Been a while, eh? Well, we've actually had this chapter done for a long time. I was going to add to it, but I have a pretty bad case of writer's block (which, actually may be getting better as of three days ago) and so we're just putting this chapter up without my adding to it. So as far as this chapter goes, cheers, Cimmy wrote it. Isn't she brilliant? By the way, the rollercoaster mentioned in this chapter is real. I've been on it. It's awesome. Hit the review button when you're done!

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Chapter 36: Dolphin Attack
By Cimmy

Goldberg's POV

It's almost lunch time before we reach the entrance to Sea World. Charlie is, of course, furious over the fact that we didn't arrive at the exact time he wanted us to, so he's no fun. Adam and Averman are deliberately pushing the limits of Charlie's temper, by finding out new, inventive ways to kick dirt at Charlie's shoes.

Before any kind of scolding from our dear captain occurs, Connie starts a new cheerful rant, this time about the magical wonder that is Sea World. "We need to go see the baby whale, don't we?" she asks in a demanding sort of way. "It's so cute."

"It is so cute? Whales don't have genders?" Averman snorts. "Honestly, Con, could you be any more insensitive? Whales are as human as we are."

Obviously, this comment is directed to the stuck-up mind of Charlie's. "A whale is a fish, not a human!" Charlie roars, finally fed-up with the nonsense. "You are all so impossible! I could strangle each and every one of you! Shut up, now, so I can decide where to go."

"Oh, we gotta see the sharks," Portman exclaims happily. "And monster coasters! Oh, oh, oh, I have an idea…!"

"Don't tell me," Charlie croaks sourly. Portman is inches away from telling all about his idea, when Charlie interrupts. "No, seriously, don't tell me."

"He wants to go on the monster coaster," Connie points out, just to be helpful. She's licking on a strawberry lollipop and looks more innocent than ever. Great, more sugar in her little body, that's just what we need. "Isn't that right, Portman?"

"As a matter of fact…"

"Of course that's what he was gonna say!" Charlie explodes, turning around so unexpectedly that Adam trips over him and falls. With a voice of forced calm, Charlie continues. "Why are you always making life so hard for me?"

Portman shrugs, ready to answer the question, but Fulton manages to stop him in time. Unfortunately, no one is looking after Adam at this point. "Because it's just too damn hard to leave you alone. Not to mention how funny it is when you fume with rage. Kind of like you are now, actually."

The sensible people in our crowd decide that it's soon enough to break our upcoming argument off. "You guys, if we stand here arguing about arguing, we're never gonna see anything at all of the park," Julie says tiredly. "Now, who said anything about a shark?"

"I rather not go near a shark," Lex objects. Wow, I almost forgot that there were other people here, too! "Nasty looking creatures."

"Well, I need to see a shark," Portman spits in her direction. "If you're a coward, don't see one."

"Maybe she's just scared," Charlie muttered back. "If she doesn't want to go… Don't you remember the last time you forced someone to do something she didn't wanna do? How did that turn out?"

Portman stares into the ground, sulking. "At the Mickey Mouse hospital," he growls quietly.

"We don't have to stay together," Fulton adds. "Let's divide ourselves into shark and non-shark groups."

"Divide? Isn't that like… Math?" Averman ponders, intentionally driving Charlie mad.

"Where do you want to go, Lex?" Charlie asks as nicely as he can, ignoring Averman, and all the rest of us too.

"Penguins, maybe?" she asks. "It doesn't matter; I can go with you, but I'm not too eager about seeing the sharks."

"I don't need to see the sharks either…" Charlie begins, but is, of course, interrupted.

"You don't want to see a shark?!" Portman yells with a high-pierced voice. "They are just too cool!"

Another big, ridiculous conversation springs to life. "Maybe you can let me decide whether or not I want see the sharks?" Charlie says. "Ken, stop mentioning Shamu, I know he lives here!"

I tap Luis on the shoulder. "Maybe we should just leave and investigate the area on our own?" I suggest.

Before Luis has a chance to answer, Lex does. "That sounds like a splendid idea. Let's leave these morons to sort things out on their own, huh?"

So, while half of the group continues to block the way in front of the entrance for the rest of the visitors, the other half of us sneak away. All the members of the band have chosen to go with the non-bickering group, which would be us. "Is it always like this?" Anna wonders. "Do you always fight at every public place you go to?"

"You don't?" Luis replies, smiling a bit, probably still reminded by the band's behavior at the award ceremony. "But, yeah, basically this is normal for us."

When Luis and I leave the other Ducks, Averman – probably tagging Anna – follows suit, along with Adam and Julie. Dwayne is already as attached to Sammie as he could possibly be without being actually attached to her. "I would like to see the baby whale, too," Julie says. "Do we have time for that?"

"Pfff, now when we've left the overbearing, domineering, tyrannical captain behind?" Adam snorts. "Without his crazy schedule and 'suggested breaks', we have all day."

"Why does he keep schedules over everything?" Sammie asks.

"Because he's born with the amazing talent of being able to suck the life out of every fun situation there ever was?" Adam suggests. "I'm surprised we haven't revolted against him sooner."

"Like, an ambush or something?" Julie giggles. "That would only make him angrier."

"I don't think that's possible, actually," Adam laughs. "He's pretty angry as it is."

"Hey, give him a break," Lex says. "He's had a hard time this week."

"He could've had a great time just like the rest of us if he'd only stop bossing us around," Adam sighs. "He really does suck the fun out of everything."

"Or, maybe you're being too hopeless for him to handle, and that makes him frustrated and even grumpier?" Lex suggests pointedly. "Nobody likes to be the one in charge when everything goes to hell."

"Nothing has gone to hell that we haven't been able to solve," Julie points out. "It's our last day here; let's not start yet another fight, shall we?"

"Sounds like a fabulous idea, Jules, but we're the Ducks. Fighting is what we do," Luis smiles.

"I thought ducks just… peck on each other," Chris finally says. "But that seems accurate as well."

We walk by the Tropical Reef and the Turtle Point, and after a while, Portman joins our party. "Got tired of harassing Charlie?" Lex asks dryly.

"No, that never grows old," Portman grins widely. "Actually…"

It's the first time since school ended that he's stopped talking in the middle of a sentence, just so he can think. I don't know what sort of thoughts his mind is considering, but he looks weird when he's thinking. "Anything wrong there, Portman?" Julie smiles. "You seem distracted."

"He might be using his brain. For something. Thinking maybe?" Luis teases. "Nah…"

"Oh, shut up," Portman mutters. "I was just considering doing something nice, but now I won't, since you're being so mean about it. Cool, turtles! Can we look at 'em?"

"Since when does he do nice things without getting something out of it for his own winning?" Julie whispers to me. "You don't think he's up to something, do you?"

"At Sea World? What could he possibly be planning at a zoo for fish?" I ask.

"Well, he did ruin Disney World for some of the members of the team," she adds. "And he's been looking at us weirdly ever since this morning, at breakfast."

"No, he's been looking at the band weirdly, not at us."

"Maybe he's having the emotion of gratitude for the first time in his life?" she suggests. "After all, it's thanks to them we're here."

"Portman doesn't think that far ahead. He's enormously unknowing about most things unless they occur at the exact time as he thinks of them."

We don't have time to figure out Portman's intentions, because we have to pay close attention to the 'adorable turtles' so they won't snap off anyone's finger.

Much to Portman's dismay, the next stop is the penguins' area. "I would much rather see a shark."

"You are a shark. Behave well now," Julie says. "We wouldn't want to lose you on the way."

The penguins were nice – in the way that they didn't attack us – and after watching them play around, we all need something to eat, since lunch time has come and went while we were ogling at the animals. Or were they fishes? I just must ask Charlie when I see him.

Portman has been awfully quiet all through our lunch break, seemingly debating with himself over something. I thought he would be the happiest one of us all now when the person he's been most irritated with has left.

Well, whatever he was thinking about quickly disappears the minute the monster coaster is brought up in conversation. We all walk towards Kraken, the big roller coaster at the far end of the park. Suddenly Portman pushes his way through us, so he can get up to Jeff, Lex, Anthony and Julie who are all walking a few steps in front of Luis and I. "Hey, you…" Portman says, and then falls quiet, as if he can't remember the name of the person he's talking to. "…dude?"

All of us turn towards him to look, since he could be referring to just about anyone of us. "Uhm… Yeah?" Lex tries, in case she's the target.

"Not you," Portman rolls his eyes. "Him…"

"We still don't have a clue who you're talking to," Julie points out. "My name is Julie, by the way."

Portman scowls. "I know." Instead of letting our remarks get to him, he turns to Anthony. "You. I have something for you."

"What?" Anthony laughs. "Why would you have something for me?"

Portman shrugs and it doesn't seem like he knows at all why he opened his mouth in the first place. "I don't know."

"Okay…" Anthony says slowly. "Uhm… Was that all you wanted?"

"His name's Anthony," Julie announces. "For heaven's sake, we've spent over a week with these people."

"Just forgot. Anyway, I just thought you might want to have this," Portman explained easily, putting his hand into his pocket to pull out an envelope, which he hands to Anthony.

Averman raises his eyebrows. "You know, I could make so many jokes around the subject of Portman – postman right now, but I simply just don't want to. Do you think I might be sick?"

"It's probably a deadly disease," Julie shrugs. "Nothing to worry about."

Lex stands on her toes so she can get a glimpse of the letter. All that is written on the back is the name Anthony, which isn't much of a surprise. I do vaguely remember the handwriting, though. And then it hits me; I've spent hours and hours copying that handwriting during our very dull Spanish lessons.

Jeff also takes a look at the letter, hinting that he recognizes the handwriting, too, before Anthony rips it open and turns away so he can read it without us staring at him.

"Aww, Portman, did you do something nice for a change?" Julie smiles. "Where did you get that?"

"Breakfast," he says just as easily as before. "So, do I get a reward or something?"

"For handing out letters?" Julie asks.

"Yeah, I've heard people get rewards when they do nice things," Portman nods. "Is that true?"

"You might never find out," Luis says with fake sympathy. "The sooner we get to that Klonker thing, the better."

"It's Kraken," Portman exclaims. "Is it so hard to remember a name? Where's Averman?"

I nod my head in the direction of Averman and Anna, who have been walking in front of us the entire time together with Sammie and Matt. "Where else?"

"Oh, yeah… He's with…" Complete silence follows Portman's sentence again. "That girl. Brown-eyed girl."

"That would be her full name, yeah," Lex shakes her head.

"Seriously, Portman, you should try harder learning people's name," Julie suggests. "If you can remember a monster coaster, you should be able to remember your friends."

Just mentioning the monster coaster makes Portman's eyes lit up, and he immediately forgets all about names – and the world.

"Maybe we should go find that compulsive law enforcer…" Adam mutters, clearly speaking about Charlie.

Portman finds this too disturbing to be able to not comment about. "I thought I was the enforcer!" he bawls.

"On the ice, yeah," I say. "Do you see any ice?"

Portman sulks again, until he comes up with the clever idea of visiting the polar bears. "I bet they have ice!"

Julie wants to wait for the rest to catch up with us before we change any plans. Anthony is still standing on the same spot where we left him, without listening to Lex's demands to move along. Jeff rolls his eyes, uninterested to say the least. He walks up to Julie and slips his arm around her waist. "You gave him that letter on purpose, didn't ya?" Jeff says to Portman. "Just so things would take twice as long as it should. We could just as well walk backwards in this pace."

"Hey, I didn't cause all this," Portman objects. "He was the one who kissed the wrong girl."

"Actually, I think he kissed the right one," Luis says. "Wouldn't it be embarrassing if he'd kissed the wrong girl?"

"Leave him alone," Lex begs. "He's broken-hearted now."

"He doesn't look broken-hearted," Julie smiles, amused. I turn to look at Anthony, who doesn't seem too discontent with anything at all for the moment. He takes one last glimpse at the letter, folds it together and puts it in his jacket pocket. "Is that the face of a broken-hearted guy?"

"Maybe he's in denial?" I suggest.

"Or maybe…" Lex mumbles.

"What?" Julie coaxes when she never finishes her line. "Maybe what?"

"Maybe he got good news?"

"Yeah, probably. But still…"

Jeff and Lex leaves us again, joining up with Anthony. "So, what did ya get there?" Lex asks curiously.

"Not now," he mutters, but looks just as happy nonetheless. "I'll tell later, okay?"

"Sure."

"I have a question!" Portman suddenly howls, making us all jump with surprise. "Why aren't we walking towards the polar dudes?"

"Portman, please, you've been asking about the monster coaster all day!" Julie whines. "We can go look at the fussy white bears later. I promise; the ice won't melt while we're on the coaster."

It didn't, luckily, otherwise Portman would've complained more than ever. We did have time to see the polar bears and find the rest of the team before we had to go home.

Connie is bouncier than ever when we meet her. She's automatically chattering about the dolphins she saw and the 'awesome' baby killer whale she socialized with earlier. Portman and she gets into a conversation about sharks, and they're now lost forever.

Ken has a new verse to his beloved bus song he's tortured us with all week long. The song now contains turtles, dolphins and killer whales. That little guy never stops to amaze me. To Charlie's vexation – yes, he was found too – Connie and Ken team up and sing the song together.

"Who had a great day today?" Adam asks us when we're all gathered at the entrance again. "Well, aside from you, Charlie, you don't count."

"Why?" Charlie mutters.

"Because you bring our mood down. Honestly, have you ruined your own day just because we weren't exactly on time when we were supposed to leave?"

"Actually, I had a great day, too. Not thanks to you, of course."

"Of course," Adam grins. "Aww, I just knew we would all be friends before this day was over!"

Charlie can't help but laugh with the rest of us. "Fine, we all had a wonderful day. Can we leave now?"

"Yay, the bus!" Ken cheers. "C'mon, Con, we have to get good seats!"

Connie follows him out of the park, finishing her ice-cream as quickly as she can. Just before she steps on the bus, she stops and leans down to pick something up from the ground. Charlie, who's walking right behind her, wrinkles his nose. "Bad Connie, don't pick up garbage from the ground."

"It's a bug," she says jovially, like she hasn't ever seen a bug before. "I just wanted to save it from being smashed by all of you. Oh, it's one of those bugs Fred hates. Remember during study hall, when that bug crawled up into his book? He was scared."

"Fred hates all bugs," Charlie sighs. "Could you step onto the bus now, please?"

"Really? All bugs?" Anthony speaks up, thrilled by this newfound information. "Can I look at that bug again?"

Lex pulls his arm in the other direction. "Don't worry, there are bugs back home, too. There's no need to import them. You can find them and chase them all you want later."

With that in mind, Anthony reluctantly gives up the thought of the bug for now. "Still… Good to know," he mumbles to himself.

"Why do I have a mental image of Fred being attacked by an army of bugs the next time he meets Anthony?" Julie says under her breath. We all snicker to this amusing thought. "Should we warn him?"

"Nah, but I think we should purchase a video camera for this very occasion," Portman says evilly. "After all, he did yell at me an awful lot before he left."

"You totally deserved that," Fulton snorts. "By the way, this letter hand-out wasn't part of some retaliation on him, was it?"

"What?" Portman laughs, trying to sound as innocent as he can. "Me? Retaliation?"

"It means payback," Julie announces.

"I know what it means, thank you very much," Portman growls. "And I don't sink to that level."

"So, you have no idea what was in that letter, then?" Adam asks.

"Not at all," Portman replies, his eyes wide with excitement. "I don't know anything at all."

"Well, we all knew that already," Julie mutters, disappearing inside the bus. Adam throws a suspicious glimpse at Anthony before he goes in after her. Finally, I can get in too.

"I don't understand what the fuss is all about," I hear Dwayne say. "It's just a letter!"

"Sometimes letters disrupt the way of life, Dwayne," Russ says.

"So, what you say is that letters sometimes make people go all psycho?"

Portman snorts out a laughter. "You don't know half of it, and still you're closer than you think," he smiles, before taking a seat.

Connie elbows me in the side. "Why would she give a letter to Portman?"

"Why does the sun shine?"

"Well, millions of years ago…" she starts.

"It was a rhetorical question, dimwit," I roll my eyes. "Point is, sometimes there are no reasonable explanations for why things happen."

"But I do know why the sun shines," Connie explains proudly, with a very perky voice. And then she tells me all about it, despite my begging for the opposite. Silence, when was the last time I experienced that?

Charlie orders us to bed immediately when we get back to the hotel. He doesn't care that it's only 8:30. Jackass.

Sleeping isn't much fun, we realize. The room has a weird smell of barf and soft soap. Russ refuses to stay in our room. "You know what?" Ken mumbles excitedly.

"If you breathe one word about a bus or a fish of any sort, I'll make sure you never see the sun again," Russ mutters.

"No, that's not what I was gonna say," Ken grimaces. "The room right opposite to us is free now. We can sleep there."

"I gotta hand it to you, Wu, sometimes you really are indispensable," I praise him. "Let's go there, then."

Ken sticks his head out the door to check if anyone's in the hallway. "No one around, guys, I think we're free to..."

I exchange a look with Russ when Ken gets quiet. "Free to what?" I ask, but Ken kicks me as answer. "Ouch!"

"Hi, Ms. Moreau," Ken says. "Lovely night, isn't it?"

Connie shoves him back into our room and enters. "Why are you sneaking around?" she asks.

"Because we… were… looking… for… something… to…"

"Make up some lame excuse quicker, boys," Connie demands. "I don't have all night. Are you spying on someone? Are you spying on me?"

"No," Ken mumbles. "If we tell you, promise not to spread the word?"

"I… will try my best," Connie promises.

"I guess that's good enough," Ken shrugs, looking at us. "We're doing a take over."

"Of what?" Connie's eyes widen.

"Room 118."

Connie wrinkles her nose. "Why?" she asks, uninterested.

"Because this place smells like puke and old dog shit," Russ complains. "Move, woman. That room is ours."

"Is it a suite?" Connie asks.

"Does it matter?"

"Maybe I want the room," she ponders, biting her lip. "Maybe I want to sleep there tonight. Maybe I will sleep there tonight."

"Or maybe we'll slug you into a mess if you go anywhere near that room."

"You can't take me on," she snorts. "I'm much stronger than you."

"You're not…"

"And if you go near me, I'll tell Charlie. He'll take my side."

"Why did we tell her about our plan?" Russ asks me. I point at Kenny, because it was his idea from the start. "You're dead, Wu."

"And you can't tell Charlie," I say to Connie. "If you do, he'll take the room himself and spend the night with Lex there."

Connie takes a moment to think this over. She mumbles under her breath, and seems to be considering all possibilities of the matter. Or maybe she's acting, just so we'll be more impatient than ever, because it's working like a charm. Finally she stops looking thoughtful, and wanders around my bed and then back again.

We watch her stroll around us, until it becomes too annoying to take. "Bloody hell, Connie, say something!" Russ exclaims.

"Twenty bucks. And all the candy you have. And… Buy me something pretty tomorrow at the airport," she demands with a resolute tone in her voice. It doesn't help no matter how much we glare at her; she won't leave until we agree.

"That little brat tricked us," I mutter when we're finally able to move over to the room we wanted all along. "She didn't want the room, she wanted stuff. And money."

"And she got it, too."

At least our new room doesn't smell bad. No barf, no soft soap, no dog shitty smell. But I'm all out of candy, and I owe Connie five dollars.

Lovely.