Death and the Matron

[newsmanfan]

Part Fourteen (I)

“C’mon, Fozzie, we’ve missed the opening already!” Rowlf panted, the cool dry air of the Museum a relief after jogging through the already-muggy streets. “Nothing to race for now!”

“Ohhhhhh but I wanted to be dere! Everyone else is dere, even da flu sicky people!” Fozzie argued, stopping in confusion at the top of the stairs, unable to read his map correctly.

Rowlf sniffed the air. “That way, Fozzie,” he said, turning the bear in the correct direction.

“Dat says reptiles, Rowlf! Are you sure?”

Rowlf was about to point out the large sign proclaiming FELT AND BONES EXHIBIT THIS WAY when screams and a frightening roar echoed through the entire third floor; patrons on the stairs or browsing in the Hall of African Mammals turned in surprise. Suddenly a Museum guard came sprinting past, a panicked expression turning his face from average into something pale and sickly. Hot on his heels, Sam the Eagle fluttered and stumbled. “Security! Security! Man, don’t run from danger! This is your duty!”

Neither of them paid any attention to Fozzie or Rowlf, legging it down the stairs. Fozzie sucked a finger apprehensively. “Wow! I didn’t know guards were scared of eagles!” he said.

“Uh, I don’t think that guy was running from Sam!” Rowlf gulped, and Fozzie whirled to see a tide of people come racing out through the reptile hall. The two friends exchanged a look, and as one fought their way around the panicked professors and squealing old ladies toward the entrance to the new Muppet Natural History exhibit gallery. When they peered inside, Rowlf wasn’t sure arriving earlier would have been a better or a worse idea.

The first thing which caught their eyes was the meeping, bouncing, utterly helpless Beaker being dragged across the floor close to the exhibit entry by what appeared to be a very big gun turning red-hot as it sputtered and blasted; Fozzie jerked to one side when a ray narrowly missed him, instead hitting a case of mounted Muppet insects. A giant moth flapped its wings at once and took off; numerous smaller things like winged crayfish shook themselves awake and began crawl-hopping down out of the case with fluttering buzzes of their vestigial beetle-wings. “Aaaa! Bugs!” Fozzie cried, then noticed much worse things were crawling or jumping or thunderously pounding through the gallery. An enormous clawed foot slammed down right in front of him, and the bear gaped up at a bony, elongated skull easily three times his size. Empty holes of eyesockets stared right at him. “Ulk!” Fozzie gulped.

The Muppetasaurus Tex opened its ponderous jaws; four prominent fangs and a bristling mouthful of shorter but equally vicious teeth shook in Fozzie’s face as the monster roared. Fozzie’s hat flew behind him somewhere. The bear caught a glimpse of a frog trying to hustle a pig toward the far side of the room, and ran toward him, wailing. “Keerrmiiiiiiiiiitt!”

“Whoa!” Rowlf ducked as something not quite bat and not quite lizard swooped overhead, its tiny claws clutching at the air where the dog’s nose had been a second before. “What the Jimmy Dean’s goin’ on here?” the dog griped.

In the middle of the room, Kermit tried to see to Piggy’s safety. Unfortunately his wife had other ideas. “Shake your ugly mug at my frog, willya? Hiii—yaaahh!” she cried, chopping one of the snapping, turkey-with-shark-teeth Velocimuppet skeletons over its bony beak. It shrieked, jerking back, but then advanced again. Desperately Piggy spread her arms protectively in front of Kermit, noting two more of the ugly reptilian birds encroaching from the side where they thought she wouldn’t notice them. She beat them back, but they weren’t giving up. Apparently having no flesh anymore was an advantage; her blows knocked them back but didn’t seem to be doing any damage. “What the heck? Are these guys indestructible? I’ve broken bones before!” Piggy growled, confused.

Bunsen Honeydew put up a helpful finger, dodging another swoop by the bat-lizard. “Technically, Miss Piggy, these are fossils! You see, when a creature becomes entrapped in a wet environment, mineral seepage over thousands of years will eventually fill in the bones as they decompose, leaving a bone-shaped fossil actually made of—“

“Well whatever they’re made of, can ya make ‘em dead again?” Piggy yelled, kicking another Velocimuppet. It croaked and squealed and lunged back at her, toothy beak snapping.

“Oh,” Bunsen murmured, one hand to his mouth, worried. “Oh, dear…”

“Keep rolling! Keep rolling!” Rhonda urged, sticking close by the sloth; nervously, the Newsman ducked away from the ponderous tread of a Muppetasaurus Bovinocorpus as it strolled by apparently unconcerned with the chaos. “We’re gonna go live, Newsie! Keep talking!”

Newsie clutched Gina, his eyes darting every direction, unwilling to let her go for the sake of the filming. She in return held onto his shoulder, yanking him aside when two white feathery things with long necks and teeth and red wattles chased a bounding, protesting Gonzo past. “Girls! Camilla! Look, I said I thought the new look was sexy! Aaaagh!”

“Er – things seem to have turned strange here at the Museum of Natural History!” Newsie ad-libbed, trying to stay vaguely in front of the sloth’s camera.

“Stranger than usual, you mean!” complained a balding, grayhaired gent in a suit far too thick for the weather outside, and more wrinkled than a shar-pei on a diet, standing in the middle of the chaos.

“Statler, you old fool, this isn’t the ‘Bombshells of ’45’ exhibit!” His companion, a shorter and even frailer codger, grabbed the official Museum map from the first gent’s curled hands. He peered at the map, then thwacked the first man. “You were holding the map upside down, you ninny!”

“Oh…I thought ol’ ‘Bomber Betty’ was taller!” Statler said, eyeing Miss Piggy.

“She wasn’t a pig, either, you blind old bat!” Waldorf grumped.

Statler shrugged one shoulder. “Eh, it was the war! I’m sure those flyboys would’ve painted pork on their bombers!”

“How ya figure?”

“With wartime rations being so strict, every piece of bacon looked good!”

“Oh, ho ho ho ho!”

“Watch it, twerps!” Piggy shouted at them, grabbing one of the Velocimuppets by its snakelike tail and swinging it into another, tumbling them both in a clatter of bones and a shriek of outraged malevolent fossil fury. However, even as she gave Kermit another push toward the exit, the bony monsters shook themselves all over and staggered back to their three-clawed feet with ominous growling clucks.

Kermit pointed out Gil and Jill huddling with the Frog Scouts next to the platform the M. Tex had stood on. “The Scouts! We have to do something!”

“Er…are we live yet?” Newsie asked Rhonda, who was conferring with someone by phone, one paw pressed to her free ear.

“Can ya keep it down? Some of us are trying to make journalistic history here!” the rat shouted at the room in general, then resumed her hurried conversation. “Now? About time! Great! Take the feed!” She snapped her phone shut and gestured at Newsie, addressing the sloth. “Get an earpiece on him! Fargo’s at the studio and the truck’s here to bounce the feed! Go! Go!”

Dr Honeydew caught up with Beaker, who by bracing himself against one of the large granite pillars in the center of the gallery had at least managed to stop his ungainly and involuntary tour of the exhibit; now he was doing his best to saw through the safety wrist-strap of the Disint-o-ghoster 4000 with a pocketknife held in his mouth. “Beaker! I’ve got it! I know what’s wrong!” Bunsen cried; Beaker stared at him, dazed. “Somehow the neutron polarity has been switched in the wrong direction! All we must do is to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, and set the Tobin waves down a notch, and assuming the anti-Muppaspectre facilitating engine doesn’t—“

At that instant, the barrel of the gun turned white-hot. Beaker shrieked as the safety strap burst into flames, jerking his hands free. With an earsplitting craaaaack!, the core of the Disint-o-ghoster exploded. Shrapnel shot straight up. “…Explode…we should be fine,” Bunsen finished lamely; his gaze turned upward with Beaker’s at the one Muppasaur anywhere in the gallery which hadn’t been animated with a stray shot yet: the Greater Muppassic Muppadactyl skeleton suspended from the high ceiling by airline cables. As the scientists stared in horrified resignation, every single cable holding the fossil up was sliced by a blazing-hot piece of subatomic-reinforced nickel-iron which had seconds previously before failed to contain the explosion. The entire Muppadactyl fell surprisingly gracefully, swooping much like a half-ton pendulum directly onto the heads of the Muppet Labs duo.

As the dust settled around them, Bunsen groaned, “Ouch…”

Beaker agreed with a weak meep before passing out.

“Live, at the Museum of Natural History, this is your Newsman for KRAK,” Newsie barked at the camera when Rhonda vehemently gestured at him they were broadcasting directly to the station, where images of this bizarre carnage would be sent out to the entire viewing area. “Er…Bart, are you seeing this?”

A sneering voice came through loud and clear over his earpiece, and Newsie winced. “Looks like the usual Muppet weirdness to me, Newsie. What’s the story?” The anchor’s tone made it clear he was annoyed at having been dragged away from his brunch date for just another Muppet piece. Angry, the Newsman was about to launch into a curt description of the action so far when Gonzo rode by on the back of one of the altered-state chickens.

“Whooooo—haaaaa! That’s it, Camilla! You can beat ‘em!” Gonzo yelled, bouncing excitedly like an ostrich jockey; the Muppasaur-throwback bird didn’t seem to be racing the other ones hot on her tailfeathers as much as vainly trying to jump up to eat the fearless daredevil, hen’s teeth snapping viciously at him.

Gina stared at that, still holding Newsie’s shoulder. He tried to regain some appearance of confidence. “Um…well…as you can see, Bart, this is hardly the normal chaos! The scene, in fact, is somewhat grim, with a whole host of ravenous, reanimated Muppasaurs attacking the crowd who’d come to see the opening of the exhibit!” Gina yanked him to one side as the primitive Whatnot shaman glared and pointed their direction, his evil jade eye sparking with energy. “Erk! – and an undead, mysterious mummy is also wreaking a terrible vengeance on the people who dared to ogle him by doing some shameless ogling of his own!” Whatever force the shaman wielded with his evil eye hit the camera aardvark smack in the face, sending him and his camera tumbling right to the feet of the Muppetasaurus Tex.

“Is this yet another publicity stunt by the Muppets to raise their theatre attendance?” Fargo demanded.

“Bart! People are in real danger here!” Newsie protested.

“There they are! Make them – make them behave like proper dead things!” Sam shouted, one firm wing pointing variously at the Muppasaurs running amok, and the altered chickens now snapping and snarling at Gonzo as he perched precariously atop one of the taller freestanding cases. “Er…and…and proper chickens!”

The Museum guards right behind Sam in the entrance to the gallery stared in complete shock at the scene: Dr Teeth and Zoot were desperately swatting as the crustacean-bugs buzzed and clawed them in what appeared to be an attempt to grab the Muppets’ noses. The class of preschoolers, one enormous bird, and one shy pachyderm huddled in a corner, staring with wide eyes, thus far unnoticed by the monsters. The giant moth and the winged lizard were locked in a circle of aerial combat, swooping wildly around the room just above head-height. Two M. Bovinocorpii kept trying to eat the reconstructed, plastic giant Muppafern, mooing unhappily as each bite produced no chewing satisfaction. And Animal and MahnaMahna seemed to be doing the frug just behind the arm-waving, angry-dancing Muppeti Quidquid. Sam gestured angrily at the guards. “Well? Do something!”

The shaman noticed him. “Ooogawokka mugga boot!” he screamed, rolling his jade eye at the huge marble pillars framing the gallery entryway. Sam heard the crumble and rumble of rock being forced impossibly from its place and leaped into the room an instant before one of the massive pillars toppled, blocking the entry, trapping the guards outside the room…and everyone else in from that end.

“A mummy coming back to life? Oh, come on, Newsie…wasn’t that just a movie?” Fargo asked over the audio feed into Newsie’s ear.

Newsie spread his arms, including the room at large in his frustrated gesture. “Bart, I don’t pretend to be even remotely qualified to explain this phenomenon—“

“Doo dooo doo doo doo!” Two pink, horned creatures chorused, springing up next to Newsie.

He shoved them aside. “Oh will you get out of here! –-but Bart, I assure you and the viewers, this is no publicity stunt! Somehow, a number of large prehistoric Muppet monsters, most of them with huge, sharp teeth, have animated and are attacking everyone in the room!” Newsie lost the feed for a moment when Gina threw both of them to the floor; another burst of chilly energy shot over them, shattering the remaining glass of another display.

“Hey! Hey! Get me outta here!” a thin, reedy voice shrieked; they looked up to see Fleet Scribbler crouched inside the hollow ribcage of the M. Tex, still alive and apparently unhurt. He began banging on the ribs of the giant carnivorous Muppasaur. The aardvark tilted his camera up, capturing Scribbler’s imprisonment…and the monster’s irritated reaction. With another earsplitting roar, it shook itself violently, cast about for something to bite, and its open jaws swooped down over the cameramuppet at its feet.

“Jerry! Oh, no!” Rhonda squeaked. The M. Tex gulped the aardvark down; he went sprawling, camera-first, onto the mop-ragged head of one tabloid reporter. The Muppasaur snarled, stomping back across the room, its spiked tail whooshing through the air behind it more than enough discouragement for anyone even thinking about following…not that anyone was. “Jerry! Are you okay?” Rhonda yelled as she saw the aardvark trying to pick himself up within the bony bowels. When he gave her a weak thumb-up, she vented her anger on Scribbler. “Scribbler, you moron! If you’ve broken my camera, I’ll tear it out of your scrawny hide!”

The tabloid hack didn’t reply. He wasn’t accustomed to having heavy things pound his head.

“Ohmygawd! Ohmygawd! It’s gonna eat me!” Rizzo screamed, at about the same time as the much-angered M. Tex was homing in on Statler. The rat bolted this way and that with a snapping Velocimuppet on his tail; seeing Scooter behind one of the walls for the “Timeline of Muppet Evolution” corridor, the rat leaped into his arms. “Save me! I’ll give ya all my cheese!”

The Velocimuppet, focused on a tasty rat snack, lunged at him; frightened, Scooter instinctively threw Rizzo. “Aaaaaaaawhatareyoudoing?” Rizzo screeched; he bounced off the tall hat and into the broad hands of the Swedish Chef. “Oh my heart,” Rizzo panted, but before he could catch his breath, the same singleminded proto-Muppet turkey raced to the Chef, bony beak spread wide with multiple teeth gleaming. “Ohmygawdhereitcomesagain—aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

“Ooh! Der turken-toofer nooo der snicky-snacky!” Chef exclaimed, hurling the rat back at Scooter, who only just managed to catch him.

“This is Lewis Kazagger with Muppet Sports! An early start to the Muppet International Keep-Away Tourney here at the unlikely venue of the Museum of Natural History! So far the score is Muppets one, vicious fossil monsters nothing! But the Velocimuppets were a species known for their tenacity and fierceness, so it’s gonna be a wild contest here today!” Kazagger proclaimed, popping up with a large microphone.

Newsie blinked, eyes wide and jaw slack. “Who the heck is he broadcasting to??”

“This is all your fault, you nearsighted old fraud!” Waldorf complained, shifting around for more elbow room in the ribcage.

“Me? I didn’t wave my coat at it, yelling ‘Toro, toro!’” Statler grumbled back, trying to free his foot from underneath some sort of long-nosed, shell-less armadillo with a broken camera.

“If you’d admit you need reading glasses, we wouldn’t have been here in the first place!”

“That exit’s still open!” Kermit pointed out the narrower corridor at the far end of the room to Fozzie and Rowlf. “Get those children out of here! I’ll get the Scouts!”

“You got it!” Rowlf promised.

“This is—this is hideous!” Sam stuttered, trotting alongside the dog. Fozzie was already beckoning to the frightened children and their young teachers; the chaperones may have mastered their early education teaching techniques, but nothing they’d learned about ADD, bullying, or cleaning glue spills had prepared them for raging, lunatic Jurassic Muppet carnage. They hustled their charges after the bear and the dog gratefully. Sam brought up the rear of the hasty parade, his sharp gaze swiveling all around as people continued to be chased and snapping, snarling, stomping monsters continued to snap, snarl, and stomp at them. “This is an outrage! Where is the curator? I must protest this ridiculous, antisocial fossil behavior to him at once!”

“Uh, I think dat’s him over dere,” Fozzie said, nodding briefly at the end of the “Muppet Evolution” display. On the pedestal where Mookie-mookie had been laid in state, Dr Van Neuter writhed and jumped while two of the reverse-DNA-injected chickens, now the size of ostriches and with similarly aggressive attitudes, clawed and pecked at the hapless scientist, yanking out his hair strand by strand as he yelped and swatted vainly at them. Mulch crouched behind one of the display walls, wincing every time his boss cried out.

“Ow! Ow! Stop it! Ow!”

“They’re not eating him?” Rowlf wondered, pausing a moment to stare. “What the hey?”

Sam blanched. “Uh…I…I think…they’re gathering nest material,” he muttered.

He, Fozzie, and Rowlf all shuddered. “Yeeesh…”

“Gil! Jill! This way!” Kermit urged, and the adult frogs saw him, nodded, and began herding the Scouts around the empty platforms toward the unguarded, still-open exit. Kermit felt a tap on his ankle, and jumped. Looking down as he landed, he relaxed as he saw the tiny, fluffy, pink bunny rabbit. “Oh! Geez…uh…do you want to come with us? I’m sure it’d be much safer for you too away from all these Muppasaurs,” Kermit offered.

The bunny blinked its adorably large eyes at him, wiggled its whiskers, opened its jaws impossibly wide and lunged at the frog with incisors the size of a sabre-toothed tiger’s. “Aaaack!” Kermit yelped. “Piggy!”

“Kermie!” Throwing aside the squealing Velocimuppet she was body-slamming against the floor in an attempt to break its mineralized bones, Piggy waded into the fray.

 

[newsmanfan]

Part Fourteen (II)

“It looks as though the Velocimuppet team may be tiring!” Kazagger announced, somehow keeping just out of range of another circling turkeylike monster as his wobbly parsnip of a nose darted one direction and the opposite repeatedly while Rizzo was hurled between Scooter and the Chef, both of whom were ignored by the Velocimuppets as long as the rat was in the air. “Could this spell defeat for the fulminous fossils? Will they come up with a better strategy and stop this ignominious slaughter?”

“I’m gonna come up with my lunch in another second,” Rizzo groaned, flying limply into Scooter’s hands once more. “Ooooohhh…” Scooter, showing some strain now, nearly missed his return throw to the Chef, and then yelped and bolted as the second Velocimuppet finally realized it might make more sense to attack the people throwing the rat than pursuing the rat himself. “Aaagh! Chef! Chef! Do something!” Rizzo squeaked, seeing Scooter flee and the original fossil monster bearing down on the Chef.

“A break for the fossil team! Finally they may be able to even the score!” Kazagger exclaimed, following the action.

“Dude, whose side are you on?” Scott demanded, waving his hands at the Chef. “Here! I’m open! I’m open!”

Gladly, the Chef lobbed the rat underhand and looping high; Scott caught Rizzo and promptly plopped the nauseated rodent atop his six-foot-four head. The Velocimuppet chasing the tasty furball screeched to a floor-gouging halt when Rizzo blew a sloppy raspberry at it; from the monster’s perspective, the rat had suddenly vaulted in size, and might present more of a challenge than it wanted. Hissing, it backed away. “Holy cow,” Rizzo gasped. “It thought me an’ you was da same!”

“Good thing we’re both Dodgers fans,” Scott said, noting the same jacket on both him and the rat today.

“And that concludes the first game, with the final score Muppets twenty-seven successful passes, Velocimuppets still zero, an astounding phenomenon…er…which… which has not been successfully reached in over fifty years of championship Keep-Away play until now, and you saw it here first, sports fans!” Kazagger said excitedly, doing his best to ignore the singing pink horned things suddenly behind him.

The sloth somehow managed to stay unnoticed as he continued filming; possibly his slow movements made the Muppasaurs doubtful he was actually alive. He focused on the Newsman while Newsie repeatedly dodged and weaved, Gina keeping an eye on the dancing shaman while Newsie doggedly continued his on-the-scene coverage. At least, he noticed when his gaze swept the whole room at one point, his mother had vanished. Probably she’d found the whole event too weird; he wasn’t sure he could debate that opinion right now. “The schoolchildren seem to have been safely maneuvered out of harm’s way, but that still leaves a great number of us in danger here, Bart, including an entire troop of Frog Scouts and celebrity couple Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy! Is there any chance of the governor sending state troops to relieve the overwhelmed Museum security staff, Bart?” Newsie asked loudly over the screeches of hunting prehistoric predators.

“Yoo hoo! Ugly!” Janice cooed; Mookie-mookie swung around, tattered brow furrowed. As Janice waved and struck a pose, lifting her skirt to show off a tanned thigh, Floyd reached for Animal’s chain and tugged on it.

“Come on, man, snap out of it! You’re a drummer, not a backup singer!” Floyd coaxed. Unfortunately, the entranced Muppet growled loudly at his friend, and the shaman whirled back around to find Floyd inches away. “Uh…what’s happenin’, my ancient and tombalicious grey dude?” Floyd tried, and held up a hand for a jive shake.

The mummy apparently was not a hipster. “Mooga! Unga hoggah mooga buk!” He roared, bringing both hands together in a clapping gesture over his head and glaring at Floyd, then Janice. A line of velvet ropes connected to brass posts swooped across the floor, swiftly wrapping the guitarist and the bassist together and rolling them off to a side wall, where had they not already been close, they would’ve felt distinctly overcrowded.

Janice sighed, barely able to shake her head. Floyd gave a half-shrug, arms pinned. “Well, good thing we’re past the holding-hands stage already,” he joked weakly.

Bart Fargo, star anchor, was meanwhile casting doubts on the Newsman’s motives. “I haven’t heard anything from the governor’s office, no. You know, Newsie, I’m sorry but I have to bring up the scene last night which a number of people witnessed, where you allegedly blew up at your girlfriend, and yet isn’t that her behind you?”

Newsie glanced at Gina; she gave his hand a squeeze, dispiritedly watching the last of the Mayhem become entrapped in crowd control ropes. “Uh, what has that got to do with any of this?” Newsie glared at the camerasloth. “Tony, are you getting all this?”

“The live feed’s good,” Rhonda promised him, hovering next to the sloth. “And his name’s…oh never mind…”

“Well, we all know the Muppets have a reputation for bizarre, crazy stunts—“ Fargo continued.

Right then, the transformed Camilla lolloped past, riding Gonzo, her oversized feet clutching his shoulders as he galloped. “Yeeehaaaa! Okay, can I be the cowboy again now, Camilla? …Camilla? Sweetie?”

“Grrrr---BAWK!”

Newsie, Gina, and Rhonda stared after the pair. “Er…no, Bart; just that guy,” Newsie muttered. “Some of us are pretty normal…”

“Mooga-shaka!” Mookie-mookie howled, pointing at the Newsman. Animal and MahnaMahna echoed him loudly, swaying, their arms and legs pumping up and down as they did what looked like a dancercise. “Mooga-shaka! Mooga-shaka!” Gina shoved Newsie out of the way, stumbling; he frantically grabbed at her as she fell, and a high-pitched squeal in his ear made him yelp in pain and dig the audio-feed earpiece out and throw it. He wound up gasping on the floor next to his beloved.

“Newsie!” Gina said, reaching for him. He returned the embrace, relieved to see she didn’t look hurt. “Forget the stupid coverage already! This is out of control and we need to get the h—out!” she argued.

“He what? What do you mean? Live? Now?” Rhonda squeaked into her cell phone. Disgusted and astounded, she lowered the phone, staring at Newsie. “That was the station. Bart just broke out in green fur flu…on the air live.” She threw her paws in the air. “Sheesh! What next?”

Next came immediately in the form of two of the Velocimuppets. One of them veered off at Newsie and Gina, one at Rhonda. “Ack! Why do they always pick the rats? Why?” Rhonda cried, legging it for the huge hollow Muppafern, the only thing nearby which seemed likely to provide shelter she could reach but the snapping, demented bony turkey behind her couldn’t. She dove into one of the tiny holes in the fern’s trunk just ahead of the surging stretch of fossil neck and a clash of hard teeth. Panting, the news director suddenly realized she might be out of the Velocimuppet’s reach, but she was certainly not alone; she looked around in growing apprehension at an entire clan of animate, stuffed creatures which appeared to be the ancient ancestors of Muppet mice, although these things still seemed more reptile than rodent. “Ah…hi, guys,” Rhonda said, nervously backing into a fern wall, the creatures sniffing and closing in around her. “Uh…speak English? No? Um—how about mouse? Squeak? Squeaky squeak?” she tried, rummaging through her memory back to foreign-language classes in high school. “No, huh? Um, look, I’m with the local news, maybe I can get you an interview? Ack!”

Across the gallery, three other rodents were experiencing a similar problem. The recent Frog Scouts of small furry persuasion bounded as fast as their tiny legs could carry them, but couldn’t keep up with the longer-springing froglets all making a break for the one unblocked exit. “Eep! Eep! Wait!” one of the mice called, but his tiny voice went unheard beneath the roar of the M. Tex shaking its body from side to side in an apparent attempt to shut up the newly-complaining Scribbler trapped in the ribcage under one aardvark, two grumbly old men, and one Museum staffer who hadn’t moved fast enough when the enormous mouth opened over him. Melvin the snail, who’d hung back and stared in awe at most of the fast-moving events since the giant Muppasaur had roared its defiance the first time, saw the mice’s peril.

“Iiii taaaake it baaaack,” he muttered as he scooched across the path the mice had just gone between two broken display cases, laying a trail of slime on the marble floor the instant before the Velocimuppet hit it. Talons skidded, bones slipped, and the Muppasaur went tail-over-beak, crashing into one of the cases. “Yoouuu’re noooot soooo cooooll,” Melvin sniffed at it. “Yooouuu’re juuust a buuuuuuulllyy!”

The vicious predators hadn’t even seen the small shelled creature until now. Now…it turned, seeking the voice, and finally located it. Melvin yanked himself into his shell as the Velocimuppet bit down, but the shell crackled dangerously under the tremendous pressure of the strong teeth. “Heeeeellllpp!” the snail yelled.

His lower voice carried where the mice’s high-pitched squeals hadn’t. Robin and Dill, both at the rear of the Scouts to usher the younger ones ahead, heard and whirled around. Robin gasped. “Oh no! Melvin!”

“The mice!” Dill agreed, shocked, seeing their newer members all in trouble. The two raced back the way they’d come, into danger’s reach.

“Robin! Dill! Keep away from those monsters!” Kermit yelled, jerking aside when the violent pink bunny growled and tried another leaping lunge at his face. “Someone! Get that snail!”

“Ungh! You leave him—alone, you horrible –ergh!—beast!” Piggy shouted, but even her best karate chops missed the wildly hopping rabbit.

Rowlf and Fozzie, at the doorway to help usher the scouts out of the exhibit hall, stared in surprise at the sight of their friend and employer bouncing higher and higher, equaled by the lightly springing bunny with ridiculously long teeth. “Good grief! I think that thing’s rabid!” Rowlf exclaimed.

Scooter, his lungs and legs hurting, joined them, and stared as well. “Uh…no. Its eyes aren’t googly enough to be a Rabbid…” he opined weakly.

“Get ‘em, guys!” Robin whooped, leaping upon the Velocimuppet attacking Melvin. With croaking war cries, several of the older Frog Scouts followed his example, grabbing bony shoulders and legs and ribs, pulling and kicking and pounding with tiny frog fists. Dill scooped up the mice, hustling them to the relative safety of the exit and the adult troop leaders, who looked on in horror, separated from their brave little frogs by two of the mutated chickens fighting with another of the fierce fossils as the monsters ranged all over the back section of the gallery. The Scouts kept up the assault, perplexing the Velocimuppet; it screeched in protest, shaking itself, hopping from one foot to the other, trying to scratch at them, but the troop clung tight. It dropped Melvin to try and bite the frogs; the snail hustled out of the way at a full-throttle half-mile an hour. “Yeah! Take that! and that!” Robin shouted, kicking repeatedly at the thing’s ribs, ducking its beak. Suddenly the entire thing shivered and collapsed into a pile of quivering bones. The froglets froze, surprised. Everyone turned to look at Ribsy the toad, who blinked slowly at them, and held up a small triangular bone.

“Duh…lynchpin bone,” he croaked.

Robin cheered. The other scouts took up the cry, peeping and ribbiting happily. “Yeah! Yayyyy Ribsy!”

Their joy didn’t last. The bones began to reassemble before their stunned eyes. The shuddering fossil resumed its upright stance, the beak darting down and grabbing the bone from a frozen Ribsy, tucking it back into its spine near the neck. “That didn’t work! Run, everybody!” Robin cried, and the troop took to their flippers again.

As Gina ducked and darted around broken cases and half-collapsed portable walls, pulling Newsie along by one hand, she saw Mookie-mookie distracted by something in the center of the room, where Kermit was leaping in the air in some sort of contest with a pink bunny rabbit and Piggy’s powerful kicks could be glimpsed behind the M. Tex lumbering into a better angle of attack on the pig. Was the shaman directing the Muppasaur? Hard to tell – but he wasn’t paying attention to anything else! She halted their flight, yanking a startled Newsman almost off his feet as she dropped into a crouch behind a tall platform. “Newsie!” she hissed, “Look! None of them can see us here!”

Trying to pant silently, he peered around the corner. “Good,” he said weakly, slumping to the floor. “This is insane…”

Gina studied the angle, the distance. “I think I can sneak up on him. If I can get close enough and yank out that d—d eyeball, maybe I can stop him, at least!”

“Gina, no!” Newsie said, shocked. “There’s no way you can do it!”

She looked around warily; in every direction, ancient Muppet creatures still ran, flew, crawled, and chased. The mummy shaman chanted, waving his arms over his head, and the rumble of support pillars throughout the room made her and Newsie shudder. “There’s no telling what he’ll do next!” she whispered heatedly. “Sounds like he’d be happy burying the whole d—d Museum along with himself again!”

“Gina!” Newsie gasped, grabbing her arm, shaking his head. “No, you can’t! I couldn’t…I can’t lose you!”

She stopped, meeting his worried stare, then drew him close for a deep kiss. “I love you, Aloysius. I’m not going anywhere without you.”

He held her tight, fervently returning the kiss. They pulled just far enough apart to breathe, both short of air and tense. Gina brushed his prominent nose with her own smaller one. “Together, then.”

He heaved for breath, trying to steel his nerves. But if his beloved could dare this…how could he stay behind? He nodded at her, holding her gaze. “Together.”

Gina gave him a silent finger-count the same way the floor manager would on the news set: three…two…one! They sprang up, running as quietly as they could the few steps to the terrible Mookie-mookie and his even worse backup singers. A second before they reached him, the shaman sensed something, and started to turn.

“Hey, stupid!” Newsie shouted before Gina could, startling her as well as the mummy. He ran past it, turning to pull his mouth open even wider with his fingers, sticking his tongue out. “Bllleaaahh! You couldn’t hit the broad side of a gravestone, you ugly—“

“Oooongrah fugguh muh!” Mookie-mookie yelled, throwing his arm forward threateningly – and Gina snatched the jade eyeball out of the withered socket. “Ragguh-puh!” the mummy howled, waving its arms wildly.

A small shockwave of force hit Newsie, sending him sprawling into the tail of the Muppetasaurus Tex. The beast snarled, automatically smacking its tail; fortunately the spikes missed, but the thick, bony part of the elongated spine made contact. “Whoof!” Newsie choked, the wind knocked from his chest, landing hard against a pillar by the exit to the gallery.

Scooter nodded at him, still winded himself. “Nice distance!”

Zoot and Dr Teeth puffed wearily, clinging to one another, still looking green around the edges and worn out from fighting off the nose-pinching crawdad-bugs. They made room for Newsie at the exit as he climbed groggily to his feet.

Mookie-mookie shouted and pounded his feet on the floor angrily. “Mookaka baroo foogah shaka-laka!” He swiped at Gina, but his depth perception was off. She stepped back, but then Animal grabbed her leg.

“Aaaaa! Wo-man!”

“Eeek!” Desperate to keep the eyeball out of the shaman’s reach, Gina threw it over his head at a man in a large collar with buggy eyes. “Hey fish-guy! Catch!”

“Ooouhhh okay!” Lew Zealand agreed enthusiastically. He palmed the heavy eyeball, feinting left and right as MahnaMahna raced over and jumped up and down trying to steal it back. “Heh heh! Catch, cook!” He lobbed it over to the Chef, who protested.

“Oom nut er kook! Oom uss noormal uss der eenywuns!”

“Aaaaaand the second round of the International Keep-Away Games is on!” Lewis Kazagger shouted, suddenly in the midst of it again. “This time it’s the Muppets versus the Munificent Mummy Muggers! This might not be a fair fight, since the Muppet team has brought in a ringer who has at least two feet over most of the other players!”

Animal rushed the Chef, growling, and the frightened Chef tossed the eyeball back at Lew. “So far the score is two and oh for the Muppets! Can they repeat their earlier victory or will this be the match that stops their relentless advance?” Kazagger commented, avidly watching the tosses back and forth. Gina tried to break away from the contest, but Mookie-mookie grabbed her arm, chanting at her. However, he immediately jerked back in pain; she felt heat around her neck, and realized with a start that her copper bead necklace was humming.

Oh my gosh…is his energy the same kind as Newsie’s? Just…better directed at chaos-causing? she wondered. Whatever the case, the mummy, frustrated at not being able to touch her without consequences, went into a hopping rage, and Gina quickly scrambled out of the way.

Newsie saw the last part of that from across the room, relieved when it seemed the horrible dead thing couldn’t harm her. He shook his head in amazement as Kazagger continued to narrate the eyeball keep-away contest. Scooter asked, “How does he manage to just be there when sports happen?”

“Search me,” Newsie grumbled, not without admiration. “Wish he’d teach it to me…that would come in really handy for news reports!”

Another bone-rattling roar from the M. Tex made everyone jump. The thing loomed over Piggy, and the remaining Velocimuppet still stubbornly snapping at her gave up, backing off before the much larger beast. Unsure whether she could afford to give it her full attention, Piggy glanced from it to Kermit; her frog still dodged and bounced and panted around the room, going in random directions to try and throw off the killer rabbit, but the springy pink thing wouldn’t relinquish its pursuit. “Kermie?” she called. “I may have a teensy problem…”

“Same here!” Kermit yelled back, turning in midair to see what she was dealing with now. All in one glance he took in the gigantic fossil with its ribcage full of uncomfortable people all being knocked around when it moved into a position to try and add Piggy to that total…and his nephew and the rest of the Scouts backing toward the exit with what looked like all of the Velocimuppets trailing them hungrily. “Oh good grief!” he cried, ducking when the rabbit lunged at him again. “Piggy! Robin!”

“Out! Everybody out!” Rowlf yelled.

“Gina!” Newsie called at the same instant.

She waved him off. “I’m fine! Go! Go!”

Oh, he hated that idea. However, the ring of Velocimuppets closed in swiftly, coordinating finally, the flock herding the Muppets not tied up or trapped elsewhere in the room all toward the exit doorway. If these things get into the rest of the Museum…if they get OUT of the Museum--! No, no! Frightened, Newsie could all too easily imagine what those razor-claws and vicious teeth would do to any non-Muppets they encountered…and he doubted they would turn to dust if caught outside in full daylight, as the Museum’s inhabitants had in the movie. We can’t let them out! We can’t!

He voiced these fears as the Frog Scouts edged past him. “Those things will destroy the city if they get loose!”

“They’ll destroy us if we don’t get out!” Scooter argued, backing away. The Velocimuppets chirped and growled oddly among themselves. Newsie didn’t like that one bit…they were communicating…planning.

“Split up!” Rowlf suggested – and then the lead monster leaped at the terrified Muppets.

The group charged along the hallway. A stairwell opened down and up just past the gallery on the right, but Fozzie had heard the Newsman and knew he was right. “Not down dere!” he shouted, directing everyone past the stairs instead. “Dere’s innocent people down dere! We can’t let dese monsters loose!”

“Wish we had some of our monsters!” Rowlf panted, casting a disappointed look down the stairs as he ran past. “Where they heck are they, anyway?”

“Monster-petting therapy at the Shadows on the Dial Happy Home for the Dangerously Senile,” Scooted puffed back. “It’s supposed to be good for the old folks…”

At the top of the stairs, a purplish Muppet with a stringy mustache and dreads and a leather-clad prawn, both in dark shades and bad moods due to the guards at the Columbus Avenue entrance to the Museum having forced them to leave their double-jolt cups of coffee behind, paused to stare at the river of small frogs and larger Muppets who pounded past them, not even noticing. A few paces behind, six monsters consisting of toothed beaks, long sleek bodies with no skin or flesh of any sort over their dark bones, and enormous claw-toes propelling them forward raced in the Muppets’ wake. The last of these turned its skeletal head to shriek at the visitors on the stairs, but didn’t slow, and in a moment all were out of sight.

Clifford blinked. Slowly he looked down at Pepe, who returned his slack-jawed, weary-eyed stare. “Maaaaaannnn,” Clifford sighed, “it is waaaaayyy too early for this stuff!”

“You said it, amigo,” the king prawn agreed. In perfect synch, they pulled out their shades and donned them, and turned as one to slouch downstairs and back home to bed. “Do you think that blonde from last night will call me? She has my number,” Pepe wondered as they trudged down the stairs.

“Man, only because you scotch-taped it to her wrist! You have got to give it up, Pepe!”

“Hey, right now I don’t gots to do nothing but get some sleep. Hey, we should go clubbing more often, you know? I gets more free drinks with you around!”

“Uh, only if you promise to stop climbing into girls’ drinks…”

Kermit was only slightly relieved to see several of the more responsible Muppets leaving with the Scouts; there was still little he could do with this blasted rabbit on his heels, and the crazed thing didn’t seem to be tiring…unlike him. Meanwhile he could see Piggy squaring off against the M. Tex. She made a feint to the left, then swung out a leg in a fast foot-sweep; the Muppasaur snarled, stepping back surprisingly sprightly, and lashed its tail at her in return. It missed. The two circled one another, sizing up postures and possible weaknesses. “Come on, ya big bony loser, ya want a piece of me, you’re gonna have to do better than that!” Piggy growled. It growled back, and tried a bite, but Piggy expected that and dove to one side, then stomped hard on the thing’s bony big toe. It snatched its foot out of the way with a low grunt. Kermit could only focus on his own contest, despairing; he knew Piggy had enormous reserves of strength and determination, but these things seemed unstoppable…and sooner or later the Muppets’ energy would run dry…

Newsie veered right when the Frog Scouts did, running through a hall of stuffed birds behind glass while the other Muppets kept going straight into the Eastern Woodland Indian exhibit. He tried to recall the exact layout of this floor; with the entry to the Muppet exhibit blocked, there was no longer a complete circuit to be made without going up or downstairs…but… When Robin and Dill finally paused, panting, at the door at the far end of the Hall of African Mammals with its now-famous lion pride motionless in the center, he was able to catch up with them, but saw three of the Velocimuppets pacing through the bushes, closing in. “We can’t lead these things down into all the people!” Robin gasped, seeing the main stairs just ahead.

“They’re right behind us! What’ll we do?” Jill croaked.

“Well we’re not taking the ad account for this place, that’s for sure,” Gil groaned. “This is a PR catastrophe!”

“Mom, Dad, we’re being chased by Muppasaurs! A little focus, please?” Dill begged.

“Go straight,” Newsie directed. “Next room!”

“But – but isn’t that the scary snake room?” one of the other Scouts asked, shivering.

Robin glanced at Newsie, realizing what he had in mind. “That’s where the live frog exhibit is!”

“Go hide!” Newsie urged. “Climb in the tanks if you have to! Maybe they won’t pay attention to regular frogs!”

“Right!” Robin cried. “Come on! Hop, everyone! Hop!”

A cavalcade of frogs, one toad, and three mice made a last-ditch run for the long Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians just around the corner from the grand stairs. Gil paused, looking back at the Newsman. “But…you’re not a frog! Where will you hide?”

Whoops…
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[newsmanfan]

-------------------------------------------------
Yes, there's more to come, obviously...but I'd like to take this intermission to encourage everyone to check out the site for the REAL Museum (yes, the same one as in the movie), which has some fairly cool exhibits:

http://www.amnh.org/

Also, at the time of this writing, the FrogCam!

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/frogs/frogcam/

And this one is the first thing which popped into my twisted brain when I first began writing the showdown at the Museum...frog help me. This video is only, I repeat ONLY, for the brave of heart and daring of soul! Be warned!...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJQVlVHsFF8

---------------------------------------------------------

 

[Ruahnna]

Yay--lots of heroics to cheer for! Things that made me smile:

Piggy taking on the biggest Muppasaur for the sake of her friends and her frog!

The frog scouts proved both brave and adept at biology!

Scribbler trapped in the belly of the beast. (Any beast works for me!)

Pepe and Clifford missing the action--and missing any action! (No surprises there!)

Kazzager showing up at just the right (or wrong) time to narrate ridiculous sports.

The Chef saying he's not a kook. (Or was he really saying "I am not a cook!")

Rhonda still going for the story despite a swallowed camera-man, a flu-infused pompous jerk of a news jockey and a chaotic environment.

Kermit being chased by a bunny. I...I just like it.

And, of course, Gonzo. (But then, you know how I feel about Gonzo....)

Keep it coming, Kris! You're on a roll, girlfriend!

 

[The Count]

The neat part was when the velocimuppet reformed itself once the Frog Scouts removed the lynchpin bone. That's exactly what happens when you stomp on a Dry Bones skeleton upon encountering them within fortresses in the Mushroom Kingdom of Princess Peach.
*Wonders what happens should that jade eye break.
*Worries over Rhonda inside that Muppafern with the Muppet rodentia fossils.
*Chuckles at the inclusion of the hecklers.
And where hexactly is Death in all of this? He's not gonna like the fossils being brought back to life. He already put dem dudes under once, Ima not sure if he'd help do it a second time, unless they come after him for his brownies. Then all bets are off.

Thank you for updating, a welcome ending to a long day.

 

[The Count]

BTW: How do you visualize Mookie-Mookie appearing like?
There might still be room for some more souls at our haunting grounds.

 

[newsmanfan]

------------------------------------------------
Hmm...are you familiar with the Andean mummies? Kinda freeze-dried rather than scalloped out and stuffed, but still dry and wrinkly and dusty under yards of wrappings and faded-colored tatters of cloth, with fingerbones poking through; some tufts of hair left on its head, but the eyes terribly sunken into their sockets...and whoooo the smell... Of course, with his careved googly eyeballs of jade and ivory in, he looks more Muppety. Like a gray Whatnot dressed for Halloween.

More soon...writing in process at night...
--------------------------------------------------

 

[The Count]

Mmm, this post of yours does help. Okay, so that's one more down, about 154 still left to gather.

Oh, and if ye be interested... I've got Newsie drafted as a ghostly newscaster, his name/persona coming from one of the punny names of the ghosts or Boos from the game Luigi's Mansion (which I'm surprised the Mario franchise was able to get away with as it's eerily similar to Disney's own doomicile of happy haunts. Although I debated if he should be Mr. Bates, I just wasn't fully comfortable going in that direction... Unless you think it to be more fitting?

 

[newsmanfan]

-----------------------
Hmmm. Boosie?

I like that game too.
------------------------------

 

[newsmanfan]

Part Fifteen (I)

Nothing moved in the long galleries full of waxen people.

The trio of Velocimuppets prowled slowly, chirp-growling to one another: Not here. Not there. Nothing to report. Had they been able to sniff anything still, the Muppets hidden cleverly among the displays of Eastern Woodland and Great Plains natives would’ve been detected; even when alive, though, the skulking, vicious turkey-monsters had largely relied on their keen eyesight, and the one pacing remorselessly right past Scooter and Zoot paused only a moment to peer at them before continuing on through the gallery. Scooter kept his eyes open straight ahead, wondering how long he could do this before they started to water; so far, his hastily-donned costume of moccasins, a buckskin loincloth, an eagle feather stolen from Sam (with an indignant but quickly shushed protest), and absolutely nothing else seemed to be concealing him from harm. For Zoot, staying motionless wasn’t normally difficult…he spent a great deal of time napping or zoning out to the sweet sounds in his head…but this porcupine-quilled buckskin tunic sure did itch.

Another fossil Muppasaur paused, looking over the tableaux of the legendary Chief Sitting Blue Eagle and his faithful horse next to his grassland teepee with its buffalo-skin cover. It wasn’t educated in the eras which had passed after its death, and so didn’t realize that horses didn’t usually have brown curly fur under their blankets, or short wet noses…or that buffalo-skin throws weren’t made of light brown fur in a vaguely bear-hugging-tent shape. Irritated, Sam blew a stray feather off his nose. The Velocimuppet growled, whirling, and Rowlf and Fozzie tensed, ready to flee or scream or both, as the monster examined Sam closely. The eagle stared straight ahead impassively, his wooden personality for once an asset. Eventually another Velocimuppet called, and the one glaring at Sam stepped lightly out of the display, hurrying to its comrade. Sam let out the breath he’d been holding. “Weirdo,” he whispered contemptuously.

In the adjacent Hall of Pacific Peoples, the third Velocimuppet stalked among a large central display of a potlatch ceremony, complete with a pit-smoker, a long table piled high with conch and fish on palm leaves, and the village cook stirring the pit coals, near the gold-toothed chief in a wild headdress of palm leaves and wearing a strange gourd in an even stranger place. The monster turned its head this way and that, peering with its empty eyesockets at each figure in turn among the many gathered for the waxen feast. Moving on uncertainly, it reached the back wall of the Museum; frustrated, it screeched like a bird of prey, calling the others in this wing. The predators gathered, held a quick conference, then began moving slowly back the way they’d come, peering at everything again. When they’d moved out of the Pacific Peoples gallery, Dr Teeth sighed very, very quietly.

“Borkey-borkey nut uppen-givun,” the Swedish Chef observed, hanging on to the giant wooden spoon he was posing with, wondering if it would be sturdy enough to bowl over a borkey-fossillum. He’d had to give up his part in the keep-away game when one of the ugly borkeys had snickersnacked at him, and he’d barely escaped.

“Man, this is righteously wrong,” the good Doctor grumbled. “Are you abso-positively-for-sure that this get-up is authentic? This modesty-unenhancing dried vegetable is definitely the weirdest thing I have ever been involved with – and that includes the radish-playing flying squirrel act last year!”

“Der squishy-squashen maken verbiggens der yonson,” the Chef offered before the monsters returned. Both of them froze once again, and the angry Velocimuppets swung their bony heads all around but couldn’t detect any differences between the wax figures of Polynesian tribesmen and the Muppets posing as such…so they began toppling over everything.

Dr Teeth calculated the approximate distance to the doorway; only one way into or out of this particular gallery. How fast would he be able to run in this costume – or was it worth the embarrassment of throwing one particular part of it aside to run faster? The decision of when he should make like a tree and leave was abruptly forced the instant the Chef, still suffering the green fur aftereffects, sneezed loudly. Fake palm fronds, bits of green fur, and an inexplicable amount of paprika flew into the air; the trio of Velocimuppets screamed wildly and scrambled to attack, claws gouging the platforms, teeth bared all too eagerly. Grabbing a woven reed cloth off the table as he tossed aside the gourd, Dr Teeth fled, the Chef right after him, and three extremely furious fossils hot on their grass-clad behinds.

----------------
“Unnngh!” Miss Piggy almost didn’t dodge the stomping, enormously-clawed back foot of the Muppetasaurus Tex in time, and felt the downdraft whooshing her hair into her face. She puffed it out of her eyes, though a stray golden lock clung to her snout, and when the Muppasaur roared in frustrated foamlust at her, she hurled one of the brass posts with a velvet rope still chained to it directly into its mouth. “Ha! Ha ha! Chew on that, you bigmouthed bonehead!” she yelled hoarsely.

“Good job, Piggy!” Kermit shouted, kicking off the vast teeth of the tiny Muppalepus Snarlodontus when it snapped at him midair. Stunned, it knocked against one of the half-destroyed walls of the Muppet Evolution Corridor, but then righted itself and came after the frog with a furry vengeance. Piggy’s triumph faltered when the M. Tex bit down with enough force to bend the metal post. Snarling, it shook its mighty jaws, and the ruined crowd-control accessory sailed across the room.

“Whoa-ho-ho! Hey, careful!” Lew Zealand chuckled, ducking the crumpled post. He waved the jade eyeball at Gina. “Your turn!”

Gina shoved the wriggling, jumping MahnaMahna aside again and jogged back two steps to catch Lew’s throw; he seemed to have the worst aim she’d ever seen outside of junior high gym class. Quickly she unshod her dress sandals from her feet; the shoes were cute, but provided no traction on the sleek marble floor of the exhibit hall. As the furry Muppet rushed her once again, she planted a firm kick in the center of his cylindrical chest to send him flying right into Animal’s mouth. “This can’t go on forever! We need to get this thing farther away from him!” Gina shouted, pointing at the enraged prehistoric Muppet shaman.

Kazagger whisked to her side. “A break in the action! Tell us, Miss Broucek, how long were you in training for this match? Aren’t you enjoying an unfair advantage over the much shorter members of the Mummy Muggers team?”

Gina stared at him. “For crying out loud, Lewis! Did you forget to put your brain in this morn---aaack!” Animal grabbed her leg, nearly pulling her down.

“Wo-man! Wo-man! Mooga-shaka!”

“Oooh! A tremendous tackle for the Mummies! How will the Muppet team pull free of this one?”

Desperately, Gina lobbed the eyeball high; she groaned in despair when the flying lizard-bat thing snatched it out of the air. However, the giant moth hadn’t abandoned its quarrel with the flying Muppasaur over sovereignty of the skies (or at least, of the space overhead in the gallery) and immediately crashed into it; knocked loose, the jade eyeball fell – into the grasping hands of Mookie-mookie. “Moooooga-shaka!” he crowed. He lifted it toward his empty socket – and a wet fish smacked it from his hand. “Uh-urrgh?”

“Hee hee haw haw haw!” Lew Zealand chortled; the fish thwacked back into his palm, and he retrieved the eyeball from its mouth. “Good one, Muskie Ed!”

Kazagger, nonplussed, looked from the madly hopping mummy to Lew waving his talented fish in one hand and the eyeball in the other. “I have no idea how the scoring will go on that, but the ball is back in the Muppets’ hands! Amazing!”

Gina kicked Animal off her leg, but then tripped backwards trying to get away from the persistent drummer. Her wrist cracked in pain when she landed on it, attempting to break her fall. “Aaaaah!” As she winced, tears blurring her vision involuntarily, a large oblivious thing hove into view right above her. Gina rolled to one side an instant before the lumbering Muppetasaurus Bovinocorpus wandered through. She lay gasping on the floor, and the Muppasaur simply stopped where she’d been a moment before…and chewed what appeared to be mashed bits of green, flimsy plastic, its heavy jaws crushing the material methodically as it stood placid as a rock, blocking her view of both Mookie-mookie and Lew. “Don’t let him get that eyeball back!” she cried as loud as she could to whomever might still be playing on her team, then edged herself away from the clueless cow-Muppasaur, holding her left wrist against her chest. This is insane! Hope Newsie’s in better shape…

-----------------------------
The Newsman crouched behind the balustrade at the far side of the main stairs, panting silently, his brain racing. If he ran downstairs – or up – those things would surely follow, and he’d be endangering who knew how many innocent people? If he bolted for the reptile hall he’d be spotted fairly easily. He couldn’t double back through the African Mammal room, as the monsters were just now lightly stalking through the doorway: he could hear the clicking of their sharp claws on the floor as they advanced. This tiny section of corridor he’d ducked down into was a dead end. If even one of those things came around this end of the staircase instead of turning toward the right side…

One did.

It screeched, spotting him instantly. It leaped at him, claws outstretched to snare, teeth spread wide to tear. Unable to move fast enough to escape, Newsie tried to dodge to his right, instinctively raising his left arm to block the thing from his face. The impact slammed him to the floor; he gasped, struggling up, expecting to find his arm gone, he couldn’t feel it, he must be in shock –

His arm was fine. The Muppasaur staggered, dazed, flexing its bony beak. Before Newsie could process this, the thing shook itself, growl-chirped, and lunged again. Again, he threw up his left arm, crying out, cringing – and again, felt a heavy collision which knocked him back. Blinking, terrified, he looked up; his arm was whole, and several teeth now littered the floor. The Velocimuppet stared at him eyelessly, its beak somewhat less bristling with incisors than before. What the HEY?

Another of the turkeylike monsters, attracted by the noise, lunged at him; this time Newsie didn’t flinch away, and saw the predator clamp its jaws over his upraised arm – and saw the glow of light around his wrist even as the force of the impact shoved him back. The bracelet? Is that the bracelet? They can’t touch me because of that? In growing excitement, he staggered to his feet, two of the things facing off against him; the first one tried again to bite him, singleminded, and he swung his left arm at it, his legs braced for the impact this time. Shrieking, it skidded back a few feet, raking scars in the floor with its hooked toes. Immediately the other one came at him from a different angle, and Newsie blocked with his right arm – and the vicious beak chomped him.

Screaming in pain, Newsie fell, feeling it tearing his felt through his coat and shirt; it was trying to twist its beak, digging its teeth in, oh dear god the pain, his foam, it would chew through to his foam – Newsie desperately smacked it over the beak with his left forearm. With a choked cry, it released him.

Gulping, Newsie sprang up, throwing himself into the wall on his right as the Muppasaur lunged at him. His shoulder bounced painfully off it, but the monster missed. He ran, heading back for the African Mammal room – maybe he could climb a model tree? could these things climb? he hoped not – but the largest of the three Velocimuppets now all orienting on him leaped onto the thick railing overlooking the staircase, launching itself off and landing smack in the doorway to that room. Newsie’s shoes squeaked loudly on the floor, skidding to an ungraceful halt, and he frantically backed away. They closed in, toothy beaks clacking, little foreclaws flexing eagerly, oh god, they would shred him, they would sink their horrible teeth into him, no way he could fend them all off even with Gina’s charm; they would devour him piece by—

His elbow banged something that dinged. A door slid open behind him. An elevator!

The Newsman glanced inside: empty. What if he could – no. This is crazy! I’m no action hero!

The Velocimuppets closed in, certain of their meal. The one in the lead ground its jaws at him. Only a second to judge the distances – oh good grief, I’m no athlete! I can’t do this! Oh, Gina! Desperately, at the same instant all three monsters surged forward, Newsie leaped inside the elevator, grabbing the safety rail inside and hauling himself up with all his might, terror overcoming his pain. The Muppasaurs crowded in, knocking into one another in enraged confusion. Momentum carrying him, Newsie bounded off the high shoulderbone of one of them, kicking up, and his fingertips barely caught the edge of the crossbrace in the low ceiling of the car. One of the Velocimuppets snapped at his shoes; he kicked it away, crying out in fear. Straining, he pulled his lower body up, clinging to the crossbrace, and fumbled several times at what looked like a latch in the ceiling. Shrieking, the monsters jumped at him, beaks snapping inches below him each time, and his entire body cringed upwards. “Please…open…open… d— it, open!” he cried, and finally his grasping fingers closed over the latch and he pulled it as hard as he could. With a creaking, metallic groan, a section of the ceiling wedged open. Trembling with effort, Newsie worked both hands into it, grabbed the outer edge of the maintenance hatch, and hauled. His left foot slipped, and one of the Velocimuppets gladly leaped up, its toothy beak clamping on his shoe. “Aaaaghh!” he screamed, trying to kick it loose with his other shoe. “Aaagh—aaaghh—aaaaah!” One final, panicked kick knocked a fang out, and the Muppasaur screeched in protest, dropping to the floor. Newsie yanked his legs up before the others could repeat the stunt, and slowly crawled out of the elevator onto the top of the car.

He lay there gasping on his back, his glasses streaked with his tears, dully noticing the blood staining his coat. Oh great. Another one ruined. This was so incongruous, so ridiculous a concern at the moment, he almost started laughing despite the sensation of his right arm being on fire. He wondered briefly how deep the wound was. At least he could still move it. He could hear the monsters snapping and fighting below, trying to pursue, unable to jump high enough – although if even one of them, by design or chance, happened to jump up on the back of another as he himself had done, they would surely reach the hatch. He rolled over, daring a look back inside the car, flinching when all three of the monsters went into enraged, snarling jumps at seeing him.

This wouldn’t last long. He could shut the hatch – but then what was there to keep them from bouncing out of the elevator and going after the Frog Scouts again? Or accidentally sending the elevator to another floor, where they would chase and violently rend anyone they found, Muppet or human? He could see the oversized buttons on the elevator wall; he was no athlete, but…

Newsie pulled off one shoe, aimed for the buttons, and threw. One of the Velocimuppets intercepted it with its teeth, slashing it with a few angry bites. The others, thinking the monster had acquired some tasty treat, banged into it, snarling, shrieking in jealous hunger. One of them shoved another into the floor buttons. With a sickeningly cheerful ding, the car began to move upward. Hurriedly Newsie yanked off his other shoe, grunting in pain at forgetting and using his right hand, realized he might only have a second before the Muppasaurs finished fighting over the first shoe, and threw hard.

The elevator groaned to a halt between floors, the emergency stop engaged when his shoe hit it. Oh thank frog for heavy wingtips, he thought, collapsing atop the car again. As an afterthought, he kicked the hatch shut, hurting his sock-clad foot; he didn’t stop until he heard the d—d thing lock. He lay there, gasping, eyes closed, nerves twanging, pain throbbing in his arm and now his foot as well. Gina. You left Gina back there! Unhappily he wrested himself to a sitting position, peering up in the dark shaft. Tiny guide-lights went the rest of the distance up along a metal ladder set into a vertical niche of one wall, running aloft to the fourth-floor doors. He had no idea if he had the strength to open them, much less to climb a ladder like this…but what if she was in worse danger? What if the other Velocimuppets had doubled back into the exhibit hall? What if the other weird things loose in there attacked her, even if the mummy couldn’t?

It took him almost five long minutes to climb less than half a level up and wrench open the doors to the fourth floor. He groaned, pulling himself through the opening right before the self-closing doors clamped shut again, and knelt on the cool marble, his bleeding arm numb, his hair falling between his eyes and his glasses. Worry for his beloved spurred him into motion once he’d caught his breath a little. Carefully brushing his hair out of his face with his left hand, he looked blearily up. A menacing figure in a black shroud loomed over him.

Newsie choked. He didn’t have enough air in his exhausted lungs to scream.

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The scaly mice surrounded Rhonda, continuing their chant; although she was relieved they seemed to be revering her as royalty, the repetitive, scratchy-squeaky voices really got on her nerves after a while. “Okay, guys, it’s been real, but I should probably see what’s going on out—hey!” She smacked the paws trying to groom her short blonde hair. “I do not have fleas! Knock it off!” The primitive creatures kept bowing and chanting, and now one of them was – ughh! “Stop that! Stop licking those! Dang it, you stupid stone-age rodents, those are Jimmy Choos!”

“Ohh-weee-ohhh…lowww-dohh…” Sheesh. Even the one trying to caress her hair wouldn’t stop chanting.

Still, she reflected glumly, judging by the noises still crashing and roaring in the gallery just outside this tiny haven, it could be worse. As long as the idiot still slurping a long slimy tongue over her 6-mm heels didn’t bite off the cute bows on the toes… Sighing, she leaned against the trunk wall, wondering how everyone else was coping.

“Here! Lew, you rag-arm, throw it here!” Rizzo yelled, waving wildly at the bewildered fish-boomeranger as Mookie-mookie closed in on him.

“And with their ringer out of the game, the Muppet team seems to be in real trouble!” Kazagger commented. “It’s Lew Zealand with the pump-fake while both the unappetizing, undead ubermummy and crowd favorite MahnaMahna seem poised to take the ball, and the lead, away!”

A startled Lew whirled to see the shaggy singer indeed about to pounce on him, and stumbled aside just in time to avoid being grabbed. “Mooga-shaka!” MahnaMahna yelled in frustration.

One Snowth looked at the other, puzzled. “Doo doo…doo doo doo?” it wondered. The other one looked around, then shrugged. Shaking their heads, the two creatures turned around to watch Gonzo being repeatedly flogged over the head by something which might once have been a chicken, wielding a dazed prehistoric Muppet purple centipede like a thresher.

“Aagh! Ow! Sweetie! I didn’t mean it like that! You look butch in a good way!” Gonzo cried.

“Dang it, whaddaya got, a fish in yer ear? I’m open!” Rizzo shrieked as loud as he could, and finally Lew noticed him and Scott both gesturing, the rat standing on tiptoe atop Scott’s head.

“Wuh-huh-huh! Aaaookay! Heeeere it comes!” Lew yelled gleefully, and hurled the jade eyeball. It sailed up, up, up – Rizzo waved his paws in the air, trying to judge the landing, Scott backed up, then veered to the right, then left.

“A high fly eyeball to right field! And the rat goes back back back back---“

“I got it! I got it! I---whooofff!” The heavy stone eyeball thunked right into the glove Rizzo held, the weight of it slamming him instantly backwards to the floor. “Sheesh,” the rat muttered, dazed, struggling to get out from under the eyeball. “Great throw, Figuerola.” Scott turned to help, but before he could reach the shot-putted Rizzo, a red, furry drummer barreled past him, knocking him down.

“Eye-ball! Eye-ball!” Animal howled, his hands reaching for Rizzo, his mouth open wide, eyes blankly staring. A few feet away, Lew watched in dismay, Mookie-mookie jumped up and down yelling in apparent triumph, and Gina tried to pull herself up by hauling with her uninjured arm on one of the few display stands still actually standing. Rizzo yelped, seeing the entranced Animal bearing down on him.

“Hey! Ack! Buddy! Animal! C’mon! Friends! Animal, friends! It’s Rizzo! Oh geez please snap out of it—“

Kermit tried to twist in midair to escape another lunge by the psychotic pink bunny rabbit, and very nearly hit the swinging skull of the M. Tex as it reared up for another bite at Piggy. “Kermie!” she shouted, more afraid for her frog than for herself; she could see how tired he was, how each bounce fell lower and lower. However, the bunny’s course-correction sent it right over the nose of the giant Muppasaur…and the M. Tex took offense at all these small jumping things distracting it from its succulent pig meal.

One amazingly fast SNAP, and the prehistoric carnivorous rabbit suddenly found itself inside the huge mouth, teeth penning it in on three sides. Kermit bounced twice more, hardly able to grasp what he was seeing; Piggy caught him, quickly swinging him out of harm’s way behind a platform. The M. Tex tilted its massive head back like a duck taking a drink of water, and one confused sabre-toothed bunny tumbled down the hollow neck-cage and onto Waldorf.

“Ah! Statler! They’re trying to cram more of ‘em in here!” the old man protested loudly.

“Hey! Hey you, frog! What’re you trying to do to us, create a Jurassic trash compacter?” Statler called down from the ribcage. Then the bunny recovered what wits it had, and snarled at the old men on the top of the heap. “Aaahhhh! Get us out! Get us out!”

“Attica! Attica!” Waldorf howled, grabbing something and knocking it back and forth across several ribs in a row. The Muppasaur roared, shaking itself, upending the rabbit again.

“Blleeeaaghh!” Fleet Scribbler gulped, weakly trying to pry free of the crazy old man. “That’s my head, gramps!”

Kermit’s head jerked around when a group of Muppets led by Dr Teeth raced back into the room, all clothed in questionable native disguises. “Hey, my main frog! Get outta the way if you don’t want to become next on the menu!” the musician yelled, Scooter, Rowlf, Sam, and Zoot swift of feet in his wake, scattering throughout the exhibit gallery. Kermit looked at all of them, panic rising: where were the Frog Scouts? Before he could ask, three of the fast, angry Velocimuppets charged in, screeching, splitting up and pursuing their frantic prey.

“RRRRAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHH!” the M. Tex bellowed.

“Screeeeeeee!” shrieked the lead Velocimuppet.

“Eeeeeeeee!” the rabbit snarled at the other unfortunate denizens of the ribcage.

“Moooooga-shaka!” Mookie-mookie howled, dancing a glorious celebration as Animal lunged at Rizzo.

“Aaaaaaaaauuuugh!” chorused everyone else in the room.

“A lá peanut butter sandwiches!”

A deafening clatter and crash resounded throughout the gallery, the echoes overwhelming the slightly less noisy sounds of other bony collapses. Every skeleton dropped to the floor in a cacophony of clunks.

In the astonishing silence which followed, dust sifted down from the ceiling. Everyone recognized Janice’s voice: “Oh, wow! Like, talk about making an entrance!”
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