Chapter Fifteen
“FOUND IT!” Gonzo shouted, triumphantly pulling something out of the couch and holding it over his head.
“Hey! Put me down!” the thing in his hand said, squirming angrily.
“Wha?” Gonzo lowered his hand to look at what he was holding. While it was certainly shaped like a remote, it didn’t have any buttons, and it did have arms, legs, and a very angry little face. “Hey, you’re not a remote!”
“Ya noticed, huh?” the thing snapped. “Of course I’m not a remote!”
“Well, have you seen one?” Gonzo asked.
“Will you put me down if I tell you?”
“Sure.”
“Far left cushion. All the way down.”
“Thanks, buddy!” Gonzo put the thing back into the couch. “Guys, did you hear that?”
“Already on it,” Link said, his feet kicking in the air as he reached deeper and deeper into the sofa. “How deep is this couch?”
“Too deep,” Rizzo said, crawling up with a miner’s hat on his head. “But I t’ink I foud da remote, guys!” He hefted something up, and Clifford took it to inspect it.
“Man, this ain’t a remote. This is a brick!”
“AMY!” Gonzo seized the brick and hugged it to his chest. “Oh I’ve MISSED you!”
“Oh, brutha,” Rizzo muttered with a shake of his head.
Clifford looked at the rat. “What made you think a brick was the remote control?”
“Hey, it’s dark down there!” Rizzo said defensively.
“What about this?” Bubba asked, poking up beside Rizzo with something in his hands.
Unfortunately, it was the same rectangular creature Gonzo had just encountered. “Put me DOWN!” it angrily demanded. “I am NOT a REMOTE!”
Bubba sighed and let the critter drop back into the couch.
It screamed on its way down.
“I got it!” Link called triumphantly, his voice muffled by how far into the couch he was. “WHAA!”
Rowlf snatched the pig’s feet just before they tumbled into the couch. “Gotcha, Link,” he said, and he pulled. “Hey guys, gimme a hand.”
Several Muppets clapped, and someone held out a loose hand.
Rowlf did a double take. “Shoulda known that was coming,” he said. “Really, help me pull!”
Floyd grabbed onto Rowlf’s shoulders and waited until he felt a pair of hands on his own shoulders. “Ready? One, two, three, PULL!”
They hauled Link out of the couch, and the pig quickly handed the remote to Clifford before he was dropped to the floor. Clifford quickly changed the channel back to the one they’d been watching.
“And that’s all the time we have today … thank goodness,” the Newsman sighed from the screen, wiping his brow.
The Muppets groaned. “We MISSED it!” Rizzo complained.
Zoot stirred. “Huh? Wha?”
Floyd sighed. “Nothin’, man. Go back to sleep.”
Still standing quietly in the kitchen doorway, Leaper rubbed her arms and looked down at her flippers.
It was at that moment that Scooter came in the front door. “HEY, GUYS! EVERYONE IN THE LIVING ROOM FOR—“ He stopped, staring at the crowded room. “Oh. Everyone IS in the living room!”
“The Grim Reaper was on TV, and he was going to give a hint about whether or not Robin will live, but we missed it,” Gonzo explained to the go-fer, still cradling the recovered brick in his arms.
Scooter stared at him for a moment before deciding that the appropriate response was to cough and move on. “Well, guys, I was talking to Kermit, and—“
“How is he?” Rizzo asked nervously, climbing up to sit on the back of the couch. “Is Robin awake?”
Scooter shook his head. “Not yet. We would’ve called if he was,” he pointed out.
The Muppets sighed.
“But I asked Kermit about the show this week.”
Every head in the room immediately snapped up. Leaper frowned and hugged herself tighter.
“And?” Lew anxiously asked.
Scooter shrugged. “He’d forgotten about it. He said the show must go on, though. He wants to know how many of us want to be in the show this week.”
The Muppets quietly looked at each other, oblivious to Leaper's silent, lethal glare.
Rowlf scratched his ear. “If we’re rehearsing at the theater, we can’t be at the hospital,” he softly rumbled.
“Yeah,” Gonzo said quietly, squeezing the brick a little tighter. “… It’s hard to care much about the show, when Robin …”
“But Kermit’s right,” Rowlf said. “The show must go on.”
The Muppets nodded. Leaper shook her head.
“So who wants to stay at the theater?” Scooter glumly asked.
For a moment, even the crickets didn’t chirp.
“Me and my fish could!” Lew volunteered.
“What if the show wasn’t at the theater?” Gonzo suggested.
Clifford looked at him as if he were … well … alright, so it was a fairly reasonable way to look at someone like Gonzo. “How would we do the show without the theater?”
“We’ve done it before!” Gonzo said. “We’ve gone on the road, and there was that time we did it from a train station … Why couldn’t we do it from the hospital?”
“Because it’s a hospital, and face it, Gonz, we’re dangerous,” Clifford said.
“Well, the emergency room would be right there,” Scooter mused.
“Would the hospital be okay with it?” Rowlf asked.
“We could perform for the patients!” Gonzo said. “They would like that. Wouldn’t they?”
“We might be able to persuade them,” Scooter said hesitantly.
Clifford shook his head. “Even if we can perform at the hospital, who’s gonna let us rehearse there?”
“Maybe we could use de roofs,” Pepe said.
“Now why would dey let us do that?” Rizzo asked.
“Who says dey would know?” Pepe countered.
Scooter shook his head. “They have a helicopter pad up there, and they—“
“GREAT!” Gonzo was so excited that he dropped the brick—on the nearest toe, of course, but he didn’t seem to notice as Link hopped up and down and whimpered in pain. “I have a whole LIST of acts I haven’t been able to do because they need a helicopter!”
Clifford groaned. “Man, the helicopter’s for the patients! The ones who get air-lifted to the hospital.”
“Oh,” Gonzo said. With the stunts ruled out, he suddenly realized his arms were empty, and he glanced at the floor. “There you are. Sorry, Amy,” he said as he picked the brick back up.
“The brick gets an apology,” Link moaned. He was trying to hold his injured foot in his hands, which ultimately resulted in him sitting down—involuntarily.
Leaper felt ill as she took in all of this chaos. How could they be so … so … She couldn’t think of a word for it, but how could they be like this when her son, whom they claimed was one of them, was in the hospital? Clearly, he wasn’t really one of them. How could they even think of the show?
Rowlf was shaking his head. “Doesn’t sound like there’s any place in the hospital where we could safely rehearse,” he said.
“We could ask them,” Scooter said hopefully. “None of us want to … stay away.” His voice caught as he said it, and he looked down, trying to hide his face.
Clifford put an arm around the go-fer’s shoulders and pretended not to notice that he did so. “Right. We could ask,” he said. “Should we tell Kerm the plan?”
“Won’t make much difference,” Rowlf said softly. “He won’t leave the room.”
Leaper turned around and went into the kitchen, shaking her head in disgust. She let the door swing shut behind her.
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