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Pumpkins and Penguins
by Pirate Turner
"All right, boys," Skipper announced, clapping his ebony flippers together. "You know what time it is?"
"It's time for my backrub?" Private asked hopefully.
"No." Skipper shook his head, drew his left talon across the floor, and looked down somewhat sheepishly.
"It is time," Kowalski spoke in his best imitation of a voice foretelling doom, "for yours truly to play evil genius again."
"Hmm." Skipper rubbed his feathered chin in thought but slowly shook his head. "Not quite." He turned his attention to the last of his men. He knew Rico would get the answer right.
Rico looked at Skipper with bright, wide eyes. "Kaboom?" he questioned eagerly.
"Yes," Skipper answered in a darkening voice. "Precisely."
"Ah," Kowalski said with deep knowing. Then he grinned.
"I still don't get it," Private admitted, his beak pulling down into a pout.
Skipper's eyes gleamed as he continued to rub his flippers together in anticipation and announced, "It's trick or treat time, boys."
"Ooh! Goody!" Private cried, his spirits lifting considerably. "We get treats?" he asked with a hopeful grin.
"After the trick," Skipper replied.
"Do we have to do the trick?" Private queried. "Treats are so much more fun!"
"Indeed," Kowalski admitted, "but you have to admit that Alice's face does have a certain je ne sais quoi when she is confronted with our handiwork. I've just the pumpkins picked out already this year too, Skipper."
"Pumpkins?" Private asked.
"Yesss," Kowalski answered, sinisterly drawing out the word. Like Skipper, he, too, rubbed his flippers together as a dangerous gleam overtook his eyes. Private trembled inside at seeing both Skipper and Kowalski in such a manner. "I've got quite the plan cooked up for this year's explosion, Skipper," Kowalski announced, turning his attention back to their leader. "Alice shall not know what hit her."
"Good man, Kowalski," Skipper replied, grinning from ear to ear. "We're going to put the 'howl' in Howloween!" he cried triumphantly. Returning to the seriousness of the matter, he commanded, "Now where's our arsenal, Rico?"
"Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!" Rico began crying joyously in between spitting up knives with deadly edges and dynamite sticks.
Alice turned around slowly, her breath stilling in fearful anticipation as she did so. She had just locked the zoo's doors and would not be reopening them for a couple of hours more yet, but her mysterious tormentor had yet to make himself known. He showed up once a year, always at Halloween, and left her a nasty surprise, but she had yet to catch even so much as a glimpse of him. She had romanticized about him at one time, thinking that perhaps his deposits of explosions were the closest way he knew to leaving her presents and that he was, in truth, enamored of her, but she had long since given up ever meeting her Mystery Man.
Her breath let out in a whoosh as she found only an empty pathway stretching out before her. There were no signs of pumpkins or explosions nor splintered glass or bloodied leaves to mark his mysterious trail. There was not a single thing amiss. Yet then Alice's face pulled down into a pout. Was he not coming this year? This was the latest he'd ever been, and still there was no sign of him! Surely he'd not found another target?
She took two steps away from the gate and then stopped as she heard a noise. She whipped around, but it was only a bird perching on a branch and settling down for the evening. "Coo?" the bird tweeted innocently as his little, beady eyes met Alice's demanding gaze.
"Oh, go coo somebody else!" Alice cried, angrily waving a dismissive hand at the bird. She turned back around, huffing as the bird hid his little face behind a tremulous wing, and almost fell. Pumpkins lined the pathway back to headquarters, and all their jagged faces were directly pointed at her! Alice shivered, but then she smiled. He had come, after all!
Her keen eyes surveyed each pumpkin in turn as she wondered where the safest steps were. Then, ever so slowly, she began to creep down the path. Her heartbeat pounded in her chest and head as she moved, fully expecting every pumpkin to explode. She gave a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from her brow when she managed to get to the very last two. Maybe this year she would get a treat instead of a trick!
She looked at the very last two pumpkins. Each face, to her surprise, was identical. Always before, her mysterious assailant had made certain to create a different face for every pumpkin, but if there was a difference between the faces of these two, Alice couldn't tell it, no matter how hard she squinted. The only difference she could tell was that one seemed to be almost overflowing with candy.
And that one had to be the explosive one, Alice thought. It had to be the trap. Twice before, she had gone straight to the pumpkin with the candy filling its gaping mouth. The first time had been the first trap that her assailant had set for her. She'd not been expecting anything and had fallen easily into his trap. The second time had been a couple of years later, and she had gone to it, thinking that, as full of candy as it appeared to be, there couldn't possibly be any room for dynamite and that her assailant would not booby trap the same pumpkin again. She had found just how wrong she had been when she had grabbed a tootsie roll and set off the explosion.
She shuddered at the painful memory and stepped quickly to the other pumpkin. "Fool me once," she spoke aloud, "shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice ain't gonna happen, buster . . . " Yet, then, as she took another step toward the innocent, smiling pumpkin, the ground beneath her booted feet gave the tiniest of trembles. She froze, her eyes shooting wide, but it was already too late.
Explosions began to rattle the ground, and Alice whirled around. She laughed as she saw the first two pumpkins explode. Somehow she'd made it pass the trip wires, and the explosions were nowhere near her this year! Then the next two pumpkins exploded and were followed swiftly by the next pair. Alice's laughter died in her throat, and her eyes grew bigger.
As more of the pumpkins exploding, shattering one at a time and splattering their goo everywhere, Alice turned to run, but the very moment she stepped forward, all the remaining pumpkins exploded at once. She wailed as she splattered with pumpkin meat and hit with their seeds.
Before the wail had even left her mouth well, she was covered from head to foot in stinking, dripping pumpkin goo. "I'LL GET YOU!" she cried, shaking a fist and throwing around even more pumpkin. "I DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE, BUT I'M GOING TO FIND OUT AND THEN YOU'LL BE MINE!"
A pumpkin she had not even seen descended from somewhere above her and hit her right smack in the face. Alice screamed her rage and stormed off, the snickers from three of four hiding penguins going completely unheard by her. "Did we really have to do that?" Private questioned softly, pouting.
"Aw, now, Private! Come on, man! It only hurt her spirits, and it's good for our souls!" Skipper announced.
"Indeed. Where's your Halloween spirit, Private?" Kowalski asked.
"I think I left it with my twinkies," Private groused sadly.
Rico looked at his friends. "Happy Hallowboom!" he cried, grinning, and promptly puked up the real pumpkin full of treats. It splattered as it hit the ground, and twinkies, tootsie rolls, suckers, candy bars, and almost every imaginable packaged treat rained down amongst the four penguins. Private's face split open into a brilliant smile as he saw the array of goodies. He began grabbing twinkies and chocolates with both flippers and hungrily eating them.
"There's a good man now, Private," Skipper said approvingly. "That's the spirit of Halloween: have fun and eat your guts out."
"Actually, the spirit of Halloween is to hide from monsters . . . "
Skipper cut off Kowalski. "That was then," he announced. "This is now, and now it's all about having fun!"
Private paused as he thought about asking whether or not Alice should also be having fun. The poor human didn't know what fun was, though, he realized, not really, and besides, she would smile brightly whenever she found the treats he'd leave for her later tonight in her desk while she was out taking the kids on the ghostly tour. Then, she, too, would have her Halloween fun.
"Happy Halloween, boys!" Skipper announced, picking up an anchovy moonpie, one of Kowalski's specialities that he had slipped into the pumpkin for he knew how much his entire, little flock loved it, and unwrapping it. He popped the little pie into his beak and began chewing rapturously a split second after commanding joyously, "Now dig in!"
The End