Gershwin and the frozen animals of the North Pole

Once upon a time, there was a young adventurer called Gershwin. And he decided he wanted to go to the North Pole. Now people didn't realise this, but the North Pole actually had a pole in it.

It was big and red and white and striped all the way up. And Gershwin really wanted to see it, but as well as that, he wanted to see all of the animals because Gershwin could talk to animals, and they could talk back to him. So, one day he set off.

Gershwin had a word with his friend, who owned a big boat. And he went on the boat, and that boat was very special because it was called an icebreaker. And what it did was, because it was winter and it was so snowy and so icy, the boat just sailed all the way through and cracked the ice as it went. So, Gershwin got on the boat, and off they sailed to the North Pole. Now, it took quite a while to get there. It actually took twenty-seven hours of sailing on the ocean to get there, and the oceans were not fun. There were big, big waves, splashing over the deck of the boat.

Gershwin went out to watch, but he made the biggest mistake ever. He stepped out just as a huge wave came over. But the wave wasn't just water. Inside the wave, there was a big, ginormous shark.

The shark landed on the deck of the boat and slid around, chomping its jaws. It was very, very close to Gershwin when Gershwin very quickly hid behind one of the doors, and he managed to stay safe.

The captain, who was on deck, was jumping out the way of the shark, narrowly avoiding being eaten, but he didn't get eaten. And he turned the ship very quickly. The whole ship turned and tilted, and the shark flew off the side of the ship. It was very close. The captain was very frightened by the shark, but he was lucky because the shark didn't eat him, or that would have been the end of Gershwin's voyage.

So they carried on sailing. Very soon they got to the first batch of ice.

The ship sailed straight into the ice. Crack, crack went the ice, and Gershwin saw huge ice cubes just fall off the side of the ship.

The ship kept powering through. More ice, more ice cubes.

Now they were at the ice fields, and as they smashed through all the ice, they could see the shark that they'd seen earlier, and the shark was still chasing them. But the ice was big, and the ice was tall, and the ship was smashing the ice to pieces, and a big, massive block of ice fell straight on top of the shark. The shark was dazed and confused, but the water where he was was so cold that an ice cube formed around the shark, and the shark was frozen solid.

It sank all the way to the bottom of the sea, and maybe he'll get found another day in another one of Gershwin's adventures. We shall see.

But right now, the boat was going through the ice some more. But soon, the boat came to a stop. Gershwin went out on deck and went to see the captain and said, “What's happening? Why have we stopped?”

And the captain said, “The ice is too thick. I cannot make it any further through the ice, so you will have to go on your own from here.”

“What do you mean on my own? It's a long way to the North Pole from here. I can't just walk.”

“No need to worry. I have you covered,” said the captain. He handed Gershwin a pair of ice skates.

Gershwin looked at them and said, “Really, you expect me to ice skate to the North Pole?”

“Ice skating is fast,” said the captain. “You'll get there in no time. You go now.”

So Gershwin grabbed his bag, put on the ice skates, and jumped overboard onto the ice. Fortunately, Gershwin was a very, very good ice skater, and he'd also brought his trusty dog, Pip, along with him.

Gershwin was on his ice skates, and Pip was pulling very hard on the lead, and Gershwin was flying over the ice. There were big lumps of ice that he'd jump over. There were ramps that he'd fly over, and fly through the sky, coming to a superhero landing on the ice below. There were tunnels he could go through.

There were so many of these ice blocks that he could jump over, and he realised that actually there were animals frozen in the ice blocks. He saw a polar bear, a mountain lion, a penguin, another shark, a whale, a dolphin, a seal. So many different animals, but these weren't the animals that he was looking for because he wanted to see animals.

Gershwin kept going, and very soon, sticking out of the ground ahead of him, he saw a red and white pole. It was ginormous, and it had a flag flying on it, and the flag was white.

So Gershwin headed towards the pole.

Gershwin got to the pole and he touched it.

His hand almost froze to the pole; it was so cold. So he put it away quickly. And as he looked up, he saw the flag. And on the white flag, there was a white polar bear etched in it. And above that, in white writing, it said “North Pole”. That was very hard to see, because a white polar bear and white writing on a white flag is very difficult to see. But Gershwin could make it out with his great eyesight.

So he decided now it was time to walk around to find the animals that he'd been looking for.

So Gershwin took off his ice skates and went for a walk. As he went over the very first hill, he saw below him a sight that nobody had ever seen before. There were hundreds of penguins. There were hundreds of sea lions. There were loads of polar bears, loads of walruses, and a whale peeking out of the pond in the middle. Now, Gershwin had never seen anything like this, so he took some photos quickly, and then headed on down to get a closer look.

He took some photos very quickly, and then put his camera away because everybody knows that in the North Pole, camera batteries don't last very long because of the cold, and his camera was almost frozen, so he quickly hid it away to keep it warm and safe.

So he headed down towards where all the animals were congregating. Now he thought it was a bit strange because he'd never seen all those animals together at once. So, since he was an animal whisperer, he shouted, “Is everything okay?”

One of the polar bears looked up at him. Instead of charging like he would have expected, the polar bear said, “No, everything’s not okay. Can you help us?”

So Gershwin headed down the hill to the congregation.

When he got there, he said, “Yes, I'll help you however I can. What's wrong?”

Now the whale at the centre said, “On your way here, did you see lots of frozen animals?”

“Yes, yes, I did,” said Gershwin. “I don't know what happened. The sea must have been very, very cold.”

“Yes, we don't know why, but the sea is very cold this year. We think it has something to do with climate change.”

“Oh yes, climate change is terrible,” said Gershwin.

One of the penguins nearby waddled over and said, “Do you think you can help us? We really would like all of our friends to be rescued from the ice. They're all so cold in there, and they can't get out by themselves. But I only have flappers, and I can't break ice. If you came on that big ship, we think you might know how to break the ice. Please try.”

Now Gershwin always wanted to help animals because he loved animals so, so much.

So he decided he was going to help free the animals.

Gershwin headed back, pulled on his ice skates by his trusty dog Pip. He shot towards the boat. He saw all of the animals, and they were more than he ever imagined.

Soon he got to the boat. He climbed back up. The captain said, “Oh, you've finished already? We go home now.”

And Gershwin said, “No, no, no! I need you to use your boat to smash all of those ice cubes there. Can you see? They have animals trapped in them. We need them smashing so that they can all be free.”

“No, no, no. We can't go any further. I told you,” said the captain. “We can't go. It's too thick. We can't break any of that ice anymore. It's too thick for some reason. Must be climate change.”

“Oh no! What are we going to do then?”

“Here, I give you one more thing. I give you ice skates, and I give you this. You do this, and animals be free.”

The captain handed over an ice pick. An ice pick is very like a hammer, except it's got a big spike on the end of it, and it's used for climbing up icy walls. Now Gershwin looked at this and he thought, “This is perfect. I can break all the ice with this.”

So he headed back down, down the ladder onto the ice, and Pip and him carried on towards the creatures caught in the ice. He got to the first one, which was a tiny little baby penguin. He pulled out the ice pick, hacked away, and hacked away, and very soon the little penguin waddled out of the ice cube and said, “Thank you very much. I will go to my mother now,” and waddled off over the ice.

Gershwin moved on to the next one, and freed a ginormous whale. And then the next one was a polar bear. The next one, a mountain lion. And Gershwin kept going on until he freed hundreds and hundreds of animals.

He got to Pip, got on his skates, and headed towards the meeting place. And all the animals were there, cheering, cuddling all of their loved ones. And as Gershwin arrived, they all turned and gave him the biggest clap, the biggest cheer, and the biggest wave ever. Gershwin stood at the top of the hill, waved to them all, and said, “If everything’s okay, I shall go home now. It’s been fun meeting you all.”

Gershwin waved goodbye, headed off with Pip back to the icebreaker, where the captain said, “You’ll finish now. We go home.” Gershwin said, “Yes, we go home.” The boat headed off and sailed through beautifully calm waters all the way back to England, where Gershwin got off, and went to develop his latest photos, and put them in his album with all the others.

And that's the story when Gershwin the adventurer went to the North Pole.

The end.