The Mamas and The Papas
Part 5: Free Advice
By Kim McFarland
*****
This evening began much the way the previous one had. Boober served dinner in Wembley and Gobo's room because it had the most space, and the entire family ate together while chattering about that night's plans. As before, Gobo, Wembley, and Red would meet with the Poobahs, and Boober and Mokey would attend to other matters in the Messin' Around Cave. They had taken some teasing over that. Neither minded, however. If a thing was worth doing at all, it was worth doing well. Or, as Red remarked, overdoing.
Janken was acting a little odd, Boober noticed. Ever since he had found out that he was Wembley's son he had seemed upset. Boober knew all about youthful angst, and Janken often came to him when he felt unwell and unhappy. He had, in fact, stuck with Boober all afternoon after they had left the pond, and had helped Boober prepare tonight's meal. Boober had thought that Janken wanted to talk about what was on his mind, but he hadn't said a word. Boober didn't push him; when he was ready to speak up he would.
Now they had cleared away the aftermath of the dinner, and Red, Wembley, and Gobo were eagerly anticipating the showdown at the Poobahs' meeting tonight. Janken was not as enthusiastic. He wasn't in the mood for a bunch of silliness with a big crowd of Fraggles. The more he thought about it, the less he wanted to go.
Wembley could see Janken's spirits sink as the time to leave approached. He was disappointed; things had been going so well today, and he had thought that yesterday's moodiness was just a fluke. Now it looked like that was not the case. He sat beside Janken and asked, "What's the matter?"
Janken looked around. The rest of his family was chattering energetically. Janken didn't want to talk about it now. He looked at the floor.
Wembley gently put an arm around Janken's shoulders. "You can tell me. I'm your papa," he said softly.
He tried to pull Janken close, but the boy stiffened. Without looking up he said, "I don't want to go."
"You don't have to if you don't want to," Wembley told him. "I'll stay with you."
"I don't want you to. I want to be alone. To think."
"Well... okay, if that's what you want," Wembley said.
"Yeah."
Wembley sat with Janken for a while, hoping that the child would say something more, but he did not. When it came time for Mokey and Boober to leave, Mokey came over and said to Janken, "Give me a hug for luck!"
Janken hopped up and hugged Mokey, who had knelt down, around the neck. "Good luck, Mama!" Then he turned and surprised Boober with a hug. Boober was short enough that Janken could hug him around the lower chest. "Good luck," Janken repeated.
"Thanks," Boober said with a wry smile. Gobo and Red were grinning the same grin at him, and loudly refraining from commenting.
**
Mokey and Boober left—this time without fanfare—and Red, Gobo, and Wembley put on their Poobah costumes. Janken watched quietly. When it was time for them to leave Wembley laid a hand on Janken's back and said, "Sure you don't want to come? You can just watch."
"No, thanks."
"Well—sure you want to stay home by yourself? I don't mind staying with you so you don't get lonely."
"I'm okay. I wanna think," Janken said.
Wembley gave up. "All right," he said, and patted Janken's back.
Hearing the beginning of the processional music, Gobo, Red, and Wembley left the room. As they walked through the tunnels Wembley sighed. "Gobo, is it just me, or is Janken acting funny?"
"He's been kind of quiet since yesterday."
"It's more than just that. It's like... almost like he's afraid of me."
Red said, "Afraid of you? Who could be afraid of
you?"
Gobo said, "I don't think it's anything to worry about. He's probably just nervous about Mokey having another child."
Red said, "Yeah. I heard him and Mokey talking about it this morning. He was worried that she wouldn't be his mother anymore."
"Really?" Wembley said.
"Yeah."
Gobo said, "Don't worry about it, Wembley. Janken's okay. If he was really upset he'd say something, eh?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Wembley said.
**
When Janken could no longer hear the processional music he left the room. He knew where he wanted to go. He had thought about it all day, and there was one person who might understand how he felt.
He ran through the tunnels and once again surfaced in the Gorgs' garden. It was early evening, and Junior Gorg was watering the garden. Janken went around him so he could approach from the front. He walked over between the rows of radishes and shouted,
"Hey!"
Junior glanced around. He did not lift his feet; he didn't want to accidentally squash anybody. When he saw the purple fuzzball among the red radishes he waved down. "Oh, hi there."
"Hi. Why are you watering now? Wouldn't it cool the plants off if you watered in the middle of the day, when it was hotter?" Janken asked.
"If I did that, they could get sunburned," Junior replied.
Plants got sunburned? Only recently had Fraggles started coming aboveground long enough to learn about sunburn. Janken, having light purple skin, wasn't very susceptible, but Wembley and Red, who were yellow-skinned, were vulnerable. It was painful, so they said, and scary-looking too. Janken said, "Could I talk to you about some things?"
"Sure." Junior put down the watering can. "The gwound's all wet. Can I put you on the table?"
"All right."
Junior's huge, hairy hand closed carefully around Janken. The Fraggle closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He was not afraid of the Gorg, but the feeling of being lifted so quickly and so high made him queasy. Junior set him on his feet on the table and sat at one of the seats. Leaning his chin in his hand, Junior asked, "So, what's up?"
"What's it like having two parents?" Janken asked.
Junior blinked, surprised by that question. Of all the things he thought a Fraggle would be curious about, his family was not one of them. He said, "Well, they sure do outnumber me, especially at spwing cleaning time. Mommy tells me to thwow evewything out and Daddy tells me to bwing it all wight back."
"What else is it like?"
"Well... they give me a lotta chores. There's guarding the castle, even though we're no longer wulers of the universe." He glanced toward the castle, then lowered his voice. "I never did figure out why we still gotta do that, but just doing it's easier than arguing about it with Pa."
Janken smiled. The Gorgs could be as silly as the Poobahs, he thought, and they didn't even mean to be.
"And they're always either arguing or making lovey-dovey." Junior rolled his eyes.
"Oh yeah. Mine are like that too," Janken said.
"But, well, I guess it's all right," Junior said. "Ma's a gweat cook. She makes all sorts of good stuff for me. The things she can do with garlic! And Pa... well, he's my Pa." Junior shrugged cheerfully. "Last week he showed me how to fish, and how to pull fishhooks out of my thumb."
"Do you ever get lonely?" Janken asked.
"Nahh. When Ma and Pa are busy, I got the garden and you Fwaggles. Say, you have thwee daddies and two mommies, don't you? What's that like?"
Janken wished that Junior had not asked that. But, he knew, it was a fair question. He couldn't tell Junior about what had recently happened, though. It still hurt to think about it. He'd answer as if it was a few days ago. Junior wouldn't know any better. "It's nice. They're all different from each other, and they all do different things, but they all love each other and me."
"But isn't it complicated?" Junior asked.
Janken shook his head "No. Why would it be complicated?"
"Well, who's the boss and chores and stuff."
Janken shrugged. "Nobody's the boss. Everyone does different things, and when someone needs help, someone else helps. I helped make dinner tonight. And when clinging creepers grow near us
everyone puts flowers all over to scare 'em off. That's fun!"
"Everyone helps with the chores instead of making one person do 'em all? Gee," Junior said, awed by the concept. "It must be fun to be a Fwaggle. But I think I'll keep my two parents. If I had five it'd be like a battlefield!"
Janken said, "I guess it wouldn't work for Gorgs."
"Yeah, guess not."
"Um, could you put me on the ground? I wanna talk to the Trash Heap."
"Sure." Junior picked Janken up again and carried him to the garden wall. He leaned over a broken section and dropped Janken into a pile of leaves.
Janken yelped, then reappeared from under the leaves. He waved, grinning, to Junior. "Thanks!"
"See you later," the Gorg said, and left.
Philo, the Trash Heap's pink, ratlike associate, said, "Y'know, when the all-seeing, all-knowing Trash Heap, in whose presence you happen to be, said you Fraggles could drop in anytime, I'm pretty sure this isn't what she meant."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to," Janken said.
The Trash Heap was already rising. She said, "Don't worry about it. I heard you coming. So, you're still troubled?"
"Yeah," Janken admitted.
"It's got something to do with your family, doesn't it?"
"Yeah..."
"Let me tell you something, about yourself," she said. "You're unusual for a Fraggle because you like to reach out in directions other Fraggles would never think of. You come to me all by yourself, you go exploring with your great-uncle, you talk to Junior Gorg! Someday that's going to be more important than you can imagine. But right now you need to think carefully about
who you need to reach out to."
"Who?" Janken asked.
"Think about it," she said softly. "This problem isn't mine to solve, it's yours. But you don't have to do it all alone. Think about who could really help you, and tell
them why you're unhappy."
"Couldn't you tell me who?" he persisted.
She replied, "I think you already know."
He looked at the ground for a while. Then he raised his eyes back to hers. "What if it hurts their feelings?"
"You might be surprised," she said gently.
"I don't want to be surprised. I want things to be the same."
"Then go to the ones who can make it the same." She held a pink tube out to Janken. He took it. It was longer than his tail, and wasp-waisted, with holes all along its length. It was lighter than it looked. He asked, "Is this magical? Will it help?"
"What do you think?"
He turned it over in his hands. It was worn, and there was a crack in one side. "It's not magical. It's just neat-looking."
"It's called a tchotchke," she informed him. "It's whatever you make of it."
He looked at it again, trying to work out what this had to do with his problem.
She told him, "Take that home with you, and if you feel afraid to talk about your problem, look at it and remember what I told you."
Hearing their cue, Philo and Gunge said, "The Trash Heap has spoken."
Janken said, "Thank you, Trash Heap," politely but halfheartedly as he waded through the leaf litter surrounding the Trash Heap proper.
After Janken was gone from sight Gunge said, "You sure let him off easy, Marjorie."
Philo said, "Yeah. You coulda gotten at least two verses and a chorus outta that one, then sent him home with some mumbo-jumbo that'd have him scratching his head for days in the name of personal growth."
"He's just a little boy. Making him face his problem head-on is enough," Marjorie answered.
"If you say so," Philo said with a shrug.
"I do." She paused and eyed Philo.
"Mumbo-jumbo?"
Gunge quickly edged away from his friend. Philo said, "Uh, I meant esoteric words of wisdom'!"
"That's better," she said, and sank back into the ground.
**
Janken plodded through the caves leading home. He thought he understood the Trash Heap's advice. He just didn't think it would do any good. But what else could he do?
Nobody else knew how he felt. Nobody could help him. He was all alone. Everybody was somewhere else. He found himself walking toward Boober's room. When he felt sad like this, it was Boober he wanted to see. Boober didn't try to cheer you up if you didn't feel like being cheerful. He let you be sad until you were ready not to be sad any longer.
Of course Boober was not there. He would be with Mokey for a while. Janken knew what the Midsummer Ritual involved. Making a baby Fraggle was complicated, hard work, which was why people went away to do it: if they got interrupted they might mess up, and then they'd have to wait until next year. Maybe something went wrong last night and that was why they were trying again today. Janken told himself that he would just have to wait until they were done.
He sat down on Boober's bed, holding the pink tchotchke the Trash Heap had given him. It did make him feel a little better. It was as if a little bit of her was with him now, keeping him company.
*****
Fraggle Rock and all characters except Janken are copyright © The Jim Henson Company. All copyrighted properties are used without permission but with much respect and affection. Janken and the overall story are copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9@aol.com). Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.
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I immediately thought of the story of the fox after I read that part of the chapter. That book and The Secret Garden are my two favorite books from childhood. What a beautiful homage, Slackbot!