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(I really meant to get MUCH more of this posted before I go on vacation... Yup, I'm disappearing on you guys again, but don't worry, it's not another Israel stunt. I won't be gone for six weeks... Just for the entire second half of July. We're leaving VERY early Wednesday morning. So I meant to post quite a bit more before then, but this chapter just took forever to get started. Anyway... a tip of the hat to Prawnie for being a sounding board, the Dr. Phil line, and permission to use capslock. ...You'll see.)
Chapter Fourteen
“HERE is a MUPPET Newsflash!” the Muppet Newsman cried as he raced to his seat at his desk in front of the camera, clutching his papers in his hand.
He dropped himself into his chair—and missed, tumbling to the floor. He grabbed the desk and pulled himself up into the chair, shoving the papers out in front of him and smoothing them against the desk.
He cleared his throat. “In our top story tonight, dogs are still the preferred pet of most Americans, followed by cats, followed by birds. However, dogs, cats, and birds now lead by a considerably smaller margin than previous years.” He stared at the papers in his hands. “…That is our top story?”
He gave the camera a helpless look and examined his notes once again.
“Otherwise, the pet preference statistics have been unaffected by the recent canine and feline driven lawsuit against the species discriminatory phrase, ‘raining cats and dogs,’ which—“
“MRRROWW!” a cat yelped as it tumbled onto the Newsman’s head amidst a shower of—well, you know, don’t you?
The Newsman let out a yelp of his own as he tried to duck beneath the relative shelter of his desk. “Shoo! Go! Uh—down! Down, kitty! Down—dog, uh—“
He snatched his somewhat-shredded, scattered notes and pulled himself back into his chair, pretending to ignore the cat stretching out right in front of him and the three dog-cat chases surrounding him. He cleared his throat.
“The allegedly species discriminatory phrase,” he said loudly, “Is of course used to describe particularly HEAVY rainfall.”
The skies—or the studio ceiling, anyway—promptly opened, drenching the dogs and the Newsman and sending the cats scampering for shelter—which many of them found beneath the Newsman’s desk. Startled by the sudden downpour, the Newsman dropped his notes again and dove beneath the desk to dig through the cats and grab his umbrella. He opened it and, safe from the rain, gathered his notes once again.
“In OTHER news,” he announced, “…My notes… are now too soggy to be even REMOTELY useful.” He sighed heavily as he tossed the wet notes off of the desk. “WHY do I even still use NOTES?” he vented beneath his umbrella. “Every OTHER newscaster in the ENTIRE country has a TELEPROMPTER. And it can be UPDATED, WHILE the newscaster is sitting behind the desk, so that they can deliver REAL, up-to-date stories, instead of some JUNK about CATS and DOGS!”
A particularly large, fierce, wet and smelly dog leaped onto the desk and snarled at the Newsman, who promptly dropped the umbrella.
“Uh, uh—not that—that there’s anything WRONG, with—I—I mean I LOVE dogs!”
A cat pounced up on the other side of the desk to hiss at him.
“AND CATS!” the Newsman said as the rain stopped. “I—I LOVE cats, AND dogs! They’re so, so, uh, um—nice, and furry, and cuddly! I just, I—I ha—ha—have—ha-CHOO! …Allergies…”
Wet cats and dogs alike—both of which, you may know, seem especially attracted to anyone who wants nothing to do with them—rubbed up against the Newsman as he sagged in his chair.
A hand appeared on the side of the screen, slid a box of tissues in front of the Newsman, and handed over a fresh set of notes.
“Thank y—CHOO!”
The Newsman’s glasses bounced on his face as he snatched a tissue just in time to use it. He frowned distinctly at his uninvited company and examined his notes.
"Oh, perfect… speaking of animals,” he muttered. “In politics today, President Obama said 'Gesundheit' when the White House dog, Bo, sneezed, leading to some concern about foreign influence over the president.”
The German Shepherd next to the Newsman let out a loud, intimidating bark, prompting all the dogs to bark, which naturally made the cats hiss at them, and started a few chases up again.
“QUIET!” the Newsman shouted at them. “QUIET! We’re BROADCASTING this! QUIET!”
A Doberman snarled at him for the reprimand.
The Newsman shrank back, cleared his throat, and straightened up a little. “However,” he read from his notes, “The president's acknowledgement of the dog's sneeze won back the support of some PETA members who were discouraged by his heartless murder of a fly during an interview."
A cat rolled its eyes, stretched, and settled on top of the Newsman’s notes with a bored meow.
The Newsman groaned. “Shoo, kitty. SHOO! Sh—CHOO!”
The cat opened and closed one bored eye as the Newsman snatched a tissue and four noisy chases circled the desk.
The Newsman sighed as he wiped his nose. “Get off my notes,” he begged the cat. “PLEASE—uh—You!” He turned to the German Shepherd. “Can YOU make it move?”
The dog shoved its nose towards the cat. “WOOF!”
“MROWWW!” The cat scampered off the desk—and the notes—as he and the German Shepherd added a fifth pair to the dog-and-cat-chase merry-go-round.
“Thank you!” the Newsman called. “…I think.” He cleared his throat and examined his notes again. “And now, a breaking news story,” he read.
Glass shattered somewhere above his head, and he instinctively ducked beneath his notes as the surrounding cats and dogs scattered, only to settle right back in once all the glass had fallen. The Newsman sneezed on the nearest cat.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and he sighed as he read from his notes. "It has been reported that ANOTHER celebrity has just died! Memorial services are being planned across the country as countless fans mourn, and a heated debate has already begun over the deceased's fortune and the legitimacy of the five known wills. ...No word yet on what celebrity it is."
The cats and dogs suddenly scampered away, taking with them all of their barks, howls, meows, hisses, chases, and—well, most of their fur.
The Newsman glanced to either side, surprised. “Well. That was… sudden,” he observed. “I wonder why they all—a—a-CHOO!” He wiped his nose with yet another tissue. “Can we get this fur out of here?”
“NOT LIKELY,” a bone-chillingly cool voice behind him replied.
The Newsman turned around and shrieked to see the Grim Reaper towering over him.
The Grim Reaper sighed a deep, exasperated sigh. “CHILL,” he said sternly. “IT’S NOT YOUR TURN YET. I’M HERE FOR YOUR RATINGS.”
“…OH!” The Newsman gripped the edge of his desk, panting for breath. “…Oh,” he said between gasps. “…Oh. Oh. …Ratings. Right.”
The Grim Reaper slowly nodded his hood.
“…Ratings,” the Newsman repeated. He slowly turned and looked at the Grim Reaper. “...Does that mean I have viewers?"
The Grim Reaper stood there, silent as the grave, for a long moment. “…NOT ANYMORE,” he finally answered.
The Newsman nodded shakily. “Gotcha,” he said. He gulped and glanced at his notes. “So, uh… on with the news?”
The Grim Reaper slowly shrugged. “YOUR NEWSCAST,” he said as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to the Newsman behind the desk. “I’M JUST KILLING TIME.”
The Newsman let out a nervous attempt at a laugh, which quickly turned into a cough. He cleared his throat and once again looked at his notes.
"In the fashion world, tomato stains have become the rage since Oprah spilled ketchup on herself at a baseball game,” he read. “Says Oprah on the matter, 'Could I please have a napkin?' "
"COMMENTING ON THE MATTER,” the Grim Reaper added in his bone-chilling voice, “DR. PHIL WAS PLEASED THAT OPRAH’S FAME FINALLY CAUGHT UP TO HER. …THAT DIDN’T WORK!”
The Newsman puzzled over it. “Caught up—he wanted her fame to catch up to—Oh, CATCH UP!” He turned to the Grim Reaper. “Well, it COULD have worked. You KILLED it!” he said.
The Grim Reaper slowly turned his head—or his hood, anyway—and presumably stared at the Newsman.
The Newsman gulped. “Right,” he said. “Moving on…” He studied his notes. “In other celebrity news, Robin—“
“Tweet!” A robin flew in and landed on the desk, looking straight at the Newsman. “Tweet! Tweet?”
The Newsman groaned. “Not the BIRD. The FROG!” he moaned. “Robin the FROG!”
The robin gave a convincingly sad tweet before flying away.
The Newsman sighed and turned to his notes again. “As I was saying, Robin the Frog—“
Tweet!
The Newsman clenched his teeth and turned towards the sound, ready to reprimand the robin again.
“SORRY,” the Grim Reaper said, his bony fingers clicking over his cell phone. “I’M ON TWITTER.”
The Newsman stared at him. “…Got any followers?”
The Grim Reaper looked up—or at least, moved his hood so that it pointed at the Newsman. “…MORE THAN YOU.”
The Newsman sighed.
At the Muppet Boarding House, the living room was suddenly quite full, and no one seemed entirely sure why. Rizzo had been watching TV and had suddenly started shouting something about Robin, so now, here they were, quite squished on and into and under the couch.
“Hey, Sal! You’re sittin’ on my arm!”
“Oh—Sorry, Johnny.”
“Where’s the remote?”
“What are we watching?”
“That guy’s STILL on the AIR?”
“Why is the Grim Reaper there?”
“As long as the Grim Reaper’s not at the hospital, I don’t care WHERE he is.”
“GREAT! I’ll invite him over HERE!”
“GONZO!”
“What?”
“Guys, quiet! They’re talking again!”
“As I was SAYING,” the Newsman sighed from the screen, “Robin the Frog, known as a MUPPET, nephew of KERMIT the Frog, was reportedly SERIOUSLY injured when he was hit by a CAR on Sunday. No word yet on his CONDITION—“ He suddenly stopped and turned to the Grim Reaper. “Is he alive?”
The Grim Reaper was still studiously clacking his bony fingers over his cell phone. “WHAT—THAT LITTLE FROG?” he said. “YES, HE’S ALIVE. AND SO IS THE BLUE WEIRDO, THE SQUEAKY ONE, AND THE TWO OLD GUYS IN THE BALCONY.”
The Newsman nodded. “Right. And ME.”
“FOR NOW.”
The Newsman gulped. “So, uh—so what do you think Robin’s CHANCES are? Do you think he’ll make it?”
The Grim Reaper tucked his cell phone away and slowly looked at the Newsman. “IF I TOLD YOU THAT,” his bone-chilling voice replied, “THE BOSS WOULD HAVE MY HOOD.”
Pepe sighed. “Jou can’t even give h’us a hint?”
“Well could you give us a HINT, at least?” the Newsman asked.
“D’is is what h’I said!” Pepe said.
The Grim Reaper slowly tilted his hood to one side, and then straightened it up again. “PERHAPS ONE VERY SMALL HINT WOULDN’T HURT…”
“GOOD!”
“Someone write it down!”
The Muppets eagerly shifted forward—just as the channel changed, filling the room with screams.
“WHO DID THAT?”
“WHERE’S THE REMOTE?”
“CHANGE IT BACK!”
They frantically threw each other aside, digging to find the remote, while Leaper stood in the doorway and quietly lowered her eyes from the screen, her arms tightly wrapped around herself.
Chapter Fourteen
“HERE is a MUPPET Newsflash!” the Muppet Newsman cried as he raced to his seat at his desk in front of the camera, clutching his papers in his hand.
He dropped himself into his chair—and missed, tumbling to the floor. He grabbed the desk and pulled himself up into the chair, shoving the papers out in front of him and smoothing them against the desk.
He cleared his throat. “In our top story tonight, dogs are still the preferred pet of most Americans, followed by cats, followed by birds. However, dogs, cats, and birds now lead by a considerably smaller margin than previous years.” He stared at the papers in his hands. “…That is our top story?”
He gave the camera a helpless look and examined his notes once again.
“Otherwise, the pet preference statistics have been unaffected by the recent canine and feline driven lawsuit against the species discriminatory phrase, ‘raining cats and dogs,’ which—“
“MRRROWW!” a cat yelped as it tumbled onto the Newsman’s head amidst a shower of—well, you know, don’t you?
The Newsman let out a yelp of his own as he tried to duck beneath the relative shelter of his desk. “Shoo! Go! Uh—down! Down, kitty! Down—dog, uh—“
He snatched his somewhat-shredded, scattered notes and pulled himself back into his chair, pretending to ignore the cat stretching out right in front of him and the three dog-cat chases surrounding him. He cleared his throat.
“The allegedly species discriminatory phrase,” he said loudly, “Is of course used to describe particularly HEAVY rainfall.”
The skies—or the studio ceiling, anyway—promptly opened, drenching the dogs and the Newsman and sending the cats scampering for shelter—which many of them found beneath the Newsman’s desk. Startled by the sudden downpour, the Newsman dropped his notes again and dove beneath the desk to dig through the cats and grab his umbrella. He opened it and, safe from the rain, gathered his notes once again.
“In OTHER news,” he announced, “…My notes… are now too soggy to be even REMOTELY useful.” He sighed heavily as he tossed the wet notes off of the desk. “WHY do I even still use NOTES?” he vented beneath his umbrella. “Every OTHER newscaster in the ENTIRE country has a TELEPROMPTER. And it can be UPDATED, WHILE the newscaster is sitting behind the desk, so that they can deliver REAL, up-to-date stories, instead of some JUNK about CATS and DOGS!”
A particularly large, fierce, wet and smelly dog leaped onto the desk and snarled at the Newsman, who promptly dropped the umbrella.
“Uh, uh—not that—that there’s anything WRONG, with—I—I mean I LOVE dogs!”
A cat pounced up on the other side of the desk to hiss at him.
“AND CATS!” the Newsman said as the rain stopped. “I—I LOVE cats, AND dogs! They’re so, so, uh, um—nice, and furry, and cuddly! I just, I—I ha—ha—have—ha-CHOO! …Allergies…”
Wet cats and dogs alike—both of which, you may know, seem especially attracted to anyone who wants nothing to do with them—rubbed up against the Newsman as he sagged in his chair.
A hand appeared on the side of the screen, slid a box of tissues in front of the Newsman, and handed over a fresh set of notes.
“Thank y—CHOO!”
The Newsman’s glasses bounced on his face as he snatched a tissue just in time to use it. He frowned distinctly at his uninvited company and examined his notes.
"Oh, perfect… speaking of animals,” he muttered. “In politics today, President Obama said 'Gesundheit' when the White House dog, Bo, sneezed, leading to some concern about foreign influence over the president.”
The German Shepherd next to the Newsman let out a loud, intimidating bark, prompting all the dogs to bark, which naturally made the cats hiss at them, and started a few chases up again.
“QUIET!” the Newsman shouted at them. “QUIET! We’re BROADCASTING this! QUIET!”
A Doberman snarled at him for the reprimand.
The Newsman shrank back, cleared his throat, and straightened up a little. “However,” he read from his notes, “The president's acknowledgement of the dog's sneeze won back the support of some PETA members who were discouraged by his heartless murder of a fly during an interview."
A cat rolled its eyes, stretched, and settled on top of the Newsman’s notes with a bored meow.
The Newsman groaned. “Shoo, kitty. SHOO! Sh—CHOO!”
The cat opened and closed one bored eye as the Newsman snatched a tissue and four noisy chases circled the desk.
The Newsman sighed as he wiped his nose. “Get off my notes,” he begged the cat. “PLEASE—uh—You!” He turned to the German Shepherd. “Can YOU make it move?”
The dog shoved its nose towards the cat. “WOOF!”
“MROWWW!” The cat scampered off the desk—and the notes—as he and the German Shepherd added a fifth pair to the dog-and-cat-chase merry-go-round.
“Thank you!” the Newsman called. “…I think.” He cleared his throat and examined his notes again. “And now, a breaking news story,” he read.
Glass shattered somewhere above his head, and he instinctively ducked beneath his notes as the surrounding cats and dogs scattered, only to settle right back in once all the glass had fallen. The Newsman sneezed on the nearest cat.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and he sighed as he read from his notes. "It has been reported that ANOTHER celebrity has just died! Memorial services are being planned across the country as countless fans mourn, and a heated debate has already begun over the deceased's fortune and the legitimacy of the five known wills. ...No word yet on what celebrity it is."
The cats and dogs suddenly scampered away, taking with them all of their barks, howls, meows, hisses, chases, and—well, most of their fur.
The Newsman glanced to either side, surprised. “Well. That was… sudden,” he observed. “I wonder why they all—a—a-CHOO!” He wiped his nose with yet another tissue. “Can we get this fur out of here?”
“NOT LIKELY,” a bone-chillingly cool voice behind him replied.
The Newsman turned around and shrieked to see the Grim Reaper towering over him.
The Grim Reaper sighed a deep, exasperated sigh. “CHILL,” he said sternly. “IT’S NOT YOUR TURN YET. I’M HERE FOR YOUR RATINGS.”
“…OH!” The Newsman gripped the edge of his desk, panting for breath. “…Oh,” he said between gasps. “…Oh. Oh. …Ratings. Right.”
The Grim Reaper slowly nodded his hood.
“…Ratings,” the Newsman repeated. He slowly turned and looked at the Grim Reaper. “...Does that mean I have viewers?"
The Grim Reaper stood there, silent as the grave, for a long moment. “…NOT ANYMORE,” he finally answered.
The Newsman nodded shakily. “Gotcha,” he said. He gulped and glanced at his notes. “So, uh… on with the news?”
The Grim Reaper slowly shrugged. “YOUR NEWSCAST,” he said as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to the Newsman behind the desk. “I’M JUST KILLING TIME.”
The Newsman let out a nervous attempt at a laugh, which quickly turned into a cough. He cleared his throat and once again looked at his notes.
"In the fashion world, tomato stains have become the rage since Oprah spilled ketchup on herself at a baseball game,” he read. “Says Oprah on the matter, 'Could I please have a napkin?' "
"COMMENTING ON THE MATTER,” the Grim Reaper added in his bone-chilling voice, “DR. PHIL WAS PLEASED THAT OPRAH’S FAME FINALLY CAUGHT UP TO HER. …THAT DIDN’T WORK!”
The Newsman puzzled over it. “Caught up—he wanted her fame to catch up to—Oh, CATCH UP!” He turned to the Grim Reaper. “Well, it COULD have worked. You KILLED it!” he said.
The Grim Reaper slowly turned his head—or his hood, anyway—and presumably stared at the Newsman.
The Newsman gulped. “Right,” he said. “Moving on…” He studied his notes. “In other celebrity news, Robin—“
“Tweet!” A robin flew in and landed on the desk, looking straight at the Newsman. “Tweet! Tweet?”
The Newsman groaned. “Not the BIRD. The FROG!” he moaned. “Robin the FROG!”
The robin gave a convincingly sad tweet before flying away.
The Newsman sighed and turned to his notes again. “As I was saying, Robin the Frog—“
Tweet!
The Newsman clenched his teeth and turned towards the sound, ready to reprimand the robin again.
“SORRY,” the Grim Reaper said, his bony fingers clicking over his cell phone. “I’M ON TWITTER.”
The Newsman stared at him. “…Got any followers?”
The Grim Reaper looked up—or at least, moved his hood so that it pointed at the Newsman. “…MORE THAN YOU.”
The Newsman sighed.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At the Muppet Boarding House, the living room was suddenly quite full, and no one seemed entirely sure why. Rizzo had been watching TV and had suddenly started shouting something about Robin, so now, here they were, quite squished on and into and under the couch.
“Hey, Sal! You’re sittin’ on my arm!”
“Oh—Sorry, Johnny.”
“Where’s the remote?”
“What are we watching?”
“That guy’s STILL on the AIR?”
“Why is the Grim Reaper there?”
“As long as the Grim Reaper’s not at the hospital, I don’t care WHERE he is.”
“GREAT! I’ll invite him over HERE!”
“GONZO!”
“What?”
“Guys, quiet! They’re talking again!”
“As I was SAYING,” the Newsman sighed from the screen, “Robin the Frog, known as a MUPPET, nephew of KERMIT the Frog, was reportedly SERIOUSLY injured when he was hit by a CAR on Sunday. No word yet on his CONDITION—“ He suddenly stopped and turned to the Grim Reaper. “Is he alive?”
The Grim Reaper was still studiously clacking his bony fingers over his cell phone. “WHAT—THAT LITTLE FROG?” he said. “YES, HE’S ALIVE. AND SO IS THE BLUE WEIRDO, THE SQUEAKY ONE, AND THE TWO OLD GUYS IN THE BALCONY.”
The Newsman nodded. “Right. And ME.”
“FOR NOW.”
The Newsman gulped. “So, uh—so what do you think Robin’s CHANCES are? Do you think he’ll make it?”
The Grim Reaper tucked his cell phone away and slowly looked at the Newsman. “IF I TOLD YOU THAT,” his bone-chilling voice replied, “THE BOSS WOULD HAVE MY HOOD.”
Pepe sighed. “Jou can’t even give h’us a hint?”
“Well could you give us a HINT, at least?” the Newsman asked.
“D’is is what h’I said!” Pepe said.
The Grim Reaper slowly tilted his hood to one side, and then straightened it up again. “PERHAPS ONE VERY SMALL HINT WOULDN’T HURT…”
“GOOD!”
“Someone write it down!”
The Muppets eagerly shifted forward—just as the channel changed, filling the room with screams.
“WHO DID THAT?”
“WHERE’S THE REMOTE?”
“CHANGE IT BACK!”
They frantically threw each other aside, digging to find the remote, while Leaper stood in the doorway and quietly lowered her eyes from the screen, her arms tightly wrapped around herself.
