Growing Feathers ages 7-9

Growing Feathers

By: Cheryl Spanos

“Wake up, my little fledgling,” Tip’s mama said.

Wispy, yellow feathers on her brow tickled Tip’s face. A velvety flipper prodded Tip’s side. Raucous squawks rose from other Rockhopper penguins nesting on the craggy shore.

Tip rubbed sleep from his eyes and watched his mother waddle off to sea. She hopped feet-first into the water and disappeared beneath the waves with the other adults. Tip sniffed the salty air. If only he could fish in the vast blue ocean, too.

Tip’s father fluffed the dried grass in their pebbled nest. He took Mama’s place, settling his tail feathers on the straw.

“When can we go fishing, Dad?” Tip’s pleading eyes looked up.

“When you’ve grown your crest,” the deep voice rumbled. Yellow crest feathers bristled on his father’s brow. His great white breast expanded. He gave Tip a firm clap with his flipper. “Run along, son.”

Tip skipped over five rocks, zigzagged around a boulder, and hopped to the neighbor’s place three nests down. There, a smaller penguin chick and his roly-poly companion sorted brightly-colored pebbles into piles.

“Hi, Spike, Puffer,” Tip shouted to his buddies. “Want to race?”

Spike nodded and then dashed for the beach. “Last one to the shore’s a rotten egg.”

Tip and his pals skipped pebbles over the water. Plink. Plink. Ploink. They hopped from rock to rock. Boing. Boing. Blat. They wrestled and sparred with their flippers. Slap. Slap. Thwap.

Puffer’s flipper smacked Tip’s chest. Tip bowled over backward and sprawled in the sand. Sea stars swam before his eyes. He shook off the dizziness and stood with a wobble.

“That was some hit.” Spike snickered.

“You all right?” Puffer bowed his head. His feet scuffed the sand.

“I’m okay.”

Tip swatted sand from his downy coat. Brownish-gray feathers and grit flew in every direction. Puffer’s beak dropped open. Spike stopped snickering. Tip stared at his friends. What was going on?

“Your feathers?” Puffer pointed at Tip’s stomach.

Where Puffer’s blow had hit, Tip’s downy kid feathers were gone. A layer of sleek, oily white peeked from underneath.

“Wow.” Spike’s eyes grew wide. “You knocked the feathers clean off of him.”

Tip tugged at the surrounding fuzz to disguise the naked spot. More feathers came off. Oh, no! Soon he would be bald. No grown-up crest. No feathers at all. No fishing with Dad. This was bad. Very bad.

“I didn’t mean it.” Puffer hopped in Rockhopper hysterics. “It was an accident.”

“Cork your beak.” Spike stuffed a flipper over Puffer’s mouth. His beady red eyes darted around. “Someone might hear.”

Tip glanced back at the colony. His father slept. Other penguins squawked and squabbled in feisty commotion. Nobody had heard or seen.

“What do we do now?” Tip said. He couldn’t let his parents see his missing feathers. Dad would never take him fishing then.

“I’m thinking.” Spike tapped his birdie brain. His head jerked up. “That’s it! Mud. We glue the feathers back on.”

Tip and his pals gathered as many feathers as they could find, then waddled to a secluded mud puddle. Tip smeared a big glob of gooey mud on his chest. Spike and Puffer stuck feathers in the brownish ooze.

“Tiiiiiiiip,” his mama called. Oh, no!

Tip turned to his friends and thrust out his chest. “How does it look?”

Bits of grass stuck out between glued-on feathers. The mud mixture looked odd, like a gross bug.

Spike gave the flippers-up sign. Puffer looked uncertain, but Tip grinned. Nobody would notice that naked spot now. He waved goodbye and bounded over the rocks toward home.

“There you are, dear,” Mama said. Then her yellow crest feathers quivered. “What have you gotten into?”

Tip glanced down. All his jumps and jolts had caused the patch to slide. Blobs of mud-laced feathers dropped on the floor of the nest. Oops.

Tip crossed his flippers to hide his chest. He kicked the clods of mud on the ground, sweeping them aside.

“Mud all over my nest,” Mama clucked. “Hold still while I clean you up. Flippers down.”

“But, Ma….” Tip squirmed and lowered his flippers. Glimpses of sleek black and white appeared through patches of mud and fuzzy down. He braced for the worst.

“Would you look at that?” Mama sniffled. She nudged Dad. “Look, dear, our chick is molting. My little fledgling is growing up.”

Huh? Growing up? Tip stared from Mama to Dad. His father pointed at Tip’s brow.

“Is that the beginning of a crest?” Dad said. His great white chest swelled. He wrapped his flipper around Tip. “Well, son, it’s time you learned about the ocean.”

A warm glow welled inside Tip. His chest puffed to show off his new feathers. Tomorrow he would hop feet-first into the sea like all grown-up Rockhoppers.

~The End~

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