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Clara couldn’t possibly have been seeing what she thought she was seeing. It was simply impossible. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe her brain was finally starting to fail her after who knows how long piloting a TARDIS. She’d seen a lot of things in her day, sure, but this one she just wasn’t ready for. She shook her head, blinked, rubbed her eyes, but unfortunately for her there continued to be what looked like an Earth penguin in her console room.
“Can I... help you?” She spoke hesitantly, questions flying through her head all jockeying to be released at once. She wasn’t anywhere near Earth, was this an alien penguin? Why was it on her ship? How did it get into her console room? What did it think it was doing?
The penguin, if indeed it was a penguin, looked up from where it had been poking around. It seemed to be giving her as much scrutiny as she was giving it. She was beginning to question what she had expected to happen by questioning it, when finally, it opened it’s beak and out tumbled something Clara was ready to call ‘speech’, although not speech that she was ready to accept.
“Well,” said the penguin, in a way that pleasant conversations so rarely start out, “you see, nobody came to serve me at the bar up front, so I took it upon myself to find someone I could speak to. Got a bit distracted by all the machinery here. It looks quite a bit different from the last one I was in, but I’d wager this was a TARDIS. You’re not another Time Lord, are you?”
Clara blinked again, not even sure where to begin addressing the intruder examining her console. She held up a finger and said, somewhat distractedly, “Could you actually hold that thought a second?” She slowly pulled out her phone, dialing the Doctor. She wasn’t surprised when it went to voicemail, had in fact been more or less composing her message in her head as it had rung. “Doctor, funny thing happened just now. What appears to be an Earth penguin just showed up in my console room, and insulted me right to my face? Asked if I were ‘another’ Time Lord? Yeah, call me back!”
She turned her attention back to her unwelcome visitor, and sighed. She wasn’t in the mood for this. “First of all, it’s a diner , not a bar . Second of all, it’s closed . And third of all-” her brain hit a block. ‘Third of all, why’re you a penguin ? Third of all, how are you talking? Third of all, what makes you the expert on Time Lords and TARDISes?’ “Third of all,” she settled on, moving towards the penguin, “get out of my console room!” Unsure of what else to do, she made a shooing motion with her hands, trying to direct the bird back out to the front room.
“You’re a little tightly wound, aren’t you?” replied the penguin, continuing to wander everywhere but the direction Clara wanted. “Got a margarita dispenser hidden back here or something? You could probably use one for yourself too. Oh, this looks new, the Doc never had one of those. What's it for?”
Clara made a flying leap towards the penguin, tackling him to the ground before he could touch... whatever it was he was about to touch. There were things in here even she didn’t know the function of. “That’s it. This ship has a very strict ‘no birds allowed’ policy, and you’ve just overstayed your welcome.” As she was speaking she felt herself crash against the ground. Looking around in confusion, she saw a snake slither out from underneath her. The snake continued on towards the door leading back to the diner section before turning back into a penguin.
“I gotta tell you, Miss, the hospitality around here is a little lacking.” He waddled his way out of the console room and pulled himself onto a bar stool in the diner section. “But I can be a forgiving guy,” he called back to her. Clara scrambled to follow his voice, closing and locking the door to the console room as she went. “I heard this place has the best somethings in the local space-time area, you know that? What was it again? Best drinks? Best pies? Best movies? No, probably not that one. Anyway, like I said, I can be a forgiving guy. Show me your best and I’ll forgive the rude service, huh?”
What the mouthy (beaky?) bird was ignoring as he babbled was the way he was being manhandled out of his seat by the tiny diner proprietor. She pulled and prodded him until she managed to throw him over her shoulder. He made little by way of protest as she carried him towards the ship’s front doors, which opened for her as she approached. She put her whole body into tossing the penguin out, but no sooner had she turned him loose then she felt something slam against her shoulder and clatter to the ground. Lying at her feet was a boomerang she had never seen before. As she bent down to examine it more closely, it reverted back to penguin form. “Ah, what a classic,” he said as he brushed himself off. “You’ve got some spunk, I’ll give you that. Give me a warning next time you want to do that, I can make myself smaller for you!”
Clara turned away. She was at a loss as to how she was supposed to be handling this situation, but she could only assume it would be best not to give the penguin any more of her attention than strictly necessary at this point.
She picked up her phone again, intending to give the Doctor another try. After all, clearly this was a friend of theirs, or at least somebody they knew. Hopefully the TARDIS would be able to help route the call appropriately through their timeline to a version of them that would recognize the nuisance. Unfortunately for Clara, instead of the screen lighting up at the touch of a button, her phone was instead blowing her a raspberry. Having caught on to what was happening, at least to a certain extent, she simply placed the no-longer-a-penguin onto the nearest table and reached back into her pocket, not taking her eyes off the decoy as she did so. Once her actual phone was securely in her hand, she turned away again.
She could almost cry from relief when a familiar voice answered the call this time. She launched right into things, forgoing the usual pleasantries. “Doctor, please tell me the shape shifting penguin in my TARDIS is yours, and more importantly, come and get it!”
“Ooh, Frobisher! Been a while since I saw him. Hi Frobisher!” the Doctor called happily into the phone, clearly ignoring the fact that he shouldn’t be able to hear her.
“Hold on, who? Did you say Frobisher?”
“Sorry Clara, I’ve really got to go. Quite busy! Have fun with Frobisher though!”
“Doctor! Come and get him!” Clara heard the telltale beep letting her know she’d already been hung up on. “DOCTOR!” she screamed into the dead air.