Just a quick reminder to those unfamiliar with my writing, don't be thrown off guard if Frankie or Mac refer to each other as sister or brother. This one-shot, like my others, takes place after my first story "More Than My Friend", where Frankie not only appoints herself as Mac's "big sister", but becomes his legal guardian as well (if you wanna find out why, better read the story.)
Anyway, here we go! Please read and review!
Disclaimer: I don't own Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, the rights to the Sesame Street theme, nor the lyrics for "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
"Stupid, no-good, smelly old…"
Frances "Frankie" Foster grumbled bad-temperedly to herself as she scooped up the bundle of dirty bed sheets from the laundry basket. How on earth some of the house residents managed to cause no messes or accidents during the day yet somehow were able to get their bedding so absolutely filthy, she'd never know. Then again, it was just one of the all-too-numerous paradoxes she ran into daily, a side effect of one's occupation being an imaginary friend caretaker. Pushing the unpleasant mystery from her mind, the redhead hefted the sheets, carelessly tossed them into the laundry chute-
"Hey!"
"Oh, c'mon!"
"Yuck! Who did that?"
…And was immediately met with a chorus of protesting squeaks.
For a few moments, Frankie just stood frozen in place, dumbly staring down the metal chute from where the indignant objections had emanated from.
"What the…" she whispered, cocking her head in utter confusion.
"What? Is anyone up there?" A hopeful cry rang out from the laundry chute. "Hello? Anybody?"
"Frankie!" another one joined in excitedly. "Frankie, is that you?"
The young woman's jaw dropped and her eyes bugged out to twice their size as she recognized the all-too-familiar voices almost instantaneously.
"MAC?" she yelled, jamming her head into the chute entrance. "BLOO?"
"Frankie, help!" Mac yelped frantically as he struggled to remove the dirty laundry that enveloped him.
"What on earth are you guys doing down there?" Frankie shouted frantically.
"STUCK!" The two chorused together quite simply
"Stuck?" the caretaker repeated dumbly.
"What, is there an echo in here?" Bloo snapped irritably. "Yes, stuck!"
"B-but that's impossible!" Frankie countered incredulously. "How on earth can you guys get stuck in there, now? You two have gone down there before together, right?"
This time, instead of snappy reply or pitiful plea, she was met with a painfully awkward silence.
"Ummmm…." Mac murmured sheepishly.
"Right, you guys?" Frankie reiterated, this time a little nervously as she craned her head to get a better look at the trapped duo. "Seriously, how did you two get trapped when-"
Before she could finish her thought, a dirty pillowcase was suddenly tossed aside as she suddenly made eye contact with an all-too-familiar toothy grinned, pigtailed child.
"Hiiiiiiii Frankie!" Goo squealed excitedly from where she was awkwardly jammed between boy and imaginary friend, waving her free arm furiously in friendly greeting. The redhead let out a long, aggravated groan.
"Oh, but of course." She grumbled darkly to herself. "It can never-"
"Ow, quit it!" Mac's indignant cry cut through the twenty-two-year-old's mutterings.
"You quit it! I barely have any room over here for my legs! They're all squished up against me!" Goo's whiny reply echoed throughout the metal chute.
"Well if we had some spare room, we wouldn't be here right now, would we?" Bloo countered fiercely. "Besides, you have it easy, at least you can still feel your legs! I've lost all the feeling in mine!"
"Bloo, you don't have any legs!" Mac quickly pointed out with an irked groan.
"AUGH!" the little imaginary friend screeched in panicked horror. "If I don't have any legs, then what did I just lose all the feeling in?"
"KNOCK IT OFF!" Frankie bellowed irritably, jabbing her head back into the chute opening. "Bickering isn't going to get you anywhere!"
"Well, we wouldn't be arguing if-" Mac tried to interject ferociously.
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." The twenty-two-year-old muttered as she dutifully outstretched her arm down towards the snared trio below. "Hold on, lemme see if I can…hey, can any of you reach up here?" she implored.
"Y'mean like this?" Goo bubbled, eagerly shooting a free appendage into the air.
"Yeah, that's it!" Frankie replied encouragingly, partially sliding her body into the chute entrance to grasp the little girl's extended hand.
"Hurry up!" Bloo whimpered impatiently, fidgeting about in his cramped discomfort.
"Hold on," Frankie grunted in exertion, stretching out her arm. "I think I've almost got you….a little more…a little more…almost…there…."
"HEEEELLLLP!"
The pathetic cry rang out through the hallway, causing the passerby imaginary friend to nearly jump out of his skin in surprise.
"AAA!" Wilt yelped, jumped a little in the air, and thus nearly hitting his head on the ceiling due to his abnormal height. "What the-"
"Anyone, please!"
"Help! Help!"
The choir of pleas emanated from within an opened laundry chute door. Upon hearing the cries for aid, Wilt wasted no time an instinctively darted over.
"Who's down there? Are you guys okay?" he hollered worriedly, instantly being greeted by a hail of lamentations.
"Wilt, help us!" Goo squeaked.
"We're stuck!" Mac frantically explained.
"Goo's elbow is digging into my back!" Bloo moaned unhappily. "Owie! Owie! Owie!
"Oh no! Hold on guys, help is on the way!" Wilt declared heroically, wasting no time and stretching a winding appendage blindly towards the tangled muddle below.
"Hold on, hold on…just lemme grab onto one of you…argh, you're so far down, I can't….wait, wait, almost there…I've almost got…just a little more…hold on a sec, hold on….there! GOTCHA!" the lanky imaginary friend announced triumphantly as he finally managed to grasp on tightly to something.
"EEEEEEK!" a horrified scream immediately followed. "PERVERT!
"OW!" Wilt roared in pain after experiencing the unmistakable feeling of a pair of jaws clamping down ferociously onto his hand. Instantly he withdrew his arm free from the confines of the chute, hopping about the hallway as he did a mad little dance of pain.
"Ow! Ow! That hurt! Oh jeez, that hurt!" he cried miserably, trying his best not to break character and curse a blue streak.
"Serves you right, Sir-Grabs-a-Lot!" An extremely familiar feminine voice echoed shrilly from the chute doorway.
"FRANKIE?" Wilt gasped in disbelief, jamming his head back in to finally take his first good view of the tragic mess within.
It took a few moments for his eye to adjust to the lack of light, but within a minute his assumptions were concerned. There, not far below him, lay a redheaded young woman, two small children, and a little azure blob lay grouped up and entwined so ridiculously against one another in the cramped space that together their tangled mess resembled a Picasso painting.
"What are you all doing down there?" Wilt demanded frantically.
"STUCK!" they all miserably chimed together.
"How?" the exacerbated imaginary friend cried.
"Don't ask dumb questions! Look, can you just get us out?" Bloo implored miserably.
"I…I can't do it now!" Wilt yelled, starting to panic. "You guys are so far down, and I can barely reach you!"
"And there's no way you're doing that again, Mister Prying-Hands! Try something else, quick!" Frankie screeched pleadingly.
"Right! Gotcha! I'll be back as soon as I can! Just don't go anywhere, 'cuz…wait, no, you can't go anywhere…yeah, okay! I think I got it! Just stay there, and I'll-"
"WILT!" Everyone screamed impatiently.
"AUGH! I'm going! I'm going!" the lanky imaginary friend cried frantically, and with that he shot off like a bullet, leaving the helpless four as they were.
"So what do we do now?" Mac whimpered.
"Just lie back, and play the waiting game I guess." Frankie muttered ruefully, struggling to try and get into a more comfortable position. For the next few minutes, they remained as they were, trapped and waiting in a terribly awkward dead silence.
"The waiting game is stupid." Bloo whined impatiently.
"Do you have anything better in mind, Mr. Smartypants?" Frankie groaned, rubbing a cramping leg muscle.
"I spy with my little eye…. something…um…." Bloo mumbled as he glanced about his surroundings. "…. Uh….something metal!"
"Laundry chute!" Goo piped up immediately, tapping the sides of their makeshift prison so as to prove her point.
"Yeah! You got it!" the azure blob whooped, giving her a high five.
"WHOOO! Alright!" the little girl squealed happily, wriggling about fiercely in her excitement. "Okay, okay! It's my turn! My turn! I spy with my little eye…something beginning with the letter C!"
"Uh…………chute?" Bloo answered hopefully.
"But what kind?" the girl countered with a devious grin. The little imaginary friend furrowed his brow as he struggled fervently to come up with the answer.
"Wait, wait, don't tell me! Um…uh…oooh! Oooh! It's on the tip of my tongue, it's jus-LAUDRY CHUTE!" He announced triumphantly.
"Yesssss!" Goo cried joyfully. "Yeah! Okay, my turn, my turn! I spy-"
"PICK SOMETHING ELSE FOR ONCE!" Mac finally blurted out irritably, unable to tolerate the absurdity of their game any longer.
The pair stared at him blankly for a few seconds, meeting the glowering eight-year-old eye-to-eye.
"Okay, how 'bout Twenty Questions?" Goo suggested eagerly, grinning from ear-to-ear as she turned back to face her playmate.
"Ooooh! I got one! I got one!" Bloo blathered excitedly. "Guess! Guess! You'll never get it!"
"Is it something in this house?" Goo asked, practically bursting with enthusiasm.
"Yes!"
"Oh! Oh! Is it…is it…um…ooooh, is it nearby?"
"Yeah, yeah! Closer than you think!"
"Laundry! Does it hafta do with laundry?"
"Oh wow, you're good at this!" Bloo complimented her.
"Is it…" Goo pondered over what to the other occupants of the outrageously cramped area was an all-too-blatantly-obvious answer. Mac let out a long, agonized groan as he craned his neck to face the squished redhead beside him.
"If you really loved me, you'd end my life right now." He whined in exaggeration.
"Mac!" Frankie quickly scolded him in the fashion of a chastising mother. "Don't say things like that!"
"Sorry." He whimpered, struggling to try and wiggle into a more comfortable position, which due to the proximity of his chute-mates was utterly impossible.
"Besides…I think I'd go insane putting up with Tweedledee and Tweedledum here all alone." The young woman whimpered, trying to snuggle closer to the eight-year-old, which really wasn't needed due to the fact that they where already as mashed together as tightly as the laws of physics allowed.
"Ackpth!" Mac spat in disgust as he suddenly received a face full of crimson hair. "Quit it! Quit it!"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry pal!" she apologized profusely. "I just….um, gimme a sec…".
"Stoppit, it's itchy!" the eight-year-old whined as her ponytail swept over his face.
"Mmphf…arrgh…." Frankie grunted in exertion, fiercely struggling to resume her former position. "No! Oh no!"
"Oh no? What? No way! Nuh-uh! There's no "oh no's"!" Mac objected desperately, his vision momentarily obscured by brilliant red.
"I can't move back!" she squealed unhappily. "I'm….I'm stuck!"
At this the other three occupants went silent, and those who could craned their necks to gawk at her in disbelief.
"Wait…hold on…." She muttered, blushing uncontrollably as she realized the full irony of her statement.
"Oh, you're stuck? Now? Oh, good thing you weren't already jammed inside a laundry chute or something." Mac snapped sarcastically in a muffled response.
"Hear that?" Bloo asked impudently, rubbing his thumb and palm together. "That's the world's smallest violin, playing just for you, Frankie."
"Oh shut up, you know what I meant!" the caretaker snapped, struggling fervently in a feeble attempt to loosen herself.
"Ow! Ow! Stoppit!" Mac whined as he was accidentally squashed further against the wall of their metal prison.
"My leg! It's not supposed to bend like that!" Goo yelped as she was painfully juxtaposed.
"You think you've got it bad? I lost all feeling in my ears now, too! OUCH!" Bloo cried as a random knee dug agonizingly deep into his gut. "Okay, who did that?"
"I told you, I don't know how it's bending like that!" Goo squealed, practically coming face-to-face with the soles of her shoes.
"ARRRRGH!" Frankie wailed in frustration, banging her head furiously against the sides of the chute. "WHERE ARE YOU WILT?"
Thankfully though, before she could deafen the others with the magnified volume of her screams of vehemence, a familiar voice rang out from above.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Wilt baffled profusely in apology. "I'm sorry guys! Are you still there?"
"No, we got bored and decided to go take a stroll in the park instead!" Frankie snapped sarcastically, more annoyed by the delay than gratified by the lanky imaginary friend's return.
"Hey, no fair!" Bloo whined unhappily. "How come you guys didn't invite me to come with you?"
"Oh, just shut up!" Mac spat viciously, struggling fiercely to remove his head from where it now rested uncomfortably smashed against Frankie's shoulder.
"Please, I'm so sorry!" Wilt continued, obviously distressed by the commotion occurring below him. "It's just that it took me so long to find-"
"Less explaining, more getting us out of the freakin' laundry chute!" Frankie barked. "Please! I can't stand this any mor-YEEEEEEEEEEEK!"
The girl shrieked in disgusted shock as she felt something cold, wet and slimy splatter onto the back of her neck. "WIIIIILLLLT! What on earth are you-"
"Oh no!" the crimson-furred creature lamented miserably. "I'm out of olive oil already!"
"You're out of WHAT?" Frankie roared in fury. "Oh, you did not just-"
"I'm sorry!" Wilt struggled to explain. "It's just that, well, I thought if I poured it down there, you guys would be able to slip your way out, but I can only find half a bottle in the kitchen, but I thought….oh man, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he barraged them with a hail of pitiful pleas for forgiveness.
"I said we needed help getting out! I didn't ask to be made into an Italian dish!" Frankie shrieked furiously, not doused enough in the stuff to help her slip loose, but partially soaked enough to cause her a tremendous amount of disgust and discomfort.
"EEEK!" she squealed as she felt the oil began to seep through her shirt. "Gross! Oh, sick, that's gross! Ew! Ew! Ew! Ew!"
"Yuck, you're all slimy!" Bloo whined as it began to drip onto his head.
"Oh, pardon me, Master Blooragard!" the caretaker hissed. "How rude of me! Next time I get drenched with cooking oil, I'll be more considerate and make sure it all stays on me!"
"You're not helping, Frankie!" Mac whined.
"Well you're not doing anything to make me not smell like a Sicilian-style pizza!" the redhead shot back, unable to contain her frustration.
"Please, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Wilt only continued. "Hold on, I think we have some dish detergent somewhere! Hold on, I'll be back as soon as I can!"
"ACK! Wait, Wilt, don't-" Frankie immediately tried to disagree, but it was of little use. The faint squeak of sneakers told them that their friend had already long gone, meaning well but obviously in an over-frazzled state of mind.
"Well, I guess that didn't work very well." Goo blurted out, stating the obvious.
"Are you kidding me? My scent is the same as the lunch special at Luigi's Pizzeria! Blech!" Frankie lamented, reeking strongly of an Italian pasta dish.
For the next few moments, the little group remained mashed against one another in awkward silence, trying to contemplate exactly what had just happened.
"….Frankie?" Bloo whispered cautiously.
"What?" she groaned wearily.
"I don't want to be the first to say it…" he murmured sheepishly, "But… if worst comes to worst, does this mean we're eating you first?"
"WHAT?" his trio of chute-mates all chorused in shock.
"Well, it only seems practical!" the little blob huffed indignantly. "She's already coated with-"
"Bloo, we're not going to be stuck here so long we'll be forced to resort to cannibalism!" Mac argued angrily. "Lunch was only two hours ago!"
"But….but…but I'm hungry nowwww!" The famished little imaginary friend whined like a cranky toddler.
"How does that give you permission to try and make a meal out of Frankie?" his creator countered logically. "You can go a few hours without a snack!"
"A few hours, yes! But…but what if that becomes a few weeks?" Bloo replied in a trembling voice.
"I'm nobody's snack!" Frankie screamed in protest.
"Oh, now we're all gonna starve to death!" The blob moaned, sounding a little panicky.
"Bloo-"
"I saw a movie on this once last week with my uncle!" Goo suddenly piped up excitedly. "These guys, like, their plane crashed in the mountains, and they survived but they couldn't be rescued 'cuz they were in the middle of nowhere, so when they ran out of food, they drew straws and-"
"We don't need to hear that! Gross! Gross! Gross!" Mac whined, desperately wishing that he still had the ability to move his hands enough to clamp them over his ears.
"-but they really didn't wanna do it, see, but they didn't have anything left to eat, so they lit a fire and-"
"Stoppit! Stoppit! You're making it worse!" Bloo pleaded unhappily, rubbing his growling stomach.
"Why don't we just get rid of you instead and make you the main meal?" Mac sneered with an enraged grimace.
"No way! I'm all tough and stringy!" Bloo objected.
"How do you know?" his creator spat.
"-and lucky for them someone had brought a survival kit with them, with a real knife and everything! So after they skinned the-" Goo prattled on, oblivious to the heated argument going on around her.
"STOP IT!" Frankie finally screamed, cutting through the multitude of voices like a knife through butter. "THIS IS DISGUSTING! NO ONE"S GOING TO BE EATING ANYBODY, GOT IT?" she bellowed as loudly as her lung capacity could enable her.
Immediately the badly-shaken trio all replied with nervous grunts of consent, and with that the entire group settled down dejectedly to resume waiting for much-needed assistance. That is, until…
"EEEEK!" Frankie suddenly shrieked as she felt something warm and moist run up her arm, causing her to jerk about with a start. "Who just tried to taste me?"
"I was just checking! I was just checking!" Bloo replied defensively.
"BLOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
It had been at least a half-hour since the trapped party had last heard from Wilt. Since then, they had remained there in stony silence, trying to ignore the throbbing aches in their cramped muscles, trying to tolerate the overwhelming smell of cooking oil that assaulted their nostrils, and struggling to ignore the fact that a certain someone there had almost gone off the deep end with plans to devour one of the others in a worst-case scenario. Morale was dismally low, and the makeshift prison was deathly quiet.
That is, except….
"…Sunny dayyy! Sweepin' the clouuuds awaaaaay! On my wayyyy, to where the air is sweeeeet!" Goo belted out uproariously, singing as happily and as carefree as she would if skipping about outdoors and instead of helplessly trapped inside a metal tunnel meant for transporting laundry.
"Oh can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Stre-"
"Do you know any song that's not a TV theme from PBS?" Frankie whined unhappily, extremely on edge.
"Thank you!" Mac praised his older sister gratefully.
However, the buoyant-spirited pigtailed little girl was nothing but smiles as she managed to make eye contact with the peevish young woman.
"Oh, c'mon! My grandpa says there's nothing like a good song to drive away the blues!" she said cheerfully, sounding like a cliché from a Disney movie. Brow furrowed in deep annoyance, Frankie glared daggers at the child as she burst into a frenzied session of uncontrollable griping.
"I've been trapped inside this stupid chute for over an hour already, my body is being forced to bend in ways not humanly possible, and I'm partially soaked with a cooking oil!" she complained bitterly.
"Oh c'mon, I'm sure a little tune would help you out in no time!" Goo only replied with a carefree chuckle, grinning from ear-to-ear.
"Oh yeah?" the twenty-two-year-old growled. "If you think for one moment that I'm in any mood to start…"
"…Ain't no mountain high, ain't no valley low, ain't no river wiiiide enough, baby!" Goo crooned as joyously and off-key as could be.
"If you need, me call me, no matter where you are, no matter how far!" Frankie warbled along with her, a goofy smile plastered upon her face as she lost herself in the classic golden oldie. "Just call my name, I'll be there in a hurry, you don't have to worry,"
" 'Cuz baby there ain't no mountain hiiiigh enough…" the two young ladies began to chorus along with one another, causing the chute to echo with the sounds of their voices, harmonized with the sound of…
Clang!
"Make it stop…"
Clang!
"Ugh…."
Clang!
"No!"
Clang!
"C'mon guys, knock it off!" Mac pleaded miserably, thudding his head against the sides of the chute with every cheesy line that the duo belted out. Despite the fact that Goo's childish advice had buoyed Frankie's somber mood by an extraordinary mood, it was clear that just the opposite had occurred to Mac, whose misery had been increased tenfold. Trapped in a living hell, the boy continued to bang his head dully as his ears were filled to bursting with mushy lyrics.
"I'm begging you! Frankie, Goo, please!" he whined once more in frustration, trying to make himself heard above the pair's off-key singing, which of course was a completely futile attempt on Mac's part.
"…Remember the day, I set you free, I told you could always count on me!" Goo continued merrily, oblivious to her friend's protests.
"From that day on, I made a vow, that I'll be there when you…" Frankie sang right back, equally ignorant of the eight year old's misery.
"AUGH!" Mac cried dismally, going through absolute torture. "Bloo, c'mon! I know that you're probably not enjoying this anymore than I am, gimme a hand here!"
However, besides the warbling of the others, Mac heard no reply to his inquiries.
"Bloo? Did you hear me? I said…uh…"
"…ain't no mountain, high enough! Ain't no valley low enough-OW!" Frankie grunted as the boy nudged her roughly. "What, Mac?"
"Where the heck is Bl-"
"Look out belloooooow!" the triumphant cry simultaneously cut Mac off and answered his question as a little blue blur plummeted from above and landed among the confused muddle of humanity.
"OW!"
"HEY!"
"Oh, for the love of-" Frankie snarled before biting down fiercely upon her lip, only moments away from cursing a storm.
"I'm back, guys!" Bloo announced triumphantly, clambering over his friends and squeezing himself back in between Mac and Goo. "Sorry, I just went to grab a couple comic books. It gets soooooo boring down here!" he explained casually with a grin. "Now, lemme just…mmphf, gimme a sec, I'm almost….there! It's like I never even left!" he announced happily after wedging himself back tightly among the others.
For a few seconds, everyone just stared at him blankly, trying fervently to understand the practically impossible feat the blob-shaped imaginary friend managed to unknowingly accomplish, a feat whose glory he managed to squander before their very eyes.
"BLOOOOO!" Frankie screamed furiously, causing the little creature to practically burst. out of his skin.
"AUGH! What'd I do? What'd I do?" he cried innocently.
"What did you do? What did you do? ARRRRRRGH! That's what I wanna know, you sneaky little-" she shrieked, his last particular act pushing temper completely over the edge.
"Hey, all I told you guys is that I just wanted to get some comic books-"
"And then you crawl back in here only to get yourself stuck again?" she bellowed.
"Well yeah, I tried to get back here as soon as I could! I didn't wanna miss it when Wilt came to get us out!" Bloo argued in defense.
"That doesn't even make any sense!" Frankie roared. "How on earth did you manage to get yourself out in the first place, without anyone knowing?"
"Um….uh…" the little blob stammered, glancing up towards the chute entrance above them. "I…don't…know…" he confessed meekly.
"BLOO!"
"Hey, knock it off! So I made one mistake, okay?"
"One mistake? One mistake? ARRRGH! We could've been out of here by now if-"
"Lay off, will ya?"
"No! First you have the nerve to run your grubby little tongue over my arm, and now this! I've had it up to here with you, you no-good-"
"Oh yeah? Well you're just a mean old-""-monstrous little-"
"-nasty red-haired-
"-Pac-Mac chasin', sneaky little-"
"STOPPPPPPP!" Mac's high pitched wail suddenly cut through their bitter bickering like a hot knife through butter. Immediately the arguing duo went silent and faced the agitated-looking eight-year-old.
"Just when it was getting good…" Goo murmured ruefully to herself.
"Stop it, just stop it, will you?" Mac snarled viciously. "I've had it! I've had it with you two! Not just now, but I'm just tired of the whole thing! Bloo gets in trouble, Frankie freaks out! Bloo gets in trouble, Frankie freaks out! Bloo gets in trouble, and Frankie freaks out!" he ranted furiously. "I don't like it when it happens during the day, and I hate it especially now when squished up right next to you!"
"Well maybe if someone would stop and use that little pea-sized mind of his.." Frankie sneered.
"Well maybe if you just weren't so nosy and you'd let a guy be-" Bloo tried to interject.
"It's my job, you little-"
"SEE?" Mac cried in exasperation. "This is what I'm talking about! Well, you know what? I'm sick of it! Not one good thing has happened since we've been stuck down here, and I think it's time to make some use of the situation!"
"Oh what, learn to become one with the laundry?" Bloo murmured grumpily. "Yeah Mac, that's really gonna help us out. Great job, Einstein"
"No!" Mac growled. "You're here, Frankie's here, you two haven't done anything but snap out of each other, and unless you work it out amongst you two, things aren't going to get any better down here!"
"Pal, it's because that I've been stuck in this God-forsaken laundry chute that chatting it up with Foster's Resident Terror is the last thing I want to do!" Frankie just snapped. "I don't care what you say, I'm in no mood to talk anything over right now!"
"Yeah, count me in!" Bloo spat. "What good is it going to do talking to Miss Bossy here?"
"As much good as it'll do me wasting time with you, blob-boy!" the redhead snarled venomously in reply.
"You see? You see that?" Bloo implored to his creator, jabbing a free stub accusingly at the cranky young woman. "It's just nothing but this, all the time! She's always yelling at me, punishes me, never let's me have any…"
It's quite surprising what one can get accomplished with a bit of unexpected bit of free time, as a particular pair found out.
"…and those times, y'know, when you really just rip into me?" the little blob whimpered, his cheeks streaked with tears. "That hurts, Frankie! I'I know I'll try and act like it's nothin' happened, b-but-"
"I can't help it Bloo, I just can't help it!" The redhead sniffled pitifully as she rubbed her eyes with a free arm, struggling to keep her badly watering eyes from blurring her vision. "I just-"
"Remember yesterday, you caught me riding around on the lawnmower?" Bloo interrupted her with a pathetic sob. "You yelled at me for almost half an hour straight!"
"But Bloo-" Frankie tried to interject miserably, the tears now gushing freely down her face.
"But nothing!" the little imaginary friend sobbed. "Why do you have to be so rough on me all the time? I know I'm not perfect, and I know I can't be like some of the other friends! But why does that give you the excuse-"
"Oh Bloo, don't you see?" the girl cut in. "It's not that I-"
"Well what, Frankie Foster?"
"It's because…well, b-because…because I worry about you!" the young woman blurted out with a sob.
"What?" Bloo cried, taken aback. "No, no you don't! Please, Frankie, I'm in no mood to hear lies!"
"But I'm telling the truth, Bloo! I never want to purposely see you in pain!" she confessed. "Yes, you'll get on my bad side a lot, yes, you can be a pest! But I'd be lying if I told your right now that'd Id ever, ever want to see you get hurt on purpose!"
For a few tense moments, the two just stared at each other blankly through red, puffy eyeballs.
"R-really?" Bloo sniffled.
"It's not just Mac, Wilt, or Grandma. You're part of my family too, Bloo." Frankie answered in a soft whisper. "And family's gotta look out for one another, no matter what."
With this, the azure imaginary friend just looked at her dully for a few seconds before bursting into tears, throwing his free arm open wide and wrapping it around the girl's neck in a tight hug. By the time he managed to maneuver into such a position considering the unusual setting they were in, the young woman was already weeping freely, the tears pouring from her eyes and the sobs wracking her trembling body. She wasted little time and Frankie too reached out with her only unstuck arm and held the weeping little creature close to her in a tight hug. Holding each other tightly, the two bawled uncontrollably, not caring what they were doing and who saw them.
That of course, made the entire situation extremely awkward for the chute's two other occupants, who together had been watching what resembled a miniature soap opera for the last twenty minutes or so.
"I blame myself, and myself alone." Mac announced regretfully, struggling to blot out the pitiful chorus of weeping that echoed uncomfortably loudly throughout the tight enclosure. "I just had to make them talk, didn't it? Goo, I'm so…Goo? Goo, are you okay?" he asked concernedly.
The little girl however just stared unblinkingly at the sobbing duo before them, oblivious to her friend's inquiries. Mac cocked his head confusedly at his normally upbeat friend's extremely unusual behavior.
"Goo? Goo, what's-"
"I'M SORRY!" she suddenly wailed heartbreakingly, the water pouring from her eyeballs like twin dams that had burst. Sobbing uncontrollably, the girl struggled to get closer to Frankie, which really wasn't necessary but Goo couldn't help herself, helplessly overcome by the powerful surge of emotion raging throughout the laundry chute.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she cried, little body trembling as she nestled up close to the young redheaded woman, unable to hug her due to the fact that her arms were pinned at her sides. "I'm sorry for imagining too many friends! I'm sorry for overcrowding the house! I'm sorry for making you sleep on the bus! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she confessed heartbreakingly, completely swept up in the tender moment.
"I'm the one who should be sorry!" Frankie cried, helplessly reduced to a sobbing bundle of tears. "I should've have been so mean to you! I should've treated you better first! I shouldn't have been such a big fat jerk!"
"I'm sorry!"
"No, I'm sorry!"
"What about me? I should be sorrier than all of you!" Bloo lamented miserably, joining in on the absurd band of sorry souls, quite a radical turnaround from the bitter group that had been lamenting their queer situation only half an hour before.
Watching the ridiculous sight taking place before him, Mac was suddenly caught off guard when he felt the familiar prickling sensation of warm moisture building up in his eyes. Quickly the child struggled to fight back the tears, but it was a feeble attempt. The ludicrously pathetic mood was too much to ignore, and with a shrug the eight-year-old allowed himself to burst into tears, completing the group's transformation into the sob fest of the century.
"Frankie, Frankie I'm sorry!" he bawled sorrowfully, swept up in it all and having absolutely no clue what he was talking about.
"No pal, please!" Frankie begged, nuzzling him comfortingly. "Don't cry, don't cry!"
"I love you, Frankie!" Mac wailed, fervently trying to get closer to his big sister.
"I love you, Mac! I love you too! I love you all!" She blubbered unashamedly, struggling to gather the trio closer to herself and at this point acting a far cry from the level headed Foster's caretaker they all knew her to be.
"D-do you really mean it?" Goo choked, staring at her through tear-brimmed eyeballs.
"Of course!" the young woman sobbed, nodding furiously as the tears continued to streak down her cheeks. "As long as I live, as long as there's breath in this body, I promise that I'll never try and let anything bad happen to you guys, never as-"
"AUGH! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" someone suddenly interrupted the tender moment with a yelp of surprise. "Oh jeez, I didn't mean to barge in on you like-"
"EEK!" Frankie screamed in mortified embarrassment, hurriedly detaching herself from the group and trying to back away, which of course was absolutely impossible. "I, uh…we were just…"
"No, no, please! I didn't mean to do that!" Wilt cried unhappily.
"No, wait, we were…um, it's just that…" the redhead stammered uncontrollably, extremely thankful that the darkened atmosphere hid her deep blush.
"Well, I just…"
"No, no, it's okay you-"
"I mean, I didn't-"
"Yes, yes, I know, but-"
"Um, is it okay if I just come at another time?""Uh, sure, if that's-HEY! No, wait! Now is good! Now is good!" The caretaker yelled frantically. "Don't leave us! Don't leave us!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have asked!" Wilt cried apologetically. "Look, just hold on tight, I think I got it this time! You guys are gonna be out in a minute, I promise!"
"Really? Y'mean it?" Mac piped up.
"Uh-huh, no problem! Just hold on a little more, you'll be free in a sec!"
"You hear that guys? Wilt's finally gonna get us out!" Frankie announced gleefully to her trapped comrades.
"YESSSSS!" Bloo whooped excitedly.
"Finally!" Mac sighed in relief.
"Hooray!" Goo cheered enthusiastically. "No more chute for us!"
"Yeah, you betcha!" Frankie laughed joyously. "No more…uh…"
The entire group abruptly cut themselves off in mid-cheer as they all stared wordlessly at the pink, fuzzy canine that had been lowered down to meet them.
"Take my hand if you want to live!" Crackers cried in a dramatic squeak, holding out a furry little paw.
The next minute was passed in a complete dead silence as they struggled to comprehend exactly was going on.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Frankie roared indignantly, her mood rapidly turning sour once more. "Crackers? You were gone all that time to get Crackers and a piece of rope?"
"Hey, it kinda makes sense!" Wilt replied defensively. "I mean, we don't want anyone else getting trapped down there, and since he is pretty small-"
"Take my hand if you want to live!" Crackers repeated, holding out his little paw in earnest towards the trapped band below him.
"No, Crackers, I won't take your hand!" Frankie hissed before glancing back up towards Wilt. "And you! I mean, seriously! If you think for one moment that this harebrained scheme is gonna work, then-"
"Okay then!" the little pink furry imaginary friend replied, not at all repulsed by the caretaker's stern refusal. "Then you take my hand!"
"Okay!" Goo accepted eagerly, reaching up towards the little dog-like creature. Frankie rolled her eyes and groaned loudly in frustration.
"Guys, I'm telling you, how the heck-"
Before she could finish however, she was suddenly taken off guard when Crackers suddenly latched his entire body to the little girl's arm, and suddenly seemed to produce a roll of heavy-duty duct-tape seemingly out of nowhere. Dumbfounded, Frankie didn't even have a chance to voice her thoughts on this before Crackers had actually duct-taped himself to Goo's shirt sleeve in a matter of moments, accomplishing it all in but a few deft movements.
"What the…" Frankie muttered incredulously.
"Target is secured! Haul away!" Crackers squeaked, giving the rope a good firm tug.
"Here we go!" Wilt hollered from above. Frankie, along with Bloo and Mac, continued to stare dumbly at the entire process, even until the last moment went the rope was pulled taut from above.
"Wait, what are you guys-" Mac tried to ask, right before…
POP!
"WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Goo squealed excitedly as Wilt managed to yank her free from the tangled mess with one massive tug. Firmly secured to the little imaginary friend taped to her arm, she rocketed free from her friends and up the chute in one swift movement.
However, the entire thing had caught a still emotionally shaken Bloo completely off guard, and with a squeal of surprise he inadvertently leaned forward and grabbed onto the little girl's legs tightly. Within less than a moment he found himself flying up through the metal confines and towards sweet beautiful freedom.
Of course, with those two rescued, their friends also now possessed the opportunity to finally escape, but unfortunately in a much, much less glorious manner.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Mac yelled as he suddenly found himself plummeting like a rock.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Frankie screeched in terror as she too found herself to be free, but free to tumble headlong downwards, until in a few seconds,
SPLAT!
Bloo, Goo, and the slapdash rescue team all cringed as they heard the sickening noises of two bodies making violent contact with a hard surface.
"Uh oh…" Wilt murmured with a nervous gulp. "That's not right…"
"OKAY!" Frankie's infuriated shrieks echoed loudly all the way from the laundry room. "WHO'S THE WISE GUY WHO DECIDED TO MOVE THE LAUNDRY CART?"
"Nap time?" Frankie yelled fiercely in complete disbelief from where she rested in Foster's expansive living room. As her voice boomed in infuriated skepticism, Wilt cringed as he peered in from the doorway, unsure of whether to meet the frazzled caretaker face to face.
"Um, yeah?" he whispered meekly.
"Lemme get this straight…you kept us waiting all that time, cramped in that miserable death-trap of a tunnel, forcing us to sing cheesy songs from thirty years ago at least, have the awful possibility of devouring one another crossing our minds, almost causing me to go complete insane…we had to go all through that because of nap time?"
"Well…I didn't want to wake anyone up, so I had to be real careful while sorting through the kitchen for the olive oil…and I had to sneak real quietly around the house to get Crackers, and when I found him, he was still asleep, so…I couldn't just wake him up, I'd be sorta rude if-"
"Oh, so it was better to let us spend another good twenty minutes so cramped together we were about to absorb one another?" an annoyed growl emanated from a nearby couch. Scuffing a shoe against the floor guilty, Wilt frowned as he responded in a low whisper,
"Uh…I'm sorry?"
"Wilt…" came the low, aggravated moan.
"Frankie, please, you'd know I'd never mean to purposely-" the lanky creature pleaded sadly as he began to make his way into the room.
"Could you gimme a few minutes before we go through the same old routine?" the redhead begged.
"Could you just-" Wilt whined, plodding towards the back of the couch from when he heard the twenty-two-year-old's voice emanate from.
"Wilt, please, I just spent God knows how long in you-know-where, all I want is some time alone to myself!" Frankie cried indignantly.
"Frankie-"
"I just spent half an hour in the shower scrubbing myself raw getting all that olive oil off too! Seriously, I really, really just want to relax a little! Alone!" she fiercely reiterated.
"Just a few minutes, all I want to-"
"Me! Alone!" she only repeated ferociously. Wilt sighed painfully as he continued to make his way, eager to make amends.
"Frankie, come on, I just want-"
As he peered over the couch to meet the young woman eye to eye, he was immediately met by a shrill squeak of surprise, making it obvious Frankie wasn't expecting him to approach her. Immediately Wilt cut himself off in mid-beg, glancing at her bewilderedly for a few moments, then at the sprawled caretaker's three couch-mates.
There was the pigtailed little girl resting her head upon the redhead's lap, a quirky little grin of bliss adorning her features as she quietly napped. Further up, a chesnut-haired, eight-year-old boy curled up contentedly against Frankie's stomach, and to top it all up, a snoring azure blob kept his head nestledcomfortably in the crook of the young woman's neck. All three lay fast asleep and perfectly at peace as they snuggled tightly up against the twnety-two-year-old, who at the moment was burning a fine shade of crimson in her deep embarrassment.
"Uh…they're kinda tired from…y'know, they had a rough day and all, and…er…" Frankie stammered nervously, flashing him a weak grin.
"Uh, Frankie?" Wilt asked, glaring at her dumbly.
"Yeah?" she whispered, her blush growing ever more vibrant by the second.
"Didn't you…um, didn't you just say you wanted some alone time?" he asked curiously.
"I did…." she guiltily confessed.
"But…aren't they…well, aren't you allowing them to…"
"I am..." The girl murmured sheepishly.
Wilt just gawked at her for a good minute or so, baffled by the whole sight before him.
"Wait, this wouldn't have anything to do with all that crying I heard earlier down there, would it?" he inquired confusedly.
Frankie just sighed wearily, letting sagging eyelids droop shut as she enveloped her arms around the trio huddled about her.
"All I'm gonna say is what happens in the Foster's laundry chute stays in the Foster's laundry chute."
The End
There we go! Nothin' much, just a little light-hearted piece I wrote in my spare time (something I'm gonna have much less of in the next month or so). But nevertheless, I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't get a kick out of writing this.
A big thanks to all those who read! Please review, feedback is always greatly appreciated!