Monday has this friend . . .

Hello, girls! It's Monday!

So, Carlyn, I'm not sure if this is what you wanted, but here we go.

So, I have this friend. Her name isn't all that important, but her situation . . . well, I was hoping you all might be able to offer some advice -- you know, to pass along to her.

So, my friend has, uh, gotten herself into a bit of trouble. I can't go into many of the details, because it's classified, but on a very routine trip to South America, she found herself in the midst of an international ring of penguin smugglers.

Yes. You read that correctly. Penguin smugglers. In South America.

Okay, okay, I know it sounds crazy, but here's the thing. She was invited by a (very rich!) friend to go skydiving in Peru, and she thought, yeah, sure, why not? I mean, would you have turned down such an opportunity? BUT, upon jumping out of the plane, she was caught in a vicious updraft, which carried her all the way to the southern tip of the country. Well, there she was, miles away from her friend or anyone she knew, she didn't speak the language (I mean, she'd taken Spanish in high school, but let's be real. That was six years ago, so it's not like she remembers it), and it was the middle of the rainforest! Where was she supposed to go?

Well, she knew she had to start somewhere, so she just started walking, and after a while, she came upon an abandoned-looking structure. It was getting dark, and she didn't want to sleep out in the open, so she  headed inside, found an old crate, and curled up to sleep, figuring she'd figure out a better plan in the morning.

Thing is, when she woke up, she was still in the crate. She just wasn't in the building. Or the rainforest. Or Peru! No, she was on a boat, in the middle of the ocean! Well, this was quite distressing to her, as you might imagine. But she kept a good head on her shoulders, and decided rather than just sit around and wait to be discovered, she might as well explore and see what she could find.

She had hopes that this would be a friendly crew willing to help her our of her predicament, but no such luck. She did find her way to the bridge, but it was full of severely unfriendly looking men, and she decided not to take her chances just showing herself to the crew, so she hid herself and did some reconnaissance work first. And it was a good thing, too!

Turns out, she was in the midst of a band of penguin smugglers using that abandoned building in Peru as their base of operations! They'd picked up 3000 penguins from a boat returning from Antarctica just that morning and were on their way to distribute them! Well, my friend knew what she had to do. Liberate the penguins! She worked all night at it, and it wasn't easy, let me tell you! But finally, she managed to get all of them over the side of the boat and into the water.

But just then, she was discovered! The watchman spotted her, and called for reinforcements, and that's when the penguins, grateful to her for setting them free, formed a giant penguin tower and took her from the ship! They formed a kind of raft and carried her away to safety. BUT, here's the thing. Now, they're so enamored of her that they've insisted on staying with her. She can't go anywhere for the mass of penguins!

And so, the advice she needs is this:

Once you've liberated 3000 penguins, what exactly do you do with them?

Anyway, if you could please give her some advice as quickly as possible, she'd really appreciate it. My
Her apartment just wasn't made for such a high volume of aquatic birds, and her landlord is starting to get suspicious.

Oh, what? What's that noise in the background? Yeah, just ignore that. :)

And that, ladies, is what happens when Cassie just starts writing things without a plan. And has she mentioned her NaNo novel has no clear end point? Yeah, this coming month should be fun . . .

One hour to NaNoWriMo! Happy Halloween!