Part Fifteen
“Hey! Welcome to Swift Wits, the fastest game show on TV! I’m your host, Snookie Blyer! Our contestant this time is Melba Terst, from the Upper East Side! So Melba, I understand you collect rare butterflies!”
Snookie paused only a couple of seconds, more than ready to move on and get this farce over with. The hesitant Mrs Terst looked around at the neon black-and-blue set with distaste, but finally replied, “That is correct. You see, my darling late Herbert used to capture –“
“That’s lovely!” Snookie interrupted, and indicated the happy and sad faces on his metal podium. “If you answer correctly, you will go home with this exquisitely rare jeweled Mediterranean swallowtail!” One of the two panels behind Mrs Terst slid open to reveal a tiny, breathtakingly multicolored butterfly; it slowly opened and closed its splendid wings, resting on an orchid branch in a small screened terrarium. As Mrs Terst leaned closer, using a pair of opera glasses to view the wings, Snookie continued, “But in the event you should answer incorrectly, the last of this particular species will be eaten by Carl, the Big Mean Bunny!”
The second panel shot open, and Carl, grinning around his fat pink nose, waved cheerfully. “Hi!”
“But – but this is an endangered species!” Mrs Terst said, shocked by Carl’s aggressively happy stare. Or perhaps it was the large drop of drool he casually wiped with the back of one furry hand which discomfited her.
“Those taste the best!” Carl assured her.
“Okay! Let’s give our home audience the answer,” Snookie said, and started in surprise when the announcer’s voice said distinctly in the studio: “The answer is…salamander.”
“Hey, wait a minute! That’s not supposed to—what the frog am I saying? Let’s go! You have ten seconds!” Snookie cried, a desperate joy rising in his chest at the producers’ mistake. They’d said the answer aloud! This was an educated woman, not like those morons they usually—
“You cannot possibly destroy the last butterfly of its kind! It’s ghastly to even joke about it!” Mrs Terst scolded Carl.
“Uh, dear, all you have to do is say the answer, they just gave it to you!” Snookie pointed out, but the enraged matron shook a thin finger at an unmoved Carl instead.
“I shall report you to the Sierra Club, you awful beast!”
“Just say the word! Say ‘salamander!’ Please! Just say it!” Snookie begged, but the old lady snatched the terrarium from its niche.
“Well I won’t allow it! I won’t!” she cried, protectively curling one arm around the baffled butterfly in its tiny cage. The buzzer sounded.
Snookie dragged his fingers roughly through his hair. “Why? Why am I being tormented like this? If this is about me pulling Mindy Argyle’s braids in third grade, I’m sorry, okay?” he shouted at the ceiling. Carl reached out to grab the butterfly, but when a yelling, slapping Mrs Terst refused to let go of the cage, Carl shrugged, picked her up by her skinny, varicose-veined ankles, and stuffed her into his black maw headfirst. Snookie pounded his podium, anguished. It wasn’t as though this was a new experience, but of late he’d been feeling a great deal more pressure. Too many shows in a day, every day; too many memos from below which he had to obey or suffer even worse humiliations; too little food and fresh air and too many dratted monsters! Too much, in short; simply too much. Snookie didn’t watch Carl snarfling down the rest of Mrs Terst, even as she yelled expletives no society matron should know in regards to Carl’s ancestors. Weary, Snookie shoved away from his podium and walked out of the studio, ignoring the escort of a fat puce beast with large feathery ears and numerous yellow teeth.
When does it end? Where does it stop? How do I get out of here? Am I doomed to grow old down here, until I’m so gray they use ME as the bait for ‘Monster Hunters: Urban Edition’? Despairing, Snookie trudged along the corridor, head down. He was positive that no one from the outside world remembered him anymore; if anyone ever saw one of these horrid wastes of videotape, they likely only laughed at him. Snookie Blyer was no longer a byword in the entertainment business, a staple of popular daytime television…no, if anything, now he could only claim to be a staple of a certain monstrous bunny’s diet. How did I wind up here? Why didn’t I read the small print, and refuse the host position? If it hadn’t been for that imprisonment clause in that blasted contract, I would have been up there still, free, having an assistant open all my fan mail from gorgeous young co-eds, making special appearances at awards, heck, the Emmys, the Oscars, even the Dorothy Parker Awards for Superfluous Sarcasm! But nooo, you just had to sign up for more game shows! Now Drew Carey has ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ and you have ‘Let’s Bake a Snail’! His fury with himself passed quickly; he was the only real friend he had down here.
He used to have friends. Heck, in the frat house, his brothers hadn’t even noticed how much shorter he was; he’d been the wiseacre of the group, always ready to plan a surprise party or emcee a talent show (well knowing a good emcee would go home with ten times the sweeties any individual contestant might garner during the night). No one had commented on his being a Muppet, which he’d always been a little ashamed of: Muppets, if they achieved fame at all, were known for singing and dancing and other frivolous pursuits. Muppets were not highly regarded as millionaires, or sharp dealers, or candidates for the Senate…dreams Snookie had carried since he was a tiny bit of felt back on the Muppabean farm. And his family was no better: their highest aspirations all revolved around a good season’s crop, or winning the most votes at the church bake sale for a Seven-up pudding cake. No imagination, no ambition! And yet look where all his driving thirst for public acclaim had landed him…an unwilling participant in some of the worst programming the world had seen since QVC and ‘America’s Lamest Five Seconds of Fame Video Smorgasbored!’ Disgusted though it made him, Snookie had to admit he would probably have been better off running for county coroner back in Wisconsin…maybe then, at least, he might have had his own forensics reality show…
“Where are we going?” he asked the monster pacing him.
“Blugh,” it muttered, checking a clipboard with Snookie’s day itinerary. “Blugh blugh blugh.”
“For crying out loud, can’t they even give me a guard who speaks Frackle? That’d be comprehensible at least!” Snookie complained, but the monster only stared implacably at him. Snookie sighed. “Great. Yeah. Fish. Whatever.”
He trudged without any enthusiasm into the enormous studio. The black, deep tank was half-full of spectators swimming around and gabbing, waiting for the taping to start. Snookie pulled on a lifejacket and climbed the rickety stairs up to the equally rickety dock, stepped carefully into an inflatable kayak, signaled to the director he was ready, and paddled to the center of the tank. Excitedly the alligators, sharks, grizzlies, and assorted pescavores settled in the half-submerged bleachers provided for them, and the opening music cued up. Snookie stared toward the tiny green light of the main camera, automatically smiling for the presumed viewers at home (he presumed someone, somewhere, would be unable to change the channel to something worth watching, anyway), and listened to the watery brass band mangling a cheerful Sousa march into a dread-inspiring garble of tuba-based noise.
“Are you craving a crustacean? Are you cuckoo for conch bites? Then this is the show for you!” he shouted, smiling maniacally. “Welcome to – You Win a Fish!” The studio audience cheered, slapped fins against their seats, and churned that end of the tank into a roiling maelstrom of water. “Today’s contestants, ready and willing to devour each other if need be to win, are Rupert the Other Psychic Octopus…” Snookie read off his cue card, not letting his smile falter although he wanted to sneer at the egotism of the participants, “and Jürgens Jorgmann, the Ginormous Squid!” He paused, glancing over at the squid, and bit back a comment about ‘ginormous’ not being an actual word. That thing looked big enough to bite him in two without batting either of its fiesta-platter-sized eyes. “O-kay! Cephalopods, are you ready?” Both waved tentacles eagerly. “Then let’s play!”
The crowd hushed expectantly and the lights swung down, bathing the octopus and squid in unearthly green neon and himself in stark, bright yellow. He supposed he should be pleased they’d chosen a color that flattered his felt, but it was impossible to get enthused over anything today. “Your first question, for a tin of sardines, is…” Suddenly Snookie felt like rebelling. Ignoring his cards, he asked the first thing which popped into his head: “What sport did the actually accurate psychic octopus predict winning teams in?”
Both contestants paused, taken aback. Just before the time buzzer sounded, the octopus rattled his cuttlefish. He gurbled, and the raspy voice of the translator muttered in Snookie’s earpiece: “Wimbledon? Tennis?”
“Oh no I’m sorry! The answer is soccer – the World Cup!” Snookie beamed, perversely pleased at the disgruntled tentacle-wiggling the octopus did. He only knew the answer himself because for weeks the monsters had been running around startling one another with those African horns. “That’s one strike for Rupert! Next question, for the prize of a package of frozen fishsticks: what gamefish was featured in the 1980s horror-comedy House?”
The squid blinked. The octopus writhed restlessly. Snookie waited, grinning, until the timer blared, then chuckled. “Well, looks like you two need to bone up on your cult classics – or at least get some bones! The answer is ‘a marlin,’ though I also would have accepted ‘sailfish’! Now, for the bounty of one fifty-pound albacore, your next question: what actor stubbornly refused to be eaten in the legendary film Jaws?”
In the control booth, Snookie could see the writers frantically tugging at the director’s fins. He knew he’d pay a price for being this far off the reservation, but at this point he found it hard to care; they’d figure out a way to eat him regardless. It seemed lately like his life was all about other creatures’ digestive tracts, and he was sick of it. Might as well earn it, he thought with a particular grim joy. The squid buzzed in.
“That’s right – Roy Schieder! You win that fish!” Snookie felt first relief, then annoyance, when the gilled director seemed to decide it had been a fair question because the squid knew the answer, and shrugged off the protesting crawfish scripters. Ignoring the part of his brain which was yelping in terror at his boldness, Snookie thought up another gem for the contestants. “Now the stakes get a little higher! The prize this time is an entire school of krill! For the krill, you two bottom feeders: what kind of creature is depicted in the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disneyworld attacking the submarine Nautilus?”
Both deepwater denizens buzzed in, but Jürgens was slightly quicker. He blurbled sharply, and the translator hissed, “A squid!”
“No that’s incorrect! Rupert?”
The octopus blurted out, predictably, “octopus.” Snookie grinned. “Still wrong! Boy, you two really have been stuck under a rock all your lives, huh? The correct answer is a kraken! We’re going to go to a commercial now, but when we return, more of this epic battle of the beak-brained! The score so far has the squid up by a tuna, and strikes for both sides –“
“A kraken is an octopus!” Rupert snarled through the translator, but Jürgens snapped back even before the translator could catch up, apparently fluent in octopus as well:
“Idiot! A kraken is a squid! You tiny-tentacled creeps never get anything right!”
“Guys, guys,” Snookie said, holding up both hands although he was enjoying the increasingly discontented contestants too much to actually sound placating, “Hey, we’re all just here for the halibut, right? Let’s calm down and—“
“You think a squid could actually come to the surface and take down a ship? Pah! You cowards can’t even show your armtips above five thousand feet!” Rupert scoffed, coiling several of his arms around him and lifting his bulbous head higher out of the water as if to illustrate how at-the-surface his own species could be.
“Octopi can’t contemplate anything deeper than their own beak-lint! Shallow, shallow, shallow! Why’dya think they named that human the octo-mom instead of squid-mom? You’d never catch one of us parading our offspring for tabloids instead of eating them!” Jorgmann returned haughtily; at least, the frothing water around those flailing tentacles looked haughty to Snookie.
“Hey, now, let’s just play the game,” Snookie said, seeing the director signaling at him and the camera turning from red standby to greenlight. “Hey! We’re back! It’s a heated contest so far between our two players! Let’s find out a little more about—“
But his usual light intro of the contestants sank immediately. Squid and octopus seemed more intent on insulting one another than focusing on anything else right now. “Oh yeah? Well you never hear National Geo talking about how smart a longbodied loser who gets snagged on a simple baitline is – giant sucker!”
“Sucker! Who you calling a sucker, you—you—you squishy-headed, clamsucking, camouflaged coward of the reef!” Outraged, the squid slapped the water with two flat-ended tentacles, nearly upsetting Snookie’s kayak. He grabbed the sides, ducking, wondering if baiting these two antagonists had really been his smartest career move.
“Guys? Let’s get back to the game,” he suggested brightly, but the octopus glared, shaking his spongy head in barely restrained rage.
“Clamsucking! At least I don’t have to scavenge through deepwater ‘snow’! You know what that stuff is? Guess that makes you a connoisseur of other fishes’ sh—“
“And that’s all the time we have today!” Snookie announced, paddling hurriedly out of the way as the two enormous cephalopods lunged at one another, whipping the tank into a clash of waves and slapping tentacles. “Tune in next time, assuming we have a tank left, for another exciting episode of You Win a Fish!”
He managed to reach the dock without capsizing, but the little boat was rocking so badly when he lashed it to the waterlogged pylons and flung himself onto relatively safe ground that Snookie cut his hand on the sharp encrustations of salt crystals covering the dock. He swore, then sucked on his cut finger, reflecting that this was probably more mineral content than he ever received in the bland mush they fed him. Leaving the chaos for the lagoony director to sort out, he hurried down the stairs outside of the tank and headed for the door, both pleased at having not been eaten by one of the deep-sea monsters and irritated that his day was far from over. “You know, this is all making me very hungry,” he told the monster trailing him. “What say we ditch this dump and go grab a T-bone together?”
He grinned broadly, but the monster merely stared at him, uncomprehending. It tapped the schedule. “Blugh,” it reminded him.
Snookie blew out a disgusted breath. “Humorless idiot! That’s called sarcasm, for your future reference. Not that you have much of a future down here…” He increased his pace angrily, striding down a side corridor toward the next show’s set, and suddenly heard a terrified scream from somewhere on the other side of the corridor wall, some harsh voice yelling a girl’s name: Jenny or Ginny or something. Snookie shook his head. “Poor bastich. You know, is it really to much to ask for better soundproofing down here? You think I feel more motivated by hearing other people being tortured and eaten? Huh? You get that from Trump’s book? Should I be eager to put my nose to the grindstone and my professional butt on the line after listening to everyone else being chomped, stomped, eaten and beaten? Does that make me want to work here?” He glared at the puzzled monster, then spat at it furiously, “No! It does not!”
“Uh…blugh?” the monster asked, hesitantly indicating the direction it wanted Snookie to go. Snookie glared at it, breathing hard, realizing he was working himself up to no purpose. This cretin wouldn’t know a motivational tool if it was hit over the head with one…a likely enough technique down here.
Snookie sighed deeply, wrested his despair under control, and shrugged. “As if you even understand a word I’m saying. It’s like talking to a picture of a wall. Come on, Blugh.” He resumed his march of gloom, wincing at the screams and shouts he could still hear on the other side of the dripping, slimy wall. “Come on, seriously! Would it kill you guys to put up some foam insulation at least?”
“Blugh,” the monster said. It skulked along after the depressed host another minute in silence, then offered its opinion shyly: “Actually, I like ribeyes better.”
Snookie stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. The monster blinked at him. “Blugh,” it repeated, prodding him into motion with one wide-splayed furry hand.
Snookie started chuckling, then giggling, then laughing…then trying hard not to cry. Feeling weak, he trudged onward, listening vaguely to the sounds of pounding footsteps somewhere. At least, he thought morosely, that poor soul actually thinks he can run away. Snookie himself had given that up years ago. His own flat feet plodded over the rough ground, barely noticing the damp and the smelly goop coating the corridor, moving him toward frog only knew what fresh torment now.
----------------------------
The sniffles and shivers had blossomed into a full-flowered head cold, and now not only could the Newsman not enjoy the spicy-sweet amber scent of his beloved, he was having trouble smelling anything at all. He’d cleaned his glasses so often after repeated sneezing fits that he’d simply removed them, and now huddled miserably in bed, squinting out the window at the gray, sulky clouds which refused to really rain and refused to go away, hovering over the city, echoing his current mood. When his symptoms worsened around noon, Gina had fixed him a lemony-orange tisane full of Echinacea to chase down the garlicky chicken broth and banished him to the bedroom for the afternoon. I can’t just sit here. There are monsters taking over the undercity! Restlessly he threw off the plush blanket draped over his shoulders, but a minute later was compelled to pull it back on, shivering.
Gina came in, curling up gently on the bed next to him, and stroked his hair off his furrowed brow. “I know you hate this. I’m sorry,” she said, and kissed his forehead.
Newsie sighed. “Cad I ad lead jud…go down amb get de dory on de air?” His nose was so clogged he sounded ridiculous, even to himself.
“Go out in that? Not a good idea,” Gina objected, looking out at the gray, wet day. Even the filtered sunlight, such as it was, looked depressed.
“Dib ib impordat!”
“I know. But Newsie…so are you, and it isn’t worth risking your health. You already sound hoarse and…um…stuffed. Why encourage a cold to turn into strep or pneumonia? Give it a day or two and rest,” Gina said softly, continuing to run sympathetic fingers through his hair. Any other time, he would have found that immensely…pleasing, but right now his only concern was the story. “I’ve already called your station and the theatre for you. You’re officially on sick leave as of right now. If you feel able tomorrow, by all means jump back in! Just…wait until you can do it without risking something nastier…or sounding like a congested walrus.” She smiled at him; he scowled and snorted, then lost control to a fierce set of sneezes, burying his nose in a handful of tissue.
“Dib ib ridiculub,” he muttered.
“Drink your tea. It’ll help. There’s horehound and chamomile and honey in it.”
“At leab leb me call Rhonda,” Newsie insisted, giving Gina his most unhappy, pleading, Muppy-eyed look; it had worked before when he’d wanted to work overtime on that three-week investigative piece about recycling pigeon droppings into low-emissions heating fuel…
Gina shook her head. “I already talked to her. She said she’s going to need a day to sort through the film anyway; apparently your camera got wet and she’s having to edit all of it through some fancy image-restoring program just to make it watchable.” Newsie groaned, shoulders slumping. Two grand for what? A soaked camera and unusable film? Darn that sloth! At least Gina wasn’t bringing up the subject of wasted money; they weren’t hurting, but ravaging their savings wasn’t going to help the matter if nothing was accomplished through all these payouts for information and help. She put an arm around his shoulders. “Just rest. Hopefully tomorrow you’ll be able to get to the station and file your report.”
“I neeb do geb de fur do Doddor Unnydew,” Newsie said, looking at the tiny jar Gina had cleaned out to put the weird fur sample in, sitting ominously now on the nightstand.
“Tomorrow,” Gina said firmly. Seeing her frustrated journalist lost in a frown, she sighed, and kissed the bridge of his nose. “Drink your tea. Good vitamin C there. Get some rest.”
He tried not to sound hopeful, looking cautiously up at her as she rose. “Whenf your broducdun meebing?”
“Well, it was going to be this evening, but I was able to get them to move it up to four o’clock,” she replied, pulling her hair back as it tried to slide out of her loose ponytail. “Think you can look after yourself for a couple of hours?”
“Zhur,” Newsie agreed immediately. Better than he’d hoped! With Gina out of the apartment for her production meeting, he might have just enough time to run down to the station, help Rhonda edit the report, and at least prepare it for airing tonight, even if he couldn’t stay for the broadcast! At least the vital information would get out to the public, and he could try to rest a little after…that… He blinked. “Why arb you looging ab me dat way?”
Her grey eyes narrowed. “You weren’t thinking of going out, were you?”
“Erb…doh,” he lied, but couldn’t keep a flush from suffusing his already-heated cheeks. Gina leaned over and tugged the sash of his robe; he tried to stop her, weakly fumbling at her diligent fingers, but she opened his robe, revealing the clean sports coat and tie he’d snuck on under it. She shook her head, crossing her arms. Embarrassed, Newsie stared up at her.
She could only be angry with him for a moment, fortunately. She sighed again. “Newsie…look. I know you don’t want or need another mother, but you don’t take your own safety into account often enough.” Serious understatement, Gina thought, images of falling books, stampeding cows, and rolling boulders flashing through her mind. “You…you get so focused on the news, on the next big scoop, that you don’t give enough regard to your own health! For once, stay put, get well, and then you can give this story the attention and strength I know you’ll need for it. Okay?”
“People neeb do know whaff goimb om!” Newsie argued, gesturing at the monster-goop-in-a-jar.
“And have you figured out what that is just since this morning?”
“Uh…”
“Get that weird stuff analyzed. Get your report about the seawater in the tunnel on the air, and let the people we pay taxes to around here get off their butts and go check it out,” Gina said. “But don’t go crying monster until you have proof you can actually present without looking like a lunatic, and don’t do anything until you’re over this cold!” She shook her head. “You have the most sensitive sinuses of anyone I’ve ever met…”
“Dab mot my vault,” Newsie grumped, hating how accurate her points were. He really, really wanted to get the word out about those creeps underground! But…he still had no idea what they were doing down there. And he knew Rhonda would fight him tooth and claw over a monster warning unless he could prove the glob of fur was from an actual indeterminate caterpillaroid thing previously unknown to science…not to mention all the objections he could easily imagine Blanke bringing up. He started to rewrap his robe, but Gina put a gentle hand on his. When he looked back up at her, she smiled softly, and started untying his tie. “Whab are you doimb?”
“You’re not going to rest comfortably in that. Here. Put on some PJs.” She pulled a pair of long, blue-stripey pajamas from his dresser and tossed them on the bed. “Come on. Off with the suit. On with the cute jammies.”
“Oh,” he sighed. For a moment, he’d wondered if perhaps she knew of some remarkably intimate remedy for the common cold. He would’ve liked to explore that particular health story. Gina grinned at his obvious disappointment, and headed for the bedroom door.
“Get comfy, my very manly Muppet. Maybe if you’re feeling better tonight we can see about raising your body temperature that way.” She paused at the door, watching him reluctantly stripping off his work clothes. “I’m going to close the door so the noise won’t bother you, but I’ll come running if you yell for me, okay?”
He shot her a confused look. “Noib? What noib?”
“The production meeting. Everyone’s coming over here; we’ll be in the living room. I think Charlotte’s bringing Indian food.” She laughed at his startled expression. “Oh, did you think I’d leave the apartment with you all cabin-fever grumbly? Not a chance in heck, reporter boy! I asked them to pick up a curry for you. Good for your nose.”
Newsie sighed, then gave up, shrugging into his pajama shirt. Before Gina closed the door, he said quietly, “I lub you.”
Softly she replied, smiling, “I lub you too, Aloysius. Rest well.”
He wrapped his bathrobe over his pajama-clad felt, shivering again, and drew the blanket up over the top of his head, sitting crosslegged where he could look out the window at the cold, drizzly day. She knows me too well, he thought wryly, regarding the still-steaming mug of herbal tea on his nightstand next to the fur sample. He sighed, and reached for the tea.
-------------------------------
Clifford stroked his mustache, concentrating on the list of acts which he’d been forced to rearrange. “Okay…so…if there’s a News Flash, Fozzie can take it. Since the chickens won’t do the musical number, we’ll just have to—“
“Piggy told them they had to be moral support for Camilla,” Dr Strangepork offered. “It has something to do with that new show of Gonzo’s.”
Clifford nodded tiredly. It wasn’t even time for the house to open, much less the curtain, and he already felt harried. “Right, fine. So…for the opening act, why don’t we put ‘Pigs in Space’ first?” He looked at Strangepork and Link, who both nodded. Happy to have at least settled one part of the show, Clifford made a note on the legal pad Scooter had left for him. “Great. That should start the show with a…” Out of the corner of his shades he noticed Crazy Harry listening in, and corrected himself quickly: “Uh…that should get things off to a strong start. Now after that, what say we put on—“
“Miss Piggy should be thrilled to hear not only is she in the opening number with me, but we have that wonderful song from West Side Story later,” Link rumbled, pleased.
“Uh…yeah. About that. Link, Piggy told me earlier there was not, and I quote, ‘a chance of her setting foot in a kosher deli’ that she’d ever do another duet with you after the way you upstaged her in that opera thing years ago,” Clifford sighed.
“She upstaged me!” Link huffed.
“Well, look, man, it ain’t happening. So unless you know of someone else willing to sing ‘I Feel Pretty’ with you—“
“I will! I will!” Everyone turned at the high-pitched trill of a voice, and Wanda blushed, drawing her shawl a little tighter over her bosom. “I mean…I’d be happy to help out, if you need a singer.”
Clifford looked her over, and shrugged. “If you want to. It’s not gonna be like singing with Wayne, though…”
Wanda gave Link an appraising look; the hog was busy grooming his forelock in a mirror. “Same difference far as I can see,” she muttered dryly.
“Great.” Clifford checked off another item on his list. “Okay, so, Fozzie, you want to come on after the pigs, or later after the lobster juggling act?”
“Somebody’s juggling lobsters?” Rizzo wondered. “Does da shrimp know about dis?”
“That’s King Prawn okay?” Pepe huffed, appearing abruptly on the stage manager’s desk. “And no one is juggling the lobsters! They are the jugglers already! The leader is my cousin.” He glared around at the odd stares Muppets gave him. “What? What? Jou never heard of reef lobsters?”
“Sounds more like reef madness,” Rizzo snickered.
“Uh, if things fall on me during the news, do I get worker’s comp?” Fozzie asked.
“So…ever worked with a handsome pig before?” Link murmured at Wanda.
“Many times,” she grumbled, and tromped off to the ladies’ dressing-room.
“Fozz…nothing will fall on you. Only Newsguy gets that treatment. So when do you wanna do your standup bit?”
“Uhmmm…I think after the lobsters…”
“What about my solo, okay?” Pepe demanded.
Clifford consulted his list. “Pepe, I don’t see anything about you having a solo tonight!”
“No, no, jou see, Kermins promised me before he left, okay; he said to me, ‘Pepe, whiles I am gone, you make sures jou are on that stage every night because jou are the moneymaker around here okay!’”
“Buddy, you ain’t even da most expensive item on da menu,” Rizzo cackled, causing the shrimp to bristle all over and jump down in front of the rat, where they resumed their argument from the weekend over who had the prettier face, greater talent, and better Halloween costume. Over the hubbub, Clifford tried to nail down the night’s schedule again.
“If we run short, I’ll throw you in, all right, little dude? Now, the pigs are first; then comes Rowlf’s slam poem –“
“Got it right here,” Rowlf said amiably, holding up a sheet of paper.
“Groovy. After that we’ll have the—“
“Short? Little? Jou got something jou wanna say to me, catfish-face?” Pepe yelled.
“No, man! I just meant—“
“Oh, wait, that’s my Groupon for Mighty Jack,” Rowlf said, scratching his head. “Where’d I put that poem?”
“Wait! No! After da pigs!” Fozzie spoke up.
“When do we go on?” asked a stately goat in lederhosen, a basket under one arm making disturbing noises.
Clifford stared at him. “Uh…who are you again?”
“I’m the Scandinavian sheep charmer.” The goat opened the lid of the basket long enough for everyone to glimpse an oddly long wooly thing. “Brought my own flugelhorn too!”
“Uh…yeah.” Shaking his head, Clifford searched his list. “Got it.”
“I can’t find my poem. How about a song?”
“I’m really not comfortable with dis news thing…”
“Jou gots a problem with me, jambalaya breath? Come on! Get down here and say it to my face!”
“Guys, come on now…”
“Hey, my Nawlins brothah, the band and I have some disturbifyin’ thoughts concernin’ the appropriability of this song about greenbacks, seein’ as how lil’ Robin is under the impression it’s froggist,” Dr Teeth spoke up, trying to get Clifford’s attention over the clamor.
“Do you think she’s smitten yet, or should I really turn on the charm?” Link wanted to know.
“Guys!” Clifford tried, but everyone was speaking, shouting, protesting or preening all at once.
An authoritative bellow silenced them all: “Quieeeet!”
Everyone fell silent, except for one alto voice complaining in a back corner: “So she was all like, ‘I rully hate it when they require nudity,’ and I was like, ‘I didn’t know they needed that for a hand model!’”
“All of you be quiet!” Piggy ordered, coming the rest of the way down the stairs. “Our capitan put Clifford in charge, so all of you listen up!” She took the night’s list from the somewhat discomfited host and glanced at it once. “Right. You’re gonna tell them to do ‘Pigs in Space’ first, Rowlf’s gonna do ‘Waltzing Mathilda’ with Gladys, the sheep charmer’s next, then the hog and Wanda, then the jugglers, then Fozzie, then my solo, then the Mayhem, then the Chef, then Sam can blab until the audience is sick of it or for thirty seconds, whichever comes first, then the closing number with everybody. News whenever it comes up, the shrimp gets onstage over my dead body, and everybody goes home happy, right?” She glared around, her look silencing all objection, and handed the sheet back to Clifford airily. “Tell them all that, and let’s get the show moving! All of you foamheads, listen to him!” Snout in the air, she trotted off to fetch a bite from the canteen.
Everyone looked at Clifford.
“Uh…right,” he said, trying to regain some measure of respect. “All good ideas. Thanks, Piggy. All right, everybody clear on that?” He deepened his voice, looking around at everyone. The gathered Muppets all nodded. A light onstage suddenly winked out. Clifford growled, “And can one of you stagepigs please fix that danged thing? All right! Let’s all pull together here, and give Kermit a great first-night-without-him report!”
Always ready to provide moral support, Fozzie swept one fist through the air in a go-get-‘em gesture. “Dat’s right! We can do this, right guys?” A low murmur rippled through the Muppets. “Hey! I said, we can do this, right?” The murmur increased this time, and a few “yeah”s and “Sure”s could be heard. Excited, Fozzie clapped his paws. “Dat’s the spirit! Now let’s get out there and have a blast!”
“Fozzie…” Clifford groaned.
Fozzie paled under his fur. “Oh, no…”
When the smoke cleared, half the lighting board sparked crazily, connections shorted out. The other half of it was gone.
Clifford put one hand to his throbbing head. “Aw, man…someone put out that danged short…”
Fozzie coughed, his ears ringing. “What?” he shouted, unable to even hear himself.
Someone else had heard, however. “Agains with the short jokes! Jou and me, we are about to have it out, jou got that already Mister Fat Wednesday?”
“Give it up, Pepe,” Clifford sighed, shaking his head as a cable sparked and flopped like a dying snake on the backstage floor. “And that’s Tuesday.”
“Whatever, okay.” The haughty prawn scuttled away, leaving Clifford to stare glumly at the mess, with a half an hour to showtime.
Fozzie complained loudly, “Why da heck did Newsie have to call in sick tonight? I haven’t even had a News Flash yet and already my fur is smoking! Boy, he really is a jinx!”
Crazy Harry just cackled, satisfied, and crept off to restock his grenades.
--------------------------
Welcome to the Muppet Central Forum!
Jim Henson Idea Man
Back to the Rock Season 2
Bear arrives on Disney+
Sam and Friends Book
: It's not the Muffin Show... It's the Muppet Show.
COOOOKIIIEEEE! AHHHM nomno0mnomnomnomnom!
Dang it...he always gets those before I do...thanks anyway Count!