With his big ears bent down, a despondent Maurice sat patiently on King Julien's bed, holding Karl's tracking device. Watching the monitor, he could see the little dot coming closer and closer to him.
"Okay, here it goes..." the aye-aye braced himself. King Julien was going to be a wreck, possibly a hostile wreck but he had to be strong for the ringtail's sake.
The door was pushed open and to Maurice's surprise, he was met with a pair of blue eyes. The visitor was equally shocked. He thought nobody would be here. Of all the luck!
"Hey, Maurice. Hope you don't mind me coming in?" Horst said nervously while entering.
"Horst?" Maurice made a face and looked at the device in his hands. Was the doohickey malfunctioning?
"What are you doin' hereeeee..." Maurice's jaw dropped as he saw Horst dragging an unconscious Julien by his legs, who reeked of booze and self-pity.
"What in Larry's pits happened to 'im, Horst?" Maurice jumped off the bed, seeing the ringtail sporting a blissful grin.
"Oh, it's nothing serious. I've been there plenty." Horst patted the aye-aye's back reassuringly. "He just had a few too many drinks at Club Moist."
Maurice blinked. So Karl's invention hadn't been malfunctioning, nor had his own nose deceived him. This wasn't unexpected per se, but certainly not in the top ten things Maurice worried Julien would do after being ditched by his parents. For once, the aye-aye was thankful for being wrong.
It also wasn't surprising that Horst of all lemurs was the one who found Julien and dragged him back home.
Maurice sighed. "Can ya help me tuck in the king?"
"Sure thing." Horst agreed and the two placed Julien on his bed, with Maurice fluffing his leaf pillow and gently putting it under Julien's head.
"Thanks for bringing 'im here, Horst." Maurice said sullenly.
"Oh, no problemo. It's the least I could do." Horst stepped back towards the door. "Now if you'll excuse me-"
"And what were you doing at Club Moist, if I may ask?" Maurice turned to him, cocking an eyebrow and putting his hands on his hips. "Shouldn't ya be setting an example for your ward?"
Horst grinned nervously and fiddled with his fingers. "It was just one little ol' drink. No harm, no foul. Right?"
"Wow, he's out cold." Maurice heard another voice and turned to find Keke standing over Julien, and sticking her claw deep into the king's left nostril. "Whatever he was drinking, I should too if I have trouble taking a siesta."
Maurice grew a nasty scowl, while Horst made frantic gestures behind him, trying to tell Keke to stay quiet but to no avail.
"No, no, no, Keke." Maurice marched up to her, wagging his finger. "What Horst and King Julien were doing was very bad stuff that no impressionable kid should ever imitate."
"Keke, I told ya to go home with Mary Ann." Horst scolded her, startling Maurice.
"No! Bad idea too." the aye-aye waved his hands.
"Ningún problema." the kinkanjou shrugged after jumping onto Julien's belly to be on eye level with Maurice. "I spent the whole day doing good deeds, just as Mary Ann told me."
"Ya did?" Maurice did a double take.
"Sure I did, you can ask our vecinos if you don't believe me." Keke replied nonchalantly.
"The...who now?"
"She means our neighbours." Horst said helpfully. "See, I've been studying Keke's home lingo in order to better communicate with her and, y'know...make her feel more at home."
"I suppose we shouldn't pressure Keke to abandon her cultural identity..." Maurice mused.
"Eh...yes!" Horst shot him a finger gun. "That's precisely why I did it."
"You're still not setting a good example though, Horst." Maurice said sternly.
"Yeesh...Mr. Julien was right when he called you a major league buzzkill." Keke quipped.
For Maurice, that comment stung hard. "He...he did?" he asked meekly.
"Well, yes." Horst scratched his head. "But KJ meant it in the best way possible. He said a lot of nice things about you while plastered."
"It's not really importante, Horst is just my temporary dad." Keke elaborated. "Mary Ann is the one who is supposed to parent me and be a good role model."
Maurice scowled. "Keke, that is...that is a terribly chauvinistic mentality. Child rearing should never be done by jus' one parent if there's two of 'em at home."
"But Mrs. Dorothy told us so." Keke shrugged. "Isn't she a model citizen that Mary Ann should listen to?"
Maurice groaned and facepalmed. "Look, Mary Ann might be...for lack of a better term, the "maternal figure" in this weird custody situation, but she's still a fossa."
Keke glowered and walked closer to him. "What's that supposed to mean? Just because she's a fossa, she can't be a momma? That's estúpido."
"Oh, for Frank's sake." Horst felt his temper rising. "I already told her to stay away so you wouldn't suffer a heart attack at the sight of her-"
"Thank you." Maurice nodded firmly. "I appreciate your courtesy. Especially with King Julien being outta commission."
Horst grunted. "And you talk smack about her in return?"
"Look, I don't wanna start no arguments." Maurice raised his hands but his tone remained firm. "But I can't jus' ignore my intuitions. Mary Ann is a fossa and we can't change that. She was gonna boil me alive in a jacuzzi, man."
"So she went savage once." Keke lifted one finger. "Didn't the same thing happen to Mr. Alex? Your beloved hero of Madagascar? His teeth and claws are waaaay bigger."
"Yeah...but Mr. Alex only eats fishhhhh..." Maurice paused, knowing the same applied to Mary Ann. "But...he was also raised in a zoo, while Mary Ann is a natural predator, born and bred to kill."
"So...like Karl then? He lived his whole life in Madagascar, didn't he? And everyone and their mother knows how many times he tried to snuff out King Julien." Horst countered. "And yet he's allowed in your inner circle and to be the head of security, so he can presumably peep on us all the freakin' time?"
Maurice felt hot under the collar. He wasn't allowed to say that a literal fly on the wall could be a drone filming you in your own home.
"And what about the snake doctor?" Keke asked. "Everyone knows he's loco...and terrible at his job. And aren't cobras venomous?"
"Hey, I never officially approved of that slitherin' quack!"
"And didn't you, King Julien, Ted, and Pancho team up with a gang of dorky sharks once, while you were in exile?" Horst remembered.
His voice failing him, Maurice deflated and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had too much on his plate dealing with Julien's turmoil. He didn't have time to consider that maybe, just maybe, he was being a tad bit hypocritical when judging Mary Ann.
He also remembered Karl saying that he was with Mary Ann all night while Rebecca and her son got eaten, far away from the lemurs' village, so there was something to consider regarding the fossa's supposed innocence beyond the opinions of a child and a drunkard. Maurice wanted to believe in impartial judgment, so he knew when to take an L.
"Alright...maybe yall 'ave a point. But be that as it may, whether you and Mary Ann are fit to look after Keke isn't my call to make, or even the king's. It's the public's opinion that matters." Maurice reminded Horst.
Keke huffed definitely and folded her arms. "I'll have the public loving me by the end of the week. I'm already halfway there. And those silly penguins will find the real villano, Mr. Julien said so."
An uncertain Maurice watched her, unwilling to say anything that might crush her spirit. His gaze drifted to the sleeping king. Whether Julien himself truly believed that the penguins would solve the case was one thing, but if the week ended with Mary Ann being found neither innocent nor guilty, what were they going to do? Prolong the trial, or rather start a second one? It sounded like the only reasonable and impartial option.
"Jus' our luck..." he thought miserably before turning to Horst with a serious expression.
Horst knew what they aye-aye was thinking. Two whole days were plenty of time for something to go horribly wrong.
Outside, lying on a branch above the hut, Mary Ann had the same thought and winced as she heard Maurice's grave baritone.
"For your sake, I hope they do..."
"I don't think that Maurice is as nice as Mr. Julien says." Keke muttered as the three returned home at dusk.
"No, Keke. He's quite reasonable most of the time, he just has... a different perspective." Mary Ann tried to explain. "It was only King Julien who truly believed in lemurizing me. Maurice isn't a big fan of "radical" ideas."
"Yeah, but I'm sure he'll see reason by the end of the week." Horst said as he closed the door.
"And if he doesn't, King Julien can just order Maurice to agree with him. Am I right or am I right?" he added semi-jokingly.
"That won't be necessary." Mary Ann insisted while giving Horst a stern side glance before smiling at the little kinkajou. "For Keke will change hearts and minds all by herself. She still has two days' worth of good deeds to do and she's been doing wonderfully so far."
Keke groaned. "Can't I at least do a few fun good deeds, like digging up worms for the moles?"
"Hmmm...probably not." Horst said earnestly. "But look on the bright side, mija. You're just two days of work away from seeing Tammy eating her words."
"Sí? Pobre vaca gorda." Keke remembered and smirked. "Then can we let her be eaten by the bad fossa?"
"No. But trust me, proving someone as insufferable as her wrong is a reward in of itself... " Mary Ann picked up and cradled Keke in her arms "...but if you wish to succeed at your goal, you'll need an early start tomorrow. It's bedtime."
"Awww, c'mon! It's too early. I'm not a baby." Keke whined and crossed her arms. "Can't we play a game or something?"
"How about a compromise?" Mary Ann smiled warmly. "If you go to bed right now, I'll tell you all about the War of the Beasts, how King Julien, King Sage, and his future queen Clover vanquished the tyrannical Koto."
Keke thought about it and gave her a skeptical look. "You're not going to sugarcoat the cool parts, are ya?"
"Not in the slightest, dear. I don't believe in whitewashing history." Mary Ann assured her. "Or sheltering children from it."
"Great idea, hun." Horst fully agreed and nudged her suggestively. "You and I did play a small part in it too. It wasn't much, but it IS the very reason we're here with Keke right now, instead of you still trying to train the fossa to take over the world and me still being a lovelorn wreck."
"Oh, Horst. You don't want the poor girl to start puking." Mary Ann chuckled.
"Hey, it may have been corny, and fruitless when facing Koto, but it was completely earnest." Horst insisted.
"Whatever it was, I think you can skip that part." Keke waved her paw. "Can I hear the story now?"
"I love it when she agrees with me." Mary Ann thought with delight. "Of course, this will be a fun and educational experience for you."
"Yeah, and I will offer a first-person account of what it's like being an "unpaid intern"." Horst chimed in.
"No, you're sitting this one out." Mary Ann gave him a displeased look. "This is meant to be a female bonding experience."
Surprised, Horst opened his mouth to retort but the fossa's scowl made it clear that he was still in the doghouse for running off to Club Moist.
As the man of the house, Horst naturally deflated and submitted to his wife's will.
"Yeah, Mrs. Dorothy says that's more important." Keke saw no reason to argue.
"But... what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I don't feel sleepy." Horst asked when Mary Ann handed him a familiar book.
"You can brush up on your Spanish. It's certainly a much more productive use of your brain than poisoning it with you-know-what."
"Oh..." Horst held up the book with a lopsided smile "...yay me."
"And for the record..." Mary Ann stated as she carried Keke to the bedroom "...I would never refer to slavery as "unpaid internship", Koto was the one who insisted on that."
As she closed the door, Horst was left alone and stared at the book. What a sorry way for a guy to spend his Friday evening. No beverages and even his wife and sort-of-daughter gave him the cold shoulder.
Horst didn't know how many hours had passed as he leaned over the table and flipped through the pages. Reading a book was akin to being stuck in limbo, where time and space didn't exist and you weren't truly dead but certainly felt dead on the inside.
"Hmmm...what's this..."borracho"? I wonder what that word means-"
Focused on the text, Horst jolted and his tail puffed up as he heard a knock on the door. Shaking himself back to his senses, he wondered who that could be?
Who would be knocking at his home, and at this hour? Curious, he approached the door.
"Yes?" Horst opened it and was faced with an orange fruit bat wearing a fedora and folding his black wings like a trenchcoat.
"Good evening, dear shmuck-I mean sir!" the bat took off his hat and bowed. "Do I have a deal for you?"
"Hey...ain't ya that Fairfax guy?" Horst asked.
"You got it. Honest Andrew Fairfax, conscientious entrepreneur dipping his toes in the enterprise of canvassing, that's me." Fairfax admitted.
Horst was already struggling to follow his big words and Fairfax didn't give the lemur time to think.
"As Madagascar's most famous connoisseur of fine beverages, I have randomly selected you, a lemur I know nothin' 'bout, as my first lucky customer."
Before Horst could get a word in, Fairfax pulled something out of his wing and the former turned stiff as he was presented with a coconut drink, its aroma intoxicating.
"What do you say? Care to try one, or better yet...a box full of 'em." Fairfax pointed over his shoulder, revealing a small crate.
Trembling and licking his lips, most of Horst's brain was telling him to take the offer toot sweet, but all the moral lecturing he'd been subjected to over the last few days made him hesitate just long enough to remember that his action could have consequences.
"Now wait a sec? I know what's going on here." the blue-eyed lemur stepped back, drenched in sweat. "If I take this offer, you're gonna charge me some insane price and I will be in debt to you for eons. Plus, I promised my wife to cut back on this stuff."
"Don't be such a stiff, my friend." Fairfax put his wing over Horst, dangling the drink in front of his face, mesmerizing him.
"I can relate to your noble dilemma, but there's a simple fix for your fix. Wait till nightfall and till your nag...I mean your wife is distracted with somethin', then have your drink and go to bed. You wake up stone sober and she's none the wiser. It's a win-win."
"Huh, that's not a bad idea actually..." Horst considered it, his pupils moving in synch with the drink Fairfax was waving at him, until he remembered the second issue with this deal and pushed the bat's wing off him.
"But I can't. What's this going to cost me?" Horst questioned. "I know you don't come cheap and I'm a bit short on mangos-"
"No mangos are required." Fairfax assured him. "I'll gladly take anythin' that can fetch me a pretty penny...like say..."
He pretended to think "...like a hairbrush!"
"A hairbrush?" Horst made a face.
"Yeah, didn't you hear?" Fairfax shrugged. "The market price for brushes has skyrocketed recently, 'specially for ones with red hairs stuck to 'em. Now, you wouldn't happen to have one of those lying 'round?"
Horst didn't understand half of what the bat said, but he got the gist of it. A mere brush could buy him a whole secret stash of beverages! How fortuitous! He couldn't believe his luck.
"Just wait here!" he rushed in and came back with Mary Ann's furbrush, which had several coarse, crimson hairs stuck to it. "How about this one? It belongs to my wife."
"Your wife, eh?" Fairfax looked a little too interested as he snatched it and examined it with an eye loupe magnifier.
"Hmmm...yes, yes, she's a real beauty. Jus' what I was looking for." he chuckled and hid it behind his back. "It's been a pleasure doing business with ya, sucke-eh...sir. Here's your crate."
He pushed it towards Horst before taking flight, gripping the brush with his feet.
"Horst, you sly genius." the clueless lemur rubbed his hands before kneeling and hugging the crate. "You won the lottery in exchange for a stupid brush."
"Hah! I'll find a replacement in no time, there are probably dozens of them floating around the Cove of Wonders! There's no way this innocent lil' trade of goods can possibly come back to bite me in the keister."
This trade of goods was biting him in the keister already.
Standing in the middle of the nighttime jungle, Fairfax held up the brush to his client.
"Here it is, the genuine article! I don't know why you want it, Slinky, but I got it."
He flinched as it was snatched from his grasp by a serpentine tail. Its owner examined it and grew a sinuous smile.
"Maravilloso, this one will serve my inssssidious plan well." Savio agreed. "I can see you are a mammal of your word, Señor Fairfax."
Composing himself, the fruit bat chuckled, "Naturally. I'm merely a humble businessman, one who delivers the goods and keeps his end of the bargain. But speaking of bargains..."
Fairfax smiled deviously "...since I got your brush, you're gonna make sure that Tony Falanouc's..." he did a throat-slicing gesture "...out of the picture, if ya get my drift?"
Savio chuckled softly. "Oh, that issue was taken care of many days ago. See, when I first swam up the río, your conman rivale mistook me for a naive tourist and tried to sell me some scale lotion of dubious authenticity."
Fairfax blinked. "He did?"
"Sí...so I ate him." the boa admitted nonchalantly.
The bat gawked at him slack-jawed. "Wait? Ya mean to tell me I did this stunt for nothin' then? Falanouc's been taken care of days ago and I didn't hafta do nothin' for it?"
Savio smirked playfully. "Why, mi amigo. You make it sound rather dishonest of me that I withheld that información from you until this moment? But in my humble opinion..."
Fairfax shrank as the enormous serpent lowered his head at him and flicked his forked tongue "...I consider it part of our acuerdo that you don't share your rivale's fate in exchange for your asistencia. Am I mistaken?"
"...no, not at all." Fairfax gulped. "A deal's a deal."
"Quite right..." Savio resumed his affable demeanor "...and since you always uphold your end of the bargain, I do recall it involving one more venture."
"...so you refuse to tell us why your boss is abducting lemurs, are ya? But perhaps a pool of PIRANHAS shall persuade you to change your mind!"
"Kowalski, don't!" Private squeaked as the taller penguin loosened his grip on the rope but grabbed it right as their captive's head got dunked into the river, and pulled him back up.
Tied up and hanging upside down, King Joey giggled stupidly as a piranha bit down on his pink nose, and another onto his ear.
"Look, guys! I made friends with the fishies!" he beamed. "I'm gonna name you Chompy, and your friend Nibbles!"
The exasperated Kowalski was fuming and gripped the rope. They had been interrogating this fiendish rodent all night long and still, he refused to even budge, let alone crack!
The villain was far craftier and far more strong-willed than they had anticipated. Kowalski had half a mind to drop the rat and let the piranhas have their way with him, but he hesitated.
"Ugghh! I can't do it!" he lamented and pulled Joey up.
"I know, we can't execute our captives." Private shuddered. "It would make us no better than the villains we combat."
"No, you fool. He can't tell us anything if he's dead." a frustrated Kowalski corrected him. "We would be back to square one."
"But he hasn't told us anything useful all night." Private pointed out. "Goodness gracious, he won't drop his act even while being mauled by piranhas. I'm starting to think this rat either has a will of iron, or he-"
"I know, confounded it all!" Kowalski cut in before the rookie could insinuate that King Joey really was just an innocent nitwit.
"His devotion to Dr. Blowhole is staggering and unwavering!" Kowalski clutched his flipper, shaking it at their captive, before breathing in and out for a few seconds and stroking his chin in contemplation.
"What to do with this sort of fanatical, single-minded loyalist?"
"Can't you maybe build a device that can...I dunno...read his thoughts or something?" Private spitballed.
"You think I haven't thought of that?" Kowalski asked indignantly. "But building a brain-tapping machine would take time, as would drawing a blueprint for it, on top of the inherent difficulty of scrapping together all the necessary parts on this remote island, and who's to say that this devious double agent's mind isn't an unconquerable fortress on par with his imperviousness to pain?"
Joey giggled dumbly in response. "You talk funny. Say more words!"
"We have to at least try, Kowalski." Private insisted. "The lemurs are counting on us, and lord knows what unspeakable fate might befall them if they are in Blowhole's evil clutches. But I doubt a solution will just drop from the-ow!"
Something clonked the rookie on the head, bouncing into Kowalski's flippers, while the former dropped on his butt and started seeing tiny unicorns circling his head, making galloping noises and heigh-pitched neighs.
"What the...?" Kowalski held a rock wrapped in paper, and glancing up at the night sky, he caught a glimpse of what seemed to be bat wings soaring through the dark canopy.
Quickly unwrapping the paper, Kowalski read a short but alarming message. "Tomorrow, three more lemurs will disappear. Don't let this happen, brave penguins. Signed...a friend?"
"By Einstein's mustache! Private, do you know what this is?" he held up the note to the dazed rookie.
"Oh...Princess Self-Respectra..." Private babbled "...I'd be delighted to attend your royal ball..."
"Snap out of it!" Kowalski slapped him twice and dangled the note in front of Private's face. "Look! A clue was air-dropped into my flippers, a vague but ominous message from an anonymous informant. A true crime drama classic!"
"Oh, dear. That doesn't sound good. What does it say, Kowalski?" Private rubbed the protruding bump on his head.
"It says that those hapless lemmies are in grave danger again." Kowalski narrowed his eyes. "And we have less than 24 hours to put a stop to it!"