Vera, The Day the Ducklings Left
Vera, the slightly mad penguin, looks up into the air. She knows what’s happening — she can smell it. The air is getting crisper, the rain is getting wetter. The noisy ducklings that once lived in the little garden stream behind Vera’s house had already said goodbye and left.
The cold and gray feeling snuck in between Vera’s feathers. She could feel a shiver go down her spine, and she tried to shake it off. It was berry time, and Vera loved berry time. She had filled her storage with blue, red, black, orange, and purple berries. She really did love berries.
And Vera had eaten many berries. Too many berries. The last berries she ate tasted slightly like something not so berry-ish. Now she’s got strange hiccups, and when she tried to count the noisy ducklings flying in the sky, she couldn’t really say if they were many — or just a few. She hiccupped once more and said to herself, I might not eat so many berries next time.
