When Gobo and Lou woke up the next morning, they found themselves locked in the bedroom, and the door was frozen in a sheet of ice.
"Oh no!" Lou shouted.
"Looks like the Trash Heap was right about Lilith," Gobo said. "Good thing this room has a fire place!"
Gobo took a match from the mantle, lit it, and threw it into the fire place. A roaring fire quickly filled it, and the heat melted the ice from the door.
"Come on!" Gobo shouted.
Gobo and Lou left the room, and ran into the hallway. Across the hall was the door to the room Wembley used whenever he accompanied Lou to Fraggledonia. Gobo tried to open it, but it was locked. The hallway also featured a stained glass window on the ceiling, with six different animal patterns. While Gobo was trying to open the bedroom door, Lou looked up at the ceiling, and the animal panels had disappeared right before her eyes.
"Gobo, look!" she shouted. "The animal patterns have disappeared!"
"Yeah, and the door to Wembley's room is locked, too," Gobo said. "Which is weird, because you don't usually keep these doors locked! Do the goblins lock them?"
"No. What do we do now?"
"Well . . . ."
Gobo looked around the room, and saw a lizard figure next to the spiral staircase that led to this particular floor of the castle. He also found a frog and a butterfly as well. He looked up at the ceiling window, and saw a lizard, frog, and butterfly outline, along with a fish, bird, and cat outline as well. Acting on a hunch, he picked up the lizard, and it turned into a pane of glass.
"Ah ha!" he shouted. "I have it! Look for the figures that match the outlines on the window! If we fix the window, maybe the door to Wembley's room will open!"
"Great idea!" Lou shouted, and she looked around the hallway. She quickly found the bird, the fish, and the cat pieces, as Gobo collected the butterfly and the frog.
Once all six pieces were collected, Gobo pushed a table to the staircase, and climbed up so he could reach the window. Once he placed the panes in place, a click was heard. Lou turned the knob on the bedroom door, and it opened. Gobo jumped off the table, and he and Lou ran inside the room.
"We need a lantern or something," Gobo said. "It's so dark in here, I can't see my nose in front of my face."
"Don't you remember?" Lou asked. "The goblins said this place is wired with electricity. Whatever that is! We have to use a switch to turn on the lights."
"I don't think that concept will ever catch on," Gobo said, feeling around the room. Finally, he felt something, and flipped it. The lights immediately came on in the room.
"That's better," he said, looking around the room.
The room featured a bed, a bookshelf, and a chest. There were several toys scattered around the room, including a ball, a couple of wooden puppets, some stuffed toys, and a doll house. Gobo knew Red and Mokey enjoyed playing with that, but they kept it in Wembley's room at the castle, because Wembley actually liked playing with it with Red and Mokey. On the other side of the room was a door that led to a balcony. Gobo tried it, but it wouldn't open.
"Rats!" he shouted. "What do we do now?"
"Listen to me, little Fraggles!" a familiar voice called out.
"What was that?" Lou asked.
"It sounded like the Trash Heap," Gobo said. "Madam Trash Heap, is that you? Where are you?"
"I'm still in the Gorgs' garden," the voice of the Trash Heap said. "But don't worry, I can help you! The little house holds the key!"
"That must mean the key to the balcony door is in the doll house," Gobo said. He ran to the little toy house and tried to open it, but it was stuck.
"Either Red or Mokey, or even Wembley must have locked it the last time they were here," Gobo said. "And I don't know where they keep the key!"
"They keep it in the trunk," Lou said, walking over to the chest on the other side of the room. She tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge.
"Oh, rock beetles, it's locked too!" she shouted.
"Wait a minute," Gobo said, looking over at the bed. In the center of the bed's footboard was something that looked like a key. He grabbed it, ran over to the chest, and stuck it in the lock.
"Ah ha!" he shouted, as the chest opened. He dug through it, and began pulling things out of it, until he found a tiny key.
"This has to be it!" he shouted. He ran over to the doll house, stuck the key in the tiny lock and turned it. The doll house opened without any trouble.
"You did it!" Lou shouted.
"Yeah, but there aren't any keys in it," Gobo said. "And why are the rooms so dark? I've seen Red, Mokey, and Wembley play with this thing, and the rooms aren't this dark!"
"There are a couple of switches that control the lights," Lou explained. "The goblins said there's a glitch in it that needs to be fixed, but they haven't gotten around to doing it yet. If you flip the switches, some of the lights come on, and if you flip some of the other switches, the lights will come on in the other rooms, but the lights in the other rooms will turn off. I've seen Red, Mokey, and Wembley fiddle with it before, and eventually, they're able to turn the lights on in all of the rooms, but it's a pain in the neck, which is why the goblins have to fix it."
"What?"
"Here, I'll show you."
Lou flipped the first switch, and the lights came on in four of the rooms. When she flipped the second switch, four more rooms were illuminated. When she flipped the third switch, The lights first two rooms and the last two rooms went out. When she flipped the fourth switch, two rooms in the middle row darkened, and the rooms right below it illuminated. Flipping the fifth switch caused those to rooms to darken, and the two rooms next to them to light up. When Lou flipped the sixth and last switch, all the lights went out entirely.
"Red, Mokey, and Wembley have a method to this to keep the lights on, which is why the goblins haven't bothered to have this fixed," she said, shrugging. "Hang on a minute, I'm not sure how they do this."
Lou began playing around with the switches, flipping them back and forth, trying different combinations, until finally, all of the rooms' lights came on. Once they were all on, a key appeared in one of the rooms.
"I had a feeling that would do it," Lou said, taking the key. She ran to the balcony door, unlocked it, and ran outside, with Gobo right behind her.
The balcony led to the bedroom Red used when she visited Fraggledonia. There was also a treehouse the goblins had built for the Fraggles to play in. There were chalk drawings Mokey made of six Fraggles on the front and sides of it (Wembley and Lou on the front, Gobo and Red on the left wall, and Boober and Mokey on the right wall), and a group of rocks on the door that spelled out "FRTH" (for "Fraggle Rock Tree House"). A bridge had been built to access the treehouse, but it had mysteriously been broken. Gobo decided to try to open the door to Red's room first.
"Gobo, wait a minute!" Lou shouted. "Don't you remember? Red always keeps that door locked on the inside. No matter what we do, we'll never get it open."
"Yeah, and I don't want to bash in the windows, either," Gobo said. "After all, Mokey designed the castle windows last time all of us were here, and she'd kill us if we broke them!"
"We're going to have to go down through the treehouse and get in through the library."
"Yeah, but the bridge is broken!"
Luckily for the two Fraggles, there were boards scattered about the balcony. Gobo picked one up, but he found it was too long to use.
"See if you can find a saw and some rope, Lou," he said.
"Right," Lou said, and she began searching around. "Boy, the goblins sure are sloppy. They left the saw and the rope right here."
"Lucky thing for us," Gobo said, taking the saw and cutting the boards. "Or maybe the Trash Heap's helping us."
"Could be. I don't know her as well as you, Red, Boober, Mokey, and Wembley do."
Gobo nodded, and cut the rest of the boards, and Lou tied them together. Then they both attached them to the bridge, and crossed over to the door. But once they reached the door, the chalk drawing of Wembley's body became uncolored.
"That's weird," Lou said. "Wembley's shirt and his hair are still colored in, but the rest of him isn't."
"Well, here's a piece of chalk," Gobo said, picking up a piece of chalk from the floor. "Only it's yellow."
"And here's a blue one," Lou said. "Maybe we could combine them to make green."
"No need," Gobo said. "I found the green piece. Stand back."
Gobo took the green chalk, and began coloring Wembley's drawing back in. But the minute he finished, Red's drawing lost it's color. Gobo sighed, and used the yellow chalk to color it back in. When he was finished with that, the drawing of Boober lost it's color.
"This is getting ridiculous," he muttered, as Lou handed him the blue chalk, and he returned Boober's drawing to it's original state.
"Now maybe we can get in," Lou said, as she tried to open the door to the treehouse. When she did, some of the stones on the door disappeared.
"Oh brother!" she shouted. She decided to forget about it, and open the door anyway, but it wouldn't budge.
"Great," Gobo said, sarcastically. "We're gonna have to fix this. Come on."
Gobo and Lou began picking up the stones, which (luckily for them) had been scattered on the balcony, or around the treehouse. Once they put them back in place, the door opened. Immediately, they ran inside.
"Oh good!" Gobo shouted. "The trap door's open!"
"Finally, some good luck for a change!" Lou shouted.
The two Fraggles raced to the trap door, but the minute they reached it, it closed, nearly taking Gobo's fingers off in the process.
"Yikes!" he shouted.
"Uh oh," Lou said, as she noticed a hinge suddenly appearing on the door, and screwing it shut.
"And that's not all," Gobo said. "Look at that!"
Lou looked, and saw a wagon wheeling itself over the trap door, covering it. If that weren't enough, two of the wheels came off of it, making it impossible to move.
"Lilith strikes again," Gobo sighed. "Come on, we'd better look for the wheels."
Lou nodded, and she and Gobo searched the treehouse. They found the wheels quickly, and attached them to the wagon, but when they tried to move the wagon, the wheels fell off and wouldn't stay on.
"Now what do we do?" Lou asked.
"I think Uncle Traveling Matt saw one of these before," Gobo said. "He said in order for the wheel to stay on, you need something called a washer, and a nut."
Gobo looked around the room, and found two small metal discs, and two small, metal hexagonal shapes.
"I think these are it," he said. "Let me try and see if they work."
Gobo stuck the wheels back on the wagon, and added the two washers and nuts as well. He tried to move the wagon again, and this time, the wheels staid on, but the wagon still wouldn't move. He studied it for a minute, and then realized what the problem was.
"The wheels are rusty," he said, spying an oil can nearby. "A little oil should do the trick."
Gobo took the oil can, and poured it's contents onto the wheels. Lou picked up the wagon's handle, and pulled it aside. Gobo then found a screwdriver, and began unscrewing the hinge. Once he removed it, he tried to open the trap door, but it was still stuck.
"Think something heavy would smash it open?" Lou asked.
"Yeah, but what can we use that's heavy?" Gobo asked. "Other than the wagon, that is. That's too heavy for us to lift, even if we try to lift it together."
"Red's hobby horse," Lou said, picking up a wooden stick horse, which was pretty heavy. "Last time she was here, she said it was too heavy for her, but we went back home before she had a chance to get another one."
"What have we got to lose? Go for it."
Lou swung the stick horse like a sledgehammer, and the boards to the trap door broke off completely. Gobo wasn't too surprised at Lou managing to lift a heavy hobby horse like that. After all, she had been known to hurl heavy rocks clear across the Great Hall.
"Remind me to ask the goblins to fix that," Lou said, as she threw the stick horse aside. "Or else Boober will have about a dozen fits and lecture us on treehouse safety."
"Check," Gobo said, and he began climbing down the treehouse ladder. "Come on, there's not a moment to lose!"