CHAPTER 10
HEAD OVER HEELS
The leader was about to leave the place, his mind already racing through any possible plan of attack, when Maurice hugged him. "Thank you."
A look of great relief washed upon the older lemur's face, and Skipper returned the smile.
"Say, you still have that paper?"
"Sorry?"
"The invitation Ringtail got before he went there for the first time."
"Sure, we keep it back in our habitat. Since Julien is with Clemson it doesn't seem he needs to take it along anymore each time he goes there." Maurice went to get it for him. As Skipper had hoped it would, the blue maple leaf was still attached to it.
"It's that leaf I need," he explained, "Phil said it worked as a pass. If I take this with me, I can make them believe I was a zoo king and get in there unnoticed."
Maurice nodded. "So that's your plan. – Say, shouldn't I come along and help you?"
"Uh… no thanks, I think I better go about this without any civilians."
And generally without anyone else, he decided while belly-sliding back to the penguin HQ. For some reason he didn't want his team involved in this, least of all Private.
This time he would fly solo.
It would be tough but he'd had worse; this was Hoboken and not Denmark, so he was convinced that even without his team there was a chance for victory.
Back at the HQ Skipper's men were going about their evening routines: Private was watching the Lunacorns on TV, Rico was fixing the car and Kowalski was in his lab experimenting. Skipper took the elevator to one of the classified sub-levels of the HQ where he kept his disguises.
He would trick Clemson at his own game: when the red lemur had visited them he had acted to be someone else, something other than he truly was. Now, it was time to turn the tables.
He got in front of the mirror and skipped his disguise files.
How would he go about this?
He looked at himself in the mirror and then started brushing his black forehead feathers back. He curled the ends up a bit, giving himself a look both handsome and boyish. Then he put on his bowler hat with a green band and completed the contrast with little kid accessories from the Zoo's lost-and-found office. He finished the disguise with his never-failing fake mustache. A tiny smile formed at the corners of his beak: he looked just perfect. He wasn't Skipper anymore; he was now wealthy industrialist Lincoln Douglas, a naïve, spoiled young new-rich.
Just then he heard the elevator go, and a small familiar shadow fell upon him from behind.
"Skipper, I brought you some coffee because you didn't have any this morning. I thought… – Oh, who are you, Sir?!"
Private was so surprised he almost dropped the mug he was carrying. However, he just managed to catch himself and put it down before he got in fighting position. "These are our skipper's private quarters! However you got here, stranger, you certainly have no permission to be here!"
"At ease, lad." Skipper laughed and removed the mustache.
"Oh Skipper, it's you…!" The youngest penguin stared at him with beak agape. "But why are you in disguise? Are we going on a mission?"
"Not us." He hadn't really thought about how much he would tell his team about it but now it was too late to do so anyway. "I'm going. Solo."
"Oh… okay." Private followed his leader as he waddled back to the elevator. "So where are you going then?"
"Sorry, that's classified."
"But it's… it's not Hoboken, right, Skipper?"
"I said classified, Private."
"But Skipper!" No matter how hard he tried, Private would always feel if he tried to keep a secret from him. The little one hopped up and down in front of him, frantically waving his flippers as if this could change his leader's mind.
"No buts, Private. You do know that on the rarest of occasions there are missions requiring that I go solo, and this is one of them."
"But it's Hoboken. Remember? Hoboken! – If you have to go there at all, at least take us along!"
Alarmed by the youngest one's panicky voice, the rest of the team quickly came to join them.
"Do you really have to go?" Kowalski asked with concern, and Rico looked even more worried than him.
I wish I didn't –
"Yeah, I gave my word. There's no going back now."
"But what do you want there?!"
Save a poor fool of a lemur from this devilishly dangerous place –
"Er… It's Hans. I really need to settle my old feud with that demented Dane once and for all!"
Kowalski raised an eyebrow.
"So… considering all the secrets you keep about your Denmark adventure, I guess you don't want the three of us to come along, right?"
"You're batting a thousand, Kowalski."
His men looked at him in worried silence. Skipper hated to see them like this and even more, he hated lying to them, but this time he had no choice. He was sure that after their conversation with Maurice, Kowalski and Rico were guessing what was really behind this but he prayed that for Private's sake they would keep quiet about it.
"Is there… anything you need?" his second-in-command asked hesitatingly.
"All I need from here is an alias which I just got from Level 11 and a nice cup of fishy cappuccino before I leave, which Private just brought me. Thanks, Private."
"You're welcome," the young one mumbled, putting the tips of his flippers together and casting his worried eyes to the ground.
"Oh, and a pack of gumball explosives."
Kowalski hurried to waddle back into his lab and get his leader a pack of them.
"Thanks; that should be enough to do the trick."
Skipper confidently walked past his men still standing in line in silent concern.
"Call if you need anything, okay?" Kowalski muttered as his leader came past him.
"Sure. But I'll be back before you know it; you can bet on it. You know how that works, don't you, Kowalski: there are few constants in this crazy world of ours but there is one certainty on which you can always rely – I can take care of myself."
Skipper backflipped up the ladder that lead topside. He didn't look back.
He never did.
Kowalski and Private quietly continued watching the Lunacorns for a while, wrapped in thought rather about their leader than about the show, when something behind them blew up with a loud bang.
"Rico, remember what Skipper said: no weapons testing indoors!" the tall penguin who was now the first one in command called over his shoulder.
His comrade made a series of grunting noises, sounding confused and upset at the same time.
"Sorry?" Kowalski turned to him and blinked in confusion; Rico's face was blackened with ash and his Mohawk slightly burned. He repeated his grunting.
"What did he say?" Private turned the TV down.
"He said he wasn't testing any artillery," Kowalski analyzed, "Apparently the explosion was caused by a chewing gum he was trying to eat."
"A chewing gum?" Private looked at the tiny gumball box Rico was holding in his charred flipper.
"Oh, no…!" he cried out, his face turning pale.
"Now what's wrong?!"
"It's the gumballs! Skipper wanted to take the explosive ones along. The packs must've gotten mixed up. – If the explosive ones are still here, this means you must've given him the real gumballs, Kowalski!"
"What…?!" The tall penguin bit his beak when he realized his mistake.
"Of course; I got him the pack of gumballs from my lab. I ate some of them before for inspiration when I was trying to solve that equitation of Laplace's demon. – Ha, classic me!" He laughed out loud, and then looked at the others with embarrassment. "I guess that's… not good…"
How would Skipper be able to handle any possible enemy in combat with gumballs that actually consisted of gum?
Rico consolingly patted the taller penguin's shoulder and grumbled something.
Kowalski looked up to him.
"What? – You want to go after Skipper to bring him the real ones?" he asked thankfully, "– But he said he didn't want us on the mission…"
Rico growled again.
"You're right, he took the subway," Private said, "If you take the car, you might be fast enough to catch up with him before he can even get to the Hoboken Zoo. Well, maybe…"
"Thanks, Rico." Kowalski seemed relieved.
The rogue penguin nodded and expressed a sound very close to 'no problem'.
He regurgitated the car keys, waddled to the garage, and tossed the pack of explosives into the tiny pink trunk. Seconds later they could hear the engine of Vroom-Vroom roar.
"Be careful," Private called after him.
"Rico!"
Another voice called his name when he was about to drive past one of the other habitats.
He stopped the car. In the rearview mirror he saw Maurice hurry after him.
"Wait for me… You're off to Hoboken, right?"
The rogue penguin nodded.
"Take me along! I need to help my king!"
Rico reflected about this. He knew that Skipper didn't want any unauthorized personnel on this mission; however, as he himself was on his way to Hoboken now unauthorized, it wouldn't probably matter that much.
He shrugged and opened the passenger door.
As soon as Maurice sat beside him they hit the road.
"…Money makes the world go round. How right you are, Sire; there's no doubt about this. However, if you spend your whole life chasing it and thinking that it will solve all your problems, won't you end up wasting your life? – Well, as far as I'm concerned, there can be only one answer to this: naturally, it would be a waste of your life not to do so!"
Common laugher followed and everyone raised their glasses to the new guest, toasting to his success.
With slogans like this Skipper had easily managed to win the trust of almost every guest here in Hoboken.
He had only been here for about half an hour and had already managed to integrate flawlessly. No one doubted the identity of the newcomer for a second, the exotic billionaire ruling the zoo of Grrfurjiclestan, a small town apparently located somewhere in Pennsylvania; not even the guards at the entrance of the Hoboken Zoo, who checked the arrivers.
When Skipper alias Lincoln had handed them the maple leaf along with two faked hundred dollar bills, they would not ask any questions, like why he had never appeared here before, but open the golden double-doors for him and wish him a pleasant evening.
And very soon Lincoln Douglas was the new star of the Hoboken party.
He showed the great ego of a spruce young penguin who didn't follow the trend but set it, who had a taste for the world that was a playground to him upon which he rushed, grabbing everything in his way he could get for free.
"Dare I ask you to waltz with me, Mr. Douglas?" an ostrich girl wearing a tiara of gingko leaves asked him when Rhonda, who was the DJ tonight, spun a record with a slow song.
"Or, are you looking for someone?" she asked when she noticed Skipper constantly peering around himself in every direction as if he was expecting to recognize someone familiar between the guests.
"Why certainly, let us dance, lovely lady!" Skipper replied immediately, although he had different plans and was only listening with half an ear, "Or, I've got a charming idea; listen up everyone, how about a polonaise?"
Everyone cheered and toasted to him again although some seemed to be too drunk or too lazy to get up from their bar seats; however, at this point he had coaxed and bribed them enough none of them could refuse him anything.
"Let's go then, everybody; up, two, three, swing, two, three!"
At his command the crowd began organizing in a line. Skipper soon managed to lead them into a lively dance which continued freely; he danced with the ostrich girl and with Lulu and Rhonda and even with Hans, who, in his drunken state, was far from recognizing him. And as soon as the long line of animals was ready to proceed without him, he swiftly disappeared from the dance floor.
He silently cursed to himself.
The one he had been looking for all along – Clemson – had been nowhere in sight and none of the guests had been able to tell him where he was. Hardly any of them had actually known his name.
He sneaked off the lit visitor paths in order to look for the lemur habitat.