Author's Notes: This chapter is based off season 2 episode 19, The Monkees Paw, one of my favorites. I tried to focus on Micky's thoughts, since he couldn't say anything during the main part of this episode. Also, a quick note, I love the Marx Brothers, so the first time I saw this episode, I was dying with laughter. XD
You would not believe how annoying it was to not be able to talk.
Seriously, Micky would have screamed if he'd been able to. As it was, he was trying to joke it off, but without being able to actually joke, he pantomimed an argument with Mr. Schneider, ending with him hitting the dummy in the face with the Monkey's paw that had started all this trouble.
The others stood and watched, trying to figure out what had made him stop talking. As if it needed much figuring out. He had accidentally wished that he would be able to stop talking, and it had come true. He would have explained this by now, only... he couldn't.
"You know, he hasn't said a thing in twelve hours," Davy commented as the three of them stood next to the giant Indian statue. Twelve hours!? Had it only been twelve hours? To Micky, it felt like an eternity. All the jokes he hadn't been able to tell, all the things he hadn't been able to say, gone forever.
Twelve hours was a new record. The last time he had been unable to talk, he had been in elementary school, and had accidentally swallowed a live snail. Well, accidentally wasn't really the right word. More like he'd been dared to swallow a live snail, and had grudgingly obliged. He hadn't talked for ten minutes then, and it had still driven him crazy. This was a million times worse.
"That's it," Mike was saying. "In twelve hours, he forgot how to talk, I mean, anybody could forget how to talk in twelve hours!"
Mike was just grasping at straws now. He prided himself on not being superstitious, but sometimes he could take this to a fault and blatantly ignore supernatural things that happened because of his belief that such things did not exist. Such things as a magical monkey's paw that granted wishes and gave bad luck.
"Well then, it's simple, all we do is teach him to talk," Peter said, ready to try just about anything to get Micky's voice back.
"How?" Davy joked, raising his hand to match the Indian's hand.
"What did you say?" Mike asked, looking up at him in amusement. Davy started laughing himself as he repeated the joke.
Micky laughed too. Well, he tried to, that is. When no sound came out, he quickly changed to not-groaning, and put his hand up to his head. This was driving him crazy.
The others all got their things together and sat him down in a chair facing a chalkboard, and began teaching him all sorts of crazy things. He tried to tell them to skip to the talking part, but had to remain silent.
Finally, it seemed, they came to the part of the lesson about speech.
"Now, Micky, I want you to repeat after me," Mike said. "What is that?" He held up a crayon. "It's a pencil," he said. "Right?"
Micky nodded, determined to show his annoyance at the situation in any way he could, since he couldn't voice it.
"Come on, Mick, say it," Mike prompted. "Pencil."
Micky tried, he really did. But no words came out.
"Pencil," Mike repeated, as Davy and Peter walked over to Micky and stood on either side of him, repeating the word "pencil" over and over again, trying to show him how it was done. Micky knew how it was done, the sound just didn't come. It was as if the monkey's paw had removed his vocal cords.
"Hey, show him the P," Davy suggested. Peter, desperate for anything to work, started making popping sounds with his mouth, repeatedly. Micky tried, nothing came out.
"Pencil," Davy said a few more times before turning to Mike as Micky wiped the side of his face with his hand and tried to get Peter to stop making the popping sound, giving him a look since he couldn't out and out say "Peter, knock it off."
"Oh, it's no good," Davy said. "He won't be able to sing tonight, he can't even say pencil!"
"Do you suppose it has anything to do with the fact that this is a crayon?" Mike asked.
"Now, crayon I can say," Micky quipped, stopping the timer for his record of twelve hours. For a second, he was surprised. Maybe the curse wore off after twelve hours, and he could talk again!'
"Come on, pencil," Mike said again.
Micky tried, but once again, nothing came out. He felt his hopes come crashing down around him, as Davy continued to try and get him to say pencil.
"He can't say anything but crayon," Peter said sadly, looking down at him.
Micky once again didn't groan. They needed to figure out a way to reverse this curse before he ended up in the mad house, forever silently shouting and quietly screaming, unable to say anything but crayon. Well, if that was the only thing he could say, than by golly, he was going to say it! They would have to muzzle him to keep him from yelling crayon at every possible opportunity. They would have to shut him in the asylum and lock him up, and he would scream crayon as loud as he could.
The others would come and visit him, and they would say "Hi, Micky," and he would smile, nod, and say "Crayon!" The nurses would ask him how he felt, and he would smile and say "Crayon" if he was feeling good, and he would frown and say "Crayon" if he was feeling badly.
Somebody would ask him what he wanted for dinner, and he would say "Crayon." Then, when his meal was brought to him, he would have to try and tell them that he really didn't want to eat crayons for dinner, but all he would be able to do would be point at the crayons and say "Crayon," and whoever brought it to him would be confused and they would say "Yes, I brought your crayons, just like you asked," and he would shake his head and repeat "Crayon," which would just confuse whoever brought his dinner even more.
He didn't want to live the rest of his life unable to say anything other than crayon.
The psychiatrist was no help at all. Holding up an ink-blot picture, he asked Micky what it appeared to seem to be to him.
Micky tried to tell him that the picture looked like a group of psychedelic Christmas angels, but... Do I even have to say it this time? Nothing came out.
Mike quietly commented that the picture looked like a bunch of flowers. Now that he mentioned it, Micky could see that.
The psychiatrist, however, merely scolded him for talking, and then claimed that the picture was obviously a bunny and a chicken. Micky took a second look. It really looked nothing like a bunny and a chicken.
Peter decided it looked like a tomato and ketchup stain. Well, there were the red parts, but how did he account for the yellows and the purples? Besides, a stain was way too close to what the ink blots actually were. You had to look beyond the literal and try to see a new picture beyond it.
But the psychiatrist twitched in annoyance and insisted that it was a bunny and a chicken.
Davy put in his two cents that to him, it looked like birds dancing. Silly Davy. Birds didn't dance. They flew. Although, now that he took another look, if he tilted his head and squinted his eyes, he could see how it could look like dancing birds.
The doctor suddenly went berserk, he yelled that it was a bunny and a chicken, threatened to hit Mike, and screamed at Micky to get out of the chair.
Micky all too gladly obeyed and rushed across the room over to where the others stood, watching as the doctor lowered himself onto the backless couch, and began talking to himself that it was a bunny and a chicken.
Finally, after they'd been fired from the club in an attempt to work Micky's silence into the act (Once again putting Mike's novelty Groucho Marx glasses to use), they went back to Mendrake the Magician, and this time he agreed to help them.
As it turned out, the way you reversed the curse on the monkey's paw was to sell it to someone else. So they convinced their mean ex-boss to buy it from them.
Ah, the freedom! Micky could talk again, he could say anything he wanted. As he talked on and on throughout the next hour, he began to get the sneaking suspicion that the others were beginning to wish he would return to his silence. But he wasn't going to. Uh-uh, no way. They should just be grateful he wasn't screaming crayon at them.