“How on Earth can you make puppets sensual?” asked Farta, who, now that she was infused with Vampire blood, was discovering her own sensuality every hour, on the hour.
“You can make anything sensual,” Liesl said. She pointed to the tree. “Like that.” Then she pointed to a red-breasted robin. “Or that.” Then she pointed to her lady-parts. “Or, naturally, that.”
Kurt said, “I know you can make food sensual.”
Friedrich said, “I know you can make food anything.”
Kurt picked Friedrich up by the back of his neck and flung him into the middle of the lake.
Brigitta called, “Stop it, both of you!” She held up her index finger. “You know what? Let’s ask Maria.”
“Ask Maria what?” the Governess said as she wandered into the yard.
Louisa pointed at Brigitta and said, “This one wants to put on a puppet show for Father and the Baroness.” The she pointed at Liesl. “And this one wants it to be sensual.”
“Of course she does,” Maria said. “As well she should.”
“So,” Louisa asked, “might you have any ideas?”
Scratching her chin, Maria said, “You say this is for the Baroness?”
Brigitta said, “And Father. The Baroness and Father.”
“Right,” Maria said, “for the Baroness.” She clapped her hands. “Children, I have a remarkable idea, an idea that will turn this puppet show into one for the ages! A show that people will be talking about for years! A show that will become one of my favorite things, and one of your favorite things, too!”
Friedrich, who was dripping wet from his forced swim, wandered over and said, “Please, Governess, enough with the favorite things scheisse. Nobody likes your favorite things, nobody. If I trip on one more of your brown paper packages, I’ll go insane.”
Maria gave him a dismissive wave, then said, “How do you brats feel about goats?”
“Do you mean riding them?” Farta asked.
“Or sacrificing them?” Friedrich asked.
“Or eating them?” Kurt asked.
“No,” Maria said, “I mean puppetizing them.”
“Now that,” Liesl said, “sounds interesting.”
Maria leaned forward. “Here is what we’re going to do.” After she whispered her instructions to the brats, she said, “Meet me in the ballroom in two hours and thirty-eight minutes. And make sure you tell the grown-ups to join us.”
Fast forward two hours and thirty-eight minutes. The now-completely vomit-free ballroom was as bright as the surface of the sun, and nearly as hot. On the far end of the room stood a newly constructed stage—ten meters high and seven meters wide, with a red curtain shielding the backstage area, and a platform for the novice puppeteers—in front of which sat two chairs. The Captain and the Baroness strolled across the floor, arm in arm, broad smiles plastered onto their faces, his sincere, hers not so much. After they sat down on the seats, the Captain draped his arm over Elsa’s shoulders and said, “This is lovely, my dear, simply lovely.”
The Baroness sighed. “Sure, Georg. Swell.” She then traced a fingernail up his thigh. “But you know what would be lovelier?”
Von Trapp took a sip of his Sipsmith’s. “What?”
Whispering into his ear, she said, “Your seed. Your seed is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen. Or tasted.”
With heroic restraint, he gently took her hand from his leg. “Not now, dear. Maybe later. Now is the time for the children.”
She turned away and grumbled, “The children. Ever since I got here, it’s all about the ficken children.”
“I’m sorry, I missed that, Elsa. What did you say?”
“Nothing,” the Baroness said. “Nothing at all.”
Max appeared, then tapped the Captain on the shoulder and asked, “No chair for me, eh?”
The Captain looked around. “I suppose not.” He pointed to the ground. “On the floor with you, Max.”
Max blinked. “But … but … but I’m an impresario! Impresarios are never relegated to the floor.”
Shrugging, the Captain said, “The Governess and the brats set this all up. Kvetch to them.”
The Baroness checked her watch and asked, “When do you think this shindig will start?”
From behind the stage, Maria called, “Right now!” She stepped into view and said, “Thank you for your kind applause.”
The Baroness said, “We’re not applauding.”
“Oh, Baroness, I love you most of all!” The two women-creatures glared at one another for a moment, then Maria continued: “Today, Captain von Trapp, and Max Detweiler, and Baroness … Baroness … Fader?”
Through gritted teeth, she hissed, “Schrader.”
“Raider?”
Through gritted teeth, she yelled, “Schrader!”
“Seder?”
Through gritted teeth, she roared, “SCHRADER!”
“Right. Schrader. The von Trapp family players are proud to present to you an original play entitled ‘The Lonely Goatherd.’”
The Captain applauded heartily, Max applauded half-heartedly, and the Baroness applauded no-heartedly, which is to say she clapped twice.
A lederhosen-clad shepherd was lowered from the top of the stage. He clumsily danced across the floor and crashed into the curtain. After a cry of Scheisse! the puppeteer regained control of his doll—or her doll; it could have been any one of the brats manipulating that thing—and the show improved exponentially. The shepherd did a dessus, a pas de basque, three sissones, and a speedy series of épaulements, before capping it off with a fouetté jeté. He sat down, folded his legs, and said, “I am but a lonely goatherd, unskilled except for my ability to yodel. My yodels are lusty and clear, and can be heard in remote towns throughout the land.”
Max elbowed the Captain in his leg. When the Captain leaned down, Max said, “Those brats are pretty good. That thing looks real.”
The Baroness said, “Too real, if you ask me.”
The shepherd looked to the sky and continued: “A goat, my Lord, my kingdom for a goat!”
From behind the stage, a voice that was likely meant to be the voice of God, but missed Godliness due to its lack of boominess, commanded, “Yodel for me, my son! Yodel and ye shall receive a goat from yon!”
“As you wish,” the shepherd said, then he cleared his throat and yodeled, “Lady oh the lady oh the lay hee hooooooooooo!”
At that, the Baroness froze solid, so frozen that ice crystals formed on her eyelashes … although since her lashes were Aryan blonde and her eyes were as blue/gray as a lake in the wintertime, one might have believed the entire upper region of her face was frozen to start with. The Captain and Max were so absorbed in the show that they didn’t notice she had stopped moving … and breathing.
A goat was then lowered onto the stage, bleating the entire way down. The Captain told Max, “Goodness, that beast reeks like feces. They even made certain it smelled like a proper barn animal. Those kids—their attention to detail was remarkable.”
Max said, “It’s remarkable, but I have one major quibble: The puppet strings are quite visible to the naked eye.”
The Captain squinted at the goat. “Sure enough. Those are some thick wires. Looks like they nailed them right on in there. There’s one in the left ear, and one in the right, and one in the tail, and one on each of the hooves.”
Pointing at the shepherd, Max said, “There are less on that fellow. Just one in each cheek, one on each hand, and one on each foot. But they’re manipulating him remarkably well.”
“They certainly are.” He paused, then added, “The show looks great, but I must admit, I can’t say the same about this narrative. The plot isn’t moving along.”
Max said, “No, it most certainly isn’t. Not to mention there’s a significant lack of character development, and they clearly are not adhering to the three-act structure. This will all need to be addressed before we begin the tour. We might have to consider a script doctor.”
“What tour?” the Captain asked. “And what’s a script doctor?”
“Never you mind. Pipe down and let me do my job.”
Before the Captain could tell Max off, a backdrop plunked down from the top of the stage, covering the red curtain; it was a crudely painted castle.
Max winced. “Terrible set design. Something else we need to work on.”
The next puppet came from above; it was a handsome young Aryan man whose outfit could only be described as majestic. The puppeteer from above leaned the prince against the painted castle—making certain he didn’t fall—then said, “Who am I, you might ask? Well, I’m a prince on the bridge of a castle moat heard.”
Max asked the Captain, “How can you be on the bridge of a castle moat heard? For that matter, what’s a castle moat heard?”
The Captain shrugged, “Whenever I ask one of the children a question like that, they always tell me the same thing: Ask Hammerstein.”
“Who’s this Hammerstein?”
“No clue.” He took a brief glance at the Baroness, then said, “Look at her, Max. She loves the show so much that she can’t tear her eyes away from the stage.” He shook his head and gave his friend a small, wistful smile. “Ah, those kids of mine, making certain my paramour is happy. It’s moments like this that make all the trouble worthwhile.”
“You know what would make it worthwhile?” Max asked. “Taking this act on the road. And a script doctor.”
Two bearded male puppets with backpacks hopped to center stage from the wings. One of them said, “We’re men on a road with a load to tote.” And then they walked off.
Max said, “This is getting ridiculous. I can forgive a few plot holes here and there, but when multiple characters come in, deliver a line, then leave and are never heard from again, well, that’s a problem.”
“That’s enough, Detweiler,” the Captain said, then cuffed him on the back of his head.
After the bearded ones were clear of the stage, another backdrop whooshed down, this one, a crudely drawn beer hall. The two bearded men, now holding pints of lager, returned and plunked down at a table. (“See,” the Captain told Max, “they came back. Now settle down.”) Four bassoon players appeared behind the bearded men and tore into an odd arrangement of Franz Danzi’s “Bassoon Concerto No. 2 in F-Major.” (Several notes in, Max nodded in recognition. “Ah, Danzi,” he said, “drinking music for the insane.”) The men polished off their beers, at which point the Captain polished off his gin. (“Using spirits to get into the spirit,” he told Max.)
Bearded Man Number One said, “We’re men in the midst of a table!”
Bearded Man Number Two said, “We’re drinking beer with the foam afloat!”
In unison, they yodeled, “Lady oh the lady oh the lay hee hooooooooooo.”
At which point Baroness Elsa Schrader’s hair turned a bright, blinding green. The Captain and Max didn’t notice.
A girl puppet with blonde braids—who, to Max’s eye, looked a bit cheap and sleazy … but in a good way—bounded out from the wings, and straddled Bearded Man Number One. “I’m just a little girl in a pale pink coat,” she simpered.
Bearded Man Number One asked Bearded Man Number Two, “Lay the lady?”
Bearded Man Number Two nodded. “Lay the lady. Hee hee! Hoo hah!”
Max whispered to the Captain, “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Right when the girl leaned in to kiss Bearded Man Number One, a curvy woman who was mostly breast lumbered over to the table. The tempo of the Danzi Concerto picked up far beyond what the composer had intended.
The older woman—who was apparently the girl’s mother—gave the scene a once-over, then said, “Little girl in the pale pink coat, I ask you, what are you doing?”
The girl smiled and said, “What do you think? Lay dee! Lady hee hoo! Lay the hoo hah!”
The Mother nodded and smiled her approval. “Hee hoo! Hoo hah!” She then straddled Bearded Man Number Two, and the puppet orgy was on.
Max’s eyes widened. “Oh, my,” he said, as the Mother stuffed her hand down Bearded Man Number Two’s trousers, “this will alienate certain portions of our potential audience.” He paused, then said, “But it might bring in a previously untapped crowd!” He clapped to the rhythm of the Danzi. “What a day this is, eh Georg?”
The Captain gawked at the performance, then said, “A part of me was anticipating another Austrian puppet disaster, but this, dare I say, is a triumph!”
After six more minutes of unbridled puppet sensuality, the two bearded men and the two women bopped off to stage left. At the same time, two goats bopped on from stage right. One goat sniffed the other goat’s derriere; both the sniffer and the sniffee bleated happily. Then the goats positioned themselves so their faces touched; they rubbed each other’s noses, then licked each other’s lips. A few seconds later, one of the goats turned around, lowered itself to the ground, and raised its rear haunches. The other goat let out a disconcerting moan, then, as it approached the grounded goat, the Captain said, “And that ends our show! Great work, brats! Bravo, bravo!” He stood up, then kicked Max in the thigh and said, “Time for a standing ovation.” To the Baroness, he said, “Care to join is, darling?”
Seven sharp, bullet-like cracks were heard from the backstage area. The noise snapped the Baroness out of her stupor, and her hair returned to its proper shade of blonde. She stared dazedly at the Captain and asked, “What happened?”
“What happened? Why, the children just gave us the show of a lifetime. Stand up for the curtain call.”
One by one, the children stepped out from behind the stage; once they were in a line, they curtsied in unison. (Max mumbled to the Captain, “We’ll have to work on that exit. All this curtsying makes Kurt and Friedrich look like nancy-boys.”) The children then stepped to the side of the stage, and on came the puppets: The shepherd, the two goats, the prince, the girl in the pale pink coat, the two bearded gentlemen, the lusty daughter, and the lustier Mother.
The Baroness scratched her head, then elbowed the Captain in his ribs and asked, “Who’s operating the puppets?”
Von Trapp said, “Why, the children, of course.”
Max shook his head. “Georg, the kids are right there, in full view. How are they doing that?! Mein Gott, this show is fan-ficken-tastic!”
The Vampire stepped out from behind the curtain and waved her hand at the puppets, who immediately collapsed. She then said, “Lady oh the lady oh the lay hee hooooooooooo,” and the Baroness again froze solid. Looking the Captain squarely in the eyes, Maria said, “Gentlemen, the show isn’t over. The show isn’t complete. There’s more, and what comes next might shock you. You might resist at first, but I ask you to give it a chance, because what I’ve done is a great thing for you and your family.”
The Captain asked, “What are you talking about, Governess?”
Maria turned to the kids and said, “Brats, prepare for part two.” After the kids obligingly scampered behind the curtain, she told the Captain and Max, “First of all, gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Dirk Vinizki.”
The prince puppet popped up from the floor, then removed the nails and puppet strings from his various body parts, smiling as the wounds gushed blood all over the ballroom. “Dankeschön, gentlemen. I’m thrilled that you enjoyed the show. Dankeschön, Maria. I thank you for the opportunity.” As he skipped out of the ballroom, he joyfully shouted, “I have confidence!”
Max watched the prince take his leave, then smiled and said, “Now that’s what I call commitment.”
The Captain, whose face was drained of all color, said, “I don’t think that was a puppet, Max.”
“Who cares?” Max said. “All that matters is it was a heck of a show.”
Maria said, “As the pink-coated girl, give a warm round of applause to Mrs. Dirk Vinizki herself, Helga Vinizki!”
Like her husband, Helga stood up and removed the nails and the strings. Like her husband, she began to bleed profusely. Like her husband
, she bound from the room screaming, “I have confidence!”
Maria then introduced the remainder of the cast, as well as the two goats. After all the performers had removed their, shall we say, implements, and vacated the room, Maria asked the men, “Any questions, kind sirs?”
The Captain pointed a shaky finger at the numerous blops of blood that covered portions of the ballroom floor. “Wh-wh-wh-what just happened?”
Max said, “Genius happened!”
Ignoring Detweiler, Maria explained, “What you have witnessed, Captain von Trapp, is the power of the undead. The power of the nightflyer. The power of the Vampire.”
Blinking, von Trapp said, “Vampire?”
“Oh, come now, Captain, I know you noticed.”
“Noticed what?”
“This,” she said, then opened her mouth wide, displaying her fangs in all their gory glory.
Max fell to his knees. “Holy scheisse!”
Maria closed her mouth and shook her head. “Don’t fear, Herr Detweiler. Any friend of the Captain is exempt from feeding.” She glared at the still-frozen Baroness and added, “At least for now.”
“No fear here,” Max said, “just joy. With this sort of performance, top prize at the Graz Gala of Gaiety is mine! Er, I mean ours. Er, I mean yours.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be the case, Herr Detweiler. This is a one-time event. There will be no repeats. Enjoy it, imprint it upon your memory, and file it away for safekeeping. To repeat: No repeats.”
“What if there’s an occasion where you have to repeat it?” Max asked.
“Have to repeat it? What situation could possibly arise that would make a Vampire puppet-and-acrobatics performance…”
“Mein Gott, there are acrobatics?!”
“… essential?”
Max shrugged. “Something might happen. You might find yourself in a sticky position that only a puppet-and-acrobatics performance can get you out of.”
“That sounds ridiculous,” Maria said.
“That sounds like foreshadowing,” the Captain said.
“That sounds like it’s time to bring on the Vampire acrobatics!” Max said.
“I agree,” Maria said, then snapped her fingers seven times.
My Favorite Fangs: The Story of the Von Trapp Family Vampires Page 12
