Josh and the Penguin

 

Josh was freezing cold as he looked out at the horizon with the sunset glimmering off the hard frozen snow. His breath made icicles that hung off his scarf and jacket.  He could hardly feel his fingers through his thick gloves.  His walk was stiff and awkward with the many layers of clothes he had to wear to prevent frostbite.  His stomach was rumbling and his mind began to dream about warming up the corn chowder he had brought to school to eat.  His assignment was to research and document how many emperor penguins were left in Antarctica.   There used to be almost 600,000 emperor penguins in 2020.  Now in 2040, Josh could only find 1,245.   As the sun went down below the horizon Josh clicked the red button on the back of his glove and immediately he was back in the classroom.

A loud sound of gushing wind was interrupted by the click of a glass door as it opened into a warm sunny room in Victoria in British Columbia.  Josh tumbled out of the glass cylinder and into the classroom peeling off his winter gear as fast as he could.

“Oh boy, am I ever hungry!” Josh exclaimed as he hung up his gear.  He went through his backpack and found his chowder to warm up for his lunch.  Josh was only thirteen. He was the youngest of his classmates.  He had been interested in penguins ever since he could remember.   His inquiry had begun when he was three years old, watching a video on how male emperor penguins look after their eggs while the females leave to get food.

“How many did you find today Josh?” asked his friend Jack.

“Well, numbers have finally gone up about 100 from last year,” replied Josh with a tone of hopefulness. Josh’s goal was to help the penguins reach a population of 3000 by 2051.

Up to 2035, global warming had had devastating effects on the earth and scientists have been recruiting schools to help document the dwindling populations of the world.  Now that teleporting was possible, global warming was at a standstill as there was a major decrease in the amount of carbon being produced as transportation had changed so drastically.  In the last year, Josh and his school mates were just starting to see a slight improvement in the animal populations.

Josh turned to Jack and said, “You know my Dad was telling me the other day how excited he was as a kid at my age, where you could view photos and satellite imagery from in the world with Google earth. Now, we can actually go anywhere we want and we are not limited by that old technology!  I can’t imagine being stuck behind a computer to view the world, when you can actually go anywhere you want through the new teleporting systems developed by Cindercat.”

“Yeh, Cindercat transporting has changed the world for the better for sure,” said Jack, “I love being able to go to Africa to count the giraffes.  It is way better than in the olden days when you just learned about giraffes in a book or on the computer!”

Josh flipped open his tablet and starting writing down a few notes about his morning adventures in Antarctica.  Quietly, he put his hand into his pocket to see if the baby penguin was still there.  He knew he wasn’t allowed to take any penguins home, but he also knew that this one would die without his help.

By Jessica Milne