Finnigan’s Island
By Woody
"Mummph!" Mary Ann’s flip flops padded across the hut floor as she was pulled backward. The grip over her mouth was tighter than the one around her waist.
"If you can’t act surprised, you have to be surprised," said Ginger.
"Mum ramuph".
"Oh Sorry!"
"No, that’s fine. That’s a strong grip," said Mary Ann.
"We need to tie you up and gag you," said Ginger.
"Is that how Finnigan is supposed to discover me?"
"He’ll find both of us that way. We can’t bind ourselves, so I’ll cast some more people. I think with a lot of work the Professor can fit one part. Of course he’ll be off screen when Finnigan shows up."
"How about the Skipper?"
"We’ll see. Where do you think the Professor would be?"
"Today I think he’s at the rope factory," said Mary Ann.
Of course he was. The castaways were in need of a steady supply of rope to help lash together poles and such to keep their huts up. Plus for other items the Professor devised.
The Professor turned from his work to the two women approaching: Ginger in a gold lame slit skirt with gold three-inch heel sandals, Mary Ann wearing a navy blue top that left her belly button beaming, and tight white Capri pants. Her coal black hair was loose this morning; Ginger wore hers in her usual flipped at the ends style.
"Hello girls, need more rope for the hut?"
"Not exactly. Say Professor, Mary Ann and I are working on a possible screenplay, trying in a way to help Finnigan."
"To make him look like a Hero," said Mary Ann.
"Yes the first draft involves him rescuing Mary Ann and myself from a terrible fate."
"I see."
"It’s only a first draft. But we have to be bound and gagged. So Finnigan can find us, release us. Be a Hero," said Ginger.
"Well I suppose it could work. Do you want me to tie you up?"
"Could you?’ said Mary Ann.
"Well I was planning to do some more work on the still for our water supply, but I suppose that can wait."
Mary Ann gave him a hug.
"Thank you Professor," she squealed.
Ginger caressed his right shoulder. "Thank you Big P," she purred.
"No bother. I know at times that Finingan appears to be a person who is pantanencephalic. But he is good-hearted."
"You say it so well. I have to get back to the screenplay and Mary Ann still has rehearsal so we’ll be strolling along. Bye," said Ginger.
As they walked away the Professor noted, not for the first time, that the two were quite the pair of callibomes, or perhaps callipygians. Ginger certainly was a callimazonian while the seat of Mary Ann’s Capri pants was evidence of quatopygia, and he didn’t mean maybe.
"Jeez his vocabulary is so amazing. What a mind he has," said Mary Ann.
"Well he is a scientist. I remember a movie I was in where I played a female scientist and we were trying to figure why a astronaut had returned from outer space and was becoming a plant."
"A house plant?"
"Yes."
Mary Ann listened to Ginger’s outline of the movie until they arrived back at their hut.
"Are we going to add that to the Finningan story?"
"No. I think we have enough rope here to at least do a run through of one binding and gagging scene. I won’t struggle in this one. I’ll sit here."
Ginger wafted into a cane-backed chair in front of the vanity table in the hut.
"I’ll powder my nose and you sneak up and clap a hand over my mouth and stick your index finger to my head and say DON’T MOVE."
"All right and then what do I do with the rope?"
Ginger laid out more of the scene and then waited for Mary Ann to get ready. Then Ginger yelled "Action!" And waited for the right beat to begin powdering her face. In the mirror before her she could see Mary Ann lurking. Have to change the layout for this shot for sure.
"Argujumph," she said as the hand clamped on her. Mary Ann held on.
Ginger waited a few beats, then pointed her own finger at her own head.
"Oh jeepers sorry," said Mary Ann. "I forgot."
"Mu O.K" said Ginger under the hand over her mouth. "Let’s do it again."
Ginger moved the mirror and played the scene as if she was writing at the desk.
"Dumph!"
"DON’T MOVE."
"Fimuph. That’s fine but you need to grip firmer. Come on, show how strong you farm girls are," said Ginger.
Take three. Ginger at table writing. She hears a sound.
"Golump?"
"DON’T MOVE!"
"Umph um boogum."
"Shut up and put your hands behind you!"
Mary Ann took Ginger’s wrists behind the chair and crossed them over. Then began looping the hairy looking cord around her wrists.
Ginger said, "That’s better, thou mabummph!"
"Shut up and keep quiet," yelled Mary Ann. "Oh-- sorry to yell in your ear."
"Goo umph garzz erkkup," said Ginger under the hand gag. It was vise-grip firm this time.
Mary Ann took her hand off Ginger’s lips and continued binding her wrists. Then she scooted around and pulled off Ginger’s high heels and crossed and bound her ankles. With the last of the rope she did two loops around Ginger’s torso and tied that off in back.
Ginger twisted around. "You did a good job with the knots. Is this how you tie cows on your farm back home?"
"Actually we tied hogs. I could show you how we do that. You take the arms and legs and..."
"No let’s do the rest of the scene. Get two scarves and gag me."
"Shouldn’t I just tie one over your mouth?"
"No we have to do it right. I was in a movie once where they stuffed two socks in my mouth. I was the girl friend who was in on an armored car robbery. Well I’ll tell you that one later. Just get a couple from my dresser drawer," said Ginger.
Mary Ann came up with purple and a blue scarf.
"O.K roll one up and pop it between my lips."
Mary Ann bundled up the purple one. "You mean like this?"
"That’s fine. Now put it beumph oopal."
Mary Ann shoved it in Ginger’s mouth. "Is that all right?"
"Oga eveloupop muger,"
"Are you sure this other part won’t mess up your hair?"
"Goom haruf."
Mary Ann spread the scarf out and covered Ginger’s face from the nose down. She pulled each end to the back and began knotting it.
"Tell me if I pull your hair. I’ll get it as tight as I can. O.K finished!"
"Urg poomful."
"Thanks, I guess?"
Ginger twisted side to side in the chair. Then she tossed her red mane of hair around and squealed into the wadding.
Mary Ann hunkered down to the right of her. "All right to untie you now?"
"Duog emket. Ummph cricken fromph uslet."
Mary Ann watched Ginger run through some beats gagged and tied. She raised her eyebrows and made a sharp sound into the packing to show surprise. She shook her head and shoulders, snorted through the gag and narrowed her eyes for anger. She rolled her eyes and made five or six little sounds to ask a question. She lowered her chin and drooped at the shoulders to show despair. And she whimpered and shook her breasts to show fear.
"Ginger that’s wonderful. Golly I’ve got a long way to go to pull any of that off."
"Ginger? Mary Ann?"
It was a loud voice carrying from not too far away.
Mary Ann jumped to her feet. "The Skipper is looking for us," she gasped.
She began untying Ginger from the chair.
"Upmem umpmen," said Ginger shaking her head no.
"You want the gag off quick?"
More negative shakes and sounds.
"Oh you want to keep playing the scene. Break the Skipper in on the act," said Mary Ann.
She watched Ginger shaking her head yes, so Mary Ann took her exit cue and left the set, just as there was a knocking on the bamboo door frame of the women’s hut.
"Mary Ann? Ginger? Say, I stopped by to tell you we’d all be meeting at the Powell’s for dinner tonight. Hello, anybody there?"
The Skipper waited. He took off his cap and scratched his head, put the cap back on and started to head back to his hut.
But he heard something.
Like a cat’s paw of a sound. But it kept going, like a dim Morse code message fisted in a zephyr wind.
Slowly, he opened the door to the women’s hut, stuck his head in and his jaw dropped.
"Mumr mummphhh!"
The sound was clearer, and there was the source. Ginger twisted looking over the back of the chair she sat in, her movie star face half covered by a gag, and it sounded like her movie star mouth packed like a theater showing one of her films. Her Gold dress showed more then usual of her buxom pinup poster chest. The slit below showed yards of her Broadway dancer -shaped legs, where they weren’t tied with rope.
"Mipber mummph umliim!"
She tossed her mane of red hair but the gag stayed firmly over her mouth.
"Ginger, who did this to you?"
"Mum ummph brzzrem. Ulug goomph mum muph merv."
Her tongue was as stopped as a ship at slack tide. The Skipper didn’t know what to do first: take the rope off her hands, the gag off her mouth, untie her legs and run out of the hut to a safer place?
"Hi Skipper!"
He twirled his bulky frame around to see Mary Ann coming from beneath one of the bed frames in the hut.
His jaw dropped as low as it did anytime he discovered one of Finnigan’s disasters.
"You say the Powells are serving dinner? Do they need me to bring anything?"
The Skipper was always glad to discuss food with Mary Ann, but he was out of sorts.
"Mary Ann, are you all right? What happened to Ginger?"
"Mur muph garzix," said Ginger.
"Oh we can explain it at the dinner tonight. Really, Skipper it’s a great idea Ginger came up with. And the Professor said he’d help.’
"He did?"
"Dosar mummph," said Ginger.
"I don’t understand. I’m sure I will," said Skipper.
"I’ll bring a coconut cream pie," said Mary Ann.
"Yes do that. Ah… Ginger, is there anything you want me to do before I go?" he said.
She made several sounds that made no sense to the Skipper.
"Mary Ann, we really should untie her."
"Oh, Skipper, you know nothing about acting."
"Umph urg goom," said Ginger.