CHAPTER 3: The Childhood of the Electric Mayhem Part 1

Time went by. Animal was still a baby, and Floyd was still a small child, but ever since Floyd started hanging out with little Animal, he had been introducing him to Floyd's friends, six year old Dr. Teeth, five year old Zoot, and four year old Janice. At first they seemed sort of doubtful towards Baby Animal, but they learned to accept them, and due time, they thought of young Animal as a valued friend, which was exactly what Floyd wanted. When Laverne was busy, she sent his young son to play with Floyd, which made them both really happy because a day with Floyd meant a day with Dr. Teeth, Zoot and Janice as well.

There was a day when Laverne brought Baby Animal over, but little Animal was really dirty from playing in some mud, so Floyd thought up the crazy idea of cleaning Baby Animal himself. He had never cleaned anyone but himself before, but gave it a try. He brought Baby Animal to his bathroom and as he turned on the water, put bubble bath in, and waited as the water began to fill the tub, he had not realized that young Animal was already taking off his clothes, knowing what was going on. When the bathtub filled, Baby Animal jumped into it, not letting Floyd see anything he should not. The small child started splashing and laughing. Floyd thought this was cute, went to the bathroom closet and took out some shampoo and a circular bar of soap. He squirted shampoo into his hands and started running through young Animal's head. It was kind of irritating the way Floyd did it, but Baby Animal said nothing. As Floyd washed little Animal's head he rinsed his hand, took the soap and started bathing Baby Animal's body. The baby thought it felt soothing. Floyd was really proud of himself for doing something he never thought he would ever do. As he let Baby Animal play in the bubbles, Floyd took his clothes to the wash room, and placed them in the washer. When he returned, he found the most horrofic thing:

He saw the tub's bubbles covered in blood! Young Animal's head had blood running down his face. Floyd stood there in complete horror! He wanted to scream hard, but if he did, he knew his grandma would here and be in the room faster than the speed of light. Instead, he immediately grabbed a towel, wrapped it around Baby Animal's body, pulled it out, and placed him on the bathroom counter. Floyd looked right on top of the baby's scalp and noticed a long red cut there on top of it. Floyd suddenly became nervouse and scared! He took a tissue, and attempted to clean it, making him gasp in pain. He looked everywhere to try to find a bandage. When he eventually did, he tried to be as careful as possible. He carefully placed the bandage onto the cut, which eventually stopped the pain. Young Animal smiled and jumped on Floyd thanking him for it. Making sure the towel still covered his small body, Floyd carried him to his room, set him on his bed, and started throwing small clothes at him. Baby Animal took the small boxers, the shirt and pair of jeans he liked the most. When Floyd started to hear noises coming from little Animal, he turned and noticed that his friend was trying to slip on the clothes. Floyd walked over to him and helped him with get on the clothes. Floyd was kind of uneasy trying to help put the boxers on, so he made sure the towel still covered Animal's small body. He then helped Animal get on the pants, and then shirt. When Baby Animal finally got the clothes on him, Laverne had come by to pick him up. When she saw her clean baby, she was thrilled! When she and Floyd's grandmother had found out what Floyd had done to little Animal, they were pleased and happy. They were proud of Floyd for taking the initiative to do such a good thing. When Floyd's father found out, he was proud that Floyd was starting to become more like an adult by becoming sort of like a second mom to Baby Animal. At first, the thought of Floyd Pepper being like a second mom to Animal seemed crazy, at least to Floyd himself. Eventually, he became used to the idea and just went with it. Sure he did not think of himself as a second mom, but he did think of himself as a good friend towards not only young Animal, but to his future band mates as well.

More time had gone by...about three years. Baby Animal was now four years old, Floyd was seven, Janice was seven, Zoot was eight, and Dr. Teeth was nine. As these three years had gone by, the children who would be the Electric Mayhem started learning how to play their own instruments. Floyd started learning the bass guitar when he was five, Janice started her lead guitar at six, Zoot started the saxophone also at six, and Dr. Teeth started to learn the keyboard and piano at seven. The younger versions of these characters looked a little bit like they do as adults. Young Floyd wore a red short-sleeved shirt, blue overalls, brown shoes, and his usual green army cap. Young Floyd's long red hair was not long like in his adult years, but it was boy cut short, with his green army cap resting on top of it, almost covering his eyes, not knowing that as an adult, his cap would fit just right. Young Animal had a yellow shirt like he had as a baby, but when he entered his toddler years, he lost his white baby bonnet and the short red shorts and changed to longer, bigger red shorts, a longer yellow shirt and had no baby bonnet. Young Zoot wore a gold shirt similiar to the shirt he wears as an adult, but the gold shirt he wore as a child had shorter sleeves, he had no hat like he does as an adult, but being this young age as of now, he had long curly blue hair that sat soundly on his head. He wore blue jean shorts that went down to his knees and gold sandals. He also wore the same sunglasses as he does as an adult. Young Janice looked exactly as he looked when she appeared on the Muppet Babies episode "Whose Tale Is it Anyway". She wore her lavender turtleneck, her pink vest, gold medallion, lavender skirt, gray belt with the silver buckle, her in the same small ponytail type do with the small pink bow, purple and white bracelets, but instead of wearing the gray sandals with the white socks, she wore pink socks with white shoes. Like his adult self, young Dr. Teeth had a blue and red striped long sleeved shirt and a hat. The only differences were that the hat was not a floppy top hat, but it was a pink cap with the same features as on the floppy top hat. The pink and silver straps on his cap, and the blue feather tucked inside the strap. Unlike his adult self, young Dr. Teeth was at a time in his life where he had to go through the hardest thing he had ever had to go through...HE HAD TO WEAR BRACES!!! Oh how young Dr. Teeth despised his braces. He would sometimes say that when his teeth were braceless once more, he was going to make a gold tooth and wear it! Little did he know how right he was...

Anyway, one day when younger Dr. Teeth, Janice, Zoot, and Animal had come over to Floyd's, they were going to do something fun, whatever it may be, but suddenly...

"Floyd, your grandma and I are going to the store. If you're not going and want to stay with your friends, I'm going to call a baby-sitter," explained Benedict Pepper. Young Floyd's jaw dropped.

"Baby-sitter??" he asked furiously. His friends nodded.
"We're not babies anymore!" protested Floyd.

"...yes, but you're still too young to stay home by yourselves. I'm gonna call that Lips kid from across the street and ask if he could come to baby-sit," replied Benedict.

The young Electric Mayhem knew who Lips was. To them, he was the older kid who lived across the street.

To Muppet fans, Lips is the yellow muppet who plays the trumpet. Muppet fans also know Lips because he sometimes played music with the Electric Mayhem. He performed with them on the "Muppet Show" and he also performed with them in "The Great Muppet Caper" when the muppets who lived at the Happiness Hotel were singing the song of the same name, "Happiness Hotel".

When Benedict Pepper called eleven year old Lips, Lips said he would be right there. Two minutes later, he appeared at the front door. Young Lips looked exactly as he does as an adult, except his yellow hair was not as long as it is as an adult.

"Hello, Lips. I'm glad you were able to make it at such notice," said Benedict.
"No problem, Mr. Pepper. I'm glad I'm to watch over these kids. How long will you be gone?" replied preteen Lips. Benedict looked at his watch.

"I'm not sure. You 'll get five an hour, help yourself to anything in the fridge, and hopefully my son, and his friends won't be a problem," he returned.

Soon, he and grandma Bridget left the house, and off they went into Benedict's car and they drove away.

Thankfully, young Lips was not like those evil babysitters like what children see on TV all the time. Lips was very responsible and the young Electric Mayhem liked having him around. Lips felt the same way. When Benedict and Bridget left, the young Electric Mayhem started to ask if they could watch TV, get something to eat, and other questions.

Unfortunately, they did not know what was really going on outside.

When Benedict and Bridget left the house, a small light orange car appeared in the driveway. Two muppet like people were inside. One was a skinny sea foam green muppet wearing black pants, a green sweater, a black coat over it, a blue hat, and had long copper red hair that went to his shoulders. The other one was a shorter baby blue muppet, had curly chocolate brown hair, a black hat, gray pants, a white shirt, and a brown coat over it. These pair of crooks had just arrived in town because the sea foam green muppet had a girlfriend who just so happened to be Floyd's divorced mother, Harmony Coleman Pepper! The last time the sea foam green muppet had any contact with her, Harmony told him told him about Floyd, Benedict, and Granma Bridget. The sea foam green muppet and the baby blue muppet decided to take advantage of the moment, looked up the name "Pepper" in a phone book and found out Floyd's address. These two muppets were actually crooks! The sea foam green muppet was named Tim and the short blue muppet was named Goddard.

"Okay, Goddard, this must be it. The place Harmony told us about. Now, remember the plan!" demanded Tim. Goddard then looked confused.
"What was it again, Tim?" he asked. Tim glared and started sputtering.
"Don't tell me you forgot the fuckin' plan! What the hell is wrong with you?!" he snapped. Goddard backed away.
"Y'know I don't remember things well," he replied. Tim slapped his own forehead and sighed.
"No wonder ya didn't finish school!" he replied. Goddard frowned. Tim just rolled his eyes.
"Whatever. Listen, we sneak in, get all the loot, and get out," he explained. Goddard nodded as Tim spoke.
"Okay, but what if they're home?" he asked, worried. Tim shook his head.
"The ain't. There ain't no car in the driveway or the garage," he replied. Goddard looked confused.
"How d'you know?" he asked. Tim pointed to the garage door that Grandma Bridget had accidently left opened.
"'Cause there ain't no car there either," he replied. Goddard still felt worried.
"What if Harmony's boy is here? He might see us and call the police," he said. Tim rolloed his eyes once more.
"You mean that Floyd kid? If he's here and he tries somethin' funny, we won't let 'im. We can't afford anything wrong goin' on while we do our plan," he replied. Goddard smiled, nodded, and the two left their car, ran to the front door, and started banging on it.

When the kids heard Tim bang the door, they turned and heard his voice.
"Anybody here??!!!" he yelled. Young Janice started shaking. She tapped young Floyd's shoulder.
"Floyd, that, like, for sure, doesn't sound your dad or your grandma," she said feeling worried. Floyd nodded.
"Yeah, it sounds like those two crooks I saw on TV last night. The news lady said that they had just escaped from prison. The news lady also showed a recording of their voices. That voice came from that Tim guy!" he explained.
"So I'm guessin' they're hear?...Woah, this ain't good!" replied young Dr. Teeth.

The door banged again...and again...and again. Until suddenly, the door was kicked down. As Tim and Goddard came into the house, the younger kids crowded around Lips. The first thing Tim noticed was Floyd, Harmony's child. He looked at Goddard and signaled to started ransacking the place. Floyd could not stand the fact that these two criminals were looking and stealing his family's belongings before his very eyes. Before he could take much more, he decided to do something he never thought he would ever do. He ran up to Goddard, whose back was turned, and kicked him straight in back. Goddard fell fowards and was soon being attacked by an angered Floyd. Tim noticed what was going on and grabbed Floyd. This almost gave his friends a heart attack. Young Animal looked the most worried, so worried that he snuck up behind Tim and heard a voice in his head saying "bite Tim's leg and saved your friend". He had heard the voice before. It was Gypsy calling to him as she said she would. He did what he was told and bite Tim. Tim let out a scream of terror. Then, young Dr. Teeth, Zoot, and Janice took advantage of the moment and started attacking Timand Goddard by jumping on them and giving them baby punches, which they thought would work...but the punches did not work. Tim and Goddard were able to break away from the children. Tim grabbed Janice and Dr. Teeth and Goddard grabbed Floyd, Zoot and Animal. Lips could not believe what he was seeing. As he saw this horrific sight, he was softly praying in his head, asking that this chaos would end soon, but when he saw Tim and Goddard grab the younger kids, he was shocked speechless and scared. He did not know what to do. If he tried to call the police, he knew Tim and Goddard would stop him. They were all trapped

TO BE CONTINUED...