The Travelling Friend-guins

Welcome to Story Quest, a weekly podcast where we bring your stories to life!

In this episode we bring Evan’s story, The Travelling Fren-guins – to life.

If you have a story idea, you could be like Evan and have it turned into a Story Quest. All you have to do is send us your story idea here. We know you have the best imaginations and together we can create the most brilliant stories!

That’s just what Evan did. You can watch the story they suggested come to life below, plus they tell us all about the inspiration behind the story at the end.

Listen out for brand new Story Quest episodes every Thursday!

You can read along to The Travelling Friend-guins below!

The Travelling Friend-guins

The Traveling Friend-Guins 

“That’s it, we’re going on a global journey” said Pippin. 

SFX: Hubbub and discussion 

The penguins were not altogether happy about this. They quite liked home, even though they did miss their parents. Back in the cold depths of last winter, the penguins’ parents had gone on an expedition and never returned. The idea of doing the same, much as they missed their parents, was troubling. 

Pippin had basically become leader in the absence of proper grown up pengins and this friendship group of penguins – the friend-guins, had basically just got on with things. There were enough fish to go around and they occasionally played games of ‘ice hole hopping’ where they tried to hop from one hole in the ice to another. It was a bit like hopscotch but you tended to get a lot wetter. 

“It would be better to stay here. We have lots of fish here” said Porgie. Porgie was a cautious penguin, the most cautious of all the friend-guins, but Pippin was determined. 

We must pack our little penguin travel bags, and we must go on our global journey to find out parents. And we must do it first thing tomorrow. 

And so, slightly grumpily, the penguins set off the next morning on a big, global search. They waddled from country to country, and when you’re a penguin, that’s hard to do. 

The waddled across the Great Wall Of China, but they saw no other penguins there. They waddled across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Sydney, stopping the traffic for nearly an hour…. But they saw no other penguins. They even walked past Buckingham Palace in London, but they saw no other penguins… just the funny looking guards outside. 

After much wandering, they took some rest by the coast in Portugal. Porgie wasn’t very happy. “We could have stayed at home. Don’t get me wrong, the fish is nice here in Portugal but it’s really warm and I’m a penguin. I’m not made for this sort of weather!” 

Pippin was also feeling a bit downbeat. Although he had been the leader of this global journey, he was hot, tired and just wanted a bit of a rest. 

“I’m sorry everyone” said Pippin, “I think we have to face the fact that we might not see our parents again”. Some of the friend-guins started to cry.  

At that point there was a splashing sound coming from the sea. The friend-guins looked around, thinking there was a boat coming in, but they did NOT expect what came next… 

“Hey everyone. I’m Izzy.” 

“Wow” said Porgie, “It’s a mermaid”. And sure enough, Izzy was sitting there, on a rock, and was very much a mermaid.  

Now, you don’t get mermaids in many places, and penguins certainly never see them so they were all pretty shocked. 

“Hello there. I’m Pippin. Pleased to meet you. We’re all a bit tired and…” 

“You’re looking for your parents” said Izzy. 

“How did you know?” Asked Pippin. 

Izzy sat with the friend-guins from a while and explained that she is pretty good at working things out, and also at sensing danger. But just as she was explaining, her face looked worried. 

“What’s wrong” asked Pippin. 

“I can sense danger. And it’s coming from just down the coast. We need to go to Spain” 

All the friend-guins groaned. They’d been half way around the world and were tired. However Pippin could see this was important. 

“Look, there’s a boat, let’s get on board” said Pippin. 

Reluctantly they followed and a tourist boat quickly filled with tired penguins. 

As the boat approached Spain, they saw a worrying sight. There was a giant shark threatening a group of older penguins. They were trapped in a cove. As the friend-guins got closer they could see… it was their parents. 

Pippin jumped off the boat and tried to run to his parents but the shark just threw him into the cove to join his parents. Now Pippin was trapped too. 

All the other friend-guins tried too, but each time, the shark picked them up and threw them into the cove.  

It happened again and again until only Izzy the mermaid and Porgie the Penguin were left. The penguin parents and all the other friend-guins were trapped in the cove and the shark was getting hungry. 

Izzy and Porgie looked at each other. They were the only ones left who could do anything. Otherwise all the penguins, the grown up and the friend-guins were going to be eaten by a very hungry shark. 

Quick as a flash, Izzy dived into the water and started to make waves. The waves got larger and larger until they became bigger than the shark. Porgie looked at Izzy and knew what they had to do. 

Porgie took the wheel of the boat and started moving it towards the waves. All the penguins were startled. Why was Porgie moving the boat towards the big waves?  

Carefully Porgie steered the boat onto the top of one of the waves. He rode the wave above the shark and took the boat into the cove where all the other penguins were. While Porgie did that, Izzy used her mermaid skills to tempt the shark away. 

“You hooooo. Over here Mr Shark” said Izzy. “You’re not very scary are you” she taunted. 

Well, the shark was having none of it. He turned around and said “I’m going to eat you first” 

Izzy started to swim, and mermaids are very fast swimmers, so while Izzy tempted the shark away from the cove, Porgie made sure all the adult penguins and friend-guins got on board the boat. 

“Well done Porgie” said Pippin. “You’ve really saved the day” 

Porgie felt very proud. “Thanks Pippin, but it’s a team effort. And if you hadn’t have made us come looking, we’d never have found our parents and saved them”. They had a slightly awkward penguin hug, and then suddenly remembered, Izzy the mermaid was still being chased by Mr Shark – I say “Mr Shark”, I’m afraid we don’t know the shark’s name. So “Mr Shark” will have to do. 

Porgie took control of the boat again, and turned up the speed to “very fast” which as anyone who has ever been in charge of a boat will tell you… is very fast! It wasn’t long until they caught up with Mr Shark which was a bit of a mistake, as he stopped chasing Izzy the mermaid and started attacking the boat. 

Mr Shark bumped the boat wit his nose and then ate a bit of the side of the boat, clamping down on it with his big jaws. 

Izzy the mermaid saw what was happening and started to make big waves again. The penguins moved from side to side on the boat. Porgie could see what Izzy was doing… 

“In a moment, on my signal, you all need to jump off the side of the boat” 

The penguins thought this was a terrible idea, but Pippin backed him up.  

“Porgie knows what he’s doing. Trust him. We’re all going to have to jump. It’ll be just like when we jump into ice holes back home” 

The waves got bigger and Mr Shark was just about to take a big bite out of the boat when Porgie got all the penguins to jump off the side of the boat. This made the boat a lot lighter, and the big waves Izzy had created tipped the boat over. As the boat tipped over it landed on Mr Shark. The waves pushed it towards the coastline and Mr Shark was washed up onto land, trapped under the upturned boat. 

“We did it!!” Shouted Porgie and Izzy. The penguins all cheered and swam back to safety. 

Pippin and Porgie knew it was now time to go home. They had found their parents and defeated a shark, whose name we still don’t know. But before they went home, they asked Izzy something important… 

“We think we work very well together with you. Would you consider being an honorary member of our penguin colony” 

“I would” said Izzy. “That would be amazing” 

And just a few days later, Izzy was ice hole hopping with the penguins, and having the most fun. And as for Mr Shark? Well, he eventually ate his way through the boat and had a bit of a sulk. “Boats don’t taste as nice as penguins” he complained as he swam back to the cove. One thing was for sure, he was never going to take on a group of penguins again. They were far too clever!