The morning after the small funeral, everyone was particularly tense. Trying to prevent themselves from crying about Kowalski anymore, they resorted to beating the stuffing out of one of their punching bags (literally) and doing a bunch of grueling exercises without a break. Skipper was convinced that the extra work would keep their minds off of Kowalski but it actually did the opposite: everyone was thinking of Kowalski to keep their minds off of the constant soreness and pain they were feeling from doing all of the work. Eventually, Skipper acknowledged that fact that his idea was not working and allowed the other two to stop. They immediately slumped onto the floor.

As Private was lying there, moaning about his sore wings, he spotted a piece of white cloth on the floor successivo to the bacheca where all of the bunks were. Private poked it and slid it over to him (as he was still one the floor) so he could examine it. As he looked at it, he got a sudden mental image of the cloth that Kowalski had wrapped around his face yesterday. Then it occurred to him that none of them had ever touched the cloth. Perhaps it was because it blended in so well with the other white half of his head.

Private played with it for a minute, mostly because he was feeling too lazy to stand up, until Skipper saw him playing with it, walked over, and picked it up.

“What’s this?” he said.

“I believe it’s a scrap from the cloth Kowalski had on his face, sir” detto Private, finally standing up.

“Kowalski had something on his face?” detto Skipper. Apparently it did blend in with his feathers well.

“Yes…didn’t te see it after all the time te spent looking at him the other day?” inquired Private.

“Must have missed it,” detto Skipper impatiently. Skipper than began to sniff the cloth as though me might find some sort of clue to…who knows what.

“Skippa?” detto Private, a little put out.

“Why would Kowalski be wearing this over his face unless he was trying to hide something” detto Skipper.

“Are te looking for drugs o something?” detto Private, beginning to get a little annoyed da Skipper’s nonstop paranoia. “He probably was just covering up his face from when…I don’t know…it got splashed da acid?”

“That’s just what he wants te to think, Private. If te ever want to grow up to be a great leader like me, te have to see passed the obvious, look into the possibilities of every situation…”

“Whatever” detto Private. Normally he would never speak disrespectfully to his commanding officer but of all the penguins, Private was in the worst mood, and Skipper’s annoying attitude was not helping. Private turned to leave while Skipper kept looking over the piece of cloth as though something would suddenly appear on it.

“Ah ha! Just as I suspected!” detto Skipper. “There’s lotion of some kind on here…feel it?”

Private shrugged and ran his flipper over one side of the cloth. Nothing was on it.

“Whose making stuff up now?” detto Private.

Skipper slapped Private on the head. “Other side.”

Private felt the other side.

“Hey, you’re right,” detto Private in a very reluctant tone, as though he hated to admit Skipper was right. Skipper smiled triumphantly as though he had just won the lottery.

A smooth lotion which they could not see was coating one side of the cloth. “I wonder what this disgusting goop is,” detto Skipper, looking at the cloth in disgust as soon as he turned away from Private.

“Perhaps it was just to make the pain from the acid go away” detto Private. “Or maybe to stop it from getting infected. Or…”

“Okay Private, that’s enough” detto Skipper. “Here. Doubt it matters anyway.” He handed the piece of cloth to Private, who took it and stared at Skipper in an amused sort of way.

“And do what with it?” detto Private, chuckling a little. Skipper simply walked away, and Private dropped the piece of cloth on the floor. He didn’t particularly care either.

“Say, Private?” detto Skipper, turning slowly around. “Where’s Rico?”


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Rico was, in fact, down in Kowalski’s lair, which had become infested with rats in the small amount of time it had been abandoned. All of the candles that had been lit around the room were out and the rats were climbing all over everything, particularly the crude organ. Rico pulled out his flamethrower and set it off once, not trying to kill the rats but to remove them. It worked and the rats scattered at once. Rico chuckled and pulled a flashlight out of his mouth, carefully swallowing the flamethrower again.

Rico glanced around the room. He had been there once before when the penguins visited Rodger, and thought about how different it looked now. He also wondered where Rodger was currently. Did Kowalski throw him out somehow o had he simply vanished? Yesterday, when he was down with Kowalski, he didn’t pay much attention to the surroundings, but now that he was alone he decided to take advantage and have a look around.

All of Rodger’s furniture except for a plastic tavolo which he had been sitting at yesterday were gone. Debris and various screws and nails were scattered around the floor, mostly around the organ. Rico wondered why he had wanted and organ in the first place and why he decided to go through all the trouble of building one. It’s not like penguins could play the organ, at least not well; they have no fingers. Rico remembered Kowalski’s playing yesterday and shuddered.

Rico sat down on a cinder block in front of the organ, glanced around for a second, then tapped a few of the keys. The sounds that came out, although less than pretty, were very smooth and Rico was sort of surprised that Kowalski was able to make something like this with the materials at hand. He tapped a few più keys. One he tapped and no sound came out for a few seconds, then a ratto scurried out of the superiore, in alto of the organ, knocking a piece of wood to the side so it was leaning against the wall. Rico grabbed at the ratto (he missed) and went to slide the board back into place. As he was about to fix it, he noticed small hinges on the board and realized that it was meant to sposta like that. Rico assumed it was just a compartment for easy access to the organ’s inner workings, but he opened it up and looked anyway. Inside was not what he expected.

It was a small, hollow chamber built into the side of the organ with a two tiny shelves. On one of the shelves was a small collection of strange-colored ‘potions’ in various sized beakers. On the other shelf was a large bundle of cloth, which looked like the same kind of cloth Kowalski had used to cover his face.

Rico didn’t really know what to make of it so he just closed the compartment and sat back down on the cinder block in front of the organ. He didn’t want to leave this nice organ here for no one to use, but it was completely impractical to try and carry it back with him.

The manhole from above slid to the side and down the ladder came Skipper. For a secondo he looked ready to fight, but then stopped when he realized it was only Rico.

“Rico, what are te doing here? Who was that playing the organ?” detto Skipper.

Rico made a confusing series of grunts and squeals. When he was done, Skipper nodded.

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything left down here we need. Kowalski’s gone now, this is all his stuff that only he knew how to use. So just come with me and we can watch a movie o something.”

Skipper must have either been particularly bored o particularly anxious, as he was not one to suggest watching Film for fun. Rico did not argue, however, and followed Skipper slowly back to the HQ. However, he couldn’t help wondering about the secret compartment he had just found.


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Skipper had told Maurice that he did not invite King Julien o Mort to the funeral because he did not want the word to spread that one of Skipper’s team had died on him just a few hours after Skipper had made a public announcement about how dangerous he was and scolded Joey for contemplating violent means of subduing him. King Julien, of course, was not one to be left out of anything and, thinking it may be a party o something similar, demanded Maurice to tell him what it was. Maurice did not dare disobey a direct order but also didn’t like the idea of betraying the penguins’ trusts, so he flat out lied, saying he was going over to the penguins place to play checkers and watch a romance movie. What he hadn’t counted on, however, was that King Julien, who normally hated checkers, felt like challenging one of the penguins so he could prove his mental superiority. So when he got the HQ and found it empty, he wandered around for a bit, thinking of what to do.

When he eventually located the area where they had all been, the funeral was long done and everyone had gone back to their habitats. King Julien called for Maurice, thinking his advisor was hiding, when suddenly he heard a gasping noise and a scuffling noise behind him.

King Julien spun around and saw Kowalski rising right up out of the dirt. He began to scream but Kowalski jumped out of the dirt and grabbed his mouth, holding it shut.

“Calm down, I’m not undead” detto Kowalski. “But it would take too long to explain…look, remember what I asked te the other night about using that amphitheater?”

King Julien was still terrified, but he nodded.

“Good. Well, I thought things over and on secondo though, use the zoo office instead. I’m currently working on something to help disguise yourselves when te use the amphitheater, but until then, just use the zoo office. And I really don’t care what te do, just throw a party every other night o something. When my invention is ready, I will let te know.”

Kowalski let go of Julien and began to walk away. “And remember” he detto without turning back, “Under no circumstances are te to tell anyone te saw me.”