Penny the Penguin

There once was an adelie penguin named Penny.
Penny lived in Antarctica with her family and a big colony of other adelies.

Penny is a typical adelie. She is black with a white tuxedo-like front and her beak is reddish with a black tip. She only stands about 25 inches tall.

Although Penny has a couple of female penguin friends, she doesn't have a partner yet. No male penguin has given her a stone. She has to watch the others build their nests and wait for her day.

This made Penny think that she wasn't pretty. All her friends told her that she was very pretty but she didn't believe them.

One day Penny went on a walk to be by herself. She didn't want to watch all her friends find the perfect stones for their nests that year.

Penny didn't stray too far, but managed to get out of sight behind a snow mound before anyone noticed she had left. She waddled the whole way with her eyes on the snow right in front of her.

She watched a pair of birds fly together in circles. This made her sigh. She wanted to be a pair but didn't know what to do.

Penny was lost in her thoughts and didn't hear the waddled approach of another penguin.
The penguin's name was Manny. He'd watched Penny from afar but had been too shy to approach her until now.

A sound made Penny jump. It was then that she noticed Manny and the perfect round pebble that sat in his beak.

She picked the pebble from his beak and gave him a nuzzle. Together they waddled back to the colony to start their nest.

Penny was happy and at last she felt pretty.