Sophie's story

"But mummy, I want to stay and watch the penguins!" the little boy cried. He'd spent most of the day watching them but now his mother wanted to go home.

"We'll come back soon, I promise", she said softly, then she dragged him out by his ear.

"I love you", the little boy whispered so softly he barely made a sound.

This is why I love my job thought Jessie. Jessie was one of the penguins at Santa's Grotto in the Glades. She'd never really wanted to be a show penguin but when she saw the look on the kids' faces when she did her trick, she couldn't describe it - it was magical.

That night, Jessie decided to explore. She'd worked there all winter but hadn't really had a good look around. When she went upstairs, she saw a big door with a picture of a girl on it. She didn't know what it was so she went inside. Of course she thought, it's the girls' toilets. She was about to go out again when she heard something. She looked around and saw a tiny baby penguin crying.

"What's wrong? What's happened?" she asked gently.

"Well," she gulped, "me and my mummy were kidnapped but the kidnapper left me here. I don't know why but he took my mum somewhere else."

Tears streamed down the tiny penguin's face.

"Did you hear the kidnapper say anything else?" Jessie asked.

"Well, I did hear him say something about fruit," she said.

Jessie and the baby ran straight to Marks & Spencer.

"Jessie, you're famous at the Grotto," she said. She seemed a lot happier now.

As they entered, Jessie saw him straight away.

"Pumpkin Man? Why would you want to kidnap them? I thought you were our friend," Jessie said in shock.

"I know it's wrong, and I'm so sorry - now I've thought about what I'm doing, it's all so silly. I just hate that Christmas is so much more popular than Halloween so I wanted to destroy it."

He looked close to tears - Jessie felt quite sorry for him.

"It's OK, we forgive you and for the record, I love Halloween!" she smiled.

Looks like she made four new friends that night.