"So…that was a fairly interesting story," I commented, staring up at the still cloudless sky, watching the sun set. It had been an eventful day. "How those tribal lemurs defeated the vampires and all…"
After story time, Julien had gone around to chat with other animals present at the party and I couldn't get him to myself until 30 minutes later. We now sat at the lemur's little bar, drinking from our coconuts and raising our voices to hear each other over the music.
"Oh, it is not just a story," he said in what I couldn't be sure was a serious voice.
I blinked. "Oh…?" But he didn't answer. I decided to change the subject, tilting my stool back and forth. "It looks like the penguins never made it to your party…" Not that I cared whether they came or not, of course. I didn't care at all. Well, not much. Just a little bit. Or a big bit. Or a whole lot. Okay, I completely cared that they didn't come to Julien's party, all right? But that didn't mean anything. It's just that they act weird, and it seemed like they were the only zoo animals that didn't make it, so I could only imagine what they could be up to and why they didn't come.
"Oh, they never come," Julien said simply. "I never invite them."
I sipped at the coconut in my hands, listening intently. It wasn't long before I ran out of the sweet concoction.
"The lemurs and penguins do not like each other," he straight-out told me. "And anywho, the lead penguin is not fond of my parties and so does not allow the others to come. Even if they did come, their bloody fishy smell would just stink up the whole party! Eek!" He pinched his nose in an exaggerated manner.
I couldn't tell whether he meant it as a curse word when he said 'bloody', or whether he meant actual blood.
Julien chatted on, oblivious of my thoughts. "So I'm glad they do not come, and glad they do not wish to come, as all my parties are be better off without them. In fact, maybe the zoo would be better off without them!"
I frowned, not sure whether I agreed with his statement or not. Either way, I felt like defending the penguins. "Well, they area little bit rude and strange," I started. "But they watch over and protect the zoo from harm and…"
"No one likes them!"
He was practically yelling into my face by now, and I leaned backwards feeling startled. Apparently, I leaned too far back, because the next thing I know, my stool had toppled over backwards. Which of course, left me sprawled out on the ground. Why was I always such a derp?
Animals rushed over to help but I stayed silent, even when they asked me if I was okay. I was too busy reflecting upon what Julien had told me, contemplating it, wondering how much was true.
I was still quiet even after I was right side up again. As I watched the sun completely disappear below the skyscrapers, I couldn't help but sigh.
Sunny, friendly California sure was different from New York City.
The next day was yet another bright and sunny one. It was also boringly normal. I found myself wishing for the first few crazy days when I arrived at the zoo, but Julien had been working on his choreography dance moves and the penguins weren't even out and about. I always counted on them to turn my day upside down... but not today.
Besides, I really shouldn't have been surprised at the penguins not showing up. They stayed in their habitat all day, then came slinking out into the night. And it's not like I missed them... I just wished they'd come visit once in a while!
The day after that, I was going over to the badger habitat for a sleepover. I grabbed the things necessary for survival and ran over there after the zoo had closed.
"Ready for a super fun slumber party, cousin?" Becky squealed once I'd arrived and deposited my things in their cave.
"Super duper fun slumber party!" Stacy squealed.
"Super duper uber fun!" They cheered together.
"Yes!" I smiled. These badgers could be really crazy and girly, but also a whole ton of awesome. "That sounds…super!"
"Okay, what should we do first?" Stacy asked, tapping her paws together.
"I don't know, you decide!" Becky said, holding Stacy's paws so they wouldn't tap.
"No, you decide!"
"Why don't we let Marlene decide?"
"Hey, where is Marlene?"
"Hiya!" I popped up from behind them and swatted a blue pillow in both their faces.
"Pillow-fight!" They both yelled, and each grabbed a couple of pillows.
After our fight of pillows, we beaded random things with holes in them on string and gave our weird necklaces to each other, then painted our paw-nails. It was only when we were fooling around with their karaoke machine when Stacy got an idea.
"Ooh, Marlene! I've seen your guitar. Can you play?" She asked.
"My Spanish guitar, you mean? Well, yeah, I can play it a bit, but not very much," I replied, shrugging.
"OMG you should totally play for us!" Becky squealed. I saw those words coming a mile away.
"Oh, fine," I sighed. "But I didn't bring it here. It's back in my habitat––"
"Then go get it from your habitat!" Becky urged.
"Okay! Okay, I'll go," I said, starting to leave the cave. The two started to follow me. "You guys don't have to come. I'm sure I can make it there and back on my own."
"Okay, if you say so cousin," Stacy said.
"I say so!" I called back as I hopped over the brick wall. It was already dark outside, and a breeze whipped through my fur. I wrapped my arms around myself as I swiftly walked back to my home, looking left and right as the darkness filled me up with paranoia, making it feel like there were scary creatures of the night ready to pounce out of the shadows and attack me at any moment.
I was so caught up in swiveling my head around, looking for monsters hiding around the corner, that it completely startled me when I walked right into something hard and solid and cold. I jumped back in surprise as panic zapped through me, but then took a closer look. Oh phew. It was only my habitat's surrounding brick wall. "Haha, very scary, Marlene," I said to myself.
Inside the cave, I found my father already sleeping on his bed, a goofy smile on his face. I grinned and kissed him on the cheek. He mumbled something in his sleep. Then I searched around for my Spanish guitar in the dark, not wanting to disturb him by turning on the light. Once I found my guitar, I carefully strapped it behind my back, and started to head out of the cave, but stopped at the entrance. To my side, there was a jar about the size of my paw filled with glitter. I suddenly had an idea for another fun thing that me and the badgers could do at the sleepover: paste glitter onto our nails and necklaces. So I picked that jar up too and left my habitat.
Outside, the cold darkness enveloped me again. I walked slowly at first, but started to get nervous when I heard a rustling in a nearby bush. To make my suddenly active imagination quiet down, I tried to assure myself that whatever was rustling closer and closer had to be just as harmless at the brick wall I had smacked into.
Then, in my peripheral vision, I noticed a figure slowly climb out of the rustling bush. I almost stopped walking in shock. This figure was one of the horrible Vesuvius twins! What was he doing at the zoo at this time of night? This twin must have snuck in or hid in the zoo when it had closed, because no zoo keeper would allow anyone to stay overnight. But where was the other twin?
I started to walk briskly to my destination, guitar thumping against my back, looking straight ahead, trying to ignore him. If I ignored him, maybe the twin wouldn't notice me, or if he did, he would dismiss me as a harmless zoo animal and walk away. So I tried to keep myself calm and casual, like I hadn't seen him emerge from the bushes.
It didn't work.
I realized this when I heard the soft pattering of feet trying to keep up but stay behind me, yet attempting to be as quiet as possible while doing so. I could imagine the sneer on his face while he did this, preparing to attack and torment me. Why did I think that being calm and casual would work? It never does! I was still an otter with a guitar on her back and a jar of glitter in her paw. Very conspicuous, even in just the dim glow of zoo lights. Still, I tried to stay serene on the outside even though I was freaking out on the inside. It's not every day you have a stalking kid on your tail. Hopefully I would make it back to the badger habitat before he tried to do something to me. I could probably get back…
Spoke too soon. My question of where the other twin was was suddenly answered. As I rounded a brick corner, the second vicious twin was there to meet me, his hands curled like claws. They both started to cackle as they looked at me like I was a piece of meat. I looked back and forth between them. Darn it. I would never make it back now, even though I could see the badger's habitat from here, near the zoo offices. The Vesuvius twins were gonna to torture me, I was sure of it.
But of course, I wasn't just going to act like a helpless damsel and just let them do whatever they wanted to do with me. As they both sprang at me at the same time, I pounced away, feeling the adrenaline starting to flow. They both reached for me again, and I swatted one hand away. Another hand snatched me up right after, before I had time to smack it away too. "Leave me alone!" I yelled, but I knew all they heard was the sounds an otter made. Now they had me in their grasp, or at least one of them did. I was feeling very desperate by now, and tried to squiggle out of the twin's grip. My jar of glitter had dropped and spilled on the ground, but at least I still had a hold on my Spanish guitar.
"Look at the expression on its face!" The one holding me snickered. I guessed I must've looked terrified. "What should we do with it?"
"Throw it to me." The other ordered. "I wanna squeeze it."
Oh snap. I whirled through the air as the first twin obeyed, yelling nonsense on the way. This was it. I closed my eyes. I was going to be squeezed to death, as it seemed. My life was over. My eyeballs would pop out of my head, my internals gone external. Say goodbye to my family and friends –
I never made it into the other twin's hand.
Because suddenly, my flight direction knocked off course and I was flying off to the side instead of straight ahead, with something thin and cold wrapped around my waist. I opened my eyes to see what had happened. Guess who had jumped out of nowhere to push me away from the twins? "Skipper?" I said as we bounced off a zoo office window with a loud thump and landed on the ground below.
He said nothing and put his flipper to his beak. "Shhh!" So I remained silent as several events started taking place before me.
The loud thump on the zoo window had attracted Alice, who was in the office, to open it and look outside. "Hey, who's out there?" She yelled. Then she spotted the Vesuvius twins, frozen in shock. "You kids? What are you still doing here?"
She stormed out of the office and grabbed the twins by their shirts, dragging them into the office. Skipper and I hid in the shadows. "I'm gonna call your parents! Your stupid lawyers can't get you out of sneaking into the zoo this time! Ha!" The door slammed loudly behind her.
The zoo night was silent again. No more hiding humans or monsters, just me and –
"Did you seriously need me to get you out of trouble again?" Skipper exclaimed.
I pouted, searching for bruises. I had several. Ouch. "I could have taken care of myself just fine without your help, thank you very much." I gave him one final glance before picking up my glitter jar and walking to the badger habitat. Again.
"Is that all you have to say?" He was suddenly walking right beside me, his blue eyes glittering.
"No. It is not," I said, even though I didn't feel like talking to him anymore. I narrowed my eyes. "I want to ask how the heck you knew where I was so fast, and how you got to where I was so fast?"
"Well, it's a small zoo, and I was on recon duty," he said. "I happened to spot trouble with you and the Vesuvius twins, so I came in to help. That's what us penguins do."
Good answers. Yet it still felt suspicious… I groaned.
He suddenly became concerned. "You okay? That must have been a frightening experience, as all encounters with the Vesuvius family usually are."
I didn't say anything, but he had caught my eye and we looked at each other for a second too long. I looked away and blushed.
We neared the badger habitat where the two sisters started looking back and forth between us in curiosity as they sat on their brick wall.
"Hey, what happened?" Stacy asked, jumping over the wall with Becky.
"Some things happened on my way back, and Skipper, er, saved me," I said.
"Care to tell us?" Becky asked excitedly.
"Um…"
"Sorry girls, but I'm walking Marlene home now. She's been through a lot and I'm sure she doesn't feel like tell you two what happened."
I looked at Skipper in surprise and annoyance. "Hey, I'm fine," I said.
"Yeah, she seems fine," Stacy said, taking the glitter jar from me.
But Skipper was firm. "No, you're coming with me." He started to head out with me in tow. I tried to resist but then realized that what he'd said was true. I didn't want to tell the badgers what had happened, and feeling weak, I wanted to end the sleepover and go home. So I told the badgers to keep the glitter and walked with Skipper all the way back to the otter habitat, my Spanish guitar softly thudding against my back, the rhythm making me sleepy and happy at the same time.
Ducky: And that, fellow readers, is why you never walk home alone without a sharp object.
Eppy: Or pepper spray. Though that may be too violent... You saw what we did though, right?
Ducky: You... you HAVE been paying attention, right?
Eppy: BECAUSE. That part where Marlene gets jumped by the Vesuvius twins is the same as that part in the Twilight book when, um...
Ducky: Where, uh, the mean people are stalking Bella and... Go ask your parents.
Eppy: Yeah. As people who have read Twilight might have seen, we've taken scenes from the book and have PoMified them the best we can.
Ducky: Which has actually gone pretty well so far!
Eppy: We will be doing the whole fanfic and possibly series like that. Also, some of you have said in your reviews that although you have never read Twilight, you are enjoying this fanfic. Well, I tell you, you should go read Twilight! It is ten times better than this story where we don't even know where we're going with...
Ducky: Aw, who cares? This is the era of vampires, Eppy! As long as you have a story containing vampires and/or werewolves, you're set for life! According to Stephenie Meyer, anyway...
Eppy: *rolls eyes* Just sayin. It's been a while since I read the Twilight series... well, I hope you guys review!
Ducky: Yeah! Otherwise you'd hurt our feelings... Well, happy new year to all, and to all a good night! Afternoon... whatever...
