The Penguins crept into their beds. They had made a noble gesture. They had cleared their consciences. But for some reason or other they slept badly.
* * * * *
The Penguins followed each other on the springboard in rapid succession. They performed every dive they knew and some they didn't, with an almost desperate fervor. And after each feat they turned anxious faces to the small figure in the cheap black bathing suit perched on the landing stage, its face between its fists, like a Gothic imp peering down malevolently on the world from a cathedral buttress. But in fact Pip-Emma wasn't even looking at them. She was worrying about Pop and Ma and the Gang.
Prissy Adams climbed out of the water and stood beside her. "Don't you want to go in, too, Emma?" she said. "Don't you want to learn to swim?"
"Nope," Pip-Emma said. "It's cold, and I'm scared."
"Of course you're not," Prissy said. "Happy Warriors are never scared," she said with a brightness that she hoped wouldn't become a habit.
"I ain't a Happy Warrior," Emma said. "And I'm scared."
"But supposing someone were drowning, wouldn't you want to be able to save them?"
"We don't drown down our way," Pip-Emma retorted bleakly. "We ain't got no water."
It was almost as pathetic as the absence of trees. And, as a statement, much more accurate. Except on hot summer nights when good-natured street cleaners turned their hoses on the ecstatically squealing Gang, there was no water. Pip-Emma, remembering those glorious occasions, hunched herself dismally, and the defeated Prissy strode on her way. At the same moment Janet bobbed up from among the woodpiles.