The four jumped suddenly as a man entered the bathroom, shouting back at a girl, who was obviously in relation to him.
"I'm tired of it, every five minuted I catch you glancing at another ma-" The guy stopped spotting the four staring at him nervously. "And there they are." He turned and left the bathroom.
"Perhaps we should leave, maybe blend in with the humans." Kowalski said. The others nodded, and they stepped out of the bathroom, Kowalski still unable to see, bashing his face off the door frame on his way out.
"Gah, Skipper I can't take much more of this!" Kowalski shouted holding his nose that was now bleeding.
"Oh, jeez, are you okay?" The four started when they heard a voice behind them. Then another spoke.
"Oh, man, you look like you need a couple of tissues. Some glasses wouldn't hurt you either..." The first voice had been fairly soft, definitely female, and somewhat shy. The second voice was also female, but louder, quite obviously more outgoing. Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico looked over to see the two women standing there.
One was slightly short, just over five feet, with dark blond hair, blue green eyes, and wore what looked like a white work shirt and jeans. The other was tall, tan, had dark hair, dark lipstick, green eyeshadow, wore a tank top, a ton of jewelry, and a jean skirt. Kowalski, instead of staring, replied awkwardly.
"I don't wear... glasses..."
The taller woman looked at him like he was crazy while the shorter laughed.
"Here," She said, "try these." She rummaged around her purse, saying. "I've got an old pair of glasses in here, and my new ones are at home. I don't like wearing them often, they tend to make things filmy when I'm not focused on something." pulling out glasses that were rectangular and wire rimmed. She brushed back his hair and slid the glasses onto his face.
Kowalski adjusted them and looked up blinking. They weren't great. Things were still fuzzy far away, and up close wasn't the best, be he could definitely see clear enough to make out the people around him.
"Yes, I can see!" He said, then looked at the others standing next to him, and screamed. realizing who he was staring at he grinned sheepishly.
"Oh, sorry." He said, feeling heat creep up his face, with the weird looks he was getting. Private looked at him and saw, now that his eyes had adjusted, that Kowalski's face was red.
"Kowalski, you face just turned a bright red color." Private said. Kowalski frowned. He had felt his face grow hot, but to have it turn red?
Mammalian anatomy. Who understood it?
He was jolted out of his thoughts by the taller girl, throwing her arm around him, handing him a tissue.
"Here, you're bleeding on the floor, hon." She said grinning. Kowalski took the tissue gingerly and held it to his nose.
"Kowalski?" The shorter girl said. "That's an unusual name, it's nice." Kowalski looked at her and grinned nervously.
"Speaking of names," the taller girl said, still leaning on Kowalski like a too tall armrest,
"I'm Tina, this is Heather." she said pointing to the shorter girl. Tina looked at Skipper. "So, who are you? We haven't seen you 'round here before." She said. Skipper frowned, then pointed to Rico.
"This is Rico, that's Private, I'm Skipper." he said, crossing his arms. Tina stared, a rather bored look on her face.
"No seriously." She said.
"Actually he's quite serious, they're nick names." Kowalski said thinking up a quick lie. The others looked at him as he spoke, and the action seemed almost involuntary. "Private and Skipper's is anyway." he said. Then he blinked, looking surprised. Heather walked over to Kowalski and Tina, yanking Tina off him.
"Some weird nick names." Tina said.
"It's a long story..." Skipper said looking at Kowalski as he cleaned himself up, looking rather confused himself.
"So what's with the zoo shirt anyway?" Tina asked. Heather frowned at her. Skipper opened his mouth to answer, when suddenly Kowalski reacted again.
"It's actually very complicated, as you'll find out if you keep asking questions. You could call it a secret group believing that penguins are the best survivors in the wild when it comes to the more complex organisms in the Animalia kingdom. It somewhat explains the nick names, but we can't go into much detail about it. If you ask enough questions you'll hear Skipper tell you plenty of times that it's classified." He said. He blinked again.
The two girls stared at him, Tina like he was nuts, Heather quite interested.
"Oh, penguins, they're fascinating creatures, but I must ask, why choose them as the best fit to survive?" She asked. Private, Rico, and Skipper stared at Kowalski, amazed at his lying ability as he replied with,
"Oh, yes you wouldn't think they would be, and some if not most groups of penguins aren't. It used to be that no penguins out in the wild knew how to defend themselves more than you think they would now, but after many years of domestication, putting them into zoos, some interesting research has been noted." He said. They could see a clear look of worry on Kowalski's face, and it became clear the when he gave these lies, they were an involuntary reflex. Something was going on. Heather walked over to a chair.
"Really, I thought being in zoos, their life would be much easier. Wouldn't that result in an even lessened defensive ability?" She asked. Kowalski laughed, his lying reflex kicking more and more.
"You would think so, but no. As it turned out one particular group of penguins had picked up human actions and began using them in their every day life." He said, blinked, then,
"Pardon me, but do you have a pen?" Heather reached into her purse and handed him a pen. Kowalski wrote as he spoke, eyes staring strait at Heather the whole time.
"At first it was quite simple things, then they started developing more abilities, creating tools, and at one point we believe they have even become more intelligent than some humans." Kowalski said. Skipper frowned, getting over the initial shock, and leaned forward ready to stop Kowalski before he blew their whole cover, when Kowalski handed Skipper the napkin.
Private, Rico, and Skipper looked at it. It was writing, so Private, who had taken to learning to read while Kowalski was, though he was a bit further behind, quietly translated to Rico and Skipper off to the side.
"He says it must be another side effect. Something about us having more room in the brain now, and the M.O. not knowing what to put in it's place. Somehow it's filled in all that extra brain in Kowalski with his cover story building. Like your aliases, Skippah, or when we snuck Bert out of the zoo. Now, since that part of his brain is so big, it acts almost instantly."
The three looked at each other apprehensively. If Kowalski's brain was filled with cover stories... what was going on with the rest of their brains?
By now, Heather was fascinated by the conversation, and Skipper and Private made a note to remain there to get the story down. Rico and Tina however, became extremely bored.
"So," Tina said looking at Rico, "you're a big guy, you work out a lot?" She asked. Rico grinned.
"You haf no idea." He said.
"Oh, nice voice, and is that a German accent?" she said, wiggling her fingers, "Bet you'd be good in karaoke." She said.
"Good at what?" He asked, raising his eyebrows. He knew what karaoke was of course, they had been around the lemurs enough, but the very THOUGHT of him singing.
"You know, music, singing." She said. Rico shrugged, trying to get her away from the idea.
"Vouldn't- eheh, vouldn't know. I could barely efen talk until just tonight." He said. Tina looked at him, surprised.
"How come?" She asked. Again, Rico shrugged, glad to be off the singing topic.
"Vouldn't know. It vas one of Kowalski's infentions that had fixed me up. Completely by accident too." He said.
"Okay, you're boring me now. I say we try out this new voice of yours, come on." Rico started to protest, but Tina grabbed his wrist and jolted off.
So much for a change in subject.
"So as you can see there is quite a perfect reason that penguins are the best fit for survival." Kowalski concluded. He gasped for breath.
Heather was wide eyed with amazement and Kowalski smiled, glad for someone who actually listed to one of his lectures... even if he hadn't meant to give the lecture.
"Well my, my I would have absolutely never guessed that penguins were capable of that much." She said.
"Yes," Skipper said, becoming impatient, "well thank you for your help but we have to get back to our current situation. Come on Kowalski, Private, Ric- Rico?" Skipper looked around as did the others.
"Tina?" Heather called. Suddenly all the lights switched, the room suddenly becoming bright over a stage on the far right side of the room.
"Oh no..." Kowalski said.
Tina literally was dragging a protesting Rico onto the stage by his legs. Why the legs? Because his arms were to busy trying to grab and hold on to anything they could, for dear life.