‘AUDITIONS TONIGHT’ read a big sign positioned over the đài phun nước in the zoo plaza. A crude bàn had been positioned in front of the fountain, at which sat Mason and Phil. Large piles of papers were stacked all over the bàn and a huge line was assembled in front of it. Every few seconds, one of the động vật in the line would hand one of the chimps a piece of paper, which they would promptly glance at and stack on hàng đầu, đầu trang of one of their piles. Then the animal would go up onto the side of the đài phun nước and sing a song of their choice from The Barber of Seville for the judges, the chimps and King Julien. After a few giây they were usually rejected and either left the zoo, skulking hoặc 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 thêm than a CD recording of the opera. They had purposely saved the zoo động vật for last, looking to get the stray động vật 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 động vật were hát 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 động vật 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 hát 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,” đã đưa ý kiến someone. Private looked behind him and saw Maurice standing there, looking very smug.
“Er…good luck to bạn too, Maurice” đã đưa ý kiến 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 giây 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 tiếp theo animal in line.
“I don’t know why the chimps let all of this riffraff into the auditions with us” đã đưa ý kiến 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 giống vượn phi châu, khỉ đầu chó standing there, watching an animal climb onto the side of the đài phun nước with distaste. Private opened his mouth to interject but someone else cut him off.
“Darla, be nice,” đã đưa ý kiến Marlene. “You know how poorly those động vật fare outside the zoo…”
“Whatever, hun” đã đưa ý kiến Darla, annoyed. “They’re just wasting my time as far as I’m concerned.”
As the zoo động vật continued to bicker, one animal that had been holding up the line for the past four phút 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 động vật and dashed up a tree. The trees had been made off-limits due to the fact that a con sóc, sóc 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 tiếp theo to them and no amount of poking hoặc prodding would awaken him. Not helping was the fact that Fred the con sóc, sóc 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 danh sách of details about the animals’ life. They had been instructed to fill it out before hand, but obviously Fred had not obeyed.
“Okay…so what goes here?” đã đưa ý kiến Fred. The động vật 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 bạn what that means?”
Fred started blankly. Mason groaned. “What năm were bạn born?” he said.
“You mean my birthday?” đã đưa ý kiến Fred.
“YES!” đã đưa ý kiến Mason.
“Okay…my birthday’s on July 6…here bạn go.”
Fred 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!”
Fred took his time to climb up onto the fountain. bởi the time he was ready, Phil had fallen asleep and several động vật in the back of the line had được trao up and walked out of the zoo.
Fred 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 Fred as he continued to sing. Even Kowalski, sitting across the plaza in the tree, was mightily impressed. Kowalski thought Fred might be considered on par with the best male singer in the hiển thị on Broadway he had seen the other ngày and was wondering how he had gotten such an incredible talent for hát when Fred 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 bạn have a part, please try to not take so much time with everything.”
“I’ll try” đã đưa ý kiến Fred, walking away and scratching his chest.
“Aha!” đã đưa ý kiến a roughish voice with a French accent. “Finally! It is time for me, Ze Archer, to…”
“Yes, skip the monologue and get up there,” đã đưa ý kiến Mason unenthusiastically. “And good luck beating that last performance.”
“I assure you, bạn will not be disappointed,” đã đưa ý kiến 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 động vật rolled their eyes and shouted at him to hurry up.
The Archer then took a long time to clear his throat, so long that bởi the time he had finished several thêm động vật had left the back of the line and Julien had fallen back asleep and was snoring even thêm 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 hát with the French accent, only talking) the song came out in a horrible-sounding mix of unintelligible words.
“Aagh! Stop!” đã đưa ý kiến Mason. “Next please!”
“Wha…?” đã đưa ý kiến 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, bạn had your go,” đã đưa ý kiến Mason. “I’ve been listening to rubbish for the last giờ and I’m not going to waste any thêm 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 tiếp theo animal in line went up to audition.
It took so long to get through this that Kowalski eventually dozed off (as did several động vật 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 bàn when the non-zoo động vật had finished their auditions and screamed very loudly into the air, which surprised Kowalski so much that he nearly fell out of the cây (Kowalski thought it might be a type of scream therapy).
“Wow, it’s late,” đã bình luận Mason when he sat back down. “I’m probably going to end up sleeping till three in the afternoon tomorrow”.
“Well, hopefully, the động vật from our own Central Park Zoo will be able to turn this around” announced Mason, noting that only four động vật from the park had actually passed the audition. All of the động vật in the audience clapped, knowing that it would not take much longer now. Kowalski was drifting off to sleep again, wanting to go to giường but also wanting to stay up for the rest of the auditions.
Meanwhile, Fred the con sóc, sóc had been chatting with some of his Những người bạn when they decided to leave the zoo. Fred 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 động vật shrugged and walked out and Fred walked over to find somewhere to sit. All of the comfortable places near the đài phun nước had already been taken and Fred 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 cây to get a better view. And naturally, that cây happened to be the one Kowalski was dozing off in.
Fred 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. Fred poked it and the thing (Kowalski, obviously) moaned and sat up.
“Oh, hello” đã đưa ý kiến Fred.
Kowalski yawned. “Hello…” he đã đưa ý kiến 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 Fred from behind, knocked him out of the tree, and made a run for it.
“Aah” đã đưa ý kiến Fred 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 tiếp theo to the chimps, who were busy đọc 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 đã đưa ý kiến that no one was to sit in the trees during the auditions!” scolded Mason. “What happened?”
“I dunno…I was just climbing up the cây and I stepped on someone, and I guess they didn’t like it because the tiếp theo một phút they just kicked me out of the tree.”
“Who?” đã đưa ý kiến Mason.
Fred shrugged. “All I saw was that he was all black and pretty tall.”
“All black and pretty tall?” đã đưa ý kiến Mason, obviously disappointed bởi 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” đã đưa ý kiến King Julien, quickly covering his mouth. Of course, everyone turned and stared him down.
“Who, Kowalski?” đã đưa ý kiến Mason. “I bet you’re right, remember the other ngày 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, bạn seem to know a bit about what’s going on here,” đã đưa ý kiến Mason, turning to King Julien. But when he glanced towards where the vong linh, vượn cáo had just been sitting, there was no sign of him.
“He’s gone!” đã đưa ý kiến several animals, flabbergasted.
“He was taken bởi 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 vong linh, vượn cáo habitat).
“Calm down!” đã đưa ý kiến 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 đã đưa ý kiến over the passed few years he has lived at this zoo, Kowalski is the worst fighter of all the penguins. So how many of bạn 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 đài phun nước and shouted to direct everyone’s attention to him.
“Listen, everyone. It’s not Kowalski.”
“How do bạn know?” đã đưa ý kiến the flamingo. “Just yesterday bạn got up here and told us all how ‘dangerous’ he was!”
“Well, it’s just that…he’s dead,” đã đưa ý kiến Skipper sadly.
It was obvious that the động vật did not believe him, so Private, Marlene and Maurice, who had been waiting patiently in line, got up onto the side of the đài phun nước as well.
“It’s true,” đã đưa ý kiến Private. The other two nodded.
“You KILLED him?” đã đưa ý kiến the flamingo, backing several steps away from the đài phun nước 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 thêm than a CD recording of the opera. They had purposely saved the zoo động vật for last, looking to get the stray động vật 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 động vật were hát 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 động vật 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 hát 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,” đã đưa ý kiến someone. Private looked behind him and saw Maurice standing there, looking very smug.
“Er…good luck to bạn too, Maurice” đã đưa ý kiến 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 giây 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 tiếp theo animal in line.
“I don’t know why the chimps let all of this riffraff into the auditions with us” đã đưa ý kiến 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 giống vượn phi châu, khỉ đầu chó standing there, watching an animal climb onto the side of the đài phun nước with distaste. Private opened his mouth to interject but someone else cut him off.
“Darla, be nice,” đã đưa ý kiến Marlene. “You know how poorly those động vật fare outside the zoo…”
“Whatever, hun” đã đưa ý kiến Darla, annoyed. “They’re just wasting my time as far as I’m concerned.”
As the zoo động vật continued to bicker, one animal that had been holding up the line for the past four phút 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 động vật and dashed up a tree. The trees had been made off-limits due to the fact that a con sóc, sóc 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 tiếp theo to them and no amount of poking hoặc prodding would awaken him. Not helping was the fact that Fred the con sóc, sóc 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 danh sách of details about the animals’ life. They had been instructed to fill it out before hand, but obviously Fred had not obeyed.
“Okay…so what goes here?” đã đưa ý kiến Fred. The động vật 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 bạn what that means?”
Fred started blankly. Mason groaned. “What năm were bạn born?” he said.
“You mean my birthday?” đã đưa ý kiến Fred.
“YES!” đã đưa ý kiến Mason.
“Okay…my birthday’s on July 6…here bạn go.”
Fred 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!”
Fred took his time to climb up onto the fountain. bởi the time he was ready, Phil had fallen asleep and several động vật in the back of the line had được trao up and walked out of the zoo.
Fred 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 Fred as he continued to sing. Even Kowalski, sitting across the plaza in the tree, was mightily impressed. Kowalski thought Fred might be considered on par with the best male singer in the hiển thị on Broadway he had seen the other ngày and was wondering how he had gotten such an incredible talent for hát when Fred 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 bạn have a part, please try to not take so much time with everything.”
“I’ll try” đã đưa ý kiến Fred, walking away and scratching his chest.
“Aha!” đã đưa ý kiến a roughish voice with a French accent. “Finally! It is time for me, Ze Archer, to…”
“Yes, skip the monologue and get up there,” đã đưa ý kiến Mason unenthusiastically. “And good luck beating that last performance.”
“I assure you, bạn will not be disappointed,” đã đưa ý kiến 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 động vật rolled their eyes and shouted at him to hurry up.
The Archer then took a long time to clear his throat, so long that bởi the time he had finished several thêm động vật had left the back of the line and Julien had fallen back asleep and was snoring even thêm 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 hát with the French accent, only talking) the song came out in a horrible-sounding mix of unintelligible words.
“Aagh! Stop!” đã đưa ý kiến Mason. “Next please!”
“Wha…?” đã đưa ý kiến 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, bạn had your go,” đã đưa ý kiến Mason. “I’ve been listening to rubbish for the last giờ and I’m not going to waste any thêm 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 tiếp theo animal in line went up to audition.
It took so long to get through this that Kowalski eventually dozed off (as did several động vật 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 bàn when the non-zoo động vật had finished their auditions and screamed very loudly into the air, which surprised Kowalski so much that he nearly fell out of the cây (Kowalski thought it might be a type of scream therapy).
“Wow, it’s late,” đã bình luận Mason when he sat back down. “I’m probably going to end up sleeping till three in the afternoon tomorrow”.
“Well, hopefully, the động vật from our own Central Park Zoo will be able to turn this around” announced Mason, noting that only four động vật from the park had actually passed the audition. All of the động vật in the audience clapped, knowing that it would not take much longer now. Kowalski was drifting off to sleep again, wanting to go to giường but also wanting to stay up for the rest of the auditions.
Meanwhile, Fred the con sóc, sóc had been chatting with some of his Những người bạn when they decided to leave the zoo. Fred 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 động vật shrugged and walked out and Fred walked over to find somewhere to sit. All of the comfortable places near the đài phun nước had already been taken and Fred 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 cây to get a better view. And naturally, that cây happened to be the one Kowalski was dozing off in.
Fred 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. Fred poked it and the thing (Kowalski, obviously) moaned and sat up.
“Oh, hello” đã đưa ý kiến Fred.
Kowalski yawned. “Hello…” he đã đưa ý kiến 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 Fred from behind, knocked him out of the tree, and made a run for it.
“Aah” đã đưa ý kiến Fred 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 tiếp theo to the chimps, who were busy đọc 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 đã đưa ý kiến that no one was to sit in the trees during the auditions!” scolded Mason. “What happened?”
“I dunno…I was just climbing up the cây and I stepped on someone, and I guess they didn’t like it because the tiếp theo một phút they just kicked me out of the tree.”
“Who?” đã đưa ý kiến Mason.
Fred shrugged. “All I saw was that he was all black and pretty tall.”
“All black and pretty tall?” đã đưa ý kiến Mason, obviously disappointed bởi 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” đã đưa ý kiến King Julien, quickly covering his mouth. Of course, everyone turned and stared him down.
“Who, Kowalski?” đã đưa ý kiến Mason. “I bet you’re right, remember the other ngày 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, bạn seem to know a bit about what’s going on here,” đã đưa ý kiến Mason, turning to King Julien. But when he glanced towards where the vong linh, vượn cáo had just been sitting, there was no sign of him.
“He’s gone!” đã đưa ý kiến several animals, flabbergasted.
“He was taken bởi 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 vong linh, vượn cáo habitat).
“Calm down!” đã đưa ý kiến 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 đã đưa ý kiến over the passed few years he has lived at this zoo, Kowalski is the worst fighter of all the penguins. So how many of bạn 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 đài phun nước and shouted to direct everyone’s attention to him.
“Listen, everyone. It’s not Kowalski.”
“How do bạn know?” đã đưa ý kiến the flamingo. “Just yesterday bạn got up here and told us all how ‘dangerous’ he was!”
“Well, it’s just that…he’s dead,” đã đưa ý kiến Skipper sadly.
It was obvious that the động vật did not believe him, so Private, Marlene and Maurice, who had been waiting patiently in line, got up onto the side of the đài phun nước as well.
“It’s true,” đã đưa ý kiến Private. The other two nodded.
“You KILLED him?” đã đưa ý kiến the flamingo, backing several steps away from the đài phun nước 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 bạn have any nines
rico: nuh go cá (eats fish)
skipper: private we got a letter in the mail for bạn
private: really skippah (grabs letter)
dear private
i am coming for a visit today bạn may not remember me cause bạn were just a baby boy bu be on your best behavior before i get there
tình yêu 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