Chapter twenty-three
Gonzo made his way up the stairs, thinking about the conversation they were all walking away from. It didn’t sound like Kermit was at all relaxed, like he usually was after visiting the swamp. If anything, there was something in his voice that made him sound more stressed than before he left.
Gonzo went into his dressing room and locked the door. He knelt down beside his spare cannon, peered underneath it, and pulled out a pile of papers.
He had kept in touch with his family over the past few years through post cards. They didn’t always reply quickly, but that was okay. Still, he didn’t know as much about his family as he wanted to.
Specifically, he still really didn’t know anything about his mother.
He leafed through the postcards in his lap and separated the ones she had written. He read each of them carefully. Then he stood up, opened his old trunk, and started searching through it.
“Let’s see... underwear... old dictionary... demented spork... deflated balloon... nails... Oh, so THAT’S where my autographed record of worms playing violin went! Now what was I looking for? Oh yeah.... ah, there they are!”
He pulled out a small stack of blank postcards, sat down at his table, and carefully began to write.
“Dear Mom...”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Robin nervously watched the elderly lady frog as she hummed to herself and carefully worked over the giant pot. He felt his uncle nudge him from behind.
“Go on,” Kermit whispered.
Robin took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Hi Grandma,” he said quietly.
She turned around. “Hello, Robin,” she said in her forever-gentle voice. “How are you tonight?”
“I’m okay,” he said. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m alright,” she smiled. “Would you like to help me make dinner?”
Robin brightened up. “Sure!”
From his hiding place in the grass, Kermit smiled, and quietly hopped away.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Ready?” the elderly lady frog whispered to her grandson. “One, two, three.”
“DINNER TIME!” Robin shouted as loud as could. Then he watched in amazement, as the entire family seemed to magically appear from every corner of the swamp, all anxious to taste the delicious soup they knew they were going to be served.
His grandmother laughed. “We used to take a stick out of the fire and wave it around in the air when dinner was ready,” she said. “But we haven’t done that in years. Your Uncle Kermit was helping me, and when he tried to wave the stick in the air, he got a little too excited and broke the whole thing in half. Lucky it had just rained, or he would have set the whole swamp on fire!”
They both laughed, and turned around to see Kermit standing behind them with his face scrunched up. “Did you
have to tell him that, Mom?” he said.
She smiled. “Kermit, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said. “No damage was done.”
“Except of course to the ten feet of grass he burned,” Maggie said as she walked over.
“No, that was when
you dropped the stick!” Kermit said.
“I did not drop the stick!” Maggie said.
“You did too!” Kermit said. “Twice!”
“Children,” the elderly lady frog said. “Let’s not cry over spilt milk.”
“We’re not,” Maggie said, “We’re arguing over burnt grass. Because
somebody isn’t frog enough to admit that he started a fire.”
“Right,” Kermit said, “And that
somebody thinks
she can pin it on someone else.”
“No,” Maggie said, “That
somebody thinks that just because he doesn’t live in the swamp, he’s better than us, so-“
“Alright, now
that’s too far,” Kermit said, “I might as well add that this
somebody also has a tendency to drop banjos in the pond-“
“It was an ACCIDENT!” Maggie said.
“Children,” their mother warned.
“Sorry Mom,” they both said.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Well let’s see,” Scooter said to himself backstage a few days later, “Clifford and Rowlf are busy, and everybody’s rehearsing, so I guess I should just go over the schedule... again...” He picked up his clipboard and began to examine it.
“Excuse us,” a voice said.
He looked up and saw a crowd of penguins in front of him. “Uh, can I help you?”
“Do you have any jobs available?” the lead penguin asked.
Scooter stared at them blankly. “Well, what do you do?”
“We hold up cue cards!” the penguin said.
Scooter was suddenly bombarded with the sight of half a dozen cue cards, each instructing him to do something different. “Silence-Awww-Applause-Laugh-Ahhhh-Gasp?” he read. “Do you always hold up all different signs?”
The penguins looked around. “Oops,” one of them said. “Uh, this is a one-time thing, usually we all have the same card.”
“Oh,” Scooter said. “Well, could you prove it?”
“Oh, sure!” another penguin said. The cards disappeared. “Ready, and...”
They held up their cards, and Scooter read them again. “Ahhhh-Silence-Laugh-Awww-Gasp-Applause?” he said. “Sorry, we’ve got all that we can use.”
“NOOOOOOOO!” One of the penguins wailed.
“Well excuse us for living!” another said.
“We’ll NEVER get a job!”
“It’s all your fault, Zany!”
“MY fault? What makes you think it’s-“
“Um, guys?” Scooter said. “Could you, um, leave?”
The penguins waddled away, grumbling amongst themselves. Scooter shook his head and looked down at his clipboard.
“Um, uh, pardon us?” a voice said.
He looked up. “Um....” he said, “Uh, can I help you, um... pickles?”
Indeed, he was looking at two dozen talking pickles.
“We’d like to, um...”
“Uh, what’s it called...”
“Oh! We’d like to audition!”
He stared at them. “Um... for what?”
“For the, uh...”
“The, what’s it called...”
“The show!”
“Yeah, we wanna audition for the show.”
Scooter couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you do?” he asked. “And why do I feel like I just had this conversation?”
“Uh, well, we sing!”
“And dance!”
“And jump!”
“And um... dance!”
Scooter shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “We’re booked.”
“You won’t even listen to us?”
“Or watch us?”
“Or listen?”
“Or watch?”
“Or listen?”
“Or-“
“I’ve heard enough,” Scooter said. “You’re not hired. Now please, we’re trying to do a show...” He watched the pickles as they tried to jump away, and mostly tripped over each other. He shook his head. “Boy,” he said, “Sometimes, I don’t know how Kermit does it.” He shook his head again and walked to his computer.
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