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Undertow	By : pronker Category: +M through R > Penguins of Madagascar Views: 11341 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I make no profit from this fanfiction set in Dreamworks' Penguins of Madagascar franchise. I do not own its characters, basic premise or settings.

Chapter List
- 1-1/?
- 2-2/?
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- 8
- 9
- 10
Frances Alberta prepared for her trip to Howe Caverns more easily than she had ever prepared for any other trip. How convenient to have the near veneration of someone like Moley, who did what she wanted when she wanted it and who had a boss ride to boot! She slung a change of clothes into a plain backpack; she placed the herbs to please Babalú-Ayé’s sensibilities carefully into the briefcase that used to hold her resumé and Animal Keepers’ Forum‘s latest issue. A candle or three, her cigarette lighter, the ritual broom and she’d be finished packing —
The floorboard creaked outside her door and the lock tab turned from vertical to horizontal. “Ms. Alberta, I’m coming in.”
“Just a moment, I’m dressing!” Crap, Jeff was early for the rent. At least she had it all together this time. She scraped the bills in one pile on her sagging bed and counted hastily. Forty-three singles, plus the six twenties and lone fifty, there that was rent for the month. Two hundred for this dump, when she used to pay seven times that for her sweet little Weehawken apartment. She made a face with a curled lip that her mother always claimed would stick that way. The apartment cost her time and effort to keep it clean after she lost her job, and now that she’d thrown away such notions for the easy ways of Santería, she liked her life as much as she had before The Penguin Makeover. She placed the extra thirteen dollars in her jeans pocket and stood up to let him in.
“Why, Ms. Alberta, you going someplace?” Jeff’s heavy brown Oxfords clumped over the threshold. He checked out her place openly, the turd. He likely suspected her of skipping out on the rent and it took all her ori to keep calm.
“Yes, for the weekend. I’ll be back Monday afternoon.”
He held her gaze a beat and then nodded. “‘Kay, then.” She offered the bills and he took them. “You artistes do all right for yourselves, huh.” He moved his lips as he counted out the amount to himself.
“Receipt, please?” Years of managing a zoo meant she tracked her money, although she’d never been this strapped for cash in her entire life. She beseeched her ori for patience. Jeff was going to keep her waiting, it seemed. There was literally no place to sit down for any visitor, landlord included. He eyed her seated on her Murphy bed with a tilt of his head and she blanked her expression. No way was she going to move aside to offer him a seat there.
“Sure, Frances.” There was also no way she’d engage in another argument about his overfamiliarity, either. From a grubby shirt pocket came a stubby pencil and slip of paper. He wrote laboriously on it, using the wad of bills in his hand as a desk. “Getting more visitors than last month, eh?” A tongue slickly coated with white crept out the side of his mouth as he concentrated.
“I’m caught up with the rent, so the answer is yes. Performance art is alive and well in the Tri-State area.”
Frances flipped her lavender hair away from her face. Since she indulged her artistic minor gained in college now rather than bureaucratic zoo mumbo jumbo, she felt more free than ever. The Penguin Makeover liberated her life, in a way, although it still left lingering hatred for that busybody penguin with the mad martial arts skills. For a while, she had been bothered by the conflict in the feelings she had for him and what he had done to her, but Santería showed her how multiple feelings bloomed like dandelions in the green front yard of Life and it was wrong to prune them. She slept easier these days.
Jeff’s unlovely face showed a squint to go with the tongue tip as he made the receipt a bajillion times more difficult than necessary. He must have had trouble carrying the two or something, because he crossed out a number and put something else down in its place. “Art like yours, yeah I don’t get it.” He handed her the receipt and now she supposed they’d chitchat because he showed no sign of leaving. “Bella von Guano don’t get it, neither. I caught her spiel on Manhattan’s art galleries and yours was at the bottom of her rec list.”
My stars, the ori was certainly getting a workout today! “It’s cutting edge, Jeff. Metal sculpture and related performance art to demonstrate the meaning of the works.” There, that was enough chatting. “I must catch my bus. Later, okay?” Not if she could help it, at least until the first of next month. He wasn’t through.
“So somebody willed you the empty lot, you filled it with rusty kiddie rides from supermarkets that went bust and other junk? You put on that Miss Cleo accent, call it Funkytown and what you make from Looky Lous is enough to pay rent, buy groceries and such as that there?” The beer belly loomed near her face and she stood to get the gasbag moving out of her domain. She’d paid for it, by Kaiju, for one more mother-loving month. The two of them were close enough for her to smell his B.O. His next question got her goat, and not in a good way. “Even enough to pay Noo Yawk City taxes on it?”
Her ori couldn’t solve every problem. Frances drew on her time of sitting through bureaucratic budget meetings to deliver a smackdown. “So it would seem,” she said frostily. “And in a timely manner, too. Envious?”
The atmosphere cooled in her room, and not the nice sort of cool she felt around Moley. “Running a boarding house that Maw willed me is none of your business.” He looked around again, as if to catch something to gripe about. She’d hidden the hot plate under the folded down Murphy bed and cleaned up the joint. She met him stare for stare.
“Goodbye, Jeff.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She locked the door behind him. It was time to meet Moley. He, at least, did not know the meaning of money because his energy source sprang free as the spirits of Santería, he roamed where he pleased and was a King. When she was in his company, she forgot the need to stay grounded in Jersey life, surpassing the need to eat or drink other than what he provided. What they had was superior to the last time she had been in love, and she wasn’t even in love with this guy. That may have been because he wasn’t fully human, but she didn’t care. Just to be on the safe side, she packed her Maglite and extra batteries. Moley’s eyes may be accustomed to dim light, but hers never would match his. She felt lighthearted as she remembered the joke on the last caving trip, back when she was still Zookeeper Frances Alberta, up and coming reformer of the dying Hoboken Zoo. She even recalled the name on his badge.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve rescued folks who brought no spare D batteries and thought that two hours’ life was plenty on a two hour caving expedition,” lectured Rick Esparza in her mind’s eye. One kid piped up the obvious question and the ranger had swelled his chest. “Why? Because D batteries have a two hour span at full use and if you go in a cave for two hours — ”
“You ought to allow two hours to come out,” Frances said aloud to no one. “Don’t get so entranced with beauty that you forget practicality.” With a sigh, she ditched her stilettos for Reeboks. Some extravagances from her old life remained as comforts; Santería was a most forgiving set of beliefs as long as you did the requisite animal sacrifices. She snugged her shoelaces, pulled down the warm sleeves of her fleeced hoodie and locked the door as she left. The tattered carpet in the hallway muffled her steps.
Jeff’s noxious voice sounded from her neighbor’s room and she made a face at the closed door. Now was when the fun began. Frances almost skipped down the stairs and down to the corner bus stop. From there, yes, she’d need the 168 to head into New York City, but then it was onto the freedom of the open belowground with Moley the moment she descended into Moon Rocket’s secret chamber on the lot that Mom willed her, blocked its floor that was really the ceiling of the airlock, and climbed aboard.
Moley would be waiting.
Life was good again.
IOIOIOIOIO
- 8
- 9
- 10
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Undertow