Read and digest the piece Collapsed Puffin, below. Then reread it and redigest it. If necessary, rereread it and reredigest it. Now, using a sharpened pencil and a sheet of foolscap paper, write a variation of the piece from the point of view of the companion, Squiffy. You should aim to address the following matters:

1. Why do you think the narrator keeps nagging Squiffy regarding his goggles, ear-corks, nasal icicles, and furry boots?

2. Which of the pair do you think is the pilot of the chopper?

3. Does the collapsed puffin actually exist or is it an hallucination borne of cold, exhaustion, or even piblokto?

4. Do you think the narrator’s love of puffins, guillemots, auks, and bonxies is sincere and unreserved, or is it an affectation?

5. Can you recall any nursery rhymes in which bonxies appear?

When you have finished, turn over the piece of foolscap paper and, on the reverse, write an even more compelling variation from the point of view of the collapsed puffin.

Oh look, a puffin has collapsed on that floe.
Wipe the steam from your goggles and you will see it too.
We should airlift it to the puffin hospital yonder in our chopper.
Take those corks out of your ears so you can hear me speak.
Love is a mighty power, and I love puffins, as I love guillemots and auks and bonxies.
Snap those icicles dangling from your nose and you will breathe easier.
Here comes a blizzard. Oh, puffin, don’t die.
Stamp your feet in your furry boots, my companion.
Two men and a collapsed puffin in a white wasteland.
Allegory of something or other.
The chopper blades are frozen, and we are stranded, or marooned.
Come, Squiffy, plod with me towards the puffin, that we may give it succour.
Love conquers all, if you will wipe those damned goggles!