Disclaimer: I own nothing. Sarah, Jareth, Toby, and the Goblins are all owned by Jim Henson. I wish I could claim them, especially Jareth, but sadly I cannot.
A/N: I am getting this up a day earlier than I had planned, but we are planning to take off tomorrow or Friday for my mom's house to celebrate the 4th with my family. So for all of my American readers Happy Independence Day folks, I know it's a little early.
First and foremost I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this, especially those who are following it and favorited it. Thank you.
I also would like to thank those who have written comments and reviews. I really appreciate it. I try to reply to any review, especially those that ask a question or address a critique. I had a couple of guests that left reviews that I could not reply to so I will do it now.
Someone asked about Sarah's using Jareth as a doormat to dump all her crap on. That was done on purpose. I know that when I was in my late teens early twenties and had someone who would be forced to listen to me until I was done, I sure would use it. Is it fair...no but again I can easily see it happening. Also it is kinda fun to think about Jareth having to give free therapy. Dr. Goblin King is in. We will see if something happens that changes their dynamic.
RMBiehl mentioned that she and Jareth are phone buddies, I tried thinking of it as facetimeing thorough a mirror. But I do not own that so I don't want a fight with Apple.
This was a chapter that I was really excited to write but had a really hard time with. I love reading goblin speak I hate writing goblin speak.
I want to give a huge shout out to my beta BowieQueen for putting up with my horrible punctuation and grammar issues. You rock thank you so much.
Zot peered around the throne cautiously. Well, as cautiously as a goblin can, which let's be honest, is about as cautious as a runaway freight train. This is why the subject of his caution spied him immediately and blocked his way with a riding crop.
"What are you up to now, Zot?" Jareth's eyes narrowed at the small goblin trying to unsuccessfully slip around his throne, poking him in the chest with the riding crop to punctuate each word.
"Zot do nothin Kingy. Zot never do nothin' ever." The goblin shook his head furiously with each denial as if that would convince the king of his lack of mischief.
With a long-suffering sigh, the Goblin King stood and walked out of the throne room to his office. He sat in the large leather chair and leaned back. Jareth knew that Zot was indeed up to some mischief since he and all the other goblins had the subtlety of a charging bull. But alas he had other things to do than to try to discover what caper the little ingrate was cooking up now. He just hoped that it would not involve chickens, fire, catapults, or drinking. But it was just his luck that it would probably encompass all four. Jareth shook his head not looking forward to the headache that would be his once the goblin's little plan came to fruition.
"Maybe I should go above to spend a holiday at the shore," he thought to himself, thinking of Sarah and how opposed she was to the trip. And how much he would like time away from the troublemaking horde that he was forced to rule. "If I keep going along like this," he thought. "Imay start sounding like her…always with the complaining, perish the thought."
Toby was bored. Sarah had left three days ago. He had to laugh at the misery on her face at the thought of spending her vacation time with the family at the shore. He didn't take it personally. She had told him as much after dinner. He knew that she didn't mind hanging with him when she came back for a weekend or even a longer visit over the holidays. No, she didn't want to spend that much time trapped with their dad, and more to the point, his mom. While Sarah and he had grown to have a really close relationship–hell, for the most part, she was his best friend and if she was honest, he was hers. "What a loser," he thought to himself, shaking his head. Imagine a twenty-seven-year-old not totally ugly girl having her thirteen-and-a-half-year-old brother as her best friend.
He wanted her to get over herself and have some fun, but no, Sarah had it in her head that she was too old for fun unless it was leading to a wedding. That she got from listening to his mother too much. Sarah had and continued to try to get along with his mom, but she never could find common ground with her. This led his mom to tend to criticize Sarah and her choices. The last few years this took the form of comments about her needing to find a nice, wealthy, young man to settle down and have babies with. Poor Sarah! He didn't know how she would last the trip.
"Well," he said to himself. "At least if she is ragging on you she will leave me alone." His mom disapproved of the clothes he wanted to wear, many of his friends, anime, and most of all his new infatuation with skateboarding. The reason he was so desperate for money that he was willing to blackmail his sister was to get a new deck. He wanted a Hookup, but his mom didn't want him to get a basic deck. She would explode if she saw some of the designs that his favorite company used.
Tired of lying on his bed, Toby decided to go and see what the goblins were up to. He loved the goblins. All they did, as far as he could tell, was hang around the castle, play with the chickens, drink, sing, dance, and light the occasional thing on fire. Sounded like the perfect life to him. He messed up one day, a year ago, after his mom was droning on and on about how he needed to clean up his act and think about the future, and told her that he wanted to be a goblin when he grew up. That did not go over well, even though his mom knew nothing about goblins. Of course, he had to laugh, her opinion wouldn't change even if she met and got to know the goblins. They were creatures she definitely would not approve of.
Toby checked the hallway to make sure his mom wasn't around–the last thing he needed was his mom to catch him slipping into his sister's room, or worse yet to walk in on him talking interdimensional long distance, or whatever you call it, with the goblins. When he saw the coast was clear he slipped into Sarah's room and soundlessly shut the door. He again bemoaned the lack of lock on the door, but that hadn't stopped him before and it wouldn't stop him now. He walked up to the mirror, scowling because he would have to sit at his sister's girly vanity to visit with those in the Underground.
"Hey Scoots, Glunk, Zot? Are any of you guys there?" He softly called into the mirror. He never knew how it worked and he sure as heck wasn't going to ask his sister. It's not that Sarah did not know that he talked to the goblins through her mirror, but she did not know how often, and he wanted to keep it that way. The last thing he wanted was anyone trying to restrict his access to his friends. Also if they went more than a few weeks without talking to him, they would get worried, and form a search party to come through looking for him.
The mirror rippled and Scoots and Zot were smiling back at him. From what Toby could see behind them they were in a far corner of the throne room that seemed devoid of any other life. The noises she heard told him that much of the horde was nearby.
"It's the Toby, it's the babe. Hi Babe!" called Scoots excitedly. The goblins usually called him The Toby and his sister The Sarah. He never understood why, but he never asked for an explanation. He made the mistake of asking the goblins to explain why there were so many chickens in the castle. After an hour of listening to several of the horde making comments about chickens he still had no idea why they were there.
Scoots was Toby's favorite goblin. He was always excited to see him, and he made Toby laugh. "Hiya Scoots," said Toby. "What's going on with you guys? Burned down any part of the castle lately?" Toby loved hearing about the games that the goblins played that often ended in fire, flood, or explosions, often a combination of two or all three. Toby now understood why the Goblin King often pinched his nose between his fingers and shook his head so much. Toby loved the goblins, but he didn't have to be in charge of them.
"We play flaming chicken hockey." Scoots nodded looking like an overgrown bobblehead.
"Oh, Scoots. I thought you gave up on that game the last time." Toby giggled remembering the Goblin King's tirade to him and Sarah when the goblins came up with this particular game after watching one of his hockey games during a trip to the Aboveground.
The goblins were so fascinated with the game they got a group together and described what they saw to them. That group decided they needed to play immediately. They used flat rocks as pucks and sticks from the forest. There was no ice, but they figured that that wasn't important to the game. After the first few minutes, the game was just not as exciting or destructive for the goblins. Smashing several statues with their "pucks" was tame for them. So they did what they usually did to make something more fun, they added their two favorite things: chickens and fire. They glued chickens to the rock "pucks", the chickens weren't stupid and refused to stay on one on their own. Thankfully the goblins decided that the pucks should be on fire and not the chickens. The bad part, for the goblins, was that rocks tended not to burn, at least not easily. (This is the reason that Jareth's castle was made with so much stone, especially the parts that were accessible to the horde.) After a few hours, they gave up on the game with nothing more than a few angry chickens with singed feet and feathers. Of course, the Goblin King was not thrilled with the goblins getting more ideas that involved fire.
"We tried lighting sticks on fire. Sticks burn good. Scoots' idea." Scoots explained proudly.
"Good thinking Scoots," Toby replied, the goblin grinned even wider with the praise of the boy. "So how did it turn out?"
"Sticks burn good, too good. Hard to hold stick on fire." Scoots explained shaking his head. "We drop stick when it hurt. Not be able to hit rock much."
"That's too bad scoots. Hopefully, you will make the game work soon." Toby tried hard not to giggle at the picture of the goblins trying to hit rocks with chickens on them with flaming pieces of wood.
"Kingy say no more fire stick game. He mad that courtyard grass burn up." Scoots looked down and shook his head sadly.
"Oh, Scoots I hope you find something else to play. I just wanted you guys to know that I won't be able to talk to you guys for a while." Toby decided that telling Scoots about the trip and having him spread the news was a good idea.
"Toby no want talk to Scoots?" The goblin had tears in his big eyes.
"Oh no, Scoots. I would love to be able to see and talk to you, but my family's going on vacation to the shore. I'll be away from home for a while." Toby tried to reassure Scoots. "I think I would have a lot more fun with you guys than my family."
Toby started hearing his mother calling him. He couldn't answer, then he would have to explain why he was in Sarah's room. Knowing where people were in the house by sound was his mom's superpower. He only had a few minutes before she would come looking for him.
"I gotta go Scoots. I'll try to talk to you before we leave on Saturday." Toby waved and quietly slipped out of the door before he thundered down the stairs to see what his mom wanted.
Scoots stared at the empty room where the boy used to be. The Sarah wanted the trip to be more exciting and fun, Toby thought that the goblins would make things exciting and fun. Suddenly Scoots had an idea. He could not wait to talk to some of the goblins that knew and loved Sarah and the Babe best. The goblins were taking a trip.
There were five of them in all. Others wanted to be part of the group venturing to the Above, but Scoots and Zot decided that they would have better luck with a smaller group. First of all, there was a greater chance of the king noticing their absence if half the horde disappeared. That would mean trips to the bog for sure. Second, they would probably be discovered by at least some of the humans if half of the horde came. That would lead to their Champion tattling to the king about what they did, again leading to a trip to the bog for them all. And finally, this group wanted to have something special to make the others jealous with. This may lead to the other goblins tattling to the king, but if they were already back, and if nothing or no one was destroyed, set on fire, or killed then chances of avoiding the bog were better than average.
Scoots was the center of attention and he was enjoying it. Being one of the smaller goblins he often was pushed around and overlooked, but because he talked to The Toby about the trip he was seen as being in charge.
"What we gonna do when we go to the Above?" asked Squib. This of course was explained several times, but many goblins had short attention spans and even shorter memories.
"We gonna go to make The Sarah and The Babe happy. They going to a place called Sore and both say there no excitement or fun there. We make fun for them exciting." Moxie, the last goblin in the group, spoke up.
"Well if it sore no wonder it no fun. What happen? They get kicked too hard? Me sore when Kingy kick too hard," Glunk offered. He was a victim of many kicks by the king, often being in the vicinity of his boot when something got on his nerves.
"Not sore, shore. They take trip. We help make trip fun." Zot decided that things were getting out of hand, which was the usual, but they needed to make decisions and act soon if they were to help their Champion and her brother.
"So what we gonna do?" asked Squib again.
"We are going to use the portal to go Above," Zot spoke up quickly before the same conversation from before could repeat. Moxie already had his mouth open.
"Right. No one in The Champion's chamber where the portal mirror is. She no live there anymore. We sneak through and find place to hide. Then we follow The Champion and the Babe to Shore." Scoots wanted the attention back to him.
This seemed to be a sound enough plan for the group of goblins. They gathered their necessary supplies. This included headgear consisting of pots, bowls of various sizes, and colanders. They carried bottles filled with goblin ale, the only thing that was seen as a necessity by the group. They waited until the King was dining with guests. That way they knew that he was not in his chambers or his study. The two places with portals that went directly to the one in the Champion's chambers.
The mirror rippled and the faces of the five goblins appeared in it. They quickly surveyed the room or the parts that they could see from their side of the portal. Seeing the room empty they tumbled out of the mirror knocking over everything that was on the vanity to the floor in the process. "Shhhh!" They all cautioned each other. They glared accusingly at each other looking for the one to blame for the noise, and then quickly running for hiding places under the bed and in the closet.
Not more than a minute or two later the door opened and Karen walked in looking around the room. "Toby, are you messing around in your sister's room? You know she hates that," Karen called into the room.
"I'm in here mom," Toby said from his room down the hall. "Why would I be in Sarah's room? I'm not interested in her girly stuff."
"How did these things get on the floor?" Karen asked no one, talking to herself. She walked to the vanity and leaning over picked up the items on the floor. She placed them back on the top. Trying to remember where each one went. Sarah wouldn't throw a fit like when she was a teenager, but she still did not like people in her spaces without her approval.
"Get your bags packed, and put them out in the hall. Your dad will grab them and put them in the car later tonight. Your sister should be here after dinner, and we want to get an early start in the morning." Karen walked back through the door making sure to close it on her way out, looking at Toby in the doorway of his room.
"Sure thing mom," Toby said and quickly closed the door before his mom could give any more instruction.
Karen Williams shook her head and walked back down the stairs to continue prepping the house for their departure in the morning. She would never understand teenagers. She could never get close to Sarah during her teen years, and every day she could feel Toby pulling further and further away. Maybe this time together would be just what the family needed.
The goblins stayed in their hiding places until they heard Toby being called downstairs for dinner. Once they heard his feet thundering down the stairs, they began to creep out into the room. They slipped out of the room and crept down the hall to Toby's room. Once there they looked at each other trying to figure out what to do next.
"Lady tell Toby to pack bags to go on trip." Scoots suddenly looked excited. "We go into the bag and go on trip with Babe and Champion." He lifted his small arm in the air as he spoke.
The goblins nodded their heads in agreement. They looked around and spied a small rolling suitcase and a large duffel bag on the floor. They opened the suitcase and found it full of clothes. The duffel bag contained a few magazines, some video games, more clothes, and a skateboard.
Within minutes the group had emptied the bags and had climbed inside them, two in the suitcase and three in the duffel bag. They tried zipping the bags, but that proved too difficult for them from the inside. They tried to be quiet but soon became bored. The boredom caused them to start drinking some of their goblin ale. The drinking caused them to start singing. They almost missed the sound of the door opening but quieted just in time.
Toby walked back into his room intending to listen to music until Sarah showed up. He froze when he almost tripped over a pile of clothes lying on the floor. "What the hell?" he said to himself. "I know I didn't leave clothes on the floor, mom was just in here and she would have had a cow if she saw this."
On further examination, the pile of clothing was very familiar. It consisted of all the stuff he had just packed that afternoon. He picked through the pile as if there would be a clue uncovered on how they managed to get themselves out of his bags and onto his floor. He then looked at his suitcase and duffel bag. They both looked full still. He nudged the duffel with his toe. As it rocked he thought he heard an "Ooof" coming from inside. Toby looked around and grabbed his old hockey stick from behind his headboard.
Toby crept back to the duffel bag. Turning the stick he worked the blade into the small hole where the zipper was not pulled all the way closed. He slowly pulled the stick and slid the zipper open. Once the bag was opened he looked down and could not believe what he saw.
"Scoots!Zot! What are you two doing in there?" He squeaked as the goblins slowly started to climb out of the bag.
"Me too Toby!" cried Squib who happened to be under the other two unseen in the bag."
As he watched the goblins climb sheepishly out of the duffel bag Toby looked at them, then he narrowed his eyes and turned to his suitcase. There was another pile next to it. "Let me guess." He said addressing the small uninvited guests. "There are more goblins in my suitcase?"
Scoots nodded his head looking down. He opened his mouth to speak, but Toby held up his hand and stopped him. Toby stood the rolling case up and quickly unzipped it. Out tumbled Glunk and Moxie, surprised at the sudden loss of their hiding spot. They looked up and saw Toby frowning down at them. They then waved at him and smiled, Glunk hoped it would keep him from being kicked. Not that Toby had ever kicked them, but in his experience with the king, a frown usually ended with a kick or a trip to the bog.
"Ok guys talk. What are you doing here, and why were you in my bags?" Toby sat down heavily on his bed.
"Toby say he want fun. He saw goblins more fun than family. Scoots get goblins to go with Toby so he have fun." Scoots nodded his head with each statement with a big simile. At the end of his explanation, he looked at Toby expecting to be praised for his good thinking. The frown on Toby's face caused the smile to drop from Scoots', and his nods were not as emphatic. "Babe not happy Scoots want to make him happy?" Scoots looked up hopefully, Zot, and Squib hid behind him, but being a head taller than Scoots made this difficult. Moxie and Glunk dove under the bed. Glunk only made it halfway under and his legs and bottom stuck out from under the bed. Glunk's hands trying to hide his head from a kick he sensed was coming.
It took Toby a minute to decipher Scoots, but once he did and looked around at the others all he could do was laugh. "No Scoots, guys I'm not mad. Come on out. I would love to have you guys come with. It would be a trip. But my parents don't know about you guys and it might send my mom over the edge. And Sarah would flip. She would probably have to call the King because it would be the "responsible thing"." Toby made air quotes around the words.
The goblins came out from their hiding places and looked at Toby with long faces and sad eyes. Toby didn't want to send them away. They were only trying to make him happy. "Ok," Toby sighed. "I'm probably going to regret this but, You guys can go. I'll get my bigger duffel and all of you have to hide in it. Spending the night in the car won't be fun but it is necessary. You guys need to stay put and hidden until I let you out. No one but me knows you are here. Got it? We will find a place for you all to hide at the house. No going rogue, you do what I say when I say it. That's the only way this will work." Toby paced in front of them.
The goblins didn't understand half of what Toby said, but the meaning was clear they would get to go. Scoots was ecstatic his plan worked. They nodded eagerly. Toby got the bigger bag out of his closet and opened it wide. The five goblins jumped in happily. Toby closed the zipper just in time as the door opened and Sarah stepped in.
"Hey, Tobes. Why are you hiding up here? I thought that you would be downstairs when I got here, you usually are." She leaned over to ruffle his blond hair.
"Stop it, Loser." He swatted her hand away. "You know I hate when you mess with my hair. I'm not so codependent that I need to wait by the door like a puppy waiting for you to grace us with your presence. I have a life. I'm not Brandon." The look on Sarah's face at the mention of her last boyfriend, the last in a line of absolute catastrophes in Toby's opinion, had him regretting his words.
"Fine Toby, sorry that I bothered you. Dad wants you to bring your bag down." She looked around at the two large duffel bags and the rolling suitcase. "You know it's only a week's trip to the shore right?" She asked.
"I'm a teenager. I need stuff." Toby argued back, grabbing the handles of the largest bag before she had a chance to investigate further.
"Yeah, teenage girls," Sarah muttered under her breath, but it was loud enough for Toby to hear but he ignored the quip. "Here I'll help you. If you want we can put your stuff in my jeep. I'm driving too. You can either ride with me or the parents." She knew there wasn't really a choice.
"Ok yeah riding with you will be ok," Toby grunted as he hulled the bag out the door and toward the stairs.
She looked at his retreating back wondering why he was acting so squirrely. Sarah shook her head. "It has to be a phase," she said to herself. Then grabbed the other duffel bag and the handle to the rolling bag and followed him down.
They packed the bags into the back of her jeep. Toby insisted for some reason that the largest bag goes into the backseat so it wouldn't get smashed. Sarah decided that letting it go was easier than arguing. The siblings walked back into the house to get ready for bed. They were going to have an early start in the morning.
A/N: Thank you for reading. Please, please, please review (shameless begging).