Chapter 19 – Girlfriend (Kowalski's Story)
It was yet another beautiful day at the zoo, and the penguins were spending it as they usually do. While they were much more rested then they usually were thanks to the day that they had Maurice as their servant, this didn't stop Skipper from wanting to keep the team as physically fit as he could manage.
So after completing a pretty grueling training session, the other three penguins hopped out of the pool and sat down to catch their breaths before having to get ready for the day ahead of them.
The silence was soon broken, however, as Kowalski decided to speak up.
"You know, Skipper, I completely forgot to ask about this until now, but did you three ever manage to figure out the identity of our new zoomate?"
"Unfortunately, no. The lemurs managed to delay us enough that Alice's office was already locked up tight by the time we got there."
"Well, why didn't you just pick the lock? I'm sure Rico probably had a hairpin or something."
"I already had that plan in mind, Kowalski. Unfortunately, when we got in, the computer was also locked up tight, and you're the only one capable of hacking into something that fortified. So, essentially, the mission was a bust."
"That's a shame. I was interested to see who would be joining us."
"We did manage to find something that may help, though!" said Private from off to the side.
Curious, Kowalski turned towards the young penguin.
"And what would that be, Private?"
Private was about ready to answer when Skipper suddenly butted back in to the conversation.
"You know, I think it might be a good idea for us to continue this conversation back down below. Don't want any prying eyes seeing anything they're not supposed to."
Kowalski stared at Skipper for a moment before reluctantly nodding.
"Yes, I would have to agree. Let's head back to the HQ."
The four penguins headed back down the ladder into the HQ, Skipper scanning the area around them for any intruders before covering the hole above them.
When the penguins finally hopped down into the HQ, Skipper walked over to the table, where a manila envelope was sitting. As Skipper began opening said envelope and retrieving the documents inside, Kowalski couldn't help but notice the large CLASSIFIED stamp on it.
"Uh, Skipper, shouldn't classified documents like that be secured a little better than just keeping it out in the open? Where anyone can read it?"
"Thank you, Kowalski, I'm well aware of that fact. I've only just put this file together last night, and I haven't had a chance to put it away. Once you've viewed the contents, then I'll lock it away."
Kowalski gave his commander a weird look for a second before walking over to the table and looking at the photos that Skipper spread on to the table.
"Those look like some sort of metal plates. I'm not sure what Alice would need with that much metal."
"Maybe it's part of the habitat for the new animal?" said Private.
Kowalski paused for a moment, considering Private's suggestion.
"You know, that could be the case. The only question is what kind of habitat are they making?"
The room fell silent, as the penguins tried to think of ideas. Unfortunately, with the lack of clues that they had, they had no chance of doing so.
Sighing, Skipper turned towards the rest of his team.
"Alright men, I think we know what we have to do."
"We do?" asked Private, confused.
"Yes, we do! We're gonna have to go over to where the habitat is and see for ourselves who this new arrival is."
"You know, that's not such a bad idea. They're bound to have finished it by now. At least, I suppose that would be the case."
"Well, come on then! We don't have much time before the zoo opens!"
The penguins quickly hopped back up the ladder, every one of them looking forward to meeting their new zoomate.
Unfortunately, finding the new zoomate turned out to be a little more challenging than they thought at first.
"You know, I'm surprised that they would be able to fit a new habitat in here with how much the zoo has been filled up." pointed out Kowalski as the penguins continued to walk along the path.
"Don't worry, K'walski! I'm sure that we're gonna find our new friend soon enough!" said Private, who was really starting to get into finding the new habitat.
"I do appreciate the positive outlook, Private, but I'm beginning to think that I might have been wrong about the habitat being finished."
Kowalski soon became lost in thought as he tried to figure out when the new animal would arrive if they haven't already, when a voice suddenly called out from a habitat they just passed without noticing.
"Hi, Kowalski!"
"Hello, Doris."
Kowalski walked a few more steps before stopping in his tracks, his train of thought coming to a crashing halt. He slowly turned his head towards where the sound came from to find Doris the dolphin, leaning out of a decently-sized water tank.
"D-d-Doris?" he said, his brain unable to process the presence of his crush inside the confines of the zoo.
As Kowalski continued to sputter incoherently, he was only able to catch the worried look from Doris before he finally fainted.
"Um, is he alright?" asked Doris, concerned for Kowalski's well-being.
"Oh, I'm sure he'll be fine. I think he's just surprised to see you again." said Skipper.
Skipper soon realized that they should probably be getting back to their habitat before the zoo opened, so he turned towards Rico, who had a blank stare on his face as he looked at the out cold analyst.
"Rico, stop staring at him and pick him up! We need to get back to the HQ ASAP, and we've got to pick up the slack with Kowalski down."
Rico saluted, grabbing Kowalski by the flippers and hefting him up on to his back.
"Let's move!"
The penguins began heading back towards their habitat, leaving Doris wondering if Kowalski was okay.
With Rico having to carry Kowalski, the penguins' trip back to the habitat was a little slower than they would have liked, but they did manage to make it back with some time to spare.
After Skipper and Private hopped back over the fence, Rico was about to do so as well when he realized that he still had Kowalski on his back. He stared at the fence above him for a moment, trying to figure out what to do.
"Come on, Rico! We don't have time for any daydreaming!" yelled Skipper as he looked over the railing at the two of them.
Shrugging, Rico roughly threw Kowalski over the railing, barely missing Skipper as the commander dodged out of the way.
Thankfully, Rico put enough juice in his throw that Kowalski overshot the fake iceberg and landed in the water, sending a small fountain of water into the air.
"Hey, watch where you're throwing things, Rico!" said Skipper as the weapons expert hopped over the railing to join the others.
Despite Skipper being annoyed at nearly getting a face full of Kowalski, Rico's thoughts were on how cool it was to watch Kowalski fly through the air, and he was barely paying attention to what Skipper was saying.
Knowing that it probably wasn't worth it to try and talk sense into the manic penguin, Skipper sighed before walking over to the edge of the iceberg near where Kowalski landed.
"Hey, Kowalski! You awake down there?" he yelled, thinking that Kowalski would hear him.
Thankfully, seconds later, Kowalski breached the surface of the water, gasping as he pulled himself on to the iceberg.
"Here, sir."
"Good. Now, get ready. The zoo's about to open."
"Wait, hang on! What happened? The last thing I remember was thinking that I saw Doris, and then everything went black."
"Not the time, Kowalski. We'll discuss this at closing time." said Skipper.
Kowalski still really wanted to know what happened, but with the stern look Skipper was giving him, he figured it was probably best to keep quiet. So, after catching his breath and collecting his thoughts, he assumed his position just as the zoo opened and the humans began to file in.
Once closing time came along, and the humans finally filed out of the zoo at the end of another day, Kowalski didn't waste any time as he turned towards the others.
"Now someone really needs to explain to me what happened this morning! Is Doris really at the zoo now, or was I just seeing things?"
"That was definitely Doris, unless something's up and that was just a cybernetic dolphin sent by Blowhole to spy on us!" said Skipper.
Kowalski chose to ignore Skipper's paranoia acting up, instead glancing off in the direction of Doris's habitat with a wistful look on his face.
"Um, are you alright, K'walski? You don't seem like your usual self when Doris is around." said Private, noticing the look the analyst had on.
"I'm quite alright, Private. Why do you ask?"
Kowalski attempted to adopt a nonplussed look on his face, hoping that Private wouldn't see the torment he was going through, but he managed to see right through it. However, instead of calling him out on it, Private gave Kowalski a disappointed look after realizing that he was trying to hide his true feelings again.
After a few seconds of desperately trying to look away from the hurt look on the young penguin, Kowalski finally broke.
"Alright, I'll tell you Private. Just please stop with the waterworks."
Although Private was slightly annoyed that he has to resort to guilt-tripping Kowalski to get answers out of him, he remained silent as he listened to Kowalski explain himself.
"Do you remember when we stopped Blowhole from completing Project Bad Tidings?"
"Yeah, I do. I remember that was when you and Doris first got together."
"Well, as I'm sure you guys remember, things kind of fell apart. The long-distance relationship, combined with all of the missions that we've been doing meant that we haven't had any time to spend together."
Private's expression faltered, his heart breaking as he listened to Kowalski relive the bad memories.
"Anyway, I'm sure you guys know what happened between then and now."
Skipper shuddered, remembering the unpleasantness of cleanup duty after Kowalski's last bout of depression.
"Seeing her again after finally getting over her…it's tough. There's probably a good chance that things are going to be awkward between us now that we're gonna be in the same zoo."
With Kowalski finished, Private paused as he took in Kowalski's heartfelt explanation. After giving it some thought, though, his expression noticeably brightened as he realized that they could do something about Kowalski's problem.
"Don't worry, K'walski! We'll help you get back together with Doris!"
Caught off guard, Kowalski's eyes widened before he managed to speak.
"Private, you don't have to do this! I'm sure that we can still remain friends…somehow."
"Don't be silly. Of course we'll help you. Right, Skippah?"
Private looked expectantly over at his commander, who immediately backed up, holding his flippers up in defense.
"Whoa, hold on there, Private! I never applied to be a matchmaker."
Despite Skipper wanting to remain out of it, Private was undeterred.
"Come on, Skippah, I know you and Rico would love to be able to put the two of them back together. Besides, are you sure you want to deal with K'walski being distracted all the time on missions?"
Skipper paused as he considered what Private said. While he was still opposed to the idea of being involved with mushy love stuff, the fact that Kowalski could have Doris on his mind while on missions was a fact that he couldn't ignore.
Sighing in defeat, he turned towards Private.
"Alright, you win. I'll help you out. You know you can be really devious when you want to, Private."
"I can?"
"Never mind."
Satisfied that he managed to convince Skipper, Private turned towards the only penguin yet to agree.
"So, how about you, Rico? Are you in?"
Rico thought for a moment before giving his answer.
"Umm…okae. Why no'?" he said, shrugging.
Giddy, Private shivered before finally speaking.
"Oh, this is going to be so smashing! I can't wait to help K'walski out with you guys!"
Although Kowalski was still not entirely sure if it would be worth trying to get back together with Doris, Private's enthusiasm was infectious, and he couldn't help but smile as he thought about the possibility of finally getting to spend more time with his former flame.
Unfortunately, things didn't get off to a great start. Skipper wasn't interested in taking the lead on this mission, so he decided to give Private the job since it was his plan. It wasn't Skipper's best decision in the world, considering at Private's young age, his only real experience with love was an episode of the Lunacorns where Princess Self-Respectra and Prince Shares-a-lot needed to fall in love with each other to keep the kingdom from falling into evil hands.
Needless to say, their first attempt was a horrible failure.
Private set up an elaborate performance in front of Doris's tank, with Rico playing the evil one trying to claim the kingdom for himself. Kowalski was the prince, and Skipper was the one who told them that they must fall in love. Private, meanwhile, stayed off to the side, helping out when needed.
Unfortunately, none of the penguins really had any experience in acting, so the performance just turned into an awkward mess. Kowalski attempted to give Doris a look of apology while in the middle of the performance, but that just earned him an awkward look in return.
Finally, having had enough, Kowalski broke character and walked over to Private, leaning over towards one of his earholes.
"This isn't working, Private. We really need another idea."
Private wasn't really paying attention, though, as his focus was on Rico, who was really giving it his all in his performance. Sighing in disgust, Kowalski decided that it was probably best for them to regroup and try again, so he walked over and roughly pushed Rico and Skipper towards Private, despite their protests.
"Sorry, Doris. Didn't mean to waste your time." said Kowalski apologetically.
Kowalski quickly began pushing the others away from Doris, refusing to look back to see how badly this affected his chances with Doris.
An hour passed as the penguins continued to try many different methods to help Kowalski and Doris get back together, each as much of a failure as the last. They even tried setting up a romantic dinner between the two of them, but when left alone, it was constant silence between them, and it came to the point where Kowalski gave up and left.
Finally, having had enough, Doris decided that now was the time that she needed to speak her mind, so as Kowalski tried to sing her a song that he believed would help, Doris finally spoke up.
"Look Kowalski, I know what you're trying to do, and it really isn't working."
"But…I don't know what else to do."
"Just be yourself. I know that the others have been trying to help, but the things that you've been trying to do are just…so unlike you."
Kowalski thought for a moment back to when they first got together. He knew that it would be a waste of time to try to recreate the battle with Dr. Blowhole and Parker, so the lack of options was becoming pretty apparent to the analyst.
Sighing, Kowalski decided that there was only one course of action that he could take, so he turned towards where the other penguins were and spoke up.
"Would you mind giving the two of us some privacy, you guys? We need to work things out."
Skipper and Rico were only too happy to leave, as they were long past tired of following Private's half-baked plans. Private, however, didn't want to leave, as he was still invested in helping Kowalski out. However, Skipper was there to lead the young penguin away.
Once the other penguins were finally out of earshot, Kowalski sighed before beginning to speak.
"I just wanted to apologize for the way that I've been treating you."
"Oh Kowalski, you don't have to apologize. I know how important keeping the city safe is to you and the guys. I had a feeling things weren't going to work out for long between us."
"No, I really think I should apologize, Doris. I wasn't able to find any time to spend with you. I know all of the missions kept me extremely busy, but that's no excuse."
Kowalski sighed heavily before continuing on.
"Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?"
Kowalski watched as Doris considered whether to forgive him. When she didn't answer immediately, he began to grow worried.
"Listen, if we can work things out between us, I promise I will do all I can to find time for you."
Doris sighed before finally replying.
"I'd love to believe you, Kowalski, but I really don't think I can."
Kowalski's face fell as the news hit him, but Doris wasn't finished.
"However, I do know that you're still a wonderful friend to me, and I don't want that to end. So…can we still be friends?"
Kowalski was noticeably disappointed that his apology didn't work out the way he intended, but he was definitely in agreement that he didn't want to be completely cut off from her, so as he lifted his head to meet eyes with her, he smiled.
"I'd like to stay friends with you too, Doris."
Kowalski hopped up on to the tank, and the two of them hugged, or at least tried to. It was more like Kowalski hugged her while Doris simply enjoyed it.
Soon enough, Kowalski knew that it was time for him to get back to the HQ, so as he began walking, he turned around towards Doris and waved.
"I'll see you again, Doris. We'll try to visit whenever we can, okay?"
"Okay. Bye, Kowalski!"
His mood noticeably lighter, Kowalski finally began making his way back to the HQ, only to run into the others, who were waiting for him along the way.
"Guys! I thought you all went back to the HQ." said Kowalski, surprised.
"Well, we just wanted to see how you were doing. I know things have been kind of difficult between you and Doris." said Skipper.
"So, how did things go?" asked Private.
"Well…unfortunately, things didn't work out in terms of dating, but she did still want to be friends, so I suppose things did work out in the end."
"Well, that's good. I certainly don't want your business with her to interfere with focusing on our missions." said Skipper.
"I wouldn't worry too much, Skipper. I don't plan to let it."
Satisifed, Skipper nodded, and the four of them began heading back to their habitat. As Kowalski followed them back, he glanced back in the direction of Doris's habitat, thankful that he didn't lose a friend in her.