Where was I? Oh, yes. Betrayal.

Ever since I taught Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico how to swim, it's like they keep taking steps toward independence. It was a heart-shattering thing to have almost lost them in the Thanksgiving Day Parade, but this seemed even worse. They were there. They were there in my reach. I could see them, hear them laugh and play, watch them slipping away from me.

First, it was their request to start sleeping without me. Then, it was the sneaking off to the city without me. Now, it was doing antics for the humans without me. Notice the common factor between the three sentences: the words, without me.

Ever since our falling out about the using the unconscious old octopus as a bridge so we can sneak into the city thing, we'd slowly begun talking less and less to each other. Our last real conversation was that evening. I'd slept all day due to my exhaustion, and when I woke up, the zoo had been closed for a few hours. I floated to the surface.

"Oh," Skipper started, "hey, Dave," he said awkwardly. "How was your rest?"

I studied the darkening sky for a moment as I nodded. "It was pretty good. I guess running around the city for a little over seven hours just does something to you that makes it easier to go to sleep. I believe it's called exhaustion, with a possible side of fatigue," I explained nonchalantly. The penguins exchanged more looks as I continued. "Now that I'm rested, there was, um . . . There was this thing I was gonna do, what was it?" I asked myself, putting the tip of an arm to my lip in thought. "Oh, yeah!" I said, perking up. "Maybe it was to chew you out!"

My expression hardened and I rose out of the water so I towered above them. It was as if all my rage bubbled up at once and came flooding out of me like a volcano erupting.

"What in Marianas Trench could have possibly prompted you to do something so dangerous and stupid?! I don't care when you were planning on coming back! Does nothing I say get through to you?! I said that I was going to take you back to the city, but in time. If you couldn't wait, you four know all you had to do was say something! We could've negotiated! Now you've blown any chance that you might have had to go into the city! It's gone! Out the window! Down the drain! Out the wazoo! Not sure what that last one means, but you get the point! I thought you wanted me to go to sleep with you guys so it'd be like old times, but no! You just wanted to take advantage of my heavy sleeping so you could sneak off! I can't believe you used me like that! And I can't believe I let you! Gah!" I turned to the side and moved a couple feet away, burying my face in a few of my arms as I breathed slowly, trying to calm myself.

"We're sorry," I heard Skipper's voice say behind me.

I turned back with an incredulous laugh. "Yeah, and how many times have you said that before? You obviously didn't even mean your last apology. You just used it so you'd gain my trust. Forgive me if I question your sincerity," I chided.

Skipper's expression hardened. "I said we're sorry. I meant it. We didn't go into the city last night just to do it behind your back. We did it because we wanted to prove to you that we could take care of ourselves. We wanted to show you that you were wrong about us."

I leaned toward them. "Oh, really? What a great way to show me. Maybe next, you can prove to me you can fly by throwing yourselves off a building," I snapped.

"I think you need to chill out," Skipper snapped back, pointing an angry flipper at me.

I was taken aback by the remark. "Chill out?" I repeated incredulously. "Chill out? I spent over seven hours running around the city looking for you guys, terrified that something had happened to you, and you have the audacity to tell me to chill out?!"

"Dave, this city is huge," Skipper said, stating the obvious. "I don't understand why you even tried to find us in the first place. The odds that you happened to pass by when we were being chased by animal control was a stroke of pure luck. It was a one in a million chance that you'd find us."

"Yeah? Well, guess what. When you care about someone the way I care about you four, nothing — not science, not odds and statistics, nothing will get in your way of getting to them if you fear they're in danger. I didn't care if there was little chance that I could find you. I didn't care that I might've gotten killed in the process. The way I was feeling last night, no mugger or murderer would've dared mess with me. All I cared about was finding you before I was too late," I said, my muscles tensing with anger and betrayal.

Skipper looked down for a moment, taking a few deep breaths as he folded his flippers over his chest.

"I still think you're making a huge deal out of nothing," he protested.

"Making a huge deal out of thinking you were dead? I don't think so," I argued.

"Just how long are you going to stay mad at us over this?" Skipper said impatiently.

I laughed incredulously again. "How long a —" I started laughing again. "How long, he asks. You completely disobeyed me last night. I forbade you to go into the city, and you did anyway. You're not getting off the hook anytime soon."

Skipper rolled his eyes. "Do you hear yourself? I thought we were friends in the beginning. Now you're acting like some kind of parent. Well, we don't need a parent, so you can stop acting like one."

I looked back into his little blue eyes as his words pierced my hearts like daggers. I couldn't believe he'd just said that.

"Really?" I asked softly. Skipper just stared hard back into my eyes. "Maybe I will."

With that, I submerged myself before they could respond and sunk to the bottom of my tank. Then I waited.

I waited for Skipper to swim down and try to convince me to surface so we could talk. I would adamantly decline his offer and hope that he kept pressing so that I could follow him to the surface as if I didn't have a choice. I waited for this meeting so we could apologize to each other and realize the error of our ways and become a family again. I waited.

I just . . . kept waiting.

— § —

A day.

Two days.

Three days passed and the penguins and I hadn't exchanged a word. I never surfaced, not once. I was still waiting for them to come get me. I wanted them to coax me to surface like they did two and a half months ago. They never did. Maybe they're just distracted with the New Year's celebrations, I thought doubtfully. They've heard all the talk about it and are excited to see the ball drop. They'll come for me in a couple of days.

They didn't.

Did you know there are a lot of ways to say "alone"? Solitude. Isolation. Solo. Lonely. Excluded. On one's own. Unattended. Ooh, and my favorite:

Abandoned.

It was that first week the penguins had arrived all over again. The humans had forgotten all about me. They watched the penguins do their little tricks, their favorite being their "smile and wave" routine. Whatever else they were doing, the humans loved it. I just lazed around at the bottom of my habitat, blending into the background so I could hide from my own humiliation. What was worse, I could see the penguins swimming around above me. Like they were mocking me.

Four days. No change. I was surprised the zookeeper remembered to feed me. So many nights I spent in the bottom of my tank alone. Waiting. Hoping. Pleading. Fighting back tears. I just wanted my little penguins back.

I had a nightmare one night, a nightmare I would never forget. The zookeeper came to our habitat one day while the zoo was open to clean our habitat. The humans were awing over the penguins and I was once again being ignored. After Alice cleaned our habitat, when she was just about to leave, everyone — including the penguins — all pointed at me saying, "You missed a spot!" Alice came back and caught me in the noose of a catch pole and pulled me out. Then she tossed me into the waste bin and started carting me off to the dump. The penguins just continued to perform for the humans and the humans were satisfied with the "clean" habitat. They threw me away.

They all just threw me away. I was nothing but a piece of litter staining the habitat. An ugly, unsightly piece of litter that no one wanted around. I tried to call out to them, to tell them not to throw me away, but no one could hear me. Or they were ignoring me. I woke up at the bottom of my tank in the middle of the night. I felt overwhelmed with fear. I don't want to be thrown away like yesterday's garbage. Meaningless. Insignificant.

Unloved.

I swam to the surface and looked at the penguins sleeping on their island. I pictured them as the tiny babies they used to be, all curled up in my arms because they wanted me to protect them from the sounds of the city. I just wanted my little penguins back. My little baby penguins. My little fluffballs.

My little heart-stealers.

A lump formed in my throat as I whispered, "Please don't throw me away."

— § —

On the fifth day with no contact between us, I finally decided to put aside my pride and surface so we could talk.

When I was contemplating the situation at the bottom of my tank, I had lost track of time. I didn't think it was opening hours because there was no one around. But when I finally decided to surface, I realized it was well past opening hours. All the humans were at the penguin habitat. They all cheered and snapped photos as they did their "smile and wave" routine. They turned their backs on me, not even realizing I was there, and waved to the humans on the other side of the fence.

"Mama, what's that thing?" a voice asked to my left. I turned to see this little girl pointing at me.

"That's just an octopus, darling," the mother answered. She pointed at the penguins again. "Aw, look how that one waddles."

The little girl turned her attention back to the penguins and smiled. "Aw, they're so cute!"

Just an octopus. Oh, I'm just an octopus. Nothing special about me. Not cute. Not fluffy. Not cool. Nothing. Meaningless. Insignificant.

Unloved.

The penguins took away the one thing I had: the adoration of the humans. Then they led me to believe I was part of their family just to take that away too. Okay, this needed to end now. I swam around to the other side of the pool, where the penguins were continuing to smile and wave. Before I said anything, I suddenly had a flashback of when I first saw them standing there, smiling and waving at the humans. Just tiny babies, new to the zoo, when they first stole my spotlight.

Okay, Dave. You can do this. Just tell them how you feel.

I went to the edge of the island and cleared my throat to get their attention. They turned to me.

"Oh, hey," Skipper said awkwardly. "What are you doing up here?"

"I was just hoping we could talk," I said timidly.

"Now?" Skipper asked, looking around. "Wouldn't it be easier to talk this evening when there aren't so many people around?"

"Probably," I agreed, "but this can't wait."

Skipper shrugged awkwardly. "What's up?"

I took a deep breath. Here goes. "I just wanted to talk about what —"

"Come on, you stupid octopus!" one of the humans screamed. "You're blocking the penguins!"

I blinked. Stupid? Why, I oughta . . .

"Just ignore him," Skipper said, waving a dismissive flipper. "Go on."

I sighed, regaining my thoughts. "I just wanted say that —"

"Mama, I can't see the penguins!" a child complained behind me.

The penguins looked around at the humans as the tension grew among them. They kept complaining that I was distracting the penguins from being cute for them. Skipper looked at me apologetically.

"Maybe we should just talk this evening," he suggested.

I shook my head. "Guys, I really need to —"

"Dave," Skipper interrupted sharply as humans continued to complain, "you're kind of embarrassing us."

I stared for a moment as the penguins turned away from me and continued their cute antics as if someone had thrown a switch. I glanced around at the annoyed humans and nodded slowly.

"Okay," I said softly.

I submerged myself back into the water and floated down to the bottom, where I waited, camouflaged away from the world.

— § —

"What do you think it's going to be like?"

"I don't know, but I think it's gonna be awesome!"

"What's the 'ball' anyways? And why do they have to drop it? Couldn't someone get hurt?"

"Oh, Private! That's all part of the fun!"

I listened to the penguins talking excitedly about what tonight would bring when the clock struck twelve, indicating the start of a new year. Of course, they couldn't see me. I was high enough for my head to be above water, but low enough to be hidden by the block of stone that served as their little island.

I had made a New Year's resolution, but I was terrified to even try carrying it out. My resolution was to make up with the penguins — to try and start things anew with them. I was tired of arguing. I was tired of . . . being alone again. I figured it would be easier to just try to forget about it and start over than to try and resolve our differences when we both were obviously too stubborn to see the other's views. It hurt that they hadn't said a word to me since I'd tried to talk to them the other day, but I tried not to think about that.

Okay, I thought. Just give it a shot. What do you have to lose? Well, everything, actually. But I tried to pretend I didn't know that.

I rose up out of the water and the penguins immediately ceased their excited talking and turned to me. Awkwardness filled the air so fast I was almost afraid it'd create a vacuum that'd suck the air from our lungs.

"Hey," I started lamely.

"Hey," Skipper replied. The penguins grouped together and looked up at me. "What brings you up here?"

I shrugged a little. "I was just . . . I just thought I'd see what you guys were up to," I said, trying to maintain eye contact.

"Oh, nothing much," Skipper said, looking to the ground for a moment before looking back up to me. "Just talking about the New Year's celebration. You know it's only a few more hours?"

I glanced over at the Delacorte Clock, which read eight after nine. "Yep," I confirmed. "Uh, look," I said, turning back to them, "I was just wondering if we could talk."

The penguins exchanged glances.

"About what?" Skipper asked with a shrug.

I exhaled. "I've been doing a lot of thinking," I began. "I'm . . . tired of fighting. There's just been so much strain between us lately. I want to just forget it ever happened. I was just thinking maybe . . . we could . . ." My voice trailed, but Private saved me.

"Start over?" he asked in a small voice, timidly touching the tips of his flippers together.

I smiled slightly. Somehow, Private was always one to know exactly what was on my mind.

"Yeah," I replied. "I just want things to go back to the way they were. You four . . ." I hesitated. "You four mean more to me than some silly little fight." I frowned a little as I looked back to the other penguins, who were looking at each other. "What do you say?"

My hearts raced as the penguins held a telepathic conversation amongst themselves. Then they all smiled.

"We like that idea," Skipper said.

I felt such joy in that moment that I had grabbed all the penguins in a tight hug before I even realized what I was doing. But they didn't seem to object. I set them down when I realized I'd held them a little longer than I'd intended.

"Sorry," I said awkwardly.

"It's okay," Skipper said. "It was nice."

My hearts felt warm all of the sudden as they smiled up at me. An idea suddenly struck me.

"Hey," I said, "how would you four like to go see the ball drop up close."

The penguins lit up like a firework — no pun intended. "Really?" they all said simultaneously, their breath catching in their throats.

"You're really gonna take us into the city again?" Skipper asked, standing up on his tippy-toes in his excitement.

I smiled uncomfortably. "Yeah," I said. "Just . . . stay by my side this time, okay?"

The penguins all nodded.

"We will," Skipper said. "We promise. And we mean it this time."

I studied them for a moment, and then I nodded. "All right, then. Let's start heading toward Times Square."

Taking the penguins out of the zoo, I had that odd feeling in my gut again, similar to the one I'd had when I'd woken up in the middle of the night to see the penguins were gone. I looked around to make sure no one was watching and the area seemed clear, so I tried to squash the feeling. Since I couldn't get it to go away, I just decided to ignore it. It took a while of finding secret routes around the large mass of people gathered there before we finally found a good view on a rooftop. I set the penguins down and we waited.

"This is so cool!" Skipper commented, pointing at all of the people with their glow sticks, lights, and decorations.

The penguins oohed and awed over the sights and I did so with them. The more I stood up there with them, the more I felt this feeling that something was wrong. I couldn't place it. I checked our surroundings again, but it didn't look as if we were being watched. I tried to get my mind off of it and turned my focus back to the penguins. That's when I gradually started to notice something.

"I've never seen so many people!" Skipper said, turning to his brothers.

"Me neither!" Kowalski concurred. "Check out those glowing stick things!" he said, pointing down at the mass of people as sticks of light seemed to float above them like bobbers in a lake.

The penguins continued pointing at all of the sights around us, joking and laughing with each other as their excitement and anticipation rose. Did they tell me to look at something cool? No.

They were acting like I wasn't even there.

But no, I told myself. It's just my paranoia. I even tried to prove that cockamamie theory to myself. I should've just given them the benefit of the doubt.

"Hey, check that out," I said, pointing an arm over to where some humans were dancing.

The penguins looked for a second, passively said it was cool, and then went back to ignoring me. I sat awkwardly nearby, feeling like a fifth wheel. Finally, after waiting for almost two hours, the countdown started. We started at fifty-nine seconds and worked our way down.

"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one —"

Everyone erupted in cheer and fireworks exploded in the air as confetti rained down from above. The ball lowered all the way down and the lights became blinding. It was amazing! I'd never witnessed this before in my life. I knew of the celebration, but I didn't know it was so grand. There was only one thing that would've made the moment perfect.

"Happy New Year!" I heard the penguins screaming to each other over the noise. I smiled down at them as they hugged each other and played in the confetti, waiting for them to tell me Happy New Year.

After a couple minutes passed, I realized that wasn't going to happen. I just stood by like an idiot while the penguins rolled around in the confetti and watched the fireworks.

"Ka-boom! Ka-boom!" Rico cheered. The other penguins seemed to share that sentiment.

I looked down at the crowd. Couples kissed, children perched on their parents shoulders, and everyone was screaming, whooping, hollering, and performing every other form of exclamation. And here I was, very much with my four favorite boys, but still very much alone.

But, hey, can't blame a guy for trying.

A short while later, the penguins finally came to me and gave me a hug.

"Thanks for taking us to see this, Dave!" Private said.

I forced a smile. "You're welcome. Let's get you boys back to the zoo."

I gathered them up and started for home. After a few minutes of discreetly moving through the crowded city, the penguins had started nodding off in my arms. They seemed pretty exhausted after all that excitement.

As I entered the zoo, I got that uneasy feeling again. The night guard was still nowhere to be found, though. I rushed for our habitat in a paranoid frenzy and set them down gently on the island. Then I looked around, suspiciously narrowing my eyes at the shadows. Nothing. I sighed. I figured I was just edgy. I watched them for a few minutes, trying to think about how I felt. I honestly couldn't tell. What was the point in me even being there with them tonight? I felt like I was just used for transportation. Like I didn't mean anything else to them.

But I decided to just let it go. They were children. They were just too excited to realize they'd forgotten about me. I mean, how could I blame them? It really was amazing. All I had to do was give it time. Things would work out.

I leaned down and gently kissed each of their fuzzy little heads. They were already knocked out cold by the time I finished. "Good night, bo —"

Before I could finish, I felt a rope around my neck and I was jerked away from them.

"Gotcha!" Alice hissed as she threw me into a box and shut the lid. "He's all yours."

"All right, squid. Off to the San Diego Marine Park," the driver said, slapping the label on the shipping container.

I felt a piercing sense of panic at the sudden and unexpected thing that had just happened. I pushed my head up on the lid slightly so I could peek out, hoping the penguins noticed and would shout for him to stop, but they didn't even see me. They were still sound asleep.

"Guys —!" The human shut the container again and put me into a van, my voice barely escaping. When I heard the doors close, I climbed back out and looked out the back window. The penguins still hadn't noticed.

The driver turned to Alice and signed a form.

"So, why are you shipping the squid out? I thought he was good friends with the penguins," I heard him say, although his voice was muffled through the doors of the van.

"Oh, they haven't been doing anything together for a week now, and I just caught the thing taking the penguins out of their habitat. I don't know where they went, but we can't risk a security breach like that again. That's my job on the line," Alice answered. "Besides, no one even visits the octopus anymore. I keep getting complaints that he's become an unwanted distraction in the habitat. It's affecting our business. They want to see the cute little penguins, not some old, ugly octopus. Additionally, he slept an entire day not too long ago. All he does is lay around his habitat. I think he's probably just getting old. He needs his own space before his time comes."

"Ah, that's a shame," the man answered.

"Yeah. They need to be separated anyway. Octopuses and penguins just don't belong in the same habitat. I tried to tell them that from the beginning, but no one would listen to me. It just isn't natural. They're the star attractions! they said. I knew it wouldn't last. We had to make room for the penguins since they're the primary attraction here now. We've been planning on this transfer for a while and it was approved this past evening," Alice explained.

The man nodded and tipped his cap. "Guess I'll be off, then. Good day, miss," he said before heading to the front of the truck. Alice waved and turned on her heel, walking away.

"Wait!" I shouted, pounding on the window, a mixture of anger, despair, and confusion bubbling up in my throat. "Guys! Skipper! Kowalski! Rico! Private! Can you hear me?! Guys!"

I continued to call after them as I started to hyperventilate, but they didn't hear me. I could hear my voice bouncing around the inside of the van, probably just barely making it outside.

"No, wait! You can't do this to me! This is my home! Stop the van!" I shouted as it started pulling away. I continued to pound on the windows and tug and push the doors. "Don't ship me out! I don't want to leave! Give me another chance!"

I started to sob and put my forehead to the glass.

"Don't send me away. Please don't send me away," I whimpered, my voice barely audible. "This isn't fair . . . I didn't even get a chance . . ." I slunked back down into my container and took one last peek out the window as Central Park shrunk in the distance. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."

I saw my life with the penguins flash before my eyes. The day they arrived, to the day they stole my hearts, to the day I swore to protect them, to the day I flipped out when I couldn't find them . . . All this flashed through my mind within seconds, as if I were dying. But the thing was, it wasn't me that was dying.

Something inside me was.

I rested my head on the edge of my container, grief overtaking me.

"Don't throw me away. Please don't throw me away."

— § —

Note: The quotes in this chapter were, "The way I'm feeling right now, no mugger or murderer would dare mess with me," said by Mrs. McCallister (portrayed by Catherine O'Hara) in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992); "Why, I oughta," said by Moe (portrayed by Moe Howard) in The Three Stooges (1930); and "This is my home," a subtle reference to "The Travelling Song" by Will. . from Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008).

Next chapter will be posted on August 1, 2023.