Over the fence ch. 4

Over the fence ch. 4

by

Mastermindhunter

Rico watched Gwyneth eat her food in silence. How could he not know that such a beautiful girl was right here in New York City? He used his fist to hold his chin up. She ate a few of her pretzels, and then took a quick glance at Rico. He was caught of gaurd, but quickly regained himself, and smiled a crooked, wild smile. She looked down, a smile creeping around her face, figiting her foot. The others watched her too, but were focused on something else. The blade-like prosthetic foot was in the shape of a J, and looked pretty strong. On the part where it curved in, there was a sticker that said OSSUR. They all looked away, and ate quietly. Rico watched them all acting like they had never seen somebody different. He narrowed his eyebrows, and smashed his tongue against his french vanilla. They all resumed eating, and Skipper struck up some conversation.

"So, you guys want to go back to the hotel, and hang out a bit?" Private smiled, and nodded. They all agreed, but Rico wanted to spend more time with Gwyneth. He didn't want to go back. Regardless, it was the majority vote, so they headed back, and relaxed a little.

They headed toward the pool. Nobody was at the pool, it being a five star hotel, and there were mostly older people at the hotel. All four of them hanged out in the pool, and swam all around. They practiced their combat moves. They seemed to feel stronger, now that they were human. After that, everone relaxed at the pool's side. Kowalski was doing laps, trying out to see how fast his human body could swim. Unfortunately, he was slower than his penguin form. Skipper was jumping off the high dive, practicing his jacknife dive form. Private was lying on his back, enjoying his human boyancey. Rico was laying on one of the chaise lounges, smiling at the cieling.

"Come on, and join the fun, Rico." Skipper said as he jumped in, and surfaced. He rolled his eyes, and jumped off the chaise lounge. He ran up to the ladders highest peak, and flipped in the air three times, ending in a swan dive. Everybody noticed how much energy there seemed to be in his jump. They all watched, as he surfaced, and dived underwater, again. He was doing it over and over again. He stayed down for a little while, and Private seemed to notice it. When he went under, Rico was facing upwards, looking at the cieliings appearance change in the water, smiling.

Rico looked over at Private. Private suddenly surface, feeling as though he was invading Rico's privacy. Rico jumped out, and dried off. He ran over to his chaise lounge chair, and laid a towel over his eyes, with his tongue hanging out. When he finally fell asleep, they all huddled together. They knew something was up with Rico.

"Wow, Skipper. I think Rico's a little excited about something. What do you think is wrong with him?" Private seemed puzzled. Skipper looked at him with his open mouth.

"Hmm I'm not sure. I noticed that too. What do you think is wrong with him boys? Kowalski analysis." Kowalski looked at him, and rubbed his chin.

"Well I noticed this was happening, as soon as we left the ice cream shop."

"Oh don't worry about it, Private. I'm sure he was just really fond of the ice cream." Private thought this was more than an extreme liking of ice cream. There must have been something at the shop that caught his eye.

When they headed back to their rooms, they all changed into their relaxation clothes, and Kowalski got the invention out. He gave each penguin (or human) a piece of the equipment to work on. Skipper was plugging a wire into a socket, Private was hammering a nail into the side of something, and Kowalski was using a blowtorch on a piece of metal. Rico was given a monkey wrench, installing a dna stabilization core, whatever that was. He was looking out the window at the city, and thought of Gwyneth, and what she must be doing. What if she fell in love with one of the boys who could talk? That would just make him want to change back to a penguin faster.

Private noticed it, and saw that Rico was stroking his scar, which was something he did when he had something on his mind. They had got the machine a little closer to being done. It was one fourth the way finished, and the boys were sore with aching muscles.

"I'm headed out to look for a sushi restaurant. Would anybody like me to bring something back for them?" Skipper looked up to the doorway. He thought that sounded tasty, and asked if he could grab some dirty rice with it. Private asked if he could get some shrimp with the sushi, when he was walking into the shower, and Rico just shrugged and looked up to the cieling.

"Noodles!" Rico grunted. Kowalski grinned, and nodded to his comrads, as he rushed out the door. Rico jogged up to his bed, up in the loft, which was a bit hidden. There was a wall that was three feet tall over the second floor bed. When he hopped out of the shower, fifteen minutes later, Private couldn't help but feel like there was something he wasn't knowing that he wanted to know. This just wasn't Rico. Skipper wouldn't understand. He didn't notice when people were distressed. It was up to Private. He jogged up the stairs, and saw Rico drawing something, and quickly put it under the bed. Private noticed the quick movement, and frowned at his distressed face. He gently sat down on the bed, and smiled to Rico. Rico let out a growl that said he didn't want any company.

"Uhh Rico? I noticed you've been kind of off, lately. Not that it's a bad thing, I've just noticed that you've been a lot quieter than normal. Is something on your mind that you want to talk about. I won't tell anyone." He rolled his eyes, and shook his head no.

"Uh-uh" He sneered. Private let out a heavy groan, and turned towards him.

"Alright, but if you change your mind, I'll be right here to help you out with whatever it is." Rico made a raspberry noise, but cut it short when they heard the door downstairs open. Kowalski apparantly had returned with the food. The smell of rice filled the air. Rico jogged downstairs in an attempt to grab his noodles, leaving Private all alone in the loft. Maybe he was just acting silly. Maybe Rico was just a little happy with his new human body, and didn't have anything wrong with him. He reached under the bed, and pulled out the paper Rico had shoved under the bed. he wanted to look at it, but heard footsteps up the staircase. He quickly shoved it in his pocket, and stood up innocently.

Kowalski stood at the top of the staircase. He held the shrimp, and sushi in his hands. Private was staring at him waiting for him to say something.

"Would you like to join us?" he nodded, biting his lower lip. They all sat in the living room. Watching television. The sushi was pretty good. They had to admit that. When it was done, each opened up their fortune cookie, and ate the cookie. They casted aside the fortune, since they couldn't read. When it was ten, they all changed into their pajamas, and turned in for the night.

Private woke up in the middle of the night. He had a nightmare about a leopard seal chasing him in the water. It was probably from a story that Kowalski told him about, long ago. He had sat straight up, still drowsy. His eyes were squinted shut. He stood up, and walked over towards the sink in front of the bathroom. He grabbed one of the glasses stacked on top of eachother. The water came out quietly from the sink with a quiet hiss. He guzzled it down, and sat up on the bed.

There was no way he was going to be able to fall back to sleep. The nightmare scared him too much. He glanced into the dining room, sleep stll in his eyes. The machine was still the same as they left it that evening. Still in pieces. he still felt pretty clumsy about dropping it. It was of course an accident, but he didn't let the guilt slide off of himself. He walked over to it. Every piece of equipment was neatly set out. He picked up a quarter sized cog, and rolled it around in his fingers. That's when it slipped out of his grasp. The piece rolled out, and over to his bundle of clothes.

It landed on his pants. He picked up the cog, and loked at it shamefully. "You naughty cog." He laughed sleepily. He put it in his pocket to carry it back to the stack of pieces. When he looked back down, the paper was still sticking out of his pants. Rico didn't know he took it. Should he look at it? Should he put it back? The curiousness side got the better of him. He slowly eased the paper out, and sat back on the bed. He took a deep breath, and unfolded it.

"Private?"

Private gasped, and folded the paper back up to a little triangle, and stuck it in his pajamas pockets. Why did the pajamas have pockets?

"What are you doing up at this this hour? It's midnight." Skipper whispered, as he rubbed his eye with a balled up fist.

"Nothing Skipper. Just had a nightmare" He looked at his pillow as he laid back down.