Runt
Part 2: Luck
By Kim McFarland
It was late winter. The worst had passed, and although it was still cold and there was very little food to be had a sense of cheerful anticipation was spreading through the Fraggle colony, triggered by the sound of dripping water. The thaw was coming, and with it spring.
A small Fraggle, heavily bundled up against the cold and the attendant danger of sickness, wandered through the Great Tunnel that linked all the smaller tunnels of the colony. A stream ran down the center of the passage. During the winter it was iced over, and Fraggles played on the ice instead of swimming. Nobody was on it now, though. Everywhere he went, he could hear at least one voice singing The Carol of The Promise. The song was a prayer for the spring, and they began singing it on the coldest day of the winter. The song, passed from Fraggle to Fraggle, would not stop until the ice broke on the stream. The tradition was so deeply ingrained it hardly seemed to be a tradition; they could not imagine not singing it.
The small Fraggle sang as well. He believed in the carol as firmly as any other Fraggle did. It called to spring, and spring came. What more proof did anyone need? Not singing it would certainly lead to catastrophe, but nobody would be foolish enough to silence the song. Especially with spring almost within reach, he thought as he watched water plink from the ceiling far above onto the surface of the stream.
His reflection in the ice looked back up at him. He was a small, moss-colored child, his shape all but hidden within layers of clothes. Only his nose and his fire-colored hair were visible. He raised the cap he wore to keep his head warm, briefly revealing his eyes. Instead of rising above his head as was normal for Fraggles, his were half sunk into his head, as if he were an infant whose eyes had just opened. That and his small size led people to underestimate his age and treat him like a baby. Or stare at him. But that happened less often now that he had a hat that covered his eyes, leaving enough room under the brim for him to see out.
He looked around. The mouths of the other caves were blocked by heavy cloth curtains decorated with springtime scenes. Fraggles unencumbered by heavy winter clothes, young animals, and of course the plants that they looked forward to eating instead of gnawing tough old roots. Spring was the season of renewal, of birth.
But he had been born in winter. He looked at his reflection again. It was nobody's fault that he was strange-looking and small and got sick easily. It was simple bad luck, caused by having been born at the wrong time. As he listened to the carol, he wondered how you courted good luck. He needed some. Luck was how you influenced the future; good luck would make it better and bad luck would make it worse. His mother said that his name was lucky: it was the name of a folktale hero. She had told him the story of the Fraggle who, when tied to a rock by clinging creepers, had burst through the vines and escaped. He often thought that if the name was going to do him some good, he wished it would hurry up and start.
He considered. Hunger and cold were bad luck because they made you unhappy. Being unclean was bad luck because it led to sickness. Then the opposite must be true: cleanliness, plenty, and warmth were lucky. He had never been told this, but it was obvious.
He looked past his reflection, and saw the water flowing under the ice. The ice was very thin here; he thought he could see something moving in the water, a fish or piece of debris. He had not swum in months. Nobody had. But spring came, he thought suddenly, when the ice broke!
He pushed through one of the heavy curtains leading to an uninhabited tunnel. It was bitingly cold on the other side of the cloth. Hurriedly he searched around, then picked up the heaviest rock he could lift. He carried it a few feet, then dropped it and went back to select a smaller one. He was able to carry this to the curtain, push it underneath, then go back into the Great Tunnel. He picked up the rock again and carried it to the stream. He scanned the icy surface for what looked like the thinnest area, then with some effort raised the stone above his head and threw it down hard.
The ice shattered under him, plunging him into the water beneath. It was shockingly cold. His clothes dragged at him as he struggled and the cold quickly sapped his strength. He gasped, and water rushed into his lungs like cold fire.
The nearby Fraggles heard the sharp crack, and one looked up in time to see the child disappear under the surface of the water. He shouted, "Help! Someone's fallen in!"
Others quickly brought a rope made of root fibers and tied it around his waist. He jumped into the water. He looked around—nothing—then saw, underneath himself, a splash of red hair drifting in the water like seaweed. He reached down, caught a handful of cloth with one hand, then swam lower and wrapped his arms and legs around the still form. With one hand he yanked hard on the rope. It tightened around him, hauling him back up.
A bunch of Fraggles were on the side of the stream, pulling on the rope. They drew both the chilled Fraggles out. The adult said, "I'm all right." The child was not moving. Several people picked him up, turned him upside-down, and slapped his back. He choked water out of his lungs and stomach, then began to cry.
As other Fraggles were stripping him of his sodden clothing and wrapping blankets around him to dry his fur and warm him, his mother rushed in. She took the shivering, crying boy in her arms and asked, "What happened? Are you all right?"
He choked back his tears and said in a whimpering voice, "I broke the ice. I didn't mean to fall in."
"Why in the earth did you break the ice?" she asked.
"To make spring come."
"Oh, Boober, breaking the ice won't bring spring. It's spring that makes the ice break." He began to cry again, and she sat down, lifted him into her lap, and rocked him. Someone offered a scarf, and she wrapped it loosely around his wet hair to keep off the chill. When he calmed down, she led him back to their home for a change of clothes and some warm food.
Despite her efforts, he soon developed pneumonia. Though the memory of his near-drowning was gone by the time he recovered, he would not swim in the stream again.
Fraggle Rock is copyright © The Jim Henson Company, and is used without permission but with much respect and affection. The overall story is copyright © Kim McFarland (negaduck9 at aol dot com). Permission is given by the author to copy it for personal use only.