Mark whined "Why aren't they coming! I slave over a cold crate making sushi for at least a hundred times, and the birds that I make it for aren't here!"
Artie, who was a depressed and sullen fellow, simply replied "Maybe they don't care" he said in a sepulchral tone.
"Or it could be that they picked up some takeout on their usual rounds and thought to surprise us!" said Darnell.
The possibilities were endless…
Meanwhile, in a lab not far from the shipwreck, there was a lab where animals from Antarctica were collected. Among the animals kept there, were some crabeater seals, a few skuas, an old leopard seal and…the penguins.
Skipper, who unlike the others was wide awake, could only read in Russian, which was most fortunate, because the cages in which they were kept in were adjacent to some signs written in Russian.
The signs roughly translated thus:
Ship to New York:
Central Park Zoo,
United States
Skipper was utterly appalled at what the signs said. We worked so hard to escape and we're stuck again with people who want to send us back! Impossible! With that, Skipper said nothing. He just stared at the cages where his mates were kept with the deepest somber state.
And all the while, all the others had seemed to give up hope as well, for without their leader to rouse them into an escape. Rico could not pull out his usual stick of dynamite, Kowalski didn't much feel like reading the signs for a way out, and Private simply stayed in his cage, in the corner most obscured from light, and sobbed quietly in sorrow…
And now that I've built up a fair bit of misery, I shall remedy the situation with a lighter chapter tomorrow…Western time.