Newsie wasn't at the apartment, although Gina found his bath towel still damp when she checked, and his clothing from this morning slung into the laundry hamper. So he had gone to work. Trying to tell herself this was a good sign – certainly better than finding him still moping here, or worse, finding no signs of him at all – Gina scrubbed quickly in a cool shower to get the heat of the day off her body, and dressed in black tights and a black-lace-trimmed babydoll that fell just past mid-thigh. She did her best to put her uncooperative hair up in something resembling a formal bun; tiny wavelets dribbled out around the sides. In this humidity, this is as formal as I get, she thought unhappily. At least the tech booth was air-conditioned. She studied herself in the mirror a moment. Will Newsie like this? She shook her head, angry at herself. As if this was just another night! But all the same…before she ran out the door, she took a second to add the black-obsidian-crystal chandelier-drop earrings that she knew he admired, which did at least make the outfit a smidgen more dressy.

She only cared about what one particular person thought of how she looked. She could only hope he'd turn up as he'd agreed to.

Where is Mommy Dearest, anyway? Is she going to try to maim me again tonight? Maybe I should've brought the hemlock, Gina thought, regretting her lack of foresight. Exorcising the theatre sounded like a marvelously swell idea. She almost grinned to herself: swell. She was starting to think like her old-school journalist… So many things she loved about him, out-of-style word usage included. Newsie was simply old-fashioned about a great many things… Maybe I just overwhelmed him. Maybe he can't handle an adult relationship. Maybe he's had second thoughts all along? Worried, she wasn't looking as she ran through the lobby toward the lighting-booth stairs, and abruptly a fat suit blocked her way.

"Oh!...Paul," Gina muttered, glumly recognizing the large, bulbous lips, the flat nose, the huge round wet eyes of the show's producer. Ugly though he was, his impeccably tailored suit and polished shoes (was that eelskin?) smugly proclaimed money, money, money. She wondered what his cut of this charity event would be; she couldn't imagine him doing it out of the goodness of his tiny, cold heart. "Hi. Excuse me; have to do the light and sound checks." She really didn't want to have to try and squeeze past him; she had the distinct impression that to do so would get ooze on her dress.

Paul Grouper sucked in a breath, ogling her short dress and long legs. "Mith Brouthek. While I underthtand many, ahem, artithtic types thuch as yourthelf adore a more wanton lifethtyle than I mythelf am uthed to," he leered, "I really have to take ithue with your latetht thcandle."

"Thcandle?" Gina demanded, glaring at him. "I mean – what scandal?"

"Well…" Paul leaned in; trying not to openly grimace, Gina leaned away. "It wath brought to my attenthun earlier tonight that you have apparently been, thall we thay, entwined with a member of the Muppeth, and –"

"Entwined?" Gina repeated, rage rising immediately.

Paul frowned. "Ath much ath it is none of my bisneth what thordid little things you indulge in when in the thecret privathy of your own intimate domithile, thurely you mutht underthtand the pothition I am in, and the harm which the thlightestht whiff of thcandle could catht upon thith event –"

Gina restrained the urge to backhand the fishy producer. Barely. Suddenly she understood why Miss Piggy had perfected the karate chop. "You," she hissed, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, "can shut the hell up. Now."

Paul screwed up his fleshy lips, offended. "Mith Brouthek! You will not take thuch a tone with me! I am the produther of thith show!"

"You are a small-minded, lecherous, odious, greedy, grasping parasite on what's supposed to be a good cause!" Gina snarled, startling the shorter man. "I've had enough of people trying to turn up their noses at Newsie and me! I love him, and I'm not ashamed of it! There is nothing wrong or sick or bad about loving a Muppet!" she shouted, backing the producer against the nearest wall. Paul blinked his goggle-eyes at her, clearly astonished at being addressed in such violent terms. Gina took a deep breath, still struggling with a very strong desire to dump this horrible, leering lech into the sewer, and finished with a lunge-step at him that made him flinch: "So I don't care what backwards little bog-town you crawled out of, do you get it? And you'd better get used to seeing people in relationships you don't approve of, because in case you didn't realize it, Fishy, you're in freakin' New York!"

Paul gaped at her, his large lips twisting wetly, soundlessly. Gina stomped again, making him fall back so she could storm past him without smearing her dress against his shiny suit. Two steps up the stairs, she heard him stutter imperiously: "Wh—I—I—I'll thust have you know, your behavior would never be tolerated in Innthmouth! We uth thivilized thpeech there!"

"Freakin' old-money New Englanders," Gina muttered, throwing open the booth door at the top of the thtairth –er, stairs – and slamming it shut behind her.

After the third giggle heard in passing, the Newsman felt the unpleasantly familiar certainty that he was being mocked behind his back. When he turned his head to look straight at the assistant news floor manager, she promptly quieted and pretended to be checking something on her clipboard – but even his poor peripheral vision caught her assistant handing something off to someone else. Snapping his gaze that direction, Newsie glimpsed a folded newspaper before a crew member hurried away with it tucked under his arm. Newsie swallowed, ashamed without knowing why, and then swiftly grew irritated. "What's going on?" he asked the assistant floor manager.

She blinked blankly at him. "Firming up the story order, why? Did you have some changes you wanted to work in?"

"Uh…no. No, thank you," Newsie said, bemused. Maybe he was imagining things. After all, this was his workplace, not Mrs Kandinsky's homeroom class, and these were trained news professionals, not sixth-graders. Reminding himself he still had to view the final version of his special report in the editing room before they went live in twenty minutes, he turned and trotted down the hall away from the broadcast floor…and distinctly heard several more snickers and giggles.

His felt was burning as Rhonda met him at the door to the smaller of the two editing booths. "Hey, just in time! I got it all cued up and –"

"Is there anything I ought to know about?" Newsie demanded. Rhonda looked him up and down, blanched, and tried to smile innocently.

"Ah, no, a'course not! Here, Newsie; why don't ya come on in and we'll look at the final playback, and you can –"

"Why are people…laughing at me?" Newsie asked, studying the nervous rat suspiciously. "Rhonda, if there's some practical joke Fargo's pulled on me, you need to tell me!" He tried to glance over his shoulder at his back, failing. "Did he tape 'Noogie Me' to my coat again?"

"Ah, forget him, that overblown used-car salesman wannabe! Come on in here, Newsie; look, I got ya a fresh coffee and one of those fiber cereal bars you like, so you can just watch this and then relax until air time…" Rhonda pushed him into the booth, shutting the door hurriedly. Newsie looked at the refreshment laid out for him, and then realized no one else was present.

"Where's Tony?" he wondered. Slow though he was, their camerasloth was also their film editor much of the time, as the station didn't have the budget to hire another person or the time to pull the other techs away from their own assignments.

Rhonda sighed. "It's Tom…forget it. Look, just put your feet up and tell me what you think, okay? It would be a delightful change to actually send a finished edit to the floor for air just once!" She put her paws on her tiny hips in the unmistakable I'm-getting-frustrated-will-you-please-just-do-this posture he'd become perfectly familiar with in the past few months they'd been a team. Nodding, giving in, Newsie sat down, sipping the coffee, and halfheartedly unwrapped the snack while Rhonda settled herself on the desk right by the monitor. She tapped on the computer keyboard, and the digitized footage they'd shot this afternoon began playing back.

"This is your Muppet Newsman, with a special report…" his voice sounded over a shot of the creepy mummy. Newsie repressed a shudder, nearly plunging his nose into his "Donnie and Marie" coffee mug. The view cut back to his standup in front of the clear plexi-case housing the dead, dry thing. "Stories of curses have always fascinated the credulous, and this museum has experienced its share of bizarre legends throughout the years: mummy cases in the Egypt room moving after hours, noises heard by guards in vacant wings… Now two new, unusual events have befallen people connected with the new Muppet Natural History Exhibit scheduled to open tomorrow morning right here." Newsie tried to relax; he felt reasonably proud of his on-the-spot writing for this piece.

Rhonda paused the playback. "See? That's great, what you did there! Suggesting a link to the curse without actually saying there is one!"

"What curse?" Newsie grumbled, taking a bite of the fiber bar. "This whole angle is ridiculous!"

"It's genius, and we thought of it," Rhonda argued. Only slightly mollified by her including him in the credit, Newsie sipped more of the coffee and waited. Playback resumed, with headshots of the two unavailable experts.

Newsie's voiceover stated: "The Paleomuppetology consultant for the exhibit, Dr Bennigan Fargo, came down with a severe case of green fur flu after seeing to the shipping of numerous rare Muppet fossils from Texas and Mississippi." Newsie flinched at the next shot: some…person…in a hospital isolation tent; frothy green fur and clamping, chomping, clamshell lips could barely be seen pressed against the plastic sheeting for an instant before orderlies wrestled the…whatever it was…back into its bed. Newsie stared at Rhonda in shock.

The rat grinned. "Fantastic, isn't it? I got Murray to slip me that outta the green fur flu epidemic report that Jerry's doing tonight. Should be a nice bump for both stories!"

"What is that?" the Newsman asked.

"That was our Muppasaur expert. Direct to the viewers from Bellevue!" Rhonda squeaked triumphantly. Shaken, Newsie simply held onto his mug. Rhonda sighed. "Goldie. Baby. Crazy sells. Trust the rat, okay?" Shaking her head at her correspondent's queasiness, Rhonda resumed the playback once more.

"The other professional who donated both exhibits and expertise to the museum for this show, Dr Abercrombie Fish, has not been heard of since his small Cessna plane was lost over the Pacific two days ago," the Newsman's voiceover continued. "Dr Fish had been en route from Iowa; aviation authorities say Fish and his pilot had not filed any flight plans for an oceanic route and have no answer as to why the plane was so far off course. The New Guinean Coast Guard is still searching for possible wreckage." The images shifted from a still of Dr Fish, a kindly-looking old mackerel in khakis, to amateur footage of the professor on a recent dig in New Brunswick, and then to aerial shots of the ocean, and finally a few pigs with bones through their nostrils plying the dark water with flashlights and stick-nets from dugout canoes.

Newsie had to admit he was impressed. "Where'd you get all the footage?" he asked.

"Am I your reports editor, producer, director, and overall star researcher, or what?" Rhonda demanded smugly. Nodding at her, the Newsman realized how lucky he was to have the seasoned pro working with him.

"Very nice," he told her, and she beamed.

"Not so bad yourself," she replied. "Keep watching, sunshine."

Forgetting about his mother for the first time in two days, Newsie relaxed a bit in his chair, chewed on the fiber bar, and kept an objective eye on the monitor. The camera cut back to him in the museum, slowly walking between some of the smaller Muppasaurs, and Newsie noted how the camera's light threw long, stark shadows behind him and the skeletons. Creepy…and effective. On the footage, he addressed the camera seriously: "While there is clearly no connection between these unusual tragedies, their mere association with ancient Muppets will no doubt stir up more of the ever-popular superstitions about mummies, curses, and forces beyond the measurable world." Newsie started, jerking upright in his seat, seeing movement where there shouldn't be any. On the film, he finished, standing directly in front of the enormous M. Tex claw clutching the Velocimuppet skeleton: "For KRAK Big Apple News, at the Museum of Natural History, I'm the Newsman."

"What was that? Rewind it!" Newsie said, pointing a shaking finger at the screen.

"Uh, that would be you in front of a bunch of mounted bones," Rhonda said, puzzled. "What are you talking about?"

"Go back! Go back! Look, there! Right…right behind me…do you see that?" Newsie gulped, pointing as Rhonda backtracked the footage several frames to the point where Newsie was walking through the exhibit. She shrugged.

"I see bones, bones, and more bones. What the heck, Newsie?"

"Slow it down," he demanded, not knowing which keys to tap himself. "Play it back! Watch!" Confused, Rhonda obliged him. They watched as, in slo-mo, the Newsman strolled around one of the bovine fossils. "There! What was that? It moved! Rhonda, that thing moved!"

She peered closely at it, bumping up the magnification. "Uh…Newsie…that's your shadow crossing the bottom of the display. Tommy had your lighting cranked on high power to give it some cool shadows. Relax."

"Not that," he growled, tapping the monitor impatiently in a different area. "That!"

Rhonda played it back once more, slowly, and this time she saw it: just after Newsie passed by one of the Velocimuppets, it appeared to tilt its turkeylike head… ever…so…slightly. "That's…that's just a trick of the light," Rhonda guessed, eyes widening. "A bad angle! Newsie…those things are dead. You're seeing things!"

"Tell me you didn't see it too," Newsie insisted, glaring at her, shivering.

The rat gulped, but met his sharp gaze. "Uh…I didn't see it too. Come on, how could a dead, mounted skeleton actually move? Maybe…maybe it was that kook of a curator messing with us! He looked like the type to rig up a corpse for a laugh…"

"Van Neuter wasn't anywhere around!"

"But his assistant was," Rhonda pointed out. "Now…now come on! You're gonna give me the creeps! Knock it off!"

"It moved," Newsie insisted, drawing away from the screen. Had that thing been…watching him…the whole time they were filming? Looking for an opportunity to get him alone, waiting to strike? "I…I read," Newsie gulped nervously, "their claws could disembowel larger prey in seconds…and they think the things hunted in flocks…"

"Okay stop it!" Rhonda squeaked, clapping her hands over her ears. "Just quit it! I don't wanna hear it! It was…it was just a trick of the light, or the camera, or that pair of psycho scientists in charge, okay? Enough! In case you've forgotten, we do have to be back there at the opening to cover the event all day!"

Sobered, Newsie drew his hands over his chest anxiously. "Rhonda…what…what if I'm not?" He looked at her, frightened, and she gazed back, worried. "What if Death decides to drag me away with my mother? What if…what if he takes Gina?"

"Newsie," the rat said softly, putting a paw on his hand, "that's not gonna happen. That's gotta be against the rules or something! You're alive, she's alive, you're both healthy, I'm sure you can't be dragged away if it's not, uh, not your time yet! Look…he showed up before breakfast, right?" Newsie nodded. "So…tomorrow when he shows up again, you just stand tall and tell him you're not going, and you're not going to let him take the woman you love, either!"

The Newsman swallowed hard, blinking back wetness at the corners of his eyes. "Why would he listen to me? He's…he's the Grim Reaper, Rhonda! The End! The tall scary guy with the scythe!"

Rhonda exhaled loudly, whiskers twitching. She added her other paw to his hand, coaxing him to stop clenching his fingers together and take her tiny ones in his own. "And you are the one and only Muppet Newsman. You're the only one of us with a nose for news and the perseverance to keep doing that job year after year! So you…you stand tall. You tell that big scary guy to lay off already! 'Cause we need you here, and Gina needs you, too."

Newsie tried hard not to sniffle, but his nose was already clogging, as it usually did when he became upset. Stupid long sinuses… Rhonda smiled lopsidedly at him, showing her tiny sharp teeth, then handed him a tissue. Nodding thanks brusquely at her, Newsie honked loudly into the tissue, and then another two after that. Rhonda sighed and thumped the whole box in front of him. "Pull it together, we go live in five," she said, checking her watch. "I'm gonna run this to the control guys. Hustle, Goldie!"

Yanking a flash drive from the computer, the rat jumped from the desk and scurried out of the booth, leaving the door open a crack. The Newsman wiped his eyes, his glasses, and his nose once more, then checked his clothing, smoothing down his jacket as he slid from the seat. Well, she's still calling you names, but at least she backs you up, he thought. Differentiating between good-natured insults and real ones was still a new concept to him; previously, they'd all been hurtful. Mastering his composure, he pushed open the editing booth door…and several conversations suddenly paused. Uncomfortably, the Newsman looked around; a number of taller people began small talk or discussions of tonight's show which sounded somehow false to him. Blushing angrily, he trotted past them all, heading for the news set. What the hey? It has to be Fargo! Why is he so vicious? I'm not after his job! I like being in the field! He only wanted an anchor position if he could also do live reports from other sites, like Peter Jennings had so wonderfully done. Besides, it wasn't as if the studio was any safer than a war zone, in Newsie's case…even here, things still fell on him. One day last month, there had been a freak hailstorm in July…inside the news studio. Over his side of the long news set desk. All right, that is IT! Gina was right…I need to stand up for myself more! She thinks I'm worth something…heck, even the rat seems to think so as well! I'll just march right up to Bart Fargo, star anchor, and I'll tell him…I'll tell him…

"Hey, shrimp!" the anchorman said, laughing, leaning down right in the Newsman's face. Newsie was so flustered he almost snapped back That's King Prawn! Startled, he fell back a step, looking up. Fargo smiled, his perfect pearly whites gleaming. "We're supposed to present the headlines, not make them!"

"What are you babbling about?" Newsie growled, glowering.

Fargo snapped open a newspaper. Newsie only glimpsed a picture of a couple embracing before a flying rat tackled the paper from Fargo's grip. "Aaaaah!" Rhonda shrieked, ripping the cheap newsprint to shreds and frantically stuffing the pieces into her mouth. As Newsie and Fargo and everyone else around stared in astonishment, Rhonda snapped and gulped and swallowed the entire front page. She grabbed Newsie's hand, tugging him after her. "Come on! Get on set! It's time!"

"But – but – what –"

"Straighten up! Face front! Head up!" the rat squeaked shrilly, and Newsie obeyed instinctively. He noticed the director counting down. Fargo raced past, settling smoothly into his chair up front without another look at Newsie while the theme music washed over them. He smiled for the camera; bewildered, Newsie simply stared at the lens when his own name was announced for the opening. Rhonda sighed, slumping off to the side, stifling a belch. As Fargo launched straight into the lead story, something about the horrible refugee crisis in Somalia, the Newsman tried to pay attention, but kept glancing at Rhonda, who was panting and looked ill.

"What was all that?" he whispered to her.

"Ohhhh I hate carbon ink," Rhonda groaned softly.

"Psst! Why did you do that?" he tried again.

"Shh!" the floor manager cautioned him. Newsie fell silent, but kept shooting confused looks at his reports director. What the hey? Why would she eat a headline? Why would Fargo shove one in my face? What could possibly…

Marcie Yung suddenly crouched by his chair, sweeping her skirt-hem away from the floor so he had a revealing view of her tanned thighs. "Want to offer a comment tonight? Air your side of the story?" she whispered, eyes gleaming at him.

Completely flustered, Newsie forced his eyes upward to meet hers. "Er! Uh…what?"

"The whole Muppet discriminatory thing. I think that's a great angle to work, stir up some civil rights issues, that sort of thing," Yung offered, and apparently mistook his utter bafflement for reluctance. "I mean…you know. If you feel up to commenting on it. I understand if you're too broken up right now." She gave him a sympathetic frown.

Newsie stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Shhhhh!" the floor manager hissed.

Realization dawned, and Marcie put a hand to her perfectly-glossed lips. He had no idea why she was even talking to him; as the entertainment and gossip branch of the news team, their paths rarely crossed. "Oh, no. You, uh, you haven't even heard yet?"

Frustrated, Newsie jumped from his chair and hurried a little farther from the news set; it would be a few minutes and at least one commercial break before they reached the Muppet News segment. "Heard what?" he demanded. The pretty young celebrity-news reporter seemed dismayed, but then looked around, and gestured for something from one of the staffers just behind the cameras.

Rhonda looked over just in time to see that dratted gossip-spreader Marcie handing a copy of the late edition of the Daily Scandal to the Newsman. "Oh, noooo," she groaned, and shoved her unhappy body into motion to try and stop the inevitable.

The headline on the front page read: SECONDHAND NEWSMAN! Muppet Reporter Dumped for Tall, Hunky Human! Muppet Community Outraged at Sexual Discrimination by Former Paramour of Once-Famous Journalist!

The photo showed Gina…unmistakably, beautifully Gina…dipped in an embrace by her friend Scott. They were about to kiss…or perhaps had just kissed.

Newsie froze.

Rhonda reached him. "Newsie! Newsie, c'mon, it's the Scandal! That's Scribbler's byline! You know it can't possibly – you know she'd never—"

"She…she…" Newsie choked. "Oh, Gina!"

He held the paper tightly in both hands, staring at the photo. Yes, he knew d—d well Scribbler's propensity to twist the truth…but…but…that photo! That didn't look faked! Newsie groaned; several people swung around to watch, but he didn't even register them, focused on that awful, terrible, real photograph.

"I told you so," his mother said primly. Squeals and stunned gasps flew through the studio as everyone reacted to the sudden appearance of the spectre next to her son.

Newsie couldn't even be surprised, too overwhelmed by what he saw in terrible black-and-white clarity. His shaking hand found the arm of someone's chair. Rhonda tried to get his attention. "Newsie! Stop! To heck with Scribbler, to heck with this…this crazy old gray hag! Gina would never cheat on you! It has to be rigged!"

"Get away from him, filthy rodent!" Mrs Crimp snapped, kicking the rat aside roughly. She leaned close to the Newsman, who trembled violently, the ghost's cold breath nothing next to the shock coursing through him already. "I told you you'd regret it, you disbelieving little fool! I told you she was no good!"

Sickened, Newsie staggered away from her, away from them all, all the stares, all the whispers, still clutching the newspaper. As Rhonda righted herself, shivering, the Newsman headed for the hallway, for the building's lobby, gaining speed as he went. The director, irritated and bewildered, called for a commercial cut a second before the smug ghost yelled after the Newsman: "You should have listened to your motherrrrr!"

"That's her! I swear it's her!"

Gina usually ignored the audience right below the booth, focused on her work, which at the moment was simply keeping an eye on the banks of dimmers to make sure the one which had been giving them trouble earlier that week was indeed fixed as her electrician had promised. So far she'd seen nothing wrong; the lighting check was done, the sound check had been uneventful, and the house had only just opened. She was sitting tensely, waiting in the darkened tech booth, ready to execute her own lighting cues as they didn't have an actual stage manager for this show. Overlaid on her normal show-anxiety was the fear that showtime would arrive, and her Newsman would not.

"Lookit, I got the paper right here," the voice whispered loudly. Annoyed, Gina flicked her eyes to the long window overlooking the stage; the back row of the audience was right beneath it, and anyone standing up would just barely be able to see in. Two people, a young man and woman, craned their necks to look inside. Sighing to herself, Gina pointedly ignored them. Couple of looky-loos who just have to see what's in the big dark room up there, she thought. She expected that kind of thing from little kids, but these two looked college-age; too old to be pointing and staring at…her.

Why were they pointing at her?

Oh, crud. Scribbler!

She shot a glare at the gapers, and they giggled and sat down out of sight. Oh, wonderful. This has to be about that d—d scandalmonger! Wait…scandal…was THAT what Paul was leering about earlier? Oh, God… Humiliated, she pressed her thumbs into her weary eyesockets briefly. Oh, no. What did that little weasel print? What if Newsie…oh no! As upset as he'd been this morning, surely that kind of harassment would make him seriously ill. Hating the necessity of it, disregarding all protocol, Gina reached for the booth phone and punched in Newsie's cell number. Of course, it went right to his uncertain, gruff voicemail message: "Uh…erm…please leave a message, and I'll get back to you. Uh, how was that?" Beep.

Either his phone was off, or he'd forgotten it at home again. Desperately Gina left a message just in case: "Newsie…when you get this…call me. No – come see me! I love you. Whatever you've heard, it's not true! I love you!" Hanging up, she heard snickering outside the booth again. Disgusted, she paced a minute, wondering where her sensitive journalist was, and whether he'd seen the ridiculous photo that hack Scribbler had snapped. When I find that little piece of trash…oh, hanging's too good for that scrawny neck! I'll tie him to the New Year's ball rig in Times Square and have them run him up and down it every day! She checked the clock: still twenty minutes to curtain. The house was only about a third full, but typically donors liked to arrive late, so she wasn't concerned yet about the success of the show. Maybe she could send Alan over to the KRAK studios? Deciding that was as good an idea as anything else she could do right now, Gina left the booth to find her assistant, wishing she had a gofer as dependable here as Kermit did over at the Muppet Theatre.

She hoped none of them would believe anything under the byline of one Fleet Scribbler.

Scott was checking out the crowd from just inside the house doors; he saw a large number of expensive-looking dresses and suits in the audience, a good sign. Last-minute panic attacks from one of the acrobats, a faulty headset in the box office, and that strange magician insisting he'd left his silk tophat around here somewhere had all been dealt with, fixed, calmed, done and ready for the night ahead. The wooden comedians had been rehearsing constantly backstage, the steel drums sounded tuned and pretty – even if their player still looked a little rabbity – and some smarmy lounge singer who pouted about his name being misspelled as "Dwayne" had been charmed into staying for his performance with the promise of the phone number of one of the female ushers. In short, all was well and ready to go.

A murmur ran through the crowd in the lobby. Scott turned, wondering if some big-name celebrity had shown up. Instead, he saw the Muppet Newsman. Scott started to grin and hold up a hand in a wave…then saw the red-rimmed eyes behind those hornrimmed glasses, and the ragged paper clenched in one yellow fist. Concerned, Scott strode toward the reporter, but before he could ask what was wrong, the Muppet reached forward and shoved him, hard.

Scott instinctively braced his feet, but the Newsman wasn't tall or strong enough to push him back. "How…how could you!" Newsie choked, his voice rougher than normal. "How could you!"

"What the heck?" Scott asked.

Newsie smacked Scott with the crumpled paper he held. "Gina! I thought she…I thought you…I thought you were only friends!" he cried, anguished. "WHY would you do this!"

"Wait, wait!" Scott responded, deep voice raised. Everyone in the lobby was staring at them, and the people just within the audience doors peered out to see what the commotion was about.

"I love her!" Newsie yelled at the top of his lungs, waving the paper at Scott, straining on tiptoe to reach up as high as he could…roughly around Scott's chest. "Did you think I wasn't serious? Did you think I wouldn't find out? Did you think it wouldn't matter because I'm a Muppet?" Dumbfounded, Scott put a hand out to stop the raging, grieving Newsman, but Newsie swatted it away roughly. "How could you…how could you do this…Gina…oh, Gina…" He broke into loud sobs.

Scott suddenly remembered that skinny guy snapping stupid photos earlier, and how seriously Gina had taken it. "Oh, man. Hey, wait, Newsie, wait, look –"

"Don't you call me that! We're not friends!" Newsie shouted. Stricken, he stared up at the taller man, then pointed a shaking finger at him. "We…you made me think…you lied to me!" Gasping, he seemed suddenly to lose all momentum, sagging at the knees. "You…you tell her…if she wants you instead…you tell her…tell her…"

"Newsie? Oh, no. Newsie!"

Gina leaped down the last few steps, already reaching for her wounded Newsman, but he jerked away, stumbling, grabbing one of the velvet ropes separating the ticket line from the house doors to keep from collapsing. "Newsie! It's not true! Whatever Scribbler said, it's not true!" Gina exclaimed, horrified to see him pulling away from her.

"I saw…I saw the photo," Newsie gasped. "That said enough!"

"Newsie!" Gina protested, reaching for him again; again, he flinched. "No, no, Newsie, please…how could you think I'd ever do that? I love you!"

"Man, it's not what it looked like," Scott agreed. "I'd never mess with you two! You're good for each other, and I wouldn't –"

"You kissed her," Newsie accused him; swinging around to gaze hopelessly at his beloved, he said weakly, "You…you kissed him…"

"No! No, Newsie, I didn't! Whatever you saw, it was a set-up!" Desperately, Gina tried to embrace him, but as soon as her hands touched him, the Newsman groaned and pulled away, staggering back into the center of the lobby; the crowd, larger now, stared, murmured, some laughing, some bewildered, some offended by the very public scene. "How could you ever think I'd cheat on you? Aloysius!" Gina cried, again trying to catch his arm. Newsie cringed at his true name, ducked under the ropes, stared at her with tears streaming down his face a moment, and then fled, stumbling, bouncing off of people and the front doors before nearly falling down the stairs outside.

"Oh, God," Gina groaned, crying as well now. Grimly Scott saw Paul Grouper heading for them, attracted by all the shouting. He shoved Gina toward the theatre's main entrance.

"Go. Go! I'll run the board. Tell him I'm sorry it even looked like that. Just go!" he bellowed, and Gina didn't look back. But although she flew down the stairs, when she reached the street and cast desperate looks in every direction, there was no short golden Muppet to be found.

Wiping her eyes with her dress hem, not caring how many people noticed and stared, Gina stood anxiously a split second, thinking fast. The apartment? No. Grand Central? No…then there's only one place he would go.

Hoping she hadn't guessed incorrectly, Gina took off at a dead run in the direction of the Muppet Theatre. If she was wrong…she might never see her sweet Newsman again.