" In the Not Too Distant Future"
Thanks for the reviews everyone. They were awesome. Now here's the next chapter. Please enjoy. Warning: Chapter may be revised, again.
Chapter 11
Suddenly, the sounds on the tape stopped then started up, again. " Check," Younger Skipper uttered. "
Testing. 1, 2, 3. Okay. Now that I know that this does work, here's a song I wrote, just because I felt like it.
It is short, but hey, it is only a test run. By the way, I'll be playing my Spanish guitar. Anyways, onto the
song. I'll never forget about the time I received my first Spanish guitar. Actually it was my only guitar. My daddy
gave it to me for my thirteenth birthday. Ever since then, I played it, everyday and I never grow tired of it.
Thank-you, New York City! Good night."
Soon, the tape completely stopped. All three girls gawked at each other. " Wow," Barbara raised an
eyebrow. " My daddy was right. You and Uncle Skipper are a lot alike."
" When did he tell you that," Maddie raised an eyebrow, too.
" Last week, when he noticed that you two both corkscrewed into the pond water at the same time," Debra
rolled her eyes.
" That doesn't prove anything," Maddie folded her arms.
" What about the time both of you body slammed J.J. and London's daddy onto the ground when he
walked up behind you," Barbara tilted a pointed flipper at her.
" That was all gut instinct there," Maddie snapped then shrugged. " You would've done the same thing,
too." Suddenly, the girls heard voices outside of the room.
" Seriously, Private," a deep, commanding voice vibrated through the wall. " I just don't know what to do,
anymore. Without Marlene here, there's no way I can balance with being both a single parent and a
commanding officer of an elite force. It's going to wipe me out."
" But, Skipper," Private chirped as he waddled over to Skipper, who was halfway down the hallway. " Can't
you just bring your kids with you?"
" Oh, yeah," Skipper piped with a fake smile. " Why didn't I think of that? Oh, I know why. It's because I
don't want them to get hurt or anything! Look. I'm sorry for yelling at you. But, like I said before, I need to
take care of my kids, too."
" And you will," Private smiled as he laid a flipper on one of Skipper's shoulders. " How about you bring your
kids on training days and when we go out on missions, hire a sitter."
" I don't think so," Skipper shook his head as he shrugged Private's flipper off. " It's hard to know who to
trust nowadays. What with the spies, Dr. Blowhole, and the Danes."
" You know that Dr. Blowhole is dead, right," Private raised an eyebrow at him. " I mean, we were all there
when it happened."
" Yes, I know that," Skipper rolled his eyes. " And, that was on the same day when we all found out that
Doris was his daughter, too."
" Luckily, she turned out to be good and let us go when Dr. Blowhole trapped us in the prison cells on
Alcatraz Island near San Francisco Bay," Private cheerfully stated.
" True," Skipper mumbled.
" Well," Private chimed after a long pause. " Talk to you later, Skipper. Take care." He waddled back into the
bunkroom of the HQ, leaving Skipper alone in the hallway. Skipper sighed then quietly waddled down
toward the other end of the hall. Marlene, who heard the whole conversation, appeared out of nowhere
and followed him. Skipper sensed it, came to a hault then turned around, but Marlene had disappeared
before he could see her. He shrugged then turned to the wall. The lead penguin was just about to push the
brick to open the door to his recording room when he heard a loud crash up top. Skipper jerked around,
dashed back into the bunkroom, and climbed out through the fishbowl entrance to see what it was.
Meanwhile, the three girls took the opportunity to sneak out of the recording room and run back to the
dolphin aquarium, hoping not to get caught. When they got back, Kowalski and Doris had their flippers
folded and stared at the girls with narrowed eyes.
" Barbara Kiara Sergeant, Debra Nora Sergeant, and Madeline Laura Sergeant," Kowalski scolded as he
tapped one of his feet roughly on the platform he was standing on. " Where in Einstein's Theory of Relativity
have you three been?"
" We just, you know," Debra shrugged, trying to look innocent, while floating in the tank. The others were
standing on the platform with Kowalski. " Went for a walk around the park."
" Without permission first," Doris raised her voice. " You almost had your father and I gather up a search
party for you. Don't you know how dangerous it is for girls your age to be wandering around the park,
alone?"
" But we only left to go get some snow cones," Maddie stuttered, defensively. Like her father, she was
horrible at lying. If she was a puppet like Pinnochio, her nose would grow.
Kowalski heard the panicky tone in her voice and waddled over to her. " You're prevaricating," he raised
an eyebrow at her.
" What," Maddie backed up then stopped. " I'm not prevaricating. What's prevaricating?
" It means lying," Barbara retorted in a matter-of-fact tone as she faced her mother, who still had her
flippers folded.
" Oh," Maddie raised both of her eyebrows then folded her arms. " Well in that case, I'm not lying."
" Uh-huh," Kowalski put his flippers on his hips. " I'd quit while I'm ahead if I were you. You're no better at
lying than your daddy is."
" How do you know that," Maddie lowered one of her eyebrows.
" He used to pull stunts, such as lies, most of the time as a kid and they'd backfire on him due to the
panicky tone he gets in his voice," Kowalski stated, informatively. " And you, Maddie, get that same exact
tone. Now, will you please tell us the truth?"
The girls looked at each other as they bit their lower lips or tongue. Neither of them wanted to tell where
they had gone, because that would mean that the news would travel to Skipper, leading both them
and Maddie to get into trouble with their parents.
Barbara tapped the bottom of her beak before speaking. " Okay," she slyly stated. " We'll tell you the truth.
We went to explore the HQ."
" Why were you exploring the HQ," Doris shrugged.
" Well," Debra uttered as she tapped the tips of her flippers together. " Maddie found this awesome thing in
there earlier and she just had to show us. Tell them, Mads."
" Uh, yeah," Maddie stumbled. " The thing that I found that I just had to show them was this old
thingamajig."
" Describe this thingamajig," Kowalski eyed her, knowing that she was hiding something. He could have
sworn he saw one of Maddie's eyes twitch.
" It was small and grey," Maddie looked away, thinking. " And it had these buttons on it."
" That would be a tape recorder and you've already shown it to everybody a month ago, when you had no
idea what it was," Kowalski moaned, getting impatient. " Plus, your daddy uses it all the time for recording
his logs."
" Oh, yeah," Maddie took a finger to her chin. " I forgot about that."
" Maddie, honestly, I'm growing tired of this," Kowalski sighed as he lightly rested one of his flippers on his
forehead. " If you won't tell the truth then I'm just going to have to take you over to the HQ and tell your
daddy about this."
Maddie gasped as Kowalski waddled over and grabbed her paw with his flipper. " No," she shouted. " You
can't."
" Watch me," Kowalski strictly stated as he waddled off, dragging Maddie behind him. He muttered to him
self to where Maddie could not hear. " Skipper's not going to be happy to hear about this," he then
shuddered as they left for the HQ.
" She did what," Skipper shrieked after Kowalski had arrived at the HQ with Maddie and told him the story.
" She deliberately lied to Doris and I and she still refuses to tell the truth of where she, Debra, and Barbara
wondered off to and what for," Kowalski griped.
" Maddie," Skipper put his flippers on his hips as he glanced down at his daughter. " I'm very disappointed
in you."
" But it wasn't a total lie, Daddy," Maddie softly squeaked. " We actually came to explore the HQ."
" Really," Skipper then scratched the bottom of his beak then raised an eyebrow. " You didn't by any
chance come to show Debra and Barbara something that I told you not to tell anybody about, did you?"
" I, uh," she choked out as she started to sweat. " I…I…I…"
Skipper sighed. " Oh, Maddie," he groaned. " How could you?"
" Sorry, Daddy," Maddie chirped. " I just wanted to prove something to them, because they wouldn't believe
what I said."
" Such as," Skipper eyed her.
" That we recorded a song together," Maddie muttered as she put her paws behind her back and lowered
her head.
" Wait a minute," Kowalski raised an eyebrow. " Are you two by any chance talking about the recording
room that's hidden in one of the walls of the HQ's hallway?"
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Kowalski knows about the recording room? Wow. Aww, man. Skipper found out about what Maddie did. Anyways. Coming up next in Chapter 12. Catch the answer to Kowalski's question. Also, find out what made that loud crash on top of the HQ. Please stay tuned and find out more. Note: Here's a couple of facts about the story that I would like to share. When I first started writing this story, I originally named it " The Adams Family: Penguins of Madagascar Style". The problem with it was it didn't really seem to fit well with the kid characters. Plus it sounded too much like a Halloween story, which is why I chose to give the story the name that it has now. Also, I don't know why the story took the routes it did before. My guess is that it just felt like going those ways. BTW : For those wondering, that was the last song in this story. Anywho. Thank-you for reading this message. I hope you enjoyed the facts.