Day 2
"Kowalski! Progress report."
"SIR. We continued the search for Manfredi and Johnson to no avail. Our efforts to uncover our monochromatic compadres remain fruitless. -"
- Kowalski's report was interrupted by the sounds of aggressive fruit slicing. Skipper turned to see Rico throwing fruit into the air and slashing it with his knife. Private wandered by and yelled "You said fruit! FRUIT NINJA!!!" -
Kowalski cleared his throat. "Our efforts to uncover what happened to our monochromatic compadres remain
unfulfilling. We continue to search from one side of the island to the next.
No penguin is left behind."
"Things got interesting for one of our other monochromatic friends, though. He had liked the strange, manic, striped squirrel and defended him yesterday. After a night to think about it, and with the strange, unexplained events that happened during that time, it seemed that the gang was feeling uneasy about him. If you listened closely enough, you could almost hear the enraged roars of Gloria, wanting vengeance for her death."
"To some, it seemed like the striped tail squirrel was trying to distance from him, and they felt it made sense. After all, a squirrel with stripes, an equid with stripes - it's the perfect pairing for unleashing evil on the world. They could sneak through the day distracting people with mundane questions like "am I black with white stripes, or white with black stripes?" Truly a brilliant way to distract people." Kowalski reported.
Skipper pondered this for a moment. He'd heard legend of how sneaky Marty could be. The saying, of course, is when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras - but that could be exactly how a zebra got away with it! Perhaps they were onto something.
"Rico! Private! Report your takes on these findings!"
Rico slashed a watermelon. Private burped. Both saluted afterward. No one was really sure what that meant. But hey, now there were fruit kebabs!
"Kowalski, what were your conclusions from today?"
"Sir! The group was quite sure that Marty couldn't be trusted. There were just too many signs. And even though he claimed to be slippery like an eel, everyone knows that equids aren't slimy unless they just lay in manure, and the only slipping they do is when they're trying to break their own legs because they are, after all, cousins of horses, and we all know those exist solely to find how many different ways they can harm themselves."
Skipper nodded thoughtfully. These were true truths.
"Despite his protests, they said no sir, no way, you've gotta go. And they forced him to load onto a trailer that was headed for Connecticut. We're not sure how it was going to drive from the island to North America, but that was not our concern. They said he was going to go be a pasture pet for some rich white lady in Greenwich."
Skipper frowned. Being a lawn ornament sounded pretty good, to be honest. He didn't see why this was the punishment the animals had landed on.
"That sounds like a vacation destination, Kowalski."
"No, sir, it's quite awful. You see, he'll be a pasture pet, except for ..."
Kowalski steadied himself, taking a deep breath for fortitude before continuing on.
"When he's part of a petting zoo
for children's birthday parties."
The penguins gasped in horror. Truly, this was a fate worse than death. The group must have been sure of their decision to sentence him to something like this.
Skipper shook his head sadly. All this, and still no sign of what happened to Johnson and Manfredi. But he was determined to find out.
Sent to Connecticut is...
