Mr. Popper's Penguins (7 page)

The bus stopped at the corner, and before the astonished driver could protest, they had all climbed on and the bus was on its way.

“Do I pay half-fare for the birds, or do they go free?” asked Mr. Popper.

“Janie goes half-fare, but I’m ten,” said Bill.

“Hush,” said Mrs. Popper as she and the children found their seats. The penguins followed in an orderly fashion.

“Say, mister,” said the driver, “where do you think you’re going with that exhibit?”

“Downtown,” said Mr. Popper. “Here, let’s call it fifty cents, and let it go at that.”

“To tell the truth, I lost count when they went past me,” said the driver.

“It’s a trained penguin act,” explained Mr. Popper.

“Are they really birds?” asked the driver.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Popper. “I’m just taking them down to the Palace to interview Mr. Greenbaum, the big theater owner.”

“Well, if I hear any complaints, off they go at the next corner,” said the driver.

“Fair enough,” said Mr. Popper, who wanted to ask for transfers in that case, but decided to let well enough alone.

The penguins were behaving very well. They were sitting quietly two in a seat, while the other passengers looked on.

“Sorry,” said Mr. Popper, addressing everyone in the bus, “but I’ll have to open all the windows. These are Antarctic penguins and they’re used to having it a lot colder than this.”

It took Mr. Popper quite a while to open the windows, which were stuck fast. When he had succeeded, there were plenty of remarks from the other passengers. Many of them began to complain to the driver, who told Mr. Popper to take his birds off the bus. He had to repeat this several times. Finally he refused to take the bus any farther until Mr. Popper got off. By this time, however, the bus had got so far downtown that none of them minded having to get out into the street.

Only a block ahead of them shone the lights of the Palace Theater.

“Hello,” said the theater manager, as the Poppers and the penguins trooped past him. “Sure, Mr. Greenbaum’s here in my office. You know I’ve heard about these birds of yours, but I didn’t really believe it. Mr. Greenbaum, meet the Popper Penguins. I’ll be leaving you. I’ve got to go backstage.”

The penguins, now standing politely in two rows of six each, looked curiously at Mr. Greenbaum. Their twenty-four white-circled eyes were very solemn.

“All you people crowding around the door, go back where you belong,” said Mr. Greenbaum. “This is a private conference.” Then he got up to shut the door.

The Poppers sat down while Mr. Greenbaum walked up and down the double row of penguins, looking them over.

“It looks like an act,” he said.

“Oh, it’s an act, all right,” said Mr. Popper. “It’s Popper’s Performing Penguins, First Time on any Stage, Direct from the South Pole.” He and Mrs. Popper had thought up this name for the act

“Couldn’t we call them Popper’s Pink-toed Penguins?” asked Mr. Greenbaum.

Mr. Popper thought for a moment. “No,” he said, “I’m afraid we couldn’t. That sounds too much like chorus girls or ballet dancers, and these birds are pretty serious. I don’t think they’d like it.”

“All right,” said Mr. Greenbaum. “Show me the act.”

“There’s music to it,” said Janie. “Mamma plays the piano.”

“Is that true, madam?” asked Mr. Greenbaum.

“Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Popper.

“Well, there’s a piano behind you,” said Mr. Greenbaum. “You may begin, madam. I want to see this act. If it’s any good, you people have come to the right place. I’ve got theaters from coast to coast. But first let’s see your penguins perform. Ready, madam?”

“We’d better move the furniture first,” said Bill.

A
T THAT MOMENT
they were interrupted by the manager, who came in with a groan.

“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Greenbaum.

“The Marvelous Marcos, who close the program, haven’t turned up, and the audience are demanding their money back.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Mr. Greenbaum.

“Give it to them, I suppose. And here it is Saturday night, the biggest night of the week. I hate to think of losing all that money.”

“I have an idea,” said Mrs. Popper. “Maybe you won’t have to lose it. As long as it’s the end of the program, why don’t we just have the penguins rehearse in there on a real stage? We’d have more room, and I think the audience would enjoy it.”

“All right,” said the manager. “Let’s try it.”

So the penguins had their first rehearsal on a real stage.

The manager stepped out on the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, raising his hand, “with your kind indulgence we are going to try out a little novelty number tonight. Owing to unforeseen circumstances, the Marvelous Marcos are unable to appear. We are going to let you see a rehearsal of the Popper Performing Penguins, instead. I thank you.”

In a dignified way the Poppers and the penguins walked out on the stage, and Mrs. Popper sat down at the piano.

“Aren’t you going to take off your gloves to play?” asked the manager.

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. Popper. “I’m so used to playing with them that I’ll keep them on, if you don’t mind.”

Then she started Schubert’s “Military March.” The penguins began to drill very nicely, wheeling and changing their formations with great precision, until Mrs. Popper stopped playing in the middle of the piece.

The audience clapped vigorously.

“There’s more to it,” explained Mrs. Popper, half to the manager and half to the audience, “where they form in a hollow square and march in that formation. It’s so late we’ll skip that tonight and jump to the second part.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to take your gloves off, madam?” asked the manager.

Mrs. Popper smilingly shook her head and began the “Merry Widow Waltz.”

Ten of the penguins now formed in a semicircle as Nelson and Columbus in their midst put on a wild sparring contest. Their round black heads leaned far back so that they could watch each other with both round white eyes.

“
Gork,
” said Nelson, punching Columbus in the stomach with his right flipper, and then trying to push him over with his left flipper.

“
Gaw,
” said Columbus, going into a clinch and hanging his head over Nelson’s shoulder as he tried to punch him in the back.

“Hey! No fair!” said the manager. Columbus and Nelson broke loose as the other ten penguins, looking on, applauded with their flippers.

Columbus now sparred politely with Nelson until Nelson hit him on the eye, whereupon Columbus retreated with a loud “
Ork
.” The other penguins began to clap, and the audience joined them. As Mrs. Popper finished the Waltz, both Nelson and Columbus stopped fighting, put down their flippers and stood still, facing each other.

“Which bird won? Who’s ahead?” shouted the audience.

“
Gook!
” said all the ten penguins in the semicircle.

This must have meant “Look!” for Nelson turned to look at them, and Columbus immediately punched him in the stomach with one flipper and knocked him down with the other. Nelson lay there, with his eyes closed. Columbus then counted ten over the prostrate Nelson, and again the ten other penguins applauded.

“That’s part of the act,” explained Janie. “The other penguins all like Columbus to win, and so they all say ‘
Gook!
’ at the end. That always makes Nelson look away, so Columbus can sock him good.”

Nelson now rose to his feet, and all the penguins formed in a row, and bowed to the manager.

“Thank you,” said the manager, bowing back.

“Now comes part three,” said Mr. Popper.

“Oh, Papa,” said Mrs. Popper. “You forgot to bring the two painting stepladders and the board!”

“That’s all right,” said the manager. “I’ll get the stagehands to bring some.”

In no time at all a pair of ladders and a board were brought in and Mr. Popper and the children showed them how the ladders had to be set up with the board resting on top. Then Mrs. Popper began playing the pretty descriptive piece “By the Brook.”

At this point in the act the penguins always forgot their discipline and got dreadfully excited. They would all begin shoving at once to see which could be the first to climb the ladders. However, the children had always told Mr. Popper that the act was all the funnier for all this pushing and scrambling, and Mr. Popper supposed it was.

So now with a great deal of squawking the penguins fought and climbed the ladders and ran across the board in complete confusion, often knocking each other entirely off to the floor below, and then hurrying to toboggan down the other ladder and knock off any penguins who were trying to climb up there.

This part of the act was very wild and noisy in spite of Mrs. Popper’s delicate music. The manager and the audience were all holding their sides, laughing.

At last Mrs. Popper got to the end of the music and took off her gloves.

“You’ll have to get those ladders off the stage, or I’ll never get these birds under control,” said Mr. Popper. “The curtain is supposed to fall at this point.”

So the manager gave the signal for the curtain to go down, and the audience stood up and cheered.

When the ladders had been taken away, the manager had twelve ice-cream cones brought in for the penguins. Then Janie and Bill began to cry, so the manager ordered several more, and everybody had one.

Mr. Greenbaum was the first to congratulate the Poppers.

“I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Popper, that I think you’ve got something absolutely unique in those birds. Your act is a sensation. And the way you helped out my friend the manager, here, shows that you’re real troupers — the kind we need in the show business. I’d like to predict that your penguins will soon be packing the biggest theaters from Oregon to Maine.

“And now to come to terms, Mr. Popper,” he continued. “How about a ten-week contract at five thousand dollars a week?”

“Is that all right, Mamma?” asked Mr. Popper.

“Yes, that’s very satisfactory,” answered Mrs. Popper

“Well, then,” said Mr. Greenbaum, “just sign these papers. And be ready to open next Thursday in Seattle.”

“And thanks again,” said the manager. “Would you mind putting on your gloves again for just a minute, Mrs. Popper? I’d like you to start playing that ‘Military March’ again and let the penguins parade for a minute. I want to get my ushers in here to look at those birds. It would be a lesson to them.”

D
URING THE NEXT
day there was much to be done at 432 Proudfoot Avenue. There were new clothes to buy for all of them, and the old ones to pack away in moth balls. Then Mrs. Popper had to scrub and polish and straighten the whole place, for she was much too good a housekeeper to leave everything at sixes and sevens while the Poppers were away.

Mr. Greenbaum sent them their first week’s pay in advance. The first thing they did was to pay off the man who had installed the freezing plant in the basement. He had been getting rather uneasy about his money; and after all, without him they could never have trained the penguins. Next they sent a check to the company who had been shipping the fresh fish all the way from the coast.

At last everything was done, and Mr. Popper turned the key in the door of the little house.

They were a little late in arriving at the railway station on account of the argument with the traffic policeman. The argument was on account of the accident to the two taxicabs.

With four Poppers and twelve penguins, not to mention the eight suitcases and pail of water with the live fish for the penguins’ lunch, Mr. Popper found that they could not all fit into one cab; so he had to call a second one.

Each of the taxi-drivers was eager to be the first to get to the station and surprise the people there by opening the door of his cab and letting out six penguins. So they raced each other all the way, and in the last block they tried to pass each other, and one of the fenders got torn off.

The traffic officer naturally got very much annoyed.

The train was about to pull out of the station when they arrived. Even with both taxi-drivers helping them through the gate and over the brass rails onto the rear observation platform, they barely made it. The penguins were gasping.