January Jones met Mavis Jingle, and they nibbled salt herring. “My dear,” Mavis chirped, and January nodded. “Did you see Babseal out-swim Ozbrrr Orca?”

“I never did,” January exclaimed. “Tell all!”

“He did ten loop-de-loops, twenty corkscrews, forty hairpin turns then dropped like chum into an ice cave. Ozbrrr was so exhausted, he headed north with a terrible case of tail droop.”

“I would have loved to see that!” January sighed. “I saw Babseal out-swim a polar bear, an ice storm and an Antarctic ice crusher.”

“No you did not!”

“Indeed, I did, Ms. Mavis Know-it-all! Now I won’t tell you about it.”

“Oh, please, do tell. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

January nodded, looking most pleased. “Well, I would tell you, but I did make it up.” Then he dove into the water and swam away.

Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham

Note: Let tall tales commence in the new year. If you have some flash fiction you’d like to link up to me, please feel free. You can even copy my picture (just credit me) and try your own hand at writing some Penguin Patter. We can call it the Penguin Patter Prompt, maximum word count of 150. Anyone game? 🙂 Cheers, Brenda