Disclaimer: The TV series "LazyTown" was created Magnús Scheving and is owned by Turner Broadcasting System. This work of fanfiction is solely for entertainment purposes. I do not own the characters depicted in this story, nor do I gain any profit from using them.


The circling airship drew attention around town as it descended and landed in the little field just outside of Lazy Park. Stephanie, Ziggy, and Stingy came running as the dirigible touched down and the steady whir of the propellers quieted. The ship's door swung open and a platform shuttled down from the deck to allow the laughing and chatting men inside to disembark.

"Sportacus!" the children cried. Sportacus smiled at the kids and waved. Just behind the hero Robbie's own smile shrank to the slightest quirk of the lips and he straightened up, stifling the last bit of a chuckle.

"Is something the matter with your airship?" Ziggy asked. "Why did you land?"

"Nothing's wrong," Sportacus said. He gestured back towards Robbie, waving for the other man to come forward. The kids looked curiously at Robbie and the man fidgeted on the spot. "I'm just dropping Robbie off here so he can get washed up."

"He sure could use it," Stingy muttered, and the kids all giggled. Sportacus waited for them to settle down while Robbie frowned a bit.

"You'll take him to your house, Stephanie, won't you?" Sportacus asked, looking to the pink girl.

"That's right," Stephanie said. She stepped towards the platform and reached to take Robbie's hand but the man sidestepped her grasp and scampered down the ramp on his own. She giggled again and followed him. Robbie looked back over his shoulder towards Sportacus.

"You're not coming?" he asked.

"As long as the airship is landed I can take care of some maintenance," Sportacus said. "Then I have to do my training. But I'll catch up with you later. Bye, guys!"

Before Robbie could say anything else Stephanie managed to grab the man by the wrist and pulled him along. He stumbled into a walk with the kids and found the little girl's grip was stronger than it looked.


Trixie pushed herself lazily down the sidewalk on her scooter and craned her head around, looking for something to do. She almost scooted right past Stephanie's house but doubled back, looking again. Sitting out front were Stephanie, Stingy, and Ziggy, wearing the biggest grins she had ever seen.

"Hey guys," Trixie called as she rolled down the walkway towards them, "what are you doing?"

"Shhh!" Stingy shushed the pigtailed girl and halted her in her tracks.

"What's going on?" Trixie asked in a quieter voice. The three kids pointed in unison up at the window under which they sat. It was completely fogged over and streaked with condensation— the bathroom, currently occupied. "I don't get it, what's so funny?"

"Just listen," Stephanie whispered, almost a squeak, and the boys sniggered and quieted themselves all at once.

Trixie walked the rest of the way across the yard and removed her helmet. All that could be heard was the running water from the shower. She put her hands on her hips. "Is this some kind of joke?" she asked.

"Shhh!" Stingy hissed again. Trixie opened her mouth to give Stingy a real piece of her mind...

"Wash-wash-wash, I love to shower..." a deep voice crooned, audible even through the windowpanes.

Trixie's mouth remained open and her eyes widened. She gawked between the foggy window and the rest of the kids hunkered down beneath it, their faces all red and screwed up with the effort it took not to burst out laughing.

"Is that—?" Trixie asked, unable to fully form the question.

"Wash-wash-wash, bathe for an hour!" Robbie trilled, yodeled, and sang over the hissing water.

"No. Way," Trixie's face split into a big grin to match her friends. They nodded their heads and chortled behind muffling hands. Trixie clapped her own hands over her mouth and snickered.

"Wash-wash-wash, scrub and brush all day—" Robbie belted out the chords in a resonating bass, "And clean all that nasty filth awa-a-ay...!"

They couldn't hold it in anymore. The kids let loose with howls of laughter and peals of applause, whistling and hooting for an encore.

The water stopped running and the bathroom fell silent for a moment. A hand slapped up on the window and wiped the condensation clear with a furious squeaking back and forth. In the cleared out circle the hand was replaced by Robbie's squinting face. He peered through the streaked window, eyes darting furtively side to side before snapping down towards the children. They lay sprawled out on the grass holding their sides from their laughter.

"Kids!" Robbie shouted through the window.

"Hey, Robbie!" Trixie shouted back at him, cackling madly. "Do you need any backup singers? You should take this on the road!"

Robbie ducked away from the window. The kids could hear the sharp zing of the shower curtain and the bang of the bathroom door. It took a good handful of minutes for them to regain some composure and catch their breaths. Trixie stood doubled over with her hands bracing her knees and Stephanie wiped tears from her eyes.

The front door to Stephanie's house opened a crack. Robbie poked his head outside and one look at him had the kids rolling in laughter again. The man had wrapped a big white towel all around his hair and stacked it on his head like a beehive. He'd swaddled himself completely in a robe and towels, in fact, but still did not dare to set foot outside.

"Little girl," Robbie hissed, glaring bullets at Stephanie as he tried to get her to focus. "Hey, Pinkie!"

"Hey, Robbie," Stephanie said, a giggle still bubbling out of her. "Was your shower all right?"

"Forget about that!" Robbie snapped while his face went red. "Where did you put my clothes? You were supposed to clean them for me!"

"They are clean," Stephanie said, "but now they're drying. Over there," she pointed across the street towards Ms Busybody's house. Robbie stared, his mouth twitching between a grimace and gaping shock to see his purple striped pants and vest along with his blue turtleneck flapping in the breeze on the clothesline.

"What am I supposed to wear now?" he demanded.

"You can borrow some of my uncle's clothes," Stephanie said. "Uncle Milford said he left some out for you in his room."

Robbie slammed the door shut, disappearing back inside. It gave the kids time to fall down laughing once more.


When the door to Stephanie's house next creaked open, Robbie was even slower about stepping outside.

"No more laughing," he warned them in a severe tone, only his face peering around the door.

"Okay," Stephanie said, doing her best to look calm.

"I mean it," Robbie said even more forcefully, now a bit of his shoulder coming into view.

"We promise," Ziggy said. The other kids nodded— although Trixie crossed her fingers behind her back.

Slowly Robbie emerged from the house. He pressed himself against the door as he shut it, his movements short and stiff. The children's eyes widened briefly, their mouths puckered— but they managed not to laugh.

Milford Meanswell had left Robbie some of his yard work clothes to wear. But the portly mayor's measurements were all wrong for dressing the tall and skinny villain. The denim overalls ended around Robbie's knees and his shirt sleeves didn't even reach his wrists. He looked crunched inside the gardening garb and his expression was pinched to match.

"That's a new look for you," Trixie said. Stephanie nudged her friend in the ribs and Trixie cleared her throat. "I mean, it's good!"

"Whatever," Robbie muttered. Seeing as the kids were controlling their giggles the man left the relative safety of the house and walked over to join them. His black and white spats did not go with the rest of his ensemble and Stingy seemed mesmerized by his mismatched wardrobe.

"So what should we do now?" Stephanie asked.

"I know," Ziggy said, "we could have a picnic! Let's go to the garden to get some fruits and vegetables for lunch!"

"Uh uh!" Stingy snapped out of his trance and shook his head. He put a hand to his chest, offended by the very idea. "I'm not getting these clothes dirty in some dirty— garden— dirty... dirt!"

"Aw, Stingy," Ziggy said, "we'll change into gardening clothes, just like Robbie!"

"Oh," Stingy said. He looked thoughtfully at Robbie. The man was still tugging on his pant legs and sleeves as though he could will them to be long enough for his limbs. "Well in that case, I guess it's okay."

"Gardening?" Robbie's nose wrinkled. "But I just got clean."


The kids chattered back and forth across the garden to each other. They all had donned their gardening gloves, hats, and aprons, and wielded spades and rakes to turn over the soil in each of their garden boxes. The vegetables seemed to sprout right before their very eyes, each plot ready to be harvested.

"This is the good stuff," Stephanie hummed as she plucked some tomatoes off the vine. The other kids agreed with her. They gathered broccoli, squash, and strawberries to have for their picnic lunch.

"Aren't my vegetables beautiful?" Stingy sighed in appreciation of his flowering fruits of the earth. All of his vegetables were labeled the same way with a simple "MINE" sign for each.

Robbie stood over a garden box too, but had barely put so much as a divot into the dirt with his spade. Not that he needed the tool anyway. He could just uproot the carrots by hand. But he didn't touch them, instead watching everyone else work around him.

"This is really your idea of fun?" he posed the question to the group.

"Ours and yours," Stephanie stressed to the man. "You love vegetables, remember?"

"Sure," Robbie said with a sigh. "I love all these fruity... veggie... things."

"And you've totally got a green thumb!" Trixie said. "Maybe even both thumbs." Robbie looked startled by the claim and held up his hands to inspect his digits.

"They're not green," he said, giving the girl a squinty look. Trixie snickered at him.

"It means you like taking care of plants," Stephanie explained. "And we can always use more help with the garden, so it's a good thing you do."

"Yeah!" Ziggy agreed. "With you here, Robbie, we'll be going in no time!"

"I think my get up and go just got up and went," Robbie muttered. He continued to keep an eye on Ziggy, however. Or rather, on Ziggy's vegetable plot.

Besides the usual leafy greens poking out of the dirt there were some rather unconventional sproutlets growing in the kid's garden bed. In particular, a colorful array of lollipops stuck out of the plot as though they had bloomed there, rather than being deliberately stuck in there by a hopeful little boy. Robbie's stomach growled. Ziggy giggled at the man, overhearing it.

"Hey Robbie, why don't you have a snack?" Ziggy suggested.

"Can I?" Robbie asked, setting his spade down without any further convincing. He abandoned his carrot patch to sidle up next to Ziggy.

"Sure," Ziggy said, waving his hands around them, "there's plenty to eat right here!"

"Don't mind if I do," Robbie murmured, already knowing just what he wanted. But as he reached down to pluck one of the lollipops from the box Stephanie was quick to catch on to him.

"Robbie!" Stephanie's voice rang like a warning across the garden and Robbie jerked his hand back like he'd been burned. He forced a laugh and smiled around at the kids.

"Only joking," he said in a singsong tone. "I was actually reaching for this..." His smile quivered on his face as he pulled up a radish from the dirt and brushed it off. "See?"

"Take a bite, and we'll really see," Trixie challenged him.

Robbie glanced around the garden. All of the kids had stopped what they were doing to watch him. He brushed a few more particles of dirt off the radish and cleared his throat. It was difficult to part his teeth enough to slip the red vegetable into his mouth, and harder still to bite down on it. He munched and crunched noisily. Several tears sprang to his eyes.

"Wow," Stingy said in awe. "I've never seen anyone eat a radish like that before. They're supposed to be really spicy!"

Trixie laughed long and hard while Robbie gave up on pretense and darted towards the edge of the garden to spit out the radish.

"Trixie, that wasn't funny," Stephanie scolded her friend.

"I don't know about that," Trixie snorted. Stingy too had started to snicker.

Robbie staggered back over and it was clear his tongue was still burning from the sharply flavored sprout. He ignored everything else around him in that moment and yanked one of Ziggy's lollipop's straight out of the garden box and jammed it into his mouth.

"Robbie no!" Stephanie shrieked, the other kids sounding equally shocked by his behavior. Robbie just rolled his eyes at them— or rather, his eyes nearly rolled back in his head while his whole body shivered with relief from that sugary insurgence.

When he finally pulled the sucker out of his mouth the kids were still staring at him, wide-eyed and frozen in place. He looked back at them all, his initial relief from the burning being replaced by a new sense of self-conscious uncertainty. It was like they were waiting for him to do something else with dreadful anticipation.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Is he remembering?" Stingy asked through his lips to the other kids, but Stephanie shushed him.

Robbie set the lollipop down. "Remember what?" he asked.

"So you don't remember?" Ziggy asked, and Stephanie shushed him too.

"I remember yesterday you said I don't eat candy," Robbie said, eyeing Stephanie carefully. "But a little can't hurt, can it? It certainly tastes good..."

The kids exchanged a few more glances amongst themselves and relaxed. Stephanie nodded back to the man.

"Sportacus says it's okay to have a little candy sometimes," she allowed. "But it's much better for you to eat fruits and vegetables instead."

"So Sportacus doesn't ever eat candy?" Robbie asked.

"No way!" Ziggy exclaimed. "He couldn't do that, or he'd go into a—"

"ZIGGY!" the other kids interrupted Ziggy and the little boy bit his tongue. Robbie raised his eyebrows, openly intrigued, but none of them were willing to finish the statement.

"Well," Robbie said, "that's too bad. He's missing out."

"And we're missing our own picnic," Stephanie said, bustling everyone back into action again. "Let's load up these vegetables and get going."

The other kids agreed with the pink girl and quickly finished harvesting their gardens. Robbie helped as well, if a bit more slowly. He was tasked with carrying the loaded down picnic basket out to Lazy Park. As they all vacated the garden Robbie slipped a couple more lollipops in among the carrots.