A London Little's Penguin by Rose Ellie

Author:Rose, Ellie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CLAficionado Press Ltd
Published: 2023-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

As she waited by the fire, after taking her pills, Rubie grabbed Penguin from her luggage.

Rosie, the crochet queen of Stuffie Hospital London, had made Penguin for her birthday the previous year; a nod to Rubie’s love for Christmas, snow and everything penguin-y. Cuddled up to her, she chatted to the stuffie softly.

“Guess what, Penguin, I’ve got a Mommy for Christmas! Isn’t that lovely? She’s pretty and tall and has the coolest haircut and I likes her a lot.”

“You do?” asked a voice in the doorway, and she saw Anna peeking round from the kitchen, with this soft, caring look on her face. “Well, I happen to like you a lot too, sweetheart. Now, have you got any storybooks with you? Do you like stories?”

“I love stories,” said Rubie enthusiastically. “And Penguin has a book written about her! I brought it with me so I could read it to her.”

“You pop along and get it, and once I’ve put everything into the fridge, I’ll come and read it to you.”

“Yay!” said Rubie, not caring if she sounded like a cliché. Jumping up, she almost fell over in her eagerness to get to her suitcases. Anna must have moved them into the bedroom, because they were parked neatly there, next to a bedside table. She opened the smaller one up and riffled through her toys so she could get to the small parcel of picture books that she’d bundled up at the bottom of the bag.

Grabbing the one with a penguin on the front that looked remarkably like Penguin—which had nothing to do with the fact that she’d told Rosie that it was her favourite picture book before Rosie made her Penguin, no, not at all—and raced back into the living room.

In the few minutes that she’d been gone, Anna had pulled blankets and cushions off the sofa, and laid them out on the floor. “Come along, baby girl,” she said. “We can get all nice and cosy down here.”

And that was exactly what they did. Anna tugged Rubie until she fell backwards into the brunette’s arms, and then proceeded to read the story to her in an excellent voice, including different voices for different characters. It was really rather perfect.

Penguin thought so too, and nodded along and made little squeaky noises at her favourite bits. That made Anna laugh and ask to be formally introduced.

“This is Penguin, Mommy. Penguin, this is Mommy, who I was telling you about.”

“Very pleased to meet you Penguin,” said Mommy, and shook Penguin’s flipper formally.

Rubie snuggled up against her then, nestling her head between two rather comforting breasts, and allowing herself to breathe out slowly.

This was her favourite thing about Littlespace. Everything was so immediate. She felt everything so much more acutely, but she also felt so much calmer. Or at least she did with Mommy.

She turned to say this to Mommy, but when she met Anna’s eyes she didn’t feel Little at all. She felt quite quite Big.

Putting Penguin to the side, Rubie slipped

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