I’d hide in the washroom or spend ages tying my shoes or look like I was really, really interested in some IMPORTANT PARKING NOTICE on the bulletin board. Then when everyone was gone for the day, I’d do the old “coast-is-clear” head spin and slip under the beach house set to wait for Bitsie.
It took him longer to get there than me. It’s probably pretty obvious why. If worse came to worst and somebody caught me walking around the studio after hours, I could just say I was going through puberty.21 If somebody caught Bitsie walking around the studio, they’d go nuts. I mean, you saw how I reacted when I saw him the first time. And I’m way more normal than most people.
So Bitsie had to be really careful.
Not that he always was, of course.
Sometimes he’d just make this wild dash for it like he was some brave army guy risking his life to save his friends. (As if.) Other times he’d climb up the walls and do this Tarzan thing on the overhead ropes and then just hope I’d catch him when he let go. The worst, though, was when he hitched a ride in the cleaning lady’s cart. Just hopped on the bottom shelf when she wasn’t looking and hid behind the Super-Flush cans until she stopped outside the studio. That was way too risky.
Which is exactly why he loved it. He could say he didn’t want other people to know he existed, but frankly I was starting to doubt it. He was getting bolder all the time.
Anyway, when we both finally got to the beach house, we’d just hang around for a while. Sometimes he’d complain about the drippy scripts, but mostly we’d just talk about what happened that day and laugh our heads off.
Like I hadn’t already laughed enough by then.
It surprised everyone in the studio when Kathleen’s little deaf-mute niece started laughing all the time. But I couldn’t help it. Once I’d found out about Bitsie, everything he did on the set was hilarious to me because I knew he was doing it on purpose. Like that first day? When he couldn’t say “Bitsiest bestiest friend” and his jaw locked open and his tongue hung out like he was gagging? He was doing that on purpose. Just to amuse himself because the script was so boring.
It got even worse once he had an audience. He’d do anything for a laugh.
A lot of it was just plain childish. Whenever Jimmy put him down, Bitsie’d make sure his bum was right in Ram’s face or his eyes were crossed or he had one leg bent up like he was a dog peeing on a fire hydrant or something.
Like I said, childish—but funny too.
What cracked me up the most was when he did imitations of real people right in front of them. I don’t know how he got away with it. Someone would blow their lines and Mel would run up onto the set with his eyes all bugged out, yelling about how much money these sloppy mistakes were costing the production, and I’d look over and see Bitsie lying there perfectly still with his eyes all bugged out and his mouth stretched open like “You idiot!!” (It was hilarious, but I knew better than to laugh—at least out loud—when Mel was going ape.)
Other times it was way more subtle.22 All Bitsie had to do was raise one eyebrow and he looked exactly like David Anthony Cudmore, the show’s phony director. Whenever Nick would come around to talk, Bitsie’d do his bashful act.
He’d look at the ground or make like his hand just happened to be pushing his hair back. I knew he was making fun of me, but I never let on. (I didn’t want to encourage him, at least about that.)
At night, under the set, Bitsie would go through everything again, and somehow the jokes were even funnier the second time around. (How often does that happen?)
There were only two things that got in the way of our friendship.23
Number One: Bitsie watched too much TV. After about an hour or so of goofing around, he’d always want to go up to the control room and veg in front of the tube. The tubes, actually. He liked to have a different channel on each of the screens. You’d think I’d love that, not having a TV at home and all. I did for a while, but then it just got boring. It also got kind of creepy, the way he’d watch a cop show or sitcom or something and act like it was real. You’d think a puppet, at least, would know the difference.
That was the first thing. The second was worse: Bitsie was jealous of Kathleen.
21 I didn’t remember that excuse until after my close call on the first night. It was an old Bess trick. Puberty made me do it! Like a little armpit hair would turn her into a criminal or something. It worked for a while, but now that she’s sixteen she’s got to come up with something new. Hopefully, before her sentencing hearing.
22 That’s the first time I ever got to use the word “subtle.” It’s one of Kathleen’s words – believe it or not. She uses it to describe clothes and she doesn’t pronounce the “b.”
23 Other than the fact that Bitsie was just a hunk of latex, of course.