Chapter 1: The New Arrival
“CAAAANNONBAAALLLL!” Franny’s eyes flew open when something large splashed into the water and made a wave that almost flipped her over. She had been happily floating on the Sanctuary’s pond with her eyes closed, thinking how wonderful the cool water felt in the summer heat. Franny looked around in alarm, frantically trying to figure out who had so rudely interrupted her quiet afternoon. It looked like something very big and white was under the water, but what was it? Then a fountain of water blew straight up into the air, followed by a large white face smiling a scary big smile that showed a lot of huge sharp looking teeth.
“Yikes!” Franny paddled for the shore as fast as she could and hurried out of the water. Pink flamingos are not easily scared, but this was something else! What was going on in her pond?
“Hey, stop, please don’t be scared!” a big white face shouted at her. “I just got here today and the Shaman said that the pond would be perfect for cooling off after my long journey. I’m Pete, the polar bear.” A polar bear? What was a polar bear doing in her pond in Missouri? Franny was baffled. But pink flamingos don’t really live in Missouri, either. The live in the tropics where it’s always hot.
Suddenly a little voice came squeaking out of nowhere. “I was going to go swimming, but what’s that in the pond? It looks like there’s a giant ice cube with teeth floating in the water. So scary!”
Franny looked around but didn’t see anyone. Where did the little voice come from? She glanced down her long skinny legs and sure enough, there was a little ball of fluff hopping around.
“Hey, where did you come from? And WHAT are you?” Franny was puzzled. Today was just full of surprises! The little fluffer looked mostly like a bird but without wings. It had very long legs, though, just like Franny herself. “Huh”, Franny thought. “Maybe it’s the chick of a distant relative? And here I thought I was the only flamingo in the neighborhood.”
She inspected the little guy from head to toe and thought that his legs looked very strong and his feet looked big enough to work as flippers for swimming. But his feathers didn’t look like feathers. This was interesting. Franny had never seen anything like him. He looked a bit like a grayish-brownish pear with hair and a bit like a small chicken. “Ok, little one, tell me who and what you are. You sure look odd.”
“I’m Klaus, the kiwi, and I came all the way from New Zealand.” Klaus wasn’t offended at being called odd looking. He knew he looked different than other birds: his feathers were really fur and his wings were too tiny to fly. He had traveled to the Sanctuary in Missouri all the way from New Zealand, hoping to meet other birds who don’t fly. Sometimes when he looked at birds flying high up in the sky, Klaus felt sad and lonely. Kiwis can run very fast, but running along and watching from the ground was just not as much fun as sailing through the air would be. But kiwis are very good swimmers and Klaus was excited about the idea of going swimming with Franny. She was big and pink, and she seemed very nice. The Shaman had told him about Franny and Klaus had looked for her all over the Sanctuary. The Shaman had described her well: Franny was a pretty flamingo, pink with long legs and a fluffy tail end. As Franny was listening to Klaus, she kept trying to smooth her feathers down, but they stubbornly kept springing right back up, making her look like a big pink fan.
“I give up”, Franny sighed as – PLINK, PLINK, PLINK – sweat dripped down her beak and puddled on the ground. “ It’s just too hot to worry about looks.” She thought about asking the Shaman to install solar-powered air conditioning in her house because it kept getting hotter and hotter every year. Hot summers began earlier and lasted longer and winters were not nearly as long or cold as they used to. Shamans usually don’t use new-fangled technology and stick to natural solutions, but the sun was natural, wasn’t it? Surely it could be used to help with the heat it created.
Franny thought about that some more when a big voice boomed from the pond: “Yep, I agree. This planet is getting ridiculously hot. It’s getting so hot that my home is slowly disappearing.”
She jumped and Klaus hid behind her legs. Time to meet that noisy creature who called himself ‘Pete, the polar bear’. Franny walked back to the water’s edge and took a good look at Pete. He was huge with white fur all over and had gigantic paws with scary-looking claws. But his big eyes looked at her kindly and one of his great paws gave a friendly wave.
Franny waded back into the cool water and Klaus followed slowly – he was still a little bit scared. They floated up to Pete and introduced themselves. “I’m Franny, the flamingo and this is Klaus, the kiwi. I hatched right here at the Sanctuary from an egg that someone left on the Shaman’s porch. Klaus is from New Zealand, but I’m not sure how he got here. He is a kiwi bird and kiwis don’t fly”.
“That’s right,” Klaus chimed in. “kiwis run very fast, but can’t fly. I heard people talk about this Sanctuary. It sounded like a good place to try and meet other birds who can’t fly. So I hid in a suitcase and flew here in a plane. I’m hoping to find some new friends to play with.”
“AAARRRRRRRR” – a loud rumble came from Pete. Franny and Klaus hastily started paddling back to the shore.
“Please stay, don’t be scared! That’s just my tummy growling. It was getting so hard to find food at home in the Arctic Sea – I was almost starved when I got here. I’m always hungry and my tummy always growls. The Arctic Sea is getting warmer all the time and my beautiful ice is melting. I need a hat and sunscreen and will probably have to learn to eat coconuts, so I came here.” Pete tried explaining that scary sound. “Do you know how to peel a coconut?”
No, Franny and Klaus didn’t know how to peel a coconut. But they went back into the water and swam closer to that big furry white mountain floating in the pond.
Chapter 2: How about a visit?
Pete smiled and somehow his smile now just looked nice and not scary at all anymore. “I have an idea – why don’t we go for a visit before my home melts away? Bring the Shaman, too. The Shaman is so smart and just might be able to figure out why the ice is melting and how to stop that…and tell me all about coconuts and palm trees – just in case.”