I rolled behind the couch that really wouldn't have belonged in the lab, if my nemesis didn't live there. My head was spinning like mad, but I couldn't tell if that was from chasing Doof in circles for the past twenty minutes, or from being hit with his latest Surprise-Inator.

I didn't feel surprised, just very disoriented, so I assumed it hit something else. I glanced around the room and spotted my fedora, which had fallen off mid-roll. Still feeling a bit dazed, I reached for it as Doof rushed away from the inator to see what it had hit.

He stopped in confusion. "A platypus?"

My head spun around at that. I guess it made sense. A platypus being randomly transported into the room would certainly be surprising. And not entirely useful. I slapped my hat on as I turned to face him.

He slapped the side of his face and pointed to me. "Perry the platypus!"

I blinked up at him, which wasn't the strange part; I'm short, so unless I've just knocked him to the ground, I'm always looking up at him. Just, not that far up.

I glanced down at my hands with a gulp, and discovered that they were covered in short fur that was the same teal color as my hair. In fact, all of me was, save my webbed feet, beaver tail, and duck bill. I scowled at him, putting my hands on my hips. What the heck did you do to me?!

A single tear had formed in the corner of Doof's eye as he tried desperately hard not to laugh.

I rolled my eyes, the shock wearing off quickly. It wasn't like it was the first time one of his inators had turned me into something.

The first couple steps I took towards him were wobbly, but you'd be surprised how much balance a tail can give you. I jumped up on the back of the couch, and punched Doof in the face, knocking the urge to laugh right out of him.

"Uh oh." With that, he took off running again, with me back on his heels. "I've created a monster!"

His younger sister entered the room, calmly sipping coffee and reading a magazine, pretty much ignoring the chaos. "How bad is it this time?"

I was used to using my smaller size to my advantage, so it still wasn't too hard to knock him to the ground, and get him in a headlock. "A little help, Hildie?"

She shook her head with a smile as she looked up. "You know our deal… what the heck did you do to Perry?!"

Hilda and Doof's non-interference deal didn't always work out. There had been more incidents where she couldn't keep quiet in the next room, and had come out to scold Doof herself, thus distracting him, and giving me the upper-hand, which I technically already had, but it allowed Doof to call foul. And then, just the other day, things had gotten awkward when Doof got his labcoat caught in the paper shredder. After I hit the self destruct button on his inator, the three of us stood there while Doof tried to pull his coat free.

Finally Hilda and I started forward, only to stop when we saw the other moving. Hilda had finally given up and helped him yank the coat free, but it was still a work in process.

At the moment, though, she was interfering in my favor again, so I started towards the inator.

"Perry, wait!"

I paused and turned towards her, wondering if she was actually going to try to add the disastrous 'time-out' back into the agreement.

"I'm not one to tell you how to do your job, but shouldn't you reverse the effects of the ray before destroying the inator?"

Right… I was still a platypus. I moved my hand away from the self destruct button, and looked for a reverse button. When I didn't find one, I turned to glare at Doof.

He rolled his eyes. "Why would I put a reverse button on my Surprise-Inator? I don't even know what that would do, because that would be the opposite of a surprise, like, an expected-inator, or something… I'm not even sure that would help you."

I could be stuck like this?!

Hilda looked worried too. "Heinze, you have to fix this, and soon! Perry was taking me to dinner this afternoon."

With my family! I gulped as that sank in. If I was stuck as a platypus, what was I supposed to tell my family? Sorry, your brother's gone, but here's a platypus. Why not name him in his honor while you're at it?

Doof sighed, rubbing his head. "Oh relax. You two might have to take a rain-check on dinner, but I can fix this. I'll just have to make a back-to-human-inator, or something. Or, we could always hit you with the Surprise-Inator, and turn you into other things until it's a surprise that you're human again."

I shook my head at that plan. I'd rather be a platypus than a rock or a highly unconventional vehicle or something.

While Doof got to work on the inator, Hilda came over to me, and bent down to whisper, "Do you want me to call and tell them we'll be late?"

I checked the clock, and nodded. She grabbed the phone, and disappeared into the other room so that Doof wouldn't hear her call any of my family members by name.

Yes, it's dangerous having a nemesis who's sister knows my family, but there's literally nothing I can do about it, because she's immune to memory-wiping. (long story.)

She came back, and the three of us got to work on rewiring the inator to turn me back into a human.

Doof didn't leave the silence alone very long. "So, Crumbkin, are we sure we want to reverse this? Just think! Instead of dating Perry the agent, you could keep him as a pet! I mean, look at him! He makes such a cute little platypus! It's a shame to switch him back, don't you think?"

Hilda crossed her arms. "We are not keeping Perry as a pet. One; because it's wrong. Two; because he has a life outside of D.E.I. and three; because he can get out of cages." With that she covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle a giggle.

I scowled at her, and she just laughed harder. "Well, you are pretty cute as a platypus."

I sighed, figuring that was the best I was going to get, and waited for her to address Doof's dating comment. When she didn't I realized that, while we weren't technically 'dating' we weren't technically 'not dating' either. Meeting for lunch on occasion had somehow become something more than a friendship, and something less than… I don't know what.

I liked spending time with Hilda, and I trusted her around my family. I wasn't ready for anything more, so I was comfortable with the way things were.

"There!" A ray of light hit me, and suddenly, I shot up to my normal height. I actually stumbled forward a bit without the tail, but I was as relieved to be back to normal, as I was that I was still wearing my clothes.

Hilda hugged her brother, and I gave him a thumbs up, before pointing to the self destruct button.

"Yeah, I got this one. Curse you, Perry the agent."