How to Draw a Penguin by Mike Miller
It’s the way the teacher waves his arms around that reminds Amanda of a penguin. Above the elbows his upper arms remain perfectly parallel, motionless beside his chest. However, his forearms flail wildly around his waist, his finger-clenched fins ferociously stabbing the air to accentuate his words. “And the Most Important Thing to Remember...” he cries with a stab-shred-stab. She guesses she should probably write that down. His bald head bent downward, the auburn and gold rims of the spectacles perched upon his petite beak, the unwrinkled shirt that barely tucked under his belly - Amanda draws a penguin next to the Most Important Thing to Remember.
Brian doesn’t care about the teacher. He sits and remembers last night’s kickboxing match on cable. While his parents were asleep, Brian snuck downstairs and caught some of Thailand’s finest duking it out with lethal precision. Now that his parents are at work and he’s at school, Brian can only dream about it. He thinks about elbowing Roger next to him, or maybe a flying spin kick to Carla’s head would teach her a real lesson. Roger would probably look good with a mean old scar cut across his forehead. Carla raises her hand and kisses the teacher’s ass, and Brian thinks a swift chop to her throat would keep both of them quiet.
And Amanda wonders what she should draw next. She looks around and sees Brian the fox. His arm permanently folded under his chin, but his eyes always darting around the classroom, never looking forward at her, never looking directly at the professor. Brian was always the fox. She drew a fox leaping at the penguin from behind, the flightless bird oblivious of imminent death. Could chickens fly? Maybe the penguin should be a chicken?
Brian bets that if he wanted to fight Mr. Jefferson he’d run away like a coward. Brian would quickly slice the air about him with a fury of lethal punches and slices to demonstrate his power, and while he watched Mr. Jefferson’s rear end slowly recede into the sunset, Brian would wish that Mr. Jefferson had instead chose to occupy the space before his hands. Brian sighs and slouches and watches the second hand on the clock crawl. He’d have to corner Mr. Jefferson afterschool if he was going to teach him anything. Did Roger just fart? It sure smelled like it.
Outside the sun is burning ferociously, so Amanda equips the fox with a blistering pair of sunglasses, the wraparound kind surfers wear. Plus Brian is wearing a kind of Hawaiian shirt with one of those black and white Chinese symbols with a dragon curling around it. As her pen’s black ink slams back and forth while she colors the fox’s shades, Amanda wonders whether Brian should be a dragon. Amanda reaches for her erasable pen, even though it only makes the ink smudge. Just in case.
“Excellent, Carla.” Mr. Jefferson exclaims for the hundredth time. And the little suck-up sits back in her chair with that damn smirk like she was the only who knew the answer. Carla doesn’t know anything, just how to follow orders. Brian bets that if you took a dork like Carla and somebody like Amanda and put them on a gameshow, Amanda would win in a second. But maybe Amanda’s dumber, Brian thinks. She doesn’t pay attention in class, but all she does all day is doodle. Her head is always bent downwards, and Brian can only see the tip of her pen dancing around on the paper, while the top of the pen moves backwards in circles. Maybe Amanda’s a retard too. Or maybe Amanda’s a brilliant artist that can draw all sorts of cool stuff. Her pen stops moving and just as Amanda’s about to look up, Brian snaps his head away and looks at a picture of George Washington. She’ll never know that I think she may be a retard, and Brian smiles with that knowledge.
Carla’s hippopotamus is too fat. Carefully Amanda erases the stomach, and draws a new slimmer one. Her mouth is just right. Wide open and gaping, the mouth is soon filled with a little bird flying through it for added effect. Maybe the little bird could be Norman; he’s got a crush on Carla. Amanda draws little hearts that trail behind the tiny bird. Maybe Carla’s stomach is too thin now. Amanda takes a break to listen to the teacher. “Another thing to remember...” and Amanda decides that one thing to remember is enough.
Brian remembers that George Washington has wood teeth. He wonders how those got knocked out. He cups his hand over his eyes and carefully tilts his head back to see if Amanda is still watching. She’s looking out the window to his left, and he tilts his head a little more. Brian thinks that even with his hand shielding his eyes, she could easily see his. Brian knows that this is how eyes work, but he covers them anyway. Just in case.
Amanda sees a cloud that looks like a flower. It’s not sideways like the other clouds, but vertical with a large puff at the top. She looks around to see if anybody else has noticed, but their heads are bent downwards, looking at the text.
Brian wonders if he could beat up two girls. Even if they attacked him with swords and ninja stars, could he win? Brian thinks he’s seen enough TV to know how to take on two girls. You just have to kick one fast in the stomach, and while she’s crumpled over in pain, you get the other one. But what about three girls? Brian has to think about that one. With fifteen more minutes until lunch, he’s got more than enough time.
She draws a giant flower growing out of the ground, and she decides to plant it in between Professor Penguin and Brian the fox. This way, Brian is jumping onto the flower where its smiley face means it’s happy to catch the flying fox. Brian would never attack the professor; he’s wiser than that. And this way, the penguin is so busy looking at the fat hippopotamus that he can’t see the pretty flower. Just the clever fox.
He decides that he can’t wait anymore. He moves his permanently perched elbow from the desk and raises his arms back to stretch his back. He pretends to yawn and looks down his nose and sees Amanda looking at him. Brian keeps his head tilted back and looks outside the open window behind him at the upside-down sky below him. Everybody else is reading their textbooks, and she’s the one who isn’t and is looking at him. If she is the one, Brian thought in a tone of voice like an ancient, old kung-fu master, so be it.
Amanda watches Brian curl his back forward, like a majestic dragon, and make eye contact with her. He looks at her and raises a hand, palm open. With silent lips, he slowly counts down while his fingers fall from four, three, two, one.
He flawlessly flips backward out the open window.
Amanda might have shrieked if it wasn’t so deathly silent in the room of reading children and one penguin. Instead she looks down at the fox jumping at the flower behind the penguin watching the hippopotamus and then looks up and around at a legion of heads bending back upwards.
“So what do we think about what we just read?” the teacher asks. “Amanda you look like you have something to say.” She jerks her head back from the open window with the empty seat to look at the teacher who reiterates, “What do you think?” he asks as he pushes his gold and auburn glasses up his beak.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “Can I go to the bathroom?”
The teacher sighs and says yes. Amanda walks abruptly out of the room, grabbing the hall pass by the exit. Mr. Jefferson marks an X next to Amanda’s name in the grade book and looks up again at the class. Carla’s arm is faithfully stuck straight up in the air.
Amanda marches down the hallway, turns the corner, exits the building. She has to duck down below the windowsill so the class inside doesn’t see her. She waddles along crushing daffodils as she crawls beneath their view. She sees Brian lying on the ground, four feet below the windowsill, eyes closed and laying on a bed of ivy. He opens his eyes when he hears the crunch of flowers and turns to see a sideways Amanda approaching him like a duck on the prowl.
“Are you okay?” she whispers.
He says, “Sure. The ivy totally broke my fall.” He sits up and dusts himself off, and hides the pain behind a cool grin. He had to look tough just in case she wasn’t a loser.
“You’re crushing those flowers,” he says, so she quickly scoots away from them.
When Brain begins to stand, Amanda hurriedly adds, “Don’t stand up, they’ll see you!”
“So…” he says and walks away. He doesn’t say anything else.
Amanda gets up and looks back inside at a room of students with their eyes trained on the blackboard. She catches up to him.
“So you like to draw?” he asks.
“I guess,” she says coyly.
“Can I see them?”
Amanda wants desperately to show him. “Yeah, but they’re still inside. Sorry.”
Brian is happy she said yes. “We can wait thirteen minutes until lunch to get them.”
“What do we do until then?” she asks.
He thinks for a moment. “I don't know,” he eventually responds.
They both start walking towards the lunch benches. During the silent stroll, they both look at each other and smile, grateful to avoid the final minutes of class.
Mr. Jefferson asks, “Anybody know what happened to Brian?” Carla raises her hand and says that she saw him go to the bathroom and didn’t ask for permission. Mr. Jefferson mutters under his breath, but everybody can hear his gripe. “He’s supposed to ask for permission.” With his giant red marker, he draws an X next to Brian’s name and happily remembers that lunch is only twelve minutes away.
It’s the way the teacher waves his arms around that reminds Amanda of a penguin. Above the elbows his upper arms remain perfectly parallel, motionless beside his chest. However, his forearms flail wildly around his waist, his finger-clenched fins ferociously stabbing the air to accentuate his words. “And the Most Important Thing to Remember...” he cries with a stab-shred-stab. She guesses she should probably write that down. His bald head bent downward, the auburn and gold rims of the spectacles perched upon his petite beak, the unwrinkled shirt that barely tucked under his belly - Amanda draws a penguin next to the Most Important Thing to Remember.
Brian doesn’t care about the teacher. He sits and remembers last night’s kickboxing match on cable. While his parents were asleep, Brian snuck downstairs and caught some of Thailand’s finest duking it out with lethal precision. Now that his parents are at work and he’s at school, Brian can only dream about it. He thinks about elbowing Roger next to him, or maybe a flying spin kick to Carla’s head would teach her a real lesson. Roger would probably look good with a mean old scar cut across his forehead. Carla raises her hand and kisses the teacher’s ass, and Brian thinks a swift chop to her throat would keep both of them quiet.
And Amanda wonders what she should draw next. She looks around and sees Brian the fox. His arm permanently folded under his chin, but his eyes always darting around the classroom, never looking forward at her, never looking directly at the professor. Brian was always the fox. She drew a fox leaping at the penguin from behind, the flightless bird oblivious of imminent death. Could chickens fly? Maybe the penguin should be a chicken?
Brian bets that if he wanted to fight Mr. Jefferson he’d run away like a coward. Brian would quickly slice the air about him with a fury of lethal punches and slices to demonstrate his power, and while he watched Mr. Jefferson’s rear end slowly recede into the sunset, Brian would wish that Mr. Jefferson had instead chose to occupy the space before his hands. Brian sighs and slouches and watches the second hand on the clock crawl. He’d have to corner Mr. Jefferson afterschool if he was going to teach him anything. Did Roger just fart? It sure smelled like it.
Outside the sun is burning ferociously, so Amanda equips the fox with a blistering pair of sunglasses, the wraparound kind surfers wear. Plus Brian is wearing a kind of Hawaiian shirt with one of those black and white Chinese symbols with a dragon curling around it. As her pen’s black ink slams back and forth while she colors the fox’s shades, Amanda wonders whether Brian should be a dragon. Amanda reaches for her erasable pen, even though it only makes the ink smudge. Just in case.
“Excellent, Carla.” Mr. Jefferson exclaims for the hundredth time. And the little suck-up sits back in her chair with that damn smirk like she was the only who knew the answer. Carla doesn’t know anything, just how to follow orders. Brian bets that if you took a dork like Carla and somebody like Amanda and put them on a gameshow, Amanda would win in a second. But maybe Amanda’s dumber, Brian thinks. She doesn’t pay attention in class, but all she does all day is doodle. Her head is always bent downwards, and Brian can only see the tip of her pen dancing around on the paper, while the top of the pen moves backwards in circles. Maybe Amanda’s a retard too. Or maybe Amanda’s a brilliant artist that can draw all sorts of cool stuff. Her pen stops moving and just as Amanda’s about to look up, Brian snaps his head away and looks at a picture of George Washington. She’ll never know that I think she may be a retard, and Brian smiles with that knowledge.
Carla’s hippopotamus is too fat. Carefully Amanda erases the stomach, and draws a new slimmer one. Her mouth is just right. Wide open and gaping, the mouth is soon filled with a little bird flying through it for added effect. Maybe the little bird could be Norman; he’s got a crush on Carla. Amanda draws little hearts that trail behind the tiny bird. Maybe Carla’s stomach is too thin now. Amanda takes a break to listen to the teacher. “Another thing to remember...” and Amanda decides that one thing to remember is enough.
Brian remembers that George Washington has wood teeth. He wonders how those got knocked out. He cups his hand over his eyes and carefully tilts his head back to see if Amanda is still watching. She’s looking out the window to his left, and he tilts his head a little more. Brian thinks that even with his hand shielding his eyes, she could easily see his. Brian knows that this is how eyes work, but he covers them anyway. Just in case.
Amanda sees a cloud that looks like a flower. It’s not sideways like the other clouds, but vertical with a large puff at the top. She looks around to see if anybody else has noticed, but their heads are bent downwards, looking at the text.
Brian wonders if he could beat up two girls. Even if they attacked him with swords and ninja stars, could he win? Brian thinks he’s seen enough TV to know how to take on two girls. You just have to kick one fast in the stomach, and while she’s crumpled over in pain, you get the other one. But what about three girls? Brian has to think about that one. With fifteen more minutes until lunch, he’s got more than enough time.
She draws a giant flower growing out of the ground, and she decides to plant it in between Professor Penguin and Brian the fox. This way, Brian is jumping onto the flower where its smiley face means it’s happy to catch the flying fox. Brian would never attack the professor; he’s wiser than that. And this way, the penguin is so busy looking at the fat hippopotamus that he can’t see the pretty flower. Just the clever fox.
He decides that he can’t wait anymore. He moves his permanently perched elbow from the desk and raises his arms back to stretch his back. He pretends to yawn and looks down his nose and sees Amanda looking at him. Brian keeps his head tilted back and looks outside the open window behind him at the upside-down sky below him. Everybody else is reading their textbooks, and she’s the one who isn’t and is looking at him. If she is the one, Brian thought in a tone of voice like an ancient, old kung-fu master, so be it.
Amanda watches Brian curl his back forward, like a majestic dragon, and make eye contact with her. He looks at her and raises a hand, palm open. With silent lips, he slowly counts down while his fingers fall from four, three, two, one.
He flawlessly flips backward out the open window.
Amanda might have shrieked if it wasn’t so deathly silent in the room of reading children and one penguin. Instead she looks down at the fox jumping at the flower behind the penguin watching the hippopotamus and then looks up and around at a legion of heads bending back upwards.
“So what do we think about what we just read?” the teacher asks. “Amanda you look like you have something to say.” She jerks her head back from the open window with the empty seat to look at the teacher who reiterates, “What do you think?” he asks as he pushes his gold and auburn glasses up his beak.
“I don’t know,” she replies. “Can I go to the bathroom?”
The teacher sighs and says yes. Amanda walks abruptly out of the room, grabbing the hall pass by the exit. Mr. Jefferson marks an X next to Amanda’s name in the grade book and looks up again at the class. Carla’s arm is faithfully stuck straight up in the air.
Amanda marches down the hallway, turns the corner, exits the building. She has to duck down below the windowsill so the class inside doesn’t see her. She waddles along crushing daffodils as she crawls beneath their view. She sees Brian lying on the ground, four feet below the windowsill, eyes closed and laying on a bed of ivy. He opens his eyes when he hears the crunch of flowers and turns to see a sideways Amanda approaching him like a duck on the prowl.
“Are you okay?” she whispers.
He says, “Sure. The ivy totally broke my fall.” He sits up and dusts himself off, and hides the pain behind a cool grin. He had to look tough just in case she wasn’t a loser.
“You’re crushing those flowers,” he says, so she quickly scoots away from them.
When Brain begins to stand, Amanda hurriedly adds, “Don’t stand up, they’ll see you!”
“So…” he says and walks away. He doesn’t say anything else.
Amanda gets up and looks back inside at a room of students with their eyes trained on the blackboard. She catches up to him.
“So you like to draw?” he asks.
“I guess,” she says coyly.
“Can I see them?”
Amanda wants desperately to show him. “Yeah, but they’re still inside. Sorry.”
Brian is happy she said yes. “We can wait thirteen minutes until lunch to get them.”
“What do we do until then?” she asks.
He thinks for a moment. “I don't know,” he eventually responds.
They both start walking towards the lunch benches. During the silent stroll, they both look at each other and smile, grateful to avoid the final minutes of class.
Mr. Jefferson asks, “Anybody know what happened to Brian?” Carla raises her hand and says that she saw him go to the bathroom and didn’t ask for permission. Mr. Jefferson mutters under his breath, but everybody can hear his gripe. “He’s supposed to ask for permission.” With his giant red marker, he draws an X next to Brian’s name and happily remembers that lunch is only twelve minutes away.
