Private rushed to the HQ, and straight into his bunk. There he laid wailing into his pillow. Unfortunately, with all his stress, he didn't notice the burning smell या smoke. His तकिया grew damp underneath his face. Both of his failures played through his mind like a degrading movie. The और he thought, the worse he felt. Skipper's so mad at me! I'm such a failure! How could I mess up twice?! Private screamed in his mind.
We headed into the habitat in disbelief. I rushed into through the hole first. Smoke filtered the room, and it was coming from the oven. As always, we all-well except for Private who had mysteriously vanished-worked as a team to fix the problem. Rico slid the hatch open to let the fog filter out. Kowalski took रात का खाना out of the oven, while I searched up and down for Private.
I was appalled, when I found him sobbing silently in his bunk. He had his face planted into his pillow. The young पेंगुइन was tearing himself up inside. Believe it या not, it was breaking my heart. I broke my mute watching.
"Private? Are you.....okay?" I gingerly asked. He immediately rose his head up. I guess, I startled him. He has aghast. He jumped right onto the ground, and ran up to Rico offering to help him.
"Well, dinner's ruined!" Kowalski griped flatly. It made me jump, as he slammed the pot down on the counter in frustration. Rico rushed over, dramatically.
"Fiiisshh?" He whimpered to the burnt, gigantic whopper of a fish. Rico snapped from lamenting to growling and baring his....beak at Private.
"All right, I guess we'll just have to get another one." I suggested.
"It's Thanks Giving! There aren't going to be any मछली nearly as big as that one!" Kowalski argued.
"Yeah!" Rico chimed in. They weren't making this easy!
"Exactly! It's Thanks Giving! And what's the लोकप्रिय dish for humans on Thanks Giving?" I put together, trying to reason. For once.
"Uh...turkey?" Kowalski answered a bit confused.
"So?" Rico grunted.
"So, the chances of there being मछली still isn't as bad as we thought."
"Yay!!!!!" Rico cheered.
We all rushed into the car. Kowalski took the wheel, and Rico sat in the passenger seat. That left Private to sit अगला to me. "Hey, how are you?" I smiled. He shifted in his सीट uncomfortably.
"Sorry," He whimpered. "I'm sorry for everything! I'm sorry for not being a good soldier. I can't even beat Mort in football." He कहा ashamed. Sure, I was upset. But I couldn't handle seeing him like that. Did he really think I was that mad? Of course he did! I was a jerk! There was no excuse for that!
"Don't be sorry, soldier!" I comforted him.
Rico butted in, "How could आप not notice the fish?!" The सेकंड Rico got the chance, he snapped at him.
"I'm sorry! I was a little upset from the game!" Private shot at him. Private leaned in yelling at Rico. He was almost on चोटी, शीर्ष of me. Rico began yelling back. Soon their heated arguement turned into a screaming match. They were giving me a headache द्वारा both of them shouting at the same time.
"Shut up!" I scolded at the both of them. The car came to an abrupt stop.
"We're here," Kowalski groaned.
We parked in the ally of मछली Mart. Unfortunately, we had to park अगला to the dumpster. It reaked! I held my beak, as we stepped out of the car. Flies swarmed around the trash, and soon began droning in our earholes. The boys and I had to contuinously swat them all away.
"Stupid pests!" Private muttered. He never called any creature a pest, not even the rats या "broches".
On my order, we formered a stack. Private was on the bottom. Then it was Rico, and on चोटी, शीर्ष of him was Kowalski. As always, I stood on top. We waddled our way to the door, struggling to keep our balance.
"Rico, paper clip!" I commanded. He spit one up to me. In mid air, I caught it. सेकंड्स is the amount of time it took me to uncoil the clip. I jammed it in the the knob, and jiggled it around in the keyhole.
Because the store was closed, as expected; no one was there. Without having to use stealth, we headed into an aisle of colossal मछली on ice. Rico hopped into the large cooler, and dazed out at the tiny fish.
There was no sign of a मछली as big as the one they had. Rico groaned, and plopped to the ground. He shook his in hopelessness. "No fish."
"Just get the biggest one." I sighed.
Private hung his head low. Like before, his eyes were watery. He looked around to see his flustered friends. Disappointedly he slowly waddled out. Outside the building, he slouched up against the दीवार alone. From the garbage in front of him, a मच्छर began buzzing forward.
He was emotionless, and just let it suck his blood. He winced at first. "At least, you'll eat well." He sighed.
"Private, get that bug off of you!" I scolded.
"Aye, aye," Private moaned. It was like he was depressed. Literally....sick. Probably just over reacting.
Kowalski approached us, carrying a few groupers. Rico इंजन से साइकिल, मोपेड behind him. Clearly, so far it wasn't going to be the best Thanks Giving. Okay, maybe it was turning out to be the worst. The clouds were piling up and packing tightly together. The sky was like our feelings-gloomy. No one was the least bit happy.
रात का खाना was a dud. Barely no one talked. Tension was a thick दीवार between us. Even though we were all at the same table, we felt so seperated. Most of the talking in fact were sentences beginning with "Can आप pass the....?"
After dinner, Rico passed out in his bunk, as he always did on this holiday. Kowalski was waddling into his lab, and Private sat down on the floor; coloring Lunacorns. I was preparing dessert.
All of a sudden, everything got dark. Every light in the HQ was out.
"Kowalski, analysis!" I called to the scientist in his lab. He came out right away. The tall पेंगुइन reached up to pull down the looking glass.
All throughout the zoo, every light was out. Alice stood with a walky-talky up to her ear. Her body langauge read it all. She was slouching, but wore a angry glare. The zoo keeper began yelling into the walky talky.
"You mean the power's out, until tomorrow?! And I have to stay, until then?!" Alice spoke into the device. When she hung up, she muttered to herself. "It's bad enough I have to a spend my Thanks Giving with these animals, instead of my family."
After Kowalski reported what he heard, none of us were happy; either. At least, the कद्दू pie had time to bake; before the energy had gone out.
"Rico, lantern." I ordered. As usual, Rico hacked up what I was looking for. The lantern was as big as Kowalski.
"Yes, but is it charged?" I questioned. Rico flipped a dial to high. A few सेकंड्स passed, with nothing.
Then, a blinding light came from the lantern unexpectedly. We all covered our eyes from the incredibly bright light. I rushed over to the dial. Since it was turned all the way to the right, it was easy to tell where low was.
After I turned it down, the light was a hundred times और bearable. For awhile we sat around the light quietly, like we did at dinner.
"It's almost like we're camping." Private observed in an amiable tone. It was much different than before.
"You're right," Kowalski smiled. Again, he even seemed in a better mood now.
So did Rico as he cheered, "Yay camping!"
"I could set up the tent." I offered.
"Yay!" Rico repeated.
I walked out of the room to get the tent. It took me what seemed forever to find it. It was hidden underneath weapons and gadgets. The truth is, we hadn't gone camping in I'm not sure how many years. Well, if आप don't count the ones for mission purposes. But those weren't really fun, unlike just camping.
When I got back into the room, the boys were laughing. I began grinning, too at the sight of their happiness. Rico was cracking up, Private giggled, and Kowalski chuckled.
"Hey, Skipper, do आप remember Goldy?" Kowalski asked me. I laughed. Goldy was Private's pet goldfish. A पेंगुइन with a pet fish. Let's just say that didn't work out.
"And some one had to eat him!" Private remarked.
"Hey, don't look at me!" I कहा defending myself.
"But आप ate him, didn't you?" Private was confused. That's the story the rest of the boys and I told him. I looked at Kowalski for help.
"Private, when आप have a fish; आप have to clean the bowl." Kowalski explained.
"Oh...that explains a lot. So आप didn't eat him."
"Uh...well, when Rico and I found him he was sorta..." I admitted.
Rico fell unto his back. "Belly up,"
"Yeah, and we didn't know how to tell you; so we panicked." I told him.
"Skipper and I were figuring out how to tell you, when....we heard Rico-" Kowalski explained farther. Rico belched. "Yeah did that." Kowalski finished.
"So Rico did it?" Private guessed.
"Yeah, and he didn't want आप mad at him. So I just took the blame for it." I said. Then I rubbed my fins together. "So who wants pie?"
"Me! Me!" Rico cried.
After the pie was passed out, almost everyone gobbled it down. Private just nudged it with his fork, barely taking a bite out of it.
"Poor Alice. She's all alone on Thanks Giving. I wish there was something we could do to cheer her up. After all, it is a holiday." He sighed. I put a fin on his back.
"Maybe there is." I suggested.
Alice dragged on into her office. Wishfully she flipped the light switch in her office. Just as suspected, nothing happened. It remained almost pitch black now.
She plopped into her chair, and sighed. "I know what I'm not thankful for." But her mood changed suddenly.
She noticed a figure on her desk. It was small and flat. Out of the droor, she grabbed a flash light. The shadow was shown in the light. In the place of the mysterious object, was a slice of कद्दू pie and a fork.
She began eating it. "Maybe, I should be a little और thankful. After all, I do have a job."
From outside of the building we gave each other high fives. So maybe, this Thanks Giving was turning out better. Matter of fact, it probably was the best one ever. All because of Private's big heart.