Chapter 1: The Mouse In The River

Dedicated to Deborah Walley

who gave Foxglove and Lawhiney their voices,

and who passed away on May 10, 2001,

seven years ago today.

You will never be forgotten, Deb.

The sky was gray and cloudy on that late April morning. It was not exactly stormy, yet the wind was strong enough to tear a few rare holes into the thick layer of clouds above the city. All that was positive about the weather was that another winter was over, and that it wasn't as cold as a month or two ago. However, it was still a bit chilly due to the wind. Even though it had stopped raining hours ago, the three small animals strolling along the riverside could have chosen a better day to spend the morning outside.

"Come to think we'll have to do that one day, too," LaWahini complained. Her sister Gadget and the other five original Rescue Rangers were on their sixth case in a row. The new spring had brought crime back to the city, and the weather apparently added to the gruesomeness with which human and animal crooks were doing what they had declared their businesses. "That is, Tammy, you'd probably spend most of your time at the infirmary."

"Only if a case takes place in the city, LaWahini," the squirrel maid replied. "Chip said that when a case takes the Rangers farther away from here, the whole team will have to travel. Especially a mobile infirmary will be necessary."

"Well, Ladies," Foxglove said, "then let's enjoy the easy days until Chip says we're ready for the harder casework."

"Didn't you say you are ready, Foxy?" Tammy asked. "Didn't you say you'd accompany Dale on whatever case he'd have to work on?"

"That's what I said, yes." The reddish bat exhaled audibly. "But I took back what I said after the fourth case in a row and chose something easier to do."

LaWahini smirked. "Such as going on curing Mom's bat phobia?"

"C'mon, that's not funny. Especially not when you're the bat."

"By the way," the blond mouse in the blue dress inquired, "how's it going ahead?"

"Pretty well, LaWahini. We'll go to the zoo again today, and she said she might be ready for visiting the bat cave I told her about this weekend. Dale promised he'd fly us there with the Rangerplane, but I don't know if he'll be on another case then."

Tammy suggested, "You can still ask my sister. Gadget said she can fly the Rangerplane without her assistance now. There are still a few things she'd have to learn, though."

"Oh, right," Foxglove remembered, "the flying lessons. Guess if we ever have a tenth Ranger, it'll be Bink." She snickered. "Interesting thought. One half of the Rangers would be girls then. Come to think that only half a year ago Gadget was the only female in the team."

"Um," LaWahini interjected, "in case you've forgotten, Dad's the greatest animal pilot alive, and we're talking about his wife being cured."

"In case you have forgotten," Foxglove explained, "your mother insisted in going through the therapy without her husband's help."

"Right, she wanted it the hard way..."

As the three new Rangers walked on, LaWahini took a glance across the water. The river was nothing even remotely like the Pacific Ocean, but whether she wanted or not, it reminded her quite a bit of Hawaii, the place where she had spent most of her life. Suddenly she spotted something which caught her interest. "Ladies, what do you think is floating out there?"

"Why?" Tammy asked briefly.

"Because I thought for a moment it looks like a mouse."

"Hm, now that you mention it, it does look like a mouse. Foxy, can you tell us what it's made of?"

Foxglove took a look to the object on the river's surface. "The wind and the waves are too loud, I can't hear my own ping response. Wait a second." She spread her wings and took off, slightly struggling against the wind. After a moment in the air, she touched down again. She had turned so pale that it was visible underneath her facial fur.

"Foxy, aren't you well?" Tammy worried. "What's up?"

"It is a mouse..." After taking a deep breath, Foxglove spoke a brief and quick, "Excuse me," and lifted herself into the air again, this time heading for the motionless rodent on the river.

LaWahini watched her flutter and fight the wind. "What's she doing?"

"Rescuing that mouse, of course!" Tammy answered. "She's a Rescue Ranger, that's her job."

Above the river, Foxglove descended to the mouse. The fact that he was floating with his face up and out of the water hardly relieved her, and the gusts tossing her about and the waves making the mouse tumble and harder to get didn't make her task easier either. She had to fly a number of approaches until she finally got a hold of his shoulders. However, his clothes were soaked with so much water and made him so heavy that lifting him up was out of question, so Foxglove flew a bit back, stood upon his chest, and dragged him forward towards the shore, taking care not to apply too much pressure to his body.

"Tammy! LaWahini!" she shouted as she approached her teammates. "Come and help me here!" The two rodents stepped into the water, and as soon as Foxglove had lain the mouse down on the shore and flown off him, Tammy grabbed him by the shoulders, LaWahini took his feet, and they carried him out of the water. Now they were able to take a closer look at him.

He was in his twenties, and with all the water in them, his bright fur and blond hair seemed darker than they actually were. He was tall, strong and athletic, yet not as buff as Shaka Baka, LaWahini figured. Yet she somehow felt attracted to him. He wore a silver-gray shirt tucked into a pair of long dark gray pants.

Tammy checked him. "We're glad, he's still alive, albeit weak."

"Poor guy," LaWahini said. "I hope he'll be okay." She removed some hair from his face.

"He's handsome, huh?" Foxglove gave her a wink.

"What do you mean with this?"

"Aw c'mon, don't think I haven't noticed how you're staring at him. Competition for a certain lab rat, I guess. Well, I must admit there is some resemblance between the two of them."

LaWahini's heart missed a beat. "You... I... I mean..."

"LaWahini, I'm none of these oblivious guys. I watched Gadget fall for Chip after Dale and I became an issue. I easily watched Dale fall for me. And I watched you fall for Sparky. And now this. Not to mention that he's probably some fifteen years younger than you."

"Can we discuss this later?" Tammy interrupted them. "We've got an unconscious mouse in wet clothes, it's windy and chilly, which means that our mission isn't over until he's all warm and dry." She picked the mouse up again, and so did LaWahini.

"It'll be much easier if you help us carry him to the Headquarters, Foxy," the former Hawaiian mouse remarked.

"Sure." Foxglove grasped the stranger by his waist with her feet and held his mid-section up as she hovered above the ground.

With their forces joined, the three Rescue Ranger recruits brought him to their Headquarters as quickly as they could. But, when they arrived by the roots of the tall oak tree, they realized that the toughest part was still ahead of us. "Any idea of how to get him up there?" LaWahini asked.

She and Tammy both turned to Foxglove. "No way," the bat said, "I'm not gonna fly him up there."

"Says the bat who can carry a brick if necessary," Tammy commented. "Don't you think it is necessary right now?"

"Okay, I'll give it a try. Step aside."

With her feet on the mouse's shoulders, Foxglove started flapping. The more of his weight was taken off the ground and rested on the bat, the harder it became for her to carry him. While she frantically flapped her wings and made it up the tree bit by bit, inch by inch, Tammy climbed along with her, making sure she doesn't get into trouble. Meanwhile, LaWahini stayed on the ground in case something happened.

"Is it still far?" Foxglove asked Tammy halfway up the trunk.

"You don't really wanna know, do you?"

"Go ahead, tell me!"

"Alright, half the distance is behind you."

"You mean below me..."

"Think you're gonna make the other half, too, Foxy?"

Foxglove gritted her teeth. "Do I have a choice?" She wheezed and spoke on. "From this height, I could turn LaWahini into a flower-printed flapjack with no problems, what with all this payload!" She wheezed again. "Besides, you'd have more to do on this guy if he fell all the way down."

"Not to mention the concussions on your head when you dash upward and hit the branches. Say, you want me to shut up and let you fly?"

"No, go on entertaining me. Distract me." Even for a squirrel, the sarcastic undertone was easy to notice.

"Okay." Tammy climbed up another bit. "Foxy, now that LaWahini's, um, sweet little secret is revealed, what shall we do about it?"

"What about a bit of matchmaking? That hobby of yours?"

Tammy shook her head. "Nah, that didn't work on the detective and the super-brain, how do you think it shall work on the scientist and the super-brain's sister? Sparky's got a weak memory, but he's neither dumb nor oblivious!"

"Well, then let's keep it to ourselves for now. Looks like it'll be much easier for them than it was for Chip and Gadget."

"You're sure, Foxy? I mean, you've seen the looks LaWahini gave this dude here."

"You've got a point there, Tammy. It's up to Sparky to take the next step."

"And up to us to help our new client leave this place. Oh, Foxy, you've almost made it."

Foxglove looked upward and discovered the near platform in front of the Headquarters' main door. She gathered all that was left of her strength and pulled the mouse the remaining few inches upward. She managed to drag him over the railing before, much like him, she laid down flat on her back.

Tammy cheered, "Yay! You made it!"

As far as her exhaustion allowed her to speak, Foxglove replied, "Keep this to yourself, too, will you? I'm not the Rangercrane, y'know."

"Sure, if you want me to."

After she had seen Foxglove successfully carry the mouse up to the platform, LaWahini had climbed after her and Tammy. Now she arrived on the platform, too. "Keep what to yourself?"

"How much Foxy can carry if she has to. Oh, and you're not telling anyone either."

"My lips are sealed, Tammy. Now what shall we do with..." LaWahini motioned towards the still unconscious mouse.

"I'll get a stretcher," Tammy said. She opened the door and entered the main room. The television was on, and in front of it said a squirrel with two-tone fur and blond hair. She was wearing a brown aviator jacket, a matching pair of brown pants, a white shirt, and a couple of goggles similar to Monterey Jack's on her head. "Oh, hi Bink!" Tammy greeted her little sister. "Haven't I told you that Gadget's on a case?"

"No, sis," Bink answered, "apparently, you've forgotten it. Again." She waved to the front door. "Hi LaWahini, hi Foxy."

Foxglove couldn't believe what she saw. "Wait a second, Tammy. You mean you could've just told your sister to take the Rangerplane and fly the mouse up here?"

Tammy stopped immediately. This was embarrassing, let alone not nice to Foxglove. Sure she could have done that. "Bink, is the Rangerplane even here?"

"It's here, Tammy, and I've done four pre-flight checks out of sheer boredom while I was waiting for Gadget. Talking about whom, when she comes back, can someone tell her the TV's about to give out rather sooner than later?"

Tammy turned towards the still open door again. "Uhm... actually..."

"Actually," Foxglove replied, "next time I'll fly up here and check if there doesn't happen to be a pilot and an aircraft available at the Headquarters! Now go get the stretcher as long as I'm too weak to come after you, squirrel!" LaWahini giggled, and Foxglove hissed, "And you keep quiet, LaWahini. For you'll be the next pilot apprentice."

"You think so?"

"I think so. You're the only Hackwrench who can't pilot an aircraft. Yet."

The thought wasn't wholly unpleasant for LaWahini, though. After all, she already knew how to handle Dale's hang glider, and she liked flying it. She was about to mention her mother who wasn't a pilot either, but her mother wasn't a real Hackwrench, she just happened to be married with the flying legend Geegaw Hackwrench. And right now, the poor mouse lying in front of her on the platform sort of pleased her more than the thought of sitting in an aircraft behind countless gages and other instruments with the yoke and the lives of everyone aboard the craft in her hands. "LaWahini," she heard Tammy's voice call, "can you make some coffee for our guest?"

"Sure, I'm coming!"

LaWahini went, and Bink got up and came out to help Foxglove onto her feet. "Foxy, are you okay?"

"More or less, yes," Foxglove said, still a bit unstable. "Being a Rescue Ranger sometimes does wear you out. Enjoy being none, Bink, as long as you can."

Bink then noticed the mouse lying on the platform and the puddle of water around him. "Where've you found him?"

"He was floating in the river. We don't know yet who he is and where he comes from."

"Well, whoever he is, we'd better get him inside. I don't think it's good for him to lie outside in these wet clothes."

Bink was about to heave him up when her sister returned with a stretcher. "Oh, good, you can help me bring him to the infirmary, Bink."

Tammy placed the stretcher next to the mouse, and the two squirrels heaved him onto it and carried him through the Headquarters' hallways down to the infirmary. When they came past the kitchen, Tammy ordered, "LaWahini, tell Sparky we might need him at the infirmary. And tell him to get one of his night shirts." She gave Foxglove a wink, and the bat winked back.

A short while later, the remaining four Rescue Rangers plus Bink had gathered in the room in which the mouse was still lying on the stretcher.

"Okay," Tammy said, "next thing to do: Get him out of these wet clothes. He might get a cold if he wore them too long, and I don't want his bed to be soaked with water."

LaWahini stepped forward. "Allow me to make myself useful, Tammy..."

But Tammy held her back. "Nice try, Miss, but under the given circumstances I won't let you at him unless we haven't got an alternative."

"So why don't you do it yourself then? After all, you're the nurse."

"I'm female. Most of us are female. He's male. It's... inappropriate. So, any male voluntaries?"

"I take it this means me," Sparky responded. "What shall I do?"

"Undress him, dry his fur, put him into the night shirt, and place him in the bed."

"Alright. Now if you ladies please leave the room..."

The girls obeyed. LaWahini, however, stopped on her way out. "Wait. Did he wear insulating gloves or not?" She turned around and shouted in panic, "Sparky! No! Wait!!"