CHAPTER 3

It was early morning. The penguins had been able to stay in one of King Julien's guestrooms, surprisingly with no fee. There was only two beds, so Skipper (of course) took one and Kowalski took the other, forcing Rico and Private on the floors. In the middle of the night, they both had snuck up on the ends of the two beds to get some sleep comfortably.

When Skipper woke up early, he found Private sleeping soundly on the end of his bed. "Don't they know not to do anything until I give out orders?" he muttered, getting up.

He waddled out of the room into the kitchen, to look for the refrigerator. It took a minute, but he finally found it. When he opened the door, he found a whole goldmine of fish, and ready-to-eat sushi. He took out four of the sushi containers and walked down the hallway back to the room they slept in.

He peeked, to see the rest of them sleeping soundly. He slammed the door open, watching each penguin's eyes slowly open. He chucked a sushi container at each of them. He missed Kowalski and Rico, but Private got hit in the stomach. "Ow," he muttered.

"Kowalski, Rico and Private!" Skipper yelled. "Get up! Eat!"

Each penguin slowly rose, eyeing the sushi containers. Kowalski was the first to open his, and he did it slowly and with caution. He picked up one of the sushi bites and looked at it. He threw it and caught it and toyed with it, finding it was rather squishy and rubbery. Skipper stopped watching him and looked at his own sushi. He picked it up and was about to eat it.

"Skipper, don't eat it," Kowalski told him.

The bite was halfway into his mouth when he paused, and then took it out. "Why, Kowalski?" he asked.

Kowalski replied, "Well, I find it rubbery. It's not tender and fresh like good sushi should be. It's like back in grade school, when the sushi nuggets bounced."

Skipper smiled. "Ahh, grade school…" He snapped back to life and looked at his three fellow penguins. "Well, we have encountered a dilemma. I guess we need someone to test it."

"Good idea!" Rico exclaimed.

Skipper looked at each one of them. "Private!" he yelled, and threw a bite of sushi at him. "Eat it and tell us how it tastes."

Private made a nervous, unappealing look at it. "Skipper, I really don't want to-"

"Private! Do it!" Skipper commanded, so Private shrugged his shoulders and put it in his mouth.

They waited for a report, but they didn't need one. A second later, Private started choking. He dashed into the bathroom and closed the door. Skipper, Kowalski and Rico stared at the door wide-eyed for a moment. The tension was strong. They wondered what was wrong with Private, and if the sushi was really THAT bad.

A minute later, Private waddled out, looking very sick. He was pale and a bit…green, and his eyes looked dazed. He could barely walk straight, he just plopped on the floor. "How was it?" Rico asked.

Private could barely speak. "…B-bad…" he moaned.

"That sushi makes you sick!" Kowalski said. "Just like food at grade school…"

"Private, you lie down, you look pretty ill," Skipper told him.

"I…c-can't move…" Private moaned from the floor. Skipper put a concerned look on his face.

"Kowalski, give me options," he said.

Kowalski took out his pad and began sketching. For a minute his face was struggling with thought about what he was drawing. A moment later he showed them his drawing, of three stick figures heaving another stick figure up and onto a big block (the bed).

"Good job, Kowalski!" Skipper said. "Ready? Come on, Rico."

Rico hopped off the bed and joined Skipper and Kowalski who were already ready to pick Private up.

"Ready…set…HEAVE!" Skipper called, and the penguins tried to lift Private with their delicate flippers. They toiled in lifting him, but finally did. When they had him in the air, they used every inch of strength they had to throw him on the bed. When he was on the bed, he immediately fell asleep.

"I think he's been cutting back on exercise…" Skipper remarked. "At least we have muscle!" Skipper said, but when he looked at his flipper he found it extremely thin, and quite frankly, weak.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! There was a few very loud knocks on their door. They recognized the noise and waddled for the door. KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK! "Okay, okay, hold your horses!" yelled Skipper. They got to the door and the three of them climbed on each other and reached the doorknob. They opened it, to see Maurice standing at the door.

"Hello," he greeted them rather friendlily.

"Hello," Skipper said.

Maurice, smiling, said, "You ready to get to work?"

"Work on what? - Oh, right, finding the crown," Skipper said.

"We have your first mission," Maurice said. "We need you to go spy on the Fusa. You know, find out what their planning."

Skipper nodded. "Alright, that seems doable. Boys, what do you think?"

Kowalski and Rico nodded. Skipper began giving orders. "Rico - go tell Private what we're doing. Kowalski, you'll come with me."

"Good luck…" Maurice said. He whispered in Skipper's ear - "Don't let them catch you. They are VICIOUS. Be very, very careful."

"No worries, my friend," Skipper assured them. "No worries."