tall things he could see anywhere around him, and they cast long, dark shadows across the blue ice.
Millions of stars were twinkling in the sky. They were much brighter than any of the stars that Sir Croakington had ever seen rising over the pond. When he looked toward the horizon, Sir Croakington saw something that made him gasp. A shimmering ribbon of green and pink light was moving across the sky like a water snake.

“What is that?” Sir Croakington whispered to Fezig.

“That? We call that the Reik Birta, ‘the Wandering Light’.”

“Where does it come from?” said Sir Croakington.

“No one knows for sure,” said Fezig. “It just comes and goes as it pleases. But the Emperor thinks it’s a message of some kind. He tries to read it like a map.”

“Fascinating,” Sir Croakington murmured as he stared at the Wandering Light. “We have nothing like it back at the Great Green Pond.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” said Fezig. “It seems to prefer the cold places of the world. Anyhow, whenever it shows up here, the Emperor climbs up to his tower and watches it for hours. Most of the time he can’t make any sense out of it, but this last time was different.”

Sir Croakington looked up at Fezig. “Different how?”

“Well,” said Fezig, “this time the Reik Birta told him something, or so the Emperor says, anyway.” Fezig looked back down at Sir Croakington. “He said it told him to bring you here.”

A look of shock appeared on Sir Croakington’s face as he and Fezig made their way to the snow mound. “ME?” Sir Croakington said. “What on Earth would he want me for?”

“No idea,” Fezig replied. “Like I said before, no one questions the Emperor.”

When they reached the snow mound, Sir Croakington could hear many voices coming from inside, but when he and Fezig stepped through the door, all the voices stopped speaking at once. Sir Croakington looked around. He saw about 30 penguins sitting around small blocks of ice, eating different kinds of penguin food. Some of the penguins were munching on little gray fish. Others were chewing on tiny pink shrimp. Still others were slurping up bowls of green goo. Sir Croakington didn’t even want to know what that was.

All the penguins were staring at Sir Croakington. The poor old toad was beginning to feel very uncomfortable when Fezig said, “What’s the matter with all of you? Haven’t you ever seen a toad before?”

All the penguins looked at each other with surprised expressions on their faces. After a moment, a short, fat penguin sitting at the nearest ice block said, “Well, no, Fez, not really, no.”

“That’s right, Dub,” said Fezig, “you haven’t. So how about we show our guest a little respect, eh? Maybe you’ll learn something.”

Fezig led Sir Croakington past the crowd of staring faces to an empty ice block near the back of the room. There they both sat down and Fezig picked up a menu.

“I don’t know about you, pal, but I’m starved. You have no idea how much energy it takes to fly.”
“You can be certain of that,” Sir Croakington admitted, “but I am rather hungry. In fact, you interrupted my breakfast this morning, if you recall. No matter. I don’t suppose they serve anything here that’s fit for a toad anyway.”

“Hmmm…” Fezig said as he scanned the menu. “Let me see…hows about baked puffin toes?”
“Good heavens no!” Sir Croakington gasped.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Fezig said, “the toenails can be a little tough to swallow. Hey! Looks like they got some pickled walrus droppings. Want some of those?”

Sir Croakington gagged. “I couldn’t possibly! Aren’t there any flies in the arctic? Perhaps some fat, juicy bluebottles?”

“Flies…flies…” Fezig murmured, turning the menu from one side to the other. “Nah…no flies, but what about a nice midge stew? That’s about as close as you’re gonna get to flies around here, pal.”
“Yes, that will do,” Sir Croakington said, trying not to gag again at the image of someone eating pickled walrus droppings.

Fezig placed their orders, and after the waiter waddled away, he turned to Sir Croakington and, seeing the tired, dejected look on the poor toad’s face, tried to comfort him.

“Look pal,” Fezig said, “I know this ain’t been easy for you, and I feel for you, I really do. But you gotta understand that when the Emperor asks for something, we gotta get it for him. You just happen to be what he asked for this time, that’s all. It’s an honor if you really think about it.”

“This time,” Sir Croakington said. “You mean he’s asked for things like this before?”

“Oh sure,” Fezig said. “There was this one time…I’ll never forget it. The Emperor calls me in and says, ‘Fezig, the Reik Birta has given me a sign. You are to bring me a…gecko.’ So I says, ‘As you wish, your Flipperness.’ But do I know what a gecko is? Heck no. So I says, ’What does this gecko look like, oh grandest of all Emperors?’ And he says, ‘You will know it when you see it.’ Then he just turns around and goes back to his secret chamber, and I’m left there trying to figure out what I’m gonna do next.”

“So, what did you do?” Sir Croakington asked, pretending to be interested.

“Well, I started by asking these knuckleheads”—Fezig gestured with his flipper to the other penguins in the room—“if they knew what a gecko is, but as you saw when we walked in here, they don’t even know what you are. So I went on to plan B.”

“Plan B?” Sir Croakington said.

“Yeah, I asked the docs back there. You know, the ones who gooped you up with walrus blubber and prevented you from croaking? Well, those guys know everything, so when I asked them where I might find a gecko, they pointed me right to some place called Florida, just beyond where I found you.”

Just then, the waiter returned carrying a large platter with two bowls on it. The bowl he set down in front of Sir Croakington was filled with a cold grey mush speckled with lacy wings and a bunch of little dark spots. Fezig’s bowl contained what looked like an entire school of tiny silver fish, all swimming around in a warm sea-water broth. Sir Croakington was very thankful that Fezig hadn’t ordered the green goo, or the walrus droppings.

<Progress Stopped Here>