Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to Jim Henson and the Labyrinth. Everything else comes from my head.

A/N: Thank you to the guest that left such a complimentary review I don't know anyone who has told me that they binged anything I have written. It was the best feeling thank you. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, it really keeps me going, and I like to hear your thoughts. If you are reading, please review!

A special thank you to my beta BowieQueen. You are the best for helping me with this. If you haven't read her stuff, please do you will not be disappointed.

So I had a good time writing this one. Again, I tried to be funny on purpose with this one I thought it was, so I hope you think so too.

Sarah woke up and for once was: A. alone, B. not having her name yelled and C. no one was knocking on her door. She actually looked under her covers and under her bed looking for goblins. Finding none, she relished the silence. After a few minutes, she got up and prepared for the day. This was their last full day here so she decided to treat Toby and the goblins to some fun. She only hoped that this plan did not blow up in her face, figuratively or literally.

After showering and dressing Sarah made her way to the kitchen. She realized that no one was in the kitchen. Surely, she was not the first one up this morning. This rarely happened even when she attempted it on purpose. At least Karen would be making breakfast. Sarah decided to take advantage of it and make breakfast for the family.

She looked at what was in the refrigerator and the pantry since Karen would insist on using up as much of the perishables as possible. She took out the bacon and eggs from the refrigerator. She fried up the bacon. She knew her father and Karen would want their eggs over medium while Toby would insist his be scrambled with cheese on top.

The smell of cooking food must have roused the rest of the family because they came into the kitchen as she was getting the bread out for toast. After loading up the toaster, Sarah poured two cups of coffee for both her dad and Karen as well as a cup of milk for Toby. Karen smiled gratefully at Sarah and added milk to her cup.

"Well, well, this is a surprise. A pleasant one to be sure, thank you, Sarah," she said.

"No problem," Sarah told her. "I tried to use up stuff from the fridge. There isn't much left; you shopped well."

"After these many years, you get to know what we tend to use in a week." Karen accepted the compliment.

Sarah dished out the bacon and eggs, along with refilling her own cup of coffee, and the family dug into the breakfast. No one talked while they started eating, but after a few minutes, the conversation started. It centered on plans for the last day of their trip.

Toby started opening his mouth, but Sarah interrupted him. "I thought that I would take Toby to play some mini-golf. We haven't done that in a while." She smiled at Toby.

He looked at her with a question in his eyes. Sarah understood, and gave him a smile back and a nod. Toby's smile got wider immediately, and he began to eat faster.

"Whoa! Slow down, Toby. The mini-golf place isn't open for a while. I don't want you to choke on your breakfast and miss it," Sarah laughed.

Toby shot Sarah a look but slowed down his shovel motion marginally. The rest of the meal passed peacefully. Their parents talked about what they would do with this unexpected day to themselves. Karen insisted on cleaning up since Sarah had cooked breakfast for everyone. Sarah and Toby gratefully left for their rooms.

Sarah packed up the things she thought she might need for the day in her mini backpack. She thought she had everything for a day with… five goblins. Oh god, what have I gotten myself into? She thought, but then rationalized that they had been good so far… as far as she knew. At least they hadn't set anything on fire… yet. She gulped and headed for Toby's room.

She opened the door to Toby's room and walked into chaos. She looked around the room and saw four little extremely excited goblins throwing pieces of clothing and anything else they could get their hands on, around the room. Sarah looked around and saw her brother standing in the middle of all the bedlam looking dazed and confused with his mouth open.

"Hi, Lady!" called Zot waving at Sarah with a pair of pants on top of his head.

She witnessed the craziness for a few minutes, then calmly put two fingers in her mouth and blew. A shrill whistle cut through the noise in Toby's room. The piercing sound caused all other sounds and movements in the room to halt immediately. All eyes were on Sarah.

"Sarah, you know not to do that in the house. If you must teach Toby to do that, do it outside!" Karen's voice was heard through the closed door. "And Toby if you happen to learn how to whistle like that, don't you do it in the house."

Sarah leaned against the door hoping that Karen would not come into the room to investigate. When no footsteps were heard outside the door Sarah breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. She glared at her brother.

"Sorry, Sar. I told them we were going out. They got a little excited." Toby tried to look contrite but failed.

"Ok, listen up," said Sarah. "If we are going to go we need to get ready." The goblins were looking at her following her motion as she moved around the room. "Get dressed all of you since we are going to be out, we need you to look like kids as much as we can." Sarah prayed that their luck where that was concerned kept up.

With Toby and Sarah's help, all four goblins got into their disguises. Sarah looked them over and declared them as ready to go as they could be. "Ok guys. We are going to play mini-golf." Four little goblins nodded their heads excitedly. "Did Toby tell you how to play mini-golf?" she asked. The four nods turned to four shakes. Sarah sighed.

Sarah spent the next half hour explaining the rules of the game to the goblins. They were very interested in the equipment. She was very direct in what they were and were not allowed to do with the golf clubs. Sarah, with Toby's help, discussed the rules of the game including taking turns.

When she was convinced that they were as prepared as they were going to be she decided it was time to leave. Sarah looked and saw that her dad and Karen were on the back porch, so she called goodbye and ushered Toby and the goblins out the front door. She piled them all in her jeep. The goblins were small enough to all fit across the back bench seat, and some of them shared seatbelts. That was an adventure, but she certainly wasn't going to be driving with goblins loose in the back seat.

The ride to the mini-golf course was uneventful. Sarah purposely chose one that was off the beaten path a bit. That and the fact it was early she hoped that it would not be too busy. The goblins tumbled out of the jeep and were dancing around her and Toby as they walked to the front of the course where the stand was to get their clubs and balls.

This posed the first unforeseen problem of the outing. What happened next came to be known as the ball blow up. As soon as the goblins saw the many-colored balls sitting in the holder waiting to be claimed they raced each other to the stand. Squib and Moxie got there ahead of the others and nearly knocked a hole in the side of the building, like in a cartoon, when they ran into it. Sarah running after them saw the whole shack shake with the collision.

Before she could apologize to the teenager who was inside waiting to ring them up for their round Zot managed to dash ahead of her and grab the black sparkly golf ball. Of course, they had to have one glitter golf ball, and it had to be black. As soon as the others caught up, and Squib and Moxie shook off the daze from running into the building, they realized the prize that Zot had claimed. Naturally, everyone wanted the "kingy" ball. Sarah would have laughed and immediately would have plotted a way to use that reference to irritate Jareth, but she had four goblins ready to go to war over a sparkly black golf ball.

Zot was on the ground, his prize in his hand Moxie was sitting on top of him bouncing up and down hoping that that would in some way dislodge the ball. Squib was taking another tact and had grabbed Zot's hand and was attempting to pry it open. That might be a good idea if in fact the hand that he was working on actually had the ball. It didn't. Scoots had possibly the best idea, or worst depending on your perspective, and grabbed a putter and was preparing to bludgeon Zot until he gave up the ball.

Sarah looked at Toby and he was just standing there with his mouth open. He would be no help. So Sarah launched herself into the fray. First, she grabbed the putter from Scoots. She knew that Jareth said that the goblins were essentially indestructible, but she was not willing to test that theory on the mini-golf course. Then She started tossing Moxie off of Zot.

"Toby, hurry and grab and hold on to them," she called to her brother. The sound of Sarah's voice seemed to snap Toby out of his stupor. He ran over and took an arm of each goblin and held on as they both tried launching themselves back at the possessor of the "kingy" ball.

Finally, Sarah grabbed the hand that did indeed have the ball in question. She managed to open it and retrieve the glitter ball. Out of breath, she held the ball high above her head out of reach of the small horde determined to capture it.

"Cut it out," she said, in what she hoped was an authoritative voice. "Stand over there by Toby and behave yourselves." She pointed to where her brother was standing still holding on to two of the goblins. Grumbling and hissing at each other the goblins did what she told them to do.

Sarah spent the next five minutes apologizing to the kid behind the counter. Sarah had gotten her checkbook from her jeep, and wrote a check out for the damage to the shack. It was pricier than she would have thought, but anything to avoid any scrutiny of the accident. Since no one was hurt, and no other customers were run off by the insane display of the goblins they were allowed to stay and play. Sarah was wondering how normal kids acted at the mini-golf place. Not only did he not realize that the brawl was not a group of goblins, but he did not act too surprised by it.

Sarah stalked over to the group of goblins and Toby. She gave each of the goblins a glare. "First of all Toby will take the glitter ball."

"Aw Sarah, I don't want the ball with glitter. Glitter is for girls," Toby interrupted her.

Sarah turned her glare on Toby. "I said Toby will get the "kingy" ball," she repeated, looking straight at her brother, daring him to complain about it again. "I will give you the ball that you will use," she told them. "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit," she said when Moxie opened his mouth.

"Next everyone will listen to me and follow my directions. And no more fighting. If there are any disputes I will settle them. Got it?" She looked at each of her charges. No one dared to say anything to Sarah, even Toby didn't try making an insulting remark.

She passed out a ball to each goblin—the red to Zot, the yellow to Scoots, blue to Moxie, and green to Squib. She handed the glittery black ball to Toby and took the purple ball for herself. She then passed out a putter to each one, and the size of the small clubs worked well with the heights of the goblins. Once they were outfitted with the equipment Sarah marched them to the first hole. Toby started asking about a scorecard, but after the display earlier Sarah did not want any more competition between the goblins.

Sarah decided to rotate the lineup so that each of the goblins got a chance to hit first. She also made sure that Toby was in the middle of the group, and she always hit last. She felt that this was the best way to keep them out of trouble. The game started easily enough. At each hole, Sarah explained where the start was and where the hole was. Toby made sure that the goblins stayed off the "green" to avoid being hit by another goblin's club or ball.

After hole five, each of the goblins had a turn being first, and no one was maimed or bleeding. Sarah started to relax a little. Things were looking up, and everyone was behaving themselves. That was when she heard the quacking. She looked and next to hole six was…oh crap…a duck pond. Sarah looked up just in time to see all four goblins charging toward the pond, and the ducks happily swimming there.

"Chickens!" shouted Scoots

"Swimming chickens?" came from a confused Moxie

"Get them!" yelled Zot

"Me too!" Squib didn't want to be left out, and he too wanted the interesting swimming poultry.

Sarah froze for a minute in shock but then reacted chasing after the goblin group. "Stop!" she yelled at the backs of the goblins. "Toby, stop them!" she yelled at her brother. By the time Sarah had caught up with them, they were knee-deep in the pond. The ducks, when approached by a group of yelling goblins running at them at top speed well, top speed for goblins—decided that survival was more important than the possession of the pond. With loud quacks and a flurry of wings, they all took off and flew from the pond.

The goblins all stopped and watched their "swimming chickens" flying away. They all turned to Sarah with forlorn expressions on their faces. "Lady, where the chickens go?" asked Squib, his lower lip quivering.

Sarah ushered the goblins out of the pond. Once they were back on land she crouched down to their level. "Guys, those weren't chickens. They were ducks. Ducks are wild animals. Do you know what that means?" she asked them gently.

Four heads shook sadly. "It mean duckies, not like goblins," offered Moxie.

"No," Sarah tried not to laugh. "It means that they don't belong to anyone," she tried to explain. "They like living on their own, they don't want to belong or be held by anyone," she added hastily when Glunk opened his mouth anticipating the argument of ownership.

"No duckies?" said Zot.

"No ducks," Sarah confirmed.

A much more sedate group walked past Toby and back to the hole. As Sarah passed her brother muttered. "Next time I offer to take the goblins somewhere…you have my permission to knock me out." Toby was not successful in stifling his giggles.

Play resumed, and Sarah refused to relax and let her guard down this time. Things proceeded relatively calmly for the rest of the round. There were a few hiccups during play. First, Squib accidentally hit his ball a little too hard, and way off target. The ball ended up hitting Moxie on top of the head with an audible pop. This caused Moxie to "accidentally on purpose " hit Squib in the stomach with his golf club. Sarah quickly separated both goblins and made sure that Toby stayed between them for the rest of the holes.

Another small problem happened when Zot tried to "help" his ball into the hole by using his foot. The problem was that Scoots saw him. Apparently cheating at games is frowned upon by the goblins. Sarah got to Scoots and held him before he could get to Zot, and had him get up close and personal with Scoots' putter. Sarah reminded them of the no-fighting rule, and she reminded them of the rules and explained that everyone had to follow them to make the game fair. After a few minutes, the goblins calmed down, and play resumed.

Sarah and Toby thought they were out of the woods when they got to the last hole. Sarah explained that they needed to hit the ball up the ramp and into the hole at the bottom of the windmill. She neglected to explain that their ball did not come out the back of the windmill, that this hole was how the balls got back to the attendant. So when Scoots, who was first, hit the ball it went up the ramp and into the hole at the bottom. Scoots gleefully ran up to the windmill and looked for his ball. Not finding it, he concluded that the windmill stole his ball. Scoots handled this about as well as a goblin could.

Scoots began kicking the windmill yelling into the hole, "Give me back my ball!" Leaned over as he was to get to the hole he did not notice the blade of the windmill coming towards him. Suddenly Scoots found himself scooped up by the windmill blade and lifted into the air.

When this happened the other goblins ran over, determined to "save" their friend. One by one the three other goblins were scooped up on the other blades. That left Toby standing there watching the others going around and around on the windmill in shock. "Help, Sarah!" he called. The goblins figured that she would be their best bet at victory over the enemy windmill and started yelling for help at the top of their lungs. Sarah could not believe that four goblins could yell that loudly. She moved quickly, hoping that no one that heard them—they were so loud that the entire state of New Jersey must have heard them—came to find out what was wrong.

Rather than do her Don Quixote impersonation. Sarah grabbed each goblin off the windmill as they came to her. She set each down next to her, before grabbing the next one. She collected each of the other balls and decided to just push them through the hole at the bottom of the windmill. The goblins were especially sad to watch Toby hit the "kingy" ball through. Sarah thought that they might be planning to take it back to the castle as a gift for Kingy.

Sarah gathered up all the putters and gave them to Toby to return. Sarah couldn't face the attendant again. Rather than admit that though she simply told him that she wanted to get the goblins back to the jeep as quickly as possible, and did he want that job instead? Toby figured taking the clubs back was the better deal and he took off in a sprint.

Sarah herded the goblins to her jeep in the parking lot. After ushering them into the back seat and buckling them all in, she saw Toby was already buckled in the passenger seat. She smiled at him as she climbed into the driver's seat.

"OK, next stop home," she said as brightly as she could.

"Wait, Sar," said Toby. "Aren't we getting lunch?"

Sarah groaned, but turned and said to the goblins "Ok guys. Who wants pizza?"

Sarah drove to a pizza place that she knew had a large outdoor eating area. She thought that was a much better option than four goblins eating inside the restaurant. There was no way that they would be eating back at the house since she did not know if their parents would be home or not. And eating in her jeep was out of the question; she liked her jeep too much.

Once she had everyone settled around the large table on the patio. She walked in and ordered two large pizzas: one supreme (her favorite), and one pepperoni and extra cheese (Toby's favorite). She knew that the goblins would eat any pizza that was put in front of them. They would probably eat the horrible Hawaiian one that Karen liked and ate with a fork. She waited for their pizzas to come out, and hoped that Toby could keep the goblins in their seats and out of trouble for the few minutes it took to cook their pies.

She carried them out and put them on the table, thrilled to see that everyone was in their places, and no one seemed worse for wear. After passing out plates and napkins everyone eagerly dug into the pizzas. She included a pitcher of pop to go with the pizza; she wasn't sure that caffeine was the best beverage for the goblins, but it was too late now. For a while, the only sounds that were heard were chewing and swallowing. Sarah knew from experience that the goblins loved pizza, so she knew that there would be no leftovers. Once she and Toby were full, they just waited until the goblins finished off the rest of the pies.

Once all the food and drink were gone, Sarah cleared off the table and threw away their trash. She then steered a Tired Toby and a gang of slightly hyper goblins into the jeep and headed for home. She sent Toby in first to scope out if the coast was clear to his room. He came back and motioned for her to follow with the goblins. She guided the group into Toby's room, and the goblins demanded stories. Sarah was only too happy to oblige since that would mean everyone would stay right where they were. For the rest of the afternoon, Sarah told stories, and the goblins (and Toby) listened with rapt attention.

When her father and Karen returned, Sarah went out to join them. They decided for their last night to go out to a semi-nice place. Well, as nice a place as you can take a thirteen-year-old boy to. Sarah went to her room to change and told Toby to do the same. She returned to Toby's room with the last of the goblin treats. She gave them to the goblins to enjoy while they were gone.

The family went to dinner, and everyone got along and enjoyed themselves. Sarah and Karen even got along better. Toby was tired enough after the day with the goblins that he behaved well enough that no one had to correct him. They got home and Sarah and Toby went straight to their rooms. Karen reminded them to pack up since they were leaving the next day.

Sarah decided to wait to pack until the morning. First of all, she was too tired to try to pack just then. Second, she had to do some thinking about a certain glittery monarch. She had found that she missed him today, and not just because the goblins were driving her crazy.

Sarah wasn't sure what these feelings were that she was having for Jareth, or why she was suddenly having them. She knew that there was an attraction there, and from the way he had acted when they were with her friends, she thought the attraction might just go both ways. Did she want to explore this attraction, or pretend it wasn't there? She decided she would sleep on that question tonight. She would have to summon Jareth the next day before they left anyway. She was going straight home, and there was no way that she was taking five goblins to her little apartment. So his majesty would just have to arrange for transportation for his subjects back to the Underground himself. She could not deny that she felt a little excited at the thought of seeing him the next day.

Before she could start overthinking these thoughts and never get any sleep, she got ready for bed and slid between the sheets. She snuggled in, and on thoughts of goblins and their king drifted off to sleep.

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