A Skilene-Filled September
Scenario 26: "Right Where I Left You"
Sunday, September 26, 2010

"So hot!" Mort said out loud as he walked past Marlene's habitat with his tongue hanging out on a scorching, 100-degree day at the zoo. "So dry!"

Upon noticing the tiny lemur struggling, Marlene flipped over her habitat's wall and went over to him.

"Are you OK, Mort?" she asked. "You look like you could use something cold. You can come over for a while if you want – I have iced tea."

"I like iced tea!" Mort smiled as he then climbed over the wall of Marlene's habitat. "Yay!"

"Mort, is there anything you don't like?" Marlene couldn't help but ask as she climbed back over the wall herself, but he was too far ahead of her to hear.

Once inside her habitat, Marlene poured Mort a tall glass of iced tea, as well as one for herself. Before long, both glasses were empty, so Marlene refilled them. With the temperature so high outside, however, both Mort and Marlene quickly drank their second glasses, followed by their third and fourth. Suddenly, before she knew it, Marlene had run out of iced tea.

"That's it," Marlene said as she shook the empty plastic bottle to make sure she had gotten every last drop out of it. "I'm afraid there is no more iced tea left."

"Oh," Mort said sadly. "I don't like that."

Marlene then took a good look at Mort and thought that he still looked a bit overheated. She thought for a moment about what she could now do to cool him off some more, knowing that going in her pond was not really a viable option since Mort was not much of a swimmer.

An idea soon struck her.

"I could get us some snow cones," she said. "There's a stand inside of the park."

"Um, didn't you go crazy that time when you left the zoo?" Mort asked.

"King Julien told you about that, huh?" Marlene replied. "Well, it's true that I'm not very good outside of the zoo, but I bet if I run in and grab a few snow cones really fast, I could probably wing it."

"Yay!" Mort cheered.

A few minutes later, Marlene left Mort sitting by a fan as she left her habitat and proceeded to the edge of the zoo confines. There, she stood for a moment and stretched in preparation of sprinting into and out of Central Park as quickly as possible. And after she took a few deep breaths, she ran into the park in the direction of her objective.

Pretty soon, she reached the snow cone stand and, seeing as no humans were around to interfere, quickly opened up the poorly secured freezer and removed four snow cones, figuring that she and Mort could each have two. She then closed the freezer and smiled, knowing that more than half of her mission so far was a success.

Then it happened.

It came first as a twitch of her right eye, then as a jerk of her left leg. Her nose wiggled. Her fur stood up on end. And before long, she began to growl.

She had reverted to her feral state.

Meanwhile, over at the penguins' HQ, Skipper was about to take his first look through the periscope since he had cleaned its lens a few minutes before.

"What in the name of all that is good and decent is that?" he exclaimed as he peered through the periscope and spotted Marlene out in the park in all her wildness. "Kowalski, come take a look at this!"

"It appears to be some mad mustelid," Kowalski reported as he looked through the periscope.

He then spotted Marlene's telltale white foot and gasped.

"It's Marlene!" he said. "And she's in the park, Skipper! She's gone wild – again!"

"Well, boys, it looks like we've got an otter to obtain," Skipper declared. "Commence Operation: Bugalalahu!"

"Bugalalahu?" Kowalski wondered. "What's up with that?"

"You should know, Kowalski," Skipper replied. "Isn't that the technical term you gave to Marlene's wild side? Forgive me if my pronunciation is a little off."

"Ah, I see," Kowalski responded as Rico and Private then waddled over. "And yes, your pronunciation is a little off, but we'll talk about that later."

With that, the team left the HQ and proceeded quickly to where Marlene had last been spotted in Central Park.

Just like they had the first time, they found Marlene up in a tree. Only this time she was armed.

"Incoming!" Private yelled as he ducked out of the way of the flying rainbow snow cones Marlene threw at them.

Private, Skipper, and Kowalski managed to dodge the frozen assault, but Rico took a direct hit to the face. But he didn't seem to mind as he promptly licked the remnants of the sweet ice away.

"Yum!" he said.

Marlene then hissed at them and climbed down from the tree. Private tried to block her from getting away, but ended up being picked up and tossed a short distance in the process, which knocked the wind out of him for the time being.

"Rico, let's try a net!" Skipper then stated.

Rico then regurgitated a large trapping net and carried it with him as he carefully waddled close to Marlene. When he got as close as he could without making himself a target, he threw it at her and trapped her under it.

"Way to go, Rico!" Skipper smiled.

But just as he was about to high-five Rico for a job well done, Marlene chewed through the rope and escaped. She then carried the net with her as she ran over to Rico and proceeded entangle him with it, taking him out of commission, at least for the time it would take to cut through it himself.

Kowalski then pulled out his abacus to try to calculate his next move, but Marlene suddenly appeared beside him and took it away from him. She then pulled a side off of it and flung its beads into the air.

"Hey, that's an antique!" Kowalski yelled as he began searching to recover the tiny components.

As Kowalski scrambled to locate the beads, Skipper was suddenly the only one left to take down Marlene. He looked down at his right flipper, in which he held a single tranquilizer dart. If he could just get close enough to Marlene, he might be able to–

"No!" Skipper then declared as he tossed the dart aside. "I hate needles, so I'm sure not going to poke a friend with one. I've got to win this battle another way."

He then began to think about what strategy he could use, but his time ran out when Marlene suddenly stood in front of him. But rather than try to get away, he smiled, having made up his mind about which tactic to use.

"Come here, dollface," he said as he reached out and gave Marlene a hug. "I love you."

What happened next was unbelievable. It came first as a twitch of Marlene's left eye, then as a jerk of her right leg. Her nose wiggled. Her fur became smooth. And before long, she began to smile.

"Skipper, where am I?" a now-normal Marlene suddenly asked.

"In my heart," Skipper replied, "right where I left you."

Scenario note: This scenario conflicts with my "Freedom Isn't Free" story, in which I "cured" Marlene of her wildness, but due to the "Badger Pride" episode, this scenario is still theoretically plausible under the canon presentation. How nice it would be if Marlene really could be cured simply because of how much Skipper cares about her.

-GrandOldPenguin
September 26, 2010