Puppet Wrangler (5 page)

I told him all about Dreemland—the food, the books, the clothes. I said how it made me feel safe under there, even though right until the moment the words came out of my mouth I didn't know that was how I felt. I didn't mean “safe” like someone was trying to get me—I meant “safe,” the way you feel when your mother's actually relaxed enough to sit down for a while and you can lean against her on the couch and read your book.

I told him that sometimes I like to imagine living under there. I'd never said that to anyone before because, of course, I know how stupid it is. It's not like I'd really do it—lie flat on my back under a bed for the rest of my life—but sometimes I just liked the idea of it. It was so much less complicated than everything else.

Believe it or not, he seemed to be getting kind of interested in what I was saying. He sat on the floor with one little yellow beanpole leg crossed over the other. Every so often he nodded or said, “No kidding.” He played with the heart on his left antenna as if it was helping him think or something.

Then he laughed and said we were complete opposites. I want to hide. He has to hide. He's dying to see the world. I don't want to see anymore of it than I absolutely have to.

That was true. He was making me think about things I'd never thought about before. I wondered if my
Dream
Interpretation for Teens
book covered talking puppets. (The only things I could remember reading about were snakes in dreams and falling. I've avoided dreaming about them both ever since.)

We talked about a lot of stuff.

I said I was surprised he could speak.

He said he was surprised I could speak too. (A lot of people in the studio would be.)

I asked him if that was his real voice.

He asked me if that was mine. (Typical.) After taking a moment to enjoy his own witty remark, he admitted he could imitate the voice of everyone in the studio. It just took a little practice. (That's why he was working on Mel's and Zola's voices. Not that he needed to. He had them nailed.)

He asked me about my family. I told him the whole story.

And—surprise, surprise—he loved Bess. He acted like she was a character in a TV show or something. He kept saying, “Then what did she do?” and laughing his head off about her popping wheelies on Mr. Zwicker's lawn tractor or putting so much vodka in Grammie's prune juice that she fell off the toilet. I didn't even feel bad about him liking Bess. I was just kind of enjoying making him laugh.

I was running out of Bess stories—if you can believe it—so I asked him about his family.

He looked at me like I was nuts.

“Family?” he said. Then he said it again, louder. “Fa-mi-ly?!?” His eyes were bugging out of his head like “You idiot!”

“I'm a puppet! How can I have family?! And who, exactly, would my family be?!?”

Normally, a mood swing like that would have thrown me, but this was just a dream, right? So I kept going.

“Well, what about Bytesie…or Rom…or Ram?” I asked.

You'd swear I'd just called his mother a hairless mole rat or something. He was so insulted.

“Oh nice!” he said. “I remind you of those…zombies, do I?!” He got this crazy look on his face. All he needed was some froth coming out of his mouth and an axe and he'd have made the perfect “Puppet from Hell.” “Do I look…to you…like some foam-head who can't function until someone sticks a hand up my bum?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. But it was obviously something that meant a lot to him. (That's what the family counselor said when Bess kicked out the window in her office.)

“Do I look like I'm moving my mecs?!?” He put his hands up in the air like “I'm not doing anything!” and then crossed and uncrossed his eyes until I was worried he might get sick.

“Do you see Jimmy's hand anywhere down here?” He pointed his rear end in my direction and bent over.

Right over. So his head was coming up between his legs and he could get a good close look up his own empty bum.

He went, “Gee…I don't see anything!” like he was all surprised or something. He whipped himself back up straight, then turned around, really full of himself, like one of those TV lawyers who's just won his case.

“If you think those plastic dolls can do this on their own, you're crazy. They're just puppets!”

He was having a good little laugh at what a moron I was when I asked the obvious question.

“Then what are you?”

He stopped chuckling and tried to give me a “Can-you-believe-this-kid?” look, but I knew I had him. I didn't say anything. I just waited. After a while, he shrugged.

“Okay, I'm a puppet too. But I'm different. In case you haven't noticed…” Big pause. “I'm alive. It's not much of a life, I admit, playing Bitsie the Bonehead all day, then spending all night watching TV or finishing Jimmy's crossword puzzle—but hey! It's my life.”

Gee, how sad was that. Even the old people at the Mayflower Rest Home get bingo on Saturday nights.

“Don't you have any friends? Someone to hang out with?” Suddenly, it was like I was his guidance counselor or something.

“You're my one and only, baby! No one knows about my special little talents but you. And I didn't even mean that to happen. As you know.”

“Why not tell people?”

“Why? Miss Hide-Under-the-Bed-with-my-Best-Friends-the-Dust-Bunnies has to ask why? Because I don't want the hassle. Can you imagine what would happen if anyone ever found out about me? Everyone would want a piece of me.”

Like he's so special or something.

“They'd all be trying to make money off me. Then I wouldn't even be able to live the crummy little life I have now. I'd be spending my entire life in front of the camera instead of just eight to four, Monday through Friday, with an hour off for lunch and two fifteen minute coffee breaks.

If you think I'd want that, you're dreaming, kid.”

That made me laugh.

“What's so funny?” he said.

“It's just funny to be dreaming about dreaming,” I said, wondering if they covered that in my dream book. It probably meant I was dead or insane or something.

He gave me one of those “puh-leese” sighs.

“You're not dreaming.”

“Yes, I am.” I kind of laughed.

“No, you aren't.”

“Am too.”
He was starting to bug me.

“Are not.”
He was serious.

“Am too.”

“Are not.”

“
Am too.”

“Are not.”

“Am too!”
I shouldn't have screamed, but I'd had it.

I don't know why. It just wasn't funny anymore.

“Okay, I'll prove it,” he said.

“Go ahead.” I tried to say that the way Bess would have.

Like “You and what army?”

Bitsie was enjoying this. He knew I couldn't back down.

If it were just a dream, what was there to be afraid of? So he goes, “Take your index finger…Yup. That's the one. With the long nail…”

“Okay.”

“And shove it up your nose…That-a-girl…Farther… farther…Get it right up there…”

“Ouch!”

I couldn't do it anymore. It hurt. And it was grossing me out too.

“See?” he went. “I told you you weren't dreaming. You wouldn't even have felt that in a dream. Proof positive: I'm as alive as you are!”

I wanted to argue with him, but there was nothing I could say. That guy in my brain started running around again, asking if anyone knew what was going on. Nobody had a clue. (In fact, they were all getting out of there as fast as they could. None of my brain cells wanted to stick around to find out what weird thing was going to happen next.)

I started to get really freaked out. I felt cold. And scared. I couldn't catch my breath. There had to be an explanation.

Think. Think. Think. Think. Think. Think. Think.

11
JUST SO YOU KNOW
PART II.

I want to stop here a second and make sure this is clear.

I'm not prone to “flights of fancy” (Mum's term) or “hysteria” (Dad's). That's why I'm a “blessing” (Mum, Dad and most of the neighbors). They could always count on me to be “reasonable” and “no trouble.” They know that one day I'll grow up to be a scientist or a librarian or some other boring thing that won't involve bailing me out of jail or apologizing to a whole bunch of people all the time. They don't say so—but I know they were kind of happy that my language arts assignments were always so blah. People with “vivid imaginations” write funny stories and commit crimes or come up with other ways to make their parents' lives miserable.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm not the type to believe that a hunk of foam rubber with eight fingers and a bright yellow Albert Einstein hairdo would talk to me. It just would never cross my mind.

So I knew there had to be a logical explanation for what seemed to be happening now. I told myself that, with the possible exception of Bess, there was a reason for everything.

There had to be. I knew it.

I just had to focus. Stop panting and focus. I could see for myself that a puppeteer wasn't behind this. There were no electrical cords or wires coming out of Bitsie, so he wasn't a robot. We were definitely alone. And Candid Camera skits don't go on this long.

I ruled out any obvious trick I could think of. So maybe there was something about me that was making this happen.

But what? What did I do differently that day—other than, like, everything, that is?

Something must have happened. Did I hit my head? Did I inhale poisonous fumes? Was it something I ate?

Of course!

Why didn't I think of that before?

12
I'M TRYING
TO BE REASONABLE HERE.

“I'm hallucinating. You don't exist!” I was so excited. “There was something in the pop! Or …or…or I overdosed on sugar! No, no, no! Of course!” I punched the air like one of those yahoo football players. “Kathleen's face cream! I ate Kathleen's face cream!”

It all made perfect sense—even if you didn't know Kathleen. Just think about it. The brain is all wrinkly. It dawned on me that those wrinkles probably had something to do with logic or sanity or something and if you did something to make them disappear—like eat anti-wrinkle cream, for instance—your mind went haywire. All of a sudden it just seemed so obvious.

You wouldn't believe how relieved I was. I just slumped against the wall and started laughing. Laughing, you know, the way you do when you think you lost your mother's watch and tear the whole house to shreds looking for it and then suddenly remember you put it back in her jewelry box before you went out and it was never lost at all.

All that panic for nothing. Even Bitsie's so-called proof of his existence didn't hold up once I thought about it logically.

“You're a hallucination—but the finger up my nose was real. That's why I could feel it!”

I figured that was the end of that.

Wrong.

Bitsie wasn't laughing. His eyes had gone blank, like buttons or something. His eyelids were half shut and he'd pulled his lips into this tight little “o.” It was all very dramatic. I couldn't help thinking what amazing things they can do with puppets these days—or hallucinations for that matter. With that look I knew right away Bitsie was majorly p.o.ed.

People often act mad when they're really hurt. That much I remembered from our little family counseling sessions. And I could understand why Bitsie would be mad at me. I always hated it when Bess acted like I didn't exist. There aren't many things more insulting than that. Call me stupid, ugly or smelly and it hurts—but at least it's a pretty good sign that you noticed me. Even sniffing in disgust is better than having someone look right through you. (Maybe not—but you get my point. There's stuff you can spray on—or wash off—to smell better. What can you do to exist better?)

Anyway, I felt for Bitsie. I wasn't trying to be mean. I was just trying to figure out what the heck was going on. I was all ready to apologize to him—real or not—when he did the most irritating thing. Classic Bitsie.

Out of nowhere, he just threw one foot onto my shoulder, yanked himself up by my nostrils and sat on my head. My grunting and squealing didn't seem to bother him a bit. He just sat there bouncing his puffy blue feet off my shoulders.

I was ripped. Sure, I might have hurt him—unintentionally—but I didn't use his nostrils for monkey rings. I would have biffed him right off except I remembered how much

Zola said he cost to make. What with bus repairs and legal bills, my parents didn't need another expense right then.

So I took a long slow breath in through my poor bleeding nose. (Another little family counseling trick. Helps you stay calm.) I had no other choice. I told myself he was a person too, with feelings just like mine. (Okay, he wasn't a person, but I decided to leave figuring out what he was for another time.)

I let the breath out through my mouth.

“Fine,” I said. “You have proved you exist. I just don't know how.”

I guess that was good enough for him. He grabbed me by the ears and did a back flip off my head. I was supposed to be impressed, but there was no way! It's not like he had bones or muscles or anything that could actually get hurt. Any puppet who really wanted to could have done it just as well.

“Why are you hung up about ‘how'?” he said, using the sharp end of Jimmy's pencil to unstick his left eyeball.

“What can't they make these days? They've got cars that tell you which direction to go. T-shirts that know if you're getting enough vitamins.”

“Yeah. But there's a reason someone would make those things! They actually help people!”

I shouldn't have said that. It just slipped out. It was like I was telling Bitsie he existed but didn't count. I thought he was going to give me that look again, but he surprised me.