*** Rolling along ***

Inspired by "Skateaway", written by Mark Knopfler.

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From time to time, the lemurs went to the zoo's own sales: to muss the box in lost and found. The three went equipped with foldable bags, as usual. They normally took a good loot, but for whatever reason that day Julien felt especially discriminating and refused everything he found.

Even those skates.

"I already had some!" Julien said, throwing them backwards without looking and ignoring Maurice and Mort's surprised stares.

The skates went out through the window and fell in a close habitat.

"Hey, big-eyed, bring me that!"

Mort had found an MP3 player with FM radio and with earphones, and he was fingering the buttons. Julien snatched it from his small hands, put on the earphones and switched on the device.

"Rock from the eighties? Bah, who likes that?" he said, throwing the device through the window.

"I do, for example!" Maurice protested. "And almost everyone, at least the ones who have good taste! Now, it will surely have shattered due to the blow against the ground."

Mort opened his big eyes with an expression of true sadness.

"What the hell is wrong with you now?" Julien asked him, irritated.

"I also like rock from the eighties, from the nineties, from the hundreds and from the hundred and tens!" Mort answered, sobbing uncontrollably.

"¡You could have asked before throwing it through the window!" Maurice bellowed, and he leaned out. "Damn, it's not below. And I don't see broken pieces. How weird."

Julien leaned out to watch. Or rather to gossip.

"Look, there!" he said, pointing to the ostrich habitat.

The three lemurs saw Shelly with the MP3 player earphones hooked on her long neck, the player hanging as if it was a medal and the skates on the ground.

"Maurice! Go down there and tell the prehistoric bird that she must give her king both gifts by royal decree!"

Maurice facepalmed.

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No matter how much Maurice had spent all the evening trying to entertain Julien with other things, Julien didn't stop complaining of Shelly having the MP3 player that he had rejected himself. Even when Maurice proposed him going and talking to her, Julien said that a king shouldn't humble himself to beg from a commoner.

At night, while Maurice and Mort were sleeping, Julien decided to recover the player that had never been his, Julien-style: making use of his royal privilege to make a non-hostile goods stockpile (that is to say: sneaking in Shelly's habitat and stealing it while she was sleeping).

But there wasn't anyone or any of the two gifts that he had thrown through the window.

Without thinking, Julien went to look for the penguins' help. He found them playing cards and with very little interest in royal tribulations.

"Silly birds, you have to help me recover a gift from the Sky Spirits!"

"And why should we do such thing?" Skipper asked, not paying him a lot of attention.

"Because I've thrown them through the window," Julien answered.

"Then you didn't want them. Case closed."

"Grumpy penguin, you have to listen to me! Now I want them, and the ostrich has them!"

Kowalski and Rico looked at each other. No, it wasn't a good idea to go and talk to Shelly.

"You know what, Ringtail?" Skipper told him. "Finders keepers, losers weepers."

"But she's not there either!"

That changed things. Skipper stood up.

"We'll go... but to look for her. Then you'll be in charge of negotiating with her. You're a king, aren't you? That automatically makes you a high-level diplomat. Kowalski?"

"We'll look for her in the zoo and, if she's not here, I propose looking for her by car." Kowalski turned several beads in his abacus. "According to my calculations, pressed together, Julien fits."

.

After thoroughly checking that Shelly wasn't anywhere in the zoo, the four penguins and the lemur got in the car. Rico was driving, next to him Skipper had some binoculars and behind Rico Private had others. Kowalski, behind Skipper, was handling a tin of sardines trying to find the MP3 player signal. Julien was between Private and Kowalski, and every time he opened his mouth the others cut him off. They were on a mission and there wasn't room for distractions.

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Shelly was skating through the streets of Manhattan. Luckily, there weren't many people at that hour. She had learnt fast and she was really enjoying. She couldn't go as fast as if she was running because the wheels, standard-sized, didn't allow for more. But that was different. Sliding had its magic: that was a dance, an endless dance floor under the streetlights and the traffic lights, and she was the dancing queen. The motor vehicles looked as if they had their choreography, and of course she was in charge of music. The MP3 player offered her the music from a rock and roll station, old songs that never age.

The counterpoint to Shelly's dance was Rico's rough and reckless driving. He didn't care about going down a wrong way street, he didn't care about greasing the other vehicles, he didn't care about experienced drivers suffering so as not to make a penguin omelette, and of course he didn't care about the swear words from anyone who passed him. Concerning the other four occupants... like it or lump it, mates: Rico was in a trance. And, if Julien didn't understand it because he had never traveled with him, it was time to start understanding it.

Shelly was taking chances too, passing too close to cars. Fearless, she was dodging vehicles much bigger and heavier than her, and the drivers didn't have time to see that the figure wasn't human. Miraculously they didn't run over her, but she didn't perceive danger. She didn't know the monotonous dance steps of cars, she didn't know the road rules. Whoever who saw her without the filters of conscience, fear and common sense... would enjoy the show. But that was a crazy thing, doubtlessly.

If Shelly didn't know the rules, Rico knew them perfectly and he completely snubbed them. He had his own: "move away so that I pass." And let no one dare to go against him! His driving was tough and visceral, all his senses concentrated on the task, but leaving sanity aside. At the steering wheel, Rico didn't listen. He didn't speak either. He left the hoarse engine to speak in his place. Who knows what crossed his mind when he was driving... he wouldn't explain it either. And, whatever it was, it might give more chills than his non-existent respect for his own and the others' lives.

Shelly wasn't hearing the graze of the wheels against the pavement. Her hearing was completely devoted to the out loud music. She was sliding, but her imagination was flying. What those songs were saying became vivid images in her head, cinematographic sequences. How she could see at once the streets she was passing through and those unknown animals living their colorful lives invented by her... that was a mystery. But she was doing it. Her powerful imagination could do everything at once. And to see the dream wasn't enough, she wanted to be a part of it although it was new for her and she didn't fully understand it. There was a horizon beyond her reach. But it was alright, she had all the night to reach there.

From time to time, Rico had to come back to earth: Kowalski had found a signal to follow. But the clues were usually false: how many people have an MP3 player in Manhattan? That was driving Skipper to despair, but it was delighting Rico: more miles, please! They would have to place a wall at the end of the world to stop him. Kowalski was trying to adjust parameters, Private didn't stop watching through the binoculars and Julien was praying to the Sky Spirits for being taken out of there.

.

And then they crashed.

Some seconds later, like at the Big Bang, that was chaos. Rico's wall was Shelly, who was staring around stunned. Who had stopped her?

Ah, the penguins...

The image wasn't worth seeing it: the car was smoking and they were scattered, trying to recover themselves from the blow and grimacing in pain. Now that she thought about it, her legs hurt. She hadn't escaped unharmed from the blow.

"Don't you see where you're going?" she protested. "Who was driving?"

They all pointed at Rico. Shelly stood up from the ground and approached him very slowly, trying to ignore the pain.

"I'll have to teach you how to drive," she said with a smile that made Rico shiver. "You can't be let alone in the city."

Rico shook his head to take out of it the sinister image (according to him) that had come there and he went to see the damage suffered by the car.

Julien, who had flown off the car too, headed to Shelly raising his index finger in a threatening way.

"It's your fault for having escaped with the royal gifts, commoner!" he shouted at her. "I am the king, and a king is not robbed!"

Shelly stared at him not understanding. Who was that guy, what species was he and what was he accusing her of? She turned around and left limping with the skates hanging from her beak, ignoring him. How many lunatics out there, for God's sake!

Julien ran and stood in front of her, making her stop.

"Those skates are mine, the king, and I demand you to to give them to me."

Shelly opened her beak and dropped them on top of Julien's head. The penguins guffawed and regretted not having a camera to immortalize the scene.

Julien sighed and muttered something that nobody understood, he put the skates on and noticed that, although they were adaptable, they were huge for him. He hissed to express his frustration and gave them back to her.

"They don't fit me, but for you to see that I'm a magnanimous king I give you back the skates and I keep the player."

"Giving what doesn't fit you and claiming another thing in exchange is not magnanimity," Kowalski said, with his flippers crossed.

"And then, what is it?" Julien asked.

"Egoism and selfishness," Kowalski answered.

"Well... those are two good qualities for a king too," Julien said. "Though, now that I think of it... I think I still have another player in my kingdom. And with better music!"

"I doubt that," Skipper said. "Ostrich, what where you listening to a moment ago?"

"They've been announced as Dire Straits, but I didn't know them," she answered.

"Do you see, Ringtail?" Skipper addressed Julien. "She has better taste than you. She'll keep the good one and you'll keep the bad one. Period."

Julien grumbled something, probably in Malagasy.

"Well... and... haven't you thought of going back to the zoo?" Private asked.

"Right," Skipper said, and addressed Rico. "How's the car?"

"Fixed!" Rico answered.

"Perfect," Skipper said. "I'll drive."

Rico protested mumbling something unintelligible.

"You've run over her, and I don't want you to run over anybody else tonight." Skipper made a gesture with his flipper. "Everyone, to the car."

The penguins and Julien filled the car. Shelly was opposite them. Kowalski took his abacus.

"I'm afraid that the six of us don't fit here," he said.

"I see that," Skipper replied to him. "If you throw your abacus away, the six may fit."

Kowalski sent him a disapproving stare.

"But Shelly can't go back alone," Private intervened. "She may not know the way... and I've seen her limping. She can't go back to the zoo this way."

"Don't worry about me, I'm already getting better," Shelly said, taking the skates on again. "Rico... a race?"

"Okay!" Rico blurted, pushing Skipper out of the pilot seat.

"The king objects the motion!" Julien protested.

Skipper stared at him with indifference. "As long as I go against Ringtail, whatever. Rico, you'll drive."

"WO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!"

And the engine started its song. Rock and roll!

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The journey back was better than the outward one. Although she was still a bit sore from the blow, Shelly wasn't dancing alone anymore. Waiting to be granted a dance was over, she had to take the initiative and she had done it. She sometimes overtook Rico, he sometimes overtook her with his tongue out and a smile on his beak. The city was her dance floor, and Shelly sang a "see you tomorrow" to the taxi drivers, who didn't believe what they were witnessing. She had found her world, and of course she was thinking about returning.

Life is a dance on wheels, and Shelly was finally enjoying it.