So We'll Go No More A-Roving, for Fear of Furry Monsters

[newsmanfan]

Part Twenty

Snookie was too inured to the sounds of imprisonment to even flinch when the jailer slammed the door to his cell extra-hard, the metal bars ringing painfully at the upper edge of his hearing several seconds after the crashing clang. He stood still until the sound faded, then tiredly rubbed his large round ears. Haven’t these morons ever heard of tinnitus? Another year of this and I’m likely to lose my hearing as well as my sense of smell. His nose had ceased to register the stench of the privy room or the moldiness of most of the corridors down here; now only something truly outrageous, like the pizza the monsters had paraded smugly past his cell last night, could awaken his sniffer. Two of the Frackles had taunted him, eating a slice of the pizza just on the other side of the bars, but Snookie hadn’t bothered to tell them he wasn’t jealous, much less tempted: he’d overheard which show contestants the toppings were made of.

Walking wearily to his stone bunk, he stripped off his coat and tie and hung them up. Six shows already today. Holy frog on a stick. And they expect me to be alert enough to deal with that ridiculous “results show” of ‘Break a Leg’ tonight? Disgusted, he shook his head, sinking onto the hard bunk, noting that at least Carl hadn’t taken his moldy pallet again. It seemed, if anything, a little too squishy…Snookie pushed his palm gently down on the pallet, and sure enough, a handful of worms came squirming out of the hole in the top left corner. He gazed somberly at them a moment, sighed deeply, and laid down anyway. He needed sleep.

“Charming. Seems you always manage to get the star treatment,” a nasal, aristocratically-accented voice said.

Snookie opened his eyes to discover one of the other hosts smiling at him from the cell opposite his bedside. A rake-thin lavender Whatnot, with dark mustaches almost down to his knees, removed his crusty ballcap and shrugged into a velvet smoking-jacket with a flourish of his long arms. Snookie managed a weak smile. “Geoffrey. Been a while. Where’ve they been keeping you?”

The Whatnot grimaced. “Oh, here and there. They’re trying me out as the new host of Dirty Slobs down on sublevel four. You?”

Snookie sighed. “The usual drek. Plus this stupid new talent show…oh, and sidekick for Big Mean Carl. Did you know he has his own late-night talk show now?”

“I heard. How perfectly dreadful for you, my dear boy.” Although Snookie knew Geoff was approximately the same age as himself, he tolerated the dandy’s affectations of dress and speech; after all, it was nice to have someone intelligent to talk to once in a while. He swung his legs to the floor, biting his lip at the feel of slithering, shifting things in his meager mattress, and looked his colleague over. Doing the same, Geoff shook his head. “Goodness me. You seem a bit pale. Aren’t they allowing you your two minutes of sunlight anymore?”

“They claim the shaft was blocked by construction on the surface,” Snookie grumbled. “No more sunlight at all. Of course, they’re probably lying again.”

“I would always assume so unless the reverse can be proven,” Geoff agreed, stepping closer to clasp hands with his fellow host through the bars. “I heard an awful rumor that Carl had eaten you once and for all; I’m terribly pleased to see the report of your devouring was greatly exaggerated.”

Snookie shuddered. “Not so exaggerated. But yeah…I’m still here. Still doing shows, still wearing this ugly coat,” he plucked at the sleeve of the brown plaid atrocity on the clothes horse, “still no winner on Swift Wits. Yes, everything is perfect.”

Inexplicably, Geoff broke into song: “Everything’s in place, I can’t seem to wipe this smile off my face…”

Snookie shook his head. “Have they suckered you into doing musicals now too? Let me guess, they’re reviving Name That Tuna?”

The other host chuckled, filling his meerschaum pipe with something that smelled of vanilla; Snookie sniffed longingly at the puffs wafting through the bars. He hated smoking, but anything that actually tickled his nose in a good way was gold down here. “No, no, my poor deprived chum! New song. Heard it the other day on the pirate radio station. Delightful tune…delightful show, actually. Some sort of random Muppet radio. The disc jockey calls himself Wrong John Silver.”

Snookie gave him a skeptical frown. “Radio doesn’t reach down here! Nothing reaches down here, all the transmissions are out-only…hey, have you been up to the surface?”

Geoff glanced into the corridor, but the guards seemed absent currently. He whispered, “Well…yes. But it’s nothing I’d care to brag about.”

“They let you go topside? Why? Why do you get to see the sky and breathe actual air and – and—I’m stuck down here!” Snookie hissed fiercely, but his friend made shushing movements with his elegant hands.

“Shh, shhh! Look, it isn’t like that! I’m not allowed out either! I just happened to be chosen to help out in a new science show, some sort of educational thing for the kiddies, and the lab is close to the surface!”

“That isn’t fair!” Snookie growled. “I’ve been down here longer, they use me for everything, I’m the most popular host here – why was I not—“

“It’s not that wonderful!” Geoff snarled, and showed Snookie his crow’s feet. Snookie blinked, mouth hanging open. Instead of sleek stockings over his shapely felt calves, Geoff now had spindly, scaly, bright orange crow’s legs and feet. The Whatnot angrily jerked his pants legs down once more, glaring at Snookie. “Still certain you’d like to trade?”

“What…what happened?” Snookie asked, shocked into a softer tone.

“He called it a trans-genetic felt-displacement Muppet-monster something-or-other,” Geoff sighed. “Part of a lesson on the possible links between certain monster types and Muppet DNA…I’ve no idea what grade level the show is aimed for, however; at St Barretta Prep we didn’t get to cross-breeding noncombinant species until 10th grade!”

“You’re…an experiment?” Snookie realized suddenly there actually were worse things than being eaten. “You’re being…turned into a monster?!”

The Whatnot’s long face appeared even more drawn. “Snookie, my sleekheaded lima bean, this may be the last time you see me thus. If…if it should come to the worst…please know I will always hold you in the highest regard and friendship.” He choked up. “Even if…even if I wind up tearing you limb from limb and stuffing you into my gullet to be ground by the little pebbles I’ve been eating before digesting you.”

“Ack!” Snookie flinched, but then realized that if monsterized, poor Geoff would likely have no will to resist his hideous and insatiable appetite. Awkwardly, he reached through the bars to pat his friend on the arm. “I’m…I’m so sorry, Geoffrey.”

The Whatnot shrugged, smiling wanly. “As you said, my friend, everything is perfect. Would you like to learn the song? It’s rather cheery, and I’ve found it something of a comfort, despite the fact that Van Neuter whistles it unceasingly whilst he’s splicing my RNA with giant dodo-snorkelwhacker…”

“I…I’m not much of a music fan,” Snookie admitted. “Can he…actually completely change you?”

“Well, they have to leave the mustaches untouched, that’s in my contract. Everyone expects the mustachios, you know, for my role.”

“They expect you to keep hosting like that?” Snookie felt outraged. Worse, what if that twisted vet decided to experiment on him next? “You – you should demand a renegotiation!”

“No can do, old bean. I rather foolishly bargained away any say in my physical composition a year ago in exchange for a massage once a week.” His sorrowful eyes took on a dreamy cast. “Ah, the tender ministrations of Big Mama walking on my back…wonderful for the spinal health, you know. If only I’d foreseen what they’d do to me!” He sighed. “Take my bad judgment as a lesson, Snookie. Don’t let them make you one of them!”

“**** no!” Snookie gulped, horrified. But they wouldn’t, would they? They like the fact that they have a captive Muppet to torment, to offset the monstrosity of everything else – don’t they? Even Carl said once I was irreplaceable! Frightened, he jumped when a clang on the bars announced the return of one of the guards.

“Hey, Fauxworthy. You’re up,” the shuffling green blob of fur growled, swinging open the door to Geoff’s cell.

“Just a moment, let me get into character,” the Whatnot snapped, and shot an apologetic glance at Snookie. “Take care, Snookums. Watch your back…and your front, and your sides, and your feet especially!” He removed his smoking-jacket and dress shirt, and pulled on a dirty white T-shirt and a ragged pair of suspenders. Settling the ballcap on his head and ruffling his mustache, he turned to the guard and spoke in the redneck accent he’d perfected for hosting Are You Smarter Than a Drainpipe? “All raht, y’all, guess I’m fixin’ t’go a-hostin’. Y’all take care now, y’hear?” he quipped at Snookie as he exited.

Shaken, Snookie sat down on his bunk, ignoring the squirm of protest under his rear. But Geoff used to have twice the fan base I did! If even he has no choice in…in joining THEM…oh dear frog. What am I going to do? What CAN I do?

Sunk in horrific imaginings, Snookie Blyer, the last wholly Muppet host on MMN, clutched his hands together so tightly the dull yellow felt turned cream, and sat frozen in place nearly an hour before the goblins came to get him.

----------------------
The apartment was fully in love with autumn. That’s how it appeared, at any rate: swags of silk leaves in reds and golds, many with coppery glitter dusting the lobes, dangled from every doorway and twined along curtains in the bedroom and the bath. Strings of tiny lights hung in the squared-off arched doorways, twined through grapevines loosely framing the wide living room windows, and flickered among a collection of wooden, ceramic, and real pumpkins crowding the sill. Gina had decorated cautiously at first, then when Newsie said he liked it, she threw all her enthusiasm for the season into it. A centerpiece of gourds, leaves, tall candles and fake spiderwebs crowned the dining room table beneath a slowly drifting mobile of black paper bats. Jack-o’lanterns of metal, pottery, and plastic peeked out of every possible cranny. Only the bedroom was largely untouched, as Newsie had said he didn’t want the grinning pumpkins or fluttery bats to give him bad dreams. All the household linens sported falling-leaf patterns, from the kitchen towels to the throw rugs in the hall. Gina had deliberately not used her collection of skeletons this year, hoping to ease her nervous journalist into the idea that they weren’t actually scary. The only thing she’d taken down to the thrift store to donate was the box with the pumpkinheaded monster in it, which normally she hung outside the living room windows to glare down at the street (and their neighbors) below. Newsie might be gently coaxed into accepting a few Dios de los Muertos figurines, even after their last run-in with the actual reaper, but she knew he would never, ever be willing to have a monster in their private sanctuary, even a fake one.

He would have been horrified to see the two long-tentacled things materializing in the living room.

“Aaawww,” the pink thing drawled, jerking its head as it peered up, down, and around.

“Awww, mm. Uh-huh, uh-huh,” the blue thing said, its antennae twitching, scanning the area for any sign of life. It spotted a framed photograph on the windowsill among the pumpkins. “News! Awwww! News, News, yip yip yip yip!”

“Yip yip yip!” its companion agreed, and they crowded close to the picture. “Greet. Ings.”

“Hel. Lo.” They waited, but the photo of the couple, Newsie seated on Gina’s lap with her arms around him and his arms resting on hers, both smiling, made no reply to the Martians. “Greet-ings. Hel-lo.”

“Mn,” grunted the pink one, shaking its head. “Nope. Nopenopenopenope.”

“Hel-lo,” the blue one tried again, then had to agree with the pink one. “Uh-uh. Noooope.”

The pink one peered behind the photo, then jerked back in fright. “Flat! Flat! Awww!”

“Flaaaat?” Sure enough, there was no dimension to the picture. “Awww! Flat! Yip yip yip!”

“Book! Book book book book,” the pink one asserted, pulling out their travel guide. Together they studied it. The blue one turned a couple of pages, then started up in realization.

“Aaaaaw! Pic-ture! Pic-ture! Yip yip yip yip yip!”

“Yip yip yip yipyipyip uh-huh!”

Trying a different tactic, the blue one took a deep breath, then drew himself up as flat as he could, startling his comrade. In a strained, toneless voice, the blue one addressed the frame again: “Greet-ings.” The pink one jerked behind him and before him, amazed at how compressed the blue one had managed to make himself. “Hel-lo,” the blue one tried again, still receiving no reply. Forced to let out its breath, it flumped out into its normal dimensions once more, then shook its head. “Uh-uh. Uh-uh. Nope nope.”

“Uh-uh. Nope nope nope. Hmmmm.”

They hadn’t pondered the problem very long when the clacking of a key in the front door frightened them both; they yanked their lower jaws over their heads, then skittered behind the large armoire in the living room. Gina kicked the door open gently, wriggling the key back out of the lock while she managed an armful of bags through the doorway. She set the bags down momentarily to close the door; the noise startled the Martians back from their tentative peeking around the edge of the armoire.

Gina checked the bags’ contents, picking up those which held food and carrying them into the kitchen. She’d decided to make some pumpkin-ginger mini cupcakes to take to Fozzie’s party this weekend, and had also stocked up on frozen foods in anticipation of next week being busier than usual, with the likelihood of several nights without time to cook when the Sosilly swung into full rehearsals and tech builds for the upcoming November shows. I’d still like to know who decided ‘The Homecoming’ and ‘Charley’s Aunt’ would make a good rep schedule, she thought as she tossed bags of cut broccoli and Brussels sprouts in the freezer. A weirder dichotomy I’ve never seen themed around “home for the holidays”! As she turned, she was too preoccupied with hunting through a bag for the ingredients for the cupcakes to notice two raggy-limbed creatures huddling just around the archway to the dining room.

“Mn. Not News,” the blue one observed, shaking its head. “Uh-uh. Uh-uh.”

“Mmm, nope nope,” the pink one said, staring at the young woman while she bent over to rummage in a grocery bag for the missing cardamom. “Not News… Not…flat.”

“Nope nope, noooot flat,” the blue one said admiringly, the two of them crawling atop one another restlessly to get a better view without falling into the edge of light from the kitchen. This turned into something of an aggrieved wrestling match until Gina turned around, and both of them jerked back, flattening themselves against the dining room baseboard as Gina strode past, looking at her phone instead of the carpet.

No messages; she hoped that meant her Newsie was having a relatively easy day so far. Of course, it could just as easily mean he was having a terrible day. She sighed, and called his cell. After one ring, his voicemail picked up gruffly: “This is the Muppet News Line! Please leave your news lead and your contact information after the beep. Uh…” Clack. Clunk. Clunk. “Er. What do I press?” Rhonda’s muffled voice: “Just hit end, genius.” “Oh. Uh…” Click. Beeep.

Shaking her head, Gina took a deep breath and refrained from telling him again he really ought to fix that message. “Hi, cutie, it’s me. We had to finish early today because the owners are showing some charity group around; they’re renting out the space in a couple weeks for some one-night event. It means I’ll have to go back in tonight to finish organizing those flats because we need to put together a buy list for any materials we’re missing and get ‘em tomorrow in order to start build week on Monday…anyway. What that means for us is I won’t be home in time for dinner, so please warm up whatever you want; I just bought stuff and it’s in the freezer, okay?” She paused, concerned but not wanting to embarrass him by sounding overly so. “Hope your day’s going all right. Call me back when you get this, and maybe we can arrange a quick bite at your theatre tonight instead. If not, I understand. I love you.” Reluctantly she hung up, then remembered the bags still parked in the living room and debated laying their contents out on the sofa for her love to find. She grinned as she peeked into the plain shopping bags full of things she’d borrowed from the Sosilly’s wardrobe with the giggling permission of the costume shop supervisor.

The Martians stared in fascination at the scarlet-haired human digging through large bags. “Whaaat? What what what?” the blue one murmured as they peered around the dining room doorway at her.

“Mn. Book,” the pink one muttered, consulting their well-worn guide. “Bag,” it announced, though it had the sense to keep its voice low.

“Awww, bag,” said the blue one. “Bag! Yip yip yip.”

“Bag, uh-huh.” They watched, puzzled, while Gina stuffed the costumes back into the bags with a chuckle and carried them down the hallway to the bedroom. Pink gave blue a confused look. “News in bag? Awwww?”

Hah! Serves him right for being ‘too busy,’ Gina thought, grinning at the reaction she could easily imagine her Newsman having when he saw what she’d picked out for him to wear to the Halloween party. He’d ducked out of their arranged shopping trip this past Monday, spending the evening hunched over a stack of blueprints after anxiously talking her into accompanying him on the failed tunnel expedition…and of course after that he’d been too ill to leave the house. So, now he’ll just have to wear this! Oh, man, I have to bring the camera. This’ll be too cute. She was fairly sure she’d walked exactly down the line between “adorable” and “mortifying” with her choice for his costume, and knew he would like hers…and although she wasn’t sure how many Muppets had actually read Poe, the ones who had would surely enjoy the theme of both outfits. Best as a surprise, she decided, and stuffed the bags into the closet under her rack of skirts and blouses to await revelation on Saturday. He’d better be able to take the night off! She knew he’d requested it right after telling her of Fozzie’s invitation, so hopefully they’d be able to go early and spend the night out at the Bear Farm as planned. She doubted Muppets would be partying late, and he’d told her it was a two-hour drive. “Not with me driving,” she’d promised him, which earned her a nervous look…but still, it would be good to get there before dusk, so they wouldn’t have to try to find the rural house in the dark on unfamiliar roads.

The Martians fell over themselves scrambling out of the way as the young woman walked swiftly back through the hall to the living room, pausing only briefly to collect her keys, her hair now swathed in a trailing black crepe headscarf, a number of bracelets jingling on her wrists, and a flowing skirt with colorful paisleys over black floating along as she moved. The propmaster had told her today about a craft fair going on in the Village in which he had a booth to sell his silversmithing; he’d invited her to offer her card readings there, for a share of the profits. Gina glanced at the pumpkins on the windowsill, pleased with the sight of leaves blowing past from the tall water-oak outside the building. She was happy her beloved Muppet liked fall almost as much as she did.

The stringy creatures watched around the corner as the human leaned over the flat picture to touch her lips to the glass. “My cutie,” she said, and chuckled once. “Ooh, I can’t wait to see you in that costume!” She checked to be sure the pouch holding her new deck was drawn tight, and without a backward look left the apartment. When the place remained silent a few seconds, the intruders crept out into the living room once more.

“Cu-tie?” the blue one wondered, tentacling through the book without success. “Hmmm. Nope. No cu-tie. Nopenopenope.”

Making the connection, the pink one gestured at the framed photo. “Cu-tie…News!”

“Aaaawww!” Sagely, both began wriggling around the photo. “Yiiiiiip yip yip yip! Cu-tie! Yip yip!”

“Still flat,” the blue one pointed out.

“Hmmmmm. Awww. Hmmm…”

Struck by a brilliant idea, the pink one raised itself up on tentacle-tips. “AwwAW! The-a-ter!”

“Uh?”

“News. The-a-ter! Cu-tie!”

“Aaaw! Yip yip yip yip yip!”

“Uh huh! Uh huh! The-a-ter!”

The blue one began to shimmer from side to side, but his companion stopped him with the touch of a raggy appendage. “Uh-uh! Food!”

“Uh?”

“Food!”

“Aaaaw foooood! Yip yip yip fooood yip yip yip!”

Pleased with their plans, the two jerked and wriggled into the kitchen, where they proceeded to happily munch the empty paper bags, their enormous mouths chewing in a circular motion like deranged cows.

“Mm. Chew-y. Mmmm.”

“Mmmmm. Nom nom nom.”

“Nom nom! Yip!”

--------------------
The Newsman followed Rhonda uncertainly, feeling very out of place; he was, for once, the tallest person in the room. Rats peered suspiciously at him from their posts at banks of tall computers, or ignored him as they went about their mysterious tasks. “Rhonda…this place looks like a telephone switchboard,” he muttered.

“Score one for Captain Obvious. It is a switchboard. More precisely, this is the switchboard, the big one, routing all of Manhattan!” the stylish rat held her head high, her sleek waves of hair bouncing along as she trotted between server racks and old-fashioned banks of plugs and wires and cords.

Newsie stared at a row of plump rats sporting bouffants, all squeaking into the mikes of the headsets they wore around the backs of their ears so as not to disturb the perfection of their hair. One on the end nearest him turned to glare at him through sharp cat-frame glasses, and he looked away, embarrassed. “Ahem! Er…I thought all this was computerized now?”

“That stuff is expensive! How d’ya think these guys cut costs and make such ginormous profits all the time?”

“Um…” Newsie noticed a gathering crowd trailing after him. “Rhonda!” he hissed anxiously, “there are rats following us!”

She snorted. “They’d better be, considering what you’re carrying! Now hurry up and be careful not to drop it! Here we are…” They turned a corner, the aisle broadening, and Newsie was amazed at the rows upon rows of rats at desks, rapidly talking on old-fashioned black dial phones, hurrying to and fro with messages, occasionally hanging the phones up and either dialing again or looking up excitedly at plastic tubes hanging over every desk.

Newsie saw one rat grin as she slammed down her phone, and immediately thereafter, a bell sounded and a large pellet dropped from the tube onto her desk. She attacked it greedily, the rats around her giving her jealous glances while they talked: “So can I sign you up for the Preferred Family Plan? You’ll save twenty dollars a month over what an obscure long-distance company in Fiji charges…” “No, I’m sorry, call forwarding is not included in that package, but if you’d like to upgrade to the Every Bell and Whistle Unnecessary Feature Plan…” “No ma’am, we do not send technicians out to unstick a roach from your wall jack; you’ll have to speak to our Phone Pest Division. Transferring you now…”

“I thought you said the world had moved past rotary dial?” Newsie grumbled at Rhonda, casting uneasy looks behind him; there seemed to be quite a lot of rats silently leaving their desks and following him…

“Quiet already! We’re here,” Rhonda snapped, brushing her bangs out of her eyes and smiling up at a very large, very gray rat sitting in a plush chair, surveying the whole room from her platform within a glass enclosure. The rat pretended not to notice them at first, staring distantly out at her workers, her tall gray beehive perfectly arranged and held in place with rhinestone-studded bobby pins. Newsie thought it impossible that the rat hadn’t seen them approach, but kept his mouth shut and let his producer take the lead, his fingers clamped around the bakery box they’d bought at Rhonda’s direction a short while ago. Finally the queen rat deigned to look down, and smiled at Rhonda.

“Well, well! The prodigal returns! How’s life in the sucker’s world, sweetie?” she asked, giving Newsie a very direct stare while she waited for Rhonda’s reply.

The blonde rat chuckled; Newsie thought she sounded a little nervous, which worried him. He could feel rats breathing on his coattail. “Eh, you know, same old same old. You sell ‘em airtime, I sell ‘em current events and ads,” Rhonda squeaked.

“And hamsterburgers,” the queen rat said, amused.

Rhonda threw a quick glare at her reporter. “Not anymore.”

“Well, how lovely of you to drop in and see us,” the large rat said, putting on a pair of tiny round glasses to peer at the box Newsie held. “And what does your man have for us?”

“Oh, uh, this is Newsie. He works with me at the station,” Rhonda said, warning the journalist with a look not to comment on the presumption that he worked for her. “Newsie, this is ‘Ma Bell.’ Ma, we brought you…cheesecake!”

Sharp beady eyes studied them both. “From DeRobertis?”

Affronted, Rhonda put her paws on her hips. “Is Woody Allen a geek?”

The gray rat snorted a laugh. “Please, come in. Shut the door.”

Awkwardly, Newsie stepped into the small space beyond the glass wall and closed the hinged panel they’d come through behind him. At Rhonda’s nod, he handed the box up to Ma Bell. She opened the lid just enough to take a deep sniff of the contents, smiled, and set the box aside, gently dropping from her perch to hug and air-kiss Rhonda on both cheeks. “Well! Now I know this isn’t a social call. What are you after? Need the private line of another specialty piercing artist?”

“No, no, actually, Newsie has a problem,” Rhonda squeaked hurriedly, ignoring the raised brows the journalist gave her. “Nothing like that. Uh…someone was claiming to be him, and gave out a local number as their contact point. As soon as Newsie found out about it the number was disconnected…”

“Ah. Yes, of course. Do you have it?” Ma Bell asked the Newsman, somehow able to make him feel shorter than her with a long cool stare.

“Ahem. Um.” Not sure what was going on here, Newsie pulled out his notepad and handed it to the rat.

She read the number writ on it, and without looking up bellowed: “Jonas!”

A shivering little rat in a blue necktie popped up at the glass wall immediately, though he had to squirm past a crowd. “Y-yes, your gorgeousness?”

“He’s so cute. His mama used to work for me,” the queen explained in a low voice, then slapped the notepad against the glass so Jonas could see it. “Find me this person. Now.”

“Y-yes ma’am!” With a twitch of a nervous tail, the rat vanished.

The queen turned back to Newsie, smiling as she looked him up and down again. “You’ll have an answer shortly. So, what is it you do for darling Rhonda?”

“Er…I’m a reporter for KRAK News, and the weekend anchor. Uh, I also deliver newscasts at the Muppet Theatre –“

“Ooh, a reporter digging into a mysterious conspiracy, how exciting!” Ma Bell purred, sidling around to view Newsie from all sides. Uneasily he tried to follow her movements without actually turning in a circle. “Cute nose,” she commented to Rhonda.

“Um. We’re not…” Rhonda said quickly, shaking her head and waving her hands in a no way gesture for good measure.

“Oh?” The stare Ma Bell was giving him made Newsie want to cringe, but there was nowhere to go in the tight space of the enclosure; the raised platform took up most of the tiny room.

Rhonda rolled her eyes. “He’s spoken for, Ma.”

“I can look,” Ma Bell said, sounding amused.

“Er…what exactly goes on down here?” Newsie asked, trying to get the focus off of him.

“Isn’t it obvious? We rout calls, we sell airtime to the company’s cell customers, and we check up on every account the company opens to make sure the money rolls on in,” Ma Bell chuckled, one languid paw sweeping around to indicate the entire operation.

“And…and everyone working for this phone company is a rat?”

“Oh, no, darling. The board of directors are humans.” She grinned, showing sharp teeth, leaning uncomfortably close to the Newsman. “But I know everything about them, and I mean everything. You’d be amazed how much information some people will provide over a phone line…”

“Especially when they don’t know anyone is listening in,” Rhonda added, and Ma Bell laughed.

“You – you listen in on people’s private conversations?” Newsie was appalled.

“Rats have done so for hundreds of years, sweetheart! But I was the one who realized we could make it a little more profitable than listening through the walls while scavenging for leftover bread pudding!” Ma Bell grinned again. “Do tell me your number. I’d love to overhear your one-nine-hundred calls!”

Rhonda tried to smooth over Newsie’s startled recoil. “So I heard the company has a new CEO. Got any dirt on him yet?”

Turning to her, Ma Bell smiled. “Honey, how do you think he got that position? I could tell you how many of his close, personal friends of the female persuasion are natural blondes! He made a sweet deal with me, and I provided some tasty little tidbits about the other board members for his use in his bid for the chair. He owes me a dinner a week at Ma Maison – with dessert!”

“Blackmail?” Newsie asked, although Rhonda shot him a you can shut up now look.

Ma Bell tickled his chin before he could jerk away. “Aren’t you a dear! Well yes, honey; what do you think makes the world go around? Oh, look, here’s Jonas.” She stepped close to the glass panel; the sea of rats seemed endless just on the other side of it, and phones were ringing loudly.

“It – it belonged to a production studio until this morning,” the little rat gasped, fighting to stay close to the wall and be heard. “A television company! They disconnected it manually at ten-twenty-two this morning, and then called to change the number.”

“Give me the new number. Give me all their numbers,” Ma Bell commanded, and Jonas, fighting not to be squashed against the glass, held up a piece of paper with a printed list of phone numbers. “There you are,” Ma Bell told Newsie; hastily he took back his notepad and scribbled down the numbers. “And the name of the company?”

“Ars Moribunda Studios…owned by MMN…owned by Nofrisko,” Jonas squeaked out before being buried under a surge of rats. Unconcerned, Ma Bell turned away, watching the Newsman writing the information.

“Is that enough?” she asked. Newsie frowned at his notepad.

“Nofrisko…aren’t they a snack company?”

“They make those little crackers with imitation peanut butter between ‘em,” Rhonda supplied. “Ya know, the ones that taste a little gamy.”

“I don’t eat that stuff,” Newsie scowled at her. “And why does MMN sound familiar?”

“They’re trouncing your timeslot on Saturdays,” Rhonda growled. “Hey, maybe this is just a case of journalistic espionage!”

“Why would they want my aunt watched?” Newsie argued. “She doesn’t have anything to do with KRAK!”

Ma Bell spread her silky smooth paws. “Well, there you have it. I wish you good hunting; I’m sure you’ll be able to sniff them out just fine.” She smiled, giving Newsie’s long, pointed nose a long, appreciative stare; he only barely resisted the urge to cover it with both hands. “It was certainly nice seeing you again, Rhonda dear. Thank you ever so much for the cheesecake…which will not be handed out to anyone not at their desk in two seconds!” she broke into a deep yell, and the noise on the other side of the glass squeaked to an abrupt halt. Newsie glanced back to see hundreds of little rat faces squashed flat against the glass staring in terror at their queen; then with a torrent of whipping tails, scrabbling paws, and shrieks, every single rodent abandoned their quest to catch a sniff of the cheesecake and resumed their posts, talking quickly on their phones, running back and forth with messages, and plugging circuits into switchboards.

Ma Bell checked an elaborate stopwatch. “Oh dearie me. Two point two seconds. Looks like I’m the only one who gets the cake today.” A collective but muted groan came from the work floor. The queen grinned wickedly. “I love doing that,” she confessed in a whisper. She reached up and patted Newsie’s cheek. “Ooh, fuzzy. You come back too, all right? Maybe we can share a nibble.”

Newsie couldn’t get out the door fast enough. “Thanks, Ma,” Rhonda called, trying to slow Newsie down to a respectful pace, hanging onto his coatsleeve as he moved determinedly toward the far exit. “I’ll see ya at Thanksgiving!”

“Blackmail! Eavesdropping!” Newsie snorted once they were out of the room and climbing the tiny stairs back to street level; from the modern façade of the phone company building, he never would have guessed a network of rat spies labored beneath the retail store and offices. “And ‘Ma Bell’? Give me a break!”

“Hey, stop kvetching, you got what ya needed, didn’t you?” Rhonda said, checking her phone for the time. “Come on, if we hurry we can act like we’ve been working the whole time when Blanke walks in!”

He noticed the phone. “Don’t tell me you’re with that company!”

She shrugged. “I get good rates. And I know better than to whisper sweet nothings on a wireless line. Why d’ya think their logo is the Death Star, anyway?”

She hailed a cab. Newsie shook his head, still tense after being so frankly…observed. “That – that woman! Did you really work for her?”

“Work for her? Heck no!” Rhonda sighed. “But ya know what they say, ya can’t choose your family…”

“Your…” Newsie’s eyes widened. “Ma Bell?”

Rhonda favored him with another eye-roll as the cab pulled up. “I guess you do have an excuse for the density, sunshine, what with all those cantaloupes whacking your noggin lately. Get in, I wanna grab a bite on the way.”

Speechless for once, the Newsman had to be shoved to remember to climb into the cab. They made better progress through midtown traffic when Rhonda promised the driver a cheesecake too.
-------------------------

 

[The Count]

Yay! Chapter 20, you've reached a milestone, so be proud of yourself Kris.

*Laughs at the mention of Ma Mason.
*Grins at the clever addition of Jeff Fauxworthy, accent and y'all.
So Snookie's alone. Truly alone. *Scratches out the next word from the suicide, er, sorry, wrong movie reference.

The entire segment with the Martians was nicely laughable. It just adds evidence to Aunt Ru's claims that they're not completely as evil as made out to be as henchmen for the network's head honcho.
* sneaks off with one of those pumpkin ginger cuppycakes.

Gina picked out Poe-inspired couple costumes?
Consider me intrigued as I know of three Poe female characters, two of which I've got in my roster.

The entire set-up of the rats working beneath the phone company... Reminds me of my best real-life friend, who used to work at one of those call centers a couple of years ago before being let go as the company pulled up stakes and split town.

*Worried that the Martians will show up at the theater, but is also excited to read whatever comes next, glad you remembered the subplot line of the party at Grizzly Farms.

Also... Given that the MMN mastermind has an entire underground/undercity cavernous lair, is surrounded by monsters and minions, and add on top of that the theft of Newsie's identity... Due to researching Frackles, I have a better-formed guess at who he may actually be. Won't say anything because I'll wait for the big reveal with everyone else.

Oh, and before I forget... If you want, now that it's a new year, you're welcome to submit an application for residency at HV if you want. Still waiting to hear from a couple of old residents, but I'll deal with the new business come Monday.
Hope you have a great weekend.

 

[Ruahnna]

Lots going on, I see!
Decorated for Halloween--check
Shows at both theaters--check
Halloween costumes procured--check
Party invitations accepted--check (Hope they don't have to sleep on the coathangers)
Paper bags recycled...sort of

Found the underground phone business suitably creepy, but was relieved to see that the Yip Yips, while clueless (along with armless and legless and shapeless) are appearing more and more like not-bad guys.
I am hopeful, however, that Snookie gets out before the stomach acid ruins his plain jacket...
And I think I've seen that show--Are You Smarter Than A Drainpipe?

Can't wait for the next segment!

 

[newsmanfan]

--------------------
(bows before joke creator) Lady Ru suggested the name for Geoff Fauxworthy's show, and it was too good a joke to pass up! Also, I can't take credit for the Death Star joke: Berkeley Breathed did it decades ago in "Bloom County."

Ed. You will never, ever guess the identity of the Evil Overlord. Let's just say...SANITY CHECK!

Party soon...more pressing business to attend to first! And for you newbie readers, please, I welcome all comments and reviews -- it helps me write more better.
-------------------

 

[newsmanfan]

(This was so long, but so necessary to detail all that happens this night in one place, that I had to make this...)

Part Twenty-One (I)

The number of names on the charity walk sign-up sheet had grown substantially when Rizzo stopped to check it. He’d tallied the “donations” from the sewer rats earlier today, and felt confident his total thus far was better than most of the Muppets who’d signed up. Pepe was already glancing at the roster, mumbling under his breath: “Jou gotta be kidding. Where’s he gonna get sponsors, the head shop?”

“Looks like you got some competition,” Rizzo said.

“Jou funny. Is nobody that can compete with Pepe!”

“Whatevah.” Rizzo shook his head at a couple of names. “Zoot’s in? Really?”

“See, that is what I said! What, like, is he gonna sleepwalk through it, okay?”

Rizzo chortled. “Eh, in all fairness, he probably didn’t even know what he was signin’. Huh…looks like da whole Mayhem joined in. Dat ain’t good.”

“Sí, sí, Animal should go firsts, okay, so we don’t get stepped on,” Pepe nodded vigorously.

“No, you prawn cracker! Dey’re famous, ya know? I bet hundreds of fans will pledge money for dem!”

Pepe paused. “Are jou suggesting I am not more famous?”

“Don’t get me started,” Rizzo growled. The two looked up as the Chef bellied up to the notice board and tried to scrawl his signature, ran out of room on the line, scratched his head a moment, then brightly wrote TOM. He ambled back to the canteen, whistling cheerfully. “Who’s sponsorin’ him, da board of health?” Rizzo snickered.

“Jou know, jou should just drop out now, amigo. No way can jou hopes to beat the number of sponsors I has!”

“Oh yeah? I got t’irty-two so far – and over a hundred dollars pledged!”

The prawn shoved his nose close to the rat’s twitching whiskers. “So what? I gots seventy-two sponsors and a hundreds and four dollars!”

“You realize dat means my sponsors have more faith in me than yours do in you!” Smugly, Rizzo sat back on his haunches. “I wonder if dere’s any prize for winnin’ dis race?”

“Like, rully, it’s not about racing,” Janice said, having overheard the last part of the discussion.

“Yeah, little dudes; it’s all about makin’ the world a groovier place for us and everyone!” Floyd turned to his girl. “Y’know, that’s not a bad idea, though. What say we talk to the frog about offerin’ up some kinda prize for the Muppet who raises the most for charity?”

Dr Teeth, following the couple across the green room, chuckled hoarsely. “Right on! How about a little payin’ back for those payin’ it forward!”

“Like, you guys are missing the whole point, y’know,” Janice complained.

“Hey, this charity fund is to benefit Muppets, isn’t it?” Teeth asked, grinning widely. “Ain’t I a Muppet?”

“Sometimes, that man is very deep, okay,” Pepe observed respectfully.

“Well if dere is a prize, I’ll be sure ta take a picture of it for ya, ‘cause that’s as close as you’ll ever get to it!” Rizzo taunted the prawn.

“Oh yeah? Well if there’s a prize at the end of this huge drain on my time, okay, I will be the one sending pictures to jou – oh, wait, I cannot do thats; jou doesn’t have the iPhones already!” Pepe waggled his shrimp-sized high-tech smartphone at the rat.

“Too bad dere’s no such t’ing as an iPrawn,” Rizzo shot back haughtily. “Oh, my bad: dey haven’t invented a smartshrimp yet!”

Below the ensuing racket, a dark, sinuous figure crept in from the understage tunnel, gently pulling along a taller person cloaked in a stylish wool overcoat and holding an elegant cane. “Wow. It’s even noisier back here than I imagined,” Countie remarked, listening to the clatter of pots in the kitchen, the hum of conversation, muted shouting from upstairs, and loud shouting from a few feet away.

“That’s nothing; you should hear it on a bad night,” Uncle Deadly assured his guest. “Here’s the green room. Watch the piano…”

“Uh…is there a tannery or a butcher’s over there?” Countie asked, wrinkling his nose as he caught an unfortunate whiff of rotting things.

“No…that’s the canteen. Delightful, isn’t it?” the dragon murmured, smiling. “Now, through here are chairs, just go slow…”

“Hey, ol’ blue and scary, who’s your friend?” Floyd asked.

Deadly drew himself up to pronounce coldly, “A very dear friend of mine, so I had better not hear of anyone giving him any trouble, do you understand?”

Silenced by that chilly voice, Rizzo and Pepe paused their argument; an instant of silence swept through the room. “We can dig it,” Dr Teeth said amiably, and stuck one long arm out to touch the stranger’s hand. “Welcome and salutitations, my optically challenged brothah! They call me Teeth, and this is my bass axe Floyd, and the sweet siren of the six-string, Janice, and –“

“AN-I-MAL! AN-I-MAL!”

“Easy there, Animal! He’s—“

“The drummer,” Countie said, smiling. “And I guess Zoot is around here somewhere?”

“Huh?” the saxman asked groggily before slipping back into a trance on the nearest sofa.

“Exactly,” Teeth laughed. “Hey, hey! We got us a fan!”

“The Electric Mayhem!” Countie said happily, and quickly removed his overcoat to dig into the satchel he had slung over one shoulder underneath it. “Would you mind signing some autographs for me?” The band gathered around as Countie found the tabletop and began laying small, longish slabs of damp clay in plastic wrap upon it.

“Uh, whatta we do with these?” Floyd wondered, picking up one of the thin slabs.

“I can feel your signatures in those,” Countie explained. “They dry out, and then I bake them in the oven, and…”

“Oh, wow! It’s like having your own tiny walk of fame,” Janice exclaimed, grasping the idea immediately. She unwrapped one of the pieces and used her guitar pick to carefully carve her name into it.

“Cool,” Floyd agreed, following suit. “Hey, that’s pretty nifty, man! Hey, Zoot, check it out! Brother’s gonna take all these little clay bits and make hisself a Muppetational mosaic!” He coughed his raspy laugh.

Zoot shook his head. “No, man, I don’t like clay pipes…water-pipe’s got a cleaner drag…”

“Oh, rully,” Janice sighed, shaking her head.

In the back alley, the Newsman sprinted up the loading-dock steps, one hand keeping a tight grip on his attaché case which held his laptop and, tonight, about half of the stack of leads emailed to the station. He hoped to have time to read through them during the show. Clifford halted him just inside the building, armed with a clipboard and a frown. “Yo, Newsie. Good to see you back, but you’re ten minutes late!”

“Sorry,” Newsie panted. “I had to change clothes. There, uh, was a story about the Muppet aid convoy to Libya…bottled water…”

Clifford noticed the yellow Muppet shivering, and let it slide. “Well, don’t catch another cold, man! I’ll look for you in the green room when there’s a News Flash, all right?” The Newsman nodded and hurried downstairs. Clifford sighed, and checked off the reporter’s name on the night’s roster. “Guess that’s everyone aboard that’s goin’ aboard.” He settled himself at Kermit’s desk to look over the schedule of acts he’d painstakingly compiled and posted a copy of both back here and downstairs, so there would be no arguments over who did what when.

Naturally, no sooner was he seated than he was pelted with objections. “Whuh-hey, catfish dude!” Lew Zealand said, waving a terribly overripe cod at the host. “How come my boomerang fish act was left off the list?”

“’Cause it ain’t never gonna be on the list, man,” Clifford sighed, feeling a headache starting already. Good gravy, I can not WAIT for Scooter and the green dude to get back in town…

“But I got a new routine! Check it out! I throw the pail a-way –“

“You expect the pail to come back?”

Lew laughed. “Aw heck no, that’d be weird! No – the fish brings it back! Fetch, Percy!” Lew shouted, hurling the fish after the pail.

“Lew, not tonight, okay?” Clifford checked the clock, then his watch. “Uh, hey, Beauregard?” The janitor stopped dusting the odd collection of random props by the stairs, bright eyes attentive as he looked over at Clifford. “Listen, man, can you do a quick check of the electrics? I don’t know where that stagepig’s got to…and can you change that clock so it reads right?”

“Sure!” Beau said, then frowned. “Uh, I didn’t know clocks had reading levels…but don’t you worry, Clifford! I will find you a clock from the advanced reading class!”

“Never mind, man,” Cliff groaned. “Can you just run up the dimmers on those lights?”

Beau scratched his furry scalp. “Uhhh…wouldn’t that be the brighteners? Or do you mean you want them all darker?”

Lights are on, but nobody’s home, Cliff thought, wrestling his impatience under control. “Just bring ‘em all up so I can see they’re working, all right, please?”

“Check!” Beau replied, hurrying across the stage to the lighting board. Clifford, shades in place to shield his eyes from the thousand-watt lamps, watched as each section of lights came up over the stage and from the bays over the house.

Dang it, why is there always ONE? he wondered silently, sighing. At least this time it was a simple six-inch fresnel downlight relegated to backlighting the cyc. Nobody would miss it, so he wouldn’t stress about checking it now. He yelled for Beau to take the lights back down to preset, which the janitor misheard as “take them down and reject,” but fortunately the lighting pig returned from his mud break just then before Beau could manage to unscrew one of the sidelights, and chased the bewildered Muppet out of the wing with angry snorts. Sinking down at the desk once more, Clifford sipped his lukewarm coffee and grimaced. Two more nights. Just two more nights.

“Excuse me, Mr Clifford?” trilled a wavering voice. Clifford raised his head to find Wanda standing there, smiling. “I just wanted to thank you for casting me in the dramatic piece tonight! I promise you won’t regret it!”

“Then that’d be the first thing tonight,” Clifford muttered, but he managed a weak smile for the eager singer. “No problem, Curly. Just don’t miss your entrance cue is all I ask.”

“Oh, I won’t! I won’t! Oh, finally, a real role onstage!” Wanda gushed. Piggy, passing through on her way downstairs for a nosh, perked her soft ears, frowned, and changed course.

“Ah, ahem. Cliffie?” she asked sweetly.

“Oh, hey Piggy. Did the costume for ‘Harvest Moon’ get altered right?” he asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to deal with wardrobe malfunctions on top of everything else.

“Oh, oh, yes, it’s lovely. Ummm…did moi overhear correctly, that Wanda is getting a serious role tonight?” she edged closer, tossing a contemptuous look back at Wanda, who was gaily tripping up the stairs to the ladies’ general dressing-room.

“Uh, yeah. Why, you don’t think she can pull it off?”

“Oh, ha ha, well, of course I will leave the management of, ahem, talent to the Muppet my Kermie put in charge in his absence,” Piggy said sweetly. “However, need I point out that moi does not yet have a specific part in tonight’s show?”

“What? Piggy, you’re in the closing number!” Clifford protested, shaking his head. “All us guys are gonna be singin’ that golden oldie to you!”

“Yes, but moi does not actually play a major role, comprendez-vous? And…you know how much it helps me, with my frog not here, to bury my sorrow by throwing myself into my work fully?”

A few paces away, Strangepork muttered to Link, “I tink she’s gonna bury someone else if he doesn’t give her dat role!” Link chuckled.

Clifford tried reason. “Look, Piggy, it’s really a small role, that bit with Wanda; I didn’t think you’d be into it. Whereas the closing number –“

“Listen, bandito-snout,” Piggy growled, grabbing the host’s long mustaches in one firm hand. “Obviously you don’t understand how this works around here! I am the leading lady at this theatre, and I did not reach this level of stardom by staying in the chorus! So not only will I be the star attraction in the closing number, but you will also cast moi for that dramatic piece!”

Clifford froze; oh, so that was where the diva he remembered had gone – she was only tamed when her darling frog was around! “Hey, uh, sure; if you really want to do that silly act, you sure can. I’ll tell Wanda I’ll put her in the chorus ensemble for ‘Harvest Moon’ instead. We cool?”

Piggy released him, smiling gently. “As a cucumber eye treatment, mon ami.” She glided away in her pre-show robe and slippers, and Clifford stroked his mustache, relieved.

He glanced again at his watch, ignoring the incorrect clock above the desk: five minutes until the house opened. Cranking up the intercom and settling a headset over one ear, he called out, hoping every speaker was working tonight: “Five minutes ‘til people start pouring in, y’all! I repeat, that’s five minutes to house open! I don’t wanna see any of you lookin’ through the seats for malted milk balls tonight, got it?” He sighed, seeing two of the rats scurrying over the lip of the stage and dashing into the shadows, carrying boxes of popcorn and discarded half-candy-bars. “Oh, and Wanda, sweetheart, come see me.” He switched off the talk button and took another sip of the coffee before he remembered how bad it was. Grimacing again, he muttered, “Man, I have got to start bringin’ my own Thermos…” He didn’t want to guess why the Chef’s coffee tasted like salmon.

---------------------
Newsie was washing his hands in the men’s restroom downstairs when he heard a gurgling noise. Oh, great, not a plumbing backup again! Worried, he turned to stare at the center floor drain; the last time the drain had backed up, Gonzo had fearlessly extended what he called the “plunger of doom” into the main sewer line beneath the theatre to unclog it, although several unexpected things had happened before the problem was actually fixed, not the least of which had been one of the sinks collapsing into a weird snake-themed drainpipe… Startled suddenly, Newsie felt a chill of danger. The sewer! That drain led directly there…and those noises sounded completely unfriendly!

Rushing out of the bathroom, he looked wildly around for help: the Chef had both hands and his hat full at the grill, the Mayhem were doing a tune-up jam so loudly they’d never hear him, Link and Strangepork were engaged in a discussion with a total stranger off in a corner. Spotting a group of rats standing around divvying up the spoils from the theatre’s audience seats, Newsie tromped over to them. “You rats! Quick! We need to block off all the openings to the sewer and to any other underground access!”

The fattest rat glared up at him. “Why’d we wanna do dat, big mout’? Dem holes are handy!”

“Yeah, I found a pipeline running all da way to dat bakery on Ninth!” another rat claimed.

“Monsters are down there!” Newsie yelled over the band. “Aren’t you the ones who ran out of the sewer to get away from things?”

The rats shifted uneasily. “Yeah, well, dat was den, dis is now,” the fat one argued. “Ain’t nuttin’ happened since we moved in here! Trust me, mac, dose holes are poifectly safe!”

“Really?” Newsie scowled. “Go into the mens’ room!”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“There are sounds coming from the drain!”

The rats looked at each other, no one making a move, tails and noses twitching. “Come on, give me a hand –“ Inspiration struck, and Newsie added, “or would you rather I tell Scooter when he returns how you guys have been raiding the concession stand after hours?”

“Dat’s blackmail!” one of the rats squeaked angrily.

Another rat padded behind Newsie; he whirled. “What are you doing?”

“Checkin’ for a tail. You t’ink like a rat.”

“Move it! Find something to close off that drain!” Newsie yelled, and the rats trotted off, grumbling. Newsie ventured back into the restroom. The drain lay silent, and he quickly peeked under the stall doors to make sure nothing ugly was slithering out of the toilets. A handful of rats came in, lugging a large, flat circle of black iron. “I hope that’s heavy enough,” Newsie muttered as the rats, grunting, shoved it into place atop the drain.

“So do we, believe me,” a rat grumped.

Ducking out of the restroom, Newsie saw the janitor ambling through the downstairs area, looking puzzled. “Beauregard! Can you bring a hammer? A really big one!” Newsie called to him.

Beau brightened, happy to have something useful to occupy himself with. “Check! Hammer time!”

One of the rats glared at another who was wobbling around, pretending to stretch his pants legs to the sides. “C’mon. Just don’t.”

Shortly Beau returned with a very large mallet. Newsie pointed at the iron thing over the drain. “Can you tap that down so it’s secure?”

“Sure! Uh…why are we blocking the drain?” Beau asked.

“Because there are horrible things down there and I don’t want them coming in here! Please, Beau, just tamp it down!” Newsie barked, and watched anxiously while the janitor, with a shrug, whacked the thing securely over the drain. Newsie gave it an experimental kick, and it didn’t budge. “Good,” he sighed, relieved. “Thanks, Beau. Can you find something to do the same thing in the ladies’ room? And – and any other drains!”

Beau stared at him. “You want me to stop up all the drains?”

Frustrated, Newsie threw his hands over his head. “I wish we could! No…just…just anything bigger than a mousehole, okay? I don’t want us overrun with monsters,” he tried to explain.

Doglion stomped past, forcing everyone to dodge, involved in a heated discussion with Sweetums: “But I hate the way lotion sticks between my toes! I’m telling you, Gold Bond Powder is way better!”

Sweetums shook his shaggy head, wide lips flopping. “Nope, nope, nope. Powder won’t soften your toepads like lotion does!”

Everyone stared after them. Rizzo shook his head in amazement. “First time I evah
heard dat guy talk, and it’s about foot powder!”

Newsie shivered, wishing his felt would dry out faster; he hadn’t had time to warm up, simply pulling on a dry change of clothes and bolting from the KRAK studios to the Muppet Theatre. “Just block up as much as you can, okay, Beau?” he asked tiredly, and trudged toward the canteen to see if the Chef had anything warm to drink. Seems counterintuitive to worry about the small holes when there are giants stomping through here unfettered, he realized, but he didn’t have the authority to banish them. Sensing something different in here tonight, he peered around, ignoring the dull pain trying to reassert itself right behind his weary eyes, and spotted a stranger sitting at one of the canteen tables, moving small pieces of gray material around on the tabletop while chatting with Sweetums and Robin. His natural curiosity roused, but then Sweetums let loose a belly laugh, and Newsie unconsciously backed away, all too aware of those huge hands and even bigger mouth…

The Chef’s loud complaint startled the Newsman: “Nooo kin doo flopen-jacken! Foon de hur der griddle!”

Gladys gave an exasperated grunt. “Whaddaya mean ya don’t have a griddle? It was right there! Well…use a pan or somethin’!”

“’Scuse me,” Beau sang out, hurrying into the grill area and back out again carrying a shallow, flat iron skillet.

“No habben der pans!” Chef protested, waving his hands around at the larger pots and implements. “Nooo kin doo der flippen-floppen!”

“Well, what can ya make, then?” Gladys demanded.

The Chef scratched his head, then seized a large two-sided press. “Der wuffles!”

“Great, whatevah,” Gladys sighed. To the pigs and chickens at table two, she yelled, “Change a’plans! You’re now gettin’ candied corn waffles instead of pancakes!”

The chickens clucked, shrugging. One of the pigs grumbled, “At least that’s better than last week when he couldn’t find the panini press…boiled cheese sandwich is really hard to pick up!”

Newsie heard hammering sounds on metal coming from the ladies’ room, and relaxed a degree. Good. That’s part of the theatre protected, at least. He reached the counter, ordered a coffee, and choked at his first sip. “Gahhh! What the hey! This coffee tastes like fish!”

“Der kaffe?” Chef asked, and Newsie shoved the cup back at him.

“Taste it! It’s fishy!”

The Chef sipped the coffee, spluttered, and quickly checked the large tureen it had been poured from, coming up with a long, thin, pinkish fish. “Ooh! Ja, ja, ees der feltritten!”

“You filter your coffee through fish now?” Gladys wondered.

“Forget it!” Newsie coughed, angrily striding away from the counter to find a vacant spot to peruse the possible disappearing-people leads, wishing fervently his cell phone hadn’t become soaked when all those water bottles bounced and splashed on him. He couldn’t even call for takeout java at this rate, and the aspirin he’d swallowed earlier seemed to be wearing off. Grumpily he settled in a large armchair near the stairs and began reading the stack of printed emails.

“Fish in the coffee?” Rizzo wondered. “Dat’s a little weird, even for da Chef.”

“Sí okay, like what is with all the weird things back here tonights?” Pepe asked. “It’s like we’re in the middle of a telenovela or something!”

Rowlf shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it.” He watched as the waitress glumly tossed the dripping fish into the trash. “After all, that’s just a red herring.”

---------------------
Camilla sat alone in her dressing-coop, crowded next to the small TV that Beau had been kind enough to rig up for her. It had been clear to her that she was keeping the other chickens from performing, and like everyone else here, they loved being onstage, so tonight she’d insisted they go on without her. She huddled under a woven blanket as the game show about solvents finished (with only two contestants visibly scarred for life) and the MMN station logo came onscreen. Waiting anxiously while the logo animation ran (the letters becoming monsters which then ate the globe behind them), she hoped tonight’s results show wouldn’t involve any new feats of death-defying by her estranged weirdo. Below her, she could feel the floor rumbling with the pounding of dancing feet as the Muppet Show opening began, the music filtering faintly up through the back of the building. It was just as well that she was up here instead: since Gonzo had left, even going onstage didn’t feel right to her.

“All right, maiming mavens and crippling connoisseurs! Tonight we tally your votes and compare them to the judges’ scores, and determine who lives and who – er – goes home, heh heh – tonight, on Break a Leg!” the host shouted, grinning for the camera. The view swooped out to show seats full of cheering monsters. “Our panel tonight, as always: the implacable Beautiful Day, the bubbly Behemoth, and the apparently invisible Shakey Sanchez! I’m your host although I deeply wish I weren’t, Snookie Blyer!” The cheers finally hushed as the lights dimmed. “Last night, we all saw some amazing and cranial-cracking acts on this stage – well, not this one, since they had to rebuild it – but Hem! Whom did you most favor last night out of all the stupendously stupid stalwarts we saw?”

Hem rolled his eyes toward the back of his head, thinking hard. “Hmmm…y’know, Snookie, I’d have to say I liked Ms Fatwah the best –“

“But Jasmine Fatwah disqualified her—er, him-self by leaving the studio! That violated our strict imprisonm—I mean curfew, heh heh, for all the contestants!” Snookie pointed out, the smile never leaving his face. Camilla frowned. Why did show hosts always seem so fake?

“I-I kind of l-liked that Gonzo guy,” a voice warbled from under Hem’s fur.

“What!” Hem jerked upright, glaring at the small, red-feathered head poking up from a hole in his shoulder. “Well who cares what you think! Get back in there!”

“Shakey does have a vote,” Snookie said mildly.

“Well you’re both nuts!” B.D. snorted. “Obviously, that quick-draw snail is gonna go all the way!”

“Well, let’s take a look at the acts again!” Snookie continued a voiceover as footage from the previous show played: “First, that mistress of mayhem Jasmine Fatwah danced with death and one truly provocative scimitar, but left the stage without completing her performance when she received a little unexpected assistance from one of the crew!” The fluffy pink three-eyed monster planted one heck of a smacker on the exotic dancer’s furry lips, and she (or he) ran screaming offstage, leaving the monster wobbling confusedly under the weight of the sword through his skull. Camilla shook her head. Amateurs.

“Next, the fabulous fungus Mungus Mumfrey barely escaped disqualification by repeating its earlier routine with flamethrowers; the judges decided there was just enough variation in this performance to allow it, but tonight we’ll find out what our audience thinks! Should the world’s only mobile fungus go big or go home?” A few seconds of the surging goop flailing around in a mesmerizing dance whilst continually flaming itself and then glopping over the damage had Camilla wishing she’d skipped dinner. “And just when we thought we’d seen enough crashes and burns, along came the Great Gonzo to prove us wrong!”

“Bawwk!” Camilla gulped, wincing all over again at the film of Gonzo shrieking and crashing into the pile of exploding props.

“Yes, he certainly brought the house down – or tried to, anyway!” Snookie chuckled while the studio audience howled with laughter at the sight of the giant screen crashing down atop Shakey Sanchez and Gonzo. “But his astounding survival places him close to the top of most people’s list, or at least the Darwin Awards list. Next up we heard an earsplitting performance by Jimmy Joe Bob…” Snookie visibly cringed at the recorded sound of the stunt-karaoke singer groaning “Peelings, nuthin’ more than peeeelings…” Snookie ducked as several audience members hurled shoes and beer bottles at the stage. “Hey! Guys, guys, that was a recording from last night!” Shaken, he emerged from behind B.D.’s chair as the scruffy blue monster scowled and hurled a couple of shoes back into the audience; thumps and cries of ow! could plainly be heard. “So…after the medics carted the whomped warbler offstage, the trick-shooter Wyatt Slurp showed us his skills with a six-shooter and a whole host of expendable crew members!”

The snail, even in extreme slo-mo, hardly seemed to move, but his guns fired off numerous shots in rapid succession, bringing a row of heavy lights down one by one directly onto a line of stunned Frackles; then as they wavered, the second round of shots knocked them all into one another. They fell into a pile of artfully arranged furry bodies which, when viewed by the overhead camera, spelled out the initial ‘W’. Camilla shook her head; how did that even qualify as daring? Nice shooting, perhaps, but hardly dangerous!

“Then we had some mixing it up, old school, as John Lamb took on a horde of sucke—er, volunteers from our audience!” Onscreen, the baaaad sheep was a flurry of kicking hooves and cracking skulls, and with every solid whack of his horned head against one of the monsters rushing him, fur and scales and felt went down, never wool. “Heh, heh, looks like someone brought a claw to a horn fight! Lamb showed everyone that some things do get better with age, even if there is a little gray under that black wool!”

“I know you ain’t calling me old, greasehead,” a deep voice growled from somewhere behind Snookie.

“Erk! Ah, heh, um…then finally, the world’s most dangerous mouse, Montrose, showed us…er…” Snookie paused, frowning at his cue card, then at the camera. “Does anyone remember what exactly Montrose did?”

“He was amazing!” Hem exclaimed, looking a little dazed. “He spun and weaved! He did car chases while hanging out the back window with an Uzi!”

Snookie gave the judge a startled look. “He did?”

Camilla cocked her head to one side, thinking. No, she definitely did not recall any car chases! In fact, all she’d seen the mouse do on-camera was…sort of stand there…and wave his paws while he swayed back and forth and chanted. She’d thought it was some kind of Far Eastern entertainment bit, not an actual entry in the show. B.D. corrected Hem, “Nuh-uh! He fought off a whole army of vicious Sandinista cats using only the tip of his tail while biting himself free of rubber ropes!”

“Y-you guys are blind!” Shakey insisted, popping out of Hem’s throat, shaking his head a little more than the rest of him. “He threw a whole bucketful of poison-tipped d-darts into the air and then dodged every single o-one of them!”

“O-kay,” Snookie said, puzzled. “Well, it seems the judges can’t agree on what exactly the mouse did last night, but I guess he’s still in!” He suddenly noticed the little white mouse sitting at his feet, swinging a pocketwatch back and forth. “What are you doing, trying to time my intro?”

The mouse frowned. “Dang it. You’re not a monster! This only works on monsters…” He sighed. “Fine. Just don’t say nothin’, okay pal?” Snookie stared at him, speechless, as the little rodent scampered backstage.

“Uh. Stay tuned! We’ll get this contest underway again in just under two minutes after this word from our sponsor, ZikZak snack cakes -- assuming your brain hasn’t exploded by then. It’s extermination time, on Break a Leg! Be right back.” The feed cut from the host’s somewhat strained smile to a flurry of ads; Camilla looked away, sighing, and tilted her neck from side to side to unkink it. She always tensed up when stressed.

Would the contestants reprise their acts, or would they just stand around and wait for the results of the show? Would there be a musical number? She wasn’t even sure how long tonight’s episode was supposed to be. She took a drink of Blueberry Grasshopper Mega Energy Boost, knowing the stress must be depleting her badly. Why, oh why, wouldn’t Gonzo answer his phone? She’d left two more messages on his voicemail, but no return call had come to reassure her. Was he even thinking of her anymore? She sighed, the memory of the enormous flatscreen smashing down on Gonzo flashing through her head. At this point, she couldn’t even be sure he was thinking.
*********

 

[newsmanfan]

Part Twenty-One (II)

Miss Piggy sat in a lovely Victorian tea-dress in an ornately carved chair, sipping delicately from a china cup in the mock-up of a dark, gloomy parlor. “Oh, how dreary today is!” she said, tossing back the pretty little feathered cap pinned in her thick hair. She wasn’t sure this piece was as much drama as melodrama, but at least the costume was gorgeous. She crossed one ankle demurely over the other, showing off the gleaming buttons on her high boots. The bustier displayed her substantial décolletage, though the long dress of dark green satin, with many fripperies and ruffles, hid enough of her to convincingly bring off the modest Victorian lady character. “Oh, how I wish that awful Drake Isingbreath would leave me alone while my darling Hector is off keeping the tea plantation safe from tigers!” With a heavy sigh, she took another sip of the tea, and frowned. “Yeesh. What the heck is this stuff, infusion of chimney soot?”

A tremulous thrill of music announced the entrance of the villain. “So, Benjamina! Have you received my latest offer?” a deep voice demanded; Piggy, acting startled, really did do a double-take when she rose, turned, and found Uncle Deadly in a black tails-coat and stovepipe hat, leering at her.

“Oh, cripes. Not this again,” Piggy muttered, then reconsidered: she wasn’t dangling off a cliff, nor was she tied to a train track. Regaining her composure swiftly, she went into a horrified recoil, bringing a huge fan up to block Deadly’s advance. “Oh! No! Isingbreath! Leave this house! My man had strict instructions not to even receive your cards, much less allow you inside! Jeeves, oh, Jeeves!” Desperately, the damsel in distress looked toward the door upstage. “Oh, where is that butler?”

“Mwah, ha, ha! He’s where no one will ever find him – unless they happen to look into the abandoned well!” Deadly chortled, rubbing his scaly hands together.

“Oh! You fiend!” Piggy cried.

“Now, my dear, I will ask you one last time: will you marry me?” Deadly queried, holding out one clawed hand.

Piggy waved the fan ineffectually at him. “Never! Oh! Oh, I wish my dear fiancé wasn’t in far-off India! Get away from me, you foul man!”

“Ah, perhaps you’d better sit down, my dear,” Deadly crooned, coming closer step by menacing step. “Are you feeling a little…dizzy?”

“Why, I –“ Piggy paused, realized she actually didn’t feel well, and struggled with the next line: “You – what have you done?”

“Not only have I shanghaied your butler, but I’ve slipped a deadly venom into that dark, dusty tea, my dear!” Deadly chuckled. “I just happen to have the antidote right here –“ He produced a small crystal vial from a pocket. “—but unless you agree to be my wife, you shall never taste a drop of it, and within minutes you shall succumb to the horrible poison running through your veins!”

“You what?” Piggy snarled, abandoning the script. “You actually put poison in my tea? You idiot! This was supposed to be just a sketch! When I get my hands on you, you scrawny blue jerk –“ She lunged at the dragon, but she overbalanced and slumped onto the stage. “Ohhh…ohh I don’t believe this!”

The door burst open. “Never fear, my darling! I have returned!” Wayne shouted, running in.

“Oh wonderful,” Piggy groaned, then struggled to get back in character in the hopes this might actually end well for once. “I mean, oh! Hector! Save me, I’ve been poisoned!”

“Yes, that’s right, I, Hector the Hero, am back from deepest India, where I’ve been fighting off tigers and tea-poachers, keeping Daddy’s commercial ventures safe!” He turned to Deadly. “You, cruel fiend! Hand over that antidote!”

“Never!” Deadly growled, and the two foes circled one another while Piggy gasped and tried unsuccessfully to haul herself into the chair.

“Faster would be nice,” she grumbled. “Ooh my head…”

“You awful monster, putting deadly venom in my betrothed’s afternoon sherry!” Wayne cried, but Deadly paused, holding up a corrective finger.

“No, no, old chap; I put it in her tea.”

“What?” Wayne checked a pocketwatch. “But it’s five o’clock! Tea is over; it’s time for sherry!”

Deadly shrugged. “Well, naturally! But that’s not what the script says…”

In the stage right wing, Clifford groaned and put his head on the desk. The frog was going to let him have it about this one…assuming he lived past what Piggy would do…

Wayne stopped circling too, and asked curiously, “Tell me, do you prefer cream sherry or tawny port?”

“Oh, well,” Deadly murmured, warming to the topic, “I always drank palo cortado, but I suppose cream sherry would have been more appropriate here.”

“You think?”

“Well, it is more ladylike.”

“No, no! She’s not ladylike enough for that!” Wayne proclaimed. “I say, let’s go with a good strong port!”

“Hey, you freaks, gimme that antidote already!” Piggy yelled.

“Well, any port in a storm,” Deadly chuckled.

Wayne looked out the painted windows at the painted clouds. “Hmm. It does look like a storm’s coming…”

“You better believe there is!” Piggy howled, hoisting herself up and taking a wild swing at Wayne. “Hiii—YAAAHH!” The chop missed, Wayne stumbled into Deadly, and the three of them went down in a heap as the curtain closed.

Clifford urged Fozzie out front as he ran to check on Piggy. “Go! Go! –Piggy, you okay?”

“Raaagghh!” Piggy screamed, launching herself after Deadly; with a smirk, he simply vanished, and the pig crashed down on top of the clueless actor instead. She grabbed the tiny vial and chugged it; Wayne, recovering at least some sense, made a break for the stage left exit, but a gloved hand caught his foot and he tumbled. “Cream sherry?” Piggy roared as the actor cringed. “Cream this!”

Piggy must have still been out of sorts, because her kick missed as well. “Ho, ho!” Wayne laughed, picking himself off the stage and enjoying a moment of smugness before a large Muppet tiger appeared out of nowhere and, snarling, bore the thespian to the floor.

Countie felt the unmistakable chill of his host next to him, and leaned over to whisper, “You didn’t really poison Piggy, did you?”

“Merely a drop of twilight hemlock,” Deadly murmured in reply, the two of them far back enough in the wing for the angry pig not to see them as she staggered up to her dressing-room. “The dizziness should wear off shortly…however, it does carry the unfortunate side effect of making one rather sparkly for a day or two, in direct sunlight.”

Countie stifled a snicker. “Uh, she might like that.”

Nervously adjusting his floppy tie, Fozzie tried to ignore the shrieking and crunching sounds behind the curtain. “Wocka-wocka-wocka! Heeeey folks, it’s wonderful to see you all!”

“Wish we could return the sentiment!” Statler yelled down.

“Did you keep the receipt?” Waldorf quipped. “Oh ho, ho, ho!” And they were off to a running gag.

-------------------------
The Newsman sighed, pausing to massage his forehead after rejecting the twenty-sixth useless “lead” in the stack. Should’ve grabbed dinner; somehow the headache is even worse on an empty stomach, he thought unhappily. He hoped Gina would have something comforting in the kitchen when he arrived home later. He hadn’t spotted her in the audience when he’d done his bit in the arches earlier, so she must’ve had to work late. He polished his glasses and settled them back on his nose, bringing the next poorly spelled email into focus: “So liek I wuz hangin w/my pepps by the back dorr of Scrumbly’s on 10 St and we all saw a guy go in to the suwer! And we were there over an hr and he dint come back out! Yu shld investergat!”

“Do schools not teach grammar anymore?” Newsie muttered. Over half of the ones he’d read thus far sported similar atrocities, and trying to translate them wasn’t helping his headache in the least.

“Sure, man! They’ll teach grammars or grandpers or anyone who can afford continuin’ edumacation!” Floyd Pepper cackled, strolling up the stairs behind Janice with his bass guitar in hand. Zoot laughed dryly, then looked confused, but followed his bandmate up. Lips shook his head, smiling, and patted Newsie’s shoulder as he went.

“Funny,” Newsie grumbled. He heard deep voices nearby, and turned to see the Mutations just a table away, conversing among themselves. One of them glanced over, saw Newsie, and very pointedly turned his chair so his back was to the Muppet. Newsie ducked his head, at first embarrassed, then wondered what was so private; he dared glances at the tall monsters while they continued to mutter to one another. One of them said something, and all three of them looked the Newsman’s way; then they all laughed.

Newsie’s long cheeks flamed. Were they saying mean things about him? Or…or was it worse than that? He glared suspiciously at them, suddenly unable to recall seeing them around for a while. Kermit had reinstated the arches opening for the show a couple of months back by popular demand, but since then, Newsie had only seen the trio of lanky purple monsters a handful of times in their designated positions on the bottom tier. Where had they been? Have to ask Scooter, he decided. Maybe stopping the drains is the wrong approach – maybe a complete monster ban should be instated! Uncomfortably, he edged back in his chair, lifting the stack of papers like a shield between himself and the table of monsters. His gaze flicked from them to Doglion, who was playing with the small gray things on the back table where that stranger had been sitting before the show. Who was that guy, and what had he brought that would interest a shaggy-brained monster? The Newsman badly wanted some answers, but didn’t dare approach the table while the huge-pawed beast sat there. Nervous, he huddled behind his flimsy papers, ears straining to catch anything from the unintelligible discussion nearby while his eyes stayed fixed on the table across the room, waiting, feeling very, very vulnerable.

-----------------------
Two-thirds of the band stepped into place onstage; Floyd shoved a half-splatted tomato out of the way with his boot. He looked at the others, and when Janice nodded, he turned to Zoot. The lights shifted to a dusky, dreamy blue with violet edges, and Zoot launched into the haunting sax intro to the swing classic, Floyd plucking the bassline softly while Janice strummed the rhythm.

“Slow drag,” Floyd sang raspily, “It sure is draggin’ me down…I’m almost hangin’ the ground, when I hear that blue drag.” Janice gave him a bit of melody. “And slow drag…it’s got that new lazy swing; I crave that new crazy swing, I must have that blue drag!”

The lights grew more purple as Floyd swayed a bit, getting into the feel of the song. “Now the rhythm, that rhythm has brought me peculiar days…ohhh, the rhythm, that rhythm has brought me peculiar days, can’t get enough of blue drag! Oh, it’s got my soul on fire; I know that I’ll never tire, of that low dowwwwn, blue drag.”

Lips raised his trumpet and joined in for a long solo, rambling soulfully over the continued, relentless strumming Janice laid down. Zoot picked up where Lips left off, carrying the melody higher. Floyd shook his head, smiling, happily plucking along.

Off stage left, Thog came through the door to the tunnel and up the short steps to the stage level, then abruptly stopped. “Oh, gee,” he muttered. “I’m on the wrong side! How’d that happen?” Uneasily, he waddled back down, but the door seemed either locked or stuck. “Hey, the door won’t open!” he told the stagepig manning the flyrail, but the pig shushed him angrily. “Can’t you just come unlock this?” Thog asked, and the lighting board pig joined the flypig in a loud Shhhh!

Sighing, Thog looked out at the musicians onstage. He enjoyed the music, but he knew he was really supposed to be stage right to join the next act; Clifford had agreed he could be in “At the Dance,” and Thog really didn’t want to mess up his entrance – he even had one of the jokes to deliver! Worried, he studied the stage, noting a little space between the backdrop and the back wall. If he moved really, really carefully, he might be able to squeeze through there…

“Slow drag…it sure is draggin’ me down,” Floyd sang, repeating the verse, enjoying the simple swing of the tune. Thog reached the midway point and hesitated; one of the lights was out back here, and he couldn’t see his next step! He wavered, uncertain, then realized if he didn’t get across, he wouldn’t be ready for his cue, and he’d miss his opportunity to be in the sketch! Frightened, he plowed ahead. His foot snagged on the bottom of the cyc; panicked, he pulled hard, and the taut curtain tore. Another heavy plod, and the cable powering the lower lights for the cyc caught a toe – and that in turn lifted the sound cable to Floyd’s bass, run perpendicular to the electrics.

As Floyd sang, “I must have that blue drag!” the bass ripped out of his arms. “What the --?” Janice looked over, startled, when her lover was tripped by his own suddenly moving sound cable and dragged offstage. Thog was fully visible to everyone as the entire cyc tore free of its rigging and flapped after the huge blue beast like a bridal train. Lips shrugged, his horn blaring out the end of the song a couple of phrases early; Zoot stared in surprise at all the commotion; the audience hooted and clapped.

Clifford smacked a hand over his face as Thog ran by at a fast lumber, with a torn curtain, sparking cables, bumping lights, and a protesting musician all hauled along after. “Oh, man,” he groaned. “I sure hope Kermit don’t hear about this.”

Rizzo chortled, snacking on a Mars bar on the top of the desk. “Twenny bucks, and my lips are sealed!”

Clifford just glared at the rat. Pepe tugged his elbow. “So, I can do my romantic solo now, sí?”

“No!” Cliff barked, and yelled into the ‘com: “Rowlf! Rowlf, I need you up here, man! Let’s do your poem!”

Zoot wandered offstage. “Is the song over?” he wondered.

Clifford stared at him, then pushed the ‘com button again. “Rowlf!” Seeing Deadly’s guest sitting attentively on one of the crates backstage, he sighed. “Oh, man. I wish you’d dropped in on some other night! I’m sorry your first live Muppet Show is going this way,” he apologized, but Countie shook his head, smiling.

“Actually, it’s pretty much what I expected. I’m enjoying it!”

Fozzie gave Clifford a hopeful look. “Hey, at least it’s going better dan Tuesday…”

----------------------------
The host called out the percentages of accolades each contestant had received during the viewer voting, and spotlights turned on each of them as their names came up. Camilla watched, wringing her wingtips; thus far, it had been a lot of buildup but no dangerous acts. She hoped the next show would be as tame, though she knew odds were high against it. She felt a flutter of pride when Gonzo’s cannon-fueled disaster earned him almost forty per cent of the votes, and he pumped his hands at the audience in a triumphant gesture, beaming from one side of his curly nose to the other. Realizing if people liked his act too much, he’d stay on the show and keep doing it, Camilla sank back into a sick despair. How could she vote for him to continue, when all she wanted now was for him to come home, back to the theatre? But what if he did? She couldn’t just peck and make up…that wouldn’t teach him anything!

She was further dismayed when the host announced, “On Saturday’s show, the remaining masters of microcephalia will be required to theme their acts! Every contestant must use two things chosen by our judges in their performance! And those items aaaare…” Snookie glanced at a cue card a Frackle ran up to hand him. His smile faltered an instant. “Cinnamon red hot candies – and hydrochloric acid!”

“Bawwwk!” Camilla moaned, feeling ill. Red hots! WHY did it have to be red hots!

“Let’s say farewell to Jimmy Joe Bob, and sing him to his final res—resplendent performance! Sorry Jimmy, your dulcet tones simply didn’t win over our judges – and it seems not enough of our audience is hard of hearing for you to continue!” Snookie said, ducking as a size eleventy-four steel-toed boot sailed out of the crowd and beaned the rustic.

“But hey, let’s give him something to remember this show by!” B.D. yelled. The studio audience roared approval…and a hail of shoes, bottles, rocks, and one large enameled kitchen sink pummeled the unfortunate contestant. Snookie shook his head as a black-robed figure followed the goblins dragging the pile of stuff offstage.

“So, tune in next time and see who’s left breathing on another episode of – Break a Leg! For MMN, I’m Snookie Blyer, and I hope to see you all here – and me there – Saturday night! So long!” The host’s expression seemed gloomy as the credits rolled. Camilla heaved a sigh, clicking the set off.

Two contestants eliminated, but her daredevil was still in the running; moreso, he seemed to be at the top of the board! Torn between wanting Gonzo to be voted off and feeling proud at seeing that happy, goofy smile of his when the results were announced, the chicken groaned and flopped down in her bed of straw. She adored him, but how could she make him realize he didn’t need to suffer quite so much for his art – or to make her suffer, having to wonder every show whether he would live ‘til the end of it?

--------------------------
The newswire ticked and chunked and spat out a sheet of copy. Great, Newsie thought, grabbing it from the wire and forcing his feet up the stairs to the stage level. When he headed for Clifford, the interim host stopped Rowlf with a hand on the dog’s shoulder. “Uh…dang. Hold that thought, Rowlf. News set!” he called out, and the stagepigs, grunting, shoved the desk onstage. Nodding unhappily at Clifford, Newsie ran out, nervous energy making up for a lack of enthusiasm.

“Here is a Muppet News Flash!” he barked, glancing at the sheet in his hand. “The famous Muppet Pumpkin Cannon competition is underway this week in Crackerville, West Virginia! Competitors will attempt to shoot pumpkins the greatest distance using homemade explosive contraptions. The record to beat is held by Japheth and Trey, Jr, Bumblefoot, who last year reportedly shot a forty-pound pumpkin across two state lines into Tennessee –“

He must’ve been too distracted by the headache; he never heard the sickening whoosh of air which usually preceded things falling on him. In pain, half-conscious, his blurry vision barely took in the two yokels trotting across the stage to examine the splattered orange squash. “Hah! Still unbeaten!” one of them crowed.

The other shook his head. “Yeah, but what’d I tell you now about pointin’ th’ danged thing south? You know New Yorkers ain’t never impressed by nothin’! This shoulda hit Barnard’s chicken coop in Memphis!”

“I done told you I warn’t no good at that compass thing,” the first one grumped.

Newsie groaned. What was left of the pumpkin echoed weakly, “Think you got problems?”

Then both of them passed out.

---------------------------
Countie was mildly concerned when Beauregard tromped offstage with the Newsman and the pumpkin in a wheelbarrow, the two rural-sounding Muppets arguing about wind direction and gunpowder amounts trailing in his wake, but then Rowlf went onstage and tried to give a recitation of something he titled “It’s a Dog’s World” but which seemed to be more and more loudly interrupted by yowling, spitting cats until the dog couldn’t stand it anymore; loud barking and hissing signaled the end of the piece. “Pardon me, my friend, but I’m in the closing number,” Deadly said.

“Break a leg,” Countie replied, and Deadly chuckled.

“I’d rather someone else did! Ha, ha! We’ll mingle a bit and then join the cast for cream sodas at a tavern, shall we?”

“Sounds perfect,” Countie said, beaming. He felt the chill dissipate and knew the ghost had gone onstage. Although he was disappointed at not having met Kermit or Scooter and having missed the chance to speak to Gonzo, the rest of his visit had gone wonderfully; the Muppet Show was everything he’d hoped for, and he was having the best time just listening to the chaos.

“Please, please, just do the last one right,” Clifford muttered, and handed off his headset to a penguin. “Don’t call for curtain until everyone bows, got that?”

“Merk merk,” the penguin agreed, and Clifford swiftly donned the dark red cardigan and scarf for his costume in the final act of the night before running to his mark onstage. He signaled the flypigs; as the maindrape opened again, the band began playing the old standby, and a crescent-moon cutout slowly lowered, with Miss Piggy seated in its cusp. Piggy smiled and blew kisses at the growing number of male Muppets on the stage. Fake fall leaves blew across, and several of the boys, wrapped in autumn jackets, pretended to shiver.

The male chorus of Deadly, Fozzie, Beaker, Link, Wayne, Rizzo, Pepe, and some understudy frogs and hogs sang out: “Shine on harvest moon… January, February, June or July; I said January, February, June or July, shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky!”

Countie smiled, able to pick out individual voices in the nonetheless pleasant harmony, especially one which meeped. Clifford stepped downstage, addressing first Piggy, who looked down on him kindly, then his fellow singers: “I ain’t had no lovin’ since January, February, June or July!”

“Ah, ah, ahaaa…” sang the others.

“Snow time ain’t no time to sit outdoors and spoon,” Clifford continued, mock-shivering, then singing up to Piggy once more, “So shine on, shine on harvest moon –“

“For me and my gal!” Rowlf chimed in, putting out an arm to welcome one of the ladies now sashaying slowly out from the wings. The chickens, a sheep, and some Whatnot girls giggled demurely and each chose a boy to stand by.

The whole ensemble harmonized: “So shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky! I ain’t had no lovin’ since January, February, June or July!”

“Now looka here, don’t you know better than to sit out there in the snow and spoon?” Clifford scolded, and beseeched Piggy, “Come on, I don’t want no half-moon, I want a full moon!”

“Oh won’t you shine on, shine on harvest moon…” the others sang, while Piggy slowly opened her arms, gently hanging onto the edge of the moon cutout and showing off her spectacular silvery leotard with shimmering moondust drifting onto the singers from her hands.

“Ah-ooba, ah-ooba…” the men sang, while the ladies cooed in tune, snuggling with them. Everyone was paired up except for Clifford, who turned to the audience.

“Doncha know you’re gonna freeze to death, settin’ out there in the snow tryin’ to spoon?” He shook his head sadly, though whether at the thought of lovers freezing in the snow or because he had no partner was unclear.

Everyone together, as Piggy swang slowly back and forth, the moon dispensing magic over all: “So shine on, shine on harvest moon, for me and my gal!”

The crowd applauded, the singers bowed, the curtains stayed open. Clifford kept smiling for the audience, but looked sharply into the stage left wing where the flypigs seemed to be cringing away from what looked like a couple of moving throw rugs in bright blue and pink chenille. Clifford glanced back at the penguin stage right, who threw up its flippers in a “What? I’m trying!” gesture. Deadly led the cast in another bow, and another, and the applause continued, but Clifford hastily worked his way across to the flyrail.

“What the Jelly Roll Morton are you two doing? Close the drapes already!” he ordered.

“Th-they won’t let us!” one of the pigs stammered, pointing at the strange creatures swarming the rail of levers for the various lines over the stage. Clifford saw the googly eyes and quirked antennae then, and jerked back himself, startled.

“Hey! You two…whatever you ares! Get away from there!” he yelled, waving a hand at them. He suddenly wondered what he would do if they turned on him, but they only zipped in between the lines of cables faster, making odd groans and yips. “Stop that! Shoo!”

“Shoe?” the pink thing asked.

“Mn. Shoe. Yip yip yip, shoe!”

They abandoned the flyrail to glomp onto Clifford’s shoes. “Hey!” he cried, dancing in place, trying to shake them loose; they held on with sticky tentacles. He kept kicking, jumping, and heard laughter. What—? Oh, no! He’d danced the funky chicken right back onto the stage, and the curtain hung open! “Close it!” he yelled, and the flypigs, regaining some of their senses, hurriedly closed the drapes. The claps and laughs continued, but Clifford was far from amused. “Get these danged things off me!” Surprised Muppets surrounded him, but for a second no one moved.

Then Link panicked. “Aliens! Weird space monsters! We’re being invaded!” Wailing, he fled the stage.

“Every Muppet for himself!” Wayne choked, diving for the exit.

“Aaagh!” Wanda shrieked as the blue thing let go of Clifford’s shoe and swooped up to investigate her hair. Gallantly Rowlf swatted at it, but the thing quickly zipped out of harm’s way with strange, jerky movements.

“Somebody call monster control!” Cliff yelled.

“Why don’t we go collect your autograph bits, and see who’s left to join for an actor’s supper?” Deadly suggested to Countie.

“Well…I guess there are safer places to be at the moment,” Countie agreed reluctantly. He’d been enjoying the sound of another raucous end to the show.

“Safer, no. Quieter, yes,” Deadly said, leading his friend down to the green room.

Clifford spotted Robin watching the headless-chicken imitations going on with a fascinated expression. “Hey, little man, you’d best go downstairs,” Clifford called to him. “And do me a favor: don’t tell your uncle about this!”

“Oh, it’s okay,” the peeper piped up, “You’re doing a swell job! This is just like when Uncle Kermit is here!”

“Great,” Clifford sighed. “Least I got something right.”

-------------------------
Groggy, the Newsman nevertheless jumped when he felt a hand on his arm. “You all right?” a voice asked.

He blinked up at the unknown man with dark glasses and curly brown hair. “Uh…fine. Thanks.” A replacement pair of glasses sat on Newsie’s nose, although that was feeling very out of joint, and all he could smell was fresh pumpkin goop…though a shower might fix that.

“I realize this might not be the best time,” the stranger said, “but would you sign your autograph for me?”

“My…my autograph?” Newsie couldn’t recall anyone ever asking him for that. Noting the cane as well as the shades, he asked, “Uh…do you know who I am?”

“The Newsman,” the stranger said, smiling. “Would you mind?”

Pleasantly puzzled, Newsie followed the man to the back table. Numerous pieces of clay were spread out: one side of the table held pieces with Muppets’ names inscribed, the other held a few blanks. “I’d like to get as complete a collection as possible,” the man explained. He frowned. “I’m sorry I missed Kermit and Scooter – and Gonzo – but Deadly’s promised to try and get their signatures and mail them to me, since I have to leave tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Newsie said, grasping the concept as he looked at the tablets. He saw that Sweetums had smushed together four pieces just to scrawl his name with those huge fingers…and that Robin’s took up only half a tablet. “That’s…that’s very clever! Certainly I’d be happy to add my name to your project, Mr…?”

“Countie. I’m actually supposed to be at a law seminar, so I’m not telling anyone my name,” the man said, grinning mischievously.

Newsie was amazed. “You’re a lawyer? You…you skipped a seminar just to come see our show?”

“Absolutely,” Countie laughed, and his fingers located a blank piece of clay. He unwrapped it and pushed it toward Newsie. “You guys are my favorites! I grew up watching you…meeting you all has been a dream come true!”

Newsie thought it was more like a fever-dream, but carefully cut his professional name into the clay. It felt odd to see it written like that, knowing that once it dried, it could last a very long time. He felt old suddenly. Trying to shake it off, he looked over the signatures Countie had compiled thus far. Some obscure folks were represented along with the regulars: Big Mama, Thog, Carrie Louise, Sal Minella, Snookie Blyer, Lunch Counter Monster – Geez, why does he have so many monster signatures? I haven’t even seen half of them arou—Newsie nearly swooned. He choked, grabbing the back of a chair, and sat down hard on another.

Concerned, Countie began, “What’s wrong? Are you—“

“Where did you get that signature?” Newsie cried hoarsely, startling the guest.

“Which—“

“Snookie! Snookie Blyer! Where did you find him?”

“He – he was hosting a show I saw last night,” Countie said, unnerved by the harshness of the Muppet’s voice; he would have been even more uneasy at the sight of yellow felt turning creamy-pale. Newsie’s hands clenched into fists on the table, shaking.

“Where? Where?”

“Uh…I…I’m not sure,” Countie replied. “Underground somewhere! You can ask Deadly; he knew the show director!” He listened to what sounded like the Newsman gulping back tears, gasping for breath. “Why? Is he some kind of blood enemy of yours or something?” He knew Muppet passions tended to run high, but he’d never suspected the buttoned-down Newsman might have a feud with anyone else…

“He’s my cousin!” Newsie shouted. “I’ve – I’ve been trying to find him for months! Where was this? What show? Underground? Where?” Suddenly he jerked upright, eyes wide. “Underground – with monsters? Why do you have so many monster signatures?”

“Uh…there were a few of them down there. I think some of them worked there,” Countie said, very worried now at the obvious sounds of distress: the Muppet sounded like he was strangling.

“Snookie is down there? With those things?” Newsie choked out, horrified.

Deadly stepped up, having heard the commotion, annoyed at being dragged away from the charming talk he was having with that Doglion fellow about palo cortado versus amontillado for burying with enemies. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Agh!” Newsie cringed away from the spook, then jabbed an accusing finger at him. “You – you’re all in league! I was right! Where is he? Where is he, d—it!”

Deadly looked at Countie, who seemed to know a confused chilly glance when he felt one. “I have no idea; something about his cousin?”

“Snookie Blyer! Where is he?” Newsie shouted, leaning toward Uncle Deadly, but then the dragon made an imperious lunge at the reporter. “Ack! Don’t touch me!”

“You started it!” Deadly growled. “What is this nonsense?”

“Tell me!” Newsie demanded. “Snookie – where is he? This man has his signature! You took him to a show! Where was it?”

“You’re making absolutely no sense!” Deadly huffed. “I don’t know any Snookies! I took my dear friend to see another old friend of mine, a famous Collinswood director!”

“Apparently the show host is the Newsman’s cousin,” Countie offered.

“What, that pathetic plaid perpetrator of…of fake smiles?” Deadly scoffed. He glared at their startled expressions. “What? This is all off the cuff, you know! Can you think of a good word starting with P?”

“You have to tell me where he is!” Newsie insisted, his voice rough, feeling close to collapse, the shock of this right after the clobbering pumpkin too much to Muppetly bear. “You – you monsters! Skulking around here, laughing at us, plotting your plots! I was right! You’re all in on it, whatever it is!”

Deadly drew himself up, eyes afire with cold blue light. “I have no idea of what you speak! I am a respectable ghoul, and you, sir, are out of line! Come, Countie, let’s be off!”

“N-no,” Newsie gulped, his knees shaking, clinging to the chair. “You have to tell me! He’s my cousin, and if he’s down there with all the monsters… No! Tell me! Where is he?”

Countie winced; he’d never heard the reporter sound so close to meltdown, not even when being attacked by a mad English comic. “Deadly, maybe we should –“

“I will not be spoken to in that tone!” the dragon roared, blowing the Newsman back with the force of his anger. He swept all the clay pieces into his cape, grabbed Countie by one hand, and dragged him away.

Newsie, struggling both to keep from openly crying and to get back to his feet, heard an all-too-familiar sound right next to him: “Mn. Yip. Yip yip.”

His head jerked up. Both creatures hovered in the air on either side of him. The blue one began chanting in its frightening monotone: “Newwws. News. Yip yip yip yip yip uh huh.”

“Yip yip, uh huh. News,” the pink one chimed in, wriggling closer.

Newsie launched himself up and forward. The motion was too much for his injured head to take; darkness swirled up, a rushing noise filled his ears, and down he went.

“Ulp!” the pink monster cried, disturbed by this unsettling development. “Nooooope nope nope nope!”

“Uh uh, uh uh!” the blue one agreed, and together they vanished.
-------------------------

 

[The Count]

*Is in love with the newest of double chapters from this story.

Points to dole out include...
1 Chef signing his name as "Tom".
Ja, *chuckles*, Tom.
2 Newsie recalling a sink in the Muppet theater's men's room collapsing into some weird snake-themed drainpipe.
Although to be technically correct, that sink was in the ladie's room, but still huge smile.
3 The bit with the fish in the coffee pot providing filtration... That's just weirdly Muppety funny.
4 The logo's animation turning into monsters, then devouring the globe behind them...
Is that meant to be a reference to the logo monsters from Sesame Street Stays Up Late? Cause if so, that was the MNN.
5 Muppet Melodramas!
6 Yep, definitely enjoying the show going on so far. Don't worry Cliff, you're doing as good as Tuesday's show.
7 "She couldn’t just peck and make up…that wouldn’t teach him anything!"
Loved this line relating 's worries.
8 Blue Drag and Harvest Moon, good song choices, especially with the addition of two motley mischeivous Martians.
9 If only it had been so... Skipping out on law schooling to go and see the Muppets live at that convention in December 2001. But it was my first semester... And I'd already gotten a needed proceedure done in August just before starting. And we all know what happened in September that year. At least there's a DVD recording of it I could get from one of the trusted tape traders.
10 Newsie finally finds out where Snookie is... Though the consequences of such a revelation have ended his broadcast for tonight as he faded off to black.
We thank you for posting this thrilling installment and conclude our review. Good night out there, whatever you are.
*Warped music plays as the screen snows itself white.

 

[newsmanfan]

-----------------
Heh heh heh....okay, glad someone got at least some of my silly references. Extra brownie points to anyone who knows where the fish in the coffeepot is from! I did think it simply fit the Muppets, though, and am glad Ed thought so too.

I didn't even know there WAS such a thing as MNN...and no. Mine was independently created, and it is M M N, for a good reason. (I still tune in to GNN now and then for a Grouchy perspective on world news, though.)

For anyone who doesn't know the songs, there are so many versions of "Harvest Moon" that I'll leave it to the reader to track down one he/she likes, but the version of "Blue Drag" in my mind's eye comes from this take, by the New Orleans Jazz Vipers. It just seemed like one Floyd and gang would dig:

 

[newsmanfan]

Part Twenty-Two

Soft candlelight was gentle to his tired eyes; the Newsman blinked several times, finally realizing the world wasn’t coming into focus because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Soft strokes along his cheek made him sigh and turn his gaze that direction. Gina smiled at him. “Welcome back. How are you feeling?”

He squinted, figuring out he was in their apartment by the feel of the quilt beneath his hands. Pillows propped up his shoulders. “I…oooh,” he groaned, throbbing pain smacking into his head before he could formulate a reply.

Gina grimaced. “My poor cutie. I knew you weren’t over that cold fully yet.”

“What happened?” he croaked.

She sighed, snuggling over double, bringing her face closer to his so he could make out her features if he peered hard enough. “Well, Clifford called me. I took a cab over to your theatre and Sweetums brought you up. You were out cold, sweetie.” She brushed a hand lightly over his brow. “You feel feverish to me. Clifford said you fainted in the green room…and that you got clobbered by a pumpkin just before that.” She kissed the edge of his nose. “And something about bottled water?”

That part he remembered. “Ungh…news story…those things really are bad for the environment. Mine, at least…”

Gina studied him carefully, looking deep into those almost-closed dark eyes. “Do you remember getting hit by a pumpkin?”

He tried. “I guess that’s what I’m smelling.”

“Yep.” She fished a seed out of his hair. “I didn’t want to put you in the tub unconscious. Feel like tackling it now?”

“Wait…I fainted? After the pumpkin?”

“That’s what Clifford said. Apparently you were having some sort of argument in the green room with some visitor, and you got overexcited, and down you went.” Newsie racked his memory, uneasily certain there was more to it, but unable to remember any of this. Gina stroked her fingertips across his forehead. “I’m prescribing bed rest, and no arguments. You weren’t ready for the stress yet, I’m thinking.”

“Why was I arguing with a visitor?”

“I don’t know. Cliff said everyone else was onstage dealing with something. At least this time there weren’t any explosions.” She smiled. “Come on, cutie. Can you stand up?”

Frowning, Newsie wriggled himself to the edge of the bed and tried to sit up straight and put his feet on the floor; he noticed Gina had removed his shoes. Even that much movement caused his headache to intensify. Holding Gina’s hand, he staggered to the bathroom and silently accepted her aid in undressing; he sat unhappily in the tub while she ran the water for him, and didn’t fuss at the lavender-scented bath oil she added in. She fetched him ibuprofen and a glass of cool water while he listlessly washed the pumpkin goop from his hair. When finally he felt clean, if no better otherwise, she helped him climb out of the tub and wrapped him in a plush robe that came down to his ankles. Sitting in bed again soon after, he tried to recall anything else about the evening, and when Gina reentered bearing a tray with veggie egg rolls, plum sauce, and hot Oolong tea, he frowned at her in frustration.

“I know I’m forgetting something,” he muttered. He sipped the tea gratefully, knowing from experience that it would help the headache lessen.

Gina shrugged lightly. “Well, this happens sometimes. It’ll come back to you; it always does.” She’d been alarmed at first at the small short-term memory losses her Muppet was prone to, given the hazards of his job and the dangerous but apparently natural energy field he projected which tended to draw disaster down upon him regularly. However, whatever small thing had been jarred out of his brain, inevitably he would recall within a day or two. It did mean she had to forgive the occasional missed dinner date or milk not picked up from the grocer’s, but he was always so embarrassed and apologetic about such things; and she’d grown to understand keeping him relaxed and minimizing stress would help matters along faster. “Get some hot food into you.”

Newsie nodded, dipping an egg roll in the sauce and chewing it thoughtfully. Gina remembered Sweetums being careful to hand over Newsie’s attaché case as well as the Newsman himself; seeing her beloved unconscious in the protective arms of the gentle troll had at first alarmed her, then reassured her of Sweetums’ benevolent intent. “You…you have some papers in your case. Was it something about those?”

“Oh,” Newsie said, brightening. “Those…those are possible leads for the disappearances…I was reading through them all night…” He thought hard, but couldn’t recall any specific piece of information from all that. “I can’t…”

“Newsie, it’s okay. It’ll come back to you. Let’s just focus on you getting some rest.”

He scowled. “I feel like I’ve done nothing but lay around all week!”

“Well, if you were overwhelmed enough to faint, I’d say another week is in order.” She met his worried look with a frown of her own. “I know, I know. You’ll go crazy if I coop you up. So how about you staying here until you have to be at the news station tomorrow afternoon? That’ll at least let you sleep in.”

“What if there’s some report work I’ve forgotten?” he wondered unhappily. “I should call Rhonda.”

Gina checked the clock; only nine. “All right. Give her a call.” Relieved, Newsie nodded at her, found his sports coat and fished in the pockets before he remembered the water.

“Oh…uh…my phone was soaked. I left it with the battery out to dry, back at the station,” he mumbled.

Gina smiled. “You need a crunchproof, waterproof, everything-else-proof phone.”

Newsie snorted, picking up the house phone from the nightstand. His head still ached, but at least individual thoughts weren’t sending it on new romps of pain. He punched in the rat’s number. She picked it up on the second ring. “No I have not heard from Goldie; what’s he under this time?” Rhonda snapped.

“Er,” Newsie stammered.

“Oh. It is the Golden Boy. I figured it was your girl trying ta track down where the herd of stampeding rhinos dragged you or something. What’s up?”

Rhinos? Deciding not to complicate the conversation any more than his pounding skull could currently bear, Newsie muttered, “I just wanted to know if we had a report to work on tomorrow morning.”

“What? No! Blanke forbade us to – oh. You got one a’those kinds of poundings, huh?” Rhonda sighed. In the background Newsie heard high-pitched shrieking. “No, sweetheart, nothing special. Just the usual newscast, be there by four if you don’t wanna be yelled at, five-thirty if you don’t care.”

“Okay, four,” Newsie agreed. “Uh…what’s all the noise over there?”

“My marvelously wonderful nieces and nephews. Hang on. I am on the phone, you little cheeseweasels! Shut the frog up!” Newsie held the phone with the screeching rat away from his ear. Gina started giggling. “Sorry ‘bout that. Makes me remember why I don’t want a family all over again. Hey, I talked to my brothers, and they all dodged the question, but I cornered Philby – he’s the youngest – and after a little sisterly persuading he finally told me they all fled the drainage tunnels because of weird noises…and because they had friends go missing.”

“Rats? Going missing? Are they sure?”

“Newsie, this stuff we don’t joke about.” Rhonda lowered her voice, sounding nervous. “There’s only one reason why your friend doesn’t come back after a food run.”

He was silent, thinking about it. The implication wasn’t pretty. “Are…are you all right, Rhonda?”

She blew out a breath. “Yeah…yeah. I’m on the fourth floor, smack inna middle of NoHo. Should be fine, right?”

“Stop up your drains,” Newsie advised, suddenly remembering he’d accomplished that much at the theatre. “Make sure nothing bigger than you can get in.”

“I’m not so much worried about that as I am about the little ones going out – hey! What did I tell you little shrikes about eating the sofa cushions! ‘Scuse me a sec.” Newsie heard muffled noises, some loud thumps, and then squeaks. “Sorry. I just paid that thing off. Vernon, control your offspring or I will! …Geez. They’re making me think twice about not tossing ‘em down the garbage chute. Look, you let that sweetie of yours take care of you, and I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, ‘kay sunshine? Gotta go.”

Gina smiled as Newsie placed the phone back in its cradle. “I’m having trouble seeing Rhonda as a mom,” she remarked.

“I think she is too,” Newsie agreed. He sighed. “More confirmation from the rats. Something is under the city…and it sounds like it’s…” He looked down at his half-eaten egg roll, suddenly not hungry.

“Um,” Gina said, catching on. “Is…is her family okay?”

“Hopefully.” He gazed seriously up at her. “Gina, I have to go down there again.”

She drew him into a kiss. “I know. I know you do. But not tonight. And not without backup.” She poured fresh tea from the dragonware-china pot for him. “Why don’t you ask Sweetums to go with you? He might agree as long as you’d go, so he wouldn’t be so afraid.”

Newsie sputtered, quickly setting down his teacup to avoid a spill. “So he wouldn’t – Gina, he’s a troll!”

“He’s a nice troll.”

“He’s almost eight feet tall!”

“And he handed you over to me very gently.”

“He huh?”

Gina told him quietly of the worried monster carrying the unlucky Newsman up from the green room to the front entrance and gently setting him inside the cab. Newsie, shocked, sat silent a long time. Finally he asked in a low voice, “You think I can trust him?”

“Positive. If there are monsters underground, what better protection than another monster?”

He had to admit, there was a certain logic to that. He rubbed his eyes, terribly weary. “I wish I knew what it was I forgot.”

“Newsie, don’t worry about it. You always get it back; just give it some time. Ask around at the theatre; maybe someone else talked to you about all this. Maybe that visitor had some information.”

“Maybe.” Newsie scowled. “I don’t even remember talking to anyone…just… something about fish, and coffee.”

“It will come back,” Gina insisted. “Just relax. How’s your head?”

“Hurts,” he admitted. Gina cleared away the dinner things from the bed and curled up with him, lifting the blankets enough for both of them to get underneath. He snuggled close to her, deeply relieved to have her there. Her touch was so gentle…her skin so silky, so pleasantly unlike his felt, and her fingers stroking his temples made him melt into the pillows. “Mmmmh,” he sighed, giving up, all worries released by her touch. “I love you…”

Gina smiled; there was something about those words spoken in that always-a-little-gruff, somewhat nasal voice that amused her and melted her heart all at once. “You would be such a curmudgeon if I hadn’t found you,” she teased.

“Sure. I’d be doing shuffleboard scores from the box next to the geezer critics,” he muttered, though he managed a smile.

She did something to tease him a different way, feeling him tense all over in surprise. “Hmm. Doesn’t seem too old to me…”

With a groan, Newsie nudged himself closer and reached for her, fuzzy fingers happy to encounter smooth skin. He was indeed very, very glad she’d decided she could love such an accident-prone Muppet…and in her arms, he was at last able to focus on something besides a foamache.

----------------------
Eustace forced his snout into an approximation of a smile. He’d never tried one, so it felt strange, but orders were orders… “Complimentssss of the head of the network,” he said, handing down six large pizza boxes from Big Mama & Son’s Pie Joint (“a LARGE smile every time!”).

Gonzo’s eyes widened. “Oh, cool! Hey, look, Rosie! We’re a hit!”

“Mubba?” The monster sniffed, then all three pink eyes brightened. “Puzza!”

“Aw, this is so great! Hey, d’we have any sodas?” Gonzo asked, and while the monster hastily shuffled off to find something for them to wash down the slices, Gonzo beamed at the doglizard. “Wow, how nice! So the big guy likes my act, huh?”

Eustace considered how much to say. “He hasss sssaid he findsss you…amusssing.”

“Hah ha! Well, great! You tell him I said thanks – and my next act is gonna be a real showstopper!” Gonzo looked into the various boxes. “Ooh, sardine salami onion pomegranate! Wow, a man after my own heart!”

“He hoped you would find it…pleasssing,” Eustace said, noting the monsters gathering in the cell corridor, drooling. “He thought you might wisssh to sssselebrate your top sssstanding in the contessst. He wisssshes you great sssuccesss.”

“Well, that’s really nice of him! Wow, the head of the network is a fan!” Happy, Gonzo waved at the growing monster crowd. “Hey! This is for me being at the top of the leader board! Anyone want a bite?”

All of them looked at Eustace. He shrugged, and the mob fell upon the pizza boxes ravenously. Gonzo managed to save most of one box for himself and McGurk. Over the din of chewing and slobbering, he yelled at the departing doglizard: “Tell him I said he ain’t seen nothing yet! Woo hoo!”

Eustace moved silently through the rough rock corridors, intercepting the rosy-furred monster as he trotted back bearing a couple of bottles of Mega Fishburp Cola. “You! Jussst what do you think you’re doing?”

Confused, McGurk displayed the sodas. “Ahb…blabba muh gugga?”

Irritated, Eustace swatted them away. “I am sspeaking of your infatuation with thisss prisssoner! You look entirely too pleasssed to asssissst him with his idiotic ssstuntsss!”

“Ugga…wugga?” McGurk asked, then tried to assure the boss’ right-hand flunky that there was nothing more than professional courtesy involved. “Muh, muh! Abba meh Gubba frahabba nuh nuh pegabboo…”

“And he will be sssacrifissed at the prosscribed time along with all other prissonersss! Do you have any isssue with that, sssslimebrain?” Eustace demanded, raising himself on clawtips to dominate the squat-bodied monster. McGurk flinched. “All non-monssterssss are cattle for the ssslaughter! Thisss our dark underlord hassss revealed to usss as our true purpossse! Do you doubt hisss inutterable majesssty?” Eustace roared.

“Nuh! Nuh! Inubba dugga puppa, gob id!” McGurk hastily repeated, backing away from that angry, toothy snout.

Eustace reined in a little of his fury; goblin, it felt good to unleash some of his pent-up stress! But he wanted the pink-furred thing cowed, not crushed. He glowered, fussily wiping the terrified spittle off his scales. “Remember your plassse, foolisssh featherhead! If you cannot ssseparate yourssself from the prey, you are of no ussse to his ickinesss, and you too ssshall be exxxtirpated! Asssissst the fool in hisss sssilly ssstratgemsss, but never forget where your liver belongsss!” He turned to stride away, then paused and looked back: McGurk, hornfallen, was sadly bending to pick up the dropped sodas. “Oh, and Rosssamond? Try to enssure hisss sssurvival until the big night. Our lord findsss him…entertaining.”

Smugly, the doglizard departed, his tail whipping around a corner and cutting the nose of a passing orange critter with ten legs. “Ow!” the critter muttered, but when Eustace whirled, glaring, it cringed. “…Sorry?” With a snort, Eustace glided off.

Disconsolate, McGurk carried the sodas back to Gonzo’s cell. Most of the other monsters had finished their share (and some their companions’ shares and possibly also the companion) and wandered back to their duties; Gonzo sat on an empty explosives crate, grinning. “What took you so long? Here, I saved you a couple slices of the mousetail-applebutter one with extra cheese.”

“Guh,” McGurk said, handing over the soda.

“Did you shake it up?” Gonzo asked, and when the monster nodded, Gonzo grinned and opened the cap pointing at himself. Sticky froth shot all over his nose. “Woohoo! Man, I love it when it goes up my nostrils! The sugar gets to my brain faster that way,” he explained. He nudged the monster as his friend sat down. “Hey, why so quiet? Aren’t you excited? The boss likes us! That means we’ll be sure to get lots of airtime, maybe a special interview or something!”

“Muh.”

“Ohhh…you’re wondering how we’re going to top that last one, huh? Yeah, their putting actual requirements on it seems kinda limiting. But don’t you worry! I already have a fantastic idea!” McGurk blinked, ruffling his pink-and-yellow mane uneasily. “Picture this: the announcer introduces us, the lights come up, the camera zooms in…and you’re onstage, balancing a vat of hydrochloric acid on your head!” McGurk cringed, blinking in surprise. “So the audience has gotta be wondering, where’s the Great Gonzo? The camera pans up…and there I am, on a unicycle on a revolving red sphere, tossing red-hots into the air and catching them in my nostrils until my nose is completely full – and guess what I do then!”

Stunned, the monster sat there with wide eyes, speechless, as Gonzo continued to outline the most outrageous act McGurk had ever heard of…no, check that: McGurk had never heard of anything that ridiculous, foolhardy, painful, and likely to cause serious injury or death to both of them. He tried to express some faint enthusiasm in the face of the weirdo’s boundless eagerness, but the doglizard’s warning floated through his head. As they ate their pizza, McGurk sighed to himself. It really did seem a shame to waste this much baffling…er…talent, but the hideous dark scary boss was the hideous dark scary boss, and not to be crossed, ever. Still…

McGurk looked up as Gonzo poked him. “Hey, check this out! Can you do this?”

The monster stared. Two pizza crusts stuck out of the whatever’s nose. With a mad cackle, he opened his eyes wide as he snorked the crusts up and in. “Ha ha ha! Go on, try it, it’s fun!”

---------------------------
The atmosphere the Newsman awoke to was quiet, calm, and smelled of dying leaves. Newsie smiled at the scented candle Gina had left to ease him gently into the morning, and blew the flames out, always safety-conscious. His beloved was already at work, so he fixed himself some cranberry-almond cereal and more pumpkin coffee and brought his attaché case into the kitchen. As he pulled his laptop onto the small café table in one corner of the snug, warm kitchen, a sheaf of papers tumbled out of the case. Frowning, he retrieved them. He couldn’t recall whether he’d read through the entire stack of possible leads or not. Remembering that he’d jotted down a few notes, he found his notepad, but leafing through it turned up something more compelling: the list of phone numbers and company names given to him by Ma Bell.

Gina had asked him to stay home until he needed to get to work, for his own health…well, he could do research perfectly well from home, right? He sipped his coffee, crunched the cereal, and started a search for any and everything about Ars Moribunda Studios. The uneasy hunch in his foam still said all of this was related somehow: the monsters, his aunt, people disappearing…so this seemed as good a place as any to dig in. The first several entries he found were listings on IMDB, production credits for various television shows: “Hammily Feud,” “You Win a Fish!”, and “Name That Solvent” seemed tame enough, but Newsie shuddered at a few more obvious fiend-fests: “Lice Road Suckers,” “Monsters Tonight! with Carl the Big Mean Host,” and the upcoming reality-romance show, “I Married a Monster!”

What the hey is all this? he thought, the growing list of credits with monster-friendly titles making him nervous. When a neighbor’s garbage disposal growled on the other side of the kitchen wall, he jumped, resettling in his chair only reluctantly. Going back to the original search page, he looked for anything with an actual street address and found only a P.O. box; a newspaper ad from two weeks ago turned out to be an expired link. Guess I could stake out the post office and see what turns up…no; they’d probably call security if I hung out there all day. Newsie shoved his cereal bowl aside, frowning deeply as he considered any other option for finding this production company, but going several pages into the online search only brought up more game and reality show titles, a handful of trade reviews, and a tiny article on a blog called “FRACK!” about the studio garnering the Pointy Beaktooth Award for Frackle Equality for hiring a huge number of the strange creatures.

Frustrated, he turned his attention to the second company on the list, MMN. Although he couldn’t discover what the letters stood for, he learned they were an independent television network based here in the city, which seemed to show Ars Moribunda productions almost exclusively. He found a schedule listing for the station and saw many of the game shows and reality knockoffs he’d already read about; the only thing on tonight, for instance, which hadn’t been produced by the mysterious studio was a reshowing of “Ghoulies 5 ½: The Regurgitation.”

Newsie shuddered, and took a break from the awful stuff to warm his coffee again. He searched another hour, but found only local ratings charts (MMN, indeed, was beating his weekend-anchor timeslot – and with airings of some ridiculous stunt contest, to add insult to injury!), a few mentions couched within articles about some of the shows (critics for the Post and the Scandal seemed to lavish undue praise on Big Mean Carl in particular, claiming he was “funnier than Jay!”), and one small article in BusinessWeek about MMN receiving their FCC license late last year and starting operations with a viewing radius of approximately forty miles. A radius from where, exactly? Newsie wondered, but nowhere could he locate more specific information.

A second fresh cup started him on the third name on the list, the better-known Nofrisko corporation, makers of snack cakes and bargain-priced crackers which sold all along the eastern seaboard and in Kahfrackistan, according to the cheery homepage for the company. And there, at last, a street address! The corporate head office was right here in downtown Manhattan! Excited, Newsie quickly jotted it on his notepad, then flicked through the site, eager for any connection between a junk-food maker and monsters…but it all appeared perfectly harmless. Disgusting from a nutritional-value standpoint, but otherwise ordinary. No mention of monsters, or even MMN, anywhere. Newsie realized he had reason to feel grateful to Ma Bell for providing him with a link he wouldn’t have been able to track on his own: nowhere was it listed that one of Nofrisko’s ownings was the strange new TV station.

I’ll just tell Rhonda, and if she wants to pass that along, fine, Newsie thought with a grimace. He had no intention of setting foot among the phone-rats again, ever. He looked at the time, checked the current temperature, drummed his fingertips on the table a moment and weighed his options. Naturally, the new lead won out, and within minutes he’d showered, dressed in his starkest gray suit and dullest brown-and-gray striped tie, and put on his wonderful new fedora before he left the apartment. Who knew the gift of a hat would inspire such a bold disguise! Anxious but motivated, he hailed a cab and gave the driver the address in the Bowery.

The building seemed to take up only the lower two floors of a renovated tenement wedged among restaurant-supply storefronts, but it was at least clearly labeled, and gaily decorated with a molded-fiberglass Fwinkie snack cake over the entrance. Newsie checked to make sure the shiny badge he’d been inspired to bring was firmly stuck in his wallet opposite his ID. He took a deep breath, offered up a silent prayer to St Murrow, and trying to picture the way Miss Piggy strode into any room as if she owned it, pushed open the door and entered scowling, his hat pulled down on his brow.

A round-faced, yellow Whatnot lady with hair so bright orange it could only have come from a yarn dye greeted him with an uncertain smile. “Welcome to Nofrisko! How may I help you, and which cake is your favorite?” She waved a beatific hand over a platter of representative products: Fwinkies, Hobos, and Flingers.

“Health Department, Dyes and Additives Division,” Newsie muttered, flashing his ID and his old toy press badge at her only an instant before slipping the wallet back into his pocket. He glared at the snacks. “Investigating a complaint about possible fatal reactions to red number twelve in your products.”

“O-oh,” the receptionist said, startled. “Um…did you have an appointment?”

“If I had, what would be the point of a surprise inspection?” Newsie snapped, hoping he sounded authoritative enough to bring this off.

“Oh! Um, of course, yes. I’ll…I’ll just page Mr Tonkin for you…”

“Don’t bother,” Newsie growled, heading for the first door he saw. “I’ll just take a look around.”

“Oh, that’s – that’s the coat closet,” the receptionist stammered, hurrying to plant herself in front of Newsie. “Er…may I take your coat, Mr…?”

“Murrow,” he ad-libbed. “No, thank you. I’m not planning on being here that long…unless of course I find something I don’t like!” Scowling again at the flustered woman, he turned to the next door, a larger one with ornate handles. He pulled it open and strode through, terrified and excited at the ease of his progress so far. The receptionist didn’t follow him, and he glanced left and right into glass-doored offices full of desks, computers, and curious employees who watched him pass. As far as he could tell, the ground floor was nothing but white-collar stuff. He found an elevator and stepped in; the buttons said 1, 2, and B…but the basement level required a key to access. Unhappily, he punched 2, sure that what he wanted was lower, not higher, but determined to see everything. On the second floor he walked into a large, open area divided partly into half-walled cubicles and half into a large conference room. Opening the door to that, he interrupted a group of children eating some sort of green-icinged muffins; a man with a clipboard swung around in perplexity.

“Ah…sorry, this is a test group, we won’t be done for another half-hour,” the man said. A couple of the children stopped chewing the apparently rubbery muffins to stare at the Newsman.

“Murrow, Health Department,” Newsie muttered. He picked up one of the snacks and sniffed cautiously. “Er…anchovy paste?”

“It’s been filtered; it’s mercury-free,” the man hastily assured Newsie. “We…we did send the ingredient list to the FDA months back before we even started production!”

“Well the Additives Division still needs a copy!” Newsie barked. “We’ve had some complaints involving your products and a recent outbreak of…of redmonella, so I’ll need any material you have on this immediately!”

“Uh, sure,” the tester said, thrusting a sheet of paper at Newsie entitled Shamrockies! A full serving of Omega-3 in every delicious cake! “Wait…redmonella?”

Realizing the only way out of it was boldly through it, Newsie snorted haughtily, glancing at the cupcake ingredient list. “I see you folks don’t read our emails either, hm? Perhaps a little more diligence in all areas would have saved you this inspection!” Some of the items mixed into the cupcakes gave him serious pause. “Uh…arachnoflightis gerundis extract?”

“For the color,” the tester explained, looking a little anxious himself now. “A natural additive.”

“Hm,” Newsie said, thinking he’d better run this by Honeydew, who might be able to decipher some of the stranger ingredients. “And this particular test was submitted for approval to the New Snack Food Clinical Trial Division?” He was winging it, but the more officious he sounded, the less likely it was his ruse would be shattered…

A soft, purring voice asked from the doorway: “Is there some issue I could clear up here, gentlemen?” Newsie turned to see an enormous sandy-furred cat in a silky light gray suit, staring shrewdly at him.

“Mr Tonkin,” the tester said, sounding both relieved and afraid at once. “Uh, um, this man is from the—“

“Health Department. Yes, so I heard.” The cat smiled suavely. “What can I assist you with today, Mr Murrow?”

“Ahem. It, uh, it seems there has been a complaint lodged concerning some of the additives your company uses in its cakes, particularly the crème filling,” Newsie said.

“Oh, well, by all means, take a look around…though you are of course aware we don’t actually make any of our fine snacks here, but in our main bakery in Newark,” Tonkin said. His deep blue eyes never blinked.

“Yes, naturally,” Newsie said. “However, we strive for thorough diligence, Mr…Tonkin was it? You’re the head of the company?”

The cat waved a paw languidly. “Merely the CEO. May I show you around?”

Unable to think of a good objection, Newsie grunted assent, and walked stiffly next to the cat. “We run taste tests with our target audiences almost every day, always sensitive to changing tastes in the marketplace, you understand. Almost every month there are miniscule adjustments to our formulae. The snack industry is quite competitive, and every small edge helps us maintain our profits while ensuring the continued quality of our products,” Tonkin said, gesturing at the office area. “Here, our market researchers pore over the results of every test – those done here, and in supermarkets and events all over. They gather and interpret those results to determine how much fish oil the public really likes in their dairy-free lime crème…as an example.” He gazed narrow-eyed at the Newsman. “Which additive is the suspected culprit? Which product?”

“Er…red dye number eleven, in – in all products which use it!”

“We don’t use that dye at all,” Tonkin purred, smiling. “But I could have sworn you said red number twelve?”

“Of course, that’s correct,” Newsie said gruffly. “Twelve! Which products use that?”

“Well, we did previously include that in our Flingers Strawberry flavor,” Tonkin admitted as they strolled at his leisurely pace along the cubicles. “However, we discontinued its use months ago. I’m afraid your sense of urgency is somewhat misplaced, Mr Murrow.”

“I…I see. I still require a complete inspection of your offices,” Newsie said.

“Of course. Shall we go downstairs to the tech and advertising departments?”

“The basement,” Newsie snapped.

“Oh, well…all we have down there is storage files, current product samples, and the restroom,” Tonkin shrugged. “As you see, we’ve streamlined our offices a great deal in order to focus more on the products themselves. But certainly, you shall see every inch of the place.” His smile was too smug for Newsie’s comfort.

The cat produced an elevator key to unlock the basement level, and down they went. “If it’s nothing important, why limit access?” Newsie asked.

“Oh…this isn’t the nicest portion of real estate, you know. We had burglars last year, thinking we had a safe downstairs or something like.”

Newsie wondered, if that was true, why the entire office was so easy to walk into, but kept his mouth shut, not wishing to blow his disguise by seeming too nosy in the wrong areas. The elevator door opened to reveal a very plain, whitewashed level full of filing cabinets, identical storage closets labeled printer supplies or ‘Hobos’ Promos or similar ordinary-sounding things. Newsie opened a few of them, finding their contents exactly as listed. He poked around in the tiny restroom, but its drain was too small for anything larger than a dustmite to come through; he doubted it even drained at all. Tonkin waited by the elevator, stroking his thick whiskers absently. When Newsie turned toward him again, the cat smiled. “See all you need, inspector?”

Newsie glanced around one more time, trying to compare the walls with the footprint of the building on the street, but if there was room for a secret section he couldn’t tell. “I suppose,” he muttered, and joined the cat for the ride back up.

“We wish to always be on the correct side of the FDA and health board regulations,” Tonkin assured him. “Come and have a look at our ad offices; we never even advertise a use for our cakes which they cannot be put to! Remember that failed product, the Day After Fruitcake? When consumers showed no interest in it as a food stockpiler for their nuclear shelters, we still made a profit off them by marketing them as wonderful doorstops!” He put a hand on Newsie’s shoulder, guiding him toward one of the glassed-in offices on the first floor; Newsie went along with it, trying to act mollified despite his nerves, when suddenly his nose picked up a whiff of wet, dirty fur. He whirled – and saw a greenish, clawed hand quickly closing the formal wooden door to the lobby.

Newsie hurried after it, but the small lobby was empty except for the woman behind the desk. He looked out the front door, but saw no sign of anything monstrous on the street. “Who was that?” he demanded of the receptionist.

She blinked at him. “I’m sorry…do you mean Mr Tonkin?”

“No, the – person – who just left!”

“Oh, must have been the mailman,” she replied, patting the empty outbox on her desk with a nervous chuckle. “See? Mail’s gone.”

Newsie scowled; the scent lingered. “Can I…can I interest you in a Fooberry Hobo?” the wide-eyed Whatnot asked him.

“Now, Miss Snorkle,” the cat purred, padding silently up behind the Newsman. “I think we’ve taken up enough of the good bureaucrat’s patience. Do send us a copy of your report, for our records, won’t you?” he asked Newsie, eyes glinting.

“No…yes…er. I certainly will,” Newsie returned, drawing himself up and hardening his stare. He left quickly, uneasy at the certainty that the cat was laughing at him once the door closed.

On the sidewalk, he checked again for any sign or scent of anything untoward, but the swirl of noise and movement and chemical smells negated any chance he might’ve had. He tried twice to hail a cab, then began walking north, thinking. That was a clear line of sight from the elevator to the lobby doors, couldn’t have gone that way; couldn’t have vanished that fast on the street, could it? Which leaves…which leaves… He tried to recreate the scene as he’d first viewed it, and recalled with a start: That door! Coat closet, my foot! Angrily he looked back. Just barging in again would likely get him tossed out, or arrested, or worse… He shivered, but knew he had to come back and find out what was really behind that innocuous door.

Pembroke Tonkin shut the door to his private office, lifted the phone from his desk, and touched one button. Without waiting for a reply on the other end, he said simply, “We had a visitor. I didn’t like the look of his felt…sending you the security footage now.” He hung up, tapped a sequence of keys on his computer, and sat back in plump satisfaction. The great thing about being a controlling officer but not the president, he well knew, was that Muppets like this were happily someone else’s problem.
----------------------

 

[The Count]

Mmm, I love when a fic I fondly follow's been updated.

*<33 the first segment with and Gina. They make a great couple.
Yeah, but a couple of what?

Hush you guys.

At least he remembers most of what happened the night before at the theater... Water bottles from 6 o'clock nightly news broadcast, check. Smashing pumpkin to the noggin, check. Printed out email leads to the underground disappearances, check. I'm sure he'll get the rest of what happened eventually.

Those mini egg rolls with sauce are good, we had those on New Year's night while watching the countdown and then trying to find the balldrop.

*Is greatly amused at the weirdo's quickness in coming up with new feats of fancy free at ludicrous speed.
What speed was that?
Ludicrous speed, but you don't want that...
What's the matter Colonel Sanders, are you ?
Prep-prepare to go to ludicrous speed!

*Is fascinated by 's detective charade. Maybe we can pitch the idea of Murrow H.I. to the headhonchos at the TV studio, but we gotta be quick about it, he's got a meeting in two minutes with Steve Guttenberg's people.
*Loves all the subtle nuances at the Nafrisco company's Manhattan offices. Shamrockies.
Okay, will that be an order to go or will you be dining in?
Mmm, I think we'll dine in. Just push that button to bring our ship down.

And another nicely funny bit with Rhonda. That rat's getting praise in my book.
Thoroughly enjoying the entire read, post more when you can.

And happy birthday
*Leaves slice of canoli cake from Jull's.