planet of the penguins
by greensilver
--
They got as far as the llamas before Cassie started to cry.
"Maybe she doesn't like llamas," Jack whispered, herding her along to the next exhibit. There were big elephant tracks painted on the ground, showing the way from one animal enclosure to the next; Daniel kept getting distracted by them, and he unconsciously synched his steps up to the tracks as they walked. Cassie saw what he was doing and tried to follow suit, but her legs weren't long enough, and more crying resulted.
Jack gave Daniel the evilest look Daniel had ever seen.
"Look, Cassie - camels," Jack said with an inordinate amount of excitement, still glaring at Daniel over her head.
"I hate it," she wailed, drawing the attention of several mothers with small children. Daniel tried to smile reassuringly at them, the sort of smile that told them that he wasn't actually abusing his ward, and that no intervention was required. God help them if Janet found out that zoo security escorted them off of the premises, or worse - gossipy soccer moms would be the least of their problems then.
"Camels are nice," Daniel said, crouching down next to Cassie. "I've ridden camels, they're nice animals."
He hated camels, but telling her that would only get him another one of those foul looks from Jack.
"It's so mean to the nice camels," she sobbed.
Daniel was about a minute away from calling Sam on speed dial. They had exactly that long to figure out what they'd done to damage Janet's child, and then he was calling for reinforcements.
"Hey, hey," Jack said, tugging on the cap he'd let her borrow for their outing. "What's mean?"
"The camels are all locked up," she said, her tears slowing to an occasional sniffle.
"Oh," Jack said, clearly at a loss.
Daniel stood, glancing at the gaggle of soccer moms by the camel fence. None of them were paying much attention anymore - apparently he and Jack had cleared the 'child abuse at the zoo' hurdle.
"Jack, she's an animal rights activist," Daniel whispered, trying not to laugh.
"Well, we'll fix that," Jack said, and tugged on Cassie's hat again to make her look up. "Listen, kid, the camels are locked up so they don't hurt themselves on the sidewalk, okay?"
She glanced down at the elephant tracks, then over at the camels.
"I mean, do you really want the camels wandering out in the streets?" Jack sounded far too serious; Daniel had to look away to hide a smile. "Who's going to teach the camels to look both ways before they cross, huh? You?"
"Well," she started, clearly giving the idea all due consideration.
"Oh, no," Jack interrupted, shaking his head. "It doesn't end there. What about all the animals you haven't even seen yet, like the lions and tigers ... and bears?"
"Oh my," Daniel said, giving Jack an innocent look.
"The giraffes couldn't even fit under the traffic lights," Jack said, ignoring Daniel. "I think they're better off in there, don't you?"
"I guess," Cassie said, sounding only half-convinced.
Jack's speech must've worked, though; she made it through most of the zoo without having another fit in the name of animal freedom.
Then they got to the Penguin House.
The minute that Cassie realized that there was an entire sheet of plexiglas between her and the penguins, she was upset all over again.
"It's so small in there," she said, staring at the penguin habitat with her nose pressed against the glass.
"Penguins like small spaces," Daniel said, watching an Emperor penguin dive into the water. His limited knowledge of penguins suggested that they tended toward wide open spaces and long migrations, but again, there was no reason to tell her that.
"But there are so many of them," she pointed out, flattening a hand on the glass to try and touch a Rockhopper penguin as it swam past. "How can they like it then?"
"They like to huddle up for warmth," Daniel said, calling upon all his years on the lecture circuit to infuse his voice with confident intelligence.
Her eyes got wide as saucers. "You mean, they're cold in there?"
"Penguins like it cold," he said, getting a little desperate.
She glared at him. "But you just said-"
"All right, kids, that's enough," Jack said, grabbing Daniel by the arm and dropping a hand on Cassie's head to steer them both away from the glass. "I think we've seen enough of the penguins for now."
"I like the penguins," Cassie protested, trying to wriggle free.
"We'll come back to visit them another time," Jack said, his tone indicating that they would never, ever be back to visit the penguins if he could help it.
"We should take them with us." Cassie pulled free and stepped back to the glass, pointing at a Rockhopper that stared at them, evidently monitoring their conversation.
Jack just looked amused. "I don't think your mother would-"
"We can take them through the Stargate," she said, and the Rockhopper bobbed a bit in evident agreement. "They could have a whole planet to themselves."
She'd practically screeched out that Stargate. Daniel glanced around the Penguin House to verify that they were, in fact, alone.
"We can't just give the penguins a planet," Jack said, still trying to reason with her.
She folded her arms. "Why not?"
Daniel waited for Jack to provide another kid-sensible answer, but Jack was silent. After a moment, Daniel looked up, and realized that Jack was waiting for him to come up with something. Either Jack had run out of ideas, or it was just Daniel's turn.
"Overfishing," Daniel said.
Jack glared at him. "Cassie, we could never fit all those penguins in the gateroom."
"We'll take them in groups," she said, almost clinging to the plexiglas.
The Rockhopper had gotten a little closer, and it stared at Jack and Daniel just over her right shoulder. Daniel couldn't help but find that kind of creepy - at least the camels had remained at a distance.
Jack wore the sort of frustrated expression he usually reserved for Daniel alone. "The zoo would never let us take them."
"We'll break them out," she declared, looking ready to battle the zookeepers all by herself.
"In groups," Jack said, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes," she said, and the Rockhopper bobbed again, almost nodding.
Jack's eyed the Rockhopper. "Just take them right through the glass?"
"Well, no," she said, her tone indicating that he was being a complete idiot. "We'll go back and get Teal'c first, and he'll take his big stick and blow it open so the penguins can get out."
Daniel made a mental note to tell Teal'c about his new role as penguin champion.
"Come on, kid, we haven't even seen the prairie dogs yet," Jack said, waving her toward the exit.
She pressed even tighter against the glass, staring at Jack.
"Cassie," Jack said, exasperation beginning to give way to impatience, "we're not freeing any penguins today."
"We could do it," she said, refusing to budge.
"Cassie," Jack said again, his voice getting dangerously sharp.
Daniel tried to intervene. "Hey, Jack-"
They both ignored him.
"No one would ever notice!" Cassie insisted, her lower lip wobbling ever-so-slightly.
"We are not giving the penguins a planet," Jack shouted, just as the soccer moms from the camel exhibit ushered their children into the Penguin House.
There was absolute silence among kids, moms, and honorary uncles. Even the penguins were a little taken aback.
Daniel seized the moment. He stepped closer to the glass, leaned in, and whispered: "Come on. Let's go to the chimpanzee exhibit, and we can talk about freeing the apes."
"But I want to free the penguins," she whispered back, her lip still wobbling.
"We can't do that right now, anyway," he pointed out. "We have to go back and get Teal'c first, remember?"
She smiled at him - just a tiny, I-still-might-cry-anyway sort of smile, but that was enough. She stepped away from the glass, waved goodbye to the Rockhopper, and followed Daniel to the exit.
Jack looked a little miffed, but he followed, too. They hung back a bit as Cassie slowly made her way to the chimpanzees, trying to stretch her legs to fit the elephant tracks as she walked.
"Jack, did it ever occur to you that zoos are kind of evil?" Daniel said, carefully stepping on an elephant footprint.
"Not really," Jack said, but he frowned a little, like maybe he was actually considering the issue.
"I suppose we can't really give the penguins a planet," Daniel said, after a moment's thought.
Jack gave Daniel the second-evilest look that Daniel had ever seen.
"Right," Daniel said, hurrying forward to catch up with Cassie. "Just kidding."
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