'I feel so guilty,' Norma mooed. 'It's obvious to me now that she had realised something was going on and wanted to tell us and I just ignored her.'
'You were under pressure at the time,' Bertha replied, 'and it wasn't only you, I was there as well.'
'She does so much for us and we just take her for granted,' Norma continued. 'I sometimes wonder if she would be better off spending more time with her own kind?'
'You mean other penguins?'
'No, other award winning authors,' Norma replied.
'I must admit I've always thought it would help if we had a clearer idea of what she was trying to say.'
Norma nodded. 'I've already decided that once we've got Cow Island back I'm going to spend more time learning penguin. Annie says they have over 37,312 words just for fish.'
'That's impressive,' said Bertha.
'Even more so when you find out that they've only got 37,315 words in their entire vocabulary.'
'I suppose the other three would be about water?'
'No,' Norma replied. 'Although one of them is for water, apparently the other two are about proton magnetometry.'
'Strange things, penguins!' said Bertha.
'But well worth paying attention to,' Norma added and she gave Geraldine the most enormous hug.
'So, what now?' Bertha asked.
'I'm not sure,' Norma replied. 'We just desperately need to make some sort of breakthrough.'
And then Horace arrived.
'I think I've made a breakthrough,' he gasped.
Which was very good timing indeed.
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