Chapter 4: Getting Snow-Cones

With a slow movement, Silvy strokes her flipper over the feathers of Juarez's flipper. "I am sorry." Then she withdraws her flipper and stares out of the plane-window for a view moments, while the tears keep streaming down her face. It was as if every happy moment replayed over and over in her head. And then, boom. Nothing, no word. As if she never existed. Forgotten.

"No, there's nada to be sorry about... That's what revenge is for." Juarez says with a small laugh. "Say, señorita, are you okay?"

Silvy shrugs. "I think so... Yes." She then sobs even harder, her body starts to shake. "It's only, I can't forget him. He was so handsome, so strong!" She tries to dry her eyes with her flippers, but her feathers get soaking wet.

Juarez looks uncomfortably at Silvy. Being comforting was not something that was in his usual field of expertise. "Ummm... There, there, chica?" he attempts as he somewhat stiffly and nervously pats her shoulder.

Silvy's head turns as she feels someone petting her on her shoulder. "Oh, I am sorry." She sniffs. "I am totally ruining our date, right?" She asks him, with a watery smile. "Do you happen to have a tissue over here?" She asks him.

"Sí." Juarez says handing here a tissue box. "Here you go."

Silvy takes the tissue box and takes one tissue out. "Thanks." She says sniffling. Then she dries her eyes. Then she puts away the tissue and hugs Juarez.

Juarez gives Silvy a slightly surprised look after the hug. "Um. De nada." he says slowly.

"How long do you think that it takes us to get to New York?" Silvy asks Juarez in a still shivering voice, she still feels like bursting out in tears.

Juarez looks at the time on his cell phone. "I'd estimate about quince minutos más o menos." he says.

Silvy nods and sits back in her seat. She wonders if she had made the right decision to break Juarez out. She could have had plenty of other, more loving and open guys. She knew that all too good. And still, something in the way he behaved made her feel attracted to him. She glances over at Juarez. Still, she thinks that he is surely good-looking, maybe he just needs to get a little looser. She decides to give him some more time.

Juarez glances at Silvy. He had to admit, she was pretty attractive. Juarez shakes his head. 'No, Juarez. Never again. Don't even think about it.' he thinks to himself.

"How much longer now?" Silvy asks a bit impatiently, wanting to get out of the plane.

"I'm actually going to start landing now. Make sure you're buckled up." he says as he starts pushing buttons and switching switches.

Silvy nods and starts to get the belt around her waist. She then closes her eyes. The landing was always something she didn't like about being in a plane. It sometimes felt like crashing into reality. Losing the illusion that she, a penguin, really could fly.

Juarez slowly lands the plane and after a couple of minutes, the plane stops moving and Juarez sighs. 'Another perfect landing to add to the tally.' he thinks. He then turns and looks at Silvy. "You can open your eyes now, señorita. The plane has landed." he says.

Silvy opens her eyes and looks around. She takes a deep breath and looks at Juarez. "You are a very good pilot." She gives him an appreciating smile. Then she gets the belt off, stands up, opens the plane-door and jumps on the ground. "New York sure changed a bit..." She says while looking at a skyline that has no resemblance at all with that of New York.

"No it hasn't. We're in New Jersey." Juarez says walking out of the plane. "It would have been too risky for me to land in New York. But, it's only a short slide from here to Central Park."

"You are calling a slide from over 70 miles short?" Silvy raises a non-existing eyebrow at Juarez. "What about carjacking a car?" She waddles to a red one, being parked close to where they landed the plane. "I think this one will do." Then she turns towards Juarez. "Or are you too scared again?" She asks him teasingly.

Juarez shrugs. "70 miles, 70 centimeters, it's all about the same to me. It's not as long as from Brazil to Panama, and I slid that in almost a day and a half. So, 70 miles is an easy work-out slide." He slides over to the car, too. "But, since you are a señorita, and not used to sliding across half of the world, we can take a car."

Silvy gives Juarez a funny and somewhat hurt look. "Who said something about not being used to slide?" She opens the car-door and gets in the drivers-seat. "I just don't like to get my belly dirty when I can have fun with a car." She starts the car and pushes the gas down a little. "Are you coming, or do I have to eat two snow-cones today?"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." he says, though he was already starting to fear how the car ride was going to go. He gets into the car.

Silvy immediately hits the gas and drives the car fast, but still safely through the streets of New Jersey towards New York. "Do you already have in mind which flavor snow-cone you want, Juarez?"

"I think that I'll probably get rainbow... How about you, señorita?" Juarez replies as he rests his flipper on the door where he has the window rolled all the way down.

"Definitely strawberries. Or banana, or mango, chocolate, maybe mint... Chocolate chip... NO! I know I take pistachio. Or not... Euhm... " She loses her focus on the road and takes several wrong turns while still pondering on which flavor snow-cone she would like. "Kiwi, no... Peach then?"

Juarez sticks his head out the window as he watches them pass some street signs he did not recognize. "Um, señorita, I think you missed our turn..." He looks at Silvy.

Silvy snaps out of her snow-cone flavor deciding thoughts and looks out of the car window. "Really?" She glances over at Juarez. "How could I've missed our turn?" She abruptly stops the car and jumps out. She waddles several meters away from the car and sits down on the middle of the road. There she gets a clipboard, map and a calculator out of nowhere. "I guess we can avoid... Turn around here..." She mumbles. "Yes!" She says as she finally finds the right route. She slides back to the car with a big smile on her face.

Juarez looks at Silvy as if she has lost her mind, which she in Juarez's opinion probably had at some point. "Chica, what was that all about?"

Silvy gets in the car again. "I just found us a faster route!" Silvy hits the gas and drives like a maniac onto the pavement, almost hitting seven people. "That's more like it!" She yells while getting her flippers in the air for a moment. "Yeah!"

Juarez nods. "If you say so, señorita." He props his feet up on the dashboard and pulls a pair of sunglasses out of nowhere and slides them on. He watches the people diving out-of-the-way of the car and tries not to think on how easy it would be for her to crash and kill him and her both. "Are you trying to hit the people?" he asks.

Silvy shrugs. "I am not if they don't get into the way. If they make the stupid mistake to actually get in our way..." She smiles a bit maniacally and then almost hit an old lady, walking very slowly on the middle of the pavement. "Look out!" She yells out of the car window and then gives the car a bit more gas. "I think that we're almost there."

"Really? Alright, just don't drive too close to the Central Park Zoo... Or West Park Zoo which is also near here." Juarez says as he watches the light poles, cars and fleeing people from out of the window.

"Don't worry, I won't ever get close to that stupid Central Park Zoo ever again." Then she thinks for a moment. "But why not to West Park?" She gives a little gas and uses the hand brake for stopping the car, which gave a nice sound effect and the smell of burned rubber filled the air. "I just love doing that!" The car stopped right in front of an ice-cart, the man behind it had already left it when he saw the car coming.

"West Park is where Rachel," He makes a face as he says her name. "Skippsy, Marissa, and the niña lives." Juarez gets out of the car. "What do you mean by 'again'? You've been there before, chica?"

Silvy gives him a look after he had said the name Rachel. "Was Rachel your girlfriend?" She asks him with raised interest. She jumps up the cart, obviously ignoring Juarez question if she had visited the Central Park Zoo earlier. She then lowers her voice to a hushed whisper. "Already tried to take revenge on her?"

"Girl—girlfriend? Rachel? No. No, no, no. You have me confused with my cousin, Alejandro." He lowers his voice. "I've tried to get revenge on her several times, all of which have failed."

"Sure..." Silvy says. "But aren't you sure that you didn't wanted her to be your girlfriend... And who's Alejandro?" She lowers her voice again. "Why did they fail? Did you try to stab her in the back or something like that?" Silvy picks up a large rainbow flavored snow-cone and hands it to Juarez. She then jumps off the cart, without getting her own snow-cone.

"Hmm, nope. Never did want her... Okay, maybe I did a little, tiny bit when I was much, much younger. Alejandro is my goody goody cousin who is currently dating Rachel." He lowers his voice too. "There was always either Alejandro or one of her friends in the way. Yes, I tried that, but I got tackled by Alejandro." He takes the snow-cone. "Gratias... But wait, aren't you getting one for yourself, chica?"

"That's too bad, maybe you should have tried stabbing her in the side." Silvy waddles towards a lake and sits down. She watches the little ducklings swimming in the lake. Then she clenches her flippers. "I am not hungry." She says a bit angry.

"Eh, then she would have seen me." He sits down beside her and frowns. Juarez is still not sure what he should do. "Errr... What's wrong, señorita?" He asks. It sounded like something what would be asked at a time like this.

"Maybe you could have practiced your ninja skills better." Then, Silvy shrugs and stares into Juarez's eyes. "No, nothing is wrong... It's just, he took me here on our second date. We swam into this lake afterwards..." She starts to whisper. "I'm just glad that I found a real man now..." She jumps up and waddles towards the car, but halfway there she turns around to face Juarez. "What about taking revenge on them, right now?"

Juarez thinks for a moment on what Silvy meant that she had found a real man..."Wait! Revenge? Now? Of course! Where is this ex-boyfriend?" he smiles, happy to do something revenge and action filled.