“A month, Bugth. And you did nothing!” Daffy slammed his hand down on Bugs’ desk for emphasis.
Bugs didn’t flinch. “C’mon, Daff, dat ain’t fair. I was doin’ everyt’ing I could to find ya.”
“Puh-leathe. If you wanted to find me, you could have.”
“I had to woik on my own, ‘cause everyone else was looking for the ritual site.”
“You didn’t tell them I’d been kidnapped, though, did you?” Daffy snapped.
Bugs shrugged. “I dunno that it woulda made a difference, really. You’re pretty short-handed down there—eh, no pun intended, don’t tell Tweety I said it like that—and with just the two of them, I don’t think they’d want to waste time.”
Daffy hmmphed and crossed his arms over his chest. “And imagine what might have happened if your rethcue had been a little thlower.”
“Sarcasm ain’t gonna help, Daff.”
“The only thing that ithn’t going to help ith you!” Daffy shouted, finally at the end of his patience. “I am thick and tired of relying on thingth with the thtated intentionth of killing me!”
“Look, I’m sorry I’m not omniscient,” Bugs said, sounding annoyed. “Dis ain’t no cartoon, you know. Not like I’ve got a script. And I’m sorry I have to spend so much time tryin’ to help you develop the ability to do all this stuff yourself instead of explaining everything to you like a child. You got a job to do, and I can’t keep fighting your battles for you on this side of the camera.”
“Theemth like the only battleth I’m fighting are yourth and Granny’th,” Daffy snapped back.
“Oh, excuse me, I thought preventing the horrific transformation of our world might not just be my problem!”
“I thought tharcathm wathn’t going to help,” Daffy said waspishly. “Fine. We’ve ethtablished you’re no uthe here. I get the picture. I wanted top billing, that meanth I have to thtart acting like it. Tho other than thending me other people’th thtatementth, what can you actually do that’th utheful?”
Bugs’ eyes narrowed briefly. “I’ve been trying to give you the information you need.”
“Foghorn Leghorn wath more helpful with that than you are.” Daffy was needling Bugs and he knew it. “You never thaid if anyone figured out who killed him, by the way.”
Bugs sighed, and to Daffy’s surprise—and suspicion—the annoyance faded off his face. He settled back into his seat and folded his hands on the table. “Awright, Daff. Cards on the table, eh? You wanna know who killed Foghorn Leghorn? I did.”
Daffy froze, a cold chill running through his entire body. “You…what?”
“I killed him,” Bugs repeated, way too calmly. “I bashed his head in with a lead pipe. He wasn’t s’pposed to be here.”
“You let me take the blame for it!”
“Daffy, Daffy, Daffy. Nobody even knew Foggy was here, let alone that he was dead,” Bugs said soothingly, despite his words not being the least bit soothing. “Look, I…maybe overreacted a little bit, okay? He wasn’t really going to help you anyway. All he would have given you was a crutch. If I hadn’t stepped in when I did, he’d have crippled your growth and left you defenseless.”
Daffy realized, staring into his best friend’s eyes—or was it his best friend?—that he wasn’t coming out on top of this exchange. No one would seriously believe Bugs Bunny was a murderer, and there was no evidence Foghorn Leghorn had even been in the tunnels, let alone that he was dead. Daffy would, at best, be locked up in the crackerdog ward of the nearest hospital, and at worst be sent back to Toon Town for a reboot if he tried to bandy that about, especially without proof he’d done it. At the very least, it didn’t sound like he was going to hurt anyone else on the team.
“Gee, I wonder what it would be like to be defenthelethth,” he said, not willing to completely go down without a fight.
The look on Bugs’ face told him that he knew exactly what Daffy was doing and was prepared to indulge him only so far. “Look, I do regret…Granny’s notes on the Unknowing are pretty slim, honestly. I only shared the statements for a reason.”
Something clicked into place in Daffy’s mind, and he stabbed an accusing finger at Bugs. “You didn’t even know why you were thending them to me, did you? Did you? Jutht, what, a boxth of random fileth she labeled? You were hoping I could figure out the reathon she chothe them!”
“There’s a chance some o’ dem were maybe out of order,” Bugs admitted.
“Tho what do we actually know?” Daffy demanded.
“Daff—”
“No! Don’t you Daff me, buthter.” Daffy slammed his hand on the desk again. “You want my help? I need that crutch!”
Bugs sighed. “We know the Unknowing is probably some kind of dance. We know there’s a lot of skin needed for it. We know there’s a principal dancer that needs a special, powerful costume, and we know Henson and his people built one.”
“I’ve met her. It’th Mithth Piggy.”
“Dat explains a lot, actually. Well, we also know there’s something about a choir, but no real details on that. We know it’s going to be big, and we know it’s going to be bad. And we know it’s going to be soon.”
“We do?” Daffy blinked at Bugs. “How do we know that?”
Bugs slid a folder towards him. “In the last month, there’s been a lot of online activity regardin’ the Muppets. It’s picked up in the last couple ‘a days. Everyone who’s mentioned seein’ one of ‘em has gone missing, too, but Tweety’s a genius with computers, he found ‘em. An’ just before you got back, he managed to track the center point. I was going to try and rescue you, ‘cause I assumed dat’s where you was, but here you are.”
“Here I am,” Daffy agreed dryly. “Tho where ith it?”
“Well, we don’t know exactly,” Bugs admitted. “But we know the general area. It’s a town called Great Yarmout’. Nice little beachy tourist area. Wherever the Unknowing is going to be, it’s up there.”
“It’th a toy factory,” Daffy said, grimacing at the memory. “Or thomething like that. Old, poththibly abandoned, I think. There were fatheth everywhere.”
“Dat helps, actually.” Bugs flipped open the folder and extracted a folded map, which he shook out to full size and spread across his desk. He traced the lines of the streets with a forefinger, then stabbed at it triumphantly. “Ah-ha! Here it is. Skindependent Toys and Puppets. You’ll have to do a bit of resoich to get an idear of the layout, but dis oughta be enough to be gettin’ started with. I’ll come with you to tell the others.”
“Thankth.” Daffy rubbed his face. “M—the Dithtortion brought me thtraight into the Archiveth, tho I haven’t been outthide yet. Ith it thtill raining? Or wath it even raining here? I know it wath in Yarmouth.”
“Hasn’t rained for t’ree days, Daff.” Bugs frowned. “An’ dat came down from da nort’. Hold on.” He turned to his computer and typed for several minutes, then shook his head. “It ain’t rained in Great Yarmouth for a week. You sure it was rainin’ when you left?”
“Pothitive. The cramped coffin wath thinging, and it only doeth that when it rainth. Pluth I could hear it on the roof.”
“Hmm. Dat ain’t good.” Bugs looked seriously concerned now. “Dat makes it a bit more oigent.”
“Urgent? Why?”
“Because it means they know you got away. Which means they know you’re gonna come try and stop ‘em. Which means they’re gonna try and get it going before you can.”
“Oh.” Daffy swallowed. “That doethn’t give uth a lot of time, then. Jutht until they find a replathement…uh…cothtume for Mithth Piggy.”
Bugs, who had been starting for the door, paused and turned to look at him fully. “What do you mean?”
“She, uh…she thaid I’d make a lovely frock,” Daffy said awkwardly, gesturing to himself. “For thpring wear, under a Dalmatian fur coat, I thuppothe. It’th why she wath forthe feeding me, tho I would thtretch out enough that she could wear my thkin. They wanted the gorilla thkin Granny thtole from the Trophy Room, but thought I’d do better.”
“OOOOOOH, I’m DYINNNNNN’…” Bugs momentarily twisted, although maybe not as far as he had in the original cartoon, then went back to normal. “Eh…dat’s not good. Wish you’d told me that when you foist got in.”
“There were other thingth on my mind,” Daffy said defensively. “What’th the big deal, anyway?”
“Dis mornin’, I got a report dat a couple ‘a graves had been dug up,” Bugs explained. He yanked open the door, grabbed Daffy’s arm, and pulled him along, talking all the while. “One o’ dem was Foghorn Leghorn’s—I had him buried at the Institute’s expense under the name Jurgen Leitner, figured nobody would look at it twice. The other one was Granny’s.”
“I thought she wath cremated,” Daffy protested. “Have you told Tweety yet?”
“Dat’s what we’re goin’ to do now. Especially unner the coicumstances.”
“Thircumthtantheth? What thircumthtantheth?”
They were in the middle of the main part of the floor now, and it had to have been close to lunchtime, because there was a lot of foot traffic around them. Bugs stopped in the middle of it and leaned close to Daffy’s ear, cupping one hand over it and whispering so that only he could hear.
“Whoever dug ‘em up took deir skins, Daff,” he said. “Dey wanted an Archivist’s skin, an’ dey got it.”
Daffy knew that the expected reaction was for him to yell at the top of his lungs and attract everyone’s attention. He didn’t. He was terrified, but forced himself to speak calmly. “Then let’th go tell the otherth and figure out how we’re going to thtop the Unknowing. Now.”