Chapter Eight
Every night, the dream was the same. Every night, she wandered the house alone. Kitchen, living room, bedrooms, office… All were filled with boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes…
The owner wasn’t here yet.
Every night, the dream was the same.
Mother and Father were waiting, sunlight streaking around them as they smiled. She smiled back at them, trembling as she gave…
A smile from Father, and a tight hug, and soft, gentle words…
A smile from Mother, and a warm, soothing embrace, and a tender kiss, and a sweet laugh…
And then it was her turn.
One last smile… One last hug…
Every night, the dream was the same.
She turned and walked away with a precious, heavy burden.
The angels stopped singing and began to grieve.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Do you think she’ll come today?” Gonzo asked, his nose pressed up against the window.
Fozzie looked at him. “Why wouldn’t she?” he asked. “She said she would.”
“That was almost a month ago,” Gonzo said.
“Three weeks,” Scooter corrected.
“Whatever,” Gonzo sighed. He did a double take at his reflection in the window, and then breathed on it and used his sleeve to wipe away the smudge his nose had left on the glass.
“I think she’ll come today,” Fozzie said, nodding at the rain outside as if it were somehow agreeing with him.
“Ehhh dunno guys,” Rizzo said as he dug through his bag of M&M’s. “I t’ink it’s kinda hard ta
trust her now.”
“Me
mee mint!” Beaker insisted, emphatically pointing one finger at his own palm as he made his point. “Me mee me
may meep me me meemer
mee mee.”
The Muppets stared at him. As the only one in the room who could do so, Floyd blinked.
“…Yeah, sure,” Rizzo said. “But like I was sayin’, she sorta
neglected ta mention da whole
tabloid t’ing…”
“So you doubt her word,” Rowlf said quietly from his usual seat at the piano.
“Well, why
shouldn’t I?” Rizzo said with a touch of indignance.
Most attention in the room settled on Rowlf. His eyes were thoughtful as his paws trickled over the piano keys, notes as soft as the rain outside. “…She hasn’t lied,” he said. “There’s no reason to doubt her word. Just the
lack of her word.”
Again, Floyd blinked on behalf of the room. Then he nodded. “So we can trust her sayin’ she’ll be back today, but
question the fact that she left a message on the answering machine when she knew we’d be at the theater.”
Zoot picked his head up and looked at the bass guitarist. “…You understood that?”
“Fer sure,” Janice answered for Floyd. “Like,
rully, that was like,
nothing compared to Dr. Teeth!”
The guitarists chuckled. Zoot blew a single note on his saxophone and presumably went back to sleep.
The Muppets turned back to the windows, looking out at the rain and pretending they weren’t waiting for Miss Piggy.
“…I wonder if
Kermit thinks she’ll come today,” Scooter mused.
“Of course he does,” Fozzie said simply.
“Then why isn’t he here?” Gonzo asked.
“He’s takin’
Little Green Stuff to the bookstore,” Floyd said.
“But he could do that
any day,” Gonzo said. “Why not stay
home today?”
“Because Piggy’s coming,” Fozzie said. “And, she’s
bringing someone.”
“He would
usually wanna
be here if someone
new was coming,” Clifford said, frowning out at the rain.
The discussion was interrupted by the sound of a new hole forming in a wall. They turned to see what had caused this one.
A small end table landed and shattered in the middle of the room. Pepe the King Prawn kicked himself free of what remained of the drawer. “UN-believable!” he complained as he began plucking out splinters. “I can’t believe it! Dat
crazy chef man who can’t even
cook! Him an’ d’ose
penguins, hokay! Look what dey did to me. Look at dis!”
“It looks
fantastic!” Gonzo said, his eyelids high as he surveyed the wreckage and—through the hole in the wall—the catapult that had caused it. “Hey, Chef! Can I try next?”
“Nürbin skøør de lüshie!” the furious Swedish Chef cried. “Mür de
høør dem shkür!”
“Aw… pretty please?” Gonzo pleaded.
“Nürbin nøøskie NÜ!”
“Well why not?” Gonzo persisted.
“De nürpen møørfi türbles!” the Swedish Chef irritably proclaimed.
“Oh.” Gonzo thought about this, doing his best to decipher it. He stuck his head through the hole. “Well maybe you could shoot me through the wall in a
counter—“
“
Gøønz de mürvsky
øøt!” the Swedish Chef proclaimed, and an odd sort of swordfight ensued, with the weapons actually being the Swedish Chef’s fire poker and Gonzo’s nose.
“Ha
ha ha! This is
great!” the weirdo ecstatically exclaimed.
“MEE! MEE!” Beaker frantically pointed out the window. “Mee MEE me! MEE! MEE meme MEE mo!”
Scooter looked outside. “Guys, there’s a taxi!” he announced.
Swordfight and shattered table were forgotten as the Muppets flocked to the windows, trying to peer around, over, under, and through—er, between—each other to see out into the rain.
“Is it Piggy?”
“I dunno!”
“I can’t see!”
“It’s
gotta be her!”
“I see pig ears!”
“Blonde hair!”
“PIGGY!”
“She’s on the porch!”
“She’s COMING!”
“Back up!”
“
Quick, everyone! Act
normal!”
They all stopped to stare at Gonzo, who had made this last remark.
He shrugged. “Well…
you know what I mean,” he said.
They scrambled into various corners of the room, feigned preoccupation, and stared at the door as it flew open.
“
Hi, everybody! I’m
back!” the blonde pig proclaimed with her arms outspread.
The Muppets stared at her, heaved a deep, collective sigh, and looked down, too disappointed to even sneak a second glance at Spamela Hamderson.
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