The girls started slowly settling into the hearts of the other zoo creatures, especially the male penguins residing with them. They began to consider the twins their sisters, and started looking out for them and such. And several weeks passed.
They began to notice some subtle things about the girls it was hard to notice.
For instance, Millie may act all tough and like that, but she was seen, on multiple occasions, to be her sisters sustaining force. That meant that she really had to have a heart of gold buried in her somewhere. She could compliment people when she felt like, and had been known to smile kindly at smaller animals. Mainly Mort.
And Anna didn't let her shyness rule her all the time. She kicked it to the curb a few times a week and allowed her real self to shine through, but after a few times a week she couldn't seem to go without it. Although, it began to fade with time, until they were astonished to see her starting conversations with them and actually looking them in the eye when she spoke. It was, they all reflected, a nice change.
And, the longer they got to know them, the more it was easy for them to tell the twins apart, which helped with the awkwardness.
So now, a typical night at the H.Q. went something like this.
"Did you know that the dolphin has a sonar location system?" Anna asked, in-between bites.
But her comment did not have the effect intended. "Dolphin!" Private shrieked.
"Blowhole!" Skipper slammed his fist on the table.
Kowalski felt the need to explain. "Dr. Blowhole is our dolphin nemesis."
"You guys have a nemesis? Cool!" Millie gasped in awe. "Omgosh you have to let me meet him!"
"You guys have a nemesis? Isn't that an enemy, of sorts?" Anna asked, hoping she didn't sound stupid.
"Correct." Kowalski affirmed, as everyone settled back down. "He's pure evil wrapped in a copious amount of genius."
"Oh. So do you…you know, fight him?" Anna asked, and Millie burst out with laughter.
"Of course they fight him! What did you think they did, huh?"
Anna blushed. "I don't know," she mumbled.
And a few weeks after that, the men had the girls' characters down pat.
Anna was quiet, but she had a sense of humor and was an optimist. She loved the rainstorms, purple was her favorite color, and she usually had insomnia. She hoped to one day write a great American novel, and was always working on it to get it down. She liked classical music, sometimes country and pop, but no hard rock. And she could often be found out in the central park, smelling the flowers and thinking. She was very clumsy.
Millie was just as loud as she had first been supposed to be. She had a sense of humor, but it was different from Anna's. She hated water with a fierce dislike, orange was her favorite color, and she could sleep for more than fifteen hours a day, or watch TV for seventeen. She usually tried sneaking in to train with the others, but got promptly expelled when they caught her. She lived for hard rock and punk, and was a fan of those kinds of bands. In fact, she was once penned by Anna as being the 'worlds biggest rolling stones fan'.
And these, then, were the characters of the newest penguins admitted to the Central Park Zoo.
One day, in mid-August, the penguins decided it was time for a day at the beach. The usually went about once a year.
Anna was intrigued. "The beach?"
"Yea. The beach." Skipper felt as if he was explaining something to a small child. "Don't you know, the beach? Waves and sunshine?"
"I know what it is," Anna remarked, going back to her book. "I just have never been to one."
The collective gasp made her look up. Everyone was looking at her. "What?"
"You've never been to a beach?" Private asked, sounding shocked to his core.
"Nope. In France, we didn't live near the ocean at all. In fact, Millie and I had to pretend that the lake in the backyard had a beach. I'm sure it's close to the same thing."
"Actually," Millie sounded sheepish. "I have been to a beach."
"What?" Anna looked up again.
"Yea, ok so, you remember Isabel? Yea, so, she took me and Celesta to the beach once, (a four hour drive) and it was awesome."
"How come you didn't tell me?" Anna sounded a little hurt.
"Well," Millie seemed uncomfortable. "Mom didn't want you to know. You couldn't go; that was the summer of 06."
"Oh." Anna didn't say anything else; apparently the summer of 06 was memorable to her in some way.
And they were all reminded of Anna's cancer.
"Well, if you haven't been to a beach," Private started.
"We should go right now!" Skipper ordered. "In the car, everyone!"
Millie wanted to sit on the back hood, which they reluctantly let her do, and Anna sat in the back between Private and Kowalski.
Rico was driving, so they got to the beach quicker than humanly possible, no pun intended.
"Would you turn up the radio?" Millie asked, "I can't hear it."
Skipper reluctantly turned it up. "Is this ok music for you?" It was screaming goth music.
"Omg I love this song!" Milie gushed.
Anna sighed. "This is just people beating on instruments."
"You take that back!" Millie said, pointing her flipper at Anna's head.
"Ok, ok," Anna sighed again, "I take it back. This is so neurologically stimulating."
At that, Kowalski laughed. And Millie glared at him. "Watch it, poindexter."
And that was how the drive went.
The beach was blue and green, and roaring and peaceful, and beautiful and dangerous all at once. Anna was enthralled.
"Wow," she kept saying. "Wow, wow…"
She jumped out of the car, and ran toward the surf. "This is so…amazing."
Kowalski and Skipper set up an instant campsite, and Millie plopped down in the sand. "Later," she said.
Rico and Private followed Anna to the water, and Skipper lay down, glasses on, under the red umbrella. "Time for some sun," he mumbled, falling asleep.
Kowalski watched Anna splash about in the waves, overjoyed at how large, cold and wet they were, and smiled to himself. She seemed like a young child with a new toy. You know, you could join her, he thought, you could.
Why not? He ran out after her.
Private and Anna were splashing about in the waves, allowing them to carry them to shore. They would count to three, jump into the wall of salt water, and be washed in with the tide. Kowalski laughed a little when Anna came up, soaking and sputtering, but laughing and running out to go again.
He walked on up to them, and felt out of place. I'm a scientist, he sighed inwardly, I just don't understand fun.
But she's a scientist, too. He realized, and just before he walked out and left them there playing, Anna ran up and grabbed his wrist.
"Come on, Kowalski!" She blurted, "The wave is coming! It's going to be very big, I can tell. Alright," She positioned herself beside Private, with Kowalski on her other side. "Now you just jump, and hold your breath. I'll tell you when…three…two…one…now!" And Anna leapt forwards as the wave grabbed them and let it carry her in to shore. She was washed up, face down, on the sand.
Kowalski, having followed her lead, found himself beside her, only a few inches away. She rolled over to face him, and smiled. "Wasn't that fun?" she asked, and he was dying to say how beautiful she looked with droplets of water captured in her eyelashes, her feathers clinging to her face, flushed with pleasure.
But he couldn't. "Yes, that was rather exhilarating."
She laughed at his word choice. "Come on, Kowalski! Lighten up! Laugh a little."
"Ha ha ha…ha?" He mocked her playfully, and she tossed him a look of fake annoyance.
"Very funny, Kowalski. You know what? I liked it better when you were in scientific mode." She rose to her feet, and raked the sand off of her arms. "This stuff gets stuck everywhere, I swear. I'm assuming this is 'sand'? A mixture of crushed and polished rock pieces ground down into infinitesimal specks of minute structure?"
And Kowalski felt so at ease with her that he did relax. "Yes, that is correct."
Anna frowned, and stooped to pick something up at her feet. "And this would be the shed exoskeleton of marine life?"
"That is also correct, although most prefer the term 'shell'."
"Shell," Anna let the word roll around in her mouth like hard candy. "It's very pretty, especially for a skeleton of sorts."
Kowalski smiled, and handed her another. "They are very, er, pretty."
Anna smiled as she took it from him. "They're all different," she noted, diving to catch one that almost got swept away.
Private ran up just then, shaking the water from his ears. "Come one guys! Let's go get that wave!"
Anna laughed and set the shells further upshore.
"You'll miss the wave, Anna," Kowalski said, "You better hurry."
"Who's missing it now?" she smirked as she ran past him, kicking up salty spray behind her.
Kowalski just smiled.
Meanwhile, up on shore, Rico, Millie and Skipper were sitting around under the suns rays.
And that was when Millie sat up, saw Anna in the ocean swimming about, and almost had a heart attack. "My god, Anna!" She jumped up and stormed down to the ocean, grabbing her sister by the arm.
"What?" Anna asked innocently, as a wave blew over them both. Kowalski and Private, not having noticed that Anna hadn't the ability to go, had both jumped on in to shore.
"You know you have to be careful! You know you can't do anything dangerous! Do you want to go into relapse?" Millie berated, and the boys turned to see what was going on.
Anna ripped her arm away from her concerned twin. "No, I don't. I was being careful, Millie."
"No, you weren't. I don't want you to do that anymore. You know how klutzy you are!" Millie started walking away. "Besides, I'm oldest."
"By three and a half minutes!" Anna called after her, frustrated. "You know that doesn't count."
"Counts enough for me," Millie retorted, lying back down. "No. More."
"Ugh!" Anna, angry, walked back in to shore. "I'm not aloud to do that anymore, guys. I'm sorry."
"It's alright," Kowalski said, "Why don't we look for some more shed exoskeletons of marine life?"
Anna grinned, forgetting her anger. She thought he was hilarious. "Ok, let's go find some shells."
A few minutes later, Anna and Kowalski had gathered up a huge pile of colorful shells besides the umbrellas. Private was still riding waves in.
Tired from the day at the beach, Anna sprawled out where the waves came crashing in to shore, and let them wash up around her. "I'm exhausted," she commented, gathering up a handful of sand to squeeze.
"Me too," Kowalski said, using that as an excuse to sit besides her. "It's so peaceful out here."
"Really? You think this is peaceful?" Anna propped herself up on her elbows, letting the suns dying rays strike and crisscross over her face. "I like it because its so…not. It's rebellious and never ending. Sort of like Millie, I suppose."
He chuckled at her comment. "I think it can be both. That's why so many people like it."
"Depends on what you want to see." Anna muttered, understanding his thought process. "So which is it, really? Dangerous or peaceful?"
"I think it's a force of nature." Kowalski said, closing his eyes. "Unstoppable either way."
"I agree." Anna smiled, collapsing on the sand again.
Kowalski let the silence hang for a minute, and then he wanted to ask her something. But he realized he didn't dare to speak what he was thinking, so he promptly re-closed his beak.
Besides, he reasoned with himself, love isn't real. Love is, can only be, a hormonally driven desire empowered by the wishful thinking of the mind.
Then why does it hurt so much?
Eventually, the sun-bathers sat up and started talking.
"Look at Anna and Kowalski," Millie mused, for at the time they were gathering shells. "She looks so happy with him, it's almost like she's forgotten everything."
"Forgotten what?" Private asked, having waddled up from the surf.
"Forgotten about her cancer." Millie stated, still looking slightly out of it.
Skipper had a question he wanted to ask, but he was almost afraid to. "About her cancer, um, Millie," and he waited until she was looking at him. "how long does she have?"
"To live?" Millie seemed unusually calm talking about it. "Depends. Depends on if she relapses, depends on how bad it is, depends on medicine and treatment. That is, we don't really know. But she's pretty confident she can beat it. She has held up for, gosh, is it thirteen years now?" Millie shook her head in disbelief.
"What happens when she does relapse?" Skipper asked, glancing over to see Anna laughing as she threw a shell at Kowalski. "How quickly does it happen?"
"Oh, usually she starts shaking a lot, and faints a bit." Millie watched Kowalski dodge the shell, playfully tossed, and he made some sort of attempt at a joke. "Sometimes she can't breathe for periods of time. But it happens over time slowly, so you aren't sure if what you're looking at are symptoms or what, and then one day she'll be unable to breathe and falls down." Millie reflected. "Sometimes I had to get the humans to treat her. There is only so much I've learned how to do. Mom used to take care of her, and then she died, and I was the only one left."
"Your mum died?" Private whispered, "That's horrible!"
"Yea, it was. But it was a few years ago, so we've gotten over it for the most part."
"What about your father?" Skipper found himself asking.
"We didn't really get to know him," Millie said, tracing designs in the sand. "He was in a boating accident in the navy before we were two. He never even knew about Anna's cancer."
Silence followed, and Millie continued tracing random squiggles in the dust around her. "But, you know," she said eventually, "it's not so bad."
Rico grunted and placed a hand over Millie's tracing one, and smiled a little at her.
But the craziest thing was that Millie smiled back.
As they all piled into the pink, flowery car to go back to the zoo, Kowalski almost said that thing again. But then he stopped himself.
And then, as they were driving away, Anna clutched her bag of seashells on her lap. They were precious to her now, and she didn't want them to be crushed or broken. So she carefully held them the whole way home, and when they got to the H.Q., she ran down and set the bag on bunk. She had a great idea for those.
A few minutes later, they found Anna gluing the shells, pretty side up, to the top of her bunk.
"What are you doing?" Millie asked, observing her sister.
"Gluing these shells up," Anna said, smiling at her handiwork proudly. "I like them, so I decided I'd hang them there."
"Whatever," Millie mumbled, plopping down on her bunk, since it was after dark. "Do what you want, sis."
"Yay," Anna sighed, "First time ever."
Another pillow to the face.
