I told you

I TOLD you that Gusto would be trouble, and now look what he's done!

That little penguin has just managed to destroy my entire room, in a large "Accident".

You see, Gusto came to me the other day. This was our conversation:

Me: "Oh, brother. What do you want, Gusto?"

Gusto: "Oh Agent, I am so sorry! I just wanted to apologize for my present I gave you when I got back!"

Me: "Oh, so you're sorry that you gave me a box full of scorpions? About time!"

Gusto: "What? What do you mean, scorpions?"

Me: "WHAT SCORPIONS? I mean those deadly scorpions you put in that box!"

Gusto: "Huh? That's funny, they must have snuck in there on the way back..."

Me: "Sure... Well, we'll discuss that later. If not the scorpions, what do you want to apologize for?"

Gusto: "Oh, I was sorry about the broken hinge!"

Me: "WHAT? Compared to the contents, the hinge was fine! Why are you sorry for that?"

Gusto: "No! I'm so sorry! I just couldn't sleep with the guilt! Please accept my apologies!"

Me: "What are you up to this time?"

Gusto: "So you forgive me? Thanks!"

Me: "Hold on, I never sai-"

Gusto: "Wonderful! Here, take this present as a sign of my apologies!"

Me: "What? Uh... okay..."

Gusto: "Well, see ya!"

Then he ran out of the room. The present was a large red box that seemed to have no hidden traps, so I decided to open it. Inside there was just a bunch of gray powder, which blew all around my room and got caught in the cracks in the walls. I realized this must just be another of Gusto's tricks, so I threw away the box and tried in futility to remove the dust. Finally I decided to go to Chizu and try to make her see sense about her rampant pet.

The meeting did not go well. Chizu refused to look up from her book for most of the time, and when I finally got her to stop studying thermonuclear reactors, she claimed that Gusto was a harmless, nice-spirited penguin who was kind enough to give everyone souvenirs. I was about to open my mouth and inform her that she was the only one who had kept hers; everybody else threw theirs away the day after receiving them. Unfortunately, she angrily shoved me out of her room and locked the door, so I walked resignedly back to my cabin.

When I was almost down the hallway to my cabin, I heard someone shout behind me. Upon turning around, I spotted Gusto, who immediately threw a a lit candle at me and yelled "Oops! Agent, catch!" with an evil little smirk. Of course, I couldn't catch it with so little warning, and the candle smashed onto the floor of my room. At that moment, Nadine rounded the corner to tell me that we were missing a bag of gunpowder for the cannons, when the entire room exploded in an enormous flash.

Once I regained conciousness, which I was told was 6 minutes later, Everyone was crowded around me and all the humans seemed worried (note how I said "all the humans"). I sat up and accused Gusto of putting gunpowder all over my room, but he feigned innocence and Chizu defended him, so finally all the rest of us gave up accusing him and we had to go about normal business.

I have spent all my time since rebuilding the room, and whenever I see Gusto, I always see his tongue sticking out of the corner of my eye, but for some strange reason this doesn't happen when Chizu is around. Strange.

Gusto Returns!

Recently, a very terrible development developed! This was, of course, that Gusto the penguin returned to the ship!

Okay, take a few minutes to sit back down in your chair, put your socks back on, and possibly repair all four walls you just crashed through with surprise.

Now, some of you might not have known Gusto was on vacation, but trust me, the crew here knew perfectly well (we have all been having parties every day this week, except Chizu who has been reading the same novel over and over again, "How to fix a thermonuclear reactor For Dummies"). Anyway, Gusto had been gone to visit his relatives in Antarctica for Penguin-Bottle Day, which I am pretty sure he just made up so Chizu would let him go. The reasons I think this are mostly related to the fact that he only packed shorts in his suitcase, and I saw a brochure for Costa Rica in his pocket. But that isn't important; the important thing is that the little dude has come back aboard our boat!

Earlier today, he handed out souveniers to everybody on the boat. Everybody but Chizu and I got snowglobes that had duct tape over the labels, on which was written in permanent marker "Antartica". Strangely, I thought I saw a "C" under Nadine's, which was peeling slightly, but no matter.

Chizu got a jewel-encrusted statue of Gusto himself, which was 16 feet tall and at least 4 tons. Sadly, the statue crashed through the deck of the ship and smashed Gusto's entire room, which made us all very sad. Strangely, Chizu was the only one who looked sad, but everybody else said they were crying on the inside. Weird.

My present, of course, was a roughly cut wooden box that was half-rotten and had a broken hinge. Upon opening it, I found it was filled with poisonous scorpions, which tried to sting me. Luckily, I was wearing a scorpion-proof suit, so they all got bored and decided to go play Dance Dance Revolution in the cargo hold. When I was still alive after a few minutes, I noticed Gusto was crying, but when questioned he said that he was sad about his cabin and that I should be more grateful for my presents.

Well, this is not a good sign. Gusto always causes trouble aboard the ship, and now that he is back from his Antartica Vacation, I'm worried for the ship's safety.