Chapter 10 – Mini-Golf (Private's Story)
It was another beautiful day in the zoo. Fortunately for all of the animals, the zoo was closed for the weekend, so they were able to get to enjoy the nice weather for a change without having to worry about keeping the humans entertained.
The penguins, however, weren't actually enjoying said weather. All of the penguins except for Skipper wanted to have the day for free time, but the commander wasn't having any of it.
"We've got to be prepared for anything, men. We can't risk skipping morning exercises, and that's final!"
The other three penguins groaned before jumping into the water. As they swam laps around the habitat, Skipper was looking over them, making sure that they were giving it their all.
"Come on, put your backs into it! I don't want to see any of that pretending to swim bullhonkey!"
After a while, Skipper finally let them come back up, and the other three penguins slowly crawled their way back onto the fake ice floe. As they caught their breaths, Kowalski looked up at Skipper to point something out that crossed his mind.
"That was definitely at a much faster pace than what you usually put us through, Skipper."
"Can't be too careful, Kowalski. Alright men, you're all dismissed."
Kowalski, Private and Rico weakly celebrated before they all collapsed to the ground.
A little while later, the penguins were all scattered around their HQ, enjoying the free day in their own ways.
Rico chose to spend time with Ms. Perky, brushing her hair and just being generally affectionate towards her.
Skipper was sitting at the table not too far away from Rico, poring over some plans for future missions. However, he couldn't really keep his full attention on his work considering he had to listen to Rico fawn over Ms. Perky. Even though he was quite used to the way Rico acted with his psychotic mind, it still felt awkward to the commander when Rico starts getting 'touchy-feely' with her.
Private and Kowalski, however, had the same idea with how they decided to spend the day. Actually, Kowalski wanted to spend some more time in his lab, but Skipper was having none of it, wanting him to 'get some sun for once in your life'.
So, Kowalski and Private were lounging on lawn chairs right outside of the HQ.
"Man K'walski, this is the life, isn't it?"
The analyst initially didn't agree with Private's sentiment, but as the seconds wore on, he began to realize that it was actually pretty nice outside, smiling as he stared at the clouds.
"Yes Private, this is definitely something."
The two of them continued to rest for a while, until Kowalski suddenly spotted something out of the corner of his eye. He sat up and raised his sunglasses (which they were both wearing) so that he could easily see what it was.
"Hey Private? Am I seeing things, or is there a featureless brown blob headed our way?"
Private sat up, confused. He took off his sunglasses and stared in the same direction Kowalski was. By the time he did so, the figure was close enough so that Private could see some of the features. And when he saw the figure's face, he knew exactly who was coming.
"Oh no, not him again…"
Kowalski turned towards Private, having not recognized the figure at the moment.
"You know who that is?"
Private sighed, clutching a flipper to his head as he felt a headache coming on.
"I know that face anywhere. It's the Amarillo Kid."
Private suddenly heard a spitting noise coming from behind him. He turned around and saw Kowalski coughing, a nearly empty glass of water in his flipper.
"Sorry…drank that too fast."
Private chose not to reply, as the Amarillo Kid had finally made it to the fence separating him from the habitat.
"What do you want, Kid?" asked Private.
He began making his way over to the armadillo, intending to kick him out, but he stopped in his tracks when the Amarillo Kid held his hands up in front of him.
"Now hold on there, Mr. Tux. I've got no quarrel with you today. In fact, I wanted to hopefully start over with you, and we can be friends."
Private was noticeably surprised to hear this coming from the armadillo. However, his eyes returned to their steely gaze when he realized the possibility that he was being lead on.
"How do I know you're not just going to go back to being how you were before?"
The Amarillo Kid sighed before replying.
"After you defeated me the last time I was here, I had to do a little soul searching. I finally realized that it just isn't worth focusing on trying to beat you. I've got better things I can do with my life. So, I figured that it would be a good idea for us to try to be friends."
By this point, Skipper and Rico had joined the rest of the group, wondering what all of the commotion was. Private opened his beak to answer, but the Amarillo Kid held up a claw as he spoke up again.
"After one more round of mini-golf."
Kowalski did yet another spit take, spraying water all over Rico, who glared at the analyst.
"I really shouldn't be drinking when these kinds of things happen. Sorry."
Private cleared his throat to catch everyone's attention before turning back towards the Amarillo Kid.
"This doesn't really make much sense. You're going on about not wanting to focus your life on beating me, and now you want to play another round?"
"Hey, let me explain! I would just like one more chance to take you on. If I beat you, great! If not, life goes on. Simply put, this would just be for fun."
Private paused as he thought about whether he should take the Amarillo Kid's offer.
"I'll be right with you in a second. I have to discuss this with my team."
The Kid nodded, and the four penguins huddled up.
"I don't like this, Private. Remember what he did last time? He wired the HQ to blow up!" said Skipper, sneaking a peek back at the Amarillo Kid to make sure he wouldn't do it again.
"I don't know, Skippah. He seems pretty genuine to me."
"Oh, you poor, naïve fool. That's just what he wants you to think!"
Private shook his head, not wanting to believe he was wrong about the Amarillo Kid. But before he could reply, Skipper suddenly turned to face Rico.
"Rico, head down into the HQ and check to see if there are any bombs around. We'll expose this chump no matter what it takes."
"Okay!" said Rico gleefully, as he hopped down the hatch.
A little while later, Rico popped back topside and rejoined the team.
"So, is there anything down there?" asked Skipper.
Rico vigorously shook his head, and Private couldn't resist giving Skipper an "I told you so" look.
"Alright Private, you win. You make your own decision on this."
Private paused, having made his decision. He walked over to the Amarillo Kid, reaching behind his back and putting his red bowtie on his chest.
"You're on."
The Amarillo Kid chuckled.
"That's good news. I'll give you some time to get ready."
Private nodded, and the penguins hopped back down into the HQ.
The next few minutes were silent inside the HQ, as Private had his putter in his flippers, getting himself ready for the match.
However, the silence was broken, as Kowalski decided to voice his concerns to Private.
"Are you certain that you want to do this, Private? I'm sure that you have your reasons to trust him, but I don't really follow those same kinds of thoughts."
Private sighed.
"Yes K'walski, I trust him. Now will you please leave me alone? I need to get ready."
Kowalski spluttered, trying to form a coherent sentence to try to convince Private of the Amarillo Kid not being as trustworthy as originally thought.
"Look, if it'll make you and Skippah happy, you can be my eyes and ears while I'm busy with the match. Make sure he doesn't do anything he shouldn't."
Kowalski reluctantly nodded, and Private returned to his preparations while Kowalski went over to sit next to Skipper, whispering so that they wouldn't be heard.
"Skipper, I think we need to have a plan in case something goes wrong during Private's game."
"Agreed. What do you have in mind?"
Kowalski thought for a second before replying.
"If the Amarillo Kid doesn't play by the rules, we'll sic Rico on him. I'm sure that'll teach him a lesson."
"Great idea, Kowalski!" Skipper yelled, forcing Kowalski to shush him as the other two penguins gave him a weird look.
"I'll discuss it with Rico once the match starts."
Skipper nodded, and the room fell silent once again, that is until the hatch opened, and the Amarillo Kid poked his head through the opening.
"It's time. Are you ready, Mr. Tux?"
Private looked up at the armadillo and nodded. He made his way over towards the ladder and hopped his way up; with the rest of the penguins following close behind.
When all of the penguins made their way topside, they were surprised to see some of the animals come over to watch, including Julien, who was in front of the crowd doing his whispery announcer voice.
"Wow, didn't expect this many of the guys to show up." said Skipper.
Private was slightly nervous at seeing how many animals were there, but he steeled his nerves as the penguins walked over to the start of the course.
When they finally arrived, they found that the Amarillo Kid was already there, stretching out as his ball was already placed on the ground in front of him.
"You ready to go, Mr. Tux? I'm gonna be giving it my all!"
Private nodded, although he wondered exactly how much effort he was giving last time considering he barely managed to beat him.
The Amarillo Kid smiled before he got into position, the crowd quieting down as he prepared to take the shot.
Eventually, he finally swung and hit the ball, sending it flying as it curved around a track along the wall, made a u-turn and went straight into the hole.
The Amarillo Kid fist pumped, happy that his round was starting off well.
"Looks like you're gonna have to be really good if you're gonna beat me. I'm on my A-game today."
Private was a little bit nervous, knowing that he wasn't going to have any room for error, but he took a breath to calm himself down as he prepared to take his shot.
The path his shot took somewhat deviated from the Kid's shot, but it still went into the hole all the same.
"I'm not done yet." said Private as he went over to collect his ball.
The Amarillo Kid grumbled, slightly annoyed that Private was keeping up with him, but happy as well that he was going to be given a good fight from the young penguin.
Over the next couple holes, Private and the Amarillo Kid managed to get hole-in-one after hole-in-one, impressing the crowd with the moves they make during each increasingly complex hole.
However, when they reached Hole 5, things began to get interesting.
The Amarillo Kid was preparing to take his shot, when a grasshopper suddenly jumped in front of the ball. Caught off guard, his shot was off target. However, by a sheer stroke of luck, the ball managed to land a few feet from the hole after more bounces than the crowd could count.
Private was admittedly surprised to see the Kid's concentration break like that. However, before he could plan a strategy around that, his thoughts were interrupted by a call from the crowd.
"Come on Private, you can do it! You can take the lead!" yelled Skipper.
Unfortunately, it didn't pan out like Skipper thought, as the pressure lead to Private's shot being just off of the mark, missing the hole by inches.
This earned Skipper a glare from the Private, as well as a scolding from Kowalski.
"This is why spectators at golf games are usually supposed to be quiet."
Skipper gave Kowalski a sarcastic look, but in his mind he knew that he probably shouldn't have done that, and he resolved to keep quiet somehow.
The next three holes were uneventful, as Private and the Amarillo Kid also managed to pull off hole-in-ones on them as well.
Finally, they managed to make it to the final hole, and as Private took a look at it, his mind was going in circles trying to figure out how the whole thing worked.
The final hole was filled with sharp turns, loops, curves along walls…pretty much any kind of obstacle ever created in mini-golf was in this hole.
"Wow, you really went all out on this one, didn't you?"
The Amarillo Kid chuckled.
"Well, I wanted to make this one interesting for our last hurrah. Don't you think this works out pretty good?"
Private gave the Kid a confused look.
"To be honest, I'm not sure where the hole begins and ends."
The Kid sighed.
"Alright, I'll explain it to you just this once. So you'd better be listening."
As Private listened intently, the Amarillo Kid launched into an explanation about the path that the ball would take to get to where the hole was, which turned out to be quite a distance away. There was also a lot of steps in the process, so Private was only really able to remember some of it.
But, as the Amarillo Kid began making his way back to the beginning of the hole, Private figured he might as well just wing it and hope that his shot makes it through the entire path.
"So, do you understand where everything is, then?"
Private nodded, and the Amarillo Kid smiled, glad that he wouldn't have to explain it again.
"Alright, good. I'm going first on this one, so let me go ahead and take my shot."
The crowd fell silent once again, allowing the Amarillo Kid to focus fully on his shot. The only thing everyone could hear (besides Julien's whispery commentary) was the Amarillo Kid slowly breathing in and out.
Eventually, he hit the ball, and it flew through the twisting turns of the course. It was moving around so much, even Private lost sight of it a few times. A couple of minutes later, though, it finally popped out at the end of the track, and it slowly inched its way towards the hole.
The Amarillo Kid watched with bated breath, until it finally dropped in. He wildly began to celebrate, surprised that he managed to pull off a hole-in-one on a course that he specifically designed to be as difficult as humanly possible to get a low score on.
"Well, it all comes down to this, Mr. Tux. You've gotta get a hole-in-one to stay in the game."
Private gulped, not sure if even he with his considerable talent would be able to pull something like that off. But before he could even begin preparing to take the shot, Kowalski walked over, placing both flippers on Private's shoulders.
"Come on Private, you can do it. Just concentrate. You've pulled this kind of stunt off before."
"But K'walski, the last hole that other time wasn't nearly as complex as this one!"
The analyst looked over at the track. He could see Private's point, but he pushed that thought to the back of his mind, intending to try to convince Private he could still pull it off.
"Don't worry about the length, Private. You're one of the best mini-golf players in the city! The Amarillo Kid is just as good as you, and he managed to pull it off!"
Private paused, considering what Kowalski said. Finally, he smiled.
"Thanks for that, K'walski."
Kowalski gave Private a pat on the shoulder before returning to his spot in the crowd.
Private slowly made his way over to the ball, his heart beating in his chest as he prepared to take the biggest shot of his mini-golf career.
As he stood over his ball, slowly breathing in and out to calm himself down, he visualized the path that the ball would take to the hole. In his head, he quickly estimated the amount of force he would need to put on the ball to make it through the entire course and adjusted his stance accordingly.
"Here goes nothing." he said to himself, as he closed his eyes and smoothly hit the ball.
Private kept his eyes closed, unable to watch. He could only listen as the ball made its way through the track. Eventually, when Private was starting to believe it would never end, the ball hit the ground, and Private waited for the sound of the ball going into the hole.
But it never came, and Private opened his eyes to find the ball stopped just short of the hole.
The celebration didn't start immediately, as everyone knew what happened last time with the ball rolling in a few seconds later thanks to a cricket.
The ball didn't move, though, and the Amarillo Kid took it as a signal that he could finally celebrate. Private was disappointed that he lost, but he was glad that the Kid gave him a clean match, and he also was happy that he got a real battle from the armadillo.
So, as the Kid celebrated, Private walked over to him, smiling as he held out a flipper.
"Congrats, Amarillo Kid. You deserve this victory."
The Amarillo Kid paused in his celebrations, looking down at Private slightly warily. But after a few seconds, he gladly accepted Private's handshake offer, giving the young penguin a firm shake.
"It was a hard fought match. I'm glad that we can finally be friends now, Mr. Tux."
"Please, call me Private."
The Amarillo Kid smiled as Private took his bowtie off and threw it away.
"Sure thing…Private."