The first unpleasant surprise came when Piggy stepped off the paved road. Lost in polite conversation, Piggy found herself unaccountably rooted to the spot. She looked down in surprise and consternation to find her heels ensnared by the marshy ground. Everyone else was barefoot, including Kermit. She gave a nervous laugh, stepped gingerly out of her shoes and bent to pry them out of the ground.
“Here, Honey,” Kermit said. “You’ll ruin your gloves. Let me.”
At the word “Honey,” about sixty little frogs giggled and made oohing noises. Kermit looked at Piggy apologetically, their cheeks flaming in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” he murmured. “Lots of little, um, ears.” He touched the back of her calf affectionately with one slim hand, and the contact made Piggy feel better. She stepped gingerly back into her shoes.
“How silly of me,” she said with false brightness. She had, in fact, walked out of a shoe before on the red carpet, and this was not—quiet—as bad. Once re-shod, she altered her gait to prevent the heels from sinking. It was awkward, and not very comfortable, but she plunged on determinedly. She would make this work. She would.
Walking near her, Kermit saw her square her shoulders and set her jaw. Torn between pride and exasperation, he smiled. Piggy had her game face on now. It was bound to be interesting.
Back at the clearing, there was a considerable flurry of activity. Ladies checked their hair, and little ones were wiped down or hosed off, depending on the severity of the need. The logs were arranged cozily around the central clearing, and there was a big pot of soup bubbling over some embers. Standing serenely in the middle of it all, Jane and James The Frog watched the burst of frantic activity with bemused tolerance.
“You’d think he’d never come home before,” James said, shaking his head. “And if everybody keeps acting like the sky is falling he’ll never come back.”
“Don’t be silly, dear,” Jane said fondly, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm and leaning her head against his side. “Kermit won’t mind the fuss. But we may scare poor Piggy to death.”
James looked down at his wife affectionately. He was pretty sure that there wasn’t much in this world that scared his son’s wife, and a big fuss over her arrival seemed one of the less likelier things to rattle her. Still, Jane had remarkable insight about people, so her husband was too wise to contradict her until he’d seen a little more.
“Anything I can do?” James asked. “Anything left to do?”
Jane looked up at him, and her dark eyes were sad. “You could talk some sense into Maggie,” she said softly.
“No,” he said gently, and heaved a great sigh. “I’m afraid no one can do that.” James patted her hand. “Just give her time,” he said. “Maggie’s a good girl. She’ll come around.”
Jane smiled hopefully but said nothing, and her eyes continued to scan the road for the arrival of her son.
The edge of the woods was chock-full of little frogs on the lookout for any sign of Uncle Kermit or Cousin Kermit and his new, very interesting wife. It was always interesting when Kermit visited, the little frogs agreed. There was no telling who or what sort of creature might come with him, and now he was coming back to see them all and bringing his wife—and she was a pig! In New York and California and even London, where they spent much of their professional lives, Kermit and Piggy had little reason to consider their union odd, but here in the swamp, a frog married to a pig was big news. For all his cosmopolitan ways, Kermit was often overly optimistic and sometimes naive. “I’m sure it will be old news by the time were get there,” he’d assured Piggy. Piggy was never naïve, and she’d wondered differently, which was just as well.
The message was spreading like wildfire.
“They’re here, they’re really here!” Robin cried, hopping up and down in excitement. The vine he stood on bounced and bobbed under his weight, and he gave a great shout of joy and leaped out over the water to land with a huge ker-plop in the middle. Concentric circles spread out around where he had gone under, making a lazy, ever-widening pattern on the water that was abruptly disrupted by his sudden reappearance.
“Oh, gosh,” Robin said. “I better go get dried off!” He scrambled out of the water and onto the embankment. Grabbing a towel, he scrubbed himself dry. Uncle Kermit and Aunt Piggy were coming! He could hardly wait.
“Hey,” Elizabeth said, interrupting her argument with her brother Logan long enough to acknowledge her older sister. Maggie was ostensibly skipping stones across the flat surface of the pool. “Aren’t you coming to meet Kermit’s wife?’
“I’ve had the pleasure,” Maggie snapped. “No thanks.”
Logan and Elizabeth exchanged surprised looks. “Well excuuuuse us,” they said together.
Maggie glared at them. “Get lost,” she said. Laughing, they obliged.
“Sheesh,” Logan said. “Somebody got up on the wrong side of the lily pad today.”
“You’re telling me!” Elizabeth responded, then, realizing she had actually agreed with her brother on something, made a point to start a fresh argument.
After they had left, Maggie threw her remaining rock as hard as she could into the center of the dark water. It was a satisfactory loud splash, throwing out ever-growing circles on the water, but in a moment, all evidence of her anger was spent. It left her feeling dismal, and she flopped down onto the water’s edge and stared sulkily out at nothing.
“Stupid pond,” she muttered, then shouted, “Stupid Kermit!” A sleeping bird startled into flight and Maggie took some grim satisfaction in its panicked departure. That satisfaction, too, faded quickly. Feeling utterly forlorn, Maggie put her head down on her knees. Too proud to cry and to angry to do anything else, Kermit’s sister just sat there and let the party go on without her.
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Christmas Music
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Sam and Friends Book
You know, I just thaught of something; I think Elizabeth is one of Lisa's sisters though!
