Translated into English (Spanish version available via PM). / Traducido al inglés (versión en español disponible vía PM).
Thanks everybody for reading! And, especially...
- Thank you, Verónica, for helping me choose a name for the seventh penguin.
- Thank you, Charlie, for giving me intel for the translation.
- Thank you, Pronker, for helping me rate this fic after reading it complete. And especially for reading it complete.
- Thank you, Wildebunny the Eternal, for your help with punctuation in dialogues.
- Thank you, Transformersfan123, for revising my chapters 1 to 4.
My replies for guest reviews will be in my profile for a month since I write them.
General disclaimers:
- The films, the show and all the characters we know belong to their authors and I don't make profit from them.
- OCs are mine, they are not inspired on real people and their names are completely random.
- The seventh penguin is suggested in the show to have existed, but has been completely developed by me.
- I don't know how things work in the existing places named, so everything concerning them is fictional.
- There are references to the four films and the show, as the story takes place in the middle of both.
Very important warnings:
- There is coarse language.
- The plot is based on several thorny issues which are a trigger to a chain of thoughts, sayings and actions vital for the development of the story. Although they are presented as mildly as possible in general, you may feel uncomfortable dealing with them. There are also references to other controversial issues.
Making a list, however, would be a big spoiler... so read at your own risk.
*** 1 ***
A phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Nell. How are you?"
"Drugged... but a bit better."
"Listen... Commissioner McSlade is here for the penguin issue."
"How is my lilcotton?"
"Better, that's why I'm calling. The speakerphone is on, McSlade is speaking. I'm leaving."
"Good morning, Nell. I'm glad you're better."
"Thank you."
"We've been debating about the situation and we've decided that the best thing for the penguin is to be transferred to Central Park Zoo."
"What?"
"It is clear that she can't stay here. We can't let this incident happen again."
"What? Are you blaming her? She's the victim!"
"No, of course not... But she can't stay with these penguins. And it's always easier to move one than three."
"Yes, but this would be a punishment for her."
"For her or for you, Nell? Haven't you gotten too attached to her?"
"We can't transfer her and make her get used to other penguins. It was hard to make her get used to these, even more with her characteristics."
"I know, but they have a very different nature. I know the penguins are a bit weird, but she is too, and they are quite friendly despite everything. Think about it. This change will be better for her."
"How many penguins are we talking about?"
"Six."
"Six?! No way! If this happened with three, what could happen with six?!"
"Again, Nell, they have a different nature. Not long ago the last two arrived and they integrated perfectly."
"I disagree. There must be another solution! Mixing her with a crowd of penguins -"
"I'm sorry, but this is already decided. She'll be transferred on Tuesday evening. Mike thinks she'll be recovered enough by that time."
"And it can't be undone?"
"No. You can come with us if you feel better, but please, don't make a scene."
"Weeeeell, okaaaay."
"See you on Tuesday."
"Okay. See you on Tuesday."
Nell hung the phone and bit her lip. She sensed that it would be a disaster.
.
Tuesday came. They had agreed that the penguin's arrival at Central Park Zoo would be approximately at 18:00 and Nell was at the main door, waiting for a while, impatient and worried. She was with Steve, her boyfriend. Not much later, Mike, the Bronx Zoo vet, arrived. They introduced themselves, as Steve and Mike only knew from hearsay. Mike suggested they go in and wait for McSlade next to the penguin habitat. Surprisingly, the penguin habitat was right in the middle of the zoo. There were the six penguins she had been told about. No trace of the female penguin yet.
Nell approached them and saw them waving their flippers. She was surprised by this behavior. She was used to the Bronx Zoo penguins, where she had been a zookeeper since she ended her studies (and now she was reaching the end of her thirties), who did what they wanted ignoring visitors totally. But these had a special interest in pleasing and entertaining visitors. They seemed very nice. And yet, despite so much time working with penguins and after all the incidents with them, she couldn't determine whether it was good or bad.
At that moment McSlade appeared. He had just been talking to the driver of the van that was manoeuvring some yards away. The driver parked, opened the hatchback and took out a board that he placed as a bridge to access the penguin concrete island. Then he took out a crate and he carried it in his arms. He walked across the board, placed the crate in the middle of the island, and left the habitat. Then he removed the board, and he left.
The four humans looked at the crate expectantly. The crates were left half open for the animals to go out when they felt confident, and, as Nell expected, the penguin took her time. But it was too much. The six penguins were crowded right opposite and they stared with curiosity.
McSlade, Mike and Steve got away from the habitat and watched from a reasonable distance. Nell, on the other hand, was standing nearby. She didn't take her eye off the crate; she was worried about her penguin. What if something had happened to her inside?
Surprising everyone, Nell leaned on the fence then jumped into the habitat with more agility than she thought she had. She landed on the very edge with a painful, sharp blow. The six penguins dived into the water immediately.
Nell went directly to the crate and peered inside. There was her penguin. Nestled in a corner, trembling and staring at her with her huge eyes, black as the pit of despair where she felt. Nell caressed her head.
"Lilcotton, beauty, I'm here," she told her with a forced smile. She was holding back tears.
The penguin returned the caress moving her beak softly on the back of her hand.
"I'm watching. I won't let anything bad happen to you."
Nell went to the edge of the island and she jumped again with all the impulse she could. She reached the other side, but with another jolt. She had softened all the blows with her palms and they hurt, but thanks to that she hadn't landed with her face on the ground. Besides, she had hit the fence with her legs. She got up limping and shook them. They hurt.
The penguins, one by one, got on the island again. Nell noticed the frowning stare of one of them on hers and she returned the gesture. When the penguin stopped staring and centered on what he had in front of him, all their voices started to be heard. Voices that humans didn't understand. How much Nell would have given for knowing what they were saying. She always wanted to know, but especially in that moment.
.
The female, still scared, listened to the six penguins outside. She could see them through a slit (the holes for breathing were too high for her to reach). They were a bit different from her: they were Adélie penguins, and she was a small African penguin. Their feathers were a beautiful shiny black, and hers weren't. If she'd had some self-confidence, it would have disappeared when noticing that detail. She didn't even know them and she already felt defeated; she was going to be different again and she knew it was not good. Getting out of the crate? Over her dead body!
She was looking and listening trying not to be seen.
"Kowalski," a flat-headed penguin said while he waddled from here to there with his flippers behind his back. "Any intel about this crate and its contents?"
Before the one named Kowalski could answer, another penguin almost as tall as him and with a showy mohawk started to sing in a hoarse voice: "Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiish!"
"Nothing stated in my reports."
There he was. Kowalski was even taller than the others and quite slim, and he had a clipboard in his flippers. "I'd dare to say that another penguin has been brought here to this zoo judging by the location of the crate and its label, but there was not an announcement of anybody coming."
"Aw, man," the one with the mohawk complained.
"Then it's a spy," the flat-headed penguin concluded. "We should prepare a New York welcome."
The female, although she had lived her whole life in New York, didn't know what that was, but she knew she wouldn't like it.
"Skipper, no!" A smaller, chubby penguin shouted in a childlike voice. "I don't think it's a spy. Why do we always have to think that we are surrounded by spies?" Okay, the flat-headed one's name was Skipper. A bit of a weird name, right?
"How naive you are, young Private."
Private? What was that? Was this a military penguin unit? Wasn't that an urban legend?
"You think that everybody is good and wonderful," Skipper went on. "But under the most harmless masks you find the sliest and most cunning spies."
You don't say!
Skipper moved to stand next to the crate with a very serious look. The female saw him through the slit and nestled further back in the opposite corner. Seen from there, he seemed enormous and was covering almost all the light.
"We know what you are," he said in a tone even more serious than his face, if it was possible. "Get out of the crate with your flippers up if you don't want to be in trouble."
The female didn't move. Skipper established visual contact with her through the slit.
"You'll have to get out of there eventually."
"No!" she shouted. She tried to sound firm, but her voice trembled.
"A girl!" two voices yelled in unison.
"Hey, I've said it before!" one of them argued. "She's mine!"
"No way, fishface, she'll be mine," the other one replied.
Six different voices. Six males. She shivered.
"You two!" Skipper shouted. "We don't know if she's a spy, but she's not your plunder. Stop drooling, you perverts! I won't tolerate improper attitudes in this unit."
Maybe that Skipper wasn't so bad after all. But there were two she didn't like. She wouldn't get out of the crate.
"Excuse these two knuckleheads. I'll watch them. Now get out."
The female didn't move.
The situation was tense. No-one moved a feather. Not understanding any of the squawks she had heard so far, Nell observed attentively. Since the moment that penguin had stood at the corner of the crate, she clenched her fists. She hadn't noticed she had Steve and Mike behind her.
It was the penguin with the mohawk who moved first. Without saying a word (that wasn't his style), he leapt to the crate pushing Skipper aside and making him fall on his hindquarters. He opened the crate and took the female out under his flipper. She shrieked and flapped desperately, trying to loose his grip. She managed to peck him and he dropped her with a wild cry, and put his wounded flipper in his beak. The female hit the floor.
Nell couldn't assist her. Mike and Steve were grabbing her arms and she was trying to get loose unsuccessfully. The three saw how, at the moment another penguin who had stayed back approached her, the one who had been so long in front of the crate knocked him down with his flipper.
"Do they really do that?" Steve asked surprised.
"And even worse things," Nell answered sorrowfully.
"Leave her. She can defend herself," Mike said. "And, if not, there's someone who will. Let's go. They're going to close."
The three left silent. Nell went arm in arm with Steve, guided by him and staring to where her lilcotton remained with the six penguins. She saw nothing. The seven penguins were motionless.
She wished it was different.