The last week in the Super Dede Competition is question week. The readers can ask anything and one of the contestants will have to answer.

@francisvalela asked if the Dedes are ever making a video. “Funny you should ask,” said Push Push and ran off the stage to grab a tape.

“We used to make films in the old days. This one is footage from my first talent show!” she cried and waved the tape around. Then she added quietly “sadly I failed back then. I have worked so hard to improve and this is the reason why I am so annoyed about the size of the stage.”

The readers thought her dancing was tremendous and no one could understand how she she failed last time.

The next day @gulayse56 asked “When you are not interacting with humans and are offstage totally by yourselves, in which language / how do you communicate?” Monkey was very keen to answer that one. In lieu of enough monkeys he had to ask Mouse and Devil for help to demonstrate. “We have two native languages” he said

“Firstly of course ‘Dada’ and secondly ‘No Evil’. Unfortunately ‘No Evil’ is spoken less than Dada and is on the verge of dying out. We really should start a programme to remind Dedes how it is spoken properly.”

@gulayse56 thanked Monkey for his response and believes ‘No Evil’ should be revived to exceed the boundaries of Dedeland. It should be taught to all humans as well.

We then had a question from our off-line friend John Doe, which Court Jester found interesting and was keen to answer. “You are nobodies and you even have to share your robes. How does it feel to be poor?”

“We believe” said Court Jester for once seriously “rich and poor are comparative terms. Poorer than who? Richer than what? Okay we don’t eat caviar, but we eat well because we grow our own food. I have less possessions than the king, but I consider myself richer because I am free!” And on and on he went with his examples until Devil interrupted: “Is this leading somewhere or are you simply waffling?”

“Okay in this day and age feeling rich or poor is mostly a mental perception” summarised Court Jester, “and we Dedes feel rich despite being nobodies!”

This answer obviously brought on a flood of new questions and Mouse found a way combine some that were related: ” @angelcorpuschristi wanted to know about the Dedes secret language, @wizened_gnome was keen to find out whether the Dedes get all their knowledge from the Artist or also from other sources and @showtiart wanted to know if the Dedes were actors or real.

Skeleton Edeltraut who knows all the secrets was the right puppet to answer. “Of course the Dedes are real, but they can’t talk to humans directly. Therefor they had to invent this Artist figure who communicates their story to the rest of the world. The Dedes do not learn from the Artist, on the contrary, they learn from observation and then educate the Artist.”

The last question was directed at Cool Cat, as she hadn’t answered so far. It was @theblanche who asked “If a Dede is stuck in the rain, what next?” Cool Cat got a big fright, as she knows ‘Self-regulation‘ lives with @theblanche and of course she immediately feared this ex-pat Dede had an accident. But no, @theblanche confirmed it was a more esoteric question.

After this was cleared up Cool Cat set out to answer, but Top Dog came on stage and pushed her to the side. “I am the only one who can answer that, as I am the only Dede, who has lived through this ordeal!” and then he told the story again, when this horrible Artist left him out in the backyard for two weeks around Easter time three years ago. Only after the insistence of a kind reader was he pardoned and let back into the house.

“Didn’t we learn yesterday, the Artist is only the figment of our imagination.” Cool Cat pointed out. “Obviously someone is lying!”

After Cool Cat had expressed her concerns for ‘Self-regulation‘ we received a picture from the puppet, showing her on an outing to Mt Hood. Not sure if she really enjoyed her outing, she looks pretty uncomfortably cold.

The Artist also confirmed the truth of Top Dog’s story. He had indeed spent two weeks outdoors as punishment for bad behaviour. Much to the disappointment of everyone, he weathered all storms and survived unscathed. One of our readers suggested, next time we should try three weeks.

Charly, the unicorn Dede who lives in New York, wanted to be the judge of the competition, despite he is currently suffering from a cold. He had read somewhere that in the old days judges put a white cloth on their heads when they read the verdict. So he popped a cloth on his head and begged “let me be the judge.” Francis Valela had a hard time convincing Charly that he is by no means the judge and anyway it might be wise to wait until all the summaries have been published this week.

“Fair enough” conceded Charly “but I can tell you now, I was very impressed by Court Jester’s response re rich and poor!”

To be continued next Monday.