When Charlie napped, Annie would sketch out her character in more detail. She made up another wire armature and created a three-dimensional model, just as she had done with Barry the Bear. She would name her penguin Pierce. He would ask his fellow penguins why the hell (okay, not hell, but why on earth) they had wings if they couldn’t use them to become airborne. They were about as useless as those forearms on a T-Rex. He wasn’t going to let his superfluous wings keep him from traveling, so he saved up his money from his bookshop job (a store that sold mostly thrillers, and was called Chillers) to buy airline tickets. He always took off from Antarctica International Airport, where the jumbo jets were fitted with skis.

The first book Annie put together was Pierce Goes to Paris. He visits the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, buys himself a beret, and damned if he isn’t the jauntiest-looking penguin who ever walked the Champs-Élysées. He returns to the South Pole with tales of his adventures, but decides he won’t be staying long. There is so much more to see!

One of the editors who had rejected her eco-minded polar bear book had said some nice things about her drawings, so she decided to send a copy of her first Pierce Penguin story to him.

A week went by. Then two. A month without any response. She was getting ready to send the manuscript to another house when her cell phone rang.

It was Finnegan Sproule.

“You know the Gramercy Tavern?” he asked.

Well, she had heard of it. But she had never stepped inside the doors.

Over their first lunch, he said to her, “This is very special. It has tremendous potential. Do you have an agent?”

“An agent?”

“A literary agent. Look, I could make you an offer right now, something you’d jump at that might seem like a lot of money to you but would be lunch money for my publisher. You need someone in your corner. I’m going to suggest a few to you, all reputable. Or you can ask around, find someone else. But I want this, and I’m prepared to do a preempt.”

“A who?”

“A preemptive offer. An agent will explain.”

Annie found an agent. A deal was made. Was it a fortune? No. But it was enough to calm some nerves, to allow Annie and John and Charlie to move to a slightly larger apartment in a better neighborhood.

The book came out. It did nothing.

Okay, not exactly nothing. It sold in the low four figures. Annie signed at a couple of Barnes & Nobles in Manhattan to thin crowds. There was no tour.

“Not to worry,” Finnegan told her. “Get cracking on the second one.”