Where Piggy’s tummy had been rumbling earlier, it now felt like it was full of butterflies. “Which would be great if Moi were a frog,” she grumped, “but Moi is not.” She peered nervously into yet another darkened hallway. What she saw was a long, narrow hallway that seemed slightly off-kilter, as though the walls were leaning out of plumb. She edged forward, careful of her footing in the new heels, and put one hand on the wall. It felt slick and damp, even through her black-lace gloves, and Piggy stifled the urge to scream as she snatched her hand away. Ewww…. She hope, hope, hoped it was just moisture and not anything…else.
Piggy now walked carefully in the exact middle of the narrow hallway, careful that she touched nothing and nothing touched her. The stillness was sort of creepy, but there was the sound of distant movement in the building and still that tantalizing smell of hot bread and cider. She turned right, seeing no one and nothing, but something tugged her hair and she batted wildly to free herself from the clingy strands of filament. It stuck to her fingers, and she didn’t know if it was the slime or the spider web itself that was sticky. Probably both. Those two things, combined with the light misting of hairspray, seemed to make the web adhere more determinedly. She pulled at it, walking sideways, and walked into another web. Sheesh! Don’t these people clean? If this was the way they got things ready for the party, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go!
“Go on—it’s fine. Nothing’s going to jump out at you,” said Kenneth, one of the older frog scouts who seemed perfectly willing to let the smaller frog scouts take the lead. Plenty of things had jumped out of them since they’d entered the haunted house, and those in the lead were taking no chances.
They turned the corner nervously, a tight knot of amphibian arms and legs (and one furry pair) and looked up and down the narrow hallway. This time, nothing jumped out at them—not monsters or rubber spiders or ghostly pictures on extendable springs—and after a moment, the knot loosened as everybody relaxed. Then the pictures on the walls began to spin and there was a cacophony of moans and screeches from hidden loudspeakers. Even Scoutmaster Rana flinched, and the frog scouts all giggled. They had finally cottoned onto the fact that this spooky house was more surprise than scare and were feeling a little braver. Even several wrong turns in the labyrinth hadn’t dampened their enthusiasm.
“We’ve already been down this hall—I recognize that picture,” complained Kenneth. “It’s that creepy guy with the wild hair and weird eyes.”
“You mean Albert Einstein?” Robin asked doubtfully. Kermit’s nephew suspected that some of the furnishing here in the maze had come from the muppet lab, which was undergoing a thorough airing out at the moment.
“Whoever. But we’ve been down this hall before.”
“I don’t think so—“
“No—he’s right. I remember that picture, too.”
“But we came in from the other end of the hallway—didn’t we?”
“My feet hurt.”
“Wait—wait—I’ve got it!” Robin exclaimed excitedly. “I know how to tell if we’re going the right way! I brought my Frog Scout compass!” He unclipped it from his belt loop and held it in his palm. “Shine the flashlight over here!” Dakota called.
“Well, the sun was setting behind the building, so the building faces east—“
“So that last left turn was really north—“
Their excited voices soon drowned out the recorded moans and groans.
Mr. Rana was suitably impressed and amused by his troop’s practical solution to the scary and disorienting maze. Kermit shot him a look.
“If it were up to me to get us out, I’d still be wandering,” Kermit admitted. At first, they had counted on familiar objects to determine whether or not they were walking in circles, but it eventually became evident that someone was changing the pictures and other objects after they passed by. Kermit suspected that explained the muffled sounds of shuffling and giggling that he thought he heard, and he could have sworn one of the voices sounded like Cookie Monster. Kermit hoped absently that Cookie had not yet been to the reception….
This was not the reception Piggy had expected. Her up-do was now a sticky up-don’t and she suspected she had a run in her fishnet hose. She had almost jumped out of her skin when a recording of screams and screeches boomed out of a speaker that could not have been more than six inches from her elbow.
“Oh for goodness sake,” Piggy said, catching her breath and remembering not to put her sticky glove over her pounding heart. “This party better be worth the effort!” She turned the corner and looked suspiciously at a picture of Beaker and Bunsen. It was creepy enough as it was, but Bunsen’s little glasses seemed to follow you wherever you went. Piggy was fairly certain that she’d already passed one picture of the mad scientist and his hapless assistant, but she thought that it had been a different one. Beaker’s lapels had been a little wider in the other one, she thought, to keep up with what the fashionable lab assistant was wearing those days.
She felt the floor tremble slightly under her feet and the dim lighting flickered. Great—another one of those weird electric shorts. She had a sudden horrible thought: If the power went out while she was in this…this labyrinth, she was going to have to grope her way out by touching the walls!
They had burst triumphantly from the maze, but their triumph was short-lived. The frog scouts were now pressed uneasily against the wall, confronted by not one, not two but three grinning vampires.
Johnny Fiama, Count von Count and a chicken with two bright fangs sticking out of her beak greeted the uncertain Frog Scouts.
“Hey, like, we are creatures of the, um, night,” said the first vampire.
“That’s ten—ten frog scouts in costume,” said the second. “And two—two adult chaperons.” Fozzie was about to emerge from behind Kermit’s back to protest when the Count added, “And one—one frightened bear!” The dim lighting overhead flickered, and there was the sound of thunder.
Robin had blanched back with the rest of them, but as soon as Johnny opened his mouth, he relaxed and looked around. If Johnny was here, Sal was probably here, too, so he kept one eye out in case the chimp decided to jump out at them. And Count von Count wasn’t scary—he was nice. Robin had met him lots of time when his uncle was working on Sesame Street. He felt Dakota lean in to whisper in his ear.
“Are—are chickens related to s-s-storks?” Dakota chattered.
“I don’t think so,” Robin replied. “How come?”
Dakota shrank back even further. “J-just wondering,” he replied. Kermit had heard the exchange and put a comforting hand on the nervous frog scout’s shoulder.
“That’s just Camilla,” he whispered. “She’s a friend, and she’s a vegetarian.”
Dakota looked relieved but wary, and straightened up a little. “O-Oh,” he said. “I’m g-glad.”
For the next few minutes, the scouts were treated to a decidedly eclectic display of vampire behavior, from random counting to crooning. The scouts began to lose their fear and giggle a little, enjoying this strange haunted house station. Finally, Johnny finished his rendition of “I Put A Spell On You.”
“Wow,” he said. “All that singing made me…thirsty!” He made a theatrical swoop at them, his cape billowing out behind him, and the scouts shrieked and scattered, evading him easily. Count von Count happily counted the running, screaming children, and Camilla made a couple of rather impressive almost-flights across the small room, her white wings stark against the ruby red lining of her cape. Only Dakota seemed somewhat unnerved, but not really frightened. Camilla had apparently been clued in and when she passed close to him and gave a throaty “be-gawk!” she had actually winked at Robin’s friend. After a few more moments of squealing pursuit, the frog scouts were expertly herded into the next room.
“That the last group, huh Johnny?” said Sal, emerging from his place behind the crypt façade.
“Yep—that’s all of them,” Johnny said sanguinely. “Rizzo said the frog scouts were gonna be in the last group of the evening.”
“Then I say we head for some punch and cupcakes,” Sal said. He reached up and turned off one of the two electric flames that framed the crypt doorway. “I heard they got six different kinds!”
“That’s six—six different kinds of spooky cupcakes!” cried Count von Count. The electric flame on the other side of the crypt door flickered and winked out in the power interruption that followed. Sal shrugged and turned to Johnny.
“Do we need to do anything else here besides turn out the lights?” he asked.
“Naw,” Johnny said. “Nobody else is comin’ and we’re gonna clean up tomorrow. Just come on down to the party.”
“Are ve going through the Creature Shop?” The Count asked eagerly. “I vas hoping to count the mutations!”
“Are the Mutations playing?” Sal asked, confused. “I thought it was the Electric Mayhem.”
Piggy’s eagerness for the party had been mutating into something much less enthusiastic. She had been around the same section of the maze at least four times, and—lacking bread crumbs—was coming to the unhappy conclusion that she was going to have to use her favorite Mocha Magic lipstick to mark where she had been.
There was a sudden crash and boom as the light flickered, and Piggy just happened to be looking in the right direction to see the clear outline of a door—a regular door. She waited for the predictable flare against her corneas to subside and then began to make her determined way over toward the doorway she had seen. She was ready to face anything rather than make another pointless pass down this stretch of corridor with Bunsen’s glassy gaze following her.
She was definitely getting closer to the smell of hot bread and there was another smell—coffee, maybe, or cocoa? Piggy’s spirits began to lift just a smidge. Food and company were close by—she was ready to sink her teeth into something tasty.
Piggy rounded the corner and saw a pretty realistic façade of a crypt, with one lone light burning. She looked around, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed that there were no…inhabitants. She saw something white on the floor and sidestepped cautiously toward it. It looked like a feather. Gingerly, Piggy bent and picked up a long white feather and held it up to the lone electric flame.
“This—this looks like Camilla’s,” she whispered out loud, and gulped. Camilla had been going to a party somewhere this Halloween. Piggy was both heartened at the thought of seeing her friend and worried. Surely this didn’t mean something had happened to Camilla…!
“I don’t know what happened,” Winky said, shrugging his penguin shoulders. “After I wiped off all that radioactive ooze, I just, you know, felt different. “
Different didn’t even begin to describe it. Winky had spare body parts—hands, ears, half a dozen noses—all sprouting from somewhere on his sleek featherless body. The frog scouts giggled, and Kenneth reached out to touch one of the noses on Winky’s back.
Winky waited until his little froggy finger was almost touching it, then let out a loud “ACHOO!” Kenneth snatched his hand back and shrieked, and all the scouts and penguins laughed at his shocked expression.
This room was not dark—it was well-lighted like a laboratory so that all the haunted house tour guests could see the various mutated inhabitants. The penguins, usually so similar, all reveled in looking quite different from each other.
“Yeah,” said Nellie. Usually a duplicate of her sister, Shelley, Nellie had an impressive spiky ridge—made of individual fingers—all down her back. They would have been more realistic if they had not wobbled so every time Nellie moved, but the scouts were impressed nevertheless.
Eventually, everything had been examined and exclaimed over to the participants mutual satisfaction. “Hey, Blinky,” Winky called. “Lend me a hand rounding everyone up.” Blinky rushed over and poked people with the fake hand sprouting out of her head and the scouts scuttled to get out of her way, giggling maniacally. Enjoying the silly scene, Kermit suddenly whirled around, convinced that someone—or something—had patted him on the bum.
Blinky blinked at him innocently, holding up her two flightless wings.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. Kermit felt himself blush and pull his little bowler hat further down on his head. Once they had the group ready, Winky showed the scouts how to launch themselves down the slide that would take them to the party below. The slide had been a very popular addition to the haunted house this year, a gift of the penguin’s ingenuity. They had taken an old support pillar that spanned both floors and wrapped smooth narrow plastic sheeting around it like a screw. A couple of tweaks to make it meet safety regulations and you had a first-class twirling slide. Guests were encouraged to yell as they slid wildly down to the party below.
“Watch out!” said Winky. “That first step is kind of slick!”
One by one, half the scouts, then Kermit, then the rest of the frogs, Fozzie and Scoutmaster Rana all hurtled down the slide screaming like banshees. They arrived at the party below in great spirits, hopping up and running to look at the other guests, grab some food from the buffet or dance to whatever Halloween favorite was currently being played. Monster Mash was rocking now, and the scouts tumbled over each other to join the dancers on the floor. Kermit found himself hauled along and promptly abandoned, glad to have his fingers still intact. He went over to find a cup of punch or cider and something yummy off the buffet. Fozzie padded after him, looking immensely relieved, and they joined Sal and Johnny, Clifford and the Count and a very satisfied-looking Rizzo near the band.
“Total food tally is 503 nonperishable items!” Rizzo crowed excitedly. “That’s gonna fill a lot of Thanksgiving baskets.
“Wow!” said Fozzie. “I knew we collected a lot of food, but I didn’t think it was that much!”
“Well, some of this came from our friends on the Street,” Rizzo admitted. “And I heard we’re going to get some more donations closer to Thanksgiving.”
“That’s terrific!” Kermit said, nodding. “And the haunted house was pretty cool, too.”
“Yeah,” said Gonzo, joining them. “I heard you scream like a girl.”
“Only in the Creature Shop,” Kermit muttered, but did not elaborate.
Piggy was on the verge of leaving the crypt area when she heard a series of high-pitched screams nearby that seemed to fade into nothingness. She jumped, bit back an unladylike comment, and edged over to the doorway out of the crypt. Unlike the other doorways, light spilled from this entrance into the dim room and Piggy marched over to the door and peered inside.
She found herself in some weirdo’s nightmare version of Muppet Labs. She was not impressed by the obviously fake body parts hanging from the ceiling, although some of them looked disturbingly…oozie. Piggy looked around the room for a few minutes, wondering who had been screaming, then noticed a large column on the far end of the room. There appeared to be some sort of wrapping around it that seemed to tremble with movement, as though something were on the other side of it. She edged closer, wondering what she would see and was finally close enough to put one lace-adorned hand on the column….
Several things happened at once. She heard snatches of music from below, saw flashes of light and…lost her footing. The amazing new heels touched the edge of the slick plastic and—suddenly—Piggy was plunging down the twisty chute, screaming in terror.
“That little kid’s a terror,” Rizzo said, touching his whiskers gingerly. He pointed to a little boy dressed like a mouse. “He wanted to know how I got my whiskers to stay on, and he almost pulled a few of them off.”
“Tell me about it,” Gonzo said. He was holding his schnoz and making little honking noises. “He wanted to see if my nose was real.”
“He the one who grabbed the witch’s nose?” Clifford asked. “I heard we had a putty casualty.”
“Sortof,” Rowlf said. “I think she gave up on it after the last group came through.”
“Monster Mash” segued into “One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater” and the kids—frogs, humans, critters or whatever—clapped and hooted their approval. The party was shaping up nicely.
A pair of shapely legs emerged out of the twisted slide, followed by a rather disconcerted Piggy, who lay back on the slide and tried to catch her breath. Kermit would have known those legs anywhere, and his face lit up with pleasure and surprise. He hastened over and looked down.
“Wow, Piggy,” said Kermit. “Great shoes.” He helped her to her feet, admiring the generous length of her legs afforded by her slide into the room.
“Great entrance,” said Rizzo, giving her a thumb's up.
“Oh,” Piggy said, sweeping her hair back from her face. Her up-do was now standing up because of static from the plastic slide. “I…Moi meant to do that, of course.”
“Of course,” Kermit murmured, keeping his face carefully neutral. He wanted a kiss and did not think he would get one if he chortled at her less-than-graceful, but nevertheless spectacular entrance. Piggy could take a pratfall with the best of them, so she was not really hurt, but he did not want to damage her pride. He leaned in and was allowed to brush her pink cheek with his froggy lips. Oh well. She must have seen him smiling. Still, the night was young and he had all evening to work himself back into her good graces. He tucked her lace-covered hand under his elbow, wondering about the stickiness of her palm.
“You’re back!” Kermit said. He gained a lot of points because his amazement and delight were so evident.
“I---Moi was tired of looking for the perfect shoes.” There was a world of meaning encompassed in that thought.
“Well, it looks like you found them,” Kermit said, and Piggy fought the urge to melt. Sometimes Kermit could be a real pain, but other times…he knew just the right thing to say. “C’mon—I’ll show you around.”
Piggy consented to be squired around the room, taking in everything from the decorations to the guests to the band. Nothing was more likely to entrance Piggy than a party, and this one—while definitely leaning more toward the younger set—obviously met her approval. She approved of the live music and the refreshments. Piggy even gave her blessing to the crepe paper decorations and the carved pumpkins.
“This one is very nice,” she said. Someone had painstakingly carved a likeness of Count Von Count into the flesh of the pumpkin. Kermit led her to the actual Count, whose low bow over her fingers was sure to charm.
“That’s two—two stylish shoes,” said The Count admiringly, “and two—two beguiling ankles.” Piggy preened a little. Her good mood was slightly undone by one of the neighborhood children, who almost ran into Piggy’s dimpled knees. The little boy, who was dressed like a fireman, skidded to a stop, wind-milling his arms. He stared up at Piggy’s little black dress and static-tousled hair, complete with fake spider webs tangled within. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “Are you the Bride of Frankenstein?”
Piggy felt like swatting him, but she refrained. He was, after all, a child in a cheap, ill-fitting costume and deserved her pity more than her scorn. She pulled herself up to her full height with dignity.
“Moi is not the bride of anyone,” she growled. She brushed her hair back from her face with her black lace gloves. “Moi is currently free of entanglements.”
“Except spider webs,” Kermit teased, retrieving a strand of fake spider web from Piggy’s golden curls.
“Beauregard! How did you get tangled up in the Halloween lights—again?” Telly ran over and fussed over the bound janitor, making things mostly worse. Herry and Cookie Monster ran over to help, which was the only reason there were Halloween cupcakes still there when Piggy came up to the buffet table.
Piggy had been largely restored to her party mood with hot cocoa. There were even little pumpkin-shaped marshmallows to go on top, and Piggy sipped the foamy top of her drink gratefully. She had had a spider cupcake with licorice whip legs and red hots for eyes, a funnel cake with powdered sugar and nutmeg and…something else, and a plate full of fresh vegetables with something cheesy-spicy to dip them in. The dip was served in little cauldron-shaped containers. She and Camilla had been discussing whose costume was stylish and whose was outré and who should or should not wear spandex, but in a friendly sort of way. Kermit had promised to procure a piece of the mummy strudel for her, but she was not in a hurry. The music was loud, and the conversation droned around her. Piggy thrived on this kind of chaos and she realized that she was very, very glad to be home. She took a sip of her cocoa and suspected that she had acquired a mustache.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to find herself mustache to mustache with Charlie Chaplin smiling at her and extending a hand. Johnny Fiama had stepped up to the microphone and the first strains of “It’s Witchcraft” were playing.
“Are you free for this dance?” Kermit asked. Piggy hastily wiped the marshmallow foam off her lips and looked around, suspecting she was being teased. There was no one else dancing.
“I don’t think—“
“Good—don’t think. Come dance with me.” Effortlessly, he pulled her into his arms. In the spanking new heels, she was taller than usual, and it made dancing with Kermit a somewhat new experience as he steered her expertly around the floor.
“Kermit,” Piggy said, aware of many eyes on them—many, many eyes, including the fake ones that Shelly the Penguin had stuck all over her torso. “I—No one else is dancing.”
“No one else has you for a partner, tonight,” Kermit returned smoothly. “No one else has as good an excuse to ask you to dance just so I can put my arms around you.”
Now Piggy was very flustered, her cheeks flushing prettily. She looked at him carefully, squinting at the bulbous eyes beneath the brim of the hat. “Are you sure you’re really Kermit?” she asked dryly. “You’re not some other romantic frog masquerading as Kermit?”
At that, Kermit made a scrunchy face that was so familiar to and beloved by Piggy that she knew it was him.
“It is you,” she said, and let him hold her closer.
Finally, two penguins joined them on the dance floor, whirling and bobbing with ease, and after them, Rowlf took the floor with their laughing haunted house organizer, who was still clutching her clipboard. She finally managed to hand it off to Herry monster so she could dance unencumbered.
“Better now?” Kermit asked.
“I feel conspicuous,” Piggy said, but there was no accusation in it.
“Yeah? Well, you’re a stand-out in those shoes,” Kermit said. He smiled at her and tried wiggling his mustache. The result was so comical that Piggy couldn’t help but giggle.
“Look, Rosenthal,” she teased. “I like my frogs just fine without facial hair.”
Again, Kermit made a rueful scrunchy face. “What other frogs do you like?” he demanded. He was obviously still smarting from her “free of entanglements” comment.
But Piggy was gentle with his feelings like he had been gentle with hers. “I like Robin,” she said thoughtfully. “And Scoutmaster Rana, and…who is that guys that runs the theater in town?” Her blue eyes were innocently wide.
“The good-looking guy with the mad banjo skills?” Kermit smirked.
“Nooo,” said Piggy lightly. She put her hand on the back of his neck in a gentle caress. “The geeky guy with delusions of directorship.”
“Ouch,” said Kermit, wincing.
“Still smarting over that Bride of Frankenstein comment,” she muttered. Admitting it made it more funny than embarrassing, and they both laughed.
“Well if Frankenstein want’s you, he’s going to have to take it up with me,” Kermit said with a charming mixture of daring and nervousness.
“I’ll keep that in mind if he asks me out Friday,” Piggy said dryly.
Kermit cleared his throat. “Glad you, um, had a good shopping trip,” Kermit said. “But I’m glad you got back in time for the party.”
“Moi, too. The perfect pair of shoes isn’t any good if you don’t have any place to wear them.” Johnny was winding down, singing about falling under a spell…
“Well, um, maybe you could wear them out with me this Friday after the show,” Kermit began, but the music ended and he trailed off uncertainly. He might have said more—probably would have said more, but Robin arrived, tugging on Piggy’s hand.
“C’mon, Miss Piggy,” Robin begged. “Dance the Hokey-Pokey with me!”
Piggy looked at Kermit, who opened his mouth, then finally shook his head. She smiled at him and shrugged microscopically.
“Moi would love to dance the Hokey-Pokey with you!” she said, and followed Robin out onto the floor.
Kermit watched them for a moment, hesitant, then felt someone's eyes on him and looked up to see Scoutmaster Rana looking at him with very Yoda-like discernment. Slowly, sagely, the older frog nodded. Kermit grinned at him and went to join his nephew and his girl on the dance floor.
"That's the spirit," Scoutmaster Rana said, and smiled.
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