Puppet Wrangler (16 page)

He ignored me. It was like when Kayleigh Mombourquette, my so-called best friend in Grade Two, met Melissa Weagle. I didn't count anymore. Bitsie had new friends to talk to now. “It wasn't your fault,” he was saying. “You didn't have much to work with. I mean, a dinosaur day care? Whose idea was that? Don't these people realize that there's not a mammoth alive who could fit in those eensy-teensy chairs?” Bitsie rolled his eyes and elbowed Mavor in that old “Can-you-believe-these-guys?” way. Mavor's front leg bent up backwards and landed in his ear. It stayed there.

I tried again. “Bitsie.”

Bitsie turned and looked at me like he was Mr. Rhodenizer and I'd just horked a spitball at the chalkboard or something.

He got all prissy with me. “You had all day to talk to me on the bus, but you chose not to. Now, if you don't mind, I'm getting acquainted with a colleague of mine…So, Mavor, after
Prehistoric Preschool
…”

This was hopeless.

I rattled the doorknob. I pounded on the door. I threw myself against it. Bitsie shook his head like I was a hyperactive three-year-old and ignored me. Again.

He would have kept on ignoring me too, but then Arnold—his new idol—rapped on the other side of the door.

“Calm down now,” Arnold said in a reasonably nice way.

“I'm not going to hurt you. I just don't want you going anywhere.”

Bitsie laughed. “Arnie, you don't have to worry about me! I'm here! I'm with you, man!”

I threw myself against the door again. Harder this time because my father's a doctor and, if I ever did manage to escape, I knew he'd be able to fix a broken collar bone.

Arnold and Bitsie were both screaming at me now to behave, and the door wasn't going anywhere, so I stopped and threw Mavor against the wall.

“Hey!” Bitsie went, all offended. “The guy just woke up!

Would you give him a break?”

I grabbed a sailor and biffed him too. And a pink mouse. And a ladybug. And a walrus. And a panda ballerina. I'd just grab a leg and blast whatever was attached to it as hard as I could.

Bitsie was going, “Hey! Hey!” and “What are you doing?” and my favorite,“You're not making a very good first impression!” As if he'd know about making a good impression—first or otherwise.

Finally, I'd had it. My little demonstration wasn't working. I dropped the farmer I had by the overalls and waited until I heard Arnold walk away. “Bitsie,” I whispered to him. “Can't you see? They're not alive! They're not asleep!

These are just puppets! They're…foam-heads!”

Bitsie put his hands over Mavor's big floppy ears so he couldn't hear and glared at me. “You're just jealous!” he said. “Well, too bad. These are my friends and I'm staying here. I don't care what you say. So why don't you just go? Go home to your precious Kathleen and Mr. Dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeamboat!”

“Fine,” I said. “I think I will.”

I went to open the door, all innocent. “Oh, gee, it seems to be locked. I wonder why that is. Maybe you could ask your good friend Arnie to let me out.”

“I'd be delighted,” Bitsie said, because of course we all know how perfect his manners are, and started calling for Arnold through the keyhole.

“Yes, Bitsie.”

“Would you mind letting my former friend out please?

It's time for her to go home.” Bitsie looked at me in that “I-hope-I'm-making-myself-clear” way.

Arnold was apologetic. “Sorry, Bitsie,” he said, “but I can't do that. I need her here to help with my next project.”

Well, Bitsie thought that was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard in his whole life! “Oh, please!” he went.

“Her? Help? Ha! She's just a puppet wrangler, a
junior
puppet wrangler. She doesn't know anything. Nothing.

Nada. Rien.” He even said “rien” with a big wet French “r” like he was Celine Dion or Pepe Le Pew or somebody.
⁵⁹

There was silence from the other side of the door. For a second there, I thought Arnold was actually thinking of letting me go.

“Well, that may be true,” he finally said, “but your friend still knows too much.”

⁵⁹
I think that's what bugged me most of all. Don't you hate people who pretend they can speak French when they can't?

46
NOT THE SOLUTION I WOULD
HAVE CHOSEN, BUT IT WORKED.

When it finally sunk in what was happening, Bitsie was furious. Way madder than I was. It was like he'd been betrayed or something.

He couldn't believe he fell for it. He pulled a puppet out of the stack and exploded. “Gary Gecko! No…no! It can't be true. I'm trapped in a room with the so-called star of
Library
Lizards
'! He was acting like he thought he should have been on the double-A soccer team and instead got stuck playing with the girls under six. I got the feeling he wasn't upset about being locked up. He was upset about who he was locked up with. Typical Bitsie.

He yanked out another puppet. “Cleo-cat-ra!” he screamed and dropped it as if it was covered in kitty litter or something.

It was the same for every one of the puppets he looked at. Mr. Raging TV Addict knew them all. “Bathtub Buddies!—I'd rather hang out with shower scum. At least it has some personality!” “Math Mice—Get me the rat poison!”

“Happy, Nappy, Pappy and Joe—or should I say Crappy, Crappy, Crappy and Schmoe?”

“Giggly Geese.”

“Eartha and the Dirt Movers.”

“Sinus and the Flu Bugs.”

From what I could gather, it was like every puppet from every crummy cancelled show ever made was stuffed there in that room.

My guess was Arnold hadn't had much luck in the television game, and it dawned on me that Bitsie would look pretty good to a desperate man. I wondered what Arnold would be ready to do for a hit series. I didn't want to stick around to find out. That orange suit of his was enough to convince me that we were not dealing with a rational mind.

We had to get out of there.

I needed a plan.

I looked around. There was the door that I'd already tried. There was one of those vent things in the floor that was too little even for Bitsie to get through. And there was the window.

It was high up and it was small but it was our only hope. I stacked Mavor, Gary, Eartha and Cleo-cat-ra on top of each other and climbed up. The crunching sound was pretty gross, but it got me where I had to go. I could just reach the ledge. The window must have been painted shut when Arnold could still afford paint because it wasn't moving. I picked and I pried and I broke all my nails, and after a really long time I managed to slide it open about ten centimeters.

The squeak of the window actually made Bitsie look up.

He was so busy screaming at Bradley Broccoli for having the nerve to make a kids' show about vegetables that he hadn't even noticed what I was doing until then.

“Hey! Good idea!” he said.

Here Bitsie was finally giving me a compliment and I had to tell him to shut up. I didn't want Arnold to get suspicious.

I climbed back down and whispered to Bitsie as fast as I could. “You've got to get out this window, sneak in the house, open the door and get me out.” Okay, so it was a little short on details, but it was a plan. And anyway, Bitsie hardly needed tips from me on sneaking around. He was the expert at it.

I made Bitsie a rope out of tied-together puppet clothes and attached it to his waist. He was going to need it to get down to the ground. Then I picked him up and was about to shove him through the window when I heard Arnold coming.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Why so quiet in there all of a sudden?”

“I'm putting Bitsie to sleep,” I said. “He was up really late last night.” I figured if it worked for Arnold, it would work for me.

And can you believe it? He swallowed it. His own stupid excuse!

“Oh. Okay. Good,” he went. “Bitsie's going to need his energy. I've got a big day planned for him tomorrow.”

I bet he did.

I waited until I heard Arnold leave, then I stepped back up on Cleo-cat-ra and shoved Bitsie through the window.

Or at least I tried to. No matter which way I pushed him, his beak stopped us every time. “You're going to have to squish me,” he whispered.

I know this sounds really terrible because it's easy to forget that he doesn't feel anything, but I put Bitsie on the floor and walked back and forth across his head. I even jumped a bit on the beaky part.

It was no good. His eyes seemed a bit farther apart and his head seemed a little squarer than before, but that beak of his was still not going to go through the window.

I sat down to think. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. How was I going to get Bitsie out of there?

I heard a weird, blubbery sound and I opened my eyes. Bitsie had torn his beak off.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Let's try it again.”

47
SOME ADDED COMPLICATIONS.

Bitsie slipped through the window fine and landed on the ground. Now all I had to do was wait.

What if Arnold came back and found him gone? What if Arnold caught him in the house? What if Bitsie just made a run for it and left me there on my own? What would Kathleen do when she saw Bitsie's nose job? I had a lot of things to think about so I wasn't bored.

I was so weirded out by all the bad stuff that was going to happen that I barely noticed when a phone started ringing.

It took me a few seconds to realize it was in the room with me somewhere. If I had a phone, I had some options. I started throwing things around like a crazy person, looking for it. Where was it coming from? I stopped panicking and followed the sound.

To my knapsack. I couldn't believe it.

I scrambled around inside and pulled out—Kathleen's cell phone! How did that get there?
⁶⁰
I didn't have time to think. I just answered it.

What kind of idiot am I? I
answered
it!

Why didn't I just turn it off? I don't know. I was on automatic, I guess. Like at home when I answer the phone and say, “Sorry, you've got the wrong number. May I take a message?” Who'd leave a message for the wrong number?

I say it without thinking.

Same thing here. I just said, “Hello” and tried to ignore the big heavy footsteps pounding down the hall toward me.

“Telly?!?” It was Nick.

“Ah…yeah. It's me.”

I could hear Arnold fumbling with the key.

Nick just kept on talking as if the world were a completely normal place to live. “I was in the studio and thought if I phoned Kathleen's cell I could hear the ring and maybe find it for her—but I guess I'm too late.”

“Un-huh,” I went, not wanting to come right out and lie about anything until I absolutely had to.

I could barely hear Nick over the noise. I didn't know exactly what was happening in the hall, but I guessed that Bitsie must have seen Arnold with the key and attacked him from behind. Now they were banging and smashing and pounding into the door. Plaster was falling down on my head and that little window was rattling like one of those bean-shakers five-year-olds get to play in music class. I almost felt sorry for Arnold. He must have been terrified. Wouldn't you be if a furious, beakless Bitsie attacked you?

“What's all that noise?” Nick asked.

I said, “It's—uh—Kathleen. She's doing her exercises.”

Not a bad excuse, considering I just came up with it off the top of my head like that.

Nick seemed to find nothing odd about Kathleen doing that much screaming, grunting and slamming into walls as part of her exercise routine.
⁶¹
He said, “It'll probably do her good. Better not disturb her.”

Arnold and Bitsie must have knocked one of the pictures off the wall because there was a major crash right then.

I guess that's why Nick said, “Unless you think she's going to hurt herself.”

I said no, no, she'll be fine, but I didn't really believe it of course. I didn't think Kathleen would ever recover from Friday afternoon—especially once she got a load of the new Bitsie.

“Oh, listen, while I have you on the phone, two things …” I couldn't believe this guy. I spent a month dying to talk to him, but now was the time he chose to chat? “Do you know if Zola managed to get hold of Laird to fix Bitsie up? I'd really like that puppet to be in tip-top shape for Monday's shoot.”

I concentrated on lying so I wouldn't throw up. I said, “Oh, that's all taken care of.”

“Great.” I wished he didn't fall for stuff so easily. “The other thing,” he said, “is I just checked our e-mails and you have a whole pile of urgent messages from Bess.”

I started to feel like I'd rather just stay there and take my chances with Arnold. I said, “They're not important. Everything is urgent for her.”

“Oh, good,” he went. “I was worried there for a sec.

They all had subject lines like ‘Don't do anything stupid!' and ‘Stay where you are!' and ‘I'm coming to get you!' If I hadn't already heard a few stories about Bess, I probably would have called the cops! Ha-ha!”

Ha-ha. Who was laughing?

“I've got to go,” I said. “There's someone at the door.”

I wasn't lying.

Bitsie had just walked in.

⁶⁰
How do you think? Remember Bitsie's little tussle with Kathleen in the studio? She won – but he knew how to hurt her. He stole her cell phone. Stuck it up his insides and made off with it.

⁶¹
Come to think of it, most people who knew Kathleen probably wouldn't either.

48
RUNNING ON EMPTY.

We were going to miss the bus! And it was all my fault!

Bitsie just wanted to leave Arnold tied up in that puppet-clothing- rope. It would serve him right, Bitsie said. But I couldn't do that. Who knew if anyone but us ever visited the Great van Gurp? If someone a hundred years from now found a skeleton tied to a chair with tiny pink jackets, how would I feel?