At the sight of the long johns the girl choked and was seized by uncontrollable giggles. She was still laughing when she started to take off her clothes and get into the sleeping bag.

The man turned his back.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m turning away while you put on your long johns.”

“I’ve already done it!”

He turned and saw that the girl was burrowed in the sleeping bag up to her neck. The two sets of long johns were still on the bed.

“I won’t put them on unless I’m freezing to death,” she said.

“It’s up to you.”

He got undressed without looking at the girl, hurrying because it was cold. He was rushing to button the front of his long johns when he realized that the girl was watching him.

“I just want to see how you look in them,” she said.

“Well?”

“Turn around so I can . . .”

“I’m freezing,” he said.

“I’m not in the least surprised.”

“Why?”

“The little door, it’s . . .”

“What?”

“The little door,” she repeated. “It’s open!”

He put his hand behind him to check, but everything was buttoned up and properly closed. The girl laughed even harder. He switched off the ceiling light and quickly got into his sleeping bag.

“The cat’s with me,” she said, “and if you get in, too, maybe the three of us will be able to get warm.”

She pulled down the zipper and he moved closer to her, turning his back. She huddled against him, pressing her knees into the backs of his and resting her stomach against his back, then she wrapped one arm around his shoulder. He felt something soft and warm against his feet: it was the cat. He also felt a hard object digging into the small of his back, so he reached down and his fingers touched the elongated form of a small hunting knife in a leather sheath.

“Excuse me,” said the girl. “I always forget to take it off.”

She unfastened the cord that held the sheath around her waist and said that she always carried the knife on her since a misadventure she’d experienced on a trip; she didn’t feel like talking about it just now.

“But I’m going to tell you a special story to thank you for everything you’ve done today,” she said. “And it’s also a story that will warm you up.”

She told him she had read the story in a book called The Secret Language of Animals, and she collected her thoughts for a moment.

Then she began:

“When winter is on its way in Antarctica, the king penguins do the opposite of other birds: instead of migrating to warm countries, they make their way to the ice floes that are found in the coldest regions of the globe. They go there every year to give birth to their young. After they’ve mated and the female has laid her egg, the male takes the egg and puts it in an incubating pouch on his belly. Then the female goes away. She bids farewell to the male and leaves the ice floe to go catch fish in open water. The males stay there all alone with their eggs and they don’t eat a thing for eight long weeks, but they have invented a special system to protect themselves from the wind and the cold and the blowing snow. They form a big circle, with the weakest ones in the middle, and the circle slowly turns on itself. When they’ve regained their strength and got warm again, the ones that had been in the middle give their places to the others, so that each one takes a turn at being exposed to the cold, then comes and takes shelter in the middle of the circle. That’s how penguins that are about to become fathers manage to survive and protect themselves from the cold on the ice floes at the South Pole while they wait for their mates to return.