Well...there isn't much story left, and I am bored, so...here's some more, I wanna get it out the way so I cna start on, A) Part 2, B) Something either Robin or Skeeter related that I am doing, C) my own original work (what, say's you, Real life???
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“This is my park,” Gonzo said. “My bench, my single tree.” Frozen droplets of ice-snow had melted, the bench was damp and brown. The tree branches waved like hands. Gonzo sat on the ground in front of his bench, and pressed his shoulders back against the seat. Fozzie said carefully on the arm of the bench. Gonzo dropped his head back onto the wood, staring up at Fozzie. Gonzo's nose, and eyes, were smoke streaked. “I was here on Christmas Eve, before I was taken away. I thought I was going to die that night. After I lost Amy...”
“Amy?”
“She was a dancing brick.”
“Oh.” Fozzie stared at his feet. The fur on toes seemed rough, and tangled.
“You know what he said? Everyone matters...He was wrong. No one matters.”
“Gonzo...”
“Whatever. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters, dreams, visions, belief.”
“Gonzo?”
Gonzo moved his head. “Yes?”
“You taught me all I know about faith, everything that matters to me now, it was you, you taught me.”
“It was wrong.”
“No,” Fozzie said. “No it wasn't wrong. Because, everyone does matter.”
“Why? I lied to you, I...” He stood up fast, stepped towards the pond. “And I said I had a plan, I don't have a plan. I don't matter!”
“You matter to me,” Fozzie said.
Gonzo froze, goosebumps shivering up his arms.
“And to...Deadly,” Fozzie went on, faster, “And Sweetums...the others...to that Snowman creature...and to, to me.”
“I'm sorry I let them destroy your home,” Gonzo said quietly.
“Gonz...if we don't do something they will destroy everyone's home.”
Gonzo knelt next to the black water, and touched it with his finger. Ripples spread out, out, across and licked against the edge of the pond, turning back on themselves and returning. Gonzo drew his hand back. “Fozzie, come here. Touch the water. Here, next to me.”
Gonzo's finger sank below the inky coldness again, and Fozzie's dissapeared next to him. This time the ripples spread in two directions, rolling over one another. “What? What is it?” Fozzie asked.
“Everyone matters,” Gonzo said.
*****
Nicky Holiday slammed his palms on the desk with a stinging crack. Clifford jumped violently, his chair scrapping back an inch across the floorboards. The office of Cliff Top Estates was crowded with Nicky and his associates, and pieces of broken plastic from the computer lay scattered on the floor. Clifford, behind the desk, Nicky looming in front of him. Carla, and Darla sat cross-legged on the edges of an arm chair as Skeeter stood nearby with coffees in glass mugs. A penguin loitered in the doorway. “Do you have permission or do you not have permission for us to take that land?” Nicky screamed in Clifford face. Skeeter flinched, slopping coffee over a chip in the mug onto her fingers. Clifford stared at Nicky Holiday, his presence greater that Nicky's though Nicky was both taller, and bigger.
“Quack?”
Everyone's head snapped towards the door where the penguin stood, a pack of Cue Card in his hand, and an innocent expression on his beak-filled face. “Quack, quack!!!” He flipped a Cue Card over in his hand. Applause.
Carla swung up off the chair, and pointed a long, red-painted nail at the penguin's face. “Get out,” she said, “of here.”
The penguin found another card. Unemployed. He shook his head, as if it were the wrong card, and searched through his stack for another, spilling several from his flippers onto the floor. Here it was, the one he wanted. The penguin flashed it at Carla, Darla, and the others.
“Stunned Silence,” Clifford read. “What the- Zany, will you get out of here?”
Zany rolled his eyes, and padded away. “What was that about...” Nicky started, but stopped as he saw Gonzo standing alone in the door where Zany had been. “You,” Nicky said.
“Yeah, it's me.” Gonzo stepped into the room. He had gotten this far, and there he was. Holiday, N. The man who had started this was right before him in the perfect police uniform. “Mr Holiday,” Gonzo said. “That land is not yours, that land never belonged to anyone but it's lodgers, the creatures, that's their home, and you can't take it from them again.”
Nicky gave him a sloppy smile. “Oh really. What land? Oh, that land. Well, huh, I think it just may be more mine than yours. Who do you think you are telling me all this anyway, hmm?”
Fozzie Bear moved in the door behind him. “He's Gonzo.”
“But you,” Gonzo said, taking a step back from Nicky. “You can call me The Great Gonzo.”
Nicky laughed, the kind of rich laugh that can be taken home in a pocket and kept for later. “Well, Gonzo, my lawyer has just gained rights to that land, right Cliff?” He glared at Clifford, who nodded slightly. “Good. And I'm sorry but my men are already taking it over to be transformed into something worthy of me,” Nicky went on. “And you are just pests who already deserve to be in jail if my memory serves me.”
Skeeter glanced at Clifford, and at Fozzie. Fozzie raised his eyebrows, and looked back at her. His eyes changed, and her expression reflected his. She gently placed the mugs down on the desk.
“Now,” Nicky said. “Either get out, or come with me and view our very glamorous prisons.”
A shrill mobile phone chant burst from Darla's red leather bag. She fished it out, flipped it open. “Nicky Hoooliday,” she purred. “What?!” She slammed the phone back into her bag. “We have a problem at the site.”
Nicky glared at Gonzo and Fozzie, then marched past them. “Everyone come with me.”
Gonzo clenched his hands together. It was going too fast. Following Nicky, he looked back, and saw Skeeter speaking quietly to Clifford.
*****
The truck bumped over badly coated roads. Nicky's fingers rolled the steering wheel, his nails were bitten. In the back, Carla and Darla sucked lollies and giggled at Skeeter's dreadlock hairstyle, unconcerned, and afraid. Skeeter and Clifford sat close, holding hands. Fozzie and Gonzo were on the passenger seat by Nicky.
"Try anything, and die," he said, nodding towards a gun on the dashboard. Gonzo licked his lip. Maybe if he was quick, maybe if he could be sure Fozzie wouldn't be hurt, maybe the truck would turn a corner and maybe the gun would skip forward, maybe Gonzo could grab it, swing it, press the cold butt into Nicky's chest.
Gonzo pulled his eyes away from the shiny metal. "Why?" Gonzo asked.
"Why what?" Nicky sneered. He snapped the handbrake up, and slammed to a stop in front of traffic lights.
Gonzo lurched forward. "Why do this? What is it you want?"
Nicky tipped his head. "I thought you'd have it figured by now, I'm the bad guy." His engine revved, and pulled forward as the lights changed. "Surprised? You figured I'm a policeman, huh? Well, I am. See the name-badge?"
"Yeah, nice," Fozzie said, sarcastic and hurt.
Nicky grinned. "You don't need to know the story, let's just say I had a nasty fall out with my family, my sister. And here I am. And my chief is, let's say, he was dropped one too many times on his snout as a kid." A bitter laugh. "And he'll never notice something right under it, either. Like a headquarters for the CIA."
Gonzo blinked. "The CIA?"
"Criminals in America," Nicky stated flatly. "A training school. Outside town, nicely secluded. Half underground in the perfect caverns, half over in a giant building." The truck took a corner fast, spitting dust. "And now the land is my own. Oh, yess."
Fozzie looked backwards, trough the smudged plastic glass at Clifford. "Why did he-"
"You think he'd like his pretty girlfriend to go to jail?"
And they travelled on in silence. Gonzo's mind whirled. There had to be, something. Ahead, the construction site loomed with a plume of smoke twisting up from the dead iron casing of Fozzie's home.
*****
"Stay here." He snatched the gun, slammed the door. The locks clicked down, and up, and down again, harder. They heard Nicky's boots scratch dirt as he walked to the back of the truck. Heard Clifford, Skeeter, and the girls getting out.
"Can you jack this car?" Gonzo asked.
"Yes. Will that help?"
"Um, no. I just thought I'd like to know you can."
"Oh. Then we're stuck here. Or, maybe Uncle Deadly can…"
"No. We aren’t his concern."
The locks snapped up, and so did Fozzie's eyebrows. "How did…" Gonzo began.
"Don't look at me, I only break into cars from the outside," Fozzie replied, as a face appeared in the widow. "But I bet she could tell us."
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