Floyd felt the bus easing onto an exit ramp. He refocused his eyes from the sky to the ground and realized Fozzie was pulling into a gas station. The bear smiled weakly at the bus occupants. "It'll probably be the last time we can get gas for awhile."
They slowly unboarded the bus, stretching, yawning, making their way into the store part of the station. They grazed the aisles for something to snack on while Fozzie filled the tank. Kermit stayed near Robin, still working on the spelling list.
"Okay, Robin, spell 'witch'."
"Which 'witch'?"
"The evil kind."
"Oh. Um.... W-H-I.."
"Nope. That's the other which."
"Oops."
"It's okay, keep trying."
"WANT SNACK! WANT SNACK!" Animal shouted, grabbing candy off of the shelves, making a mess of the store.
"Down Animal!" Floyd ordered, bending down to replace the fallen candy to the shelves.
It wasn't long before they were back on the bus, everyone in the same seats except for Dr. Teeth and Fozzie. It was Dr. Teeth's turn to drive now, and his seat had now been taken by the bear.
Floyd sighed deeply, and let his eyes rest on the stars as he thought back to that day...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kermit had gone out to get the mail when he called for Gonzo to come out. Moments later the weirdo was jumping with delight, shouting for Camilla, running to get his motorcycle, and setting up his new stunt ramp in the street.
Kermit smiled at his friend's excitement, then took the pile of mail inside to sort through it.
"Let's see... bill, bill, bill... who the heck is Bill? I'll have to look into that." He set the letters for Bill aside. "Where was I... advertisement... junk mail... credit card stuff- I'm not sure I want to look at that." He started a pile for Miss Piggy. "Uh... thank you for your donation... Oh, Robin's merit badge... reminding you of your appointment- Fozzie! You have a dentist appointment tomorrow! Um, let's see... what's this?"
What was it indeed? It was addressed to Kermit the Frog and Company from some one named Lloyd Galt. Kermit didn't know any one named Lloyd Galt, he had never even heard the name before. But apparently Lloyd Galt had heard of Kermit, and he lived in Pine Springs, Texas.
Kermit sat down on the couch and opened the letter. He read it carefully.
Dear Mr. Kermit the Frog,
I have developed a script for a movie that I would be very interested in having you and your friends perform in. I will be arriving in your area next week for about one month. Please call me at your earliest convenience to set up an appointment.
Sincerely,
Lloyd Galt
Kermit looked at the date on the letter. It had been written a week ago. So "next week" was now "this week."
"Guys! Everybody! Come here! Come quick!" He shouted. He leaned out a window. "Gonzo! Camilla! Come here, you've gotta see this!" He shouted up the stairs, "Miss Piggy! Fozzie! Rowlf! Dr. Teeth! Everybody! Come see this!"
He read the letter again. It was awfully vague. No details on the movie at all. Nothing on what it was about, the basic plot line... a tiny warning light went on in Kermit's mind. Maybe he was getting too excited. Maybe he shouldn't get everybody else excited. But still, it was SOMETHING. Something new! Something they hadn't been doing for six months already.
Soon everyone was in the room, crowding around Kermit, all of them trying to fit onto the couch. They were bombarding him with questions. He could hardly keep track of the questions, let alone who was asking them.
"Hey what's going on?"
"What are you shouting about?"
"What happened?"
"What's so exciting?"
"Come on, man, we were practicing!"
"What the heck is going on?"
Kermit looked around. How the heck was he supposed to tell them anything if he couldn't even hear himself think?
"
QUIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!" He shouted. They all quickly stopped talking. All but Janice.
"And I said, look girl, if you want to pose naked that's fine, but don't drag ME into it..." She looked around at everyone staring at her. "Oh."
Kermit just shook his head. "Ok guys, listen to this!" He read the letter aloud.
"So are we gonna do the movie?" Rowlf asked.
"What's it about?" Fozzie asked.
"Yeah, and who's Lloyd Galt?" Dr. Teeth asked.
"Yeah, Kermit..."
Uh oh. He'd better give them some sort of answer before they got into a mesh of voices again.
"I don't know." He said. They fell silent. Kermit didn't know? "It doesn't say in the letter what the movie is about, or who Lloyd Galt is. It just has his number."
"So are you going to call him?" Miss Piggy asked.
"Well, I don't see any other way to find out more about the movie." Kermit said.
"Yay!" They started to shout again.
"Wait a minute guys, wait a minute." Kermit remembered that warning light. "I'm a little wary of all this."
"But why? It's something New!" Gonzo said.
"Well yeah, but..."
"But what?" Floyd asked.
"Well it's just that he doesn't really tell us anything. It's almost like he doesn't really want us to know about what's in the movie. Like he's afraid we won't do it if we find out."
"So, like, you won't call him?" Janice asked.
"I never said that. I'm going to call him right now!" Kermit hopped off the couch and went to the phone. He looked at the number on the letter and dialed.
Robin came home from school a few hours later. "Uncle Kermit, did my new merit badge come yet?" He asked as he came in the door.
Kermit smiled. Robin had asked that every day for almost two weeks now. "It's on the counter." He said
"Oh boy!" The young frog grabbed the badge and started to hop up to his room to put it on his frog scout uniform.
"Well now wait a minute, Robin" Kermit stopped him. "How was your first day of school?"
"Oh it was wonderful, Uncle Kermit!" They sat down on the couch as Robin told all the details of his day. Gonzo was back outside practicing new stunts on the stunt ramp. Miss Piggy was in her room, and the Electric Mayhem were all practicing in one of the bedrooms that had been emptied when people started moving out. Fozzie was practicing jokes in front of his mirror. Rowlf was playing on the piano in the corner.
"We've had a bit of excitement here, too, today" Kermit told his nephew.
Robin gasped. "Really?"
"Mm hm. For one thing, Gonzo got that stunt ramp."
"I saw that."
"And for another thing..." Kermit pulled out the letter for his nephew to read. The young frog grabbed it eagerly.
"Did you call him, Uncle Kermit?"
"Yes I did."
"And what did he say?"
"Well, I set up an appointment with him. I'm going to go see him tomorrow. Then we'll talk about the movie, and he'll give me a copy of the script."
"Did he say anything about the movie when you talked to him?"
Kermit shook his head. "All he said was that there's a part for all of us. Even one for you."
Kermit watched his nephews eyes light up with excitement. "Really, Uncle Kermit? Oh boy!"
"Well don't get too excited. We still don't know anything about the movie itself." He was reminding himself as much as his nephew.
That evening they all sat around the dinner table, eagerly discussing the possibilities of the movie. Suddenly they heard an explosion, and all fell silent. They were accustomed to explosions, but Crazy Harry had moved out months ago, as had Bunsen and Beaker, and Animal was sitting there with them. Who else would cause an explosion?
Then they heard the squeal of brakes... a small crash... silence.
CRRRAAAAAAAAAAASH!
It sounded like it had come from outside. Kermit stood up. "I'd better go see what that was." The others followed him outside.
They stood on the porch and stared at the giant oak tree, not quite believing what they saw. It appearred that a small, rusty old pick-up truck had landed in the tree. Or rather, what used to be a small, rusty old pick-up truck. The entire front end, especially the driver's side, was entirely smashed. A glance at the whole scene showed what had happened. A large car part lay farther up the road, some smaller ones scattered past it. The explosion had been when this fell out of the bottom of the truck. The screech of brakes was visible, too... burnt rubber marks swerving across the road, zig-zagging and finally running off the road to where Gonzo had pulled his stunt ramp before dinner. That was the smaller crash- running into the ramp. It had launched the truck spinning through the air- that was the silence. And then the final crash landed it in the tree.
"Fozzie?" Kermit managed to say. "Call 911."
"Yes sir." Fozzie said. He didn't move.
The muppets watched in terror as the truck creaked, rocked, and finally fell to the ground, smashing the passenger side and destroying what little was left of the truck. Kermit turned and saw Fozzie still standing there.
"Fozzie! Now!"
"Yes Sir! Going, Sir!" Fozzie ran into the house. The rest of the muppets slowly crept up to the drivers side of the truck.
Inside was a girl, probably in her early twenties. Broken bits of glass stuck in her skin, and she was bleeding horribly. Her long black hair was tangled around the head rest. She was barely maintaining conciousness as she gazed at them through half-open, large, dark eyes. Still, through the mess, any one could tell that she was beautiful.
"hhhhhhh.... hhhhheh..... hhhhheh...." Her voice was weak, hardly audible at all. "hhhhhellllllllllp" she managed to get out.
"Don't worry." Kermit told her comfortingly. "You're going to be alright."
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