‘AUDITIONS TONIGHT’ read a big sign positioned over the 분수 in the zoo plaza. A crude 표, 테이블 had been positioned in front of the fountain, at which sat Mason and Phil. Large piles of papers were stacked all over the 표, 테이블 and a huge line was assembled in front of it. Every few seconds, one of the 동물 in the line would hand one of the chimps a piece of paper, which they would promptly glance at and stack on 상단, 맨 위로 of one of their piles. Then the animal would go up onto the side of the 분수 and sing a song of their choice from The Barber of Seville for the judges, the chimps and King Julien. After a few 초 they were usually rejected and either left the zoo, skulking 또는 sat down somewhere to watch the others.
King Julien was bored out of his mind, as a sappy rendition of an Italian opera was not exactly his idea of entertainment. The chimps, however (Mason especially) were really getting into the mood, obviously they had been longing for something 더 많이 than a CD recording of the opera. They had purposely saved the zoo 동물 for last, looking to get the stray 동물 from the park out of the way first. Out of twenty, so far, they had found one who was able to sing well enough to make it in. Most of the 동물 were 노래 in really mechanical voices, due to the fact that none of them had ever even heard of The Barber of Seville, much less a song from it, and had simply memorized the song off a piece of paper and were reciting it like a speech while attempting to add a little musical flair to it. Unfortunantly for them, this did not wow the chimps.
Private was standing in a corner with the rest of the zoo 동물 that were auditioning, looking very nervous. He didn’t even know why he wanted to be in an opera in the first place, he had never particularly enjoyed the big fat guys 노래 in really deep voices and the huge ladies in Viking hats. He glanced across the plaza where Skipper and Rico were sitting. Rico gave him an encouraging wave. Skipper was looking in the opposite direction.
“Good luck Private,” said someone. Private looked behind him and saw Maurice standing there, looking very smug.
“Er…good luck to 당신 too, Maurice” said Private politely.
“Yeah…back in Madagascar, I was…” Maurice began, but Private cut him off.
“Shh…someone else is about to sing!” he said. They turned and watched for four 초 as a porcupine began to sing in a horrible nasally voice, as though he had a terrible cold. The chimps immediately dismissed him and called up the 다음 animal in line.
“I don’t know why the chimps let all of this riffraff into the auditions with us” said a harsh sounding female voice. “It’s not like they’re going to beat out any of us…and couldn’t they have at least let us go first?”
Private and Maurice spun around and saw Darla the 비비, 개 코 원숭이 standing there, watching an animal climb onto the side of the 분수 with distaste. Private opened his mouth to interject but someone else cut him off.
“Darla, be nice,” said Marlene. “You know how poorly those 동물 fare outside the zoo…”
“Whatever, hun” said Darla, annoyed. “They’re just wasting my time as far as I’m concerned.”
As the zoo 동물 continued to bicker, one animal that had been holding up the line for the past four 분 finally cleared up an issue with the song he was planning to sing and walked up to the fountain. Everyone who had been sitting around bored immediately sat up and looked at him. He began to sweat as he struggled to remember the words.
While everyone was waiting for the animal to sing, a dark figure darted behind the viewing 동물 and dashed up a tree. The trees had been made off-limits due to the fact that a 다람쥐 had tripped and fallen off a branch while everyone was gathering and had to be removed from the zoo grounds due to a leg injury and the chimps, not wanting any lawsuits, decided it was better if everyone sat on the ground.
Kowalski shifted himself so that he was behind a large branch, out of sight from anyone on stage who might happen to look up into the tree, and sat down on a large branch. Not the most comfortable seating arrangement but it worked. He glanced down in order to make sure no one was sitting directly underneath him, then sort of leaned back against the branch so that he could see the auditioning animal with one eye.
Down at the judges bench, Phil and Mason were having trouble keeping up with the crowd, mostly because Julien was snoring loudly 다음 to them and no amount of poking 또는 prodding would awaken him. Not helping was the fact that 프레드 the 다람쥐 was up next, and was probably the most frustrating animal that had signed up to audition. For one thing, he had not filled out any of the blanks on his form, which was a long, complicated list of details about the animals’ life. They had been instructed to fill it out before hand, but obviously 프레드 had not obeyed.
“Okay…so what goes here?” said Fred. The 동물 behind him groaned as they realized he was pointing at ‘Birthdate’.
Mason was becoming nearly as frustrated as the other animals. “It says ‘Birthdate’. Do I really need to tell 당신 what that means?”
프레드 started blankly. Mason groaned. “What 년 were 당신 born?” he said.
“You mean my birthday?” said Fred.
“YES!” said Mason.
“Okay…my birthday’s on July 6…here 당신 go.”
프레드 handed Mason the form. Mason sighed and stuffed the paper underneath a particularly large stack. “Fine. But hurry up, you’re holding up the line!”
프레드 took his time to climb up onto the fountain. 의해 the time he was ready, Phil had fallen asleep and several 동물 in the back of the line had given up and walked out of the zoo.
프레드 opened his mouth and began to sing in the most impressive opera voice anyone there had ever heard. King Julien woke up and fell backwards into Mason’s lap before falling to the ground, and everyone else stared at 프레드 as he continued to sing. Even Kowalski, sitting across the plaza in the tree, was mightily impressed. Kowalski thought 프레드 might be considered on par with the best male singer in the show on Broadway he had seen the other 일 and was wondering how he had gotten such an incredible talent for 노래 when 프레드 stopped and hopped off the fountain.
“How was that?” he said.
Phil and King Julien were both staring, their mouths agape. Mason was busy clapping enthusiastically. “Yes, definitely a yes! But…” he continued in a small voice “If I let 당신 have a part, please try to not take so much time with everything.”
“I’ll try” said Fred, walking away and scratching his chest.
“Aha!” said a roughish voice with a French accent. “Finally! It is time for me, Ze Archer, to…”
“Yes, skip the monologue and get up there,” said Mason unenthusiastically. “And good luck beating that last performance.”
“I assure you, 당신 will not be disappointed,” said The Archer and, with a running start, did a flip up onto the side of the fountain. Before beginning to sing, he beamed at the audience and gave two female raccoons watching the auditions a roguish wink. They swooned, while most of the other 동물 rolled their eyes and shouted at him to hurry up.
The Archer then took a long time to clear his throat, so long that 의해 the time he had finished several 더 많이 동물 had left the back of the line and Julien had fallen back asleep and was snoring even 더 많이 loudly than before.
Phil slapped Julien to wake him up as The Archer began to sing. Most lamentably for The Archer, he was trying to maintain his fake French accent while singing, but since that was not his natural voice (and the fact that he had not trained in 노래 with the French accent, only talking) the song came out in a horrible-sounding mix of unintelligible words.
“Aagh! Stop!” said Mason. “Next please!”
“Wha…?” said The Archer, refusing to step off the side of the fountain. “Just let my try again!” he continued, now using his New York accent. “I promise I’ll…”
“No, 당신 had your go,” said Mason. “I’ve been listening to rubbish for the last 시간 and I’m not going to waste any 더 많이 time listening to that again.”
When he still did not more, Bada and Bing the gorillas came over and threw him off the side of the fountain. Then the 다음 animal in line went up to audition.
It took so long to get through this that Kowalski eventually dozed off (as did several 동물 in the audience and in the line, who had to be woken up so they could have a chance to audition). However, Mason stood on his 책상, 데스크 when the non-zoo 동물 had finished their auditions and screamed very loudly into the air, which surprised Kowalski so much that he nearly fell out of the 나무, 트리 (Kowalski thought it might be a type of scream therapy).
“Wow, it’s late,” commented Mason when he sat back down. “I’m probably going to end up sleeping till three in the afternoon tomorrow”.
“Well, hopefully, the 동물 from our own Central Park Zoo will be able to turn this around” announced Mason, noting that only four 동물 from the park had actually passed the audition. All of the 동물 in the audience clapped, knowing that it would not take much longer now. Kowalski was drifting off to sleep again, wanting to go to 침대 but also wanting to stay up for the rest of the auditions.
Meanwhile, 프레드 the 다람쥐 had been chatting with some of his 프렌즈 when they decided to leave the zoo. 프레드 declared that he didn’t want to go back to the park yet and wanted to stay and watch the rest of the auditions. The other 동물 shrugged and walked out and 프레드 walked over to find somewhere to sit. All of the comfortable places near the 분수 had already been taken and 프레드 had not been paying attention when the chimps announced that they didn’t want anyone to be in the trees. So he climbed up a 나무, 트리 to get a better view. And naturally, that 나무, 트리 happened to be the one Kowalski was dozing off in.
프레드 was climbing to a particularly large branch about three-quarters of the way up, as it provided a great view. When he was about there, however, he stepped on something soft and sort of squishy. 프레드 poked it and the thing (Kowalski, obviously) moaned and sat up.
“Oh, hello” said Fred.
Kowalski yawned. “Hello…” he said sleepily. Then he jerked awake and yelped. He knew that he shouldn’t be drawing too much attention to himself but he also knew that he wasn’t supposed to let anyone see him, and he wasn’t thinking very clearly as he had just woken up. He kicked 프레드 from behind, knocked him out of the tree, and made a run for it.
“Aah” said 프레드 softly, still very uncaring despite the fact that he had just been kicked out of a tree. He bounced off a branch and landed on the ground with a thunk.
He landed right 다음 to the chimps, who were busy 읽기 through some papers. Mason jumped, startled, then looked up and saw that he had just fallen out of a tree.
“Now, this is why I said that no one was to sit in the trees during the auditions!” scolded Mason. “What happened?”
“I dunno…I was just climbing up the 나무, 트리 and I stepped on someone, and I guess they didn’t like it because the 다음 분 they just kicked me out of the tree.”
“Who?” said Mason.
프레드 shrugged. “All I saw was that he was all black and pretty tall.”
“All black and pretty tall?” said Mason, obviously disappointed 의해 the description.
“Hah! I’ll bet it was that silly penguin…the tall one. He was always coming up to me and talking to me about…oops” said King Julien, quickly covering his mouth. Of course, everyone turned and stared him down.
“Who, Kowalski?” said Mason. “I bet you’re right, remember the other 일 when Skipper gave that announcement about him?”
In just a few moments everyone in the plaza was mumbling to another animal about something Kowalski-related.
“Well, 당신 seem to know a bit about what’s going on here,” said Mason, turning to King Julien. But when he glanced towards where the 여우 원숭이 had just been sitting, there was no sign of him.
“He’s gone!” said several animals, flabbergasted.
“He was taken 의해 Kowalski! Who will be next?” shouted the flamingo. (In truth Julien had simply snuck away from the plaza while everyone was mumbling to each other and ran back to the 여우 원숭이 habitat).
“Calm down!” said Mason, projecting his voice around the plaza. “Need I remind everyone that he is a penguin, one which is about a quarter of your height, Pinky” he stared coldly at the flamingo, who giggled.
“And based on what Skipper has said over the passed few years he has lived at this zoo, Kowalski is the worst fighter of all the penguins. So how many of 당신 really think that this is something to be worried about?”
Mort, who was sitting in the audience, raised his tiny hand. When he saw that no one else had, be giggled put his hand down.
Skipper did not want to share the news with everyone that Kowalski was dead, but if he didn’t they would soon be blaming Kowalski for everything that happened around the zoo, which would get annoying…and the worst part is that they would probably expect the penguins to do something about it! So Skipper waddled on up to the side of the 분수 and shouted to direct everyone’s attention to him.
“Listen, everyone. It’s not Kowalski.”
“How do 당신 know?” said the flamingo. “Just yesterday 당신 got up here and told us all how ‘dangerous’ he was!”
“Well, it’s just that…he’s dead,” said Skipper sadly.
It was obvious that the 동물 did not believe him, so Private, Marlene and Maurice, who had been waiting patiently in line, got up onto the side of the 분수 as well.
“It’s true,” said Private. The other two nodded.
“You KILLED him?” said the flamingo, backing several steps away from the 분수 even though he was already quite far away from it.
“No, of course I didn’t kill him!” he snapped at the flamingo. “It’s a long story…”
King Julien was bored out of his mind, as a sappy rendition of an Italian opera was not exactly his idea of entertainment. The chimps, however (Mason especially) were really getting into the mood, obviously they had been longing for something 더 많이 than a CD recording of the opera. They had purposely saved the zoo 동물 for last, looking to get the stray 동물 from the park out of the way first. Out of twenty, so far, they had found one who was able to sing well enough to make it in. Most of the 동물 were 노래 in really mechanical voices, due to the fact that none of them had ever even heard of The Barber of Seville, much less a song from it, and had simply memorized the song off a piece of paper and were reciting it like a speech while attempting to add a little musical flair to it. Unfortunantly for them, this did not wow the chimps.
Private was standing in a corner with the rest of the zoo 동물 that were auditioning, looking very nervous. He didn’t even know why he wanted to be in an opera in the first place, he had never particularly enjoyed the big fat guys 노래 in really deep voices and the huge ladies in Viking hats. He glanced across the plaza where Skipper and Rico were sitting. Rico gave him an encouraging wave. Skipper was looking in the opposite direction.
“Good luck Private,” said someone. Private looked behind him and saw Maurice standing there, looking very smug.
“Er…good luck to 당신 too, Maurice” said Private politely.
“Yeah…back in Madagascar, I was…” Maurice began, but Private cut him off.
“Shh…someone else is about to sing!” he said. They turned and watched for four 초 as a porcupine began to sing in a horrible nasally voice, as though he had a terrible cold. The chimps immediately dismissed him and called up the 다음 animal in line.
“I don’t know why the chimps let all of this riffraff into the auditions with us” said a harsh sounding female voice. “It’s not like they’re going to beat out any of us…and couldn’t they have at least let us go first?”
Private and Maurice spun around and saw Darla the 비비, 개 코 원숭이 standing there, watching an animal climb onto the side of the 분수 with distaste. Private opened his mouth to interject but someone else cut him off.
“Darla, be nice,” said Marlene. “You know how poorly those 동물 fare outside the zoo…”
“Whatever, hun” said Darla, annoyed. “They’re just wasting my time as far as I’m concerned.”
As the zoo 동물 continued to bicker, one animal that had been holding up the line for the past four 분 finally cleared up an issue with the song he was planning to sing and walked up to the fountain. Everyone who had been sitting around bored immediately sat up and looked at him. He began to sweat as he struggled to remember the words.
While everyone was waiting for the animal to sing, a dark figure darted behind the viewing 동물 and dashed up a tree. The trees had been made off-limits due to the fact that a 다람쥐 had tripped and fallen off a branch while everyone was gathering and had to be removed from the zoo grounds due to a leg injury and the chimps, not wanting any lawsuits, decided it was better if everyone sat on the ground.
Kowalski shifted himself so that he was behind a large branch, out of sight from anyone on stage who might happen to look up into the tree, and sat down on a large branch. Not the most comfortable seating arrangement but it worked. He glanced down in order to make sure no one was sitting directly underneath him, then sort of leaned back against the branch so that he could see the auditioning animal with one eye.
Down at the judges bench, Phil and Mason were having trouble keeping up with the crowd, mostly because Julien was snoring loudly 다음 to them and no amount of poking 또는 prodding would awaken him. Not helping was the fact that 프레드 the 다람쥐 was up next, and was probably the most frustrating animal that had signed up to audition. For one thing, he had not filled out any of the blanks on his form, which was a long, complicated list of details about the animals’ life. They had been instructed to fill it out before hand, but obviously 프레드 had not obeyed.
“Okay…so what goes here?” said Fred. The 동물 behind him groaned as they realized he was pointing at ‘Birthdate’.
Mason was becoming nearly as frustrated as the other animals. “It says ‘Birthdate’. Do I really need to tell 당신 what that means?”
프레드 started blankly. Mason groaned. “What 년 were 당신 born?” he said.
“You mean my birthday?” said Fred.
“YES!” said Mason.
“Okay…my birthday’s on July 6…here 당신 go.”
프레드 handed Mason the form. Mason sighed and stuffed the paper underneath a particularly large stack. “Fine. But hurry up, you’re holding up the line!”
프레드 took his time to climb up onto the fountain. 의해 the time he was ready, Phil had fallen asleep and several 동물 in the back of the line had given up and walked out of the zoo.
프레드 opened his mouth and began to sing in the most impressive opera voice anyone there had ever heard. King Julien woke up and fell backwards into Mason’s lap before falling to the ground, and everyone else stared at 프레드 as he continued to sing. Even Kowalski, sitting across the plaza in the tree, was mightily impressed. Kowalski thought 프레드 might be considered on par with the best male singer in the show on Broadway he had seen the other 일 and was wondering how he had gotten such an incredible talent for 노래 when 프레드 stopped and hopped off the fountain.
“How was that?” he said.
Phil and King Julien were both staring, their mouths agape. Mason was busy clapping enthusiastically. “Yes, definitely a yes! But…” he continued in a small voice “If I let 당신 have a part, please try to not take so much time with everything.”
“I’ll try” said Fred, walking away and scratching his chest.
“Aha!” said a roughish voice with a French accent. “Finally! It is time for me, Ze Archer, to…”
“Yes, skip the monologue and get up there,” said Mason unenthusiastically. “And good luck beating that last performance.”
“I assure you, 당신 will not be disappointed,” said The Archer and, with a running start, did a flip up onto the side of the fountain. Before beginning to sing, he beamed at the audience and gave two female raccoons watching the auditions a roguish wink. They swooned, while most of the other 동물 rolled their eyes and shouted at him to hurry up.
The Archer then took a long time to clear his throat, so long that 의해 the time he had finished several 더 많이 동물 had left the back of the line and Julien had fallen back asleep and was snoring even 더 많이 loudly than before.
Phil slapped Julien to wake him up as The Archer began to sing. Most lamentably for The Archer, he was trying to maintain his fake French accent while singing, but since that was not his natural voice (and the fact that he had not trained in 노래 with the French accent, only talking) the song came out in a horrible-sounding mix of unintelligible words.
“Aagh! Stop!” said Mason. “Next please!”
“Wha…?” said The Archer, refusing to step off the side of the fountain. “Just let my try again!” he continued, now using his New York accent. “I promise I’ll…”
“No, 당신 had your go,” said Mason. “I’ve been listening to rubbish for the last 시간 and I’m not going to waste any 더 많이 time listening to that again.”
When he still did not more, Bada and Bing the gorillas came over and threw him off the side of the fountain. Then the 다음 animal in line went up to audition.
It took so long to get through this that Kowalski eventually dozed off (as did several 동물 in the audience and in the line, who had to be woken up so they could have a chance to audition). However, Mason stood on his 책상, 데스크 when the non-zoo 동물 had finished their auditions and screamed very loudly into the air, which surprised Kowalski so much that he nearly fell out of the 나무, 트리 (Kowalski thought it might be a type of scream therapy).
“Wow, it’s late,” commented Mason when he sat back down. “I’m probably going to end up sleeping till three in the afternoon tomorrow”.
“Well, hopefully, the 동물 from our own Central Park Zoo will be able to turn this around” announced Mason, noting that only four 동물 from the park had actually passed the audition. All of the 동물 in the audience clapped, knowing that it would not take much longer now. Kowalski was drifting off to sleep again, wanting to go to 침대 but also wanting to stay up for the rest of the auditions.
Meanwhile, 프레드 the 다람쥐 had been chatting with some of his 프렌즈 when they decided to leave the zoo. 프레드 declared that he didn’t want to go back to the park yet and wanted to stay and watch the rest of the auditions. The other 동물 shrugged and walked out and 프레드 walked over to find somewhere to sit. All of the comfortable places near the 분수 had already been taken and 프레드 had not been paying attention when the chimps announced that they didn’t want anyone to be in the trees. So he climbed up a 나무, 트리 to get a better view. And naturally, that 나무, 트리 happened to be the one Kowalski was dozing off in.
프레드 was climbing to a particularly large branch about three-quarters of the way up, as it provided a great view. When he was about there, however, he stepped on something soft and sort of squishy. 프레드 poked it and the thing (Kowalski, obviously) moaned and sat up.
“Oh, hello” said Fred.
Kowalski yawned. “Hello…” he said sleepily. Then he jerked awake and yelped. He knew that he shouldn’t be drawing too much attention to himself but he also knew that he wasn’t supposed to let anyone see him, and he wasn’t thinking very clearly as he had just woken up. He kicked 프레드 from behind, knocked him out of the tree, and made a run for it.
“Aah” said 프레드 softly, still very uncaring despite the fact that he had just been kicked out of a tree. He bounced off a branch and landed on the ground with a thunk.
He landed right 다음 to the chimps, who were busy 읽기 through some papers. Mason jumped, startled, then looked up and saw that he had just fallen out of a tree.
“Now, this is why I said that no one was to sit in the trees during the auditions!” scolded Mason. “What happened?”
“I dunno…I was just climbing up the 나무, 트리 and I stepped on someone, and I guess they didn’t like it because the 다음 분 they just kicked me out of the tree.”
“Who?” said Mason.
프레드 shrugged. “All I saw was that he was all black and pretty tall.”
“All black and pretty tall?” said Mason, obviously disappointed 의해 the description.
“Hah! I’ll bet it was that silly penguin…the tall one. He was always coming up to me and talking to me about…oops” said King Julien, quickly covering his mouth. Of course, everyone turned and stared him down.
“Who, Kowalski?” said Mason. “I bet you’re right, remember the other 일 when Skipper gave that announcement about him?”
In just a few moments everyone in the plaza was mumbling to another animal about something Kowalski-related.
“Well, 당신 seem to know a bit about what’s going on here,” said Mason, turning to King Julien. But when he glanced towards where the 여우 원숭이 had just been sitting, there was no sign of him.
“He’s gone!” said several animals, flabbergasted.
“He was taken 의해 Kowalski! Who will be next?” shouted the flamingo. (In truth Julien had simply snuck away from the plaza while everyone was mumbling to each other and ran back to the 여우 원숭이 habitat).
“Calm down!” said Mason, projecting his voice around the plaza. “Need I remind everyone that he is a penguin, one which is about a quarter of your height, Pinky” he stared coldly at the flamingo, who giggled.
“And based on what Skipper has said over the passed few years he has lived at this zoo, Kowalski is the worst fighter of all the penguins. So how many of 당신 really think that this is something to be worried about?”
Mort, who was sitting in the audience, raised his tiny hand. When he saw that no one else had, be giggled put his hand down.
Skipper did not want to share the news with everyone that Kowalski was dead, but if he didn’t they would soon be blaming Kowalski for everything that happened around the zoo, which would get annoying…and the worst part is that they would probably expect the penguins to do something about it! So Skipper waddled on up to the side of the 분수 and shouted to direct everyone’s attention to him.
“Listen, everyone. It’s not Kowalski.”
“How do 당신 know?” said the flamingo. “Just yesterday 당신 got up here and told us all how ‘dangerous’ he was!”
“Well, it’s just that…he’s dead,” said Skipper sadly.
It was obvious that the 동물 did not believe him, so Private, Marlene and Maurice, who had been waiting patiently in line, got up onto the side of the 분수 as well.
“It’s true,” said Private. The other two nodded.
“You KILLED him?” said the flamingo, backing several steps away from the 분수 even though he was already quite far away from it.
“No, of course I didn’t kill him!” he snapped at the flamingo. “It’s a long story…”
kowalski: nothing much 당신 have any nines
rico: nuh go 물고기 (eats fish)
skipper: private we got a letter in the mail for 당신
private: really skippah (grabs letter)
dear private
i am coming for a visit today 당신 may not remember me cause 당신 were just a baby boy bu be on your best behavior before i get there
사랑 melody (mom)
private: my mothers coming for ah visit todah
(ding)
private: mom (hugs mom)
melody: private my sweet little boy look how big you've grown (looks at shocked penguins in the back)
skipper: what the heck is going on here
to be continued