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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/?
- 3-3/?
- 4-4/?
- 5-5/?
- 6-6/?
- 7-7/?
- 8-8/?
- 9-9/?
- 10-10/?
- 11-11/?
- 12-12/?
- 13-13/?
- 14-14/?
- 15-15/?
- 16-16/?
- 17-17/?
- 18-18/?
- 19-19/?
- 20-20/?
- 21-21/?
- 22-22/?
- 23-23/?
- 24-24/?
- 25-25/?
- 26-26/?
- 27-27/?
- 28-28/?
- 29-29/?
- 30-30/?
- 31-31/?
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- 38-38/?
- 39-39/?
- 40-40/?
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- 48-48/?
- 49-49/?
- 50-50/?
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- 96-96/?
- 97-97/?
- 98-97/?
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"Lesser Fullness Of Grain Festival? The name sounds modest to a fault." Cthulhu swung her legs faster, almost trotting. "Your Grain Rain Festival fair blew me down, though. Kief idea."
Marlene defended her topic of conversation. "Well, I like the notion of smaller festivals without the hubbub of national attention. It's more personal and today is the day, May 20th. It celebrates, er, acknowledges, I guess, that the grain is nearly ready to harvest." She threw in what else she could recall about the day. "It's the birthday of the Silk Worm Fairy."
Cthulhu's lifted brow forced Marlene to plow on. "Now granted, none of us wear clothes, silk or otherwise, but we are all animals together, even worms and other ickies."
"In Zimbabwe on 25 May each year, there's Africa Day for all of Africa," Cthulhu purred before adding, "We Africans celebrate the rise of independence over the entire continent."
Marlene went with the flow, unwilling to upset the hot dog cart on their pleasant outing because Cthulhu had come to her rescue when Marlene confessed needing company. "Okay, see, that's another sort of holiday." She did a double take. "Wow, the whole continent!"
Cthulhu patted her belly. "I must pass on the tradition to my littles. It's my job."
"Well, yeah, my mom passed on things to me, too. I guess it goes with the mommy territory hey I hear Joey playing with his balls."
"You don't mean that."
"You silly, he has a pair to play with."
"Indubitably."
"Now cut that out!"
"You're too easy, chop."
"No I'm not well maybe a little. What I mean is that next time we three get together, we can each take one of his balls to pitch into his pouch for a game, that is, if he's game for it."
"Eish, he strikes me as playful."
"Sometimes he is, yeah. He was the last time I threw a party for game night." Marlene kept up their power walk, flicking her tail. "Hi, Joey!" she chirped as they rounded a turn.
"Hi, Joey!" added Cthulhu.
"Oi, ladies!" The unseen 'roo responded. "Smack back me favorite bouncy ball for a lark, eh?" A red, blue and yellow striped ball swooped over the solid habitat fence and the two friends went for it, bobbling it back and forth from one head to the other's like a soccer ball that Catarina Macario controlled so precisely.
"Back at you!" hollered Cthulhu. She nodded at Marlene, they jumped together and their combined spike hit the sphere back to its point of origin.
"Ta! Enjoy your walkabout! G'day, then!"
"G'day, mate!" Cthulhu replied and marched on. "He's a fun guy, isn't he?"
Marlene considered. "He can be. He didn't used to be, but that was then, this is now."
"Oh?"
"I'll leave it at that. He's mellowed is all I will say. Getting tired yet?"
Cthulhu stopped to breathe evenly, still lifting her legs high to keep pace. "No, I'm good."
"I don't want to exhaust you when we jog in a minute - "
"Don't fuss because I'm pregnant, mukoma. It's annoying."
Marlene grew quiet. They jogged past Burt's habitat and he flapped his ears in a friendly fashion. Roy nodded a hello. The chimps aped their jogging moves and then settled down for a snooze. The flamingos ignored them.
After she shrugged off the sting of the remark, Marlene galloped away from their agreed course. She didn't look back to see if Cthulhu followed.
"Hey, wait! Where are you haring off to?" It was impossible to hear Cthulhu's padding footsteps whatever their pace, so Marlene did not try.
"Follow me, if you can!" she tossed over her shoulder.
Marlene barreled into the nursery courtyard with the spider monkey domed cage on its far end. Still a little miffed, she switched from full out rout to jogging pace to pass the nursery window. She did not look in. The cleaning staff had cleared all sticky kiddie residue from the walkways, although a peanut butter winky wrapper clung to a shrub. Marlene waited for Cthulhu to catch up, ignoring the Slasher's questioning looks.
Screams rang out fit to wake the dead as the spider monkeys reacted to the sight of two jogging zoo animals out of their habitats. "Eeeeeeaaaaooooohhhhhhereeeeee! Ei! Ariranha! Ei! Gere Baj!"
"Ei! Ariranha! Ei! Gere Baj!" echoed Cthulhu, pausing to jog in place. "What's that mean?"
Marlene mirrored her friend's movements. "I think ei means oi means hey! The other words, no clue. Nobody speaks their language, sort of sad when you think about it."
The two studied the monkeys as they cooled down doing side stretches and impossible looking forward and backward bendovers. Marlene restored order to Cthulhu's disordered head fur and Cthulhu did the same for Marlene.
The monkeys studied them in turn. Quiet now, all twenty-four in the troupe clustered at the point inside their cage nearest the two freely walking animals. After a moment, three of the smaller spider monkeys that Marlene assumed were females swung themselves on skinny muscular arms to the highest perch in the tree. On that highest branch rested a box the size of a piano crate that was painted to resemble a human's house. The three female spider monkeys settled atop the box in the gap between its top and the underside of the chain links. Each side window and the back door was only painted on, but one real opening in front showed a shrouded darkness with who knew what within.
Five seconds later, Marlene and Cthulhu knew what was up with whom within.
"Eeep! Eeeeeeep!"
Babies, thought Marlene. I can't get away from babies. Spider monkey offspring from adolescents down to youngsters just past the stage of clinging to their mother's bellies peered out of the boxy house. The adolescents acted as babysitters and Marlene supposed they were, oh, adequate in protecting the smallest monkeys. The tiniest simians wobbled to the porch of the house and swayed over its edge to peer twenty-five feet downward. Marlene gasped when the adolescents reined them in at the last second. The three female spider monkeys looked up from their grooming of each other's backs, but didn't leap to supervise the adolescents.
Marlene supposed that if a baby toppled, one of the three adult females would swing to the rescue before the baby smashed onto the cement floor. She swept away the image with a shake of her head.
"Hey, I know what! Let's climb the dome and get a great zoo view. I'll point out sights like Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park and the direction of my old California home." She wiggled her eyebrows in encouragement.
Cthulhu took up the challenge. "Sure, I'm up for it. I'll show you my old Zimbabwe home in the direction of the rising sun. Let's go." They cracked knuckles, did five plié squats and three seconds later, they started.
At one quarter of the way up, Marlene shouted, "Criminidly, they're loud. And they're - "
Cthulhu lifted one back foot with a grunt. "They're grabbing at my toes, the doos. What are they playing at?"
"Gere Baj! Gere Baj!"
Marlene evaded skinny, grasping fingers snaking through the chain link enclosure. She glared at the snarly face inches from her own that shadowed her every move. "Are you calling me a bad name? Let's go back, Cthulhu, it's too dangerous! We'll fall!"
"No, don't turn around, Marlene. Onward!" Cthulhu accelerated until she fairly floated up the curves of the dome. With each successful grab at her toes, she flared out her claws and the monkey released them.
Marlene had no retracting claws, so she used her teeth. "There, that'll snap make you quit!" She bit with surgical precision each time monkey fingers closed on her toes. Each simian let out an eeeargh as it let go. Just under the top of the dome, the monkeys stopped the pursuit. They clung to the chain links in a ring underneath the two friends.
Marlene flicked her tail at the monkeys, growled at them and stuck out her tongue. "Weirdos! What on earth are you up to, can't you get along with anybody - meh. Never mind."
Cthulhu kept her cool. "La la la, the view! Totally worth it fershur."
And it was. Sounds and smells swamped their senses as they closed their eyes to savor the experience. They opened them at the same time before they held paws for stability. They danced a gavotte at the tip toppiest part of the dome.
The monkeys remained quiet except for a stray hoot or two. They didn't fling poo, thank goodness. Fifteen feet above them, Marlene threw a disgusted glance in their direction and then concentrated on her accomplishment. "Woo hoo! Did I get a faboo idea or what?"
Cthulhu stopped dancing abruptly. "So that way far to the southeast is Zimbabwe." She nodded in the direction without dropping Marlene's paws.
Marlene looked, trying to picture broad savannah, tall grass and Slashers living their lives. What freedom Cthulhu had enjoyed, and Marlene never had. She gathered herself enough to whisper, "You're lucky to have known complete freedom, my friend. I'm happy for you."
Cthulhu's face was solemn. "I miss it. I miss killing."
"Wh-What?"
"The thrill of the hunt, the blood dripping off my tongue and cracking a bone for its rich marrow. Alice never brings me bones."
"Oh." Marlene thought a moment. "Maybe Skipper can make Alice add bones to your diet because I've seen the team mess with the zoo computer before - "
"He's your go to guy, isn't he?"
Marlene got inspired by the spring breeze wafting through her fur at this great height. She had to set the record straight. "He's every zooster's go to guy. If you're too shy to talk to him, I can do it for you."
"Thanks, I can manage that conversation if I need to." Cthulhu squeezed Marlene's digits. "I have an in with one of his favorite commandos to get me straight to the head of the line." The feline shrugged. "Having no bones to crunch isn't that grody and it's not worth crying about. Nothing is."
Something clicked about Cthulhu right about then. "So Pasha What's His Name left you pregnant and alone and your dad left your mom the same way and that's not worth crying about?"
"No, it's just what happened, Marlene. It's a Slasher's life. Mum never told me her mate's name, but my mate's name is Pazwakawambwa."
Cthulhu's grip firmed as the two friends balanced each other on a curved surface thirty feet from the ground. Marlene resolved to enjoy the day without debating the virtues of tears. "You'll never see him again and you're calling him your - never mind. Moving along, Skipper says that Cleopatra's Needle doesn't bother him although he freaks at other needley shapes and actual, you know, needles. I don't always take his word about his feels because, you know, macho manly machismorific guff. Would a red granite pointy obelisk bother you if you were scared of needles?" She indicated the structure eleven city blocks to the north.
Waves of grass green, yellow green, forest green, and olive green leaves billowed like an unevenly mowed lawn in front of them. The Needle looked the same height as the dome due to distance. At seventy feet tall, it stood out as a rocky island among the topmost canopy of deciduous and evergreen trees. Gray birch, sawtooth oak, black cherry and tupelo surrounded the zoo with dozens of other species in various stages of leafing out filled the park. The pine trees must mock the up and coming seasonal trees, Marlene thought, because evergreens like them never moulted. The dawn redwood tree she got stranded on last March must be glorious by now.
Cthulhu squinted. "Scared? No way nohow. The perspective is all wrong and if I were hundreds of meters tall, then I'd be scared. Since I stay me sized, it's not possible for that needle to poke me. Squash me if it fell, yes, poke me, no."
The thought of a hundred-whatever tall Slasher blew Marlene's mind and her eyes grew wide. "That's, that's surreal, gonzo surreal. Congrats on the hundred meter tall image and I'll sketch it sometime when I can figure out how to change meters to feet and inches."
"Gift me a copy of your sketch?"
"Er, it may be a little outrageous for littles to see, but I'll think it over, mmmkay?"
"Not for them, for me. I'm more than a baby carrier, Marlene."
Marlene had learned early on that friendships in their first stages needed tending. "Of course you are! Goodness, don't take what I said the wrong way - "
hooooot hoot hooooooot hoot
"What are they up to now?" broke in Cthulhu. The spider monkeys upended in their ring as they gripped the chain links by their feet and swirly tails so they could hold hands. Twenty-one monkey voices split the air in unison as the monkeys swayed together.
"Gere Baj! Gere Baj! Gere Baj-aj-aj!"
The chanting unnerved Marlene. "Yeah um maybe we ought to go now, huh? I've seen enough."
Cthulhu shifted restively and then undid her grip on Marlene's paws. "All right, chop. Let's go down. Wait, one more look at the Egyptian needle." She cupped her paws around her eyes. "Egyptians worshipped us felines."
"Huh no kidding well let's go now I want to go. Now."
"Me, too." Cthulhu started down, looking daggers at the monkeys, who stared back with wariness in every glance. The twenty-one monkeys continued holding hands.
"Ye- wait. What's this?"
The monkeys did the penguin equivalent of whistling and looking innocent.
Hooot hooooooot hoot hoooooooot hoot
"Cthulhu! Take a gander at this!"
IOIOIOIOIO
"Last day, last day-ay-ay," sang Alice as she slung the mop over the vet's office floor. Yuck. Soon her backache would disappear, she could gulp strawberry yogurt smoothies to her gut's content and await little Baby. Today was the last day of work before maternity leave. Doc said to dress casual and thus Alice wore cornflower blue sweats and her red tee with "Baby" printed on it and a big arrow pointing down. Her red crocs matched the ribbon tying her auburn hair streaming down her back.
"Yeah, Doc, there's something weird with the penguins again." Alice stopped her chore and adjusted her bra strap in front of Doc with the nonchalance of long association. The man had seen it all with animals and prolly with humans, too.
"Alice, how are you feeling today?" Aww, he shimmied right past her usual wise animal observations and went personal, goldang his smarty-pants college boy hide.
"I'm fine. I'm ready for the big event, blah blah, but Doc, the otter's had penguins for company again. I spotted their footprints Friday coming out of her habitat and then she was not herself in performing somersaults that afternoon. She usually splashes high, wide and handsome for the school kiddie groups, but she was off her mark." Alice slung the mop with more force than usual to demonstrate her point. A spot of dirty water sloshed up his desk and he grumped her a dirty look as it dotted his copy of Veterinary Practice News. She made a little apologetic shrug.
Doc was prolly thinking that she had had her moments of what he called paranoia proven right occasionally because he took his own sweet time to answer. Her current condition might just have improved her wisdom about animals. It sure had improved her self-diagnostic ability. Why did she think she knew what he was gonna say next?
"I can examine her for parasites. Sometimes they affect an animal's mood and certainly their energy level. Bring her stool sample to me and I'll check it."
"I knew you were gonna say something like that, Doc."
"We know each other well, Alice. It's been years, has it not?"
"I won't count 'em if you won't."
"Ha ha! That's my Alice." He returned to his work and she to hers. The floor looked point two seven percent shinier when she finished. That was an improvement from last quarter's mopping and he smiled at her when she made ready to lumber out the door.
Alice paused by his window to the courtyard with the animal habitats forming a D-ring in front of it. In the middle of the habitats stood the penguins' island and movement caught her eye. The window had been opened wide in this glorious spring weather. She raised her arm to shade her eyes from glare.
Was that a penguin slipsliding through the throng of guests, ducking and weaving expertly through heavy stomping feet and snack cart wheels? She squinted. Hmm. Maybe. Would it add work to her day to investigate? Yes. Was this action looking to harm guests or upset the pretzel cart of her placid eight hours this fine Sunday? She squinted harder to see a black and white torpedo shape zip over the railing to land athletically on the island. Nope, no harm, no foul, the beast was back home. Her work was done in Doc's prissy office. She could ease through her day until time to relax in the zookeeper's apartment. She stroked her expanding tummy.
"Isn't nature magical?"
IOIOIOIOIO
Doc looked up from studying his TPS reports. Alice deserved his respect for her no-nonsense approach to giving up on romance but not on having a child. He supposed her experiences with moral-free animals shaped Alice's mindset regarding artificial insemination; he could not imagine Kavita and himself making that choice and sighed in relief that they did not need to. He shed a practiced eye on the blossoming figure outlined by the window. "Nature is indeed as you say, Alice. I placed our newborn gazelle in the nursery today for his initial immunizations and babies are magic itself. Perhaps visiting him will lend you strength for your upcoming transformative experience."
"Yeah, that's a thought. I'll catch it on my way home tonight."
Doc harrumphed. "I talked it over with our Commissioner and he said to let you go home early."
"Whoopeeeeeee! I'm so ready!" Alice swayed her mop around as if it were Fred Astaire and she his partner. She dipped the mop backwards and smooched loudly towards its top.
"You take care now, Alice."
The care lines eased from around Alice's eyes and for once, she looked nearly happy with her lot. "Yeah, you, too. Say hi to the missus and kiddies for me, willya?"
"Will do, my friend."
Doc made sure the door was locked and went back to his reading material hiding under Veterinary Practice News. The good veterinarian put his feet up on his desk and opened the Mumbai Mirror. There was an article entitled How To Leave A One-Time Dalliance The Following Morning With No Thrown Crockery and he wanted to get back into it.
IOIOIOIOIO
Alice surveyed the baby gazelle through the window of the zoo nursery. Doc was a nice guy for an egghead, she mused. The gazelle blinked long lashes at her as it nosed the bottom of the window. The smudge formed there made her smile. How sweet it was wobbling on gangly legs and in one year's time, her own baby would be wobbling around learning to walk. She tapped the nose print with a manicured fingernail that Filo had painted for her. Ha, Filo and she had had a girls' night out last night, danced the electric slide at a disco and returned to Alice's upstairs apartment at five minutes to ten. Alice looked right and left before smiling more broadly at the memory.
"You danced with the one that brung ya, good for you, Filo!" Alice said at her front door as Filo prepared to return to the disco for mosh pitting. In her best pre-pregnant days, Alice had never mosh pitted and was okay with that.
Filo tittered, "Mis padres raised me right, girlfriend, and I like dancing with you. Good night. Lucky you to have your maternity leave start tomorrow."
Alice surveyed Filo's spangled outfit and Jheri curls. "You look sexy, lady. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She winked.
Filo waved airily. "I had fun with you but you can't blame me for wanting a little more fun on a Saturday night, sister." She flicked her braceleted wrists to set the bangles jingling before placing her hands on saucy hips. "I'll call you Monday."
"You do that little thing. Good night, Filo."
"Good night, bomboncita." Filo pranced down the stairs on stilettoed feet. The gazelle assayed a baby ungulate's prance as Alice returned to the present.
"Hey, little gazelle, what's your name?" Oh right, McSlade dictated a public naming contest for this one, but not the penguin babies. Strange. Alice continued gazing into liquid gazelle eyes until she felt she could drown in them. She turned to go home. A squawking screech split her eardrums.
"Now what?"
Across the courtyard, Alice discerned spider monkey mayhem. A ring of monkeys joined hands as they screeched and holy moley, was that the otter at the top of their cage? And the ultra rare Slasher? Who was pregnant? And they both were free from anyone's control?
Why did these things keep happening to her?
"I should have known I couldn't get off that easy," grumped Alice. She debated what to do. She had left her walkie talkie in her locked desk, she sure as shooting couldn't crawl up thirty feet in her present condition and animals in her charge might be in danger. She flinched when she spotted a huge snake lying still as if it had just eaten a large meal.
"Ahhhhh! A snake! Oh cripes, it's not a boa, it's the hose! Yeah, that'll work!"
The twenty foot hose with its whimsical boa constrictor orange-and-brown pattern failed to entertain Alice now as always. She had hosed out the monkey cage first thing this morning and the hose was still there. She had meant to put it away and then forgot about it when she got to go home early. She moved as quickly as she could to the spider monkey cage.
A swift plug in, twist and full force water shot to the top of the dome. Angry shrieks and hisses issued from the monkeys as they broke formation to huddle as far from the blast as possible. The otter and Slasher deserved more consideration.
Alice turned the force to half strength as she continued squirting. That oughta do the trick. She snarled at the few monkeys who edged nearer to her and the monkeys snarled back. They hated her shirt because they hated the color red? Too bad.
IOIOIOOIOIO
"Ahhhhh! I hate water!" squalled Cthulhu.
Marlene was drenched beside her. "I love it! Follow me down!"
Cthulhu trailed Marlene down the curve of the dome, sheltered by her friend's bulwark against most of the water stream.
"Hate it hate it hate it hate it hateit!"
"Calm down, we're nearly there. Be prepared when Alice grabuhhhh!"
"No animal calms down when somebody says calm dahhhhhhh!"
"Gotcha!" Alice proved her Employee of the Year value as she turned off the spigot, seized Marlene in one hand and Cthulhu in the other in the span of two minutes. "How did you get out and what were you two doing up there? Do I have to request electrified fences? It's not in the budget. Come on, let's get you home."
She manhandled Marlene under her left arm with Marlene's head sticking out behind. Marlene willed herself into the latest commando routine she had memorized, Number Seventeen: Just Relax And Take It You Fool.
"You okay, Cthulhu?"
"I guess so. She plopped me on top of her big belly like I'm a bonbon on a silver tray. She keeps telling me not to struggle because I'm rare and precious so she doesn't want to get rough."
Marlene sniffled. "Aw, I think that's sweet."
"Hmph. I think that's smart."
"All right, you two, hush because my nerves are shot. I should get hazard pay." Alice trundled slowly towards the Slasher habitat.
"Oh!"
"What, did Alice squeeze too hard, Cthulhu? Talk to me!"
"No, she, she, ah, I mean her baby kicked me. I can feel it swimming around inside her like a croc in Lake Kariba."
Alice reached the habitat, fumbled for her keys and then mumbled a non-maternal phrase when it appeared she had left them in her desk. The zookeeper waddled at a sedate pace towards the zoo admin building. She reached its front door before Marlene thought of an answer for Cthulhu.
"If it were a croc, my friend, it couldn't hurt you because human babies don't get teeth for a long, long while."
IOIOIOIOIO
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