When Penguins Attack!

The Dreamer's Forest
An exercise in guided imagery. Here's your chance to expand on the dream...

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[Introduction] [closed to new writers except for one special kind - the kind who visits WDC every day during the 6pm-10pm time period and can post at that time. EVERY day.]

It's 2020 and penguins are attacking Mankind. How the Hello Jello did THAT happen?!

Myth says it started at the dawn of the 21st century with a small shop, a millionaire fat man, Global Warming, good intentions, bird flu, evolution run riot, the whimsical workings of fate, and the flushed faces of three ordinary citizens who only wanted to grab their small piece of the pie but accidentally burned down the bakery.

Now that the ozone layer is destroyed, the atmosphere has become flooded with natural psychedelics and that's interfering with the calm flow of life that humanity enjoyed for countless centuries. Now nerves are jangled, hallucinations are rampant, and it's really hard to get a clerk at WalMart to take your money. They keep running off yelling, "Somebody please catch that little pink cow that keeps flying around my cash register!"

Enough background... Let's plunge into the midst of things, shall we?

[For more background see "The Rent-A-Penguin Shop" ]

I could hear voices in the swirling mists so I called out to them, "Aria! Morgana! Is that you? Where are we?"

A giant grinning skull came swirling at me and I ducked and screamed. Manic laughter echoed around me. I screamed, "Help! Somebody help!"

Rough hands shook me awake. It was Aria.

I said, "You need to put some lotion on those hands!" We were in a room with no windows. "Whew! I dreamed it was 2020 and penguins were attacking mankind."

Aria looked at me strangely. "It IS 2020 and penguins ARE attacking mankind."

"What?!" I gasped. "Then the Rent-A-Penguin shop... Oh, now I remember... That was years ago... right before my and Morgana's first marriage... Wait! Are Morgana and I married again?"

Aria shook her had sadly. "No, Steve, the second divorce was final last month, but she still likes you and wants to be friends."

I fell back on the cot. "Oh, that's good. Things are so... confused these days. Where is Morgana?"

A hand touched my head. "Right here, Steve."

I jumped and screamed, "Aieee! Don't do that! Give some warning when you are sneaking around. Can you do that little beep-beep sound that trucks do when they back up?"

"Not very well," Morgana said. "It makes my throat sore. What if I throw a little wad of paper at you? Wouldn't that tip you off that someone was nearby?"

"Very creative. Don't forget to carry paper with you."

Morgana smiled like an angel. "I always have my little notebook with me." She patted the special pocket sewn onto her pants.

I narrowed my eyes. "Just what do you write in that little notebook?"

"Oh...nothing," I said airily. "Just a list of your transgressions."

"What?" He snatched it away from me, riffling through the pages.

"Hey!" I protested. "You can't read that! That's mine!"

"Too bad," he said, reading. See, this is why I divorced him the first time. And the second time.

"What? I do not snore!" he protested. "And what do you mean, 'walks funny'?"

"You do," I said virtuously. "When you first get out of bed."

He screeched like a wounded owl. I patted his hand consolingly.

"It's all right, Steve," I told him. "I still like you even if you do walk funny and snore."

He sputtered to himself as I retrieved my notebook.

"Now..." I said and threw a wad of paper at him.

I sighed as once again they went into another fight. Lord only knows how they stayed married as long as they did.

I simply slid down to the ground, playing with my boulder hat. It had a cute lil heart stiched at the top which winked at you now and again. Laughing slightly I looked over at Morgana's hair. It was like a mood ring. It changed colors to match her mood, and was currtly black as coal. But not as useful.

Steve's skin was pale now-freaky pale. Almost translucent. It was a night light really. Which I found convenient. It was a bad idea to sleep without light...bad idea.

"Hey, enough fighting you two...our food supply is running low...we need to cross the town, to get to the only available food source."

"Or I could cook up-"

"NO!" I covered Morgana's mouth.

"No....pumpkin...sardine pie..."

"Aria, your eyes are kind of freaky in the light..."

I frowned. I too had been affected by the phychedelicness that plauged the earth. My eyes kept turning into neon colors...bright...neon...colors.

"Thanks for pointing that out jellyfish boy...now come now. Grab your weapons...never know when a penguin will come..."

I said, "Just please don't talk about that... that pie again." I managed to choke down the nausea that even the thought of that pumpkin sardine pie... Must. Not. Think. About. That. Pie.

Aria's eyes flashed green-yellow-red, then green again. "Hurry up! Let's go while the lights are green!"

"Where?" said Morgana, grabbing her big purple purse as she jumped up, too high unfortunately, and bumped her head on the ceiling. "Ouch! Ouch Ouch!"

Aria flashed blue eyes at her. "Oh stop crying like a baby."

"That isn't the way babies cry. They go waaaaa!" Morgana said and smiled smugly. She loves to contradict Aria. I do, too, but I have enough sense not to smile smugly. However, Aria didn't seem to notice Morgana's smug smile, so Morgana put even more smugness into it until she was straining so hard to be smug that she fell over on the rug.

"What in Sailor Moon's name are you doing?" Aria said.

Morgana got up and brushed off her purple purse. All traces of smugness had left her to be replaced by red face. "Nothing," she said and widened her eyes into a reasonably good imitation of innocence.

"You're so beautiful when you do that fake innocence expression," I told her, but just as she turned to give me an angelic smile I had an irresistible urge to cluck like a chicken and scratch my feet on the floor. It spoiled the moment and made Morgana's smile morph into a frown so fast that the corners of her mouth made little "click" sounds as they turned downward.

But I absorbed Morgana's frosty expression of contempt and returned to her a warm expression friendship and our faces were about to melt together into a gooey mass of loving protoplasm when Aria shouted, "Hey! Food time! One available source. Cross town! Must go! Now!"

And her eyes flashed green.

We headed out the door faster than you could say "penguin." Aria saying "food time" had destroyed the moment so completely, I wanted to hit her with a sardine. For a moment, I had felt like Steve and I could get back together...maybe I could overlook his "habits"...but no, she said it was "food time," so we had to go.

We weren't the only ones out and about. I could see people everywhere, scurrying like ants. It wasn't often that we could go outside where the penguins weren't there, after all. It made me miss the days of the Rent-a-Penguin Shop when they were our friends, and we weren't their food.

"Food!" Steve bellowed in my ear. I hit him. "Ow!"

"Sssh!" I scolded him. "Do you want to be munchies for a penguin?"

"Noo," he said.

"Then you have to be quiet," I said, just as I tripped and fell, then shrieked.

I put my fingers to my mouth and signaled Steve to quiet Morgana down. When that little crisis was over, we weaved around the crowd or rushing humans to the food source.

"We have to hurry before they run out of food!"

I grabbed both Steves and Morgana's hand and fought my way through dancing blue whales and trees that kept turning into candy cane poles. Somehow, I knew this was all in my mind...but the phychedelic gases mess with your head man.

Fifteen odd minutes later we had arrived.

"Good...there's not a lot of people. Ok, Steve, you get all the diary products we need. Morgana, you get all the grains, veggies and meats that we need-"

"Hey! No fair! Steve only got one thing!"

"Well, yea! Steve can only handle one thing!"

"I could handle more!"

I groaned in frustration. God, save me from precocious...CHILDREN!

"OK, whatever!you know what to get! I'll go get the fruits, snacks, water and juices, and hygine stuff! MOVE!"

I scrambled over the piles of produce, boxes of canned goods, sacks of grain, bags of... Geez! I thought. Where does all this stuff come from? Whatever happened to grocery stores? Now we had "available food sources", vacant lots where mountains of foodstuffs would suddenly appear and you had to scramble to get your share before the penguins found out where it was and attacked.

I pushed an old lady aside. "Look out, Grandma! That's my sack of potatoes!" She morphed into an alligator and almost bit off my hand, but I had reflexively assumed my kangaroo shape and leaped nimbly out of the way. Not only that, but I had retained the sack of potatoes in my pouch. I laughed a long crackle of manic laughter: Mwahahahahaha! The alligator gave me the finger. Actually the claw, but I knew what she meant.

Morgana slithered over in her serpent shape. "Sssssteve, I found ssssome ssssoda. Do you like Mountain Dew or Ssssssprite?"

"Ssssssprite," I said.

Morgana stared at me with her yellow snake-eyes. "Are you mocking me?"

"No," I said. "Don't be ssssso ssssensative."

She struck at me with her fangs but I was still a kangaroo and leaped away.

Aria trotted up in her pony shape, her My Little Pony shape with the blue polyester mane, and said, "My saddlebags are full. Are you ready to run home?"

"Yeah, as soon as I grab a box of Cheezits and a bag of chocolate donuts."

"Well, hurry up! What about you, Morgana?"

"Done!" I said, my arms spilling over with a profusion of food. "Although I feel like a pack mule!"

"Are you coming, Pack Mule?" Aria asked. I growled at her. "Sorry, sorry," she said defensively. "But you started it."

"Don't we have to go?" I asked frostily. So frostily, in fact, that ice started to form on my nose.

"Aah!" Steve said, frantically brushing off the ice. "Don't do that-you might attract the penguins!"

"Oops," I said, brushing it off myself. Our hands touched and for just a moment, we were lost in each other's eyes again...

"Let's go!" Aria barked, shoving us apart. "Sheesh, are you sure you two are divorced?"

"No," I said dreamily. "Why did we get divorced again?"

"He snores, remember?" Aria said. "And he waddles when he wakes up."

"Oh yeah," I said. "Now I remember..."

We all jogged back to our little hide out-which was the now abandoned and beaten down Rent-a-Penguin store.

Crawling on our hands and knees(which is hard to do with pounds of food) we reached the center of the store, which was virtually safe from anything-even penguins.

"Ok...Steve, last time me and Morgana fixed the food...this week its your turn."

Steved whined, but eventually gave in. Morgana kept looking at him, and writing new additions to her notebook. Me? I just sat back and relaxed as I placed my hatter hat on my head. With the little heart...yea...

Silence enveloped us-only the occasional groans from Steve could be heard. After the food had be stored and hidden, he came back and sat between Morgana and me.

"I miss our shop..."

"Yea...I do too Steve..."

Morgana sniffled, but held back her tears.

I nodded and pulled out a crumpled photograph out of my hatter hat. It was of our 7 penguins, and baby Chibi-usa. Sam, Martha, Jake, Cookie, Chibi chibi, Endy and Serenity. We didn't know what happened to them. They fought of the rebellion at the start...but whatever was in the air took them over too. Maybe except Chibi-usa...she dissapeared, *poof*

"You know what Aria?"

"What Steve?"

"....maybe I should have saved the whales..."

I peeled some potatoes and sliced them into a pot along with some carrots and onions and tomatoes. Then I opened up a can of roast beef and dumped that in. We had an old camp stove salvaged from the ruins of the city and a cache of butane bottles for it. Within minutes the stew was bubbling. I got out the bag of flour and mixed up some dough for pan bread. "What do you guys want to drink?" I asked.

Aria held up her bottled water. "Just this."

"Me, too," Morgana said.

The two of them seemed so glum and dispirited. I looked at their ragged clothes and dirty faces. No wonder they felt so out of sorts. "Why don't you guys take a bath? You'll feel better."

Morgana sighed. "I suppose so." But she made no effort to get up.

"Really," I said. "You guys are so depressed that you're bringing me down, too."

Aria looked at me. "So?"

"I just think a hot bath will make you feel better. This stew can sit here and simmer for awhile."

Aria looked at her dirty feet. "Maybe you're right. Morgana? Shall we fire up the tub?"

"Sure," I agreed. Maybe a bath would make us happier. I knew that if I could splash around in the tub, I would feel better; didn't know about Aria, though.

Steve dragged the tub out and started to fill it up.

"Hey," I protested. "You're not going to stay in here, are you?"

"Uh..." he blushed guilty red.

"Out!" Aria said, pointing a grimy finger. Steve shame-facedly shuffled out.

"Now," I sighed, filling up the tub the rest of the way. The water steamed. "Who's first?"

I really should have known better than to ask that...

"Mine!" Aria shrieked, leaping at the tub. I scrambled out of the way as she splashed down, very hot water sprinkling me.

"Ow," I complained. "Don't you think you should take your clothes off if you're going to take a bath?"

Her soggy shirt hit me in the back of the head.

"Oh," I commented. "Ow again."

I had to admit, the bath did relax me and Morgana. Still, the thoughts in my head wouldn't buzz off.

"Man, something in my head is buzzing!"

"Yea mine too!"

I shook my head several times, but nothing came out and the buzzing noises where still there...only now it was join by...sqwauking?

Steve burst into the room, a ring of powder cheese around his mouth and shouted,

"INTO THE BUNKER! PENGUINS! OVERHEAD!"

Too bad Aria had to leap out of the tub without having time to get dressed. That meant I couldn't focus my full attention on the penguin attack. "Steve!" Aria yelled, "Focus on the penguins!"

Morgana handed Aria her shirt.

One of the buzzing squawk sounds went into a power dive, building up speed, heading right for us. "Kamikaze penguin!" I yelled and we jumped for cover.

The penguin hit the roof with a tremendous squawk and feathers flew everywhere. I spit a feather out of my mouth. "That was a close one!"

Morgana shivered. "There's something so creepy about a flying penguin."

"Yeah," I said, "but be thankful they don't know how to morph like we do. At least when you see a penguin you know it's a penguin."

"I wish we could morph into something that flies."

"Nah," I said, "You know the rules: land to land, water to water, and no morphing for air creatures."

"But who made those rules?"

I gazed off into space. "I don't know. One of the Creators, I guess."

"There's more than one?"

"Hey!" Aria said. "We're fighting penguins here, not having a theology class about the Incredible Trio!"

"Right! Right!" I said. "But we're fighting with sticks and rocks. We need better weapons."

"You always say that. Then as soon as the penguins leave you go back to reading comic books."

That reminded me that I was running out of unread comic books. "Hey, as soon as this penguin attack is over let's make a forage trip into the ruins and pick up some supplies."

"Is that all you can think about? Food?" I asked in disgust. "We're being viciously attacked by penguins!

"And other stuff!" he protested, covering his head.

"Like comic books?" I asked shrewdly. Boy, did I know him from all the marriages/divorces. He blushed bright red.

"Nooo..." he said in a falsetto, completely lying voice.

"About those better weapons," Aria said. "I think I have an idea."

"What?" I asked just as another penguin dive-bombed us. I shrieked and leapt into Steve's arms. "Er..." I said, blushing. "Sorry about that."

"No problem," he said graciously. Then he started gloating.

"Oh, shut up," I said just as another penguin attacked. This time, Steve shrieked and leapt into my arms. "Et tu, Brute?" I asked smugly.

"Guys!" Aria said. "Come on, I have an idea about what we can use for better weapons."

I finally gave my attention to her.

"What?" I asked.

"Ok...look, penguins are still deathly afraid of whales right?"

"Well yes of course.."

"ok...so all we have to do, is find or make ballons, huge ballows that we can fill up with air or helium, and make them look like orcas! Or seals! They'll run away scared! and we can wire the ballons with sounds, to make it more realistic!"

Morgana nodded with enthusiam but Steve remained quiet-almost as if he hadn't heard anything.

"Steve, you listening?"

"Yea...but, how are we going to do that?"

I tapped my chin carefully. HOW indeed? Finally, I stood up and smiled-a big, cheshire smile.

"I'll need a butt load of leather, cotton, and silk!"

Morgana and Steve gave me that "here we go again with the drugs indunced dreams" look.

"Ok, look...Orca skin looks kind of like leather in the way...and white silk for the white parts...just...gah! just get ready! Soon, the attack will be over and we'll head out for the materials!"

"It's very quiet out there," I said.

Aria looked up at the ceiling. "Yeah. Do you think it's over?"

"Either that or they are up there hiding and waiting for us to come out."

Morgana draped herself across my back. "Stevie, don't say that. You're scaring me."

My back felt warm and cozy with Morgana on it. I reached back over my shoulder and tried to tickle her ear. Morgana giggled.

I could feel Aria staring at us, so I stood up, thinking Morgana would slide off, but she clung to my shoulders and became a human backpack.

"Let's put up the periscope and see what's happening."

We had a long pipe that we could stick up through a hole in the roof. The pipe had a mirror on the end of it. It didn't work all that well, but sometimes it could warn of movement outside. I looked through it and saw nothing.

"Looks clear to me. I think we should head north. Didn't there used to be a cloth and sewing store on Walnut Street? Maybe it's not too damaged. It might have the leather and the silk we need for the balloons."

"I don't know," I said doubtfully, wrapping my arms around Steve's shoulders. "How do we know the attack is really over?"

"We don't," Aria said succinctly. "But what can we do but try?"

"Are you quoting something?" Steve asked suspiciously. He tried a surreptitious bounce of his shoulders, trying to foist me off, but I held on like he was a bucking bronco. He couldn't get me off that easily!

"Noo," Aria drawled. "I just made it up all by my little lonesome."

"Whatever," Steve said. "Can we go out there now?"

"Only if you give me a piggyback," I informed him. "I don't want to actually touch the ground."

"Oh come...ON! YOU are divorced! DIVORCED! For the 2nd time for crying out!"

"So? Doesn't mean I can't get a piggy ride from my ex!"

"Oh for the-whatever! I'm not going to the 3rd wedding thats all I'm saying."

I pushed myself in front of Steve and Morgana. The hallway was the only vulnerable spot. Penguins could get into it-but it was a dead end from there. No way into the bunker for a penguin. I looked out into it.

Purple bears...white dragons...nothing out of the ordinary. I signaled for Steve and Morgana to follow my lead. Smoothly, I went into my cat form and kept low to the ground. Steve turned into an ant eater and, of course Morgana turned into a very clingy, smaller ant eater that could hitch a ride and blend in with the giant one.

The streets were litter with rotten fish, plumage, and sardine cans. Everything reeked of penguin nest.

"Oh man..I only wish they took a shower every once in a while."

"Too true Aria...too true."

"What do you think Morgana?"

The only answer I got was snoring...if I had a nickel for everytime I wanted to strangle that girl...

I slurped up another ant. One advantage of my anteater form was all the snacks I found along the way. Morgana slept on my back, clinging tightly like we were opossums instead of anteaters. Aria's sleek cat-shape padded silently down the street, alert for danger. Suddenly her ears lay back and she hissed. "What is it?" I said.

"Shhhhhh... penguin noises..."

I strained my ears and sure enough I could hear several penguins arguing with each other. They sounded very drunk. Penguins don't speak very clearly even when they are sober but these guys were slurring every word. I could only understand bits of it: "...Washa matter wish you? ...Hey! Gimme dat! ...Washa matter? Ish you shtupid?"

Morgana woke up. "Why are we stopping? Are we almost there?"

"Go back to sleep. It's just some drunk penguins around the corner."

"I want to see!" and Morgana hopped off my back.

"No! Don't go over there! ...Morgana! Get back here right now!"

Yes, I know it was dangerous. I know it was stupid. But I wanted to see!

I whiffled my way closer, just an ordinary, harmless little anteater...in the middle of the city...look, whoever said an anteater was a good disguise, anyway?

"Morgana," Steve hissed in my ear. "Get back here. They'll see you!"

"I just want to thee," I argued, lisping so it would be harder to hear me.

"Why are you lisping?" he asked in confusion. A penguin nearby cocked its head. I clapped a paw over his face.

"Oh," he whispered. "I thee now."

"If you thicked the penguinth on uth, I'll never forgive you," I lisped at him. He looked puzzled for a few seconds, then figured it out. Then he looked indignant.

"You're the one who hopped off my back and went to thee what wath happening!" he glared.

"Whatever," I dismissed his claim.

"You guyth come back here right now!" Aria hissed behind us.

"Yeth, Mummy," we chorused in sarcastic unison.

"Thith ithn't over," Steve told me as we waddled back to Aria.

SMACK!

"Thats for not listening to me!"

SMACK

"and thats for the sarcasm!"

SMACK

"Hey! What was that for!" Said Steve, who was massaging his paw, as Morgana was.

" BECAUSE! Thats why! Now come on now!"

Quickly we scurried out of the penguins ear shots and eyes. I kept on nagging them the entire way. OH sure, they moaned. They groaned....BEGGED FOR MERCY...but I wouldn't let them have it.

"And you guys called yourself divorced! You're making a mockery out of one of our oldest instituitions! A MOCKERY I TELLS YA!"

"Yea, ok ok, we get it Aria... can you come off it now? Morgana is so freaked out by you and keeps digging her claws into my back!"

"fine fine...I think I see the store up ahead anyways."

True enough there it was in all its glory-or former glory. It was mostly debris now, but there was a little cave inside, as far as I can see, which still held piles of clothes.

"Ok...Steve, you go in first and-"

"WHY DO I HAVE TO GO FIRST!?"

"Because you're the man," Aria said.

"Oh. Right then. I'll lead the way."

She got me with that "man" thing every time. It was an irresistible appeal to something deep inside me. Too bad it contradicted every particle of cautious logic in my brain. Logically we should have selected who went first by a random process and taken turns. But nooooo... I was "the man" and it had to be me. Oh well. Why complain? After all, I AM The Man.

"It's okay in here," I said. "No penguins, just a few rats and spiders... Looks like a good selection of material. What do we need? Leather, cotton, and silk?"

Aria and Morgana pushed their way into the interior of the collapsed store. It was like a cavern made of cloth. Kind of cozy, actually.

Morgana grabbed a bolt of cloth. "Oh, look at this pumpkin print! I once had a dress just like this!"

Aria rolled her eyes. "How old were you? Seven?"

"No. It was my prom dress."

"You went to the prom in a black gown with orange pumpkins on it?"

"Well, I was famous for turning things into pumpkins. [See "The Rent-A-Penguin Shop" ] So it seemed like a cute idea."

"Oh," said Aria. "What about the sardines? Were your ear rings little silver sardines?"

"Yes!" I said defensively. "So?"

"Oh, no reason," Aria said, barely stifling a snicker.

"You're making fun of me," I accused.

"No, I'm not!" Aria said hastily, still chuckling.

"Yeah, you are," Steve chimed in, glaring at her.

"Aren't you divorced?" Aria reminded him.

"Oh yeah," he said and blushed.

"So anyway," I said. "Would the pumpkins work?"

"I don't know..." Aria said doubtfully. She looked at the pumpkin print I still held in my hands. "I don't think that would scare the penguins very much."

"Yes it would!" I pleaded. "Look! Look how scary it is! Wouldn't you find it scary?"

"Yes!" Steve squeaked, running to the other side of the collapsed store.

"Steve, get over here," Aria snapped. "Morgana..."

"It's perfect," I babbled, stroking the silky softness. "So...perfect..."

"Morgana, you're drooling," Aria pointed out in exasperation. "Now stop, just let me think..."

I thought, and thought and thought, and even thunk a few times. But finally, I decided that my original plan was good enough.

"Steve, you go grab the leather-"

"I'll go with him!"

"NO!DIVORCED!"

"Well, golly gee," I said. "Just because we is divorced don't mean we can't talk to each other none."

"Why are you talking like a hillbilly?"

"Because all this marriage and divorce talk makes me talk that way."

"Huh? You're just stupid, that's all."

"Well, there may be that factor at play, too, but let's get back to the important thing... which is building them there balloons that you spoke of."

"Agreed," said Aria, "but no more hillbilly talk, pleeeeeze?"

Morgana said, "Oh I think Steve's hillbilly talk is adorable."

"You would," said Aria. "You'd think he was cute if he sat in a mud puddle eating mudpies and sticking his thumb in his ear."

"What a cute idea! Steve?"

I tried again to get our attention focused. "Balloons? We will make them, no? So, what do we need? Leather and silk, needles and thread, tape and glue, string and rope. Right? We can paint big eyes and teeth on them. Oh, so we need paint, too. We might have to find a hobby shop or an art store."

"Okay," I agreed with reluctance. No having Steve sit in a mud puddle...my bottom lip trembled. No! We had to stay focused!

"Does anybody actually know how to make one of these?" I suddenly asked. Steve looked wild-eyed and flushed.

"I take it that's a no from you, Steve," I said. "What about you, Aria? It was your idea."

"Of course I can!" she snapped defensively. I noticed her crossing her fingers behind her back.

"Of course," I said soothingly. When her back was turned, I started patting Steve. He started panting and kicking his leg against the floor. "Uh, Steve? You're not a dog," I whispered.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Sorry."

Oh yea...that was a lie if I ever saw one. I can't sew even if my life depended on it. But that didn't matter. After all, how hard could it be? Insert the needle, pull the needle through, repeat a couple hundred times. Not too bad...

"Ok, needles and all that good stuff we won't need to worry about. I have some back at the shop. Paint too. Glue and string we'll have to find...I'm out of it since SOMEONE here...who will remain nameless*cough*Steve*cough*-"

"Oh come on! I've apologized a hundred times for the string massacre!"

Morgana shivered and tears sprung to her eyes,

"So...many strings lost...careleslly thrown away in...puddle of white goo!"

Steve tried to comfort Morgana, but she merely wailed louder. I covered my ears with my hands, but still...so loud. Finally, Steve was able to calm her down with some goofy song and pretty soon, she was clapping like a 2 year old would clap for Barney.

"Of for!"

I grabbed both by the scruff of the neck and gently tossed them apart. Morgana to the silk section and Steve to the leather section.

"And stay away from each other while I look at other materials!"

The leather section smelled like cows and dogs. Dogs? Was that a whimper I heard? A puppy!

He was a cute little thing, all head and feet and fluffy and gold. "Good boy!" I said and suddenly his teeth flashed white as he morphed into a hyena and snapped at me.

"Yow!" I jumped back and kicked him in the chin. That morphed him back into a puppy, now yelping and crying.

"I'm sorry, boy!" I petted his cute puppy head but he quickly morphed back to a hyena and tried to rip my hand off. This time I was ready for him and punched him solidly in the snout.

He didn't bother morphing back to a puppy, but just took off running.

Aria called out, "How's it coming in there with the leather, Steve? Find anything?"

"Still looking," I called back.

"What about you, Morgana? Can you find the silk?"

"Um..." I looked around, biting my lower lip. "Sure..." I called back, somehow making the word three syllables long.

"You don't know what silk is, do you," Aria said, looking resigned.

"Yes, I do!" I called back defensively. "It's that soft, silky kind of stuff...like this!"

"That's faux fur, Morgana," Aria pointed out.

"I knew that," I said quickly. "I was just...testing you."

"Uh-huh," Aria said skeptically. "Look, if you need help, just ask."

"Thanks, but I'm fine," I said, looking quickly around. There had to be silk somewhere, right?

Oh yea, she knew what silk was...and I knew how to actually create ballon whales.

Somehow I had found the cotton section. Nice....fluffy...pillowy...cotton...

"ARIA! ARE YOU SLEEPING?!"

I jumped out of the cotton bins and onto the floor. Cursing I rubbed the offended region and glared at Steve who was tapping his foot like a mother.

"...what?"

"You where sleeping!"

"I was not! I was merely resting my eyes and body. There is a huge difference."

Steve merely shook his head sadly as he dumped pounds of leather on top of me. I crawled from under them, muttering. I grabbed a few pounds of cotton and looked over to where Morgana was supposed to be. But she was nowhere to be found. Curious, I looked around the store, under every bin, IN every bin, around every bin...no Morgana.

"Well, we have everything we need for the whales, we just need a few more stuff...as soon as morgana comes with the silk--Aria? Whats wrong?"

"I can't find Morgana," Aria said.

"Oh no!" I screamed. "Our little pumpkin sardine maker is dead!"

"Steve! I didn't say she was dead! I just said she was missing."

"Oh right," I said, "like in this toxic environment of deadly chemicals and killer penguins we don't know what 'missing' means. She's gone, I tell you. Gone! Oh boo-hoo-hoo-hooooo!"

"Stop crying! She's around here. We just have to look for her."

"It's no use," I said. "We'll never see her again. *sob*"

"Will you stop that! Can we at least make the effort to look for her? Who's going to carry all this leather back to the shop, huh?"

"Oh, yeah, right. That stuff's heavy. Morgana? Mor-gaaaaaa-naaaaaaa!"

I stared up and up and up, too lost in a daze to hear Steve and Aria calling my name. I couldn't believe it. It was so...pretty.

I had found a giant golden statue of a penguin.

It looked so benevolent like that, so peaceful. Nothing like today's militant demon-penguins. It reminded me of the long-ago days of the Rent-a-Penguin Shop...

"Morgana!" Steve finally found me, clamping a hand on my shoulder and spinning me around. "Morgana, we thought you were dead!" His face was haggard and streaked with tears. Also his nose was running. Ew.

"Wow," he breathed, staring up at the statue of a penguin. "It's beautiful..."

"Yeah," I agreed dreamily. "But more than that...it looks familiar..."

"There you are! What are you two doing there looking at-"

I didn't stop talking because I tripped over my own feet. Nope...I didn't stop talking becuase my mouth had made a contact with the floor, no.

"...its...its..."

"Chibi chibi!"

There was no mistaking it. It was indeed Chibi chibi. A grown up version--but him nonetheless.

"I...I don't understand."

Morgana was sniffling, and kept saying "So pretty...it sparkles"

Steve was staring at Morgana, wanting to reach for her. Either way, all three of us where in some way enthralled by the golden statue of one of our original 7.

"It couldln't be him!"

A shiver ran up and down my spine. "It IS him! Our little Chibi-Chibi. But who made this statue? Humans or the penguins? Or some third group unbeknownst to us?"

Aria said, "Unbeknownst?"

"It means unknown."

"I KNOW what it means. What kind of third group? You mean aliens or fish people or the Coalition of Tinkerbelle Clones?"

Morgana gasped. "Tinkerbelle got cloned?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "Big time. They cloned thousands of her in 2011."

"Buy whyyyyyyyyy? She was unique. One of a kind. My favorite fairy."

"It was for the release of Peter Pan 3, "Peter Becomes A Man", the one where his real father is revealed to be Captain Hook who is actually a mad scientist doing genetic experiments which is why Peter never grew up and then-"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember that movie," Aria said. "It stunk. The only good scene in it was where the 10,000 Tinkerbelles lifted Peter Pan up into the clouds and-"

"Stop!" Morgana shouted. "We've drifted away from the immediate subject, the golden statue of Chibi-Chibi."

"True," I said and gazed up at the magnificent spectacle. A shiver ran up and down my spine. Aria slapped my back. "Why did you do that?" I said.

"There was a shiver on your back."

"Ew! Thanks!"

I glared at Aria for slapping Steve's back. That was MY job.

"Guys!" I said. "Come on, back to Chibi-Chibi statue. Okay?"

"Yeah," Steve said, nodding.

"Tinkerbell," Aria said under her breath, pouting. I glared at her again. She snickered.

"Do you think the penguins put this up?" I asked in puzzlement. "It doesn't seem possible, but..."

"Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell," Aria chanted under her breath.

"I'm going to turn you into a sardine if you keep doing that," I threatened.

"Okay, okay," Aria raised her hands in a placatory manner. "I won't do it again..."

"Look!" Steve said, pointing at the base of the statue. "It says something!"

"Well, what's it say?" I asked, peering at it.

"It says..." Aria trailed off.

I took in a deep breath-

"Dedicated to the one who started it all"

I looked at the inscription for a good ten minutes I think. Enuogh for Steve and Morgana to start giggling and making goo goo eyes at each other again.

I screamed.

"WHAT...DOES THAT MEAN?! HE COULD HAVE STARTED SOMETHING TOTALLY INNOCENT! OR MAYBE HE WAS THE LEADER OF ALL THIS! BUT WE RAISED HIM TO BE A GOOD PENGUIN! WE-"

I hicupped and started crying. Morgana gave me a hug, and Steve akwardly patted my back.

"*sniffle* we gave him everything he needed! A nice pool to swim in. Great food! Friends! We spoiled him a lil, yes, but we diciplined him too!*sniffle*"

I grabbed Steve by the collar, making him yelp and Morgana snarl.

"Where did we go wrong Steve?! WHERE!"

"Spoiled him a little, Aria? A little? How about a lot! You treated that penguin like he was your own child."

"Oh, Steve," she said, "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

"Remember how happy you were when he first learned how to squawk, 'Mama'?"

"Yeah... so sweet. And he was so cute in his little baseball cap..."

"And you insisted he sit on the couch with us and watch TV."

She smiled. "He was such a smart little penguin."

"At first the school officials didn't want to accept him as a student, but when they realized you had taught him to speak, they were amazed and agreed to let him in to attend classes."

Aria frowned. "That's when he began drifting away from me - when he met all those other kids. They taught him bad stuff, Steve. He wasn't my sweet little innocent Chibi-Chibi anymore."

"No, he wasn't. He became a brat."

"Maybe that's why penguins have taken over the earth," I joined in thoughtfully. "They've become so much like humans, they've even acquired our warring ways....

"Nah!" I said, shaking my head. "That couldn't possibly be the reason, right?"

"Uh...no..." Aria said, looking at me funny. "Of course not..."

"Poor Chibi-Chibi," Steve said, shaking his head. "Corrupted by children."

"Children are evil," I agreed. "I'm glad I was never a child."

"Morgana? Yes, you were," Aria pointed out.

"Oh, yeah," I blushed. "Well, I wasn't a child for very long. Just until I was eighteen. That's hardly anything, right?"

"If you say so," Aria said, looking dubious.

"But...but...we raised Chibi-usa like chibi chibi! She went to school like he did! And she didn't get corrupted! Even when those evil little kids tried to, she didn't! In fact, she resisted the penguin revolution with her own revolution along with her mommy and daddy!"

I sniffled,

"But Chibi can't be bad...I mean, sure for a while he hung out with the bad crowd, but after that police indcident he started to straightend out! Even graduated with honors!"

"Well, maybe he was just born bad!"

"Squawk!"

Immediately I went into battle mode. Steve took a semi proffesional battle mode, and Morgana just shouted.

"AW PENGUIN!"

"Ok...if we are to be speared by penguin let us die with-"

I gasped. The penguin came into full view and I could have whopped till kingdom come. but I was too stunned to do so.

"...Endy?"

I barely recognized him at first. It was an older, greyer Endymion that stood before us. But he still had that arrogant way of pointing his bill up and looking down at you. "Is this who I think it is?" he squawked.

"Yes!" Aria shouted. "It's your family! Aria and Steve and Morgana!"

"Oh... No, that isn't who I thought it was. But hey! I'm glad to see you guys again! What do you think of our penguin revolution? Isn't it cool!"

"No!" I said. "It's not cool at all. You have wreaked havoc and destruction upon mankind!"

Endy's beak dropped open. "But I thought you humans loved that stuff. All those movies we watched with you - Die Hard, Terminator, Lethal Weapon, Armageddon - they revealed the glory of destruction to me. I was proud to join PAA, The Penguin Army of the Apocalypse, and wreak havoc."

"A little havoc maybe we could have withstood, but you wreaked too much havoc! You destroyed the civilization we knew and loved. Now look at us! Dirty, wearing rags, scavenging the ruins for supplies! Is that any way to live?"

Endy shook his head sadly from side to side. "No matter what you do, you can't make a human happy."

"But why?" Morgana asked. "Why did you do it? Why did you revolt?"

"That's all you taught us," Endy said. "That's all we learned. Violence, war, and death."

I stared at him, my mouth agape.

"But what about the love?" I pointed out. "We loved you guys...and then you turned on us!"

He shrugged...an odd gesture coming from a penguin.

"But you also taught us hate," he said. "I'm not going to sic the army on you since I still love you guys, but you have to understand. This is just like all the other revolutions you've had in your past. The only difference is we're penguins."

He turned and waddled off.

"Of all the nerve," Aria fumed. "Raise him, love him, feed him..."

"Hey, I'm the one who gave him sardines," I pointed out.

"And this is how he treats us!" Aria said. "Deigning to let us live!"

"He's got a point," Steve said, absentmindedly petting my hair.

"Why are you petting her hair?" Aria asked.

"No reason!" he said guiltily, leaping away.

GRRR!

"YOU ARE DIVORCED! I mean, tap dancing penguins!"

"Well yea, that doesn't mean that you have to be all- oof!"

Steve fell to the ground. At first I thought he wanted attention. But after a few minutes, I went over there. Morgana wouldn't stop screaming.

"LOOK! A paper airplane!"

"....A paper airplane knocked him out? Jeez!"

I got Steve to a standing position by putting us back to back. Morgana started slapping him lightly. When he didn't respond, she knocked him on the head.

"OW!"

"Oh, finally!"

I moved from under him, causing Steve to fall on his bum. He whimpered and cried. But I was more interested in the paper airplane. Could it be a note from Endy? Another human? An 8 wooden-legged octopus?

I opened it as if it where made of spines.

"To the owners of the Rent-a-penguin Shop: Meet us at sunset. The old ice cream shop. The revolution against PAA starts with you.

Sincerely, C.U. & S."

I smiled. FINALLY! We will be taking back our planet!...I hoped we didn't have to kill any penguins though.

"Guys! We've been drafted!"

"It's almost sunset," I said. "But which old ice cream shop? There were a dozen of them!"

"Oh surely not that many," Aria said.

"There was Ye Olde Ice Cream Shoppe on Main Street; Ancient Tymes Frozen Cream on Maple Avenue; Granny Grumple's Dairy Ices on Hickory Lane."

"Ooo! Ooo!" Morgana said. "Don't forget Doctor Dolittle's Delicious Delicate Dairy Delectables."

"You forgot to say what street it was on."

"Sorry." Morgana hung her head in shame.

I patted Morgana's shoulder. "That's okay," I said and gently kissed her hair.

WHACK! My head flew sideways as Aria's hand connected with it. "Divorced!" Aria shouted.

Morgan's face lit up. "I remember the name of the street!"

"Well? What is it?"

"Um..." my face fell again. "Oops, I forgot."

"Well, remember!" Aria said in frustration.

"I might remember better if you let Steve kiss my hair again," I hinted slyly.

"But--oh fine," she grumbled.

"Ah..." I said in sleepy satisfaction, leaning back against him.

"Divorced," Aria coughed.

"Did you say something?" I asked.

"Oh, no," she said innocently. "Nothing at all."

"Good," I said. "It's coming back to me..."

"Yes?" Steve said anxiously.

"Aren't you supposed to be kissing my hair?" I twisted around and glared at him.

"Oh...yes!"

"That's better," I said. "Okay, it's on Le Importante Streete."

OH forget it!

"FINE! WHATEVER! jeez! I wish you could tell your little girl if you are in love, or not, I mean honestly!"

"...."

"...."

Morgana and Steve gave me that "What are you talking about look?"

"...Your daughter...you know...the little girl you sent away to boarding school in the only country the penguins would not invade? The one that comes home every summer?"

"Oh right!"

Morgana sniffled and started bawling.

"I'm such a terrible mother! I couldn't even recall my own child!"

"Well, me neither Morgana its ok....heh maybe she can remember us either!"

Morgana cried even more. I slapped Steve's back.

"Oh really! I mean-"

I crouched down and hugged Morgana.

"Hey, its ok. I'm sure your little girl misses you! and the drugs in the air gave you momentary amnesia! Thats it! Your a good mother!"

"Really?"

"Of course!"

"...is Steve a good father...?"

I pause..."....Sure why not?"

I stared off into space. A daughter? True, I had vague memories of diapers and crying but I thought that was just from one of my psychotic episodes. So it hadn't been me after all. A baby!

The baby wouldn't still be a baby, of course. By now she was a teenager. My daughter... maybe I should say OUR daughter... or literally Morgana's daughter... or figuratively Aria's daughter...

Poor kid. I wonder if she even knows herself who her parents are? She probably does. Kids are smart nowadays.

But why was Aria mentioning her now on a day like today when we had to meet the leaders of the anti-PAA movement at sunset at the old ice cream shop and we hadn't figured out which shop? Also I wasn't finished with kissing Morgana's hair. Mmmmm... hair.

"I know which one it is," Morgana said.

"Which one what is?"

"The ice cream shop. It's Ben and Jerry's on Rocky Road."

"You may be right." I always commented that way when Morgana had one of her flashes of knowledge. I mean, there was a slight chance that one day she would be right about something and I wanted to be known as the guy who knew she was right.

But strangely enough, this time Aria also agreed with Morgana. "Yes! I think you're right! Ben and Jerry's on Rocky Road. Let's hurry if we're gonna be there by sunset!"

"What about the kid?"

"What kid? Get moving. Move! Move!"

"Okay," Steve complained. We set off at a quick run, heading for the ice cream shop. I quickly tired and hopped on Steve's back, holding my arms tightly around his shoulders.

"Hey!" he said breathlessly.

"What?" I said in his ear. "Move it!"

I bounced around on his back as we ran. Aria looked over with raised eyebrows, but didn't say anything.

To get to Rocky Road, we first had to go through Pistachio Plaza and Black Cherry Boulevard. Steve nervously dodged giant standing pistachios and fat cherries while Aria skipped carefreely through them.

"Move it!" I yelled in his ear again.

"Or what?" he complained.

"Or I'll kiss your ear," I told him. He instantly slowed down to a crawl. "Okay," I shrugged, grinning and kissing his ear.

"You guys!" Aria whined. "Will you stop that?"

"Sorry," I said, abashed. But only for a moment. Then I started kissing his hair.

"Hey, Steve," I said after a moment. "You ever think of washing this?"

"Oops," he said. I could sense his face turning red. Boy, did he need a keeper.

"Look!" Aria said, pointing. "It's right up ahead!"

I ran through the doors- and was instantly thrown back onto the floor by... something.

"ARIA!"

"....CHIBI-USA?!"

I stared at the penguin on top of me. Sure enough, it was Endy and Serenity's little bundle of joy.

"So glad you could make it," she said.

I merely nodded in a dumb and numb way. She spoke as if she where... human. NO squawk talking which is how Endy still talked. Which is how most likely Chibi chibi talked. Morgana and Steve came a few moments later. Morgana pounced on Chibi-usa. *sigh* We had to pry her off.

"Sorry...but...aw! YOU GREW UP!*sniffle* You're a little lady now."

"Thanks, Morgana, but I've been a lady for a while now. Steve, it's--why are you staring at me like that?"

Steve looked rather much like a fish trying to imitate a chimp. It wasn't very attractive.... except to Morgana. Which is why she married him....twice...and divorced him...twice.

"You can talk!"

"Thank you, captain obvious!" i said. "Chibi-usa, you're the counter revolution? I thought you would want to follow in your father's footsteps."

She sighed, "No. I was going to, but then Chibi chibi refused to give me a high power of position! OF ALL THE NERVE!"

I nodded. Boy, things just kept getting better and better...

"Oh, and I thought it wrong to take over the world and all that jazz. after all humans are inferior creatures! We should wait patiently until it is our time to reign!"

She gave me a a great hug, which I returned laughing. Well, until that time came...she was our only ally...

It was good to see Chibi-usa and Aria together again. I mean, the way she spoiled Chibi-chibi was bad enough, but she had gone bananas over Chibi-usa, dressing her up in her old Sailor Moon costumes, pushing her in a stroller, even entering her in beauty pageants and defying any other mother to make a crack about "Who's the little girl with the big nose in the tuxedo?"

Of course, I was glad to see Chibi-usa, too, although her habit of tweaking my nose with her beak never did sit well with me.

And Morgana... what can you say about Morgana? She had found a spot on the wall that fascinated her. I knew she could stare at it for hours if I let her so I snapped her out of it. "Morgana?"

"Huh?" she said, and turned around with that sleepy look in her eyes.

"You zoned out on a spot on the wall again."

"Oh! Thanks! Look! Chibi-usa is here! Hello, baby!"

Aria spoke up proudly. "Chibi-usa is the leader of the counter-revolution!"

"Wow!" I said in happy awe. "Chibi-usa, I missed you!" I gave her a big hug, which was a bit awkward since Aria was still holding her, but still manageable.

"I missed you, too, Morgana," she assured me. "You were...always...on my mind."

"Yay!" I squealed, dancing around with Chibi-usa and Aria. Then I jumped into Steve's arms.

"Oomph," he said, almost falling over.

"Aren't you just so HAPPY?" I squealed in his ear, bouncing up and down, my arms locked around his neck. He started to turn a funny blue shade, making gargling noises.

"Morgana, you're choking him," Chibi-usa pointed out.

"Oops," I quickly loosened my grip. "There!"

"Aren't you divorced?" Chibi-usa asked.

"Yes," I admitted in a small voice. "But..." I gave Steve a dreamy smile. Chibi-usa waddled up next to him and tweaked his nose with her beak.

"But what?" Steve asked, a sappy yet panicked look in his eyes.

"But most likely they'll get married again, and divorce again, and so on and so on until they both die or something!"

Morgana and Steve looked at me oddly, but Chibi-usa merely laughed.

"Heh ok ok. Back to the plan though..."

Chibi usa looked around, eyes twitching, mouth(or beak I guess) firm. SIgnaling with her flippers, she moved us to the back of the store, where she knocked on the freezer twice,and tapped a nearby candy cane five times.

The floor came to life, but only for a few seconds.

"GO GO GO!"

I was pushed down a slide made of ICE and was quickly followed by Morgana, Steve, adn Chibi-usa.

"ICE?! WHY ICE CHIBI USA!?"

"PENGUINS LOVE ICE!"

Down, down, down we went until suddenly the ice slide ended and we were falling, falling, falling until we landed in a pile of leaves and hay and other soft things like marshmallows and cottonballs, but mostly leaves and hay.

"Oomph!" I said, which means "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" But Aria and Morgana were stuck headfirst in the leaves so I knew they couldn't help me. Their legs were kicking and I could hear their muffled shouts of surprise. "Surprise! Surprise!" they shouted.

"What? There's a surprise party?" I yanked Aria out of the leaves and we pulled Morgana out. Morgana hugged me. "Oh, Steve! I thought I'd lost you forever!"

I unwrapped her arms from my neck and inhaled deeply. These sudden cutoffs of my air supply were starting to make my brain feel funny.

I felt someone gazing at us and looked up into the face of a big white rabbit. He checked his gold pocket-watch-on-a-chain. "Tsk! Tsk! I'm late. I'm late."

"So there IS a party!" I shouted.

"Wooo-hooo!" Morgana said. "Parrrr-teeee!"

Aria looked around. "Where's Chibi-usa?"

Suddenly a Mad Hatter hat was slapped down on Aria's head. Chibi-usa had snuck up behind her and was now laughing the penguin laugh - weeheehee weeheehee!

Aria adjusted her new hat. "We're off to see the wizard!"

"Wrong show!" I said. "We're going in to destroy the Death Star. May the Force be with us!"

"Goo goo ga joob!" Morgana shouted and raised her clenched fist. Unfortunately, that made the pile of leaves turn into a pile of sardines and we jumped away saying, "Ew! Ew! A pile of fish! This is not my favorite dish. Turn them back to leaves and hay. Or better still make them go away."

Morgana stamped her pretty little foot. "Stop that group rhyming, you two! You know that gives me the creeps when you do that."

Aria and I hung our heads. "Sorrreeee..."

"That's better," I said, mollified. "I don't think I can change them back into leaves and hay. What do you think about pumpkins?"

"Well, it's better than sardines," Aria said sarcastically. "ANYTHING is better than sardines."

I stuck my tongue out at her. "Fine," I grumbled. I concentrated, thinking of turning the squashy fishy sardines into squishy orange pumpkins...

"Um..." I opened my eyes. The room was full of purple snowflakes. "Hmm. It doesn't seem to have worked."

"What the heck?" Aria asked. "Purple snow? Try again, Morgana."

I closed my eyes again. Pumpkins, I whispered. Pumpkins...

Nope. Bright green tree frogs.

"EEK!" Steve shrieked like a girl and leapt at me. "GET THEM AWAY!"

"They're just frogs, Steve," Aria said in disgust. "Try again, Morgana, or Steve here's gonna freak out."

"THEY'RE GONNA KILL ME!" he shrieked, clinging to me like he was a tree frog himself.

"Okay," I sighed. "Steve, get your hand out of my ear."

"Sorry," he said. I tried again.

"Eggplants," Aria said, sighing. "Well, I guess this is good enough."

"Come on," Chibi-usa said impatiently. "Let's keep going."

"Okay," we chorused. I pried Steve off of me-not without some reluctance-and we followed Chibi-usa.

I more then so skipped to where Chibi usa was leading us. Man this hate was awesome! I wanted to throw a tea party and darn the consequences!

"So, tell me Chibi usa-"

"You know...Chibi means little."

I stopped in my tracks. Causing Steve to fall backwards...on top of Morgana. I tried to ignore the akward make out session.

"....Yes...yes it does."

"...and I am how old now?

"...old enough to run a counter revolution by yourself without the help of your parents?"

"And that tells you what?"

"That I should have entered you in more chess competitions while you where in school you little genius!"

I felt the sting of flippers on my calves.

"NO! It means I'm a lady! So call me Usagi! Not chibi-usa. U-S-A-G-I."

I rubbed my leg, and in the process kicked the divorced couple behind me, so as to not have to be invited to a 3rd wedding.

"Ok...USAGI....can you tell us the plan on how to win back the earth?!"

"Quite simple really..."

We all swiveled our ears in Usagi's direction and focused our full attention on her next words. Her chest swelled with pride. "There is no plan," she said.

"WHAT?!" we three said and fell backwards. We sat there on the ground and stared at each other, then we stared at Usagi.

"No plan?" I said. "That's a surprising development."

"Not really," Usagi said, "if you consider the problem logically."

"Okayyyy," I said. "Let's do that."

She flipped open a chartboard and tapped it with a long wooden pointer. "Consider this. Our world has changed drastically. The air is filled with hallucinogenic chemicals..." I brushed away a small yellow turtle that had landed on my shoulder and was whispering in my ear, "She's lying. She's lying."

"Chemicals affect our brains..." continued Usagi, her voice sounding like it was echoing in the caverns of my mind. I became worried she might wake up the bats.

"And therefore any attempt by us to think logically would be doomed to failure-"

Morgana jumped to her feet, her face red with anger. "Failure is not an option!" she shouted and raised her clenched fist.

"Nooooo!" I yelled, but it was too late and the chartboard turned into a pumpkin. Usagi's pointer became a very long limp sardine. She held it up, sniffed it, and swallowed it in one gulp.

Usagi grinned at Morgana. "I've missed your sardines."

"Awwwwww, my baby!" Morgana said and they hugged each other.

Aria and I looked at each other. "Group hug?" I said.

Aria said, "Ugh!" and turned away.

"Group hug!" I yelled, giving Steve a big hug. Usagi joined in, and we hugged. I seemed to be a bit closer to Steve than to Usagi, but I chalked that up to Usagi being a penguin. Until...

"Steve?" I said quietly. "You're caressing my hair."

"Oh!" he blushed. "Sorry."

"Are you done now?" Aria asked impatiently.

"Nah," we said, hugging longer.

"Okay, now we're done," I said, stepping away from Steve and Usagi. Steve followed me.

"Now where were we?" Aria said, glaring at Steve. She coughed. It sounded strangely like "divorced!"

"Talking about how we have no plan," Steve answered promptly. I cringed and put my hands over my ears. "It's okay," Steve soothed, patting my head. "We'll come up with something."

"Really?" I sniffled, looking up at him.

"Yes," he said, still patting my head.

"I'm not a dog, you know," I said.

"Sorry," he blushed, patting my shoulder now.

"Ooh, that feels good," I said, melting against him.

"Can we get back to business?" Aria said irritably.

"Yeah, sorry," Steve and I said together.

"Now," Usagi said. "Since we can't think logically, we must think illogically!"

"What?" we asked in confusion.

"I know exactly what you mean!"

I magically got out a wand from the hatter hat, and pointed to the invisible air.

"All we have to do is travel due west until we hit south! There a strawberry factory will welcome us at 1200 hours."

I watched as a blue ferret did a back stroke in front of me. With quickness, I grabbed the end of his furry tail and pointed him at Morgana.

"You will be the bait! Your job will be to stand in the middle of the street twirling around as you recite poetry written by a necklace on a January evening!"

I traded the ferret for a talking, minature giraffe and pointed it at Steve.

"You will be the communicator! You'll sneak and hide, dressed up as some weird amphibious bird and follow random things until the meaning of it all implodes and you have no choice but to succumb to it all! Its so simple!"

"Uh...what would you do, Aria?" asked Morgana, whose eyes where rolling to the back of her head.

"I'll be the hatter bunny buns. My job will be to watch from a high nest, listening for the sound of tinker bells! As soon as they sound off, I'll leap off into a sewer, grab a crocodile and rope him as if he were nothing but a mousey! After that, everything will be as simple as 1, 6, 7!"

"BRILLIANT PLAN, ARIA!"

Usagi grabbed ahold of my hands (as much as she could hold) and we danced and danced around the logicals who didn't know the logic of being illogical to be logical in a world of pure penguins and nonsense.

"Let us put the plan to work!"

"Oh, and Steve?"

Usagi walked up to him, eyes glinting.

"A blue cricket came by yesterday. Muttering something about, "Should have saved the whales... He should have saved the whales!"

"Whales are for sissies!" I said. "I want to save something really big... like field mice."

Usagi's face turned into a question mark. "Field mice?"

"Yeah, man, they're as a big as a field! Hahahahaha!" I rolled on the floor clutching my stomach.

Aria kicked me. "It wasn't that funny the first time I heard it and it's not funy now."

I jumped up and pointed ten fingers at her. "Oh boo hoo hoooo!"

Usagi shouted, "Enough! When the grasshoppers fight amongst themselves then surely the spiders have already won."

"Thank you, wise one," Morgana said, and knelt before Usagi.

"Arise, my child, and go forth in peace," Usagi said. "For of these three I believe that you are most worthy."

"Thank you, Usagi." Morgana rose to her feet, adjusted her long white gown, and stuck her tongue out at us.

I reached out to caress her hair but she slapped my hand away. "No, Steve! I am The Annointed One, now. I have taken a vow of purity and chastity. No man must never touch my hair again."

"Noooo!" I yelled. "That's cruel and unnatural!"

Aria pinched my arm. "Let her do what she wants and quit making a fool out of yourself."

I sobbed. "It's love that doth make a fool of me for my heart ith now brokeneth."

"Your tongue is broken. Do you remember the little giraffe I pointed at you?"

"Um... yes... kind of."

"And what did it say?"

"Um... amphibious bird... sneak and hide... I am the Communicator!"

"Very good. Morgana?"

"Yes, Aria?"

"Have you learned your part of The Great Plan To Regain Earth's Rightful Place In The Cosmos?"

"Huh?"

"Oops! Sorry, wrong plan. That was a dream I had last night. I mean the Current Plan. Do you know what you're supposed to do?"

"Um...I'm the bait?" I guessed hopefully, crossing my fingers.

"Very good, Morgana," Aria nodded approvingly. "And what are you supposed to do?"

"Um...turn people into sardines?" Usagi snickered in the background.

"NO!" Aria yelled. "You're supposed to stand in the middle of the street twirling reciting poetry written by a necklace on a January evening!"

"Right..." I nodded sagely. "What?"

"Never mind," Aria groaned. "Just do what I tell you."

"Okay!" I said happily. "Um...am I still the Anointed One?"

"No," Aria growled. "You're not."

"But..." my lip trembled and my eyes started to fill up.

"It's okay, Morgana," Steve patted my arm soothingly. "HEY! If you're not the Anointed One, I can touch your hair! Touch...touch...touch...touch..."

I slapped away Steve's wrist. I mean, honestly, can't they just stay apart? Or be at each other all day and night?

"The chosen one is me, end of story."

"Ok. You, Steve, and Morgana go and do your job. You will meet up with Jake-"

"Jake? our little jake?"

"huh? Oh yea! He's my 2nd in command! He says he missed you Steve!"

Steve nursed his left hand and shook his head like a beaten puppy.

"I didn't miss him..."

"Oh Steve, don' be such a baby."

I grabbed my hatter hat, and pulled out a large sword, cleverly disguised as a rose.

"Let us win back this clump of dirt!"

"Yay for the clump of dirt!" I yelled, tripped over my cape, and fell face first in the dirt. "Ew! Dirt! Dirt!" I cried, spitting out the nasty stuff.

My little yellow turtle said, "Where did you get that cool cape, dude?"

I was eye-to-eye with him at ground level. "It was a gift from the princess."

"Ooooo, the princess. I'm impressed."

Morgana kicked me in the side. "What princess?! I am your princess!"

"Yes, dear," I cried, frantically rolling across the ground trying to escape her kicks. "BUMPERCAR!"

She froze in place. Thank God I had the foresight to implant that posthynotic command in her mind one night as she was dozing by the fireplace and susceptible to hypnotic suggestion. "Bumpercar" stopped her cold.

I stood up, dusted myself off, and snapped my fingers. Morgana said, "Huh?" and gave me the oh-so-familiar "sleepy eyes" look that I know and love so well. I reached out to touch her hair but Aria jumped across the room and slapped my hand away before I could get in even one little pat. "Divorced!" Aria screeched.

I drew myself up tall. "Oh must you be so dramatic and repetitive? Why not give love a chance?"

A chorus line of yellow turtles, tiny purple giraffes, and obviously drunk sardines shuffled into the room. After a bit of arguing about who would stand where, they started singing: "All we are saying... is give love a chance..." They linked their arms and were swaying from side to side as they sang. It was really an emotional experience and I could see that even the hard warrior spirit of Aria was melting in the warmth of this spontaneous song in praise of love.

A tiny tear formed in the corner of Aria's eyes. A spotlight caught it and made it sparkle like a diamond. The camera zoomed in for a close-up. And a million viewers emailed the broadcaster in support of the new, warmer Aria. "We like this new Aria better," said the typical message. "She's more supportive of the natural processes of love and we can see the plot sliding into a third marriage for Steve and Morgana."

"What!!!" Aria shouted. "Third marriage, my dust bunny! I'm not going through that again! I hate the taste of wedding cake!"

Aria stomped over to the chorus line and started kicking giraffes and turtles and sardines everywhere. The song came to an abrupt end and shrieks of surprise and anguish filled the room. "Surprise! Anguish!"

One drunken sardine said to another. "Thish ish hell, man! Itsh all Morgana's fault. She shoulda left that Shteve dude alone, man." Then he screamed as a well-placed kick by Aria sent him sailing out the window.

"I can't help it!" I yelled out the window to the flying drunken sardine. "I love him!"

"You do?" Steve asked in mild surprise.

"Uh...DUH," I said, glaring at him. "Why else would I let you touch my hair?"

"But...you said I waddle," he protested.

"I'm starting to like that little quirk again," I confessed, blushing. Aria gave a loud snort of disgust. I glared at her. "And we can have a different wedding cake, okay?" I exclaimed just for her. She looked slightly mollified.

"Well, Steve?" I asked, sniffling a little and looking at him with big tearful eyes.

"I WUV YOU!" he wailed, running over to me and patting my head. Aria leapt over and tried to forcibily separate us, but we wouldn't let her.

"Come...on!" she grunted, trying to pry Steve's hands away. "We have to save the world first! Okay? Then you can get married...again...for the third time..."

"Oh, okay," I said. "What do you think, Steve?...Steve?"

Steve was looking at Morgana with puppy eyes. Dear lord save me...please....just...

Suddenly the earth shook. Windows shook. Shakes started dripping onto us. I stood at a battle stance. Ready...prepared...

"...Mom? Dad? Are you getting back together again?"

I sighed. It was only a huge eagle carrying a screen in so that Morgana and Steve's kid could communicate. Nothing that strange.

"Yes, Penla, your parents are getting back together."

She sighed as her parents blatantly ignored us and just stared at each other.

"I wish they'd just make up their mind! Jeez! Maybe you should have Married my dad, Auntie Aria?"

"...Thats low..."

She just chuckled.

"Hey! Aren't you supposed to be in school?"?

"Yea, I am. I have to get going. I just sensed a disturbance in the force. So I thought I'd check in."

"We are going to win back out earth!"

"Great, yea, sure. Good luck with that."

"....you don't think we can do it, do you?"

"Like a fox...like a fox..."

I just shook my head. But I knew our plan would work. After all, all illogical plans worked because there was no logic to follow, and so nothing could go wrong if there was nothing to follow.

"Well OK," I said. "You go and explode stuff, or whatever."

"OK...Bye, auntie Aria! Bye, mommy and daddy!"

"Was that our daughter?" I asked Morgana.

"Who?" she said.

"That girl on that huge screen the eagle brought in."

"Oh. I don't know. Did she look like you and me?"

"A little bit. She was younger than us."

Then we were speechless, Morgana and I, as we stood there gazing deep into each other's eyes experiencing the bliss that only love can bring.

"Is it okay if I scratch my nose?" Morgana said.

"Of course. It's not like we're paralyzed or something. We're just in love and totally focused on each other."

"My nose really itches."

"You're ruining the mood for me."

"I can't help it if my nose itches."

Aria pushed us apart. "Penla says hello."

"Our daughter!" I said. "So it WAS her on that giant screen."

"Yes, I guess she wanted to remind you two of how when two people screw up their lives it can also affect a third person."

"You?" I asked.

"No! Not me!" Aria shouted. "Your daughter! Penla! Divorce is not good for kids."

"So we'll get married."

"Marriage is not good for kids!"

"So what's good for kids?"

"KIX!" said a pink kangaroo who was listening to our conversation.

"I'll give you some kicks!" Aria yelled and chased him out of the room with her foot.

That left Morgana and I alone and I pulled her in close to me so that we could melt together like two Hershey's bars left on the dashboard of a Toyota while it's parked at the beach and when the family comes back, refreshed from their swim in the salty water, little Jim-Jim says "Look, Mommy! My candy bars melted together and became one candy bar!" and Jim-Jim's Mom, Annabelle, says, "That's very poetic, Jim-Jim. One day you will grow up to be a writer and this incident from your childhood will become a metaphor in one of your love stories," and Jim-Jim says, "I don't think so, Mom. I want to be a NASCAR race driver. Vrrrrooommmm!" and Annabelle says, "You little bastard! I pump you full of sophisticated culture and you regurgitate vulgar pop fantasies!" and Jim-Jim says, "Awwwww, Mom!" and they hug each other.

Morgana was shaking my shoulders. "Steve? are you still focused on me?"

"Yeah," I said. "I think so. But the plan! The plan, man! We're supposed to save the world!"

"Oh...yeah..." I said, dazed. "Save the world, right...are you sure we can't get married first?"

"Yes," Steve said regretfully. "We have to save the world."

"But..." I pouted, my eyes watery. "I wanna get married NOW!" I stamped my feet in a temper tantrum.

"Uh-oh..." Steve said, ducking away. "She's gonna blow!"

"I WANNA GET MARRIED!" I shrieked. Wind swirled up around my head like a tornado. A small cow mooed and flew around me. "Hey-where'd the cow come from?" I asked, distracted. "Er...I mean...MARRIAGE! NOW!"

Sardines and pumpkins splashed everywhere like a strange mixture of Flipper and Cinderella. Steve cowered behind me, pumpkin slime running in his eyes. Aria returned, took one look at the damage, and her mouth dropped open to the floor.

"I wanna get married now," I said politely, dragging Steve out from behind me and hugging him tightly to my side. "What do you think, Aria?"

"FINE!"

Without even thinking I grabbed a wedding dress from my hat, as well as Steve's old penguin tux suit. I was surprised he still fit in that thing. I rounded up some flying birds and forced them to sit down on the ground to be the crowd.

After they had changed, Morgana dragged Steve to the makeshift altar(which consisted of a cow on its back and a crocodile lying on top of it bellydown.

"Ok, we are gathered here today, blah, blah,blah, blah....Steve do you take morgana to be your wife for the third time?"

"Well...yes, of course but-"

"Great! Do you Morgana blah, blah, blah, until his annoying quirks seperate you again?"

"I DO!"

I clapped my hands and ice cream with lasagna started raining from the sky.

"Great, I now pronounce you Steve and morgana, kiss, make out whatever ok lets go!"

I was giddy with excitement, or maybe the smell of that crocodile was getting to me. But at least I was married again! Marriage! What could be better?

I swept Morgana up into my arms. "Away to our honeymoon, my darling!"

"Oh joy!" she cried. "Where shall we go?"

"I shall take you to the Mountains of the Moon and we will dance among the stars. We will sail on a ship of gossamer silk and sip champagne from old mason jars. We'll insist the waiter put a cherry in our drink and a little paper umbrella. The orchestra will play and a choir of angels in shining silver satin shirts will sing "All You Need Is Love" as we ascend the Stairway To Heaven!"

"No, really. Where are we going for our honeymoon?"

"Does it matter what our geographic location is? Isn't the true honeymoon the one that is in our hearts and minds?"

"Not the Motel 6 on the By-Pass again?"

"They have a special this week..."

Morgana threw up her arms. "That is so NOT romantic, Steve!"

Aria rolled her eyes. "And they said two hearts could never beat as one... but love conquers all."

"It's just a silly love spat," I said. "We'll work it out tonight at the motel."

"No!" Morgana siad. "I refuse to set foot in that Motel 6 for the third time!"

I sighed. "So where do you want to go for our honeymoon?"

"How about Las Vegas?" I suggested. "Surely we could hide from the penguins long enough to get there?"

"Yeah!" Steve smiled. "We could go to Motel 6 there!"

"Ehh, wrong," I scowled at him. "Come on, love pumpkin. We keep going to the Motel 6, and then we keep divorcing. Don't you want to try to stay married this time?"

"Hmm, good point," Steve said thoughtfully. "I'm getting tired of getting divorced and having to return all the wedding presents."

"Hey! That only happened once!" I protested. "Just once! And it was your fault, you know!"

"If you two don't stop arguing, you're going to end up divorced again," Aria interrupted. "Just go to Vegas, okay?"

"Yay!" I cheered. "Onward toward the foe!"

"Morgana?" Steve said. I turned toward him, lovingly running my fingers through his hair, ignoring the bugs that scampered away from my fingers.

"We're going to Vegas," he said, a grimly noble look on his face. It must have taken him hours to practice that.

"Thank you!" I squealed, flinging my arms around his neck and squeezing.

"You're choking him again," Aria pointed out. Sure enough, he was turning a mild blue color.

"Sorry, love!" I said quickly, releasing him. He started making strange gurgling noises. "So...Vegas here we come?"

"But what about Aria?" I said.

"Oh, don't mind me," Aria said. "I'll just deactivate myself and stand here like a statue waiting patiently for you to return."

"Is that sarcasm?"

"Noooo, why would one of the Three Musketeers be sarcastic when the other two musketeers decide to get married and run away to Las Vegas? All for one, one for all -- who cares about solemn pledges made at midnight when the enemy was pounding on the doors now that the sun is up and love is in the air?"

I turned to Morgana. "She's right, you know. We can't just run away in the middle of a mission. We have to save the world."

Morgana pouted. "But Steeeeevie, I want to go to Las Vegas."

"Well, that's just too bad. You're my wife now and you have to do what I tell you."

"WHAT!? Are you out of your freeking mind? Suddenly I remember why we got divorced... twice!"

"Okay, okay! Las Vegas."

Morgana became her usual sweet, good-natured self again. At least, I keep hoping that's her usual self. But what if the enraged demoness is the real Morgana? I shuddered. One never knows.

"Steve," Morgana said. "Should I pack our suitcases?"

"We have suitcases?"

"Let's pretend we do, Steve. Big yellow suitcases."

"Like we're pretending Las Vegas is not a smoking ruin and that there are actually airplanes still flying that could get us there?"

"Something like that. *sob* I don't like living in a post-apocalyptic world, Steve!"

I hugged her. "It's okay, darling. At least we're still alive. We'll rebuild."

"But you always hit your thumb with the hammer."

Aria walked over with her carpenter's apron on. "Rebuilding is a great idea. This place is a dump. I am the carpenter."

Reflexively I gave the standard response: "I am the walrus. Goo goo ga joob."

Morgana sighed and rearranged her wedding veil.

"What do you want to be?" I asked her.

"I want to be the wonderfully happy, ecstatic bride," I told him sardonically. "But since I don't think that's happening..."

"Hey! I'm sorry!" he raised his hands defensively.

"All...your...fault," I growled, stalking towards him, my hands crooking into claws.

"No!" he shrieked. "No! Be a good girl! Good Morgana! Please?"

"Fine," I sighed and became a perfect smiling little angel of goodness again. It seemed he was growing suspicious of who was the real me. Sweet little angel or snarling demon. Good. I smiled. It was good to keep him guessing.

"Can I have something purple for a wedding present?" I asked. "I really like purple."

"Yes, Morgana," Steve sighed, chucking me under the chin. I bit him. "Ow! What'd you do that for?"

"Don't do that," I said, my eyes glowing red. "I don't like it when you do that..."

"Okay!" he squeaked, giving me a big, sloppy kiss. "How's that?"

"Much better!" I squealed, patting his hair. "You're so sweet..."

I pulled out a purple hat and gave it to Morgana.

Morgana's eyes flashed red. "No honeymoon? Saving the world is more important!?"

Steve backed away, hands up. "Honey, I didn't say that! It was Aria!"

"What...do you mean..."

Oh, yea, there's the steam. She was about to blow, I could tell. Frankly, I think it would be a lot better for her to blow and waste it all on Steve, but I said, "Morgana, if you go now, who will save us? Who will save those poor misguided penguins? What if the other humans grow tired of this and kill ALL the penguins? Will you be able to sleep at night, knowing that in your hands, rest the blood of thousands of penguins? Could you?"

As planned, Morgana started to pour on the waterworks, making her mascara run.

"You're right, Aria! *sniffle* What was I thinking? *sob* We can always wait for our honeymoon *sniffle* "

I blew a sigh of relief and handed her a tissue. "There, there. I understand. I think it's time you changed out of that dress. We have a long way ahead of us and I don't think a wedding dress is the best way to go."

She nodded, sniffling. Steve had come out and looked relieved. Another day out of Morgana's bad side.

Morgana went into the back room to change out of her wedding dress. I felt bad about postponing the honeymoon, but darn it, saving the whole darn world was pretty darn important.

I pulled Aria aside. "So what do you think about this foolish talk about a plan that is not a plan? That's bogus, right?"

"Not necessarily," she said. "Didn't you grasp the idea of an illogical battlefield requiring illogical means of combat?"

"That's what is bothering me," I said. "It seemed like a perfectly logical idea."

"So? Then what's the problem?"

"Don't you see? It seems like a LOGICAL idea. But it's an illogical battlefield. If an idea seems logical, then maybe it's wrong!"

"Hmmmm... So you're saying that since it's logical to fight on an illogical battlefield with an illogical plan, then that's a mistake and we should have a logical plan instead?"

"Exactly! That would be truly illogical!"

"Somehow I sense a flaw in your thinking, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

"Never mind your finger," I said. "I think we better come up with some kind of plan, no matter what Usagi says. Anyway, I think Usagi DOES have a plan but just didn't want to reveal it to us."

"But why not?"

"Maybe she thinks we're not worthy yet... not ready to know the inner secrets. What do you think?"

"I think you're paranoid, and that you're a man!"

Steve looked at me, perplexed.

"See, the penguins expected us to come up with an illogical plan, and then discover that by being illogical we would be being logical. Knowing that, it would be ILLOGICAL to go with such a logical idea."

I started to pace around Steve at this point, eyebrows furrowed in the middle.

"And so, by being illogical to go with the logical idea, that would be totally logical because we knew it to be safe, but because we knew it was safe, deep down we knew we would also be attacked, and any fool who goes looking for trouble is illogical."

Steve was drooling at this point and swaying side to side.

"So Chibi Chibi would have long figured this out. He's just waiting for the right moment! But he must have settled on the idea that we would try something logical to throw him off because he always thought you were the one in charge and you tend to go to the more logical! So its logical to be illogical, and illogical to be logical!"

I scratched my chin. "So you're saying that logically we can't be illogical... but we can't be logical either?"

"Exactly!" Aria said, nodding her head like a bobble-head doll.

Suddenly everything was clear to me. "Then we must occupy the middle ground! We can be neither logical or illogical. We must be in-between!"

"There's something in-between?"

I stood up and raised a fist. "For the sake of the survival of mankind we must have faith that there is! Where's Morgana? Morgana! We have a way to save the world!"

"I'll be out in a minute. I can't decide which dirty rag to wear."

"Put on any of them. They're all the same - ripped, shredded, and encrusted with filth."

"I know, but some of them smell better than others. I'll be out in a minute."

Aria looked thoughtful. "You know what we need, Steve?"

"What?"

"A laundry day. We need to stop and wash all our clothes. It's criminal that we've ignored that basic thing about civilization."

"True," I said. "But we have been running for our lives, fighting for our existence. But you're right! It's time to clean up our act! Morgana!"

"What, Steve? I told you I'd be out soon!"

"Bring all your dirty clothes out with you. We're going to have a wash day!"

Aria sat down at our rickety table and pulled out a pencil and a pad. I joined her. "Okay, she said, now here's what we know." She wrote a list on the pad.

1. The earth has gone crazy. Penguins are on the attack.

2. Hallucinogenic chemicals in the air make logical thought impossible.

4. We have seen no monkeys. Why not? You would think there would be lots of monkeys but we haven't seen any.

5. Chibi Chibi is a leader of the dominant penguins, but Usagi is the leader of a revolt aginst the forces of Chibi Chibi... or something like that.

6. Still no monkeys. That worries me.

I looked at her list. "You left out number 3."

"I had a problem with number 3," she said. "It didn't want to come out of the pencil."

"Maybe it's a monkey?"

"I don't think so. I didn't get those creepy tingly vibrations in my teeth that happen whenever I think of a monkey."

"Are your teeth vibrating now?"

Aria shivered. "Yes, I think we should change the subject."

"To what?"

"And what are we to WEAR while we are having our laundry day?"

"Oh...well....heh, well..."

I nodded at Steve's discomfort - which is an odd thing to do.

"We can wear our least dirty rags, and wash the rest. It will be nice not to wear pants with colonies of fungus and bacteria. And also, a bath day to accompany laundry day will be nice too..."

5 hours later

"Oh my...I can't believe I have this lovely hair! Its so...soft! And black like onyx!"

I kept petting my hair, amazed by its softiness...

"I know!" Steve said. "I thought your hair was a dusty grey, but really it's a deep lustrous black!"

Morgana sighed and ran a hand down her hair, down to her arms.

"I look like a pretty blonde porcelain doll! Don't you think so, Steve?"

"Yea...yea you do..."

And here we go again. Morgana and Steve started making the goo goo eyes...which is how this whole mess started!...them falling in love and out of love I mean. Wait a minute! Maybe...maybe all their arguing caused... I mean, they always argued in front of Chibi Chibi.

"Steve Nancy Ellen! You are a bad parent!"

"Huh?! Why?"

"Because you and Morgana argued so much in front of Chibi Chibi that he became upset and started the revolution."

"That's ridiculous! Anyway Morgana and I don't argue a lot."

Morgana said, "Quite a bit."

"No more than most people," I said.

"A little bit more," she said.

"No, our arguing is normal and we don't argue about everything."

"Almost everything... and that's abnormal."

"It just seems like a lot of arguing to you. It really isn't much."

"It's a LOT, Steve! You know it is."

"No, I don't or I wouldn't be standing here saying it's not a lot."

"It's a lot."

"It's not a lot."

"It is."

"It isn't"

"Is."

"Isn't."

"Hey!" Aria said. "I think I've made my point. Now who ordered the case of bananas?"

"Huh? Oh... a joke, right?" But I let my eye go to where her finger was pointing and sure enough, it was a crate of bananas and the label said: Rent-A-Penguin Shop (or what's left of it), 1313 Main Street.

"My gosh," I said. "Who would be sending us a crate of bananas?"

Monkeys...only monkeys.

For a minute, my life flashed before my eyes. Working on the farm...getting tired of it, moving to the big city to find a better life, getting hit on by a chicken on steroids...no what?...that was a Disney short...

"OH um *cough* let's forget about the crate for a moment shall we? For now we must be off on our journey!"

Steve frowned. "Um... its already nightfall, Aria, and we are tired of washing the layers and layers of dirt."

I sighed, dissapointed.

"Oh, alright, get rest then. We wake up at the crack of the brown cow and the dancing spoons."

Morgana and Steve held hands and went ahead of me. I groaned. Now that they where married, they would be up ALL night....with that creakity, creakity of the bed as they played 'Pin the tail on the ceiling donkey'.

I looked up at the sky, now a dark pink and purple. It was long since the sky was a natural navy color. How I missed it. But most of all, I missed the Italian food.

Tears formed in my eyes. The penguins had destroyed all Italian restaraunts, and all the ingredients were banned. I never knew why... until now. Chibi Chibi must have done it to destroy me. Clever penguin...

And after all I did for him. Oh, but he will pay... I'm going to win this war like a baby sweeping in the night!

I slipped into the sack with Morgana. Cuddle time! No matter how awful our days were, at least we had the nights together.

"Not tonight, Steve," she said. "I have a headache."

"Awwww, but I want to play 'Pin the Tail On the Ceiling Donkey'..."

"Well, play it by yourself."

"Awww, that's no fun. The donkey doesn't like me."

"So play something else - Octopus, or Run, Willy, Run."

"None of those games are any fun without youuuuu!" I affectionately nudged her in the side.

"Quit poking me! I want to sleep... and dream..."

"Dream about what?"

"...about Boise," she mumbled.

"About boys?!" I shook her. "Hey, wake up! No dreaming about boys allowed!"

"Okay... zzzzzz..." She was out. I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling. Maybe I could count sheep.

I put on a robe and stumbled out to where Aria was gazing at the sky. "Aria, have you heard any sheep near by?"

"Yea...they came trotting by a few minutes ago..."

"Aw....I wanted to count them!"

"What? Morgana not up to playing your game?"

He sighed and nodded. I signaled for him to get closer.

He frowned. "You're not going to kick me, or slap me on the back of the head are you?"

"I will if you don't get over here."

He decided it was best to believe me.

I looked back up at the sky and sighed. "You know...maybe....maybe we should have never opened that shop, Steve."

"Well...who knew it would end this way? Personally, I would have thought that "Lease-a-lizard" would have a play in the end of the world, not us!"

"True...those lizards where evil...more evil than daytime television..."

"But Aria, nobody could have predicted this outcome."

"Well...MAYBE I shouldn't have spoiled Chibi chibi so much-"

"Well yes, that WOULD have been a smart thing to do but-"

"HEY! Your supposed to say "No, Aria! Its ok, you only had good intentions!"

"You DID have good intentions," I said, "But sometimes good intentions are just not enough. Things just happen."

We gazed up at the sky, the infinite blackness of space. A lot more stars were visible now that there was no electricity to fill the night with streetlamps and neon signs.

"You know," I said. "Maybe in a way this was a good thing. I've never seen so many stars in the sky before."

"Maybe some of them are lightning bugs."

"But they're not moving."

"They've learned to keep very still so they don't get eaten."

There was a shuffling behind us and Morgana came up wrapped in a sheet. "What are you guys doing out here?"

"Just looking at the sky. Don't you think that's more stars than we could ever see back in the old days?"

"I don't know," I said, staring up at the sky. "I don't think I ever looked at the sky in the 'old days,' as you so quaintly put it."

"Jeez, Morgana, are you PMSing or something?" Aria said, raising an eyebrow. "And why are you wrapped up in a sheet?"

"Because I feel like a mummy," I cracked. They stared at me blankly. "You know, I have a child...mommy...wrapped up like a mummy...you guys have no sense of humor whatsoever."

"Yes, we do," Aria said. "That was just weird, Morgana."

I glared at Steve.

"Snookums?" he said hopefully. Then fake laughed. Then hugged me.

"Ah..." I said, relaxing against him. "You're still in trouble, though."

"Darn it," Steve said into my hair. "Morgana, I wuv you..."

"But you didn't laugh," I sniffled. "And you're my husband again. You're supposed to laugh."

I rolled my eyes. Oh boy, here came another argument.

"Well, I would have laughed but your beauty is just so beautiful that it distracted me, cause your so pretty and I love you!"

"AWW! STEVIE!"

Morgana latched on to Steve like a fire hydrant latches on to a firemen. Wait...what?

I shook my head and looked at Steve and Morgana. Really, how was I to explain this to their daughter? Poor kid. She's going to write a novel about them some day, and it will be titled:
"Why can't you stay divorced already?"

I'll probably want a few copies.

"Aria? Aria did you hear us?"

"Uh? Oh no I was comtemplating how to break this heart warming news to your daughter."

"You know, Steve... I always wanted a baby boy..."

"Hehe you...um...heh....what?"

"But we already have a child!" I shouted. "Why is it that everytime we get married we end up with another child?"

Morgana wrapped her arms around me. "Awww, Steve, don't you want a little Stevie following you around?"

I shuddered.

"Steve! That's not the right attitude!"

"Sorry. Anyway, even if you are going to have a baby that's so far in the future that it's almost like never to me."

"Nine months is like never?"

Aria sighed. "Yeah, nowadays you can't count on anything. We might all be dead in nine months."

"You are so cheerful."

Morgana pinched my arm. "What do you want to name him?"

"Will you stop it with the baby talk. Any name except Little Steve, but let's not talk about him anymore."

"But I wanna talk about him," I persisted. "I'm feeling all warm and maternal again."

"No, no, no, no, no," Steve whined, covering his ears with his hands and rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Wimp," I muttered under my breath. "What's wrong with Little Steve? Stevie? Stevie Junior?"

"NO, NO, NO," Steve shrieked.

"Fine, you big baby," I said.

"Don't say BABY!" he yelled, looking at me with big, panicked eyes.

"Okay, okay," I held out pacifying hands. "Aria, do you still have his tranquilizers?"

"No, I gave them to you," Aria said. "Remember?"

"Oh yeah...shoot," I said, looking down at him rocking on the floor, now sucking his thumb. I heaved a big sigh. "Oh, well, time for the next best thing...oh, Steve?"

He looked up.

"Here," I said and gave him a big smooch.

Oh gag me with a spoon!

"Garsh...heh, that sure did help Morgana...what we arguing about again?"

"Morgana's need to carry another-"

"Nothing nothing sweetie! Aria is just on one of her trips again, you know!"

"oh, yes, right."

I snorted at her excused and glared at the floor.

"Not my problem Steve's a big baby!"

"What?"

"I said its best to turn in. We have a long day tomorrow"

Tomorrow

"ok, Morgana, you'll be carrying the food suply and water supply yes?"

"Its all packed in!"

"Ok, I have all weapons neccesary and not neccesary. And Steve is carrying out luggage."

"Omph...honey...Aria...so you REALLY need all this?"

"but of course Stevie bun! You like it when I look pretty no?"

He sighed, "Well, yes but-"

"Good!" Morgana gave him a small peck on the cheek and skipped along.

"Ok team...today is an important day for all mankind. Today, we will begin the fight of all fights. We shall seek Chibi Chibi....we whall talk about the clouds, the cords, and everything blue...and if that doesn't work we'll beat him black and blue until he gives it up!"

Morgana gasped and not very lightly, slapped my shoulder.

"Hes still Chibi Chibi"

I sniffed, "Well, yea! Its not like I want to hurt my little baby boy!*sniffle* but he needs to learn its not ok to destroy the world. *sniffle* I think after a time out he should be ok ..."

"We can capture him," I said, "then tie him to a chair and brainwash him into being a good little penguin again."

"Do you know how to do brainwashing?" Morgana asked.

"Um... I guess you need some special kind of soap..."

"Ew! It doesn't involve actually removing the brain and washing it, does it?"

"I don't know. We'll just have to improvise."

"Don't be ridiculous!" Aria said. "Nobody's going to touch my little baby boy's brain. I'm sure a good talking to is all he needs."

"Isn't that like saying Hitler could have been stopped in WWII if his mother had told him not to invade Poland?"

"Chibi Chibi is NOT like Hitler!"

"He's out to conquer the world, isn't he?"

"But he's not German and he doesn't have a moustache! It's not the same thing at all!"

"Uh-huh," I snorted under my breath. "Psycho dictator, taking over the world...oh no, he's nothing like that. Just because he's a penguin..."

"Did you say something?" Aria glared.

"Oh, no, no, nothing at all," I lied.

"I found some soap," Steve announced, holding up a big bar.

"Steve!" Aria wrestled it out of his hands. "You are NOT hurting Chibi-Chibi! Okay? You got that?"

"But..." his lower lip stuck out.

I glared at Aria.

"If I have to kiss him to calm him down again..." I warned her, in a threatening voice. "You...are...doomed."

"Sorry!" Aria said, making pacifying noises. "I didn't mean to..."

Steve's eyes started to water. I patted him consolingly on the head.

"Apologize, you hurt his feelings," I said, scowling at Aria.

"I'm sorry, Steve," Aria said soothingly.

"Okay!" Steve said, instantly happy again. I heaved a big sigh of relief. That was one crisis averted.

"Ok, look....at least he isn't really KILLING anyone? Yes?"

"Well...yes...but-"

"Look, do the ultimate, non-lethal punishment that a penguin can take. Ok?"

Morgana's eyes watered and Steve looked at me as if I was trying to choke him.

"You don't mean..."

I inhaled the morning air.

"Yes...we will use this soap...to clean the tuxedo off of him!"

"Thats's harsh, Aria!"

"Oh, MAKE UP YOUR MIND, MORGANA! First, he's a dictator, and now, you think wiping off his tux is harsh?"

"Well it is!"

I waved my hands in the air.

"Ok, ok, fine, whatever! Lets argue on the way there, shall we? We are wasting perfectly good sunlight! Let us march while the grass still grows on the sun, and while the rivers still boil in the clouds!"

I sighed and started marching. It was crazy time again and, like always, I found myself falling into step with it. Hup, 2, 3, 4... Hup, 2, 3, 4...

I wondered whose eyes would water next. We had been plagued by episodes of watering eyes before. Once I had cried for a week before I discovered that my big toe was caught in a mousetrap. It's important to look for the source of your tears. Now whenever my eyes water the first thing I do is make sure my toes are okay.

Hup, 2, 3, 4... Marching is good for your toes. After 39 seconds of marching Aria was ready to take a break. "Hold up here!" she called out. "Smoke if you got 'em!"

"Got what?" Morgana asked.

"I don't know," I said. "Something flammable, I guess."

Aria pulled a 3 pound steak out of her shirt and sliced it into thin strips.

"Whatcha doin'?" I asked.

"Gonna make me some beef jerky! Gather up some kindlin' wood. Make sure it's oak and hickory. We'll smoke us some beef and have beef jerky to carry with us on our journey."

"Um... okay... are you sure we have time for all that?"

"Time?" she said. "What is time?"

I turned to Morgana. "You better answer that one."

"Gee, thanks, Steve," I stuck my tongue out at him. Explain time to a deranged jerky-maker?

"Time is the fourth dimension," I started to explain, but Aria cut me off by stuffing a piece of mostly raw jerky in my mouth. "EW!" I shrieked, spitting it out. "Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck!"

"Sorry," Aria shrugged unrepentantly. "How does the blood taste?"

"EWWWW!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, making Steve's ears bleed. "Ooops," I said, looking at the blood trickling down his face. "Sorry, Steve."

"It's okay," he said manfully.

"Hurry up with the jerky, Aria," I snapped at her while still spitting blood droplets from the steak out of my mouth. "We don't have that much time..."

"But really, what is time?" Aria asked dramatically.

"Oh, no, not again," I groaned.

"No, seriously, there is no time."

"Aria, that's crazy talk."

"Nope."

I put down my beef jerky and in one wave of my hand, tucked in all the equipment I had used into my little Hatter hat.

"THIS is crazy talk: What's the right angle of a scalene triangle!"

Morgana screamed and lunged behind Steve.

"She's....she's...STARK RAVING MAD!"

"Now, now...Aria...it's ok...calm down..."

"Or how about THIS: Obtuse, right, parallel, perpendicular, GEOMETRY!"

By this time Morgana was holding her hands over her eyes and singing 'there's no such thing as math' over and over again.

"Ok, ok, Aria, stop!"

I stopped, but only because my beef jerky looked so tasty...I wonder how chicken jerky tastes....

"But really, time doesn't exist."

"YES! It does! And if we don't get moving, we might be late to do our job!"

"Nope, you're wrong. You see, long ago when time was born, all he had to do was convince people that HE was in charge. Really, he just sits there doing nothing. We think he does something cause we always have the illusion that time exists. See, until we reach our destination, that's when the time will come...get it?"

Steve rubbed his temples.

"Pain....pain in my brain..."

"That sounds like Einstein's Theory of Relativity," I said.

"Huh?"

"You know, he's the one that said if you jumped on a spaceship and traveled around real fast then when you came back to Earth you would be younger than your twin brother?"

"He had a twin brother?"

"No. I don't think so. It was just an example."

Morgana snapped her fingers. "Oh! He must be that guy I read about who had the world's record for accumulating the most number of frequent flyer miles."

Aria looked at me. "How do you know he didn't have a twin brother? Maybe he had an older brother and when he got back to Earth he just made up this story about how they were twins and now everybody believes his theory."

"Huh?"

"Who's talking now?" Morgana asked. Then we all started singing: Who's talking now? Who's talking now? Each little rosebud is taking a vow. I'll be in Vegas when peach blossoms bloom. I need more space. I'll clean up my room.

"Stop!" Morgana raised her hand. "I just remembered something VERY important..."

"What?" Steve and Aria asked expectantly.

"Um...I forgot," I confessed. They glared at me. "NO-Wait! I remember now! Aren't we supposed to be saving the world?"

"Oh...yeah..." Aria said, blushing. "I kinda forgot about that..."

"That's what we're here for!" I exclaimed passionately. "To save the world from the penguins. Not discussions of time or Einstein's Theory of Relativity...whatever that is. We're supposed to be saving the world! Remember?"

"Yes," Steve said, looking abashed. He wiped a small tear from his eye.

"Crybaby," Aria muttered under her breath. Steve smacked her. "Hey!" she protested, rubbing her shoulder.

"Cut it out, you guys," I said. "Behave. You're worse than me and Steve, Aria."

"Sorry," she said, not looking repentant at all.

"So let's stop eating jerky, thinking about time, and confusing the poor blonde, and go save the world, okay?" I said.

"Ok"

I mumbled, seeing as I had shoved as much beef jerky as my mouth could take.

So, for hours we marched to our destination, though in reality it felt like seconds. Steve and morgana kept fighting and making up, fighting and making up. It was getting annoying.

"Finally!"

I looked around, and nodded, Yes this was indeed where we should be. The strawberry factory was waving at us, and it looked pretty happy.

"YAY! I love strawberries! lets ea-"

I covered Steve's mouth and shushed him.

"NO! IF YOU SAY THAT IT"LL RUN AWAY! Do you want to ruin the plan?!"

The Strawberry Factory slumbered in the moonlight. We could hear it snoring. From our vantage point in the dense jungle it looked like the crumbling remains of an old Aztec temple. If only Indiana Jones was with us.

"What would he do?" Aria asked.

"Did I say that out loud? He would crack his whip."

"Crack his whip? What would that do?"

"I don't know. You shouldn't have been reading my mind."

"Shhhhh!" Morgana whispered. "I think I see movement."

"Hmmmm... The Factory awakens. Gentleman... start your engines."

"Vrrroooommmm!" Aria yelled.

"Shhhh! Shhhh! Are you crazy?!"

"I'm burning high octane gas with a hopped-up cam and a drilled out muffler."

"You are crazy - carzy crazy."

Morgan grabbed my shoulder. "Steve! Steve! The Factory! It's moving! I think it sees us!"

"Everybody get down low! Morgana? You sneak up closer and find it's weak point."

"What do you mean me?" I said indignantly. "You're my husband! YOU get down there and find its weak point!"

"No," Steve cringed. "You."

"Fine," I snorted. I slipped closer, my heart pounding in my chest. Not only pounding; it appeared to be doing the tango, then the rhumba, then...stop doing dance beats, I ordered it.

The Strawberry Factory moved uneasily. Aria had alerted it with her stupid "vroom" screaming. I swallowed hard.

"I can't do this," I whispered back to Steve. He nodded, yes you can, and flapped his hands at me, telling me to go on. Easy for him to see. He wasn't the one who would be like eaten!

"Hi," I whispered in the nicest tone I could muster. If it was listening, maybe it wouldn't think I was doing anything bad.

A long red tongue slurped out of the front, narrowly missing me. I shrieked and zoomed back to Steve, jumping in his arms.

"SAVE ME!" I wailed. "I ain't going near that thing!"

I stood up and smacked both of them.

"Its on our side!"

"...are you sure? Cause it could make pies out of us!"

Steve started to cry and he dropped Morgana on her bum. She scowled but Steve kept on crying. "I don't want to be pie! I HATE PIE!!"

"My gosh, boy! Be a man, son! You're the only male! Aren't you supposed to be protecting us or something?"

He sniffled and picked Morgana up again.

"Well...only Morgana..."

I sighed.

"Thats fine. I can perfectly take care of myself!"

I walked up to the strawberry factory, shaking my head. "Pie...Steve Ellen Pie! I mean really? What kind of pie would the be anyways?!"

The factory once again stuck out it's great tongue and gave me a lick.

"Aw! I missed you too, Straw!"

I started talking to it in puppy love language and it started rolling around and yipping.

"Yes, you're a good factory! YES YOU ARE!"

Aria motioned for us to join her at the Strawberry Factory but Morgana squeezed my hand and held back. "No, Steve! I don't want to go next to that thing. It has a big tongue."

"So what? It's a big friendly tongue."

"I'm afraid of tongues... ever since my Uncle Zorba got his tongue caught in my ear."

"Huh?!"

"I was little and he was making me laugh by licking my ear and his tongue got stuck in my ear and the doctor had to extract it with some awful metal clamp tool and my Uncle screamed. It was horrible, Steve!"

I stared at her. Sometimes you think you know someone...

"He had a tiny tongue," she said.

.

"Hey, c'mon!" Aria called.

I dragged Morgana over to the Strawberry Factory. She dug in her heels and screamed, "No! Not the tongue! Not the tongue!" but sometimes the best thing you can do for someone who has a fear is just make them face it.

The Factory extended its big pink tongue and licked Morgana from head to toe. She fainted.

Aria shook her head. "How can she not like Straw? He's such a sweet thing."

"It's the tongue," I said. "She's got a thing about tongues."

"Ohhhhh," said Aria. "Of course. Now... Straw tells me that the bad penguins' headquarters is not far from here..."

"Is that what we're going to call them? The good penguins and the bad penguins?"

"Unless you've got something better. Now the way Straw and I see it is if someone could sneak into the bad penguin headquarters he could learn what their plans are and find out their weak points."

"Excellent idea. I'll wake up Morgana."

"No, Steve, not Morgana. The penguin suit won't fit her. It has to be you."

"Penguin suit?"

She tossed me a box neatly tied up with string.
"Try this on."

I pulled on the black and white garment.

"Um... how do I look?"

I woke up just in time to see Steve in his penguin suit.

"Aha, ha, ha, ha," I laughed hysterically. "You look sooo SILLY!"

Steve stuck his tongue out at me.

"Ha, your tongue doesn't make me scared," I told him. "I like your tongue."

"Drat," Steve said in frustration. "Aria, how can I make her stop laughing at me in the penguin suit?"

"Don't look at me," Aria said, raising her hands defensively. "She's YOUR wife, remember?"

"Ha, ha," I said impudently. "Wait a minute...why are you in the penguin suit, anyway?"

Steve and Aria told me.

"WHAT?" I shrieked at the top of my lungs. "Aria, you're making my poor, defenseless, sweet, clueless, innocent Stevie go out and face the bad penguins? Are you NUTS? Does he LOOK like he can take that?" I put a hand around him protectively. "Hmm...penguin."

"Now now quit coddling him!"

I pushed Morgana out of the way and rested my hands on Steve's shoulders. Well, on the penguin suit.

"Look Steve...you are a man. And if you're not, well your about to become one. In your hands, the world, ney, the entire universe rest in your hands"

"......I have dirty hands."

"...nevermind that! you go out there and show those penguins what a man in a penguin suit can do!"

Steve sniffled a bit, and after many tears and sobs, and crying out for Morgana and his mommy, he decided to go.

Morgana and me just sat on the groud with the factory as we watch Steve head out towards his destiny...

I feel like tacos...

When I reached the top of the hill I wiped my eyes and looked back. Aria and Morgana waved at me and called out, "Go on! Go on! You're a man!" Aria offered Morgana a taco. I looked sadly on the scene. Maybe it was the last time I would ever see my trusty friends. "Go on!" Aria yelled. "We'll save you some tacos."

"Thanks," I mumbled and choked back a sob.

On the other side of the hill was the headquarters of the bad penguins - BPHQ. How convenient, I thought. Only a short walk. Or waddle. I had to remember to be a convincing imitation penguin... or they might kill me.

I followed the sounds of squawking and ended up in a room full of folding chairs and a blackboard. An old penguin general was tapping the board with his beak. "And we'll launch the main attack here..."

"On the blackboard, Sir?" piped up a young lieutenant.

"No, you moron. This is a map. Don't confuse the map with the reality."

"I'm only a penguin, Sir."

"Bad attitude! How are we ever going to conqueor the humans with that attitude?"

"Sorry, Sir."

"And don't be so subservient."

"Yes, Sir."

I found a folding chair to sit in. Nobody seemed to even notice me. My costume was working perfectly!

"Aria!" I burst into tears as soon as Steve was out of sight.

"There, there," Aria soothed, patting my back and stuffing a taco in my mouth. "He'll be okay."

"No, I have a terrible bad feeling," I told her.

"That's just the beef jerky," Aria said. "I feel that, too."

"No, you don't understand," I stood up in determination. "Make me a penguin suit, Aria! I'm going in!"

"Are you CRAZY?" Aria squeaked, tugging me back down and stuffing another taco in my mouth. I made noises of negation as I chewed hastily and swallowed. "You can't do that! Morgana, they'd catch you in a second!"

"Why?" I asked innocently.

"Because you would start to cuddle them and say "Aw Cute penguins! And I bet you would also serve up some sardines and they would know you where a human!"

"why?"

"Look, I bet Chibi Chibi has told them ALL about us. Besides as soon as Steve gets back from the spy mission, we need to put in plan our plan ok/ So you need to find a necklace that writes poetry in the cold of january!"

Morgana sniffled and gingerly ate another taco. I couldn't blame her for being worried. I was too. I was beggining to realize that I had sent our most...um...not...mmmm. Well,I just hoped he managed to pull it off. After all...what if he met Jake? What if he met Chibi Chibi face to face! That would ruin everything!

"Aria? HELLO! I've been, like, talking to you for five minutes!"

"Oh sorry...I was just thinking...MAYBE someone should have gone with-"

"I'LL GO! REALLY I WILL!"

Morgana began jumping up and down like an eager puppy-so I grabbed a magazine and bumped her in the nose.

"Calm down! Its too late for that now. We just have to pray and hope that Steve will do fine on his own."

"I'm sure he will! He's never let us down before!"

I thought about this and nodded...that was true enough. Steve never had let us down before. Maybe this will work....

I looked up at the Strawberry factory, who was looking down at me with its big, foggy windows I patted its doors and asked for a few chocolate cheesecakes drowning in strawberry sauce. It's going to be a loooooooooong wait.

Watching the General laboriously tap out his plans with his beak I began to develop a theory about a possible weak point of the penguin army - they didn't have hands. It occurred to me that might be a serious drawback to fighting the modern mechanized war.

With my clever penguin disguise to protect me, I slipped around the camp, staying in the shadows, but observing everything closely. I was constantly making brief notes in my little notebook.

NOTE: Jeeps, trucks, and tanks involved in many crashes related to flippers slipping on steering wheels.

NOTE: On the firing range use of flippers to fire rifles results in many unfortunate mishaps.

NOTE: Hand-to-hand combat virtually non-existant. Although they seem to excell at beak-to-beak and flipper-to-flipper.

That evening I hid in a Baobob tree and thought about my discoveries. The lack of hands on penguins might be the factor that could turn the war in our favor. I could already imagine my ticker tape parade and the interviews on TV: "Steve, were you ever frightened while you were behind enemy lines?" And I would put on my expression of Aw-shucks-I'm-not-really-a-hero and say-

"Human! Get up!" It was a big penguin soldier poking me in the arm with a pitchfork.

I raised my hands in the air and got to my feet. "Please don't poke me!"

I sat bolt upright from the uneasy doze I had fallen into.

"STEVE'S IN TROUBLE!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs, surprising both Aria and the Strawberry Factory. "I HAVE TO GO TO HIM!"

Aria lunged at me, knocking me off my feet.

"No, Morgana, no," she panted in my ear. "You can't. They'll find you. You can't help Steve."

"I MUST HELP MY SNOOKUMS LOVE BUNNY!" I wailed, drumming my feet on the ground. "Stevie!"

"Morgana, if you don't calm down, I'm going to have the Strawberry Factory lick you," Aria warned. I instantly shut up, lying perfectly still. "That's better," Aria said. "Now, if you think Steve's in trouble, perhaps we can...quietly...go and spy out the situation. Okay?"

"Okay," I sniffled. "Thanks, Aria. You're such a...such a good friend..." Tears started pouring down my face.

"Oh sheesh, not again," Aria rolled her eyes. "Get up, ya big crybaby, and let's see what happened to your snookums."

Muterring I dug up the extra costumes I had aquired. I put mine on and helped Morgana with hers, since she was sniffling uncontrollably. Ah to be in love

"Here put this over your mouth."

"...what IS IT?!"

"Its tape with a slit in the middle,what does it look like?"

"Like tape!"

"GOOD!"

Morgana sighed and rubbed her eyes with her flippers. She was just a little to upset to go crazy over our costumes...at the moment.

"Look, put this over your mouth and we will talk like the penguins do!"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU GIVE THIS TO STEVE?!"

"JEEZ!Lower the decibles why don't ya? I forgot ok? Now lets go find your man! Strawberry factory, keep guard! Will be back later..."

Two big penguins tied me to a tree near a crackling campfire at the edge of the camp.

"This so conventional!" I protested. "I've seen this scene in a dozen B-movies."

The bigger of the two slapped my cheek with his flipper. "Are you a spy or a movie critic?"

"A little of both," I muttered. "And no thumbs up for you."

"You know where you can stick your thumbs up," he said and laughed the harsh sickening laugh of a sadistic penguin soldier. "Mwarghf-mwarghf-mwarghf!" It really put my nerves on edge. I hate that laugh.

"Stop it!" I screamed. "Stop laughing at me like that!"

"Mwarghf-mwarghf-mwarghf-MWARGHF!" he replied and I knew that I was in for a night of hell.

The campfire cast dark shadows that flickered and moved like monsters. I told myself to be brave... because the survival of mankind depended on me escaping the clutches of these evil penguins and giving my precious information about their weak point to... to... to somebody who could really make use of information like that. Stay strong, I told myself.

"They're hurting him!" I gasped to Aria. "I have to stop them!" Aria restrained me with a flipper-wing.

"Morgana, you idiot, if you go charging down there, they're going to torture you, too," Aria pointed out.

"Oh, yeah," I said weakly. "Hey! I have a plan!"

I whispered it to Aria. She looked at me with raised eyebrows--well, as much as a penguin could have, anyway--but didn't stop me.

I waddled down there with all the arrogance I could muster. The head penguin looked at me uncertainly.

"I am here for the prisoner," I squawked in Penguin. "He is wanted elsewhere."

"Who are you?" the penguin asked suspiciously.

"I work for the general," I informed him haughtily. "So does my assistant." Aria waddled forward. "The general wants him for questioning."

"Fine," the penguin said, disgusted. "Take him. He's a weird human, anyway."

Steve looked apprehensive as Aria and I took charge of him. As we got away from the guard penguins and the BPH, I whispered, "Don't worry, Steve, it's Morgana and Aria, here to rescue you." For some reason, he looked more apprehensive. Then I realized we were still talking in Penguin.

I took off the little beak thingie.

"Steve! It's me! Your little snookums? Remember?" I whispered.

"Morgana?" he asked, his voice full of hope.

"Yes," I nodded. "And Aria...we're here to rescue you."

He planted a big, sloppy kiss on my penguin cheek. I cringed away. Yuck. But he was still my snookums love bunny, and now he was free from the penguins. Yay!

We carried Steve back to the factory. Morgana had to take off his penguin suit cause he had fallen asleep. I took off the tape around my mouth and the penguin suit, glad that it was over.

I sighed and looked out at the streets. The sidewalks where overgrown with vines and weeds. The houses half destroyed loomed over us like a sign of the apocalyspe. Which I guess in a way it was.

"Aria? Steve is waking up I think."

I nodded and crawled to where he was. He wa mumbling something about hands, and arms. Frowning I lightly tapped his shoulder.

"Steve? Steve wake up."

He just kept mumbling. Now about flippers.

I sighed again and let Morgana try and wake him up. In a few hours or day we would have to put our non existent plan into action. I guess we had to wait for Jake to arrive first. I thought for sure he would follow in Chibi chibi's steps. Then again, I thought by now the Rent-a-penguin shop would be a huge success and we be billionares but things don't always turn out the way you want them too.Damn fate. Damn penguin...cute though they are...

"Aria, I think Steve's waking up."

"Finally! Ask him what he found out!"

"Penguins ain't got no hands!" I blurted out.

Aria and Morgana stared at me. "Nooo," Aria said, "They don't. So?"

"But don't you see? That's their weak point! Flippers instead of hands. All their attempts to adapt to human technology are doomed to failure. That's why they have so much trouble eating breakfast cereal. That's why they keep crashing those airplanes. That's why their shoes are never tied. Flippers!"

Aria shook her head. "You risked your life sneaking deep into penguin territory to find out they have flippers? That's pathetic."

"No! No! There's more to it than that. It's the insight. Now we can develop a strategy to use against them. We have to take advantage of our manual dexterity. We have to use our hands instead of our heads."

"Look at this," Morgana said. "I can bend my fingers completely back. I'm double-jointed."

"Ew!" Aria said. "But that's good. We'll gross them out. And I know some card tricks. Or we can challenge them to a game of Pick-Up-Sticks or Tiddlywinks."

"No," I said. "You're forgetting about their beaks. They're great for picking up stuff. The card tricks might be good... Or how about thumb wrestling?"

"Ooo! Ooo! I've got an idea!" Morgana said.

"You do?" Steve and Aria turned expectantly towards me.

"Oops. Would you believe I forgot again?" I turned bright red.

"Morgana!" Aria yelled, whacking me on the shoulder. "You gotta stop forgetting things!"

"What if...we arranged the Chicken Dance?" I said triumphantly. "I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck..."

"How would that help?" Aria asked skeptically.

"I don't know," I admitted. "I just like the dance." I started doing the dance, humming along to myself.

"We need a better plan," Aria said, exasperated. "Right, Steve? Steve...?" She waved a hand in front of his face. "Stop watching Morgana do the Chicken Dance!"

"What? Oh, sorry," Steve said, blinking. "Yeah, um, I think they can do the Chicken Dance with flippers..."

"Darn it!" I said.

"Wait..." Aria stared off into the distance. "That's giving me the perfect idea...much better than the Chicken Dance..."

"We will do solo salsa dancing! They have no hips or legs! Embarrased by their failure, they will have no choice but to concede DEFEAT and-"

"Hello...mama, papa...Morgana..."

I paled. I dropped whatever was on my hands and turned around. No...it couldn't be...

"Chibi...chibi?"

There he was-my no long innocent, grown, somewhat rough looking chibi chibi. his eyes where dark and cold, and his beak held a smirk that spoke of arrogance and...man I wanted to slap him!

"Oh my...Chibi...what are you...why?"

"I won't stop your plans. I'm interested in what you have in mind. I'm sure we won't be defeated..."

Steve got up and wagged his fingers at Chibi Chibi.

"Now you listen to me young man..."

"No!" yelled Chibi Chibi, his eyes blazing with red anger. "Do not call me a MAN!" He made the word sound like something disgusting. "For I am not a greasy slimey MAN! I am a... PENGUIN! King of the Birds, Supreme Among Animals, and Ruler of Mankind! Mwahahahahahahahaha!"

"My God," whispered Aria. "He's gone stark raving mad!"

Morgan started crying. "I'm afraid!"

I spoke calmly to Chibi Chibi. "Now, now, little guy, let's not get all excited. I think somebody's been chewing on a tainted sardine."

"Sardines!" Chibi shouted. "That's why I am here. We must have Morgana."

"No!" Morgana cried. "Steve! Don't let him take me!"

"We must have Morgana," Chibi said. "She will serve in our food production complex. Her ability to transform ordinary objects into sardines is essential to our cause. She will be treated well. But you, Steve, and Aria are forbidden to visit her. You two have been classified as subversives. Sorry about that, but you should have thouight about that before you went sneaking into our camp."

"Now listen here, Chibi," I said. "You can't just come waltzing in here and grab my wife and run away with her."

"Oh no?" Chibi said, and grabbed Morgana and ran away with her.

"HELP ME!" I shrieked, pounding on Chibi's back with my fists. "Put me down, Chibi! I won't help you!"

"Yes, you will," Chibi laughed maniacally.

I took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then screamed at the top of my prodigious lungs. Chibi winced and dumped me like a hot potato. I think his ears were bleeding.

I made a run for it, sprinting as fast as I could. So fast, in fact, that I slammed into Steve and Aria in hot pursuit.

"Ow," I said in the aftermath. My eyes crossed. "That hurt..."

"Morgana!" Steve yelled in my ear, crushing me to him. "You got away!"

"Ooph," I mumbled in his ear. "You're hurting me. I'm not a teddy bear. I'm a person."

"Yay!" Steve cheered. "And she's not hurt too badly if she can say that!"

"Steve," Aria said dryly. "Get off her. You're crushing her to death."

"Oh," Steve said, blushing. "Sorry, Morgana."

"You were coming after me!" I said with starry eyes. Aria groaned in the background. I ignored her and planted a big sloppy smooch on Steve. "That's so sweet..."

"Yes, I'm sure it is," Aria interjected. "But we might want to get the heck away from here...there's a horde of angry penguins coming..."

Well, more like a smattering. Chibi Chibi was accompanied by a few other penguins, maybe ten. Endymion was with them.

*sniffle* "I dont' want to hurt Endy!"

I cried like I cried when Sailor Moon was cancelled. Steve and Morgana had on protective muffs over their ears, so they where quite calm. The penguins however, where squawking for mercy-except Chibi Chibi was was stomping the ground.

"NO NO NO NO!"

He threw down his commander hat and pouted(as much as a penguin can pout)

"your supposed to surrender or engange us into battle! Thats not fair! you are not playing this game very well!"

And thats when I stopped crying and gave Chibi a look. A game....a...game?

"A game?" said Steve.

"a game"?" repeated Morgana.

"YES! A GAME!" Said the angry penguin.

"Chibi Chibi! Is this all a game to you?"

"Well DUH! And I have to win! My prize will be the earth! Thats what that book said!"

".........what book?"

"The one that one client left!"

"But that was just a book," I said. "Books aren't real life. They're like the Internet, imaginary stuff to make you laugh and cry."

"Imaginary?" Chibi said. "What is this imaginary you speak of?"

"You know... when you imagine something, when you pretend in your head that something is happening."

"Pretend in my head? You make no sense. Either something is happening or it isn't, right?"

"Aria," I said. "I think these penguins have no concept of fantasy. Whatever they see or hear is real to them."

Aria thought for a moment. "So we need to write a story about how the penguins revolted against the humans but then they realized it was a tragic mistake and they were better off not revolting so they apologized to the humans and everything went back to the way it was before."

"Yeah... except for all the buildings being burned down and lots of people being dead."

"Right. Almost like it was before."

Morgana jumped up. "Can I write the story?"

"Of course you can. Can you have 10 pages ready by this afternoon?"

"I'll try."

Her face was full of cheery optimism and I felt sure she would do a great job.

It was a good thing Steve had such faith in me because I was pretty sure there was no way in heck I would have ten pages done by next week, much less this afternoon.

"Well, I guess I better go write," I said brightly, full of false enthusiasm.

I require a very strange ritual before I write, one that Steve was well aware of. He followed me away as I prepared myself, breathing deeply.

First, I streaked chalk on my face. This would help prepare the writing gods to speak to me. Then I gave Steve a big, mushy hug. Okay, that had absolutely no bearing on writing. It was just fun to do, okay? Finally, I stuck a pen and a pencil in my hair to further the lines of communication between me and the writing gods.

"I think I'm ready," I told Steve. He looked at me, tried to keep a straight face, and then started laughing hysterically. Aria, looking over, also started laughing.

"Hey!" I said outraged. Even the penguins were hiding a chuckle or two. "Writing is a very serious business! So there!" I sniffed haughtily at them.

I sighed. Chibi Chibi had grown bored with us and left, not before making out next "play date". In some respects, I suposse he still is my little boy-a spoiled, older, more agressive, VIOLENT little boy but...

"Well, ok. Morgana can write the story, and we can sneak it into their camp and then hopefully the world won't be so topsi turvy any-"

"Gaygoyles!"

I stared at Steve.

".......I'm sorry?"

"GYPSY GOAT!"

......

"Steve, I think you thinking of Disney."

"How could I not? its one of the happiest places in the world."

"Yea, that was BEFORE it was replaced by "Let's burn down manking park"

"Oh yea. (sniffle) they aren't very nice in that park"

I shook my head no. I looked over to where Morgana was working. She was consulting a chicken in a ballet suit-which is wrong. Everyone KNOWS that if you want help you should always seek out a swan in a skate suit. I mean really...

I sat in my stern taskmaster chair keeping an eye on Morgana. Everytime she stopped writing I said, "Morgana! Have you finished that story yet?" Then she would sigh and say, "No, sir," and bend down to her writing.

The afternoon drifted on and I grew sleepy in the heat. I started awake after dozing off for a moment and... no Morgana! Her unfinished story lay on the floor, the pages of her blue notebook flapping in the breeze, but Morgana was nowhere in sight.

"Aria!" I called. "Whence be Morgana?"

"I know not, my Lord," Aria replied. "She made haste out of here like she had an important errand to run."

"Damn that maid and her lackadaisical attitudes! Tell Bob to fetch the carriage. We'll have to search for her."

Aria held up a big glass pitcher of Kool-Aid. You could see it was really cold. There was condensation on the side of the pitcher and someone had drawn a smiley face in it. "Would you like some Kool-Aid and cookies before we depart?"

I debated with myself (Yes? No? Yes? No? Yes? No?) and finally decided what the heck a little Kool-Aid couldn't hurt. By then the condensation on the pitcher had turned into a frown and three cockroaches were dragging away the last cookie. "Stop those bugs!" I yelled.

*WHACK!*

Aria grinned. "Ain't nothin' like a Sailer Moon shoe to whack the bejeebers out of them critters."

"Good show!" I said. "Let's find that errant maid Morgana and see what mischief she's up to now."

I was so not up to mischief. It was to help my work. It really was.

Okay, actually, it was for Steve's birthday present. So his birthday wasn't coming for several more months. For somer reason, I just felt the urge to get him a present, and I knew it wouldn't subside until I got him one.

But what to get him...I wandered through rubble, looking at this and that piece of shattered glass or half-brick. And then it came to me.

"Steve!" I called, hurrying back. He looked up, looking annoyed and relieved at the same time. Aria marched up and smacked me.

"Ow!" I complained, rubbing my shoulder. "What was that for?"

"You practically made Steve a nervous wreck," Aria scolded.

"It doesn't look that way to me," I said dubiously.

"It might not look that way, but really, he's devastated," Aria insisted.

"I was looking for a birthday present," I defended myself. "For Steve."

"But his birthday's not..." Aria started to say.

"And I thought of the perfect one," I assured her. "Come here, Steve!"

"Yes?" he said, looking hopeful and happy. He got up and walked over to me. I gave him a giant sloppy kiss. And another one. And another one. Until big red hearts were spinning around his head and he was unconscious, a big goofy smile on his face.

"Sheesh," Aria snorted. "Morgana, you really have to stop kissing Steve into unconsciousness. We might need him."

"Sorry," I said and skipped back to my writing.

I woke up with saliva all over my face and Aria looking down at me. "What happened?" I mumbled.

Aria rolled her eyes and pointed at Morgana with her thumb.

"Oh," I said. "Sloppy kisses agin. There must be some kind of narcotic in her saliva. Knocks me out every time."

Morgana was pretending to be busy at writing her story, but even from 10 feet away I could see she was just doodling little hearts in the margins of her norebook.

"Morgana! Is that story ready yet?"

"Yes!" she said and jumped up and handed me the notebook. "Ha! You thought I couldn't do it, didn't ya?"

I was a little surprised, but I said, "No, I knew you would do it. That's why you got the assignment. You're good!"

"Thank you," she said and began skipping around the room singing, "Pickles and pretzels, potaoes and plums, we'll have a party when the old man comes..."

I thumbed through her notebook. Yes, it was all there. How the penguins meant well but finally discovered they had taken the wrong path. Revolution was not the way to enlightenment. Changing the system from within was the only way to achieve lasting results. It was time to make peace with the humans.

Aria was reading over my shoulder. "What do you think?" I asked her.

"It's worth a try. What should we do? Print up a million copies and drop them out of airplanes?"

"Maybe something a little less ambitious." I handed her a ballpoint pen and a stack of blue notebooks. "Let's get to work making copies."

"Do I have to help even though I'm the genius who wrote it?" I asked, still skipping around.

"Yes," Aria glared, her hand already cramping in anticipation. I batted my eyelashes at Steve and pursed my lips, reminding him of his "birthday present."

"Well..." Steve's voice trailed off.

"Steeeve!" Aria complained. "That's not fair!"

"Yes, it is," I said quickly. "I'm, um, wearied by my hours of creative labor. I need rest..." I put a hand to my forehead and tried to look faint.

"Morgana!" Steve sprang to my side, looking worried. I smirked at Aria over his shoulder. She glared at me.

"I feel weak," I said in a tiny voice.

"Poor sweetums," Steve said, scooping me up in his arms. "You have to go to bed right now. Aria will do all the copying...right, Aria?"

"Yes," Aria said in a strangled voice, gritting her teeth. "I will."

I was about to start copying-when I remembered. HELLO! Pink and blue clouds! DUH!

Laughing, I took of my hat and shook it until a nice maching came out. It was a laptop with robotic hands, just waiting to do my bidding.

"Yea, you see this story? Write it, print it, about 1,000 should do for now. Got it?"

The hands simply nodded and got to work. I looked over to where Morgana was resting, her eyes wide. I stuck out my tongue at her, and she simply glared at me and crossed her hands over her chest.

"OH what? LIke I was REALLY going to do all that by hand!"

*sniffle*"You could have tried!"

"Morgana is right Aria! It would have been good practice for you."

"...oh, so now your saying my handwriting sucks!"

Steve held up his hands and shook his head no, but I could see his eyes nodding!

"No of course not...I-what-never, what...I simply-but-"

I bopped him on the head.

In three jiffies and a shake of the squirrel's tale we had our 1000 copies thanks to Aria's hat. I often wondered how to get that hat away from her, but it stuck to her like it was glued down. That seems to be a feature of magic hats -- extreme loyalty. I once had a genie in a lamp, but he was fickle and after the third time I rubbed him the wrong way he ran off to light up somebody eles's life.

"This is great!" I said. We've got our 1000 copies. Now let's hand them out to some penguins."

Morgana squeezed her nose and spoke in a nasal voice. "How are we going to do that without getting captured, robbed, beaten, and murdered?"

I stood on my head. "We'll just have to be very sneaky."

Aria fluffed out her hair. "Would it help if we wore soft-soled shoes?"

"Of course! Let's glue cotton balls to the bottoms of our shoes!"

"Excellent idea!"

"Uh...sure," I said. "Anybody got any cotton balls?" Aria fished around in her hat.

"Here you go!"

"Wow," I said in admiration. "That thing is versatile!"

"Yep," Aria said. "And, on the highway, it gets 40 miles per gallon."

"Huh?" Steve and I said blankly.

"Er...never mind," Aria blushed. "Come on, let's glue cotton balls on our shoes now!"

We set to work, busily gluing on cotton balls. Well...I managed to convince Steve to glue cotton balls on my shoes for me. It's amazing what batting your eyelashes will do...

It's very hard to stand up when your shoes are covered with cotton balls, do you know that? Particularly when Steve spilled the glue all over your shoes.

"Eek!" I said. "I'm stuck to the ground!" I flailed my arms wildly for balance. Aria snickered.

"I'll save you," Steve said gallantly.

"You better," I grumbled. "You're the one who got me into this mess...literally!"

"Sorry," Steve cringed, lifting me up. My shoes stuck to the ground for a moment before lifting free with a sucking sound.

"Thank you," I said. "I think you better keep carrying me or I'll keep sticking to the ground, though."

I didn't even try to stop them this time. Steve deserved it anyways.

I had been careful with my glue, and now I was as silent as a bird with no wings and a muzzle. I put all the books inside a bookcase-and I put that bookecase in a suit case, which now sits pretty inside my hat.

Carefully, with the ability of a dolphin we saw across the sea of forggoten human artifacts and back towards teh campgrounds.

As expected all the penguins where alseep including the guards. I signaled for Steve and morgana to move ahead of me, to make sure the coast was safe.

"but ARIIIIIIIIIA!"

"SHHHHHHH!"

I looked around, afraid we had been caught. Lucky for us, penguins are heavy eater-which means they practically sleep like they are dead. I glared daggers at Steve.

"WHAT?"I mouthed.

"Nothing," I said. "I thought I had to sneeze but it was just this little weird tickle in my septum that only seemed like I was going to sneeze but then it quickly went away so really I was never in any danger of sneezing at all and I shouldn't have spoken out like something might be wrong. I'm sorry."

Aria stared at me. "Are you pre-programmed to screw up every thing you attempt?"

"Huh? No, of course not. Preprogrammed? Haha! What an idea! Preprogrammed? Haha! What and idea! Preprogra-" Aria slapped the back of my head.

I felt a little woozy. "An error has just occurred," I said. "Do you want to send a brief report of this error to Microsoft? No personal information will be collected."

"No," Aria said. "Resume normal functioning."

"Thanks! Way down South where the sun shines hot-"

"But no singing!"

"Okay."

"What's a septum?" Morgana said.

"Awww, poor baby!" I said with great affection and gusto. "Has that question been bothering you all this time?"

"Yes," she sniffed, "and you and Aria talk so much I never get to say ANYTHING!"

"Awwwwwww! You go ahead and talk right NOW! And I'll listen to every little word you say. Okay, snookums?"

Aria grabbed each of our arms and pinched them. In an intense whisper she said, "Will you two SHUT UP! We're trying to sneak into a hornet's nest full of sleeping penguins with cottonballs glued to our feet and you two are babbling like-"

"Ouch! You're hurting my arm!"

"Shush! Not another word from either of you!"

As soon as Aria turned her back Morgana stuck out her tongue.

"Shhhh," I whispered. "Don't make her angry. She'll put hot pepper in our porridge."

"But I don't eat porridge," I whispered back. "So it will only affect you."

"Oh yeah," Steve said, looking thoughtful. "I forgot about that."

Aria turned, looking murderous. I zipped up Steve's lips and smiled brightly at her.

"Let's go, then," Aria whispered. I stuck out my tongue at her again. She glared at me, and I realized I'd forgotten to save that until she turned around. I shrugged at her apologetically.

"If we weren't about to go into dangerous territory," she mouthed at me. "You would be dead!"

"Save me, Steve," I squeaked in his ear, trying to hide behind him...a difficult feat when he was still carrying me.

"I am going to drop you," Steve managed to say, "if you don't quit squirming. Okay?"

"Sorry," I whispered back. Aria was glaring at us again.

We sneaked into the penguin encampment, muffled by the cotton balls on our shoes...or, well, being carried by someone else with cotton balls on their shoes.

Then I was reminded by something.

"You still didn't tell me what a septum is," I whispered in Steve's ear.

"A septum is short for shut the heck up!"

I mouthed this to them as I unloaded the books from my hat. I told Steve to put them into three, identical stacks to be handed out throught out the camp. It wasn't light work, but its good that Steve was working out. After all, he ain't not little boy no more.

"Aria...I can hear your thoughts...why are you talking like a southerner?"

"Don't reckon I know missy. Must be a bug or something."

Morgana nodded after giving me a look she usually reserved for Steve.

We waited for hours until Steve came back, crawling and begging for food. I sighed and gave him a few bed crumbs.

"That should hold you up. Now come one! we need to get out!"

"I put a book next to every penguin that could read," I said.

"How did you know which ones could read?"

"They had their glasses sitting on their little night tables."

"They all have night tables?" Morgana said. "Awwww, how cute! I love penguins. It's awful that some of them became so evil... or maybe not evil but just misguided and disturbed. I think I want to become a penguin psychologist and help them all regain good mental health."

Aria murmured something under her breath.

"What's that you said?"

"Nothing."

"I think she said 'blind leading the blind'" I volunteered.

Morgana looked puzzled. "But they aren't blind. Or... is that why they have the glasses? Oh no! Steve! That might mean they don't read at all! If they're blind..."

"Don't worry your pretty little blonde head about it," I said. "Just let me and Aria do the thinking."

"Are you patronizing me?" I asked, my hands on my hips.

"Nooo," Steve said in a patently false voice. I glared at him and Aria.

"You think just because I'm a blonde, I can't help these penguins?" I demanded. "Of course I can help them! I speak their language! I know everything there is to know about them! I even lived with them! I slept with them!"

"Ew..." Aria said, wrinkling her nose. I blushed bright red.

"Well, you know what I mean," I muttered. "I would be a wonderful penguin psychologist."

"Yes, of course you would," Steve soothed. I glared at him, still angry. He planted a big, sloppy kiss on my face. Drat. How could I be angry when he did that?

"I'm still angry," I said. "At Aria, that is."

"Hey!" she protested. "That's not fair!"

"Yes, it is," I explained. "Steve's my husband. You're not. Therefore, I can still be angry at you. It all makes sense to me."

Groaning I let my head fall to my hands.

"Whatever! Lets just get out of here before-"

And thats when the sun rose...

"CRAP! EVERYBODY HIDE INSIDE MY HAT!"

"Wha? Ari-"

"No time!"

I shoved both Steve and Morgana inside, and then I dived in. My legs sticking out, I climbed a random tree and flipped the hat onto its back to remain safe. We where nestled quite nicely in an abandoned robins nest. No fear of falling out.

"Aria! Its huge here!"

"yea I know."

"YOU HAVE AN ARCADE?!"

"HEY NOT TOUCHEY STEVE!

"Look!" I said. " Even a Pac-Man! I thought all those vanished in the Apocalypse. And what are these? Hula hoops! It's like a museum of pop culture in here. Omigod! Look at the Sailer Moon room! It's like a shrine. Where did you get all those candles?"

Morgana grabbed my arm. "Steve, I'm scared."

I laughed. "Stop that! It's just our old friend Aria. She's entitled to a few quirks."

"But, Steve, inside this magic hat is like a Sam's Club warehouse filled with quirks."

"Yeah... it's a little excessive. Still... if you have a magic hat, why not use it? But I've got a question for Aria. Why did you never let us into your hat before now?"

Aria sputtered. "Uh... well... there just wasn't a real need. It's only now because it's an emergency. This hat is like my Special Place. It's where I can go when the world outside gets to be too much. Like when you and Morgana get so sickeningly mushy that my stomach churns and I want to hurl? Then I find inner peace inside my hat."

Morgana sighed. "Awwwwww, a Special Place. I wish I had a Special Place, Steve."

"Maybe one day you will."

"Oh, Steve, really? Your vague maybe is like an iron-clad guaranteed promise to me. I'm so thrilled! Yah, yah, Aria, I'm going to have a Special Place, too!"

Aria shrugged. "Yeah, but it won't be THE Special Place, will it? It will just be a copy of MY Special Place."

Morgana frowned. "Steeeeeeve! I want THE Special Place, not some old copy."

I wished I had my own Special Place to retreat to. "Okay, honey, I'll try to get THE Special Place for you."

Morgana stuck out her tongue at Aria. "Ha!"

Aria shook her head and silently mouthed, "You won't get it."

Steve fell asleep.

"I want my own Special Place," I whined again. "Steve, wake up!" I shoved his shoulder. He mumbled something. "What?"

"One more minute."

"No, wake up now," I ordered him. "I want a Special Place that's all my own and NOT A COPY." I stuck my tongue out at Aria again.

"*snort*What, honey?"

"What'd you do, forget everything we just talked about two seconds ago?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Well, remember," I said. "Now, what are you going to do about my Special Place?"

"I don't know..."

"It has to have lots of purple," I decided, musing it over. "And big stuffed penguins...and no sardines! Yep, no sardines. And one of those cute little jigsaw puzzles...but not the ones that say 2 years and up to complete-that sounds hard."

I was interrupted by a snort of laughter from Aria.

"Yes?" I asked sarcastically.

"Oh, nothing," Aria said, going off into another gale of laughter. Steve was also hard-put to suppress a few chuckles.

"Are you making fun of me?" I accused.

"No, not at all," the two connivers chorused.

"Uh-huh," I said skeptically. "It's 'cause I'm blonde, isn't it? You just don't think blondes are smart. Is that it?"

"Noo," Aria said, her voice patently too high. "That's not it..."

"Well, anyway, my Special Place would have..." I stopped, lost in thought. "Hmm...what would it have?

"I know!" I said, having an epiphany. "It would have Steve in it!" I gave him an adoring look. Aria winced in disgust.

"And I can't even escape anymore..." Aria bemoaned in the background. "They're IN my Special Place..."

HOURS...

FOR HOURS they had been making out...so...must...can't...escape can't.

"BOOKS SIR! BOOKS!"

I snapped my head up when I heard that. I got ahold of my magic kaleidoscope and saw the image of the penguin holding the book.

"STEVE! MORGANA! Quite making goo goo eyes and sloppy kisses! They found the books!"

Of course, that didn't catch their attentions. So I sneaked up behind them, bonked them on the head, and dragged them apart.

"SHHH! They're talking!"

"Sir, should we read this books? They have penguins on the cover!"

"Mmmm...so they do private! and reading is power..."

"yes" I whispered, "YES!"

The flippers reached for the books...they opened the books...they where reading the first sentence-

"NOBODY READ THOSE BOOKS!"

"WHAT?!"

A commodore penguin came waddling up and took away the books.

"You all know the rules! NOBODY is allowed to read a book if its not approved by Chibi Chibi! And he did not approve this!"

I looked through the scope again...and again...repeated their sentences again...and again...

"YOU..have got to be FREAKING KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!"

"Steve!" Aria shouted and bonked me in the head.

"What?!"

"They aren't reading the books! A boss penguin took them away and said Chibi Chibi had to approve all reading material!"

I pondered the turn of events. "Hmmm... Then somehow we have to make sure he approves them."

"Okayyyyy... how?"

"Somehow. Let's put on our thinking caps."

Morgana waved her hand. "But we're already inside a hat. Can you put on a hat if you're inside a hat?"

"Oh Geez," I said. "Are we going to have to digress to a big philosophical discussion about hats?"

Morgana pouted.

"I'm not angry," I said.

Aria handed us a couple of purple felt cones.

"What are these?" I said.

"Just put them on. They're thinking caps. I knew they would come in handy one day."

I looked around the interior of her hat. "You've got a lot of stuff in here, don't you?"

"Yeah, I need to get on ebay and get rid of a bunch of it. Put on your thinking cap."

"Oh WOW!" I screamed with the cap on my head. "My brain is in overdrive. It tingles!"

Morgana slipped hers on. "I have an idea! I have an idea!"

"What's your idea, Morgana?"

"We must trick Chibi Chibi into thinking this is a history of the world before humans came!" I declared, for once remembering my idea. It must have been the purple thinking cap. I love purple!

"Really..." Aria drawled, with a skeptical look.

"Hey, that could work!" Steve exclaimed, planting another big, sloppy kiss on my face.

"Steve!" I protested. "My lips are numb!"

"Sorry," he said, not looking a bit abashed.

"No more," Aria groaned.

"Okay, if we can convince Chibi Chibi that this is an old world history, then the penguins can read it, and we'll all be saved!" I exclaimed. "Now...who wants to go on the dangerous mission to convince Chibi Chibi!"

"One, two, three, not it!" Steve and I chorused. Aria glared at us.

"That is so not fair," she complained.

"Yes, it is!" I said gleefully. "Sorry, Aria...you're the one who gets to beard the penguin in his own den!"

"That makes no sense," she said. "Oh well." She sighed heavily. "I guess I'll go find Chibi Chibi."

"Have a good trip!" I chirped.

I laughed and went to the closet. They actually thought I was going it alone? I don't think so.

Putting on my penguin costume and make up, I waddled onto the platform.

"Say, Morgana, Steve? *sniffle* can't I have a hug before I go, alone, into enemy territory?"

Morgana snorted but relented, as did Steve.

"Manuever 7349au hat! NOW!"

Turning right side up, the head dumped us back into the ground-ALL of us with penguin costume and make up.

"What the-ARI-!"

I slapped on the penguin tape on Morgana and Steve before they could say anything else.

"Oh come now! You really thought I would go it alone?"

"Thats not very nice Aria! You are going to make Morgana cry!"

"Oh please! She cries over spilled milk."

"*sob* It was chocolate milk!"

I covered her mouth with my flippers and shushed her.

"We are penguins now! Act like penguins!"

I looked up to where my hat was and smiled.

"Meet us back here in EXACLTY 2 hours! unless I call you first!"

As the hat drifted slowly away over the hills, I surveyed the grim environment in which we found ourselves. The ravages of war were evident everywhere - blasted tree stumps, craters filled with stagnant water, the ruins of buildings. A smokey mist obscured the distance and I could smell gunpowder and sweat and things much worse.

"Whew!" I said. "It's hard to maintain cheerful optimism in a place like this."

"New Jersey?"

"No, on a battlefield with devastation everywhere."

Aria rubbed her hands (flippers) briskly together. "Yeah, yeah, let's go find those penguins."

"Will I get some more chocolate milk?" Morgana asked.

"Later! First, the war, then the milk. Okay?"

"But I want chocolate milk now," I pouted, sticking my bottom lip out. It trembled. Steve looked guilty, as only a penguin can.

"No," Aria insisted. "War first."

"I want chockwit milk," I said, starting to cry.

"Aria!" Steve said, glaring at her. "You made Morgana cry. All over chocolate milk. Don't you feel ashamed of yourself?"

"No," Aria said matter-of-factly. "I don't feel ashamed at all."

"I WANT CHOCKWIT MILK!" I screamed.

"Okay, okay, jeez," Aria said, tossing a carton at me. "Here you go."

"Thank you," I said sweetly, sucking it up with my beak. "Yum...chocolate milk."

Steve stroked my head with his flipper.

"Are you happy now?" Aria said sourly.

"Yep!" I smiled a big, happy penguin-smile. "Chocolate..." I drifted into happiness.

1...2...3...4....5...6....7.....8....9...10

Oh, just for today...just for today I think I'll not bonk her on the head.

After that little crisis was adverted, we sneaked behind some over turned cars, making sure no penguins spotted us. After a few minutes of our hide and seek game, I saw a captain penguin up ahead.

"Ok...we are going to go ask him where Chibi Chibi is."

"ARIA! Thats-"

"STEVE! HUSH! Look...don't say anything. just follow my lead, and everything will be ok. Well as ok as things will ever be I guess."

Steve and Morgana whimpered then entire 10 feet walk, but I kept my beak in the air.

"Sir, can you direct us to where our glorious leader resides?"

The captain turned around sharply, and eyed us carefully. His eyes where a mysterious blue mist on a cloudy day. His beak was set in a smug frown and his flippers where the size of our bodies.

"WHO wants to know?"?

"Privates Ginger, Ana, and Lock sir"

He nodded.

"Today his majesty resides in the west building down there, by the sardines."

I nodded, saluted him, and turned my back. No sooner did that happen that a flipper gently slapped me in the butt!

"Oh and when you are done Private...come see me in my personal tent."

I forced myself to turn around and wink. As the captain waddled away I held a hand over my stomach.

"Oh...I feel sick!"

"Sick or not," I said, "You have to do your duty."

"What duty?! I'm just pretending to be a penguin soldier!"

"Okay, don't get your feathers fluffed out of shape."

Morgana shrugged. "I thought he was good-looking, Aria, and he was an officer! You would get a 2-bedroom living quarters and an extra clothing allotment."

"I am NOT a penguin soldier! We're just pretending to be penguins!"

Morgana and I exchanged raised eyebrows. "If you say so, Aria."

Aria shook her head. "Moonbeam banana cream! You guys make it difficult to get anything done. Let's go to the West building and find Chibi Chibi."

I shrugged at Morgana. "Can I have my eyebrows back? Yours are too dainty. They don't fit my face right."

"Sorry," I shrugged, handing them back to him. "I can't help it that mine are dainty..." I smiled sappily up at him.

"Get a room," Aria coughed.

"Hey, you're about to be all lovey-dovey with a penguin soldier, remember?" I said. Aria blushed bright red. It was very odd to see a penguin blush.

"Onward and upward, we go to see the foe," Steve chanted. Aria stared at him.

"It's not very far," she pointed out. "And it's just Chibi-Chibi. Remember?"

"Oh...yeah..." Steve trailed off. "Whatever. Onward...and upward..."

"We go...to see the foe..." I joined in. Aria rolled her eyes and stuck her beak in the air.

"I am so not with them, I am so not with them," she said repeatedly under her breath.

However, I WAS with them, and that fact made my stomach churn more then anything.

Apart from them singing, the trip to Chibi Chibi's wasn't too exciting. A flying pg here and there, maybe a palr bear handing out fliers for an ant race, but thats its.

Finally we reached our destination. Saluting to the guards we entered the building.

It was not a very majestic palace. Penguins are horrible at cleaning. Flith littered everything. Even the diamonds and gold looked unappealing.

"Oh Steve! Steal that one for me! Pretty please?"

"Oh alright."

I slapped Steve's hand away.

"Are you MAD?! No stealing! Lets just go up to Chibi chibi and get him to approve the book!"

Morgana pouted and tears formed in her eyes.

"NO! BAD! BAD Morgana! BAD!"

I swatted her on the head-although this didn't seem to help at all.

I got out a roll of duct tape and wrapped Morgana up like a mummy. That seemed to help quite a bit. And now I could tickle her without her being able to do anything about it. I could even touch her yappies and she couldn't slap my hands away.

Aria slapped my hands away. "Would you stop getting off on your weird little duct tape bondage trip and get your mind focused on Chibi Chibi?"

"Sure," I said, regretfully dropping the bundled Morgana on the floor. "Mmmmmf!" she said.

"Hail, Chibi Chibi, the greatest penguin that ever lived, ruler of the glorious tribe of penguins and revered leader of the free peoples of the galaxy!"

Chibi Chibi nodded his head. "Yes? what does the lowly little insignificant human worm want?"

I bowed low to the floor. "Oh great Chibi, be it known that the human, Aria, has given your royal highness copies of a book written by our old wise woman, Morgana."

Chibi looked down at the duct-taped Morgana. "Her?"

"Yes, Chibi Chibi. She is divinely inspired with creative craziness so we had to bind her for her own safety."

"Remove the tape. I wish to hear what this woman has to say."

"First of all," I said, spitting out stray remnants of duct tape adhesive. "You are SO dead, Steve. How could you duct tape your own wife???"

"Er...sorry," Steve said, blushing.

"Now, what was the question?" I asked, blinking up at Chibi Chibi.

"He wants to hear about the book you wrote," Steve stage-whispered...loud enough that probably everyone there could hear it.

"I have transcribed the history of the world through my muses," I exclaimed grandiloquently. "It was hard work...I am fair exhausted...but I knew I could not stop-nay! never stop-until the quill had dropped from my trembling fingers and I could write no more..."

"I...see," Chibi Chibi said after a moment. "Okay..."

"Hand me the books."

I sighed. Maybe this plan would work. Maybe everything would be ok.

I handed him the books, one by one. He seemed calm, regal. Almost like the chibi chibi we lost so long ago.

I was handing the last of the books when I saw it. A strange gleam in his eyes. Hesitating I looked toward my left, and my eyes nearly bugged out.

Another throne was there, in orange, black, and white....and on the top, there was a name. The name of...Morgana?!

I caught Chibichibi's eyes, and he was looking at Morgana in a way Hades looked at the daughter of the harvest...

"OH MY GOD! STEVE! TAKE MORGANA AWAY!!!!!!" RUNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Huh? Wahzzat?" I said.

Aria was shouting at me in that shrill excited voice she gets when she's feeling shrilly excited. Was she telling us to run away? Zheesh! We just got here. I looked over at Morgana but she was staring at Chibi Chibi.

I waved my hand in front of Morgana's eyes. "Hey! Snap out of it! You look like a zombie. I think Aria wants us to say our good-byes now."

But Morgana just stared at Chibi Chibi. Chibi Chibi nodded his head in a wise knowing way and said, "Yes, I have chosen well. You will make a fine queen."

"Queen?" I said. "What's this all about? She's not all that qualified as a princess and you're talking a major promotion already? Something doesn't seem right here."

"Queen?" I asked, bewildered. "But I'm already married to Steve."

"A trifling matter," Chibi Chibi said dismissively, waving a wing. "He can be dealt with. You, however, Morgana, are a precious jewel, priceless beyond measure."

"I'm worthless?" I asked in outrage.

"That's not quite what that means," Chibi Chibi explained. He rolled his eyes.

"Steve, you gotta take Morgana away now," Aria shouted. "Hurry up!"

"Come on, Snookums," Steve said, pulling on my arm. "We need to go."

"Okay," I agreed, turning from Chibi Chibi and smiling at my husband. "Who wants to be with someone who says I'm worthless, right?"

"PRICELESS," Chibi Chibi shouted in exasperation. "PRICELESS. There's a difference."

"Whatever," I said, dismissing it. "Snookums..." I stared into Steve's eyes, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. I leaned forward and gave him a sloppy kiss.

"How sweet, cute, whatever, can we get out of here NOW?" Aria ruined the moment.

"Oh...yeah," I said after a second. "Run!"

And run we did...

Of course, it was hard for Steve to run, seeing that Morgana was wrapped around pretty tight-like a caterpillar. Soon he grew tired and tripped over his big penguin feet.

"Aria! We can't go on! Go! Save yourself!"

"I can't do that Steve!"

"NO! Its over for us! Save yourself!"

"No, I mean I can't do that cause they've blocked the exit."

And sure enough, dozens of penguin soldiers where there, making sure we did not escape.

"Oh, Steve...Aria, Morgana. Why must you make this so...DIFFICULT? Just hand over my future bride and everything will be well."

"but...but she's HUMAN! And your a penguin!"

"I am well aware of that fact, Steve! I'm not stupid."

Steve grumbled, but his old on Morgana didn't loosen.

"Now now, Chibi." I put my hands up gently, "Morgana and Steve are married-"

"AGAIN?!"

I sighed, "yes again. And they have a daughter! That and we really are enemies so-"

"Tlking over! guards! Seize the bride and throw those two in the brig!"

I sat in a cold dark penguin jail cell looking at Aria. "I wonder what they will do with Morgana?"

Aria shrugged. "If she's gonna be Chibi Chibi's queen then I imagine she'll get the royal treatment - full makeover, new gown, shampoo and hairstyle, jewelry, flowers, candy, a big soft chair to sit on, and a tiara for her head... or maybe even a crown. Probably a crown. I think tiara's are for princesses and queens get a crown."

"You're not helping," I said. "Well, I just can't stand the thought of that big ugly penguin rubbing his flippers all over my wife. We've got to DO something!"

"Let's think of a plan then."

"Yeah... a plan. That's what we need." I began thinking harder than I had ever thought in my life.

As Steve and Aria were dragged away, I glared at Chibi Chibi.

"You'll never get away with this!" I proclaimed grandly. "I don't want to be your queen! I want to be with Steve!"

"Too bad," Chibi Chibi sniffed. "You are perfect for me. Therefore, you are my queen. Deal with it."

"NO!" I wailed at the top of my lungs, shattering a nearby window. "I WANNA BE WITH MY SNOOKUMS!!"

"Jeez," Chibi Chibi held his flippers over his ears. "Okay, okay, I got it. And the answer is...no."

The shriek I made to this announcement made half of his feathers blow off.

"That's it!" he said, disgruntled. "Take her away to be pampered!"

"NO!" I cried. "I wanna be with Steve! Please, take me to Steve! Pleeeeease!"

But it was no use. They dragged me away.

"Can't you hear her cries Aria?*sob* They're torturing her!"

"Yea, with the royal treatment!"

This only helped to make Steve cry more. An hour passed-he was still crying. Then two hours, and three hours, and nother hour made four.

"THATS IT!"

I stood up and whistled as loudly as I could. The earth began to shake like a milkshake, and the ceilig started to rattle like a snake! Finally, from between the bars...MY HAT CAME TO THE RESCUE!

"Thats a good hat!"

I placed it on my head, and waited for the penguin suit to vanish. Flipping it to the other side, I jumped in adn motioned for Steve to do the same.

"Hurry up and get dressed! We have to come up with a plan to save your wife!"

"....Aria...WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT BEFORE?!"

"I think the better question is why didn't you REMIND ME! Jeez! Men!"

Secure in Aria's hat, she and I rode high over the compound so we could get a bird's-eye view.

"So this is what the birds see," I said.

"Look!" Aria said. "There's Chibi Chibi's palace and see that window on the 7th floor of that tower?"

"Yes! It's Morgana getting a royal makeover. Isn't that a beautiful gown?"

"Stunning. ... Morgana!"

Morgana waved out the window at us. "Save me! Save me!"

"We will!" I yelled back. "Later tonight when it gets dark come to your window and we'll cruise by in the hat and grab you."

"Why not now? Do it now!"

"No. You are in a unique position to spy on Chibi Chibi. Learn all you can until you are rescued tonight. For the cause!"

Morgana snapped to attention and saluted. "Alright then. For the cause! But what if I like being a queen? Aren't you concerned I'll leave you?"

"Leave me? Hahahahaha! Who would ever leave me? Haha! Thanks for making us laugh and easing the tension. Don't forget now. Tonight! Be at the window."

I stuck my tongue out at Steve. It would serve him right if I did leave him for Chibi Chibi, I thought, smoothing my hand down the front of my gown. But there was no way I could. How on earth could I leave my snuggly-wuggly Snookums? I couldn't. I sighed deeply.

Chibi Chibi was waiting for me as I returned, arrayed like a queen. Mentally, I grimaced. Like, yuck. He had absolutely no fashion sense whatsoever. Didn't he know that purple was the color of the divine? Clearly not.

While I waited, Chibi Chibi went over all his plans in the foreseeable future. I listened closely. A few penguin officers expressed concern, but Chibi Chibi dismissed their worries by saying that I was his queen. I ground my teeth in frustration. When would night come?

Chibi Chibi locked me up in the tower. Yes! I thought. But then he wanted to stay and talk to me. Oh shoot, I groaned.

"You're such a beautiful girl," he babbled. I think he was a little drunk.

"And married," I added under my breath.

"And so smart..."

"And married."

"And such an amazing writer..."

"And married."

"Did you say something dear?"

"Oh, no, not at all," I said brightly. "I'm just sitting here hanging on to your every word!"

"Ah good! She's pretending to hang on his EVERY WORD! Good girl, good girl!"

"Aria?! What if she leaves me for him?! I can't-I can't-"

Steve went on another littl freak out session. I let him. I kept an eye on Morgana who was being cuddled by Chibi Chibi...and she did seem to be enjoying it a little...

"Did you just say she was enjoying it?!"

"I said nothing!"

"I heard you!"

"...oops..."

" OH...oh God! MORGANA!!!!!!!!!"

I clapped my hands over Steve's mouth.

"SHH! She just thinks of him as ...a brother! A poor midguided brother!"

*sniffle* Really Aria?"

"Yes really! Now shhhhh!

"I can't look," I said and went off to work on my crossword puzzle until the evening came. Finally, although it seemed rather quick what with all the difficulties figuring out 9 down and 12 across, the evening came and we swooped in close to the palace window in our magical motor hat.

"Where is she?" I whispered.

Aria bit her lip. "I don't know."

"This is the 7th floor window, right? She's supposed to be here for her rescue."

"Yes, yes, but... Steve, do you suppose she decided to leave you?"

"Nooooooooooooooo....."

"Aria! Don't tell him such lies!"

"Morgana! What took you so-"

"Quick let me in! I only said I need to powder my nose!"

I turned the hat into the landing position and in came Morgana, in a-not so beautiful dress, weird make up and smelling os sardines.

"Oh baby! I knew you wouldn't leave me and our daughter, and humanity, and our old randsanked building with rats, and a life of misery and-"

"Steve....too much."

"Oh Sorry darling."

"Yea, whatever, kiss don't care what you do just be quiet! I'm abuot to disguise us as invisible air! We should be able to spy on Chibi Chibi like that. "

"I am NOT going back in there! He's gross! And Lewd! And not very smart!"

"Oh don't be such a baby! He won't even know you're there!"

"First I need to take a shower and change clothes," Morgana said.

"You sure do," I said, "and I'll take one with you."

Aria rolled her eyes.

"What?!" I said. "I can do that. We're married. I've seen her naked a thousand times."

"I know you can do it. I'm just impatient to get on to spying on Chibi Chibi in our invisible air suits."

"You're really getting into this Bond/Moon thing,aren't you?"

"Bond/Moon?"

"James Bond and Sailor Moon?"

"Oh. Sure. I hear the water running. Can you make it a quick shower?"

"Sure! Morgaaaaaaanaaaaaa! Here I come! Get that scrub brush ready!"

"Okay!" I sang out. I was very happy to be back with Steve again, however odd he might be, although I didn't want to spy on Chibi Chibi again. With my luck, he would think I was flirting with him or something.

"Cannonball!" Steve clumsily crashed into me, sending me sprawling to the floor.

"You idiot," I grumbled in mock severity. "You're going to give me bruises."

He leered. I gave him a faceful of bubbles. Sputtering, Steve shoved me under the water.

"Enough of that hilarity!" Aria cried peevishly. "Hurry up!"

"She's just jealous," I whispered to Steve.

"I'm not hearing them doing...no! NO I'M NOT!"

As I rocked back and forth, totally freaked out, a part of me paid attention to the sreen. Penguin guards where all around, but Chibi Chibi was nowhere to be see.

An hour passed, and Morgana was "still" getting cleaned. I had long tuned them out, my brain not being able to hold any more trauma. But I finally found Chibi Chibi, in his bed, mumbling.

For a while, I forgot he was a ruthless dictator-right now, he was just my Chibi. My penguin son...who still talked in his sleep...

"Morgana....*snort* lots of babies....*snort* superior...human-penguin babies..."

I held my hand to my mouth, and felt acid rise up.

"I did not hear that, did not hear that did not...........AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

My skin was pale and wrinkled from long soaking in H2O. "Morgana, dear, I think we've been doing this long enough." I reached to turn off the shower.

"No, Steve! One more time! I have to get the penguin oil off of me."

"Okay, okay, one more time. But then that's IT! We have to help Aria. Who knows what mischief she'll get into if we leave her out there on her own for very long?"

"She's not a child, Steve."

"That's why the mischief she can get into is so huge."

"But I like taking showers," I protested, giving Steve a winsome, dimpled smile. He was a total sucker for dimples. I used them frequently like heat-seeking guided missiles. "Especially with you, Steve..." I batted my eyelashes at him.

"Perhaps two more times," he allowed, his eyes crossing. I smiled in satisfaction.

A scream split the air. "AAAHHH!"

"Oh no," I groaned. "Aria!"

I started to leap out, but Steve stopped me.

"Uh, you might want to put some clothes on," he suggested. I looked down and turned bright red. Yeah. Definitely wouldn't want anyone but Steve to know how I shower with a sparkly fairy costume on. Complete with wings and tiara. Yeah, nobody else got to know that.

Finally freshly attired, Steve and I dashed out of the shower to find out what was wrong with Aria. She was rocking back and forth, her hands over her ears, whimpering.

"Penguin-human babies, penguin-human babies," she whimpered. "EW!!!"

I exchanged baffled looks with Steve. They collided in mid-air and fell to the ground, twitching in a puddle of confusion.

"What?" I asked blankly.

"Chibi chibi...you...penguin...human...babies"

"...."

"...."

"EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!Steve! Take that image out of my head, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!!!!!!"

Morgana started running around the room, arms flailing everywhere.

"morgana! Calm down! I can't clean your mind if you won't stay still!"

I watched them for a few minutes, seeing as Chibi Chibi wasn't talking anymore. Minutes however, turned to hours. Soon, I fell asleep.

At the break of dawn, I woke with start.

"SHOOT! Its morning!"

Steve and morgana where huddled in a corner, tired.

I took hold of the hat, and flew out the window-and then the scream erupted.

"MY WIFE IS GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I woke up with Aria shaking me. "Wake up, Steve. It's morning. I just got back from my morning hat ride."

Morgana rubbed her eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's morning. You know all the clocks melted last year. Don't you?"

"I forgot."

"Listen, you guys," Aria said. "Chibi Chibi is on the warpath because Steve stole his wife."

"She's MY wife, not HIS!" I said.

"Whatever. Anyway, he's hopping mad and if you ever saw a penguin hop then you know that's not a pretty sight."

"Well, we didn't come here to see pretty sights."

"Well, you're not going to see them."

"I don't WANT to see them."

"You sure are grumpy when you first wake up."

"Yeah, he is," I said fondly, patting his head. "And he's MINE and I'm not leaving for a psycho hopping penguin!"

"Calm down, Morgana," Aria soothed. "You won't have to. I have a plan."

"You do?" I said, squinting at her suspiciously. "What kind of plan?"

"The kind where Chibi Chibi leaves you alone," Aria said.

"I know!" Steve said. "It's the kind where you stand out there with an apple in your mouth and dance the hula."

"Uh, no," Aria said. "Steve, that's The Lion King."

"Oh," he said, looking embarrassed. "Sorry."

"So what's your plan?" I asked impatiently.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do..."

"We are going to get him to fall in love with someone else!"

"......."

"......."

"Who?"

"I don't care who! As long as its not me! Steve, you'll protect me won't you?"

"Of course honey muffin!"

"Yea, ok whatever! My idea is that, we get another penguin, or an object for him to fall madly in love with!"

"What about a stuffed penguin?"

"...a stuffed Penguin Morgana?"

"yes!

"....."

"...I think we should try it Aria!"

"You only say that cause she is your wife! "

"Damn straight she is!"

"Where will we get a stuiffed Morgana Penguin?" I asked.

"Yes, well that's the part of the plan that requires work and effort, isn't it?"

"Work and effort!" Morgana shrieked, then blushed. "Sorry. I thought you meant I was the one who had to do the work but then I remembered it was Aria's plan so I know she wants to do it. Don't you, Aria?"

Aria smiled. "I don't mind letting my friends do some of the work. That's what friends are for."

"No, no, no," I said. "I couldn't presume on our friendship like that. I know you're looking forward to enjoying this project and for me to take part of it away just because I am your friend... that just wouldn't be right."

"So we're decided then?" Morgana said. "Aria will find a Morgana Penguin doll and Steve and I will take a few more showers."

I frowned. "Uh... I don't think I can take any more showers, flower blossom, until I've had a nap."

"Okay! Then nappy time!"

"And then a shower!" I added. Steve quailed. Then he partridged a little, and finally he ptarmiganed.

"Nap time," I sang out once he had finished imitating small fowl. I snuggled against him, accidentally smothering him with my hair.

"Mmph," he said, spitting out several strands.

"Sorry, Snookums," I said apologetically. "Didn't mean to try to kill you."

"It's okay," he said, looking at me suspiciously.

"Don't worry," I tried to reassure him. "There's no way I want some psycho human-penguin thing going on. I like being with you..." I made big puppy-dog eyes at him and batted my eyelashes. He melted like a big quivering plateful of jello.

We went to sleep, him clutching me to him in a death grip. Clearly, he didn't want Chibi Chibi kidnapping me again.

"It's done!" Aria sang out, awakening us. I stretched and yawned, my mouth gaping indelicately wide.

"Wow," I said when I saw the finished creation.

It was indeed WOW!

The penguin looked quite real. It had even giving me quite a scare. The feathers shined, like all penguin feathers do. It smelled of sardines, the beak looked deadly, the flippers, useless. Perfect.

"Whoa....."

"Good, huh Steve?"

"Yea! how long did it take you?"

"I lost count."

"I want to touch it, and hug it, and kiss it and cuddle it and-"

I pushed Morgana off the penguin, and she gave me a puppy dog pout and scowl.

"This no for cuddly...this for reasearch...kay?"

I looked up at the two women from where I had been tinkering with the Morgana Penguin's feet. "You're going to like this. I added a few things."

I stepped back and thumbed the remote control. Morgana Penguin flapped its flippers and began to walk. It spoke in a mechanical voice: "I love you Chibi Chibi. I want to have your baby Chibi Chibi."

"That's perfect!" Morgana squealed. "It sounds just like me!"

Aria frowned. "No it doesn't, but maybe it will fool Chibi Chibi."

"It HAS to fool him," I said. "The fate of Mankind depends on it."

I nodded solemnly in agreement. Privately, I decided that if I couldn't cuddle the Morgana Penguin, I was going to cuddle Steve. I snuggled closer, stalking him like a killer penguin.

Gotcha! I said in my mind as I cuddled. He looked surprised, then wary, then accepting. Yay! I exulted, snuggling closer.

"Er...Morgana?" Steve asked carefully. "What are you doing?"

"Cuddling," I said truthfully. "If I can't cuddle the replica of me as a penguin...well...you're the next best thing."

"Gee, thanks," Steve said. "Second to a robot penguin..."

"You should be flattered," Aria said dryly. "Seeing how she loves penguins so much."

"Except Chibi Chibi," I interjected, shuddering. "He's a creepy evil penguin. He wants to take me away from my Snookums." I squeezed Steve harder.

"Um-Morgana," Aria started to say. "You're choking Snookums to death." I looked up. His face was turning blue.

"Oops," I blushed. "Sorry. I seem to have a habit of doing that, don't I?" I gave him a sloppy kiss in apology.

"Yes," he gurgled.

"So anyway," I said, turning to Aria. "When exactly do you send that thing out or whatever?"

"Right now!"

The floor of the hat started to quake something awful. On cue, I climbed up the strong palm tree's with Steve and Morgana close behind. The floor let go, and out went the penguin. When the floor came back up, I jumped down and put the screen on penguin mode.

Instanly, Chibi Chibi appeared, rounding a corner.

"Morgana!"

"Chibi chibi!"

"Oh, my dear, I thought they had stolen you!"

"I want to have your babies Chibi chibi!"

And then....and all out penguin make out session began...the horror...the horror...

I watched with fascination as Chibi Chibi ravished the Morgana Penguin doll. "Um... Aria? I hope you glued those feathers down really good. That doll is getting a workout."

Aria had her hands over her eyes. "Tell me when it's over. This is like Happy Feet on drugs."

Morgana hugged me. "Oh, Steve, why can't you be a real man like Chibi Chibi?"

I pushed her arms off. "Chibi Chibi is no man! He's a bird! How can you want me to be like a bird? I thought Doctor Shrinkhead said you were cured of your bird thing?"

"I am, Steve! No more bird love! It was just a temporary relapse. It's Aria's fault for having that video screen in here!"

Aria looked up. "Hey! You could cover your eyes like I did."

"Shhhh!" I said. "Chibi and the Morgana Penguin doll are going to relax and smoke a cigarette now. This is our chance to hear some more secrets."

"I don't know," I said dubiously. "I'm feeling kind of...happy." I looked at Steve meaningfully.

"You mean because Chibi Chibi isn't molesting you?" he asked, completely clueless. Aria whacked him on the back of his head. "Ow!" he complained. "What was that for?"

"For being dense," Aria and I chorused.

"I'm feeling...happy," I said, my voice heavy with significance and meaning. I cuddled next to him.

"Why?" he asked, still looking clueless. I hit him again.

"Steve..." I sighed. "You just don't get it, do you?"

"Nope!" he said cheerfully.

"Well, let's just listen to what Chibi Chibi's saying, then," I said, disgruntled.

"She wants you to snog her!"

"Snog? They've been instinct for-"

I turned red with anger, and pulled Steve close. I told him about the birds and the bee's and he quickly blushed and tried to excuse himself and Morgana.

"no way are you going to do....to do...THAT when we have this mission on our hands!"

"ARIA!"

"SHHHH!"

I leaned my ear to hear Chibi Chibi's word...

"....I can't believe it!...did you just hear him MOrgana?"

"YES! Did you hear him Steve? We may finally have a shot to win back the earth!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Chibi Chibi was more insane than I could ever have imagined. He wanted the penguin nation to open a chain of fast food restaurants featuring a sardine snack he had invented called a Chibish. It was a sardine on a stick, dipped in batter, then deep fried until it was a hot crispy delightful treat. My mouth began to water. Hmmm... it might actually work. I was no big fish fan and yet just hearing his impassioned description of a Chibish had me wanting one real bad.

I looked at Aria and Morgana. They were both drooling. "What is it about a Chibish," I asked, "that is so darn mouth watering?"

"I don't know," Morgana said, slurping up her loose drool with her tongue. "But I could sure use a Chibish right now."

"Me too!" Aria said and wiped the saliva off her chin with her hand. Then she licked her hand clean.

"Chibish...chibish..." I muttered, drooling on Steve. "Wait! I could make one myself!"

"Really?" Aria said eagerly. "How?"

I picked up a rock and turned it into a sardine.

"Well, here's the sardine, now we just have to dip it in batter and deep fry it!" I said triumphantly. Aria's face fell.

"How can we do THAT?" she asked. "We can't go into Chibi Chibi's kitchen! He'd imprison us!"

"Hmm." I pondered for a moment, drool still falling on Steve. But it was okay since he was drooling on me, too.

"I've got it!" I said, snapping my fingers. Then grimacing because I was still holding the sardine.

"What?" Aria and Steve said excitedly.

"Aria has an idea!" I said brightly. "Or Steve...er, anyone else but me!"

"Steve your up!"

"Why do I have to be up?"

"Because you have so far done nothing to help!"

Steve gasped and I could practically see steam coming out of his eyes.

"I help keep Morgana happy!"

"ok, ok, don't care! here is my plan, but Steve, you being the only one that is able to cook, you will need to carry it out."

Steve was much more calm now, as Morgana had started nibbling his ear lobe.

"ok...."

"Steve...I need you to make the most awesome, of all awesome food...something that will drive the penguins to us...and not Chibi chibi...got it?"

"Gee," I said. "I don't know, Aria... That Chibish sounds mighty hard to beat. I know right now I'd rather have a Chibish than a hot dog or a hamburger or even *gasp* a slice of Palermo's Grilled Chicken Caesar Thin Crust pizza."

Aria stamped her pretty little foot. (Okay, it's a size 11, but one day she might read this journal and I want to flatter her - oops, she might read that, too! - heheh, just kidding!) "Steve!" she said. "You've got to come up with a snack that's better than a Chibish!"

"Well I just CAN'T! I'm not that creative. And I am really hungry for a Chibish right now. Give me that sardine, Morgana. I'm gonna find a tin can and melt some grease and fry that sucker up."

Morgana jumped up and down. "My Steve! He's so bold! But what about the stick and the batter?"

"Oh yeah... the stick's no problem, but I need some flour. Run home and fetch that box of Aunt Jemima's pancake mix. That will make a good batter. Okay, baby? Hurry now!"

"Okay, Steve!" Morgana skipped away laughing and smiling and humming a little tune to herself.

Aria sadly shook her head. "Before she met you she was a nice normal sane person."

I waved to Morgana. She was way down the street but she had stopped and turned to wave and blow a kiss. I shouted "Hurry back with that pancake mix!" Then I turned to Aria. "She's not crazy. She's just in love."

I grabbed the pancake mix and ran back to hear Aria telling Steve, "No, she really IS crazy, Steve, she just hides it from you."

"Who?" I asked innocently, blinking long eyelashes at them. From the way Aria flushed and the way Steve grabbed me and planted a big kiss on my lips, it was clear they were talking about me.

"I'm not crazy!" I said, stuffing the straitjacket back behind me. "Really!"

"Yes, Morgana, of course you're not crazy," Aria said soothingly. She patted me on the head. I bit her. "OW!" she yelled, glaring at me.

"Well, you were being patronizing," Steve defended me. "She likes to bite."

"Yeah," Aria muttered, giving me a dark look. "Hey, is that why you're covered with bite marks, Steve?" she asked curiously.

I blushed.

"Er...isn't that private, Aria?" I asked, my cheeks bright red.

"Well...oh." She blushed. "Um, aren't you supposed to be making something, Steve?"

"Oh right! Pancakes!"

"SPECIAL pancakes!"

"....Aria, how long have I told you that those days are over! It was only once! Or twice! I thought it was a-"

I bopped Steve on the head and smiled.

"I meant special in a different way, not in a....you know way."

Steve blushed and Morgana looked at me oddly.

"In what way, Steve?"

"Oh, look at the time! Better get started!"

Steve ran into the kitchen, and I simple refused to answer any of Morgana's questions.

Hours passed, and yet, Steve had not come out. Sure, smoke poured out every once in a while, and ok, there was some fires here and there, but we had...somewhat...good...hope.

"Here they are! Yummers!"

"...Yummers? Can't you come up with a more interesting name?"

"Aria! SHUSH! I think its cute Steve!"

Morgana planted a wet, soppy kiss on him, and grabbed a pancake--which was shaped, like a lace witch. She took a bite...chewed...and chewed...and chewed...

"You forgot to slip your teeth in, dear," I said.

Morgana snapped her fingers, rummaged in her purse, and pulled out her false teeth. "Thanks for reminding me! I might have sat here chewing on those pancakes all morning!"

"They're not pancakes, they're Yummies. Pancakes don't have sardines in them."

"If they have sardines in them then why don't you call them Chibishes?"

I spoke slowly. "Because they don't have a stick in them. A Chibish is a deep-fried battered sardine on a stick. A Yummy is a pancake with sardine bits in them."

Aria's face turned green. "I don't find these Yummies all that yummy."

"That's because you're allergic to fish. Remember how you always throw up every time we sneak sushi into your lunch pail?"

Aria grabbed a slop bucket and heaved. "But why didn't you warn me?" she moaned.

Morgana thumped Aria on the head. "Whine! Whine! Whine!"

"Stop that!" Aria said and dumped the slop bucket on Morgana.

Morgana sidestepped just in time. She was a quick little thing when her life depended on it. Otherwise, just as slow as molasses. But sweet as honey. Although sticky like syrup.

"But the real point is this," I said. "Will Chibi Chibi's feathered friends find our Yummies to be Yummy? Can we use Aria's plan to lure them away from Chibi Chibi? Can we build a stable democracy in Penguinland and insure the free flow of penguin oil that we must have to protect our children's future?"

"What?" I asked blankly. "Too many questions...my head hurts."

"Never mind," Steve sighed, stuffing another Yummy in his mouth. "Just this: will it work?"

"Of course it will!" I said brightly, smiling at him. "Your plans always work!"

Aria snorted, still a faint green color.

"Yeah, right," she muttered. "His plans hardly ever work. Why, remember the time..."

"Aria?" Steve smiled sweetly and held up a Yummy. She turned green again and threw up.

"Steve," I said reprovingly. "That wasn't very nice."

He stuffed the Yummy in my mouth.

"Onward to victory!" he proclaimed.

After my stomach had been cleared of all the meals I had ever eaten, I turned to Steve and Morgana.

"Now, now...lets not get carried away. Again, someone will need to dress up like a penguin, begin an underground food service serving these....THINGS...and then, when they are popular, we will lure the penguins from Chibi chibi."

"Um...ok...I assume I will have to dress up like a-"

"NO! morgana, Chibi chibi still thinks you are with him. Its too much of a risk. Steve will have to do it."

"Me?!" Steve threw a yummy at me, which, bounced of my head. After a few seconds of fighting down vile, I bopped Steve.

"I will not serve such food! So you will have to do, or by a tap dancing duck, I will force you out into the moon!"

I knew when I had to do my duty. "Okay, where's that penguin suit? Back to the batmobile! Ewww... didn't anybody wash these penguin suits? Oh well..."

It was a dark stormy night when I slipped unnoticed into the lair of the penguins. I quietly took my place on the serving line in the cafeteria. I had stuffed 300 Yummers under my dress so that I looked like an ordinary fat cafeteria line server.

The first penguin to taste a Yummer squawked excitedly and told his buddy about it. It looked like the plan would work! When my dress had completely deflated from loss of Yummers, I pretended to go "on break" and slipped out the back door and made my way back to where Aria and Goth were anxiously waiting.

"Well, did it work?" I asked anxiously. Steve laughed like a maniac and nodded.

"Perfectly!" he cackled. "They ate 'em up like candy."

"Er...Steve, why do you sound like the wicked witch who ate children?" I asked. He shrugged. "Well, stop it. It's creepy."

"Okay," he said, sounding like his normal self. "Anyway, it worked. The penguins love the Yummers."

"So do you think this will stop Chibi Chibi?" Aria put in anxiously. Steve shrugged.

"Who knows?" he asked, then adopted a mysterious tone. "Only time can tell..."

"Screw time!"

"...ARIA! Such language!"

"Well, really! Time never tells us anything! Lousy, lazy good for nothing little son of a-"

"ARIA!"

"Fine fine fine! Look....by tomorrow the penguins will be begging for new yummers. It be as if a drug addict can't find his next fix. So they will revolt against chibi chibi and-"

"Will they go to war?"

"Hopefully! They can take Chibi Chibi down!"

Morgana got tears in her eyes and started to whimper.

"But....but he's still a penguin!"

"A bad penguin! And though I love him bad penguins need to be taught lessons!"

Morgona sniffled and nodded.

Steve went back to smiling like a maniac...and I went back to....not being back....

I got tired of practising my maniac smile and threw down the mirror.

"Don't break it!" Morgana yelled. "It will bring bad luck!"

"Oh, you mean like the destruction of civilization by a revolt of the penguins and a toxic psychedelic atmosphere? IT'S ALREADY HAPPENED!"

"You don't have to sound so bitter about it, Steve."

"I'm not bitter. I'm just listless, weary, and confused."

"Awwwww... Here. drink this."

"Mmmmm... what is it?"

"Lemonade, olive oil, and tobasco sauce."

"I think I've had enough. Did you bake a cake?"

Morgana and Aria stared at me. Blankly. As though they had no comprehension. So I repeated my question. "Did you bake a cake?"

"Why would I bake a cake?" I asked blankly with no comprehension. "Is it your birthday or something?"

"It's only our penguin anniversary!" Steve shouted, starting to sniffle. "And you FORGOT? How could you? I thought it was special!"

"Oh my goodness! Belly-flopping penguins!" I gasped. "I'm sorry, Steve. The Yummers and defeating Chibi Chibi distracted me!"

Steve started to cry, big tears rolling down his face. Sheesh, he was really upset. I patted his back, trying to comfort him. Finally, in desperation, I turned him and gave him a great big, sloppy, sticky kiss, right on the mouth. He staggered back, looking dazed.

"Do you forgive me?" I asked sweetly. He nodded, falling over backward. Little hearts floated around his head, interspersed with penguins.

"Now, we were talking about the overthrow of Chibi Chibi, I believe?" I asked Aria.

Alas, no avail. It was still too early in their make out session.

Sighing, I conjured up some cold water and splashed it on them. After they had recovered, we went back to the problem.

"Chibi chibi is no fool...he's cute, but he is no fool."

"he is very cute! Remember when we dressed him up as a sailor, and he drew the eye or every female(and some males)?"

"Ok morgana, not the point! Anyways...he'll want to know where these came from. So Steve, you'll have to tell him-"

"Why must I be the one to tell him the bad news?"

"because, you are the man. Deal with it!"

His lips quivered, and once again, he went on crying. Only this time, I slaped him upside the head, and he recovered quickly.

"Look Steve, Morgana can't go, cause chibi chibi is snogging the robot morgana. I can't go, cause, I'll go weak and hug him so.....be a man Steve!"

My lips started quivering. "Waaaaaaaaa! But I don't WANT to be a man! I want to be a bunny."

I started hopping around the room, twitching my tail, and looking very cute and funny. A funny bunny. "Look at me! Look at me!"

Aria kicked me so hard I curled up into a soccer ball and sailed out the front door.

"Goal!" Aria shouted and Morgana jumped up and down cheering, "Yaayyyy!"

I hopped around to the garden hose, snatched it up in my bunny teeth, manipulated the faucet with my bunny feet until I had a powerful stream going, then hopped in the window and soaked those bad girls good. Screams and wet T-shirts. It gave me a Spring Break flashback and I was suddenly woozy from the mental overload.

"Hey, get out of that flashback!" I yelled, shaking Steve's little bunny face.

Unfortunately, I shoved his face into the front of my wet shirt. Oops. That was unfortunate. Particularly since he decided to stop being a bunny in that moment.

"Okay, outta there!" I glared at him. He looked guilty.

"ANYWAY," Aria said, glaring at him also as she tried to wring the water out of her shirt. "Steve, you have to do it."

"Wait," I interrupted her. "What's snogging?"

"What you and Steve do all the time," Aria said.

"Ewwww," I wrinkled my nose. "Penguin...robot human...nasty."

"Yes, it is," Aria agreed. "Now, could you somehow persuade Steve to go face Chibi Chibi?"

"I don't know..." I looked at him. He was now rocking back and forth, sucking his thumb. "This might be more difficult than we thought..."

".....We have no choice, Morgana....."

"....But...but no! Thats for desperate measures, Aria!"

I grabed the black box from above the shelf. The time had come.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Morgana."

Morgana chewed on her lower lip, depserately looking for a way out.

"He'll be traumatized!"

"Hush Child!"

Deep calming breaths....I looked at Steve who was looking at us with a bunny in the headlights routine.

"Steve....we need to convinced you....you left us no choice!"

*hop hop hop*

A black box will convince me? I sniffed at the box. Twiggled my ears at it. Hopped on top of it. There was a little tune playing. Hey, I recognize that song!

All around the mulberry patch
The monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought it was all in fun, but
POP! goes the weasel.

I fell over gasping for breath. "My heart! My heart! Call 9-1-1!"

"I told you it was a bad idea!" I screamed at Aria. "Look what you DID! Steve! Steve! Speak to me!"

He mumbled something, his nose twitching.

I started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. His whiskers twitched.

"Um, Morgana? Morgana? Morgana!" Aria finally yelled. "You don't have to do that...he's breathing on his own just fine."

"Oh." I blushed. I looked down. Steve looked back, breathing normally. "You were just faking, weren't you?"

He flushed.

"No!" he squeaked in a little rabbit voice. "I'm dying! Dyiiiiiinnnnngggg!" He flung a little rabbit paw flamboyantly over his face. I glared at him.

"You are not, get up," I said. "You have to do this, whether you like it or not."

"I don't want to," he whined, making appealling rabbit eyes at me. I almost capitulated.

"No, Morgana!" Aria cried. "Don't give in! Be strong!"

OH, she was falling and fast!

So I did what I had to do. I put a blindfold on her, kicked Steve and all his supplies out into the penguin world, and used my secret weapon.

"Steve! When you get back, Morgana will do that thing you like!"

"SHE WILL? HONEST AND TRUE?!"

"WHAT?! I WILL-"

I quickly put tape over her mouth and nodded frantically.

"YEA! SHE'LL DO IT! I Swear she will!"

"....WELL ALRIGHT!"

I heard him as he doned on his penguin suit, all the while humming a cheerful tune.

"Whistle while you work... whistle while you work..." Suddenly I stopped humming. Shouldn't I be whistling? I trembled with indecision, then sloshed down a big cup of cofee, squared my shoulders, and marched out to meet my fate.

Apparently my fate was late for the appointment. I found myself in a huge white space. Snow? But it wan't cold, just a vast enveloping whiteness. It was soft like a fog. Nothingness? I had always thought of nothingness as black, but I realized that couldn't be true. It was emptiness that was black, like space. Emptiness was black because there wasn't anything in it, not even nothingness. But nothingness would be a condition of space filled to the brim so that no thing could exist and so nothingness would be white.

Suddenly I saw stars because Aria kicked me in the head. "Hey! Why did you do that?"

Aria stuck her head down through the whiteness of nothingness. "Geez, Louise! Can't you get even the simplest task done without going off into some freaky trance?"

"It's not a simple task!" I protested. "Saving the world? Overthrowing the penguin regime? These are simple things?"

"Oh, for Pete's sake! Just do your assignment and report back! And remember, Morgana is going to do that thing you like..."

"I want to hear HER say that!"

I ripped the tape off my mouth.

"Don't go, Steve, don't--mmmph," Aria slapped her hand over my mouth and glared at me. Say what you're supposed to say, she mouthed. Or ELSE. Then she took her hand away.

"I'll do that thing you like!" I promised. Fright gleamed in my eyes whenever I looked at Aria.

"Come here first," I told Steve. I planted a big kiss on his beak. His eyes crossed and he waved his flippers wildly, nearly falling over.

"Oops," I said contritely. "I think I kissed you too hard."

"No, no," he managed to squawk. "It was great!" He sadly waddled away.

"No, don't go!" I tried to say, tears spilling from my eyes, but Aria clamped a hand over my mouth again, preventing me from talking. I watched him waddle out of sight.

"I want to go after him," I said with determination. "And you can't stop me!"

My hand was COVERED in saliva and it was not a nice feeling, let me tell you.

"Morgana, honestly, what part of you are with Chibi Chibi and if he recgonizes you all will fall apart and the human race will forever be slaves to clowns on clouds riding unicorn horns and jams?"

"But....*sniffle*"

I sighed and gently pated her head with my saliva free hand.

"Now now, Steve might seem more girly then manly on the field, but he's tough! He won't let no one no how push him around!"

"But Aria!" Morgana whined and sat across the room, eyes rolling," He let that first grader kick him around for an entire year!"

"Yea....well....um...." I stopped and really thought about this situation. I really was the only one who could control the hat...so I had to stay. Morgana couldn't go...Steve was the only choice...

"Damn it...I knew we should have made our little trio into a trio with a sidekick on the side"

I waddled off across the snow, wondering what I was supposed to be doing. Snow? I stopped and looked at the white stuff under my feet. Snow? Was there snow before? And why did I have flippers? OMIGOD! I was a penguin! How did THAT happen?

Off in the distance I could see banners flying and I could hear faint sounds of squawking. My village! I hastily waddled over the top of the hill and down the other side. Home at last!

One of my beautiful penguin buddies waddled up. "Who are you stranger? Do you have authorization to enter the camp of the Glorious Penguin Nation?"

"Glory Hallelujah!" I shouted and snapped off a smart Heil, Hitler! salute.

My new penguin buddy sadly shook his head. "You're an escapee from one of the humans' POW camps, aren't you? Captivity among the humans has driven you insane. You came to the right place. Here you will receive the latest treatment and soon you will be normal again."

"I will?" I said. "That sounds like fun."

"It is fun! Lots of ice water baths and raw sardines - almost like being on a vacation. But first I will take you to meet Our Glorious Leader, Chibi-Chibi, the Incredible One, for he loves each and every penguin and wants only the best for them."

My heart swelled with pride and began pounding furiously. "Take me to Our Leader!" I said.

"I have to go after him," I said firmly. "I have a bad feeling in my stomach."

"That's just 'cause you ate too much," Aria said, rolling her eyes.

"No, it isn't," I insisted. "C'mon, I must help Steve!"

"Fiiiiiiiiine," Aria said. "But you're disguising yourself. I will not have Chibi Chibi find out it's you. And when you get caught, as you definitely will, don't say I didn't warn you!"

"I must save Stevie Whevie," I said stubbornly.

"Okay," Aria said. "I give up!"

She stuffed me into a penguin suit, after disguising me as a celebrity supermodel. Hopefully, Chibi Chibi wouldn't realize it was me. Of course, I already looked like a celebrity supermodel, so Aria had quite a job on her hands.

"There," Aria said an interminable time later. "That's the best I can do."

Morgana didn't even wave goodbye.

POOF! Off she fell from the hat and I was left alone to my own devices...

Now, normally I would throw a huge party or sleep. But seeing as I was pretty sure I had to rescue Steve and morgana at some point, sleep was out, and all of my friends where either out fighting for humanity, or so insane that they believe they are but rocks in a swamp....

hours went by....still no news. I had talked to everything in the hat and I was ver nearly going out there when Steve came waddling in.

"ARIA! ARIA!"

"What?"

He sniffled and cried, " Morgana got confused for a model and now *sniffle* she's singing for the penguin troops and*sniffle* she'll want another divorce and *sniffle*-"

"Oh for the- She'll be fine! Let her live her little fantasy, and she'll come back, all sweet, and with sloopy kisses like always!"

"But what are we going to do in the meantime?" I said.

Aria looked at me for a moment. "Do you know how to play Gin Rummy?"

"The card game?"

"Yes, the card game."

"I guess so... but I don't think I'd want to play it 24 hours a day."

Aria sighed. "Read a book. Cook a meal. Watch Scrubs. Take a walk. Write a letter..."

"Okay, okay!" I said. "I'll find ways to occupy my time. What about Morgana? Are you sure she can find her own way back?"

"Of course! She was a girl scout. She told me once her troop was lost in the wilderness and she led them back to civilization."

"Wow! She must be a lot smarter than she looks!"

Aria nodded her head. "I know what you mean."

I wrinkled my nose. Somewhere, somehow, Aria and Steve were insulting me. Just because I was a mildly ditzy, penguin-obsessed, bondage-loving blonde...they just didn't understand.

"Encore! Encore!" the penguin troops cried.

"I can't," I squawked. "I have to go."

"But..." they protested in unison. My ears sighed in bliss at the lovely penguin voices.

"I have to go," I insisted. "You know, defeat the humans, rah, rah, go me?"

They sighed but reluctantly acquiesced. I waddled away, careful to hide my flippery tracks.

"Hmm..." I said several minutes later, looking around, confused. I was now totally lost. "Now where was that hat again?"

Maybe laying out a trail of sardines hadn't been such a good idea after all.

Hour Three--no Morgana.

hour 5. No Morgana.

hour 9-still no.

hour 15-no

hour 20-no

hour 24------------------STILL NO MORGANA!

"ok, its obvious she's not as smart as we thought she was so-"

"OH GOD I KNEW IT! She ran off with another! WAAAAAHHHHH!"

"Snap out of it man! Be you penguin or human?"

Steve sniffled, "Which one is allowed to cry like a 3 year old?"

"FINE BE A PENGUIN!"

I shook my head and headed towards the main computer in the lobby.

"Larz, can you please tell me the location of morgana?"

It beeped and whirled, and twittered to life. Within seconds I saw and imagine of Morgana on screen.

"What the-? OH MAN! MORGANA!"

I stared in horror at the image on the computer screen. "Wha- wha- what happened to Morgana?"

Aria shook her head sadly. "Apparently she's gone over to the Dark Side."

"Oh no!" I gasped. "Is that why she is-"

"Yes, you don't think she would be wearing those and doing that, do you, if she wasn't in the grip of The Thing With No Name?"

"What is The Thing With No Name?"

Aria frowned. "How can I tell you if it doesn't have a name?"

"But isn't that it's name?"

"Isn't what it's name?"

"The Thing With No Name - that's The Thing With No Name's name, right?"

"Maybe... technically... in a manner of speaking... Oh no!"

"What?!"

"Look at the computer screen! Look at what Morgana is doing NOW!!!"

I gasped so hard my throat hurt. "Is that the kind of thing they do on the Dark Side?"

Aria shuddered. "That's way beyond the Dark Side. That's over in the Even Darker Side where no one EVER goes."

I began to cry. "Will Morgana get in trouble?"

"Big trouble. Look! Morgana is waving at us from the computer screen..."

"Bunnies!" I sang cheerfully. "I found bunnies!" The fuzzy little creatures capered around my penguiny feet, chortling up at me.

"Do you know how I can get home?" I asked the fuzzy wuzzy bunnies. They shook their heads, long ears flopping around.

I looked around one last time, enjoying the cute fuzziness of the bunnies.

"Well, I need to go find home now," I finally squawked in regret. Instantly, the bunnies surrounded me, their eyes glowing red, their little teethie wheethies lengthening into fangie whangies.

"You can't leave," a bunny hissed evilly. "We won't let you leave."

"AAAAHHHH!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs, waddling away as fast as I could. "HELP!"

"Quick! GET THE ANTI BUNNY SUIT!"

Steve huffed and puffed

"About time you did something!"

"SHHHH! DO as I say boy!"

Lickety split we where in the suits--huge wolf suits.

"Ok, now hand me the gel."

"..............huh...wha?"

"Hand me the gel for the horns!"

"Aria what-"

"HUSH CHILD!"

Steve grabed the gel and handed it to me.

I squeezed out a good amount and poured it over his head, forming two HUGE horns of hard as steel horns.

"Ok! We are ready!"

I leaped out the door of the giant hat and fell face first into the snow. What? Snow again? "Where does all the snow come from, Aria?"

"Hush," she said. "I don't have time to give you a weather report. We've got some bunny stomping to do."

"Oh boy! Bunny stomping!"

"Hush! Do you want to alert every evil being within 10 miles of us that we're here?"

"No. Sorry. I like my horns, Aria. Thank you."

Aria glanced at my horns. "It's no big deal. I bought a case of that gel on a home shopping channel."

"Is that where you got the anti-bunny suits?"

"No. My Uncle Rufus sells these on eBay. It's made from the actual skin of a werewolf."

"Wow! Your Uncle Rufus must be one weird dude."

"In my family he's considered the normal one."

I scanned the horizon. "Look! Over there! Is that Morgana being molested by a flock of bunnies?"

"HEEEEEELP!" I squawked at the top of my lungs. "I'M BEING MOLESTED BY A FLOCK OF BUNNIES!!!" I paused a moment to reflect. "OR WHATEVER A BLOODTHIRSTY MOB OF BUNNIES ARE CALLED!"

"Morgana, hang on!" I heard. "We're coming!"

"Stevie Whevie?" I asked hopefully. Almost absentmindedly, I kicked a slavering, evil-eyed bunny away. "Save me, Stevie!"

"I'm with him, too, you know," Aria grumbled. "Not just him..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," I said. "STEVIE WHEVIE!"

"Sheesh," Aria said. "We're coming, don't worry!"

"How can I hold them off?" I asked in worry. "They're multiplying!"

"Really?" Aria asked, looking interested. "I didn't know bunnies had the requisite math skills..."

"There are MORE of them, is what I meant!" I said, glaring at her. She blushed.

"Oh."

"Now hurry up!" I squeaked. "They're chanting!"

"QUICK!"

I dropped down on Gothie.

"Ow...Gothie you don't make a good pillow...."

"OWIE! thats gonna bruise!"

I sighed, but quickly, I regained my footing. These where no bunny rabbits...well, they where, but not the good kind. No, these where penguin corrupted rabbits. The worst kind there is.

"ARRRRIAAAAAAAAA! They're chanting! DO SOMETHING!"

"Alright, alright...you and me, we are going to have to recite the most secret, and most dangerous chant ever!"

Gothie went pale, and Steve started shouting...but I knew we didn't have any choice...

"But...but...ARIA! Thats dangerous!"

"Damn it, we've no choice!"

I turned a whiter shade of pale. My knees trembled and my ears went limp. I was totally discombobulated. "Not the East Portland Junior High School Band chant?" I whispered.

"YES!" Aria shouted, her eyes gleaming with maliciousness. "BWAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"You didn't have to add the Bwahaha," Morgana said. "We get it. It's evil. It's dangerous. It's over the top."

Aria glared at Morgana and emitted an even louder "BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA!"

Morgana folded her arms, harumphed, and looked away.

I lay down on the ground and began sobbing quietly. I wanted the world to stop, but I knew that wasn't possible. My awful fate would play out to the end. I was trapped in a world I didn't asked to be born into, forced to dance to a song I didn't request.

"It's okay, Steve," I soothed, patting his back, looking around nervously. Aria continued the maniacal laughter, making it rather hard to calm him down. Especially when he started whimpering like a small child and chanting, "No, save me," under his breath.

"Aria! Stop that!" I snapped. "You're frightening my Stevie Whevie!"

She rolled her eyes at me, but finally stopped. However, her eyes didn't, they just kept rolling...and rolling...and rolling...

"Stop that, too!" I cried out in a panic. "Now, start chanting so we can drive away the evil bunnies!"

"Fine," Aria grumbled. "And a-one, a-two, a-one-two-three..."

"Quick! We must chant the alphabet! Or else all is doomed and I don't want it to all be doomed! I have too much to live for and I think I FINALLY figured out how to ride a bike without falling off!"

Morgana was, by now sniffling, Steve was outright bawling, and the rabbits even seemed a bit distressed by my rant--enough for them to stop chanting.

"QUICK! NOW IS OUR TIME! SING, DAMN YOU! SIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I ws paralyzed with fright. Quickly I sketched out in my mind what could happen next. It went like this...

Steve stood up with tears in his eyes and looked up to the skies and began singing:
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored...

Gothie clasped her hand over her heart. "My Stevie! Oh he is so inspiring! Don't you think so, Aria?"

Aria shrugged. "Sure. Right. Inspiration."

On the hills the bunnies gathered, thousands of them. Their red eyes glowed like little bits of Hell. They watched and waited. The only sound in the valley was the clear trembling tenor of Steve's heartfelt hymn.

Snow began to fall. The gentle flakes drifted down

Gothie said, "Ooooh, snow! We can build a snowman!"

Soon Gothie and Aria were giggling and throwing snowballs at each other, completely ignoring Steve, who kept singing his mournful, but inspiring, song.

The bunnies shuffled their feet impatiently. One of them whispered "When do we charge them and rip them into bloody chunks of flesh? This waiting is really boring."

"Shhhh!" said the a bunny up the line. "I want to hear the words to that song."

I looked at Steve, a bit confuzzled. Why was Steve referring to me as Gothie in his head? Had my name changed?

Eh, no matter, I decided, throwing a snowball at him and hitting him in the middle of his back. It helped him hit the high note at the end, I thought as his voice cracked into a high falsetto on the word "amen."

The note was so high, in fact, that the bunnies fell over unconscious, bleeding from their bunny-pink ears.

"You did it!" I exclaimed in delight, running over to Steve and planting sloppy kisses all over his face. "You saved me from the evil bunnies! You're my HERO!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Aria grumbled, dusting snow off her slavering wolf suit. "It's not like I did anything..."

I looked over at her.

"Did you say something?"

...1.....2....4....10!

I whacked Morgana and Steve. Oh happy days.

"Ok ok ok! We got rid of the bunnies! Now rememeber, we have to reach Chibi chibi! Again...and Morgana, you may just have to play the part of a penguin concubine...again"

Morgana pouted,

"But...but....I DON'T WANT TO BE A PENGUINS CONCUBINE!"

Steve smiled "What about a regular concubine?"

"Well...they do get excellent healthcare...."

I frowned and looked up at the sky. It was gonna be raining strawberries pretty soon. It be best to find high groun...that or whip cream.

"Look, if we get to him ok, nobody will be forced to be a concubine or whatever. Still! The plan remains! We shall go to the castle, face down chibi chibi, and hug him until he is good again!"

Steve looked at me, eyes wide and pulsing.

"And if that doesn't work?"

"....Then we pray, Steve. We pray...."

Morgana nodded, arms wrapping around Steve.

"....*sigh* You guys are gonna get married again, aren't you?"

I began to think we were going to do EVERYTHING again. Was that wise? I din't know. We had forgotten to bring the Three Wise Men with us - Meshack, Youshack, and Ibendigo. Although I still had that carefully wrapped piece of Myrrh I saved from Christmas.

I looked at Morgana and Aria. Sometimes they were almost like twins, as alike as two peas in a pod. Other times they were totally different, like asparagus and strawberries. It occurred to me that I might be slowly going insane.

Meanwhile the rain of strwberries continued unabated and I realized it was going to take more than whipped cream to get us out of this mess. I was realizing a lot of things and doing it without the help of the Three Wise Men. I felt kind of proud of myself.

"Let's have a little party," I said.

"What kind of party?" Morgana asked.

"Oh just a little Steve Is Cool kind of party where we eat chips and dip and drink carbonated beverages and tell jokes and dance. Wouldn't you like that?"

"I'd like it more if strawberries didn't keep bonking me on the head."

I gave her my umbrella. "Here. You need this more than I do."

She gave it back. "No I don't."

Aria pointed at a nearby garage door that was open. "We could go in there and get out of the strawberry rain."

"Good idea," I said, "and it's the perfect place for a party."

"But what if the people who live there hear us?" Morgana said.

Aria grabbed my arm. "This party isn't going to interfere with our Chibi Chibi mission, is it?"

My ever anxious Aria! I always have to reassure her. "No, no, the party is not going to interfere with whatever that was you said."