The group was still travelling when the city awoke. People seemed to come right out of the walls and join them on the streets, cars blared horns at one another; roads quickly became crowded. They'd only gotten a few blocks before the troupe came to an agreement; they did actually need sleep, and that maybe they should find a hotel. While the penguins had been up keeping surveillance on Sesi, Sesi had been up forming her escape (and post-escape) plan. While the two had been doing this, Julien had been keeping up Marlene with his bragging, Maurice and Mort in tow. Essentially, none of them had gotten a wink since the night before last.
It wasn't really hard to find a hotel; New York was a huge tourist trap, really, there had to be a surplus of them. Skipper could see this being a good thing, in any case however. It'd give them a much-needed structure; they could rest during the day, and travel by night, when they were much less likely to be spotted. This manner could also prove more efficient, as the streets were nearly empty at night, and in the day crowded beyond belief. If the leader penguin could avoid the pushy nature of his fellow New Yorkers that he'd had the displeasure of observing at the zoo, and somewhat now, then any plan was a good one.
It wasn't exactly a fancy place they'd found; they'd have to keep a budget after all. Getting checked in was easy enough, the attendant needn't their information, and they had no luggage to speak of besides what everyone could carry on their person. Granted, this did make the front-desk girl fairly suspicious, as she eyed them over, the whole lot of them; only two women among five men, two… possibly, children (one of them looked a little odd to her, but whatever. She's seen stranger), but neither of the girls seemed old enough to be their mothers, nor did they hold any resemblance. All they carried was left in the hands of two of the taller of the men. One, held an mp3player, though it was buried in one of his pockets along with his hand and a deck of cards (to pass the time). The other had a clipboard, notepad, and- oh god- a camera? He'd explained, "For research". Sure, buddy.
"Thank you,… and please, keep the noise down." The attendant reminded, after the group had begun towards their own rooms. It wasn't the first time men and women had come to their hotel with a camera prepped, and it probably wouldn't be the last. The slim, blonde breathed a heavy sigh before returning to her work,… which was really just playing solitaire on the computer. 'Some people…'
"I'm bunking with Sesi. Ladies first, boys." Marlene called before any else could. No way did she want to spend the night in bed with any of the guys, she nearly squirmed at the idea of having to share; Mort would probably be trying to grope at her feet all night. Julien is just obnoxious, not only that but she could see him being the active-sleeping type. He'd probably kick her out of the bed without even realizing it. Rico… it wouldn't be her feet he'd be trying to grope. Skipper,… no, it'd be too awkward… Private would have probably been the only one she could stand, but then where would that leave Sesi? She was brought out of her thoughts when mentioned she-wolf smiled a thank you at her. This'd reserve them a bed to themselves, Sesi had immediately noted, and was fairly grateful for it.
"Very well. Everyone else, find out who you're going to stay with." Skipper decided shortly before continuing. "As for me, I'll go ahead and take the liberty of reserving the single room for myself." There were five beds to speak of. Two of the three rooms were double-bed, whilst the third, apparently Skipper's, was singular. Surprisingly, however, Julien didn't argue this point, but had instead deemed Maurice his bunk mate for the night. Skipper, needless to say, found this odd, but he wasn't going to complain if for once the deluded lemur king wasn't trying to somehow screw him over.
In the end, Kowalski and Rico would end up sharing another one of the beds; it was standard during their operations to have to sleep in close proximity with one another so they'd never really seen a problem with it. Private, too polite to speak up, had ended up instead with Mort much to his dismay. He'd kept his composure though. He didn't really mind the small lemur, but he'd rather not have to be in this position. When it came time to decide the rooms, Julien had, beyond anyone's intuition had chosen the room in which the girls would stay. This, of course, was a thing called sarcasm I had just used, so in all reality, everyone saw it coming. Sesi had no argument against it though; if he stayed over in his bed then everything would be fine.
It was about twenty minutes in, after they'd all gotten settled; Marlene had the t.v flipped over to the news. It was one on the very short list of channels the hotel had, and it happened to be a segment on them! Apparently, several of the animals have obviously escaped (once more) from the facility and the authorities are to be kept on a tight watch for the missing animals, a dangerous arctic wolf amongst them. The zoo is being placed under a strict inspection to ensure this doesn't happen again… well, that could be a bit of a problem. Marlene decided they could worry about it tomorrow though, seeing as Skipper hadn't yet come over to discuss the situation with them, and she rather enjoyed the peace of not being barged in on.
It was about another ten minutes before the four animals agreed they weren't going to be able to sleep anytime soon. Their diurnal circadian rhythms had yet to catch up to their new human nature, in which they could sleep in either the a.m. or p.m. so until the next nighttime, they would remain awake. To pass the time, Julien had come up with a brilliant plan. He'd removed himself from the floor in which they were sitting to play cards and went over to the hotel-provided phone, looking over the tab of numbers left beside it; he punched in the number to the front desk.
"What are you doing?" Sesi inquired, more curious than skeptical. Who did the lemur possibly have to call at a time like this? Obviously he wouldn't know any humans, and animals; they weren't even sure if they could understand fellow animals anymore. The others gave him a quizzical glance, eyes momentarily pried from their game, as Julien brought a finger to his lips, shh'sng her as he began to speak.
"Hi, can you being patching me through to a Mr. Skipper?" He asked into the phone. The front desk? Couldn't he just go over to Skipper's room if he wanted to talk to the penguin? Sesi was the next to remove herself from her seat on the floor going to stand by the tallest of the four, the other two following behind quickly. She heard what likely, was the attendant they'd met earlier, but what she'd said, exactly, Sesi couldn't make out. Curse these weak human ears!
"Yes, room I14. Thanks to you." He said finally. He pushed a button on the phone's stand and suddenly they could hear the other side of the phone's conversation very well.
"Patching you through now, sir." Yes, it was indeed the slim blonde they'd met at the desk just about a half hour ago, and then suddenly the other side of the call was ringing, and Julien couldn't suppress a laugh at the stupidity he was about to commit. The other three were passing sideways glances at each other at again, the implied stupidity the ex-lemur was about to commit, and then the line picked up.
"…Hello?" said a rather confused sounding Skipper into the phone. Who would possibly be calling him here? 'Unless we've been found', and suddenly the leader penguin's palms started to feel a tad sweaty. Julien had to cut a giggle before it left him, this was going to be great.
"Hello, sir?" Julien echoed quickly, in a, what Sesi would have considered an impossibly high-pitched voice for the lemur king, (but apparently wasn't), sounding quite effectively… unlike himself. Suddenly, the other three knew just what he was up to and had to suppress a laugh, even Maurice was finding it difficult as his leader continued in his ridiculous ruse.
"It's Becky from the front desk; we're getting some reports of noise coming from your room? You understand we have a policy, yes?" Marlene had to throw her hands over her mouth to contain her laughs. It wasn't even the fact they were tricking Skipper that was so funny, Julien's imitation was priceless. Who knew?
"Okay. I didn't realize I was making noise." He'd said almost tiredly. Sesi could only imagine the eldest penguin had actually managed to get to sleep… and they'd woken him for a prank call. She'd be so angry if it'd happened to her… but man was this was worth it.
"Well just make sure to keep it down, okay sir? Thanks." This was the last thing Julien said before he'd hung up the phone, and the whole room burst into laughter. They quickly had to remind themselves, however, that their prank victim was just a mere two doors down so they needed to be quiet. Unfortunately, the noise had reached the room over, and they soon found a curious private poking his head in from the door adjoining their rooms.
"What's goin' on in here?" He asked, though he didn't seem annoyed; he, in all reality, was just curious about the laughter and what was so funny. He'd once gone through a terrible trial of slaying a "haunted" bus once just to get a good laugh out of a joke (that in the end he wouldn't understand). He didn't plan on being left out of the loop here, he wanted to laugh too!
Marlene waved him on in, and behind him as he did so, suddenly appeared the rest of the penguin squad and Mort. Apparently, private hadn't been the only one wondering what was going on over in their room. "Couldn't sleep?" she presumed, to which she received a quartet of nods. "Us either, we… thought of something to pass the time though." She didn't hold back a quiet laugh as Maurice explained what they were doing. It earned a few guffaws here or there from the penguins, so Sesi guessed they were now in on the joke too.
They waited about a good fifteen to twenty minutes, returning to their cards in the meantime… though they had a bit more people than was traditional; so in the end they settled for just playing a severely botched game of blackjack. Quick and easy, the game was, so everyone'd get a chance to play. Once they were done with this, they decided it was time to call the leader penguin back.
"Shh! Shut up, everyone!" Julien had to remind the others as the front-desk girl patched them through once more. If Skipper heard their laughing the jig would be up, and what fun would that be? Not very much. They could hear the phone ringing from Skipper's room, before they heard it pick up once more.
"Hello." Skipper answered shortly, sounding much more exasperated then the last time they'd called him, but still equally as tired. He must've fallen back asleep in that time that they'd been playing cards. Oh man, they were going to get in so much trouble for this, the penguins collectively thought to themselves for a moment before Julien began –
"Hello sir!?" He'd start in with his mimicking of the blonde from just a floor down, and suddenly private had to find himself a pillow to squeal his laughs into, Rico giving a windy cackle in the back; hopefully far enough to where he wouldn't be heard. Kowalski was already fairly entertained just by Julien's voice, but hadn't gone to hysterical laughter yet.
"Sir, I'm getting more complaints about noise?! Did you not understand when I said we have a policy?! You need to keep. The. Noise. Down!" Julien continued, his imitation becoming just as exasperated as Skipper seemed to be. He continued, "If you do not stop I will be forced to call security and have you removed! Do you understand?" Ahh, nothing beats the messing with of close friends…
"…Okay…" Skipper replied finally, sounding almost concerned by this point. Neither he, nor the others as far as he was aware, were making any noise… "Are you sure you have the right room, miss?"
"Is this I16?" Julien replied quickly, answer already prepared from the time he'd taken off from Blackjack. Of course he wasn't going to leave it with just one call, he had to be prepping for another! This thought had indeed crossed his mind while he'd thought it over.
"Yes…" The leader penguin admitted warily into the phone, before Julien would indeed confirm.
"We have the right room then. Just keep, the noise down. Okay, sir?" He dropped his tone, but he wasn't exactly finished yet…
"Sure…"
And just before Julien hung back up, nor their victim had the chance to register what was happening yet, just to twist the dagger, the ex-lemur reeled the device away from his mouth. He continued quietly, but enough to be clearly heard on the other side of the call, "Mister Blowhole, we've located the room." And then he hung the phone back up as quickly as possible. Julien had met the bottlenose before, and knew just how high up on the penguins' 'wanted' list he was. If anything were to throw Skipper into a tizzy, this would be it.
The other three of the squad looked dazed for a moment before they realized the sheer genius of the lemur's plan, a rarity in and of itself, and began into a hysterical fit of laughter, Kowalski included. The rest followed suit quickly. They didn't care anymore if Skipper would hear them, they could just play it off as if someone had told some beyond hilarious joke… one that had absolutely nothing to do with him, who didn't even waste a minute hauling himself out of bed and pounding on their door; judging by their laughs they all had to be there.
Sesi managed to quiet them all before she removed herself from a seat on one of the beds to go answer the door. She creaked the door open, as if she'd had no idea they'd be expecting a visitor; meanwhile Julien was quickly gathering his cards. They'd have to be leaving very soon after all.
"They're onto us, we have to go."
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Whoo boy, isn't Skipper gonna be mad once he figures this whole thing out? This probably isn't even the worst of it yet, mind you, (I really should have added humor as a category instead).
So this scene was inspired by a comedy segment I saw a couple weeks back on YouTube, by Gabriel Iglesias. If you look up 'Gabriel Iglesias – Hotel', (it'll be the one with Philipe and Mando), you should be able to find it pretty easily. Trust me it's hilarious.
Also a thanks to all those who've taken the time to write reviews! ^_^ You guys make my day!
