Name my Penguin!

Here's a true story, you'll enjoy, I think.
It starts off sort of...."this is an enjoyable story?" but ends up worth it.Ready?
One of my friends is a school teacher and at a teachers conference. A special education teacher was talking to her and told her about a field trip she had taken with her class to the St. Louis Zoo. One of the children, an autistic boy, got separated from the rest of the class and they couldn't find him. After searching quite a bit, and calling Zoo security to help them, they called his parents and they showed up. He was found, sitting under a tree, soaking wet, shivering, filthy dirty, and rocking back and forth with his back pack in his lap.
Parents take him home. He goes straight into the bathroom and won't come out and won't let them in. They called the social worker, and she could'nt get him talked out of there either, so they took the hinges off the door to get to him.
He was sitting next to the bath tub which was full of water, petting the penguin he stole from the zoo. That he had taken home in the backpack! He got into the penguin tank and took a penguin! Knew enough that it needed to be in water, and knew when his parents saw it they would have to send him back. And sure enough, they called the zoo and came to get the penguin.

I thought that was just about the funniest story I've heard in a long time. Kidnapped penguin. I think I want to write a children's story from the penguin's pov. What do you think? and what should the penguin's name be?

CaroGirl said:

Oh my. Poor little traumatized penguin. I hope it lived after that.

Let's see:

Puddles
Southey
Mr. Tuxedo
Cummerbund

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I didn't hear otherwise so assuming he was fine. It must have been quite traumatic. The story I was planning on was about the penguin being taken away from the zoo and getting back home...but a gentle story, if you know what I mean.
How they belong with their families and their habitat.

alleycat said:

And a title?

The Great Penguin Caper

Penguin Backpacker

Penguin in a Tub

Penguin Napper

I Thought Antarctica Was Larger Than a Bathtub.

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those are great! thanks for the ideas!

I was planning on third penguin of view (POV)

Haggis said:

You could do double duty with this one, Trish. I see it also as an opportunity to teach kids about autism and, hopefully, build up some compassion in them toward kids who are different.

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I thought a bit about that as well. I'll have to do some work on an outline to be sure to incorporate all i can.
Thanks!

I'm a little concerned that the family of this child may not appreciate the story. Not that they will ever see it. Do you think it is a concern? I don't konw them or their names or even the teacher's name. And being from the penguin's pov, I thought it would diffuse that aspect of it.
Thoughts?

alleycat said:

Surely they must see the humor in it.

But . . . if it concerns you, have the story inspire you rather than making it exactly as it occurred. The child could be somewhat different, and how the kid got the penguin out could be something else. Maybe the penguin was the one who wanted to go.

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This is a good idea. Maybe the kid saw the penguin out of the water already and took him home. I'll have to play with it a little bit and see where it ends up!