Skipper followed Maurice to the lemur exhibit, where Julien was standing on top, boven of the plastic volcano. Standing around underneath him were various animals, most of which were looking confused of simply bored. Julien was looking slightly nervous, especially when he saw Skipper arrive. As Julien glanced around the crowd, Maurice left Skipper and walked up to the base of the vulkaan and rapped on it three times with his fist.

“Order!” he zei authoritatively like a judge. “Now presenting King Julien with an…important announcement. It better be, for all the trouble I had to go through to get everyone together” he mumbled under his breath.

“So…yeah, what Maurice said” zei Julien anxiously. Then he paused for several seconden as though contemplating something.

Skipper sighed. “The idiot’s obviously got no idea what he wants to say!” he zei to the animal nearest him, which happened to be the elephant.

“Yeah, I know,” zei the olifant in his hazy voice. “But that’s not what I’m upset about…he zei there would be free peanuts before the announcements!”

“Before I begin I would like to thank u all for coming…not that u really had a choice, since I am king and the king’s word is law…”

The animals all rolled their eyes. Skipper groaned.

Maurice was obviously being distracted door Julien’s behavior as well and climbed the plastic vulkaan and began to whisper with Julien. The animals exchanged annoyed glances and several just walked away.

“It’s fine, majesty,” zei Maurice. “I really don’t think they’re going to care.”

With that, Maurice hopped off the vulkaan and left Julien up at the top. He did look slightly less nervous now, however.

“So yesterday as I was sleeping, dreaming my kingly dreams, I had a vision from the sky spirits!” zei King Julien dramatically, obviously making it up as he went. “They zei that they though the zoo was too, u know, drab and that it needed meer moving and groovin’ if u know what I mean.” Julien winked and continued. “They zei that I, your king, am responsible for my people’s entertainment and leisure activities around the zoo so they suggested that I, the king, use that big stage thingy that the humans built in the park a few months ago.”

“The amphitheater, u mean?” commentaar gegeven Maurice.

“An ampi-whatia?” zei Julien. “You really do need to get out of the habit of making up words, Maurice!” Maurice rolled his eyes.

“So starting tonight we will be partying at the stage thingy in the park!” zei Julien happily. “We’ll have muziek and a limbo tournament…it is gonna be so awesome!”

It was obvious that the animals were less-than-thrilled about partying for the entire night with Julien, especially on a big stage in the park where anyone could see them.

“I say, if u use the amphitheater outside do u really think that there is the slightest chance we won’t get caught?” zei Mason.

“Good point” zei Julien. “Maybe we should just use that zookeeper lady what’s her face’s office for our parties.”

Some of the animals looked horrified at the aspect of trespassing in Alice’s office. “Works for me” zei Maurice, despite the gasps coming from the animals.

“But before we begin to party, I will need to check with the sky spirits to make sure this is okay…cause if u don’t, u know, they will just blow up the sun of whatnot.”

Julien walked off the vulkaan and into the back of the lemur exhibit, prompting all the other animals to think that the meeting was over. Skipper, however, had other plans.

“Everyone stay where u are!” zei Skipper, climbing to the top, boven of the volcano. “This is important!”

The animals were reluctant to stay but knew that Skipper was much meer competent than Julien and might have something actually important to say. Skipper looked relieved that not everyone had run off.

“Kowalski…most of u know him, I think, he’s the team’s scientist…well, he ran off the other dag because, well, I was a little tough on him, but that’s not the point. The point is that about a half uur geleden Private caught him sneaking around in our habitat carrying a bottle of acid and according to Private, Kowalski sort of attacked him. Now he’s hiding somewhere, probably in the sewer, and he’s got several dangerous things with him, most of which are some of his recent inventions. I just want u all to be on your guard and careful, I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“I’ll catch this pinguïn for ya!” zei an impatient voice from the crowd. “Beat the snot out of him, whatever ya want. So long as u pay!”

Skipper immediately knew that it was Joey speaking, even before he saw the kangaroo.

“Marsupial, I usually don’t go out of my way to prevent acts of violence as long as they benefit the zoo, but I’m not going to send anyone besides a pinguïn against a member of our own team. Anyway, remember how much trouble u had with the scorca?”

Some of the animals who had remained behind to watch Joey argue with Skipper smirked at this comment. Joey looked mildly embarrassed and hopped away, mumbling furiously.

Skipper smiled smugly as he watched Joey’s retreating form until it was out of sight, then began to walk back to the pinguïn habitat. He passed several animals complaining about how they had wasted the afternoon attending this meeting as they headed home. One of them happened to be Marlene. She spotted him and waved him over.

“What is it, Marlene? I’m kind of busy,” zei Skipper impatiently as he waddled over.

“Skipper, if u were that busy u wouldn’t have come to one of Julien’s meetings” zei Marlene.

“Good point,” zei Skipper. The two began to walk back towards the pinguïn habitat.

“Is that really true? What u zei about Kowalski?” zei Marlene, her voice suddenly becoming very sympathetic.

Skipper gave her an irritated look but zei “I’m afraid so.”

“What are u going to do about it?” she asked.

“I really don’t know yet” Skipper lied. He didn’t particularly like the idea of telling Marlene that he was going to try and beat up Kowalski later.

They didn’t talk for a few moments. Both of them were feeling rather awkward. “Well, see ya later!” zei Marlene in a relieved tone as they passed her habitat. She vaulted over the fence and into the water.

Skipper ignored her. Now that she was gone, he began to waddle as fast as he could back to the habitat. When he arrived, he was about to kick over the fishbowl and go down the hole it concealed until he remembered that he had told Rico to arm the alarm and left the device with him. Not wanting to frighten them door setting off the alarm, Skipper rapped on the bottom of the fishbowl.

“It’s Skipper. Could u please turn off the alarm so I can come in?” he zei innocently. No one responded.

After waiting for a few seconden he tried again, then again. Finally he deduced that they were not coming so he just kicked the fishbowl over and duif into the habitat. The alarm did not go off.

“Very funny boys!” zei Skipper in a very unamused tone. He began to look in various cubby holes, trying to find the other two.

Right as he was about to go into the room where the TV was located, he saw the creepy message scrawled on the wall. He stumbled backwards in shock but then noticed that the liquid was much…thicker than blood, which what it was obviously made to resemble. He reluctantly stuck his flipper in it and inspected the liquid, then very lightly licked it. It was ketchup.

Skipper nearly laughed when he found out what it was, but then realized that it was obviously meant to resemble blood door someone who was too squeamish to actually get their hands dirty. His paranoid nature immediately blamed Kowalski but the logical voice inside him told him that it was probably just Rico and Private playing a trick on him. He thought about the latter option a little meer and decided that this was the perfect time for Private and Rico to play a practical joke on him. Since they were fully aware of the extent of Skipper’s paranoia, it would be a nearly irresistible opportunity to do this and see him run around, all upset, while they hid and laughed before finally tonen themselves.

This was the case, thought Skipper. Besides, even if Kowalski tried to kidnap them, Kowalski was the worst fighter of the group and if he actually managed to overpower him, where did he get ketchup and decide to write this message? Skipper decided that the best course of action would be to simply sit around until finally the other two admitted defeat and came out. Skipper was not one to be made a fool of, especially door his own teammates.


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Rico was much meer scared than he had ever been before. He was used to having his team there to back him up, but now he was wandering alone in the sewers, searching for a wacko Kowalski who could be stalking him right now.

Rico had decided that the best course of action would be to find Private and get back to the HQ before Skipper returned so that he would not be blamed of at the very least find Kowalski and pretend that he had been captured as well so that he would not be blamed in the long run. Unfortunately, not only could he not find any sign of Kowalski but his nerves were beginning to get the better of him, and he was about to turn around and go back to get Skipper to help when he heard soft footsteps rapidly approaching from behind. He spun around and barfed up the roze flamethrower, ready to fry anyone who tried to attack him. But it was just a larger than average rat, which stuck out its tongue at him and scuttled through his legs. He pursued the rat for a few seconds, feeling like giving it a good kick until he heard some strange whispering noises coming from a dark corridor, followed door a chuckle. Forgetting the rat, Rico charged down the corridor and a few moments later he turned a corner and popped out in a room which was being bathed in light door several candles and flashlight. He immediately recognized it as the home pagina of Rodger the alligator.

But Rodger was not there. Instead, Kowalski and Private were sitting at a small little wooden table, talking to each other and giggling like children.

“Huh?” zei Rico loudly. Private and Kowalski spun around, startled, but when the saw it was Rico, they smiled and waved him over. Rico cautiously walked over to the tafel, tabel and sat down on a cinder block which was lying volgende to the table.

“Glad u could kom bij us, Rico” zei Kowalski, the entire left side of his face wrapped up in pieces of cloth. “Private and I were just discussing the free health care plan that the president was talking about.”

“Wha?” zei Rico.

“Rico, Kowalski never meant us any harm” zei Private. “He’s been going back and forth from our habitat so that he can get materials and inventions to help him build his own organ!”

Private pointed over to the corner of the room and sure enough, a large (for the penguins) wooden sat in the corner of the room against the wall. It was missing several parts but it was easily identifiable. Spare pieces of wood were lying around the chamber and were scattered across the floor, as well as the cloth covering for the small sofa Rodger had in his lair. It appeared that Kowalski had gotten the wood to build the organ door dismantling all the wooden things in the chamber and putting them back together to form an organ.

“Anyway, Private, I’m sorry I threw that beaker at you, the shock of getting acid splashed in my face sort of fired me up for a moment,” zei Kowalski. That phrase is one that anyone would expect to be dripping with sarcasm, but Kowalski seemed one hundred percent truthful and sincere about what he said.

Kowalski walked over to the organ after he was done apologizing. “It’s hard to play since I don’t have any fingers, but I bet I can still do something with this.”

Kowalski began to play the organ very badly. Rico was impressed that the organ worked as well as it did, but Kowalski’s playing left much to be desired, and the echoing effect of the noise certainly didn’t help. Kowalski spun around and stopped right as he saw Rico wince.

“Sorry about that, I’ve just been dying to practice that thing” he said.

Private applauded as if he was listening to a professional. When he was done, he zei “Well, why did u stop loving science and come down here then?”

“Funny story” zei Kowalski. “First of all, as incredible as it may seem, even I get tired of science. I felt that I needed a break from all my nonstop work and wanted something else to do until I got in the mood to do some meer science stuff. And when I went into town, well, I heard that brilliant performance on Broadway and just began to like music. So when Skipper didn’t like the idea, I came down here.”

“Well then why don’t u come back with us? I’m sure if we explain this all to Skipper, he’ll welcome u back” zei Private.

Kowalski didn’t look too sure, but he nodded. “Yes, that’s what I should do” he said. “Music alone is not worth ditching the best vrienden I have. Besides, I’m getting sort of in the mood for science again. Although I might come down here and play the organ again some time.”

Rico noticed a strange flicker in Kowalski’s eyes for a second, but decided that it was nothing. Private patted Kowalski on the back and gave him an encouraging smile. “That’s the spirit, old chum” he said. The three began to walk towards the nearest manhole.

But right as they were about to ascend the ladder, the manhole opened up and down jumped Skipper. He stared at Kowalski as though seeing an old enemy for the first time in years. Kowalski and the others backed up, but Skipper did a flip off the ladder and landed right in front of Kowalski.

“This madness ends now!” he said.