Penguins of Madagascar Movie Novelization Read online

  “Get a grip on yourself, soldier!” Skipper said. “That’s an order!”

  “He’s not getting a grip!” Private pointed out.

  “Wait! I’ll speak Mutant Zombie Penguin to him!” Skipper said. He turned to Kowalski. “Gerbitwaaahbuggahissss!”

  Kowalski paused . . . and threw the garbage can over Skipper and Private’s heads.

  Skipper shrugged. “Well, that’s all I’ve got.”

  Kowalski menacingly slithered toward them.

  Private thought quickly. “Kowalski, Eva is worried about you!”

  Kowalski’s mind instantly snapped back to normal.

  “She is?” he asked.

  Skipper patted Private on the shoulder.

  “What did she say? Did she say my name specifically? Were there tears? Details!” Kowalski begged. Then it hit him. “Private, you’re alive! Come here!”

  He hugged Private with his snaky flippers.

  “This feels a little awkward, but I’m happy,” he said.

  Then they heard a familiar garbled cry, and turned to see Rico on a kebab cart. A pair of wings had sprouted from his back! He chased away the cart owner by waving a flaming kebab, and then swallowed the kebab like a sword swallower.

  “Graaagh!” he yelled.

  “Rico, you listen to us!” Skipper pleaded. “You’re—”

  Burp! Rico belched loudly and a puff of smoke came out. He smiled and waved.

  “Eh, I guess you’re kind of the same either way,” Skipper realized.

  Then Rico noticed Private. He leaped down from the kebab cart and tried to kiss Private with his mutant beak. Skipper quickly separated them.

  “Save your hug for the holidays, Rico,” Skipper told him. “We’ve got a mutant apocalypse to bring down!”

  CHAPTER 20

  Private’s Sacrifice

  Private quickly led them all to the ray.

  “Private, you stole Dave’s ray!” Kowalski exclaimed.

  Private nodded. “Yeah! I thought we could use it to turn everyone back to normal.” He handed the ray remote to Skipper.

  Kowalski peered at the glowing green serum inside. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “To reverse the ray, we’d have to swap out the Medusa Serum with a fuel source of almost immeasurable cuteness.”

  “You mean, like, a chipmunk?” Skipper asked.

  “Not cute enough, sir,” Kowalski replied.

  Skipper upped the cuteness. “Riding a train, in a cowboy hat?”

  Kowalski shook his head. “No.”

  “Inside a Japanese girl’s backpack?” Skipper tried.

  “What part of ‘immeasurable cuteness’ do you not understand?” asked a frustrated Kowalski.

  Private suddenly realized what he had to do. Maybe he wasn’t a great leader, like Skipper. Or supersmart, like Kowalski. Or super . . . whatever Rico was. But he was cute. Really cute.

  Immeasurably cute.

  Without another thought, he hopped inside the ray and attached the cables to himself. Skipper spotted him.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” Skipper yelled to Private.

  “We have to change these penguins back before somebody gets hurt,” Private said.

  “No, wait. No, no, waaah!” Skipper yelled, and he dropped the ray remote. That triggered the ray. A beam hit a random penguin and turned her back to normal.

  “The ray, it works! It WORKS!” Kowalski cheered.

  “Private, are you okay?” Skipper asked nervously.

  “Yes,” Private answered. But Skipper, Kowalski and Rico all stared at him and gasped. Private had a butt-hand.

  “Whoa, butt-hand! There’s a hand attached to his butt. That was not . . . that was not there before!” Kowalski said. Private turned around to look and jumped, causing the cables to fall off of him.

  “Get out of there! That’s an order! This is too dangerous!” Skipper commanded.

  “Permission to defy order!” Private replied.

  “Permission denied,” Skipper said.

  “Then I deny your denial!” Private cried.

  “He’s gone rogue!” Kowalski said worriedly.

  Skipper jumped up and grabbed onto the ray.

  “Private, we don’t know what this is going to do to you. It already made you sprout a butt-hand!” Skipper told him.

  “Skipper, this is the mission I’ve been training for my entire life. I know it has to be me this time,” Private replied. “And I think you know it too. I’m the secret weapon.”

  Private fired up the ray. Skipper looked out at the chaos all around them. Hundreds of poor, confused mutant penguins battling with terrified humans. Private was right. It had to stop—now. And Private was the one to do it. Reluctantly, he let go of the ray and dropped back down with Rico and Kowalski.

  “I guess it’s true what they say,” he said, his voice filled with emotion. “There comes a time when you have to let a boy grow up and strap a tube to his head and his butt that uses his cuteness to power a ray that zaps mutants back to normal. I just didn’t think it would be today.”

  He picked up the remote and raised the ray higher, so its beam could reach more penguins.

  Across the park, Dave did a happy dance, stopping every few moments to kick a penguin into a person or a person into a penguin.

  “La-la-la, boot!” he sang. “Tra-la-la, kick!”

  Dave hopped on top of a souvenir stand to get a better view of the scene.

  “Yes! Fear them! Hate them!” he cried.

  Then he noticed the giant ray rising above the tree line.

  “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “They’re going to un-mutant my mutants! Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

  With a loud war cry, he ripped off his Dr. Brine costume and charged across the park. He barked orders to his octopus henchmen through a walkie-talkie.

  “They’re on the ray! Hunt them down! Hurt them! Bury them!” Then he turned to an octopus in a chef’s hat. Kevin, bake on!” he ordered. “We’re still going to need that victory cake.”

  Then he tossed the radio and headed for the ray. Skipper spotted him speeding toward them, his face red with fury.

  “Uh-oh. I haven’t seen anyone this angry since we all missed Rico’s recital,” Skipper said. “We only have time for one shot. What’s the ETA, Kowalski?”

  Up on the ray, Kowalski and Rico were busy taping snow globes together to make one giant snow globe disco ball. With it, they could split the beam from the ray so that it would hit every penguin in the park.

  “Going as fast as I can!” Kowalski called back. “These tentacles are tricky!”

  Rico added another snow globe to the ball, and Kowalski laid down another strip of tape over it.

  Then Rico noticed a small army of octopus henchmen headed toward them. They had to fire now!

  “Uh-oh!” Rico said, pointing.

  “Octopi!” Private yelled.

  “Nearly there!” Kowalski promised.

  Rico grabbed Kowalski and flew down from the top of the ray.

  “Beam splitter ready!” Kowalski reported. “Fire at will!”

  Dave realized he wouldn’t get to the ray in time. He knocked a kid off a playground merry-go-round. Then he wound his tentacles around the bars.

  “Oh, I don’t think so!” he yelled.

  He used the spinning motion of the playground ride to launch himself into the air. At the same time, Skipper pressed the button on the remote.

  Click. Click. Nothing happened. Then the no battery light flashed.

  “Dead batteries?” Skipper couldn’t believe it. “Batteries, Rico, we need batteries! Go, go, go!”

  Rico raced off and found a Battery Park battery stand. But the sign on the front said SOLD OUT.

  Rico spun around, noticing a convenience store on the edge of the park. He quickly flew through its doors, landing right next to the batteries . . . which were right next to a rack of Cheezy Dibbles!

  At the same time, Skipper and Kowalski turned to face the octopus army. Kowalski jum
ped upside down on top of his huge, mutant head and wrapped his tentacles around himself. Skipper yanked one of the tentacles like a rip cord, sending Kowalski hurtling toward the henchmen like a spinning top.

  Then a bunch of things happened at the same time:

  Rico stood in the convenience store, trying to choose between regular and spicy Cheezy Dibbles.

  Dave soared through the sky, headed right for the ray.

  Skipper slid under the line of octopus henchmen, whacking them with the remote as he passed.

  Then Rico coughed up the money (along with a harmonica and a rubber ducky) to pay for the batteries and the bags of Cheezy Dibbles and flew off. He tossed the batteries to Skipper.

  Skipper caught the batteries and slammed them into the remote.

  “Ha-ha!” Skipper cried triumphantly. He moved to press the button when . . .

  Smack! A henchman reached Skipper and knocked the remote out of his flippers. It sailed out of reach.

  “Nooooooooo!” Skipper wailed.

  Kowalski dove for it but missed.

  The remote flew through wiggling octopus tentacles as the henchmen tried to grab for it.

  Skipper tripped, hit the ground, and bounced back up.

  “Dibble me!” he yelled to Rico.

  Rico tossed Skipper a bag of Dibbles. Skipper popped the bag, sending one lone Dibble shooting through the tangle of tentacles.

  Squish! Dave smacked into the giant snow globe on top of the ray. He wrapped his tentacles around it and reached past it toward Private.

  At the same moment, the lone Dibble reached the remote before the octopi could.

  Dink! The dibble hit the big red button, and the ray fired with a tremendous burst of energy.

  Then a brilliant flash of light blinded them all.

  CHAPTER 21

  A Valued Member of the Team

  As the light faded, a purple octopus tentacle wrapped around a skyscraper. Dave laughed maniacally . . . and then bumped into an invisible wall. Catching his reflection in the plastic, he realized the truth.

  Dave had not transformed into a giant, city-­conquering octopus. He had transformed into an adorable, tiny octopus with a supercute face! And now he was trapped inside a snow globe.

  “What?” Dave asked. “Are you monkey-fighting kidding me?”

  He looked around the park. Soft, pink light bathed the park, and hundreds of small, cute penguins began to dance around happily. The ray had worked! They were all back to normal!

  Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico looked at one another and let out a cheer. They were back to normal too! Then a tumble of tiny, cute octopi henchmen fell on them. The ray had worked on them too.

  Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico looked at the ray chamber, which was clouded in mist. They slowly approached. Was Private all right? “Private!” Skipper yelled.

  “He’s at stage eight on the mutation scale,” Kowalski yelled. “And the scale only goes to five!”

  A shell began to encase Private on all sides.

  “Don’t worry, a chrysalis is forming around you,” Kowalski said to Private. “That’s perfectly normal.”

  At this point Corporal stepped in to help. He smashed the glass chamber of the ray, and gently placed Private’s chrysalis in front of Skipper.

  “Private . . . ,” Skipper whispered.

  Just then the outer casing of the chrysalis began to crack.

  Skipper, Rico, and Kowalski all gasped.

  SPLAT! The shell exploded, covering everyone in goop.

  “Private?” Skipper said cautiously.

  Private was woozy. And he had a new mutation. His butt-hand was gone, but now a tiny chicken head had sprouted on top of his head!

  “Hello,” Private said.

  “Hello!” the chicken head squawked.

  The penguins all laughed and cheered, until Private’s chicken head clamped down on Kowalski’s head.

  “Aaagh!” Kowalski yelled.

  Private struggled with the chicken head until he finally managed to pull it off Kowalski.

  “Hehe. Sorry,” Private said.

  Skipper was overcome with emotion. “Soldier, you apologize for nothing,” Skipper told him. “You just saved our lives. Heck, you just saved the whole dad-blasted species! You’re the best one of us all. You’re the elite-est of the elite. The most meaningful and valued member of this team.”

  Private beamed and saluted Skipper, who saluted right back. Then Skipper stuck his tongue out at Private, and he giggled. Then all the penguins rushed in for a group hug.

  Tiny, cute Dave began screaming inside the snow globe. He started running like a hamster on a wheel, and rolled himself over to Skipper.

  “Oooh, look at you!” Skipper says.

  “You think this is over?” Dave said. “I’m just getting started. I’m going to mutate every cute creature in the world!”

  Skipper saw the little girl who had been so scared by the penguins earlier. He tossed her the snow globe. She looked inside and smiled.

  “Cool, an octopus!” she said.

  Dave smiled back, glad to be wanted.

  “I hope you find happiness, Dave,” Skipper said kindly.

  The girl began to shake the snow globe. “It’s snowing! It’s snowing! It’s snowing!” she shouted.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah!” Dave wailed.

  The penguins suddenly looked up as a loud sound roared overhead.

  Classified turned to Skipper and his crew. Then he looked around the park. There was the little girl, shaking a snow globe with what looked like a tiny Dave inside it. There were some humans and penguins cuddling on a bench. Playing catch. Sharing an ice cream cone. Riding a bicycle built for two. He took it all in, stunned.

  He cleared his throat. “Penguins, this is difficult for me to say, but—”

  “Is it ‘osteoporosis’?” Skipper asked. “You just gotta lean into the vowels. Ahhh-stee-ohhhh-pahhh—”

  “What? No,” Classified said. “I need to say that I was wrong about you. And there’s only one way to make it right.”

  “Give us jetpacks,” said Kowalski.

  “We could kiss,” said Eva at the same time.

  Kowalski’s eyes widened. Had he heard right?

  “Whoa! Uh, did you just say—”

  Eva grabbed him, dipped him, and lifted her wing to block everyone’s view. Skipper covered Private’s eyes. When Eva lowered her wing, Kowalski had kiss marks all over his beak.

  “Well, that feels right!” he said, beaming.

  “I think I’d actually prefer a jetpack, please,” Private said.

  Skipper turned to Classified. “You heard the man!” he said.

  • • •

  The next day, the penguins were all merrily soaring through the sky with their new jetpacks. Everything was great, except for one thing. Private still had a chicken head.

  Private flew over to Skipper’s side. “So, are we turning me back to normal, or . . . ?”

  Skipper grinned. “Well, what is normal, Private? I believe we’ve learned from this delightful adventure that looks don’t matter, it’s what’s inside that counts.”

  Kowalski flew over to join them. Private’s chicken head suddenly grabbed onto Kowalski’s head, ripped him out of his backpack and threw him away. Private gasped! Luckily, Rico caught Kowalski in time and plopped him back in his jetpack.

  “All right, fine. We’ll turn you back first thing Monday,” Skipper promised.

  The penguins all cheered and zipped off on their jetpacks into the glorious future.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any
references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Spotlight paperback edition October 2014

  Penguins of Madagascar © 2014 DreamWorks Animation L.L.C.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3728-8

  ISBN 978-1-4814-3729-5 (eBook)