Chapter 8 - Paint
"What happened?" Skipper mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
"I'm not sure, Skipper. You fell out of bed and then you screamed out my name." Kowalski explained. "Did you have a bad dream?"
"Uh, yeah," said the leader penguin, sitting up.
"Is everything alright?" Kowalski asked after a few seconds.
"Yeah." Skipper now noticed his heart was racing and his face was wet with tears.
"OK," responded Kowalski, climbing back into his bunk, "See you in the morning." Skipper nodded, then climbed back into his own bunk. When he had calmed down he saw that he had woken up neither Rico nor Private. He felt embarrassed for letting Kowalski see him on the ground like he was. For some reason, now he felt extremely weak. Even though, he couldn't seem to get to sleep at all. The dream that he had kept playing itself over and over in his head like a broken record. Every time he shut his eyes it was like he was reliving his team's death again and again.
Skipper rolled around in his bunk for quite some time until he saw the gray of morning showing through one of the few windows that showed the water in the pool. He climbed out of his bunk, and went up the hatch knowing it was too early to get the team up.
Upon emerging into the chilly morning air, Skipper saw a gruesome sight before him. Scrawled out in huge, red symbols was some sort of code on the platform above the penguin's home. Skipper gasped, just one of the drawings was bigger than he was! He bent over and touched the liquid that the word had been drawn with. He wasn't sure what it was, but he knew that it wasn't blood. He had no idea what it meant, but he had a feeling.
Suddenly, Skipper was hit in the back of the head with a ketchup packet that exploded on contact, covering him in the red substance. He wiped some off and then turned around.
"That's what you get," Maurice said in his deep voice. "For still being friends with that killer." He was perched on the fence that kept guests from falling into the penguin's habitat.
"How many times do I have to tell you, mammal! Private didn't kill Julien!" Skipper returned heatedly.
"How many times do I have to tell you," the lemur mocked, making Skipper scowl profusely. "Do you know what this says?" He pointed to the symbols.
"No."
"Well," Maurice sneered, "it says Murderer."
Skipper gasped, "How do you know?"
"I had the chimps write it out for me," he explained.
"Why?"
"The lemur shook his head. "You're an idiot." Skipper, who had never really felt any sort of true hate towards any creature at the zoo, had a growing urge to knock the lemur off his post.
Noticing that Skipper was not going to respond to his insult, Maurice continued. "The whole world will know that you're protecting a murderer." He whipped another packet at Skipper, who easily dodged it. "And that's written in paint from the zoo supply shed. It's still wet now but when it dries it will be permanent."
Skipper took another look at the liquid he had touched. He noticed that it was still wet but was quickly drying.
"Why would the chimps do this for you?" Skipper asked, unsure what else to say.
"Well, word spread faster than I ever hoped it would," Maurice responded, "And now pretty much the whole zoo hates Private and the rest of you." Skipper looked at the ground. Maurice and Maelie must have spread the rumors the day before.
"I've got news for you, Ringtail," started Skipper after a few minutes of silence. "Kowalski and I returned to the spot where Julien was found dead after the funeral. We found some dark fur that weren't Julien's lodged in a stick there." Maurice's face seemed to radiate a touch of fear and surprise as Skipper spoke. It wasn't much, but it was enough for Skipper's keenness to pick up on. He continued. "Which leaves me to believe your friend Maelie did it," Suddenly the emotion on the lemur's face vanished and his eyes lit up in pleasure.
"So you found a few hairs? There was a storm, you know." argued Maurice. "The zoo still hates you regardless." The light left the lemurs eyes and his voice grew deeper. "You'd be smart to exile your penguin friend as quickly as possible. Some animals in this zoo want revenge, and they won't just stop at Private, catch my drift?"
Skipper opened his beak to defend Private, but the words were caught in his throat. He remembered how the murder weapon had been found in the small penguin's bed and he lost the urge to speak. Maurice turned and left, letting the remaining ketchup packets fall into the pool with a few plunks. Skipper looked uneasily at the ground, then went down the hatch to wake the other penguins.
When all three penguins were aroused (Private being released from his cage for morning duties) Skipper lead them to see what Maurice had the chimps write for him. Upon seeing it, the penguins were confused. However, when Skipper told them what it said, Kowalski gasped and Rico took a step back from private. Skipper glared at the heavyset penguin as a warning not to attack the younger penguin, and Rico returned his attention to the word on the ground below him.
A few minutes later and Kowalski had retrieved a brush that they used for maintenance from inside and Rico regurgitated another. They then spent the majority of the early morning attempting to scrub off the paint, but it was in vain. They managed to lighten the pigments but the paint had already soaked deep into the concrete and they did not possess the tools to remove it.
When they had done all that they could do, the sun was beginning to rise over the shorter buildings on the horizon. Zoo employees would start arriving soon to preform early morning duties. Skipper thought about skipping their training for the day, but then he remembered that they had skipped it the previous day. Moreover, he remembered his dream and realized his team was not fit for a situation like that. The only solution would be to train longer and harder, he thought. And Skipper did just that.
The training was rough. Skipper made the three penguins do twice as many laps around the pool and expected them to be done in half the time. He himself did not get into the water once, but rather he kept shouting at the other three for being "slow" when in fact they were setting record times. After that they continued with their hand to hand combat, during which Skipper was particularly commanding.
"I want to see you defend yourself, Kowalski," he said seriously, standing across from his taller comrade. They assumed combat positions and then began fighting. Kowalski defended himself well at first, and even got in a counter attack or two, but the tides quickly turned as Skipper turned up his own effort. He never went this hard on his teammates, but he knew that there were hostiles out there that were even better fighters than he was. Soon enough, the leader penguin deflected a flipper that Kowalski put up to defend himself and then chopped the intelligent one directly in the gut. Kowalski grunted in pain and collapsed on the ground.
"C'mon, Kowalski! What if you were defending yourself from an enemy?" Skipper growled. Pulling the penguin back onto his feet.
"Skipper... I can't..." Kowalski wheezed. Skipper arched a brow.
"Never quit, Soldier," the taller penguin managed to obtain his breath back at this point. "Alright, go practice with Private. Rico, you're up."
The scarred penguin walked up to skipper. Knowing what he was supposed to be doing, the two began sparring. It began much the same way as it did with Kowalski, Rico seeming to have the upper hand. Suddenly, Skipper went all out and flipped his heavier friend onto his back.
"You can't just expect the same thing every time, Soldier!" Rico grunted and picked himself up. The two then continued their training session. It ended with Skipper flooring his teammate again. The scarred penguin got up, and emitted a quiet growl at Skipper.
"Alright, men, that's enough." Skipper panted, exhausted from two intense combat sessions. Private and Kowalski, who had been practicing basic blocking up until then, ceased sparring. Skipper looked up and saw a few zookeepers looking over the fence at the penguins. He was unsure if they were more concerned with seeing the birds fight or if they were looking at the Murderer scrawled out on the concrete. If it was the training, it wouldn't be the first time the zookeepers had accidentally seen the penguins practice their hand to hand combat, so Skipper wasn't too worried. "Very disappointing performance today, boys."
"Skipper," Kowalski groaned "We understand that you're the best fighter, but that was a little excessive." Skipper arched his brow and walked over to his teammate.
"Was that insubordination I heard, Kowalski?" he asked firmly.
"Uh," the taller penguin stammered. "No, sir."
"Good." Suddenly, Skipper realized that he hadn't eaten in nearly twenty four hours, and he walked over to the fish bowl. He grabbed two fish that were there since the previous day and then went down the hatch into the bunker. "Private?"
"Yes, Skippah?"
"You are to return to your cell immediately after you eat." ordered the elder penguin.
Private sighed and made a very sad face. "Yes, sir." Skipper disappeared into the HQ.
"Blimey, why was he so tough on us today?" Private asked after the three had the rest of the fish. Kowalski was standing near him, and Rico was sitting a distance from the two looking into the pool.
"I may have a theory," Kowalski responded. He proceeded to tell the other two about Skipper the previous night.
"So the Skippah had a bad dream, I have them all the time," Private said.
"Yes, but he cried out 'Kowalski, I let you die!', which is what woke me up." Kowalski continued.
"So you think Skippah is taking out his nightmare on us?"
"Precisely," Kowalski nodded, "If in his dream he wasn't able to defend us he may just want us to be able to defend ourselves." Private fell quiet. Rico nodded slowly from where he was sitting. The other two could tell he was upset over how Skipper had treated him. Rico was a penguin who seemed hard on the outside, but was sensitive inside. He got up and went into the HQ.
"Hey K'walski," Private said when he was sure his heavyset penguin was out of ear shot.
"Yes?"
Private paused and then spoke softly, "Do you think I took that classified weaponry?" Kowalski looked uneasy for a second.
"Private, I don't want to believe you did, and I'll do anything to prove your innocence." he responded slowly.
"Thanks K'walski," Private said sincerely. "I just wish I could."
"We'll figure something out,"
"I certainly hope so..." said Private, a touch of hopelessness was in his voice. "I certainly don't want to stay in that cage forever."
