*** The scissors ***

* When you know what there is in the box, the day you need the scissors... you look and they're not there! They're wandering everywhere in the house, who knows where they are now. The scissors are the greatest frustration, the definitive disappointment. But they are the handiest and most useful thing in the whole box. Sometimes you need to cut your losses. *

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Skipper left the agency with the sensation of having dreamt everything. What had happened during those two days... that couldn't be. He had chewed on that issue so much that his head hurt, and the fresh air at the park didn't clear his mind.

He saw a telephone stall and remembered that he had a pre-paid card for public phones. He got inside and jumped for picking up. He had to call home.

"Who's there?" he heard Kowalski ask.

"It's me, Skipper. Put the loudspeaker, I have very important news."

Kowalski obeyed him and gestured Rico and Private for approaching and listening.

"General Flint has died," Skipper started to explain. "Madeleine was the chosen one for being the next general, but the other colonels have unnerved her a lot and she has resigned from all her posts in the agency. Now everything is under Norbert's power."

Rico protested. Even that penguin's simple mention made him ill.

"That's bad, isn't it?" Private asked, hoping to hear it wasn't.

"It's the worst thing that could happen," Skipper replied. "Knowing him, he won't be late to make a purge. And we'll surely be the first ones. He had to restrain himself when the general was alive, but now he has absolute power. Kowalski, what are our options out of the agency?"

Kowalski took out his abacus. "We'll have our tap turned off, so we'll have to be more imaginative for financing ourselves... though they didn't give us so much. On the other hand, we wouldn't need to report back to anyone or use artistic licenses in our reports."

"In other words, Kowalski," Skipper ordered.

"We wouldn't have to invent more lies or smokescreens." For some seconds nothing was heard. "Regarding our enemies, unfortunately they'll go on. It has become a personal question for them."

"For us too," Skipper added. "But we'll beat them."

"Then... will the agency become our enemy too?"

"The personal interests of some made humans have evidence several times about what the agency does," Skipper explained. "And not any human, but in the ruling classes of international politics. Now that meddling is institutionalized."

"That means... that it will be at the service of humans and not of animals, right?" Private asked.

"That's right," Skipper replied. "For this, if you all agree, we'll leave the agency as a team."

"For me it's okay," Private said.

"It will be the best," Kowalski said.

"Norbert booooo," Rico said.

"Then it's decided. I'll see you tomorrow, comrades."

Skipper hung up the telephone, left the stall and headed towards the agency to present their resignation.

.

Skipper entered the plane hold shattered and sat in a corner. He wanted to leave the sooner the better and put an end to everything. He wanted to be alone.

There was nothing to do. The agency was in the wrong flippers. The agency, as such, was dead. But at least his team was with him and they had agreed to cut their losses with it. They would have to start the fight for their ideals without any support, without their usual allies... but they would surely keep their enemies, they had already talked about it. Anyway, that was better than staying in a totally corrupted agency that would fight for the contrary things. But that wasn't what Skipper had wished some hours before: no matter if his team had always done the right thing (and he had a clear conscience in that sense), his mind was still worried. Madeleine... what would happen to her?

Right before the door closed, he saw a silver glint.

"I want to leave too."

"Madeleine?" Skipper was surprised to see her there. "Are you really leaving? Leaving home?"

"There's nothing tying me to here anymore," she answered.

"And..." Skipper didn't know if he should ask. "And your father?"

Madeleine pointed at the scar on her beak with her flipper. "Since he did this to me, he's not my father anymore. I don't even call him that."

"I'm sorry, I should have said nothing," Skipper said lowering his head. "Forgive me, families aren't usually that way. When I don't remember who your father is, I can think very stupid things."

"No harm done, really. You don't know what I have lived, but I can't blame you. I should have told you a long time ago."

Madeleine sat next to him and gave him a brown folder. At that moment they felt that the plane was taking off. Skipper grabbed the folder strongly until he felt that the plane was stabilized.

"What's this?"

"This is the report that Flint left for me in his office, the one in the blue folder," Madeleine explained. "He asked me to take it out from the agency if something happened to him. I placed it in another one so that Norbert didn't suspect. You must see it."

Skipper opened the folder and switched a flaslight on. On the first sheet he saw a drawing of a gray penguin and another penguin with a flat head. From their feet two arrows pointed at an egg. Skipper didn't know what to say.

"Did Flint know it?"

Madeleine nodded. "He knew it the same day as you. Right after talking with you Norbert appeared, and..." Madeleine felt sad when she remembered it, "he took it from me."

Tears welled from her eyes. Madeleine felt that Skipper held her tight against him. They stayed that way for a while. Skipper didn't want to talk about that: he was very ashamed of his initial reaction when he knew he was going to become a father. He didn't want her to throw it in his face. But it was worse to remember that the hatchling had never left its eggshell. He had tried to dismiss that thought from his mind forever.

"I have never talked about this with anyone," he said.

"Me neither. I had to keep it a secret... Norbert has many tentacles. You have seen it. I had to protect her."

"Protect her? Whom?" he asked.

"Didn't you know it?" Madeleine asked unfolding the sheet. "Look..."

There was a drawing of a little penguin with a pink diaper.

"Do I... do we have a daughter?" Skipper was trying to assimilate it and needed a bit of time to understand. "Why didn't you ever tell me about her? Where is she?"

Madeleine breathed deeply. "I'm sorry, but even though I wanted I couldn't tell you. We would have put her in danger. It was better for you not to know it. Just imagine if an enemy discovers it."

Madeleine turned the sheet. There was a drawing of a telephone, a helicopter and a zoo.

"Flint looked for a zoo where there had only been civilian penguins and invented a story for the egg. He told me that it had worked, but I didn't know anything else."

There was still another sheet and Skipper had many things to assimilate. He had a daughter and he hadn't had the chance to see her taking first steps, eating her first fish alone, saying her first words. Nobody told him "daddy", and how he suddenly missed not having lived that moment. And, especially, her first smile. To calm her when she had nightmares, to laugh with her wisecracks, to have to stop her in her tracks when she stopped being a sweet child and she became a rebellious youngster. And then he thought that Madeleine had always missed all that.

"I suppose that now we can know what happened to her, right?" he finally asked.

Madeleine moved the first sheet aside. The second one, apparently, was blank. Both were disappointed.

"I think there's a way," Madeleine said. "Give me the flashlight."

Skipper gave her the flashlight and Madeleine placed it lit under the sheet.

"Look, Flint taught me this trick. Look at where the light is seen."

At the beginning nothing could be seen, but little by little an image was discerned. It was a drawing of a woman with... a torch?

"The Statue of Liberty?" Skipper asked. "Our daughter went to New York?"

How near him she had been...

"Look, there's more," Madeleine said. "There's a penguin below."

"Let me see."

Little by little, as if they were developing a photo, they saw the fast lines that represented seven figures. Seven penguins, so familiar for both.

"It's... my team," Skipper said totally astonished.

Madeleine stared at them attentively. Yes, there was no doubt. She verified that there was nothing else drawn on the sheet. As soon as they left the plane, she would burn both sheets and the folder so they didn't fall on anybody else's flippers; she knew that in plane holds there are usually fire detectors.

How could that have happened? Destiny had taken the chick back to her father's flippers. But, cruel as it was, it hadn't given him any hint about who she was. Skipper was trying to assimilate it. His mind received the memories of the months when they had been seven in the team. All at once, like in a flood.

"What is she like?" Madeleine asked him.

"She has your determination, your stubborness, -" he heard a coughing, "well... my stubborness, your will power... and your eyes. I had never noticed, but she has your eyes."

Madeleine smiled. "How is she?"

"It's been a while since we haven't known anything about her, but I know she's okay."

Madeleine looked at him not understanding.

"You don't remember, do you?" he asked.

Madeleine was stunned when she tied the loose ends. She took time to react, and tears leaned at her eyes.

"And to think that she had been sent there to be far from all dangers, and what she has suffered... And I wasn't there to protect her, to comfort her and listen to her. How lonely she had to feel!"

"The ones who did all that were in front of my beak and I didn't give them what they deserved," Skipper regretted. "Now I would have preferred to go to court-martial for her."

"What did you do for her to avoid it?"

Skipper felt as a traitor. "Nothing. I could have gone and looked for her when she was transferred, but instead I left her there so that in the agency they thought she was dead." He looked at Madeleine. "Do you remember the conversation that we held?"

"Now that you name it..."

"How did you know that she was alive?"

Madeleine was thoughtful. "I don't know," she finally said. "It may have been something you said between lines. I don't remember what you said, but I just sensed that she was alive. I didn't know it was her, of course... but I knew that the soldier was alive."

"The soldier," Skipper highlighted. "How ironic this all is. You tried to protect her and suffering pursued her, she had to be a civilian and I turned her into a soldier... All just the contrary."

Both kept silent. Skipper dove in his thoughts, remembering the night when he had to go to her daughter's previous zoo. If he had known that he was his father... what would have he done? Would he have applied the law of military honor or just the law of honor? Now that he wouldn't drag his team to perdition with him if he did something questionable... what would he do?

"Madeleine," he suddenly said, "I asked you to watch those three bastards. What happened to them?"

"If you're thinking about going and visiting them, don't waste your time. Not a long time ago, the male went crazy and attacked the two females by surprise. The three ended with mortal wounds, but only he had blood in the beak. The females' wounds were pecks well-aimed to their hearts, but his weren't near any vital organ. He bleed to death. This has been kept as a secret, the official version is that they were transferred."

Skipper said nothing. It was wrong to say that he was glad, but he was glad. They kept silent for a while, none of both really wanted to comment on that.

"Would it be safe to look for her?" Skipper asked point-black. "There's someone in the team who especially misses her."

"A boyfriend?"

"Something like that."

"At the moment, it's not. But I'll tell you when it becomes safe. Now that I'm not in the agency I'll move in the shadows. I have other means for knowing things... Remember that Norbert is my relative, unfortunately." Her father's name tasted bitter in her beak.

"Thank you very much, Madeleine. I trust you. Let's sleep during the rest of the journey."

Skipper moved her closer to him and let her lean her head on his shoulder. But he didn't sleep. He was just thinking. About the agency, about all the classified information he knew. About her daughter, especially about her daughter. From time to time he thought that maybe Madeleine was playing asleep too. They were sharing silence. Really, when he looked at her, he almost thought he was seeing his daughter. At that moment, they weren't Skipper and Madeleine... they were Rico and Blake.