“I’m sorry, Skippa…‘fraid I can’t remember…” Private whispered with his head low. The small penguin, auk had received quite a waking that morning. He didn’t even have enough time to leave his bunk when Skipper and Kowalski confronted him. As promised, Skipper hadn’t asked a single swali about Private’s disappearance and injury until now.

“C’mon, Private, wewe can’t really expect us to believe that!” Skipper narrowed his eyes with a frown spreading across his beak.

The timid penguin, auk shyly moved to sit on the edge of his bunk, his head retaining its low position. From the looks of things, Private didn’t plan on talking any longer. He was much too afraid of what Skipper and Kowalski would say. As for Rico, Private didn’t care much for what he had to think of the matter. Besides, it wouldn’t have gotten them anywhere. He only wanted the others to leave him be and act as though this never occurred.

Skipper leaned his head forward, close to Private’s, “So, it’s like that, is it?” he spoke softly. Private slowly looked up from the floor and made contact with Skipper’s enforcing eyes, “I didn’t want it to come to this, boys…” Skipper now alisema in his usual volume as he stood upright once more. With his flippers resting on his hips, Skipper turned to Kowalski, “It’s time to take evasive maneuvers…”

Kowalski nodded and pulled out his notepad, uandishi down a few notes to start with. Skipper whirled around and pointed a flipper towards Rico, who was moping in his typical corner of the room, “Rico!!” Skipper called out, signaling the hulky penguin, auk to initiate the team’s escape.

The mute penguin, auk narrowed his eyes and released a huff in anger. He really didn’t feel like doing much of anything that morning. Unfortunately, he also didn’t feel the need in getting in a quarrel with his leader, who already appeared to be growing impatient. Therefore, he made an attempt to rise to his feet.

“Rico, look alive, man!” Skipper barked once zaidi in order to hurry the sluggish soldier.

Rico’s eyes expanded as he struggled to maintain his balance. He was beginning to feel the effects of his empty stomach. After everything that had happened, he simply hadn’t the reason to eat his fish. If one were to check, they would find Rico’s bowl, containing old samaki that he had been aliyopewa the siku before. In this case, nobody appeared to have noticed.

Finally, Rico stumbled forward, towards Skipper and Kowalski. Once he was about fifteen feet away from the pair, the penguin, auk opened his beak and quickly regurgitated the smoke bomb that Skipper had been waiting for this entire time.

“No, wait! Skippa!” Private hopped from his bunk and entered the smoke wingu that had immediately filled the room. Of course, the trio had already made their way elsewhere; probably to tafuta for clues that would solve the mystery of Private’s awali mishap. The small soldier could sense that he was going to be treated as an enemy until this case was resolved.


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Once again, the Zoo was illuminated in its morning blue tint; a familiar sight for Kowalski. Frankly, the tall intellectual didn’t care much for what Private was doing out and about that morning. The way Kowalski saw things, whatever Private wanted to do during his mornings was strictly his business, and no one else’s. Sadly, Kowalski lacked the courage to state this opinion to Skipper, himself. Instead, he would be often be required to acknowledge their credo, appearing as though he gave a damn.

Of course, Kowalski didn’t simply look upon the credo in complete disgust. No, he understood the importance of such a belief, and why Skipper had created it in the first place. It was only at times like this when he truly didn’t care. He only wanted to return to his bunk and sleep.

Skipper and Kowalski were waddling side-by-side, away from their habitat, when the leader of the pair noticed Rico following close behind. After having made this discovery, Skipper turned and pointed into a bila mpangilio direction behind the heavyset penguin, “Rico, I need wewe to secure that area, pronto!” Skipper ordered with a stern expression on his face.

Despite the fact that Rico was lacking in sense of direction, the penguin, auk quickly nodded and turned to wander off to a location that he believed to be the very spot that Skipper was referring to. Where he went didn’t matter to Skipper; as long as he and Kowalski were alone. Now that Rico was out of the picture, Skipper turned back to continue his walk with the tall penguin.

“Kowalski…I’ve been meaning to talk to wewe about our friend, Rico…” Skipper began, refusing to look anywhere else from the sidewalk in front of him.

“Yes, Skipper?” Kowalski asked in curiosity, both interested and afraid of what his leader was going to say.

“Well, I’ve noticed some strange behavior from the soldier…”

“What sort of behavior, Skipper?”

“Seems like he’s a little down in the dumps, if wewe know what I mean…”

“Depressed?”

“Sure…”

Kowalski blinked and looked down at his notepad that he had been uandishi in during the conversation. On the far left of the page, he drew a large picture of Rico. On the right side of the page, he composed a column of bullets for any information that he would soon gather in this examination.

“What course of action do wewe propose we take, Skipper?” Kowalski asked as he continued to write.

“That depends; what are our options?”

“Well, let’s see…” Kowalski started, making a few changes in his notes, devising a couple of choices for his leader to choose from, “A: Study Rico’s behavior until chanzo of problem is found, au B: Simply act as though-”

“I know what the chanzo of the problem is, Kowalski!” Skipper interrupted in a harsh manner. This caused both penguins to stop in their tracks, looking into each other’s eyes for a long moment.

“What do wewe mean, Skipper? I’m not certain that-”

“It’s you, soldier! I was awake last night!”

Kowalski nearly dropped his pad and pencil as his beak went slack from shock, “You…saw us…?” he asked quietly, his gaze averting from Skipper’s eyes and into the deep space of realization.

“To be honest, I don’t think I want to see it again…” Skipper shook his head and shut his eyes with disgust as he placed his fins on his hips; his usual stance when he felt he needed to take charge of the situation.

Kowalski formed a nervous grin and stepped forward, “But, Skipper, he’s simply suffering from-”

“I don’t want to see it again, Kowalski! I can’t have my men loving on each other when there’s business to take care of! It’s just…not right…” Skipper decided to continue his walk, and Kowalski chose to follow as well, furiously scribbling in his notepad that he was now holding close to his face.

Once he had finished, Kowalski rested his flippers at his sides and looked down to the small leader with the same nervous expression as before, “There’s nothing to worry yourself about, Skipper, Rico only desires to have a close friend, that’s all.”

“Rico can take care of himself, Kowalski. Leave him alone before it gets any worse…” Skipper finished with a slight smile on his face. Feeling that he had closed the deal, Skipper decided it was best to head back to HQ.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, Rico had been sitting in a patch of nyasi in Marlene’s habitat, staring at a small, grey crowbar that he had been searching for.

“RICO!! Abort the search!!” he heard Skipper call out from afar. Rico quickly hopped to his feet and picked the crowbar up from the ground, throwing it into the air and allowing the weapon to slide in between his beak down his throat. He had intentions of saving this for a later cause…