34

LIFE WAS SO MUCH EASIER
IN DREEMLAND.

So Bitsie probably didn’t exist. I guess I’d kind of suspected it all along. But that didn’t stop me from being really mad at him that afternoon.

He kept on pulling his stupid stunts. He particularly liked breaking down in any way that made it look like Zola was to blame. I could have strangled him.

In the end, I didn’t have to. Someone else got there first.

It was almost five—our usual quitting time—and we hadn’t even got half the show taped. Everyone was really nervous. It wasn’t our fault, but we all knew that we were in big trouble. Mel was going nuts at one of the cameramen, who may or may not have got the wrong shot, when the door to the studio opened and Kathleen came in. Mel immediately stopped screaming and patted the cameraman on the back like they were old buddies and that wasn’t his spit dripping off the guy’s glasses. It was really phony, but I didn’t blame him for it. Nobody wanted to get Kathleen anymore wound up than she already was.

So we all put these fake “This-is-just-a-perfectly-normal-day” looks on our faces and started shooting again.

Everything went fine until Bitsie’s line: “Friends are more precious than a sunshiny day!” I’d seen it coming and I knew it was going to be trouble. There was no way Bitsie would let a line that corny just slip by. But Jimmy read it perfectly, and Bitsie kept his lips in sync, and I started thinking that maybe even Bitsie was afraid of Kathleen.

Afraid of her? Yeah, right.

It didn’t take me long to realize that to Bitsie this was like being asked to perform for the Queen or something. He finally had the audience he always dreamed of: Kathleen on the brink of insanity.

So like I was saying, Bitsie made it right to the end of the line perfectly—and then he did it. He rolled his eyes.

Really sarcastic. Like ‘Sunshiny day?’ Oh, barf! Who writes this garbage?”

At first there was a little nervous titter of laughter from the studio. I mean, it was garbage.

Kathleen, of course, didn’t titter. She just paced on the sidelines while Jimmy and Zola tried to figure out what was wrong with Bitsie’s eye mec. Surprise, surprise. It seemed to be working perfectly.

So we shot the line again—and guess what?

Yup. Bitsie did it again. Four more times, in fact—and then Kathleen exploded.

Like “ka-boom!”

She started screaming. “What’s the matter with that blankety-blank blank?”⁵² Zola tried to say that she’d call Laird the puppet builder to come and fix him, but Kathleen just pushed her aside and charged up onto the set.

It was a weird scene. Kathleen was wearing one of those plain black suits that smart, successful people wear, but her face was completely crazy. Even her hair had gone kind of psycho. She didn’t care. She just hurled herself screaming through the studio. She was so deranged that she missed the last step up to the set and fell flat on her face. One shoe flew off ⁵³ and her skirt got all scrunched up around her waist. But that didn’t slow her down. She just scrambled up onto one knee and lunged at Bitsie. She got him by the neck and started shaking him like she actually believed he was alive (but wished he wasn’t).

Bitsie, of course, did this “innocent-bystander-attacked-by-raving-lunatic” thing. His eyes darted back and forth, his tongue hung out and his arms swung around like a rag doll’s. I could tell other people were falling for it. They looked really upset to see this helpless little latex alien at the mercy of an obviously demented producer. It made me feel sad. Nobody saw the other side of Kathleen—and after that little display I had the feeling that nobody was going to go looking for it.

Nick was the one who finally got things under control—which only made me love him more, of course.

He ran up to the set and tried to pull Kathleen’s skirt back down over her bum, but she kept swatting him away. To her, right then, the number of people who saw her underwear was completely beside the point.

All she cared about was paying Bitsie back.

Nick knew better than to fight with her. He turned around and smiled at us like a principal at the end of a school concert and sort of half-screamed over her yelling and cursing. “Well, ha-ha. I think we’ve probably done about as much as we’re going to today. Let’s call it a wrap. We’ll see you all back here Monday morning at seven. Have a good weekend!...Oh, Zola and Mel, I think Kathleen will probably want to have a word with you in her office now.”

Frankly, I doubted it. Kathleen was still rolling around on the set with Bitsie, and personally, I would have just let her get it out of her system. I mean, by that point, what difference did it make? But I wasn’t in charge. I tried to smile at Zola in an “it-won’t-be-so-bad,” way and she tried to smile back, but I knew she was upset. She was going to get it from Kathleen—and miss the bus to her boyfriend’s concert too. I was glad I wasn’t a grown-up.

Nick managed to pry Bitsie out of Kathleen’s fist and talk her into pulling her skirt down, and the four of them headed off to the office. Everyone else was clearing out as fast as they could. Can you blame them? Nobody wanted to be next.

Bitsie was still lying on the set like a crime victim in a TV movie. Part of me felt like going up and rescuing him, but I decided against it. I wanted to know what I was going to say first. Do I tell him off—it was his fault after all—or do I try and comfort him? I knew Kathleen couldn’t have hurt him—he’s only latex—but it must have been pretty humiliating just the same.

I decided to put the puppet doubles away first. It would give me a chance to figure out what to do. I’d just come back from storing Rom and Ram and was leaning toward giving Bitsie a piece of my mind when Zola walked in.

Or rather ran in.

I was surprised she was back so soon. I figured Kathleen must have just come straight out and fired her.

“What happened?” I asked. “What did Kathleen say?”

Zola was zooming around like the Roadrunner on fast-forward. Cleaning the work table, dusting the puppets and practically throwing them into the storage room. “She didn’t say a thing.”

I was relieved.

For a second, that is, until Zola added, “She just cried.

Sobbed, in fact. Nick finally just let us go. It was horrible.”

She shook her head in that sad way people on the news do when the reporter asks them what it feels like to watch their favorite cow get carried away by a tornado or something. I got the feeling Zola would have nightmares about this for the rest of her life.

“I’m trying not to think about it,” she said, going back to throwing stuff in drawers. “If I leave right now, I can catch the bus to Jacob’s concert. He’ll help me. He used to volunteer in a psychiatric hospital before he became a musician, so he’ll understand.”

Well, it looked at least like something good was going to come out of this mess.

Zola tossed a few of those guinea pig treats she likes into her bag, kissed me on the cheek and bolted.

She was practically out the door before she realized it.

“Oh! I forgot Bitsie!” I shooed her away.

“Run! Run! I’ll deal with him!”

“But I have to call Laird about fixing his eye mec too! I better stay.”

I slung her bag back over her shoulder and pushed her out the door.

“Go!” I said. “I can handle Bitsie. It’ll be easy.”

Ha!

I’ve never been so wrong about anything in my life.

⁵² I’ll leave the exact words to your imagination. Believe me, they were not what you’d expect to hear from someone who produces preschool television.

⁵³ It beaned Mel in the head and I couldn’t help noticing that the cameraman got a laugh out of that.