SO, what's Toby been up to while Jareth has been having a good laugh at Sarah's expense? I thought you'd never ask! (Actually, I thought you would, which is why I wrote this.) Once again, Labyrinth ≠ mine.
"I have to get Sarah back," Toby told himself out loud for what must have been the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours. He'd cried himself to sleep after Sarah disappeard, but soon fell into fitful dreams of a shadowy figure with spiky blond hair and mismatched eyes. The face and voice had somehow seemed familiar to Toby, but he couldn't place it. All he knew was that this man had somehow made Sarah vanish right before his eyes. Now she was gone and he had to get her back. For some reason he couldn't quite pin down, he knew he was her only hope, so he summoned up his eight-year-old courage and set about trying to find his sister. He got as far as putting on his lucky underpants and picking out his favorite sneakers to wear with his jeans and Elmo T-shirt before he realized that he had no idea where to start.
He thought back to last night and tried to remember all the details. What was it that they had been doing before she disappeared? She had been reading him a bedtime story. Which one? Oh, the book with the red cover! The one he'd always seen her touching fondly and reading with a smile, or sometimes a sad frown on her face. He remembered she always looked at him kind of funny after she read that book. And one time she'd even gone out and bought him the expensive radio controlled racecar he'd been staring at in the toyshop window for the month before. What was it called? He'd always had trouble with spelling. But he sat down in the middle of the floor, closed his eyes and screwed up his face in concentration.
What did it begin with? J? No that didn't look right. T? L? Yes! An L. L-a-b….The Laboratory? He knew what those were because he loved to watch "Pinky and the Brain" on Saturday mornings. Laboratories were where men in white coats did experiments on mice. Was Sarah taken so that they could perform experiments on her? That didn't seem to fit. Besides, the man had been wearing black, not white, so it couldn't one of the laboratory men. What came next? La-b-y-r…what was the last part? Oh! He had it: L-a-b-y-r-i-n-t-h. Labyrinth? But what does it mean? He tried pronouncing it several ways out loud."Lab-y-RINTH. Hmmmm. Lab-Y-rinth. LAB-y-rinth?" The last one sounded right, like he'd heard it before, but he still didn't know what it meant. But it was getting close to breakfast time and Mom would be calling him at any minute. Maybe she knew what it meant. Anyway, it couldn't hurt to ask.
"Mom?" Toby asked, looking up from his bowl of Lucky Charms.
"Mmmm? Yes dear, what is it?" Karen answered.
"Who's a labyrinth?"
"What dear?"
"I said, who's a labyrinth?"
"I think you mean 'what,' my boy," said Toby's father—Robert, or Rob to his friends—strode into the room straitening up his tie and smoothing down his hair in a last ditch effort to get straightened up for work.
"Whadya mean?" Toby asked.
" 'What', Toby. Please enunciate when you talk darling, or you'll sound uneducated." Toby grumbled something about "not caring what he sounded like" to which Karen replied, "Speak up darling, don't mumble! What did you say?"
"Nothing, Mom."
Robert smiled at his son and continued, "A labyrinth is a 'what' not a 'who' Toby. It's just a big maze. Didn't you ever read about the labyrinth and the minotaur?" Toby shook his head, "Sheesh!" Robert exclaimed, "What are they teaching our children these days? By his age I knew all the Greek myths by heart and had read the Iliad, the Odyssey and Herodotus' histories! Well, I'm off to work dearest, bye Toby, don't get into too much trouble while I'm gone." And with a wink for his son and a peck on the cheek for his wife, Robert was gone.
"Toby, honey? Finish your breakfast, and don't slouch like that or you'll end up with a hunchback."
Toby fidgeted all day during school and barely paid attention to his lessons. During recess and lunch he did what he'd never done before and went up to the library. He sheepishly asked the librarian where the "Greek myths" section was and she directed him to a musty old corner in the history section. Many of the books were old and had long, complicated titles he couldn't begin to understand, but the kind woman pointed out a book entitled, "Greek Myths for Young Children," which Toby checked out and took home with him.
When he got home and started to read the story of the minotaur and the labyrinth (and a young man named The-se-us), it didn't seem to make sense. The young warrior defeated the labyrinth using a ball of string? Was it like Hansel and Gretel and their trail of stones? And the minotaur didn't seem to fit at all with what Sarah had been reading. Perhaps he had the wrong labyrinth. But was there another one out there? He decided to go to Sarah's room and look through what little was left of her things in there. After she'd gone to college, Karen had re-arranged much of the furniture, but Robert was wistful and rather than allowing his wife to 're-decorate' he told her the childish furniture made the room feel "cozy and inviting." So she'd kept the furniture and some of Sarah's more important baubles—her wall rack of bears, the music box with the dancing princess, and a few other knick-knacks from Sarah's youth. One wall had been stripped of its posters to make room for a large bookshelf and Toby hoped that perhaps his sister might have another copy of the Labyrinth—which he couldn't seem to find in his room after she disappeared—or anther book that would help him find her.
He scanned the bookshelf as high as his little arms could reach and then pulled a chair over to read the titles on the top shelves. Nothing jumped out at him. There was no second copy of the book to be found. He sensed that the book was the key to everything and his failure to find a copy made him extremely upset. How am I ever supposed to find Sarah without the book? He heaved a big sigh and threw himself down on her bed.
"Ooooh!" He felt so angry at himself he could cry, "I wish I knew how I could find Sarah!"
"My good fellow, who pray tell are thee? Where is the Lady Sarah? And of what doth thou speakest? If you have harmed her, I shall fight you to the death!!" A gallant—and, to Toby's mind, strange—sounding voice was coming from somewhere in the room. Hastily, Toby glanced around him in search of the source only to be confused by another voice, deeper, slower and more resonant.
"Sawah? Where Sawah?"
"Oof! Move over you big hairy oaf, there's no room for me in here," cried a third voice.
Finally, Toby located the source of the curious voices: they were coming from the vanity mirror across the room. Moving closer, he saw that three strange faces in the glass. He was confused, but because he was an adventurous boy, their presence didn't seem to frighten him. They sounded like they knew his big sister, so they must be friends of some sort. Though of what sort, he couldn't figure out. Taking up most of the reflection in the mirror was a large, orange-haired beast with horns, gentle eyes and a child-like grin. On the beast's left was a small creature that looked like a fox, but was wearing the most outlandish clothing for a fox! He looks just like one of the knight's in my story books, the boy thought. Finally, on the right, squeezing in under the huge arm of the orange beast was the third a final 'voice;' he looked to Toby's mind exactly like what he always imagined a dwarf would look like—a large nose, large hands, a stumpy body and a bag of jewels at his side—but he lacked a beard, which Toby associated with dwarves. All three were peering at him with a look of confusion. However, they did not seem malicious or hostile. No, they appeared to be kind faces, friendly faces, but what confused Toby was that when he glanced around Sarah's room, he couldn't see the three figures anywhere.
"E-excuse me?" Toby began, "Who are you? Do you know my sister? And, where do you come from? Why can't I see you in the room? Are you her friends? Do you know what the Labyrinth is? Do you know where it is? How can I get there? Can you help me find her? Do—"
"Hey! Slow down kid! One question at a time if you please," said the third figure, "Now. My name's Hoggle."
"I, my good sir, am Sir Didymus, at your service," the fox-creature continued, "And this is Sir Ludo, my brother."
"That thing is your brother?" asked Toby incredulously, "You don't look alike at all!"
"Ludo brother," Said the orange beast, looking affectionately at Sir Didymus.
"And you, young sir? What, pray tell, is your name? And am I to understand that you are the Lady Sarah's sibling?" asked Didymus.
"Toby," he said proudly, drawing up his tiny stature to it's full height, "My name is Toby and Sarah is my big sister. So, what are you doing in the mirror?"
"We can only come in if we're invited," humphed Hoggle.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't know. Come on in." In the blink of an eye, Toby found himself surrounded by the three creatures.
"Toby, friend?" asked Ludo.
"Yeah, I guess so. I've never had a friend as big as you are. Wow! Your hand is bigger than my head!" He exclaimed, putting his face in the gentle beast's palm as if to prove it, "Cool! So, how do you all know Sarah? Are you from the Labyrinth?"
"How do you know about the Labyrinth?" asked Hoggle.
"You mentioned that the Lady Sarah is missing. Where is she? If she did summon, who did? Did you?"
"I said I wish I could find my sister, so maybe that's what brought you here. You see, Sarah was reading me a bedtime story last night. It was a book she used to read all the time but she'd never let me read it. It was called The Labyrinth, but I didn't know that until today. But last night she read it to me and we were reading and I told her I didn't like the way the book sounded, so she asked me how I would fix it. And I told her that the princess should have said, 'I wish the goblins would come—'"
"AH! No, don't say anything else, you'll bring him here, again. I bet you told the goblins to come take you sister away, didn't you?" Hoggle was looking decidedly nervous, and though Toby didn't know who "he" was, he could see that he must be unpleasant to make Hoggle so upset.
"I guess I did, though I didn't mean to. I was just trying to tell her how I thought the story ought to go. Then it got really dark outside and there was thunder and lighting and the window blew open. Then, a guy came. He was dressed in a black cloak and had weird yellow hair and funny eyes. Is that who you mean?"
"That's Jareth alright."
"Who?"
"Jareth," answered Hoggle, "The Goblin King and ruler of the Labyrinth."
"And he has my sister?"
"If you wished her away, then yes, he does. And there's no good going after her now. Jareth doesn't forgive easily and he doesn't like people meddling in his business. No, you better just stay right here and be nice and safe."
"But I can't," Toby wailed, "He has my sister and it is all my fault. I have to get her back. Take me to the Labyrinth and I'll make him give her back."
"Toby, we'd love to help you out, really we would, but you have no idea what you're going up against with Jareth. As of a few minutes ago, you didn't even know who he was. How are you supposed to convince him to give Sarah back when you don't know anything about the Labyrinth?"
"The book! If I only had the book Sarah was reading. I know that would help! But I can't find it anywhere. Sarah was reading it to me when that guy came…."
"Perhaps the lady Sarah still has it?"
"Of course! She was holding it when she went. But how am I supposed to get it back?"
"Perhaps we can be of assistance, young sir Toby," said Sir Didymus, bowing. "If the King is holding the lady Sarah captive, we must free her."
"Oh no, not again!" moaned Hoggle. "I did this before and almost went headlong into the bog of eternal stench. I'm not going up against Jareth again."
"But. Sawah. Sawah friend," bellowed Ludo.
"Please Hoggle? You have to help me find Sarah! That is, if you are really her friend."
"Oooh. Fine. I'll do it. But this is the last time."
"Great! You go get the book from Sarah and I—well, I'll see what I can find in her things that might help. This is going to be fun!"
"Humph," Hoggle grumbled. "Fun isn't the word I'd use for it." And with that, the three companions faded into the mirror and the last thing Toby heard was Sir Didymus' cry, "Tally ho!"
Toby seems pretty excited to be starting his adventure (his a little boy, what little boy doesn't want to have a daring adventure?) but will it live up to his expectations or will he fail to win Sarah back from Jareth? Please R&R, dear friends. You're the best!