Penguin

By Casey Connery

1. I asked my mother for a penguin every birthday, every Christmas.

2. The story that penguins fall over backwards in the snow while watching aeroplanes is untrue.

3. The best thing about penguins is the waddle.

4. It was noticing my daughter’s strange gait that made me think she might be on the autistic spectrum.

5. The keepers at Edinburgh Zoo place multicoloured plastic bead bracelets on penguins’ flippers to identify them, and their
parents. Percy Penguin, for example, wears a yellow one and his daughter Minnie’s is pink and yellow.

6. People on the autistic spectrum can display black-and-white thinking, for example, believing that anything below 100% is a failure.

7. The Australian charity, Penguin Foundation, knits multicoloured jumpers for penguins rescued from oil slicks. These can be purchased from their Penguin Parade gift shop.

8. I showed my daughter a negative of a girl. She covered her eyes with her hands and turned away.

9. Penguins often return to the same rookery in which they were born.

10. We’ve wanted to move to a new house for years. My daughter says, “But my new bedroom would be different.”

11. Don’t be fooled, the zookeeper said, when a penguin’s flipper hits you, it feels like a cricket bat.

12. The social worker asked, “Does she flap her arms, like a penguin?”
“Yes” I said.

13. Most species of penguins live in large colonies of up to a thousand birds.

14. The first time my daughter went to town wearing her new white dress, a man winked at her and she cried.

15. When swimming, a penguin is camouflaged with countershading: its black back merges with the murky darkness of the sea, but when viewed from the sea looking upwards, a penguin’s white belly blendswith the bright sky above.

"The story that penguins fall over backwards in the snow while watching aeroplanes is untrue."

Preschool

In pink tutus and satin ballet slippers, little girls are being prancing ponies. Penguin sits on the floor because there is no
point to this behaviour. I love that Penguin is characterful.

After lunch, the children must sit at the small primary coloured plastic tables, but Penguin does not sit because there is no reason to do so. The teacher is cross. I am cross with the teacher.

Year 7

Why would anyone decide to build a school the size of several aeroplane hangars when Penguin cannot fly?

Why fill it with strip lights that seem to shout as loud as the two thousand kids?

Penguin texts: “Mum, I don’t like it I’m sad.”

Why does Mr Pugh’s voice serrate the air, when Penguin is silent?

“Mum, school is being illogical it’s upsetting me.”

Penguin cannot say how she feels, so she writes it with the bathroom scissors, then shows it to me.

"Why would anyone decide to build a school the size of several aeroplane hangars when Penguin cannot fly?"

Year 8

The third-floor art-room window is dangerous.

I tell Penguin’s tutor.

Penguin’s tutor says he will put something in place to help immediately and contacts the head of year.

The head of year says he will put something in place immediately and contacts the special needs officer.

The special needs officer says she will put something in place immediately and contacts the safeguarding lead.

The safeguarding lead says she will put something in place immediately. Nothing is put in place.

I complain, by which I mean, I ask again for help, by which I mean, I became a “difficult parent”.

They give her a “red card”

The card, which they call a “red card” is, in fact, dark pink.

I don’t understand. Why do they keep saying it’s red?

Penguin can hold it up when she needs to leave the classroom.

But there’s nowhere to go; no quiet room, no sick room.

“Mum, I’m scared I’m in the toilets.”

Year 10: tutor intervenes

At break time, Mr Lacey asks if she is okay. She says, “(No, I am afraid I am shaking inside, can you not tell?) Yes,” because that is the right answer.

Later she asks to go home. Mr Lacey arrives. Mr Lacey says, “But you were okay earlier,” and she says, “(I was afraid to tell you the truth and in front of my friends.) Yes,” because that is the right answer.

Mr Lacey says, “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” She says, “(You make me feel like a tiny island and you are a tsunami.) No, I am not afraid. Mr Lacey, please Mr Lacey, can I go home?”

The door

She narrows herself to walk the shark-filled corridors.
Mum, I feel kind of fuzzy.
Today, she passes the front door
and runs.
I’m in the park, Mum I’m sorry, Mum I’m sorry.
Grey drizzle, mudded grass.
On the bench by the closed café,
I see a shiver inside a school uniform.
I’m allowed, just this once, to hug her.
Back home, and I tell her tomorrow’s another day.
Her weighted blanket finds better words.
as she snuggles up in her bed,
and I wonder,
which takes more courage:
to run out of a door,
or walk back through it?

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