Penguins of Madagascar Movie Novelization Read online

  “My name isn’t ‘Classified.’ My name is classified because I am the team leader,” he informed Skipper.

  He swung around on his chair to face the rest of his team.

  “The seal is Short Fuse, explosives expert,” he said. “The bear is Corporal—he’s our muscle. And the lovely lady in white is Eva, intelligence and analysis. We’re an elite unit.”

  “Well, Agent Classified, we happen to be an elite unit too,” Skipper said. For effect, he pressed one of the buttons on the dashboard with his foot.

  “Self-destruct sequence activated in three . . . two . . . one . . . ,” the computer calmly warned.

  “You know, you should really label these things,” Skipper said.

  Classified pressed a button to end the self-­destruct sequence.

  “The name’s Skipper,” Skipper said. “I run this outfit. Back there is Kowalski. He’s the brains of our operation. Say something smart, Kowalski.”

  But Kowalski was staring at Eva, his mouth wide open. He had never seen such a beautiful bird!

  “See? He’s working on a whole ’nother level,” Skipper bragged. “And Rico, he’s our demolition expert.”

  Rico hopped up onto Short Fuse’s seat, jammed his head into the cushion, and popped up with the chair’s stuffing in his mouth.

  “He destroyed that chair for the sheer fun of it,” Skipper said. “No reason at all! And then there’s Private.”

  Private puffed out his chest and saluted.

  “He’s uh, sort of our secretary-slash-mascot,” Skipper said.

  Private tried to hide his disappointment. Is that all he was to the team?

  “Cute,” said Agent Classified, noticing his sad face.

  “And cuddly,” Corporal added.

  Classified shot him a look.

  “Sorry,” Corporal said, and turned back to his computer screen.

  The VTOL had swiftly cleared the continent and now soared over the icy northern Atlantic. Classified cranked the throttle forward, launching the craft into a steep dive, aiming at an iceberg floating on the water below.

  “Let’s see how cute and cuddly handles this next bit,” Classified said under his breath.

  But the penguins kept their cool as the VTOL zoomed toward the iceberg, looking like it was going to crash into it at any moment. Just before they made contact, a door slid open on the side of the iceberg, allowing them to fly inside.

  “Nice doggy door,” Skipper scoffed.

  Classified brought the VTOL to a stop on a landing pad. Another door opened in front of them to reveal the North Wind headquarters: a massive high-tech fortress with dozens of agents scurrying about.

  An announcement rang through the compound. “Arrival. Pad seventeen. Arrival. Pad seventeen.”

  The penguins peered out of the window, impressed.

  “Well, well, well,” said Skipper. “Not a bad place you got here, Classified.”

  “Thank you. That’s not my name,” the agent replied.

  CHAPTER 7

  Dave’s Evil Plan

  Moments later, the four penguins and the North Wind agents sat around a large table in the North Wind situation room. They faced a giant projection of a world map.

  Classified stirred a cappuccino as he began the briefing. “All right, tiny penguins, the best way for the North Wind to protect helpless animals like yourselves is to bring Dr. Brine to justice. Now you were inside his sub, so I need to know everything you know.”

  He turned to the penguins to the answer, but they were too busy playing with their fancy hydraulic chairs. Skipper pressed a pedal and the chair shot up high. The others did the same.

  “Yee-hoo!” Skipper cheered.

  “Raaaah!” Rico growled.

  “Haaaa!” cried Kowalski.

  “Weeeee!” squealed Private.

  Agent Classified was not amused. “Just tell me everything you know,” he said, pulling out a notebook.

  The penguins lowered their chairs and got serious—well, sort of.

  “All right,” Skipper began. “Hot dogs are in fact only seventeen percent actual dog.”

  Classified sighed. “Not everything everything. Just everything regarding your abduction by Dr. Octavius Brine.”

  He wheeled Skipper over to a photo of Dr. Brine on the evidence wall.

  “Ah, why didn’t you say so?” Skipper asked. “My team has uncovered that Dr. Octavius Brine is actually an individual known as Derek—”

  “Dave,” Kowalski corrected him.

  “—as Dave the octopus,” Skipper finished.

  “An octopus?” Short Fuse laughed smugly. “No, Dr. Brine is not an octopus. He’s—”

  “An octopus! Precisely!” said Classified. “That’s exactly what our intel indicated.”

  He coughed, and removed a photo of a sheep from the evidence wall. His guess had been way off, but he didn’t want the penguins to know that.

  Then he whispered into his watch. “Release the sheep.”

  He turned back to the penguins. “But what you of course, could not know, is that Dr. Brine’s laboratory in Venice is secretly developing a doomsday weapon called the Medusa Serum.”

  Classified pointed to a picture of a canister filled with green goop.

  “Ah, but what you don’t know is that Dirk—” Skipper began.

  “Dave,” Kowalski corrected.

  “Dave won’t be using his Bazooka Serum—”

  “Medusa Serum,” said Kowalski.

  “Medusa Serum on anybody!” finished Skipper.

  Kowalski nodded. “That part is accurate.”

  “Show ’em, Rico!” Skipper ordered.

  Rico coughed up the canister.

  Classified looked stunned. “You . . . you stole the Medusa Serum?”

  Skipper grinned triumphantly. “Well, ‘stole the serum,’ ‘saved the day,’ ‘did your job for you,’ call it what you will.”

  Classified growled just as a static sound filled the room. Suddenly, Dave’s face appeared on the large screen!

  “Debbie!” Skipper cried.

  “Dave,” Kowalski corrected him.

  “Dave!” Skipper cried.

  “He hacked into our system!” Corporal reported.

  On the screen, Dave looked like he was giving an amazing, villainous speech, but there was no sound to go with it.

  “Where’s the sound?” Eva asked in a Russian accent. “I can’t hear anything.”

  Kowalski yelled at the screen. “Dave! Your microphone. It’s not on!”

  Confused, Dave started pressing buttons.

  “Click on the button with the picture of the microphone,” Classified instructed.

  Short Fuse frowned. “Every time a villain calls in, this happens. That’s so annoying. Every time!”

  Dave’s screen froze and then went blank.

  “Hello? Hello?” Dave’s voice rang out.

  “Now we can hear you, but we can’t see you,” Kowalski reported.

  “I thought it was this button,” Dave said, reaching again.

  Classified sighed. “It’s like talking to my parents.”

  The screen popped up again, and now they could see Dave wearing glasses and peering at buttons, his face close to the camera.

  “How about now?” Dave asked.

  The penguins and agents let out a cheer.

  “Excellent. Now where was I?” Dave tossed his glasses, leaned in, and laughed evilly.

  “Dave!” Kowalski cried.

  “Greetings, North Wind,” Dave began. “I see you’ve met my old zoo mates.”

  “We were never ‘mates,’ ” Skipper corrected him.

  “Turn yourself in, David,” Agent Classified urged. “You’re powerless now that I have your precious Medusa Serum.”

  He held up the canister for Dave to see.

  “What? You! You didn’t steal that!” Skipper protested.

  “It’s over,” Agent Classified said, ignoring Skipper.

  “It’s over? Then why did I
call you?” Dave asked. “Weird. Oh! Maybe it was to show you this.”

  Dave panned the camera to reveal a giant vat of the green serum behind him. Classified looked down at the small canister he was holding. Dave had much, much more.

  “That’s a lot of serum for four penguins,” Kowalski noticed.

  “Aw, you thought this was just for you four?” Dave asked. “No, no, no. We’re just getting started. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do some shopping . . . for revenge!”

  He fumbled with the buttons again. “Wait, how do you . . .”

  His octopus henchmen helped him, and the screen finally flipped off.

  Boop! Boop! A message flashed on the screen in front of Eva.

  “Incoming alert!” she cried.

  “Put it on the screen!” Classified commanded.

  Eva typed on her keyboard, and the map of the world appeared back on the screen. A window popped up on the map with a picture of a penguin inside it.

  “Berlin! Fifteen penguins missing,” Eva reported.

  “Dave’s kidnapping other penguins!” Private cried.

  “No doubt cute and cuddly,” added Corporal.

  “We have to move!” Agent Classified and Skipper said at the same time.

  Then they looked at each other.

  “What?” they both asked. They were both used to being the one in charge.

  “Time for our ‘A’ game,” Classified told his agents.

  “Everybody huddle up!” Skipper told his team.

  “Corporal, ready the jet,” Classified said. “I’m initiating North Wind Protocol Zeta.”

  Boop! Boop! Eva got another alert. “Twelve more penguins taken from London!” she informed them.

  Skipper and the boys jumped into a huddle. “Okay, boys, this is it, the mission we’ve been preparing for our entire lives. We’re gonna take down Dave or die trying.”

  He turned to Kowalski. “Cancel our improv class.”

  “Yes, sir!” Kowalski replied.

  “Rico, equipify!” Skipper commanded.

  Rico grunted.

  “Private, do that little thing I like,” Skipper ordered.

  Private grinned and gave a silly salute.

  “Ha-ha! It’s still funny,” Skipper said.

  Kowalski put down his phone. “Skipper! Good news! I got them to credit our class.”

  The two teams sprang into action. While Corporal readied the VTOL, the penguins helped themselves to some cool gear. They raced back into the situation room loaded with rocket launchers, jet packs, and grenades.

  “Aw yeah, baby!” Skipper cheered.

  “They’re stealing my stuff!” Short Fuse said angrily.

  Agent Classified stepped in front of them.

  “No! This mission is no place for a pathetic waddle of useless penguins!” he said firmly.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Who are you calling pathetic?” Skipper asked.

  “Enough!” Classified shouted, pounding his paw on the table.

  Rico was sitting right there. The table bumped up, he burped, and a rocket shot out of his mouth.

  Boom! It crashed through the window and blew up the VTOL that Corporal had just prepared.

  “See, Rico, that’s why you can’t have nice things,” Skipper said.

  Fwip! Agent Classified shot a tranquilizer dart at Skipper.

  Instantly, Skipper’s whole world went dark.

  CHAPTER 8

  Free Falling

  Moments later, Agent Classified tucked all four penguins into a shipping box.

  “Put on your jammies, penguins,” Short Fuse said.

  “They are even cute when they’re asleep,” Eva remarked, and Corporal nodded in agreement.

  Short Fuse disagreed. “Not to me!”

  “I want these butterballs out of my way, and out of my mission,” Classified said. “Ship them to one of our safe houses. The most remote place on the planet—Madagascar.”

  The penguins didn’t wake up until hours later. They groaned groggily as they tried to figure out what happened.

  “Ugh. Where the heck are we?” Skipper asked.

  “Oxygen content is low,” Kowalski said. “I suggest we limit our breathing.”

  Then the sound of a fart broke the silence.

  “Aw, Private!” Skipper scolded.

  Three beaks jammed through the cardboard of the shipping box. Private poked his beak out last.

  “Sorry, I get gassy when I fly.”

  “He does!” Skipper remembered.

  “We must be on a plane!” guessed Kowalski.

  Wham! They burst out of the box and spilled out onto the floor.

  “What did North Wind do to us?” Kowalski wondered.

  “Oh! They gave us badges!” Private said. He pointed to a circular tag stuck to his skin.

  “Not badges, tranquilizer darts!” Skipper said. He, Kowalski, and Rico plucked them out, but Private left his in. He liked it. It felt like a badge to him—and that made him feel important.

  “Classified! That low-down dirty dog is trying to kick us off the mission!” Skipper fumed.

  “He thinks we can’t save the penguins because we’re just . . . penguins,” Kowalski said.

  “Well, penguins are our flesh and feathers,” said Skipper. “They’re us! And if anyone is going to save us, it’s us!”

  “But, Skipper, we’ve gotta be five miles up,” Kowalski pointed out. “That pretty much limits our options.”

  Skipper’s eyes narrowed with determination. “I make my own options.”

  He slammed the cargo door release button with his flipper.

  Whoosh! The door opened, sucking them out of the plane and into the air! A bunch of shipping packages flew out behind them.

  “Aaaaaagh!” they screamed as they fell.

  “Brilliant move, Skipper,” Kowalski said, “but now we seem to be outside the plane.”

  “I kinda got caught up in the moment,” Skipper admitted. “Okay, Kowalski, your turn to pick up the slack.”

  “Uh. . . .” Kowalski was out of ideas.

  “Why don’t we catch that plane?” Private asked, pointing to a jumbo jet sailing right toward them.

  “Aaaaaaagh!” they screamed.

  Slam! They smacked into its windshield. The pilot simply turned on the windshield wipers and swatted them off.

  Knocked free, they hurtled toward more planes passing below.

  “We’ve got another target, straight ahead at twelve o’clock,” Kowalski said, using a military term to describe the location of target to where it would appear on a clock.

  “Good, it’s only eleven thirty,” said Skipper. “Follow me, boys, we’re going in hot!”

  As they fell at superspeed, Private actually started to burst into flames!

  “No one likes a show-off, Private,” Skipper scolded.

  “Aim for first class!” Kowalski yelled.

  Smash! They tore through the plane’s roof.

  Chaos erupted as the passengers noticed them. Private quickly jumped into an ice bucket, putting out his flames.

  “Kowalski, where does this aircraft go?” Skipper asked.

  Kowalski picked up a croissant from the nearest tray table. “From the odd shape of this bagel, I’d say we’re headed for Paris.”

  “France? Forget it,” Skipper declared.

  “Then I would suggest a midair transfer,” Kowalski said.

  Skipper nodded. “Affirmative!”

  Private walked by, pushing the plane’s beverage cart.

  “Peanuts, peanuts, peanuts!” he called out.

  Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico hopped onto the cart and Private pushed it toward the cockpit. As they entered, the cart got caught on a chair, launching Skipper right onto the dashboard of the plane. He peered out of the cockpit window.

  “There’s our next ride, boys,” he said, pointing toward a plane.

  He hopped back onto the cart, and they rolled backward down the aisle. The penguins burst through the emergenc
y exit and began to free fall once more.

  “Deploy flaps!” Kowalski yelled.

  The cart’s side panels folded out like a makeshift pair of wings as they tried to steer toward the next plane.

  “Stay on target!” cried Skipper.

  “We’re going to catch it! We’re going to catch it!” Private shouted as they zoomed toward the jet.

  Whoosh! The flaps ripped off, and they lost their ability to steer. They flew right past the jet.

  “Crikey!” exclaimed Private. “We’re not going to catch it!”

  Kowalski looked around. “Wait a minute. Where’s Skipper?”

  Rico pointed above them. They looked to see Skipper standing on one of the boxes that had ejected from the first plane. A trail of boxes followed behind him, caught in the air current.

  “Time to get creative!” Skipper called down. “Start grabbing boxes, boys!”

  Rico picked up Private and tossed him like a football at one of the boxes.

  “Going long! Hoo-hoo!” Private cheered as he sailed through the air. He crashed into a box, sending packing peanuts flying out. When he popped back up, he had a parachute strapped to his back!

  “Aw, Private, stop playing with those backpacks,” Skipper said. “Find something useful!”

  Rico jumped into a box and searched through it. Then he began to murmur with excitement. He pointed to a tube jutting out of the box.

  “Now we’re talking,” said Skipper. “Let’s get to work!”

  Skipper and Kowalski jumped into the box with Rico. They started to pump his feet as he blew air into the tube. But the cargo in the box wasn’t inflating fast enough.

  Anxious, Kowalski looked at the ground, which was quickly approaching below them. “Four hundred meters . . . three hundred meters . . .”

  “Speak American, Kowalski!” Skipper snapped.

  “Sorry, sir,” Kowalski said. “Two hundred eighteen yards . . . one hundred nine yards . . . ”

  Rico gave one final, massive puff, and a fully inflated, jungle-themed bounce house burst from the box. It landed softly on the ground, and the four penguins happily bounced on top of it.

  “Okay, then,” said Skipper. “It’s clear what we need to do next.”

  • • •

  One hour later . . . they were still giddily bouncing up and down. Finally, they slid off.

  “Impressive bouncing, boys,” Skipper said. “Now, then, back to civilization. If we’re gonna take Dexter down, we need to know where he is going to strike. But first, who needs to take a whiz?”