Cannon Surplus, Macaroni

Well, once again, I have horrible news. Although we tried very hard to prevent it, Gusto has actually managed to destroy our cannon supplies with his Macaroni Machine 3008.14 . Here is the full scoop:

Gusto created his machine after Chizu noticed that we had a huge surplus of cannons, which is strange because we always seem to have a lot of cannons on this ship. I investigated this matter a few weeks ago, in fact, and discovered an enormous cannon manufacturing center between the 7th and 9th decks, which accounts for the missing 8th deck of our ship. I was about to report this find when Gusto accidentally threw some dynamite at me and missed (a common pastime of his, both the dynamite part and the missing and hitting large and expensive targets part). The whole facility came crashing down, and Nadine immediately came down to investigate the source of the noise. She called a meeting, and this is what happened:

Gusto: It wasn't me!

Agent: It was too! Just check the video footage!

At this point everybody reviewed the video footage of the incident which Zora had been recording for no apparent reason, and agreed that Gusto was in fact responsible.

Agent: See! It was him!

Gusto: Okay, fine, perhaps it was me.

Nadine: Gusto! This is crossing the line! I have put up with you releasing scorpions on my favorite Dance Dance Revolution game, launching Zora's cannon incorrectly, getting a second Gusto to come aboard (which one are you, incidentally?), blowing up half the ship, blowing up the hole ship, sinking most of the ship, and stealing a fish from the freezer, but I will not stand for you destroying an entire floor of the ship!

Chizu: Oh come on, it isn't that bad! He didn't mean to hit the facility!

Agent: Yeah, he only meant to hit ME!

Chizu: Well I still think you are making a big deal about this.

Eréndira: But without any cannons, how will we travel with efficiency in this modern age? For more information, see my graduate paper: Cannons in the industrial revolution: Efficient travel, gunpowder usage, and the best way to tame naughty ostriches. You see...

Zora: HONK! HONK HONK HONKO HONK!

Chizu: *in tears* It wasn't his fault! He is a good penguin at heart!

Eréndira: ...And then in paragraph 6, I discuss the many uses, pros, and cons of cannons as compared to planes, buses, trains, and skateboards, comparing mobility and range. Then, in paragraph 7, I talk about good aiming and the potential side effects of bad aim. And...

Chizu: *crying profusely* And I mean, he is just so sweet! And he baked me a cake once! I think... wait, that was a rock. But still!

Zora: HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK!

Nadine: BE QUIET, EVERYONE!

*silence falls*

Nadine: Alright, so, since we are all in agreement that Gusto caused this, inadvertently or not, I think I have a reasonable punishment. He must rebuild the facility, AND to teach him a lesson, he must also make a Macaroni Machine that will make macaroni. Is this clear with everyone?

*silence for several minutes*

Zora, Eréndira, and Chizu: *spontaneously begin breakdancing*

Nadine: I will take that as a yes.

So now, a few weeks later, Gusto finished both tasks, but on the first test run of his Macaroni Machine, he managed to wipe out the entire cannon facility again, so Eréndira was unable to make her regular trip to the tri-annual breakdancing competition, the prize money from which is one of the only sources of steady income for the ship, and as such we are out of Horn polishing solution.

Return of the Transmission!

Oh dear! Recently, we have been contacted by another stranger, who seems to be going by the codename of "SalAdSpinnEr11". Chizu was the one who received the call, again, and she called the ship's crew together. We decided to answer this strange radio transmission, so here is the conversation:

MInsrstrng: This is the vessel of Chizu, Erendira, Agent Pizza, Nadine, Zora, and the most adorable penguins in the world. Are you there?

SalAdSpinnEr11: Hello, anyone there? Do you have a shovel?

MInsrstrng: No, no shovels aboard.

SalAdSpinnEr11: HA! You just gave away that you are on a boat or vessel of some kind!

MInsrstrng: Well, yes, that happens to be the case. What's yo point, huh?

SalAdSpinnEr11: I am not going to say ANY MORE. That would alert you to the fact that I am planning to invade your boat.

MInsrstrng: Why are you planning to invade our boat?

SalAdSpinnEr11: HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT?

MInsrstrng: Uh... never mind. Just answer the question.

SalAdSpinnEr11: Well, okay. You see, I don't have a shovel.

MInsrstrng: HONK! *radio static* Sorry that was Zora.

MInsrstrng: Anyway, we just said that we don't have a shovel.

SalAdSpinnEr11: I know.

MInsrstrng: Then why are you invading our ship?

SalAdSpinnEr11: To look for a shovel.

MInsrstrng: But we don't have a shovel!

SalAdSpinnEr11: Are you trying to confuse me? This is getting me nowhere! Just tell me your coordinates!

MInsrstrng: We are at 0, 0 latitude and whatever that other one is.

SalAdSpinnEr11: Okay thanks, glad to know that you guys are such good navigators! I will be there shortly!

The false coordinates were of course my ingenious idea. Hopefully, he has been thrown off the trail, but since Zora has been regularly dropping large fluorescent buoys in the water behind the ship, I am not hopeful. Well, at least we have the pirate procedure.

Two Gustos?

Alright, let's make this snappy, since I have shipwork to attend to. But basically, something TERRIBLE has just happened! You see, Gusto's identical cousin, Gusto, has come aboard our ship! It all happened in a fateful twist of events:

It was a fairly stormy night (about 64.36/100 on the Encyclophobaticsburg Storm Rating Scale) when the crew was mainly relaxing after a hard day's work of playing "Spot-a-Seagull". Zora was polishing a certain horn collection, Nadine was happily making paper snowflakes out of Chizu's Thermonuclear Reactor book, and Chizu was placing an order for a new copy of said book. Nobody knows what Eréndira was doing, as usual, and I was building an improved model of my beach-ball skis. Suddenly, there was a flash of lightning, and I saw the mast of a ship outlined in the fog. Calling all crew to alert, we went through our escape procedures, in case Hot Dog Silver had returned. However, it turned out to only be Gusto’s private yacht (guess who gave it to him? Hint: It starts with a “C” and ends with a “hizu”). Anyway, he came aboard and went into the cabin. Then, he came aboard and went into the cabin. As you may be able to tell, it’s a little confusing to see even such an evil penguin as this one doing the same thing twice, so I went to investigate, and discovered that he had brought his cousin aboard.

We (the ship’s crew, that is) called a meeting immediately, and for some reason Eréndira went off to make small embellished invitations even though everyone was already there. The rest of us decided that we would have to build a private spa to accommodate this newest member (strangely, now that I think of it, I think that was Chizu’s idea). First, though, we had to get the names straight. We decided to call Gusto’s cousin “Gusto II”, and as soon as that was decided, Zora blew a ceremonial horn and the decision was settled. Chizu began drawing up elaborate blueprints, and the rest of us went to Gusto’s room to tell him not to get up to much mischief.

As soon as we arrived, Gusto and Gusto II hastily hid some France travel brochures, and angrily demanded that we leave. We declared that we needed some sort of distinction between the two if Gusto II was to stay on board, and the whole event came down to a vicious stare-off between us. Suddenly, a spontaneous tidal wave of paper blasted into the room, and Eréndira proudly came in to show us her fabulous invitations (The front cover featured a flower pot with seventeen dolphins and a lamp sticking out of it, so I decided not to open any.)

Nadine had the brilliant idea of leaving Gusto and Gusto II to clean up, so in the confusion we escaped to the Conservatory, where Chizu was crying about some sort of “Out of Stock” page on the computer. At least we had escaped the little penguin menaces.