"Octonauts!" Captain Barnacles shrieked. "TO YOUR STATIONS! NOW!"
The captain's dulcet tones echoed out of speakers throughout the Octopod, including the room of Kwazii. He lifted his sleeping mask to glare at the comm-screen. Barnacles (why did his parents give him such a terrible name?) glared with his empty black eyes at Kwazii.
"Shiver me fifth whisker," Kwazii sighed in bed. He tightened his eye-patch and placed his sleeping mask back over it and his other good eye. "Not again . . ."
"I heard you, KWAZII," Barnacles rumbled. "I see all, I know ALL . . ."
Meanwhile, Peso snatched up his medical bag. He had been in the infirmary half the night counting his numerous bandages and checking Amazon on his computer for the best deals on more bandages. He slid down the tube to the HQ, tripped over Tunip (a contraction of tuna and turnip, is my best guess), and flipped into position next to Barnacles. He miraculously landed on his stumpy webbed feet. If he hadn't, he wasn't sure any number of bandages would have fixed him up.
Dashi was still in her bedroom looking for her camera. She swore it had sprouted legs and ran away.
"Can't do my job if I can't take those sneaky pictures!" she said. Whatever that meant.
She shrugged and made her way to HQ.
Shellington dragged himself out of bed and slid down the tube to HQ. His thoughts swirled from a dream about giant clams twirling and singing, behavior he had never seen exhibited in clams but which he intended to investigate. Just as soon as they dealt with whatever the captain was screaming about.
Inkling, on the other tentacle, was still fast asleep. At night he plugged his ears or whatever he used to hear to avoid Barnacles' midnight dramas.
Tweak leaned against the console munching on her five-hundredth crunchy carrot. She needed the sugar to stay up late making the GUP 5000.
Barnacles swept his burning black gaze around his crew and stomped his boot.
"Peso!" he snapped. "Go get Kwazii! This is too important to ignore a direct order!" He jabbed a finger at Tunip. "Get the Professor, even though he'll probably provide no insight whatsoever! I'll teach him to ignore ME . . . "
"Geeee-sss Capiin!" Tunip squealed, zooming into one of the tubes like a flying Twinkie.
"Are you sure, Captain?" Peso said, tapping his flippers together. His whole body shook. "Kwazii has had a bad case of Krazy Kitten and I'm not sure––"
"You question ME?!" Barnacles roared, waving his cute paws in an attempt at a threatening display.
"No sir! Of course not sir!" Peso said. He never had the guts to stand up to anyone. He left to get Kwazii.
As Barnacles contemplated how to deal with his mutinous crew members, Peso popped out of Kwazii's entry hatch thing in his room. There was no privacy on the Octopod, apparently. Peso stared at the lump on the bed, eyes wide, beak clicking uncontrollably, and his body wobbling like Jell-O. Krazy. Krazy. Krazy. He might very well die that day, and it would all be Barnacles' fault.
In a flash Kwazii sat up. Instead of eyes there were beams of light popping out of Kwazii's face! Peso screamed and ran into a wall, fell back, scrambled across the floor runner, and curled up in a corner weeping for his dear, cowardly life.
"Aye! What's this then?" Kwazii demanded, lifting his sleeping mask. Peso stared some more with his soulless black eyes. The mask had merely been decorated with beams of light. "A penguin. A penguin! I don't know any penguins!"
The Krazy was worse than Peso thought. Still, he had his orders. Peso jumped to his flippers.
"Captain Barnacles' needs you right away!" he cried.
"Barnacles can go eat a petunia on a log of spiders," Kwazii said. He scratched his head. "And tell 'im a seaweed can surf up a line of ants reading rocks."
Kwazii sighed and fell back into bed, fast asleep. There was no doing it, unless . . . Peso prayed to the bandage gods that Kwazii wouldn't wake up and maul him to death. He hauled the slumbering cat over his shoulders and jumped down the hatch to HQ.
Tunip waddled rapidly on his flipper feet things to the library, squeaking incoherently to himself. He noticed an echo of his voice and with a smile made a louder squeak. The echo intensified. Tunip twirled and started screaming random phrases at the books he passed, his ear-drums vibrating happily to the sound of his own voice. Life was perfect when you could get away with being obnoxious!
With a chirp he located the Professor slumbering on his green lounge chair. The poor piece of furniture was stained and damp from the octopus's slime over the years, and stank like a dead beached whale. Two huge yellow pieces of foam stuck out the sides of Inkling's malleable head.
"Iiiink! Iiiink!" Tunip said. He hopped onto an arm rest and ripped the foam out of Inkling's head. The Professor awoke with a scream and his head deflated like popped beach ball.
"Tunip!" Inkling garbled. "What have you DONE?!"
"Aaaaaaghoghaoweirhgawpoiehgpoaihg!" Tunip said, running in circles with his stem flopping back and forth. It needed a trim.
"I neaadsf a d;o vvvvv," Inkling gasped. "Jaaauuuug? Bbbbbb . . . "
Tunip wrapped the flaccid head in Inkling's tentacles and rushed him out of the room.
Barnacles stomped his foot, knee sending a jolt of pain. He needed to start using his other leg to get his way. A comatose Kwazii lay on his right, with a trembling Peso next to him. Tunip rushed into HQ and laid the Professor on the floor, garbling with obvious distress. Good, everyone was FINALLY here.
"That only took an hour," Barnacles said loudly.
"Iiiink! Iiink!" Tunip tried to indicate, jabbing a flipper towards the octo-invalid on the floor.
"Quiet, Tunip," Shellington said. "Listen to the Captain!"
"Octonauts!" Barnacles began. "There's a sea creature in need of our help!" He pressed a button to bring up the main display. "There's a poor piece of fungus stuck in that whirlpool!"
Everyone that was awake squinted at the screen. All they saw was a swirling area of water with some fish stuck in it.
"Do you mean those fish?" Shellington said.
"No, it's fungus," Barnacles snapped, turning up his nose at the otter. "Fungus is way more important than a few stupid fish."
Dashi pressed a button that highlighted bio-signs.
"Captain, I believe you mean a piece of algae," she said. She used her professional tone to hide the are-you-serious? from her voice.
The camera zoomed into the pool. Sure enough was a little patch of sea slime twirling merrily around and around.
"Captain, I believe the sea algae will be fine," Shellington said, the only one besides a coherent Kwazii with the guts to stand up to Barnacles' insane ventures. "They deal with massive sea currents all the time. But those poor fish will exhaust thems––"
"There will be NO mutiny aboard this ship!" Barnacles snarled. "We'll save that slime even if we must destroy ourselves doing so! It is priority one! First!"
Everyone groaned. Barnacles felt a conniption coming on. Suddenly Kwazii jumped to his feet, ripping his sleeping mask off.
"Ahoy, full sails ahead!" he cried. "We'll save her, Cap! And I'll show that whirlpool a piece of my left paw! YEEE-OWW!"
Kwazii didn't move anywhere after his battle-cry, simply stood there glaring at Barnacles. Peso edged towards the console. Maybe if he was quick enough he could hide under it and no one would notice!
Dashi moved the Octopod camera around and saw her massive camera twirling in the whirlpool, covered in algae no less.
"It STOLE my camera!" she screamed, losing all professionalism. She yanked on her ears and spit flew from her mouth. "The algae stole it!"
She set the Octopod on auto-pilot to the whirlpool at full-speed. The movement jerked everyone off their feet, and poor Inkling slid across the floor, leaving a trail of slime. Barnacles stepped in it and did three backward somersaults before landing on his bottom. Kwazii stumbled after the captain, still giving the captain a look that would make Death quake in his little death-shoes. Peso huddled under the console, face soaked with tears of terror. Tunip tumbled into an Octohatch, and it automatically opened and sucked him up to the garden. Tweak hung onto the console calmly munching another carrot.
The Octopod flew into the whirlpool. The water flung the ship around and around. It had a mirror effect on everyone's stomachs.
"Must––save––algae!" Barnacles grunted, using his claws to crawl to Dashi. She stood rigid at the controls, eyes lit with fires of rage!
"A net-full of eels this is!" Kwazii commented as he flew into a wall. "I'll drag flour into three scissors and make a coupon!"
Shellington passed out, and Peso yanked him under the console. Yay, one bravery point for Peso.
Dashi flipped open a hidden latch and pulled up a control stick.
"Fire at will!" she declared. She slammed her thumb on the button. A searing laser beam shot from one eye of the Octopod at the tiny patch of algae. The microscopic plants didn't stand a chance. Of course, she destroyed her camera and its 1000+ pictures in the process. Woo-hoo!
After three hours the whirlpool stopped and the Octonauts were able to escape. Everyone except for Tweak laid on the floor groaning and regaining control of their stomachs. She pulled her last carrot from her utility belt.
"That took longer than you can say a bunch of––"
"DON'T," Barnacles growled.
"Slapping a coral with a wet towel," Kwazii added, fitting his sleeping mask on.
Peso had wept himself to sleep. Shellington got to his feet.
"I'll see if those fish are okay," he moaned. "I seem to be the only sane one around here . . ."
He walked past the deflated Professor and went down the Octohatch, and everyone else took a nap in HQ. The End.