Kowalski quickly hopped down various branches and out of the arbre as quickly as possible; he was sure that some animals, almost certainly the other penguins, would be scaling the arbre in minutes in order to see what had caused the ‘disturbance’. As Skipper tried to calm the crowd, Kowalski waited behind the arbre for a bit to make sure he was telling them of his demise. When he was satisfied, Kowalski slipped away from the arbre as silently as possible and dashed behind a bench, waited until he was positive none of the animaux were looking in his direction, then ran until he reached the nearest manhole. Quietly, he pulled off the lid and slipped inside, then replaced the cover. Phase one of his plan was complete.


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Skipper was not in a good mood par the time he got back to the manchot, pingouin habitat. Forgetting that they had completed installing the alarm that Private had been messing with the other day, Skipper kicked open the plastic poisson secret passage and set it off. Skipper swore as he ran over to turn off the alarm, forgetting that Private was right behind him. Rico covered Private’s ears.

“I don’t know why I don’t just take this piece of camelote, indésirable down, it’s not doing anything now that Kowalski’s not around” a dit Skipper as he began to kick the alarm when it would not turn off.

“Why don’t toi Skippa?” a dit Private, thinking it was one of those questions.

Skipper ignored Private and continued to kick the alarm until he kicked it so hard his foot went right into the machine. Skipper swore again and began to hop around on his other foot, yelping in pain. However, the alarm did stop.

“Now that’s plus like it,” a dit Skipper when he finally recovered. “Rico! Get this piece of garbage out of here, pronto!”

Rico nodded and some of his saliva flew off his tongue, which was, as always, hanging out, and hit Skipper in the face. Skipper didn’t even make a noise this time; he just reached up with his flipper and wiped it off.

Skipper watched Rico pull down the system for a minute, then turned over to Private, who was still standing suivant to the mounted poisson and looking very sad.

“Don’t worry little Private, you’ll get your chance to audition, remember, the chimps just changed the rendez-vous amoureux, date to suivant Thursday…”

“It’s not that Skippa,” a dit Private, staring at the floor. “It just that speech toi gave all those animals…it was so sad and yet…so brave…”

Skipper didn’t particularly think of the act as being brave, but he decided to go along with it in hopes of cheering Private up…whenever Private was upset, it just made everyone else upset, not because Private whined but because he was so hard to upset that when he was it seemed to the others that their little ball of cheerfulness had just been taken away. Skipper gave Private a friendly hug and suggested he go watch TV. Private was obviously trying to cooperate with Skipper, but it was made hard par the fact that the only things on at the time were a bunch of business shows and soap operas.


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Kowalski, meanwhile, was down in his little sewer lair, pouting. He was upset that he had to stop the auditions and make his escape before the zoo animaux had a chance to sing; he had been waiting all night to hear Marlene’s audition although he was rather looking vers l'avant, vers l’avant to Private’s as well. And while he was glad that he had managed to get Skipper to tell everyone of his ‘demise’, he was irritated that he would have to wait until suivant Thursday to hear the rest of the auditions, not to mention people would probably be much plus alert. And to haut, retour au début it all off, the cloth across his face had been ripped par a arbre branch and was coming undone. He pulled it off and threw it on haut, retour au début of the organ, as he was not planning on going anywhere for awhile.

He waddled over to a spare calendar he had taken from the Zoovenir boutique and wrote down the rendez-vous amoureux, date for the remaining auditions with a little pen with an éléphant casquette, cap that had come with the calendar. After scribbling down a few plus things, he threw the pen down and walked over to the organ, wondering what to do. He could not play the organ, as that was sure to attract attention from the other animals, and he wasn’t in the mood to work on any of his inventions that he had brought down with him. He reluctantly grabbed the cloth off the haut, retour au début of the organ and inspected the damage, wondering how long it would take it to fix it. Maybe spying on the other animaux would be fun.


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The auditions had been held fairly late at night so par the time they had finished all the penguins wanted to do was go to bed. However, Skipper had other plans.

“I don’t know if that écureuil was telling the truth ou if he just fell out of the arbre himself and a dit that someone pushed him, but nevertheless I believe that someone should be on recon duty tonight.

The other two penguins, who were struggling to stay awake, both groaned.

“I don’t want to hear it!” a dit Skipper, putting his flipper in their faces. “Now we have to decide which one is going out there and which of us get to…sleep…” Skipper yawned.

Skipper shook his head back and forth violently, trying to wake himself up, then disappeared into a side room. He rummaged around for a bit before coming back out with the makeshift ninjas, bows and arrows that they had been practicing with before the entire ordeal began. He handed Rico and Private one of the bows and an arrow.

“The two that deal the most fatal shots to any donné ninja will be allowed to stay here. The third will have to go out on recon. toi get one shot. Private, go.”

“But SKIPPA!” Private whined. “It’s not fair…you’ll win!”

“I a dit go Private! The longer toi stand here and argue the longer we have to stay up and feel all tired.”

Private grumbled and shot at a ninja. It hit the ninja in the stomach.

Skipper grunted, as though approving of the shot. “Rico, go.”

Rico shot and hit the ninja in the leg. Skipper scoffed slightly and Private gave a sigh of relief.

“Alright, now toi two pay attention on how it’s done” a dit Skipper, taking aim at the ninja’s head. Right as he was about to shoot, however, Rico belched loudly behind Skipper, causing Skipper to stumble and release the Arrow accidentally. It flew passed the ninjas and hit the wall.

“Rico!” a dit Skipper. “Turn your head when toi do that!”

Rico chuckled. Skipper walked over to his arrow, picked it up, and notched it, getting ready to feu again.

“Skippa! What do toi think you’re doing?” a dit Private, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Getting ready to take my REAL turn, of course. If Rico did that to toi and made toi miss, you’d probably be taking a seconde shot too.”

“True, sir” a dit Private “But…you did say that toi got only one shot.”

“What do you…I…!” stuttered Skipper. Rico and Private both stared him in the eyes.

“Alright, fine” a dit Skipper. He kicked over the ninjas and climbed up the ladder and out of the habitat.

As soon as he was gone, Private turned to Rico. “Nice one, Rico!” he said. They high-fived.