Welcome to chapter 1 of "In Our World: Book 3". As in my previous stories, the rules listed on my bio apply. So let's get started, shall we?

CHAPTER 1 – A Needed Vacation

It had been about a year since Blowhole and everyone had come here and they were discovered and the wedding. In that timeframe, it'd been nothing but chaos here. Every single person kept asking me to meet all the characters and it took forever to deny them that.

After the first month, the people I followed on social media stopped asking me questions all the time, so I'd been able to go back to doing that, even though I had to privatize my accounts. What hadn't stopped were the interviews. Literally every talk show in the morning, the evening, and late night television was asking me to come on, to say nothing of news organizations. Whenever I thought it was finally slowing down, it immediately rose back up.

"Don't forget your next interview is in an hour," my mom said as I walked towards the door. "I haven't forgot," I said, in my suit, ready for the interview. "I'm glad at least you guys have stopped asking me about meeting them," I said to her, as I closed the door behind me.

In the car, I still couldn't return to listening to podcasts or music without putting my phone into airplane mode. I was still getting thousands of emails a day. Boy, was I getting tired of this.

I arrived at the news station in San Francisco, where my interview was. I naturally had to take my car, because whenever I took BART or other means, it'd be non-stop questions from total strangers. *

It was time for the interview. I greeted my interviewer, who said we'd be taking questions from the Internet. I agreed to that, yet we had to ignore questions about Can we meet the characters and the like.

"Welcome back everyone. Next up is a special guest who a year ago changed our understanding of the fourth wall, Matthew [last name withheld]," my interviewer said. ** "Hello. It's great to be here," I said, speaking to him and the camera. "Now, this happened nearly a year ago, yet it's still one of the biggest topics. We'll be taking some questions from the people watching this at home," the interviewer said.

Almost immediately, Tweets and Facebook posts started hitting the computer on the table. "It seems people really are still interested in this," I said. "Yes, they certainly appear to be. Let's answer this question first," the interviewer said, pointing to one. Have you talked to your friends in the past year?, the question asked.

"Actually, I have a few times, but in the last few months it's been quiet," I answered. "Knowing them, they're probably doing something important back in their dimension," I said.

Another question appeared, saying You said you were a Penguin when you traveled there. How is that possible? I answered the question with, "Well, honestly I don't know. But that picture on your screen of the six of us proves that I was. Even Kowalski, who usually knows the answers to such things, was stumped."

After about 45 minutes, including commercials, the final question appeared. Why did you sue the company that owned the show? "I sued them because I had to get control of their lives away from them. Who knows what could have happened? They could have broken up Skipper and Marlene or worse. That lawsuit was hard, but as you all know, I won it," I said.

"How did you win it?" my interviewer asked. "I think it may have been nearly calling all five of them in as witnesses. At that point, I think the company sided with me," I answered.

"Well, that's it for today folks," the interviewer said, wrapping up the show. "We're clear!" one of the crew working said after the camera stopped filming. "Thanks for the interview," my interviewer said. "It's no trouble," I said and headed back to the car to go home.

"I am getting tired of these interviews and questions. What I need is a vacation," I thought to myself while driving home. "There's nowhere I can go on this Earth without questions being asked, though," I thought. I then realized I could ask the five if I could come visit them when I got home.

When I got home, it was just myself again, like it had been all that time ago. I got into normal clothes out of the suit. The only suit I had liked was the natural one I had while I had been a Penguin.

I dug around my closet, looking for the Universal Walkie Talkie. I found it, and remembering Skipper had said to call first, I pressed the calling button. After a few seconds, I got a beep, which sounded like voicemail.

"Hello, is anyone there?" I asked. Suddenly someone picked up the other Walkie Talkie. "Which one of Kowalski's inventions are you?" I heard an unfamiliar male voice ask me. "There is actually someone on the other end of this phone, you know," I said. "The only phones I know of are the ones my parents and their friends have, along with the humans," the voice responded.

"What are you doing Sam?" I heard a female voice in the background say. "Quiet Anna, I'm trying to figure out what this is," Sam said. "You know Mom and Dad said to never touch Kowalski's inventions. Besides, they left me in charge because I'm older so I'm ordering you to put that down," Anna said.

"You're only a few minutes older than me," I heard Sam say. "Yes, but that gives me an advantage over you, so I'm still ordering you to put that invention down," I heard Anna say. "What are you two doing?" I heard Skipper say. I guessed that he walked into the lab over there.

"This device started speaking to me, so I started talking back," Sam said. "Let me have it. It's only the Universal Walkie Talkie. I guess we forgot to tell you about this invention. Now go help your mother clean up," Skipper said.

"Hi, Skipper," I said through the phone still. "Well, hello, Matthew. Why are you calling today?" Skipper asked. "I need a vacation. Ever since last year, everyone has been asking me to meet you all. There's nowhere here I can go without questions," I explained.

"Well, then it's time for a vacation I guess. Give us a few minutes so we can put you into the system. When you see a portal, that's the time to come," Skipper said. "Thanks," I said. "No problem. Sorry about those two, they're both a blessing and a curse," Skipper said and then hung up the phone.

"I wonder what he meant by that," I thought. Guessing that I would probably find out soon, I shrugged it off for a few minutes. While I waited for the portal to appear, I wrote my family a note saying that I was going on vacation and should be back in a few weeks.

I grabbed the stuff I would probably need, such as my wallet and phone. A portal appeared outside, so I headed out. I jumped through the portal and was being changed into a Penguin. "This is still weird," I thought to myself. Up ahead, I could see another Portal leading into the HQ and headed towards it.

That's it for chapter 1. Please rate and review. Time for notes.

* Sorry if it sounds like I'm being negative. But wouldn't you be, too?

** I'd put a name of a famous TV interview person, but due to the rules on the site, I cannot. Also, yeah, not revealing my last name.