He secured his pack tightly and headed outside, reciting his bizarre list to himself – something for a curtain, D-cell batteries, a new bag, some seasoning, some snacks.
He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the morning sunlight, and peered around. There were songbirds perched among the branches overhead, but they were facing the other way. In the distance he saw human picnickers between him and his target. He could sneak around them easily.
He crept out of the hole and over to the next tree, keeping an eye on the birds. He advanced to the next tree, then the next.
He saw a squirrel to his left and froze.
Fred the squirrel ambled over to where he was standing. He hadn't spotted Private yet, as he was staring up at the sky. Heart pounding, Private backed up against the tree and desperately hoped Fred wouldn't see him.
Fred looked down, a bored look on his face, then turned his head towards Private. They stared at each other for a second.
"Hi, Fred," Private whispered, flippers gripping at the bark nervously.
"Hello. Your friends are looking for you, did you know that?" Fred stared blankly into his eyes. Private pushed back against the tree harder. "They told me to keep a lookout for you. I'm supposed to tell them if I see you in the park."
Private swallowed.
"But not if you're on a tree trunk, though," Fred said, looking thoughtful.
Private blinked at him, mystified. "A tree trunk?"
"Yeah, like the poster. If you're on a tree, you don't count."
Suddenly Private understood. Dumb old Fred must have been told to report the presence of the missing penguin, and he had reported seeing him... but on a 'wanted' poster of him taped to a tree. Naturally, Fred's dimwittedness had required an exception for tree-penguins to be ignored.
Inspiration striking, he leaned heavily against the tree behind him. "So I guess I don't count, right? Because I'm on a tree?" He stammered hopefully.
"Oh... I guess so." Fred scratched his head. "See you, then."
"Good, um, goodbye," Private said, thanking his luck that Fred was 'dumber than a sack of hammers' as the unintelligent squirrel wandered away.
He took a deep breath. That had been close. Had he not been with his back to a tree, Private thought he would have been reported, dumb or not, and that would have been it - game over. Captured, charged, imprisoned. Maybe executed. He shivered.
He continued walking, this time looking all around him for any possible threat. He glanced behind himself frequently.
The picnickers were as easy to avoid as he'd guessed: Private simply waited until they were all looking down at their food before dashing past.
He sidestepped a thorny plant and vaulted over the roots of a tree. The snow-cone stall was in sight. Private came closer and glanced around.
The colourful cart stood before the restrooms, which were a small building, stucco and plain, surrounded on three sides by bushes and box planters. Two doors were set in its exposed side, with a bush between them. There was no vegetation – and hence no cover – between him and the restrooms. He looked around him and saw the only way to get there would be to dash to the snow-cone cart, then to the bench outside the building, then into the tall bush between the two doors.
He was looking left and right, waiting for the coast to be clear, when he saw the chance he needed - he shot over to the cart and dived down by the server-man's legs, hoping nobody had seen him. The man didn't react and he couldn't hear any animals reacting, so he relaxed, assuming he was safe.
Private poked his head around the corner of the cart to get a good look at the bench. It was curved and artsy, as instead of four bench legs there were two semi-circles of metal, one at either side, embedded into the bench seat to keep it held up. The semi-circle closest to Private looked like a good place to hide behind.
He looked around and saw nothing on one side, but on the other -
His breath caught in his throat. He slowly moved back behind the cart, hoping beyond hope that they hadn't seen him. Beginning to panic, he prepared himself for a fight, and just then spotted a sliding-door opening in the side if the cart. Grateful, he instantly climbed inside, knowing he had little choice. They were approaching.
He shrank back among the bottles of flavoured syrup and prayed they would leave quickly. He heard Rico garble something and heard Kowalski laugh. They were coming closer, chatting, and he knew they were here for snow-cones. He heard the man at the cart drop with a thump to the grass as he was knocked unconscious, probably by Skipper. He heard them muttering. Private swallowed. He hadn't realised today was the week's chores day, hadn't realised they would be getting snow-cones, oh, of all times to get them...
Private hunched in the corner and turned his back to the gap, hiding his face and white feathers, so that if one of them looked in they wouldn't see him amongst the shadows and bottles. He hoped.
He listened closely, trying to keep his breathing quiet in his throat despite his panic, as they served themselves. Beneath his fear, he wondered whether they missed him.
He heard Skipper's voice outside. "Out of strawberry..."
To Private's horror, the sliding section began to move behind him. He forced himself to remain motionless and keep his white parts out of sight. There were soft thunk sounds as their leader moved bottles of syrup aside, while Private was hidden in shadow only inches away.
There was a sudden pause in the sounds, and for one heart-stopping moment Private thought Skipper had seen him. Then the door slid shut and he was plunged back into total darkness.
A minute of more chatting and noises passed, then their voices began to fade. They were leaving.
Heart pounding, he turned and slowly opened the door again, sticking his head out to look around. He cursed his bad luck – five minutes earlier or later, they would have missed each other. There was now nobody outside, apart from the unconscious man, so he stepped outside again. His flippers shook visibly when he held them up in front of his face.
Private took several deep breaths as he peeked around the cart. He made doubly sure there was nobody coming before treading over to the bench, then into the bush like he had planned.
He waited among the leaves until he was completely calm. He couldn't believe he had been so close to his unit and hadn't realised until they were almost on him. He vowed to himself to be far more careful when moving around in daylight, and to keep track of the days better. Suddenly Private remembered the picnic that was scheduled soon and his heart twisted. Would they cancel, or be there without him? He pushed it out of his mind – it was too trivial to worry about now.
To his left was the men's bathroom. He heard people moving around inside. To the right was the women's and it was silent, but Private felt heat rise under the feathers on his face when he thought about it. He wasn't going in there.
Private decided to wait until the men's bathroom was empty, so he could fill up his water bottle at the tap. He stared out of the bush at the door, waiting, then it opened and a tall ginger-haired man strode out, tucking the front of his shirt into his jeans. Private was hopeful the rest would follow, but then several more men, who seemed to have been fishing at the lake nearby according to what they were wearing, went inside the bathroom, and Private could guess he would be waiting for quite a while if he wanted to fill his drink in the men's.
The women's bathroom on the right remained silent. Private was uncomfortable. He saw yet another guy heading for the men's, and so he grudgingly made the decision to get water from the women's sinks.
When it was clear, he stepped out of the bush and pushed at the heavy wooden door, opening it enough to squeeze in through. As he was about to enter the bathroom, he noted that he wouldn't be able to get outside through this door.
He hesitated, still holding the door open, until he spotted a small window set high into the opposite wall. It was wedged open and seemed large enough to climb out through, and there was an easy route to it.
Private entered and let the door swing closed. He took off his rucksack and unfastened it, listening out for the sounds of approaching female humans. He uncapped the water bottle and hopped from the floor to the rim of a dustbin, then to a sink, then swiftly turned on the faucet and filled the bottle almost to the brim. He recapped it.
Private put his beak into the stream of water and sipped some before turning off the faucet. He checked the cap and found it perfectly sealed.
He was about to hop off the sink when he noticed a sign on the wall. He couldn't read it, but its message was clear from the image next to the text. The sign showed a glass of water with a red 'no' symbol over it, clearly showing that the water from the tap was not safe for drinking. At the bottom of the text was an insignia and illegible motto from a water company.
So it was unsafe. For humans to drink, that is. It was probably safe for penguins, right?
Still, Private was a little concerned. He decided not to drink any more until he could add the water-purifying pills to make it safer.
He dropped down onto the floor and put his bottle in the bag, and slung the bag onto his back. He looked up at the window. It was an easy climb.
Private scaled a second bin, this one strangely shaped, and leapt from it to a hand-dryer under the window. He jumped up and grabbed the ledge, hoisted himself up, and left the room through the gap, dropping into the bush below the window.
Easy, he thought to himself.
Now, for his shopping list. Some material for a curtain, four D-cell batteries, a smaller bag, some seasoning for his fish, and some snacks.
He headed towards the boundary of the park to look for shops. When he was partway there, he saw a group of human picnickers packing up to leave. He paused to watch them, wondering what they had in their basket.
A tall female heaved a short sigh. "Look at this." She held up the picnic blanket for the others to look at. Private saw it was tattered and frayed, and it was losing its colour. "We can't use this old thing any more... it's hideous."
A man grunted. "Leave it here. We can get a new one at Kale's place."
They gathered up their stuff and left, leaving the dirty red-and-white checked blanked on the grass. Darn litterbugs, Private thought with distaste, watching them walk away. Then he realised he had found his curtain and he beamed.
It was large, but folded down many times it didn't take up too much space in his bag. Curtain – check.
Private walked on until he was close to the streets. He scanned the line of stores and restaurants, looking for anywhere that might have what he needed, until he recognised one he and the unit had visited in the past. It was a mini fish-market, and its windows were displaying whole fish and fish fillets on an ice layer.
Private licked his beak swiftly, suddenly craving tuna and herring and everything else they had in stock. He looked side to side and saw no pedestrians looking this way.
He crossed the road and hid by the chalkboard sign outside. The door was open, and he could detect the enticing fishy smells radiating from within the shop. He felt suddenly hungry again even though he had eaten not long ago.
He moved forwards, then drew back. He needed to scout the place before he rushed in. Too many close calls had happened to the team before, and not to mention the ones he'd had that day already. He needed to be careful.
Scanning the gaps in the window display for people, he found nobody in the shop but the man at the counter. There was only one camera, and it was pointing at the man and the cash register. Private looked down the street on both sides. There were no potential customers approaching.
He started forwards again, and came to a sudden halt again.
There was another camera watching the doorway.
Private knew that the entrance was a good place for camera surveillance, and that most stores on the area - maybe most in the entire country - had a camera pointing at the door. What struck him was at which part of the doorway it was pointing.
The camera was angled so that it could watch across the doorway, which wouldn't reveal many faces to it, but what set Private on edge was its height above the ground. It was at the perfect height, not to spot a person, but to spot a penguin – to spot him. And he knew this camera didn't belong to the fish shop. If he hadn't been looking, he would have walked past it and his unit would know he was in the area. The shop was very close to the park. They would have seen him on the surveillance, put two and two together, and known he was in the park. Private could guess there were many new cameras like this put up around the many stores they often visited. Clever.
Private found he was quite proud of himself for having spotted the camera before it was too late. He had outwitted them. He had no time to pat himself on the back, though, for at that moment he heard footsteps approaching from inside. He hid behind the sign again.
The man from the counter stepped outside, carrying a small bag filled with cans. "Why does nobody want crab meat any more?" The man said to himself sadly. "What a waste of money."
The man tossed the bag into a nearby general waste trash-can and headed back inside. The young penguin smiled.
Private approached it and climbed up onto the rim, looking inside to find many tins of cheap crab meat. He carefully lowered himself inside the trash-can and grabbed one. The use-by date on the top surface was two weeks from now. He quickly shoved some into his backpack and climbed out, finding movement a little difficult now that his bag weighed so much.
Snacks - check. He usually wasn't too fond of crab meat, but he wasn't about to let it go to waste.
He was wondering where he could get D batteries when he saw Kowalski heading his way.
Private bolted behind the metal trash-can and hoped to gosh Kowalski hadn't seen him.
He heard the scientist approach, then halt by the doorway of the fish market. There was a pause, then the sounds of metal against plastic. Private dared to peek around the bin.
Kowalski was doing something to the camera. As Private watched, Kowalski opened the back of the camera and changed a small card inside for another one. He put the back panel on and switched on the camera again, replacing it carefully to where it was.
"One more SD card for the pile," he muttered. Private understood that he was changing the memory. Kowalski probably would take it back to the bunker to review it to see if Private had been here.
They were too close to the park for Private to communicate with Kowalski - he would just guess Private was staying in the park. Right now Private's main advantage was their suspicion that he was staying somewhere in the city, and he didn't want to alleviate that suspicion yet.
Kowalski put the little card in a box and continued walking. Private decided to follow him and see if he would move further into the city.
Private kept his distance and stayed out of sight. He tailed Kowalski down the street, where he stopped to change the cards by another store. With a small lurch in his chest, Private recognised the store, and realised it would have been his first choice to get the batteries from. Was he really that predictable?
Not predictable enough to catch, he thought slyly, and he smiled again. But it did worry him a little.
Private expected him to keep walking around the park's edge, but Kowalski rounded a corner and began heading into the city. Private followed, his heart beginning to race, hoping beyond hope that this was his chance.
They walked on. Kowalski, oblivious to his presence, led Private down a side alley to a large sewer manhole. Private recognised it as the best city entrance to the zoo's sewer system. From inside, it was a straight path to the zoo. Useless to Private, of course, as the sewers were likely to be filled with traps designed just for him.
Kowalski removed the back panel of a hidden camera. Meanwhile, Private was unfastening his bag as quietly as he could.
Just as Kowalski replaced the card and fit the back panel back on, Private was backing away, having placed the walkie-talkie nearby. When he was out of earshot he hurried away quite a distance and rounded another corner.
He switched on his own walkie-talkie and depressed the button. "Kowalski? Are you there?" He asked breathlessly.
There was a long pause.
Private waited impatiently, becoming a little worried. He had tested the batteries in them that morning, and he was sure he had switched it on before placing it by the dumpster-
Suddenly – "Private?"
A disbelieving voice emanated from the device. Private almost laughed in relieved delight.
He calmed himself before pushing the button in and answering. "Yes, it's me. I've been meaning to contact you for a while. Please, listen..." He released the button.
What to say? Private racked his brains for what could convince Kowalski to help him. He hadn't thought about it in much detail while planning - his efforts had been spent on trying to get Kowalski into the city.
Kowalski spoke again, his voice strict. "Where are you?"
"If I wanted you to know where I am, I wouldn't be talking to you through a walkie-talkie set," he replied calmly. "Now hear me out, please?"
Hissing static. Then, "Private, tell me where you are."
Private didn't bother to reply, and simply waited.
"Private? Why are you talking to me? Why did you need to contact me?"
Taking a deep breath, Private began to pace out of nerves. "You're the only one who would be able to convince Skipper that I'm not a spy."
The tiniest of pauses. Kowalski's voice then became shrewd. "How did you know he thinks you're a spy? Unless you ARE spying on us, that is?"
"The pigeons. The ones in the park. When I, um, took the bag, I overheard one saying they heard I'm a spy for some other group, and that I was only here for training. But you know that's not true, right? You know I'm not a spy. Right?" He clutched the walkie-talkie and his voice sounded pleading, even to himself.
"I..." It cut off.
Private was getting worked up. He forced himself to stop pacing and take another deep breath. He held down the button. "Yes?" He let it go.
Kowalski tried again. "Yes. But only Marlene, and Maurice and I do."
Private had suspected this, but he was still disappointed. "Can you help me? Can you make them believe I'm innocent?"
"Private. Innocent? First, you broke into the alcove..."
He depressed the button quickly. "I figured out how to open it and I was just curious. I didn't mean anything against Skipper! You understand, right?" Private waited for his response nervously.
"...What about all the things you borrowed without asking? You're not completely innocent, Private. But yes, I do know you're not working for somebody else."
"So you'll help me, then?"
Kowalski gave a pause before saying, "Private... we've been trying. Marlene's been doing all she can with Skipper. And Maurice has been trying his hardest to convince the other animals you're not against them."
"What about you?" Private asked.
Kowalski took a while to answer to answer.
"Kowalski?"
He was still silent.
"Haven't you been trying too, Kowalski?"
His voice came through eventually. "I... I don't want them to suspect me of being a spy. Skipper already doesn't trust Rico and I just don't want to put my neck on the line."
Private felt gutted, and then hit by a strong sense of guilt. Now he knew this wasn't just his problem - he'd turned Skipper against other animals as well.
He summoned the courage to ask. "Why doesn't he trust Rico?"
"It doesn't matter now. I... can't help you, Private. I'm sorry."
Private was devastated. His plan of clearing his name through Kowalski had failed at the first hurdle.
He kept trying. "Are you sure you can't do anything? What about with the others?"
"I'm sure. Skipper has been keeping tabs on everyone in the zoo. I don't know what I can do to convince them without putting myself at risk. I know that sounds selfish, but... I can't."
Private understood, and becalmed. "It's okay, I get it," he told his friend honestly. "I would be the selfish one if I put you in danger. And I'm sorry. But... if you can't convince Skipper to hear to hear me out, could you help me some other way?"
"I hope I can. Help you how?"
Relieved that this hadn't been a complete waste of time and effort, Private recited his list. "Help me get some D-cell batteries, a bag my size like a fanny-pack, um, some half-inch nails and some salt, maybe some hot sauce? And... and my Lunacorn doll?"
"What kind of - I, um, yes, I guess I could help," Kowalski replied, sounding confused.
Private was thrilled – he had secured some gear and regained an ally... more or less. Even if his plan had failed, he had help inside the team.
"Great! Meet me tomorrow, by the sewer manhole, with the stuff? At about one o'clock, maybe?"
"Oh, okay. Just... could you repeat that?"
