Chickies on Timetrip Part 2

by Wolle

After leaving the past behind the Chickies are heading for their self-created future with the Monkees

The Dreaded German Chickie Corps... On Time Trip

Part Two: Future Trip



With a slight rumble our time machine came to a halt in the year 2017. The bright light dazzled us for one more second, and I had to close my eyes for a moment. Then I felt an elbow stab into my ribs, and Fuzzy's voice, peeping excitedly: "Wolle! Gwen! Look at that! It's exactly like I had imagined it!"

I opened my eyes and saw that we were on a street in front of the entrance to a big park. And straight ahead loomed the big, almost castle-like main building of the Shades of Gray retirement home. The sight of it had the better of me, and the first thing I did was drop my jaw. Gwen, as usual had a more practical approach to it.

"Hardly surprising, Fuzzy! It's a product of your own imagination!"

Fuzzy grinned apologetically and shrugged.

"Oh yeah. I forgot."

"Let's get out now!" chimed Nev and hopped up and down on her seat. "I can't wait to experience a 2017 story live!"

"Which brings me to one question," mused Greenie, "In which one of your story are we, what do you think?"

"I don't have any idea!" admitted Gwen and clapped my mouth shut in a routine gesture. "I just hope it isn't one of your latest stories, Wolle!"

"Why?" I pretended to be indignant, and the other five gave me some strange looks. "Alright," I said subdued. "I don't want Mike in the hospital all the time either."

"We could just as well be in one of Gwen's stories," Fuzzy remarked.

But before Gwen could say anything to her, Mary gave an annoyed groan.

"It doesn't matter which story we've landed in! We'll never know if we don't get out of this car!"

We all agreed to that, and one after the other we climbed outside. I looked around curiously.

"I don't think we're in a story that's already written," I said. Fuzzy looked at me with some irritation.

"What gives you that idea, and how should that happen?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Just a thought. I could be that this story is being written at the same time we're living it, couldn't it?"

"That's a nice thought!" agreed Mary, and Nev cheered: "I think that's kinda groovy!"

"Let's go inside, shall we?" urged Gwen with eager anticipation, and we set out. Halfway there, Greenie suddenly stopped short.

"Uhm." she began.

"What?" we asked in unison.

"Well, have you thought of what we're gonna say who we are and where we come from? This could be a problem."

"Cool it babe," I waved the thought off. "That'll show when we come to it. Just wait, we'll come up with something."

We went through the main entrance of the Shades of Gray and were immediately enveloped by the coolness the thick walls radiated. Our steps clattered on the slick tiled floor, and I even think I saw the remains of Mike's wheelchair skid marks, but I didn't have the chance to ponder on that. Something else drew all my attention.

"Hey, uhm, something's different, isn't it?" Fuzzy wondered and looked around.

"Yeah, there's nobody here," Gwen brought it down to a point.

"This is definitely none of my stories," I stated. "There is always a nurse at the reception with me."

"Hello?" Greenie knocked cautiously on the glass, just in case the nurse had only been hiding from us. But there wasn't any light on - the reception, the floor, the whole building seemed like dead.

"I don't like this at all." I murmured. "I want to leave!"

"Now don't make a fuss!" snapped Mary and trudged ahead. "I'm gonna have a look around."

"Hey! Uhm. Mary, wait!" called Nev and ran after her. "I wanna go home too!"

The others exchanged looks and decided to go with them. I pulled a face, but finally I followed Mary's steps down the corridor as well.

"If I'm not terribly mistaken, this is the way to the dining room," said Mary and pushed a door open. "Ta-dah!"

Before us lay the spacious dining room, which was empty as well though, and behind that the porch door to the garden which stood ajar, and from where distant voices could be heard.

"They're all in the garden!" we all called out as one, and immediately I said, "All at the same time???" I scratched my head with puzzlement.

"Shall we go outside?" Gwen enquired carefully, but we could only return helpless looks and shrugs. But we didn't have to wait long, for the answer came in through the porch door in the form of a 30-something, black-haired nurse.

"Hello!" she greeted us friendly. "You must be the teenagers from Mr Tork's social project! I'm nurse Valleri." She offered us her hand. I nudged Greenie and whispered into her ear with a grin: "See? Everything falls into place." Then I shook Valleri's hand.

"Hi! We are Mary, Gwen, Nev, Fuzzy, Greenie and Wolle," during this introduction I pointed out who was who with a brief gesture, and they all shook hands with Valleri. "Where can we help?" I inquired. The nurse was a but irritated by our strange names, but as cliques and gangs were nothing uncommon at least since the 1990s, we even had a credible explanation for that too.

"Yes, we really need all the help we can get!" began Valleri. "Our home celebrates its 10th anniversary this weekend, and we're planning a big party with lots of honorary guests and events for our occupants and the guests," she explained and led us out into the garden. "Unfortunately we are severely understaffed at the moment, because Gwen is on pregnancy leave and Mary broke her leg last week and now she's in hospital. So we're of course extremely glad you volunteered to help us here."

"With pleasure!" Mary hurried to assure her, starting to crane her neck again. Fuzzy gave her a little shove.

"Hold on to yourself this time!"

"Why?" she retorted. "Who stole Mike's hat last time?!"

"Shh!" Nev interrupted the two, not to raise any suspicions with Valleri, who went on with her explanations: "You don't have to worry if things get a bit late. You can stay the nights while the preparations for the party go on. I'll have two three-bed rooms in the nurses' home prepared for you."

I only got those conversations marginally, for I was way too busy grasping what was going on around me. We really were at a place which only existed in Fuzzy's, Gwen's and my imagination! All these elderly folks, engrossed in their activities, painting posters, preparing garlands or putting together flower bouquets - they all existed only on paper! And yet they were existent now, just as.

"Mr Tork!", Valleri's voice interrupted my thoughts, and she ran over to a man who had his back turned to us, standing on a ladder and fixing garlands and Chinese lanterns to a tree. "Mr Tork, you're not supposed to climb trees with your hip!"

The man turned to her, smiling - a greyer version of the Peter we'd met in London; white-grey hair which hung shortly over his ears and a similar three days' beard - and I heard five similar noises of held breaths at my side.

"Nurse Valleri, my hip is in perfect condition!" Peter said calmly. "You're totally over-reacting again. But if it soothes you, I'll have a little break." And with this he climbed down the ladder. He skipped the last rung and landed elegantly on the lawn.

"Mr Tork!" Valleri shook her head, which Peter countered with an innocent grin. Then she waved for us to come nearer. "These are the volunteer helpers Miss Crayon sent," she introduced us briefly. Pleasant surprise spread on Peter's face and he came up to us to shake our hands.

"It's great you've come! There's much to do!"

But when he saw Nev's long face, he added laughingly: "Don't be afraid! We won't have you work too hard. You'll have fun doing this."

When he shook Gwen's hand, and she was almost drowning in his brown eyes, he frowned and mumbled, "Funny, somehow you look familiar to me. Have I seen you before?"

But before Gwen could think up an answer, I came to her help: "When you were talking to Miss Crayon the other day, Gwen was there in the room. She told us of the project, and we all decided to volunteer together!"

"Y-yes, e-exactly!" Gwen agreed hastily. Fortunately Peter seemed to accept this.

"That'll be it," he said and clapped his hands. "Well, I'll show you around then, to give you a better orientation, and then you can help me put those garlands up," he winked at us secretively and added quietly: "Nurse Valleri doesn't let me climb trees."

Valleri raised her finger in mock threat, and Peter raised his hands in resignation. We chuckled, and then Peter started his tour. We trotted along behind him in single file and absorbed his every single word greedily, and we couldn't get enough of seeing all the things we only knew from written words.

After we had admired the magnificent rose garden and the vegetable beds Peter presented to us with restrained pride, we went back to the building, Peter telling us about the party that was in the planning.

".my mates and I will play an evening gig in the garden, as a final climax, so to speak. I'm in a band, you know."

"Yeah, sure!" Nev cried, and Greenie gave her a shove. Peter misinterpreted her interjection, and turned around, smiling.

"You don't believe me, do you? But it's true. I know that techno is the biggest thing for you kids nowadays, but I still know how to play a real guitar!"

"O-okay, sure." Nev pulled herself together, remembering the role we had to play here.

"Techno. blurgh!" I whispered and shook myself.

"What did you say?" asked Peter, and I hurried to say, "Nothing!"

"Well, anyway," Peter continued happily, "we'll have loads of guests. Among others, there's Paul McCartney from the neighbouring home Octopus's Garden and Ringo Starr has agreed to come too, which is a special treat for me, because. Ah, you wouldn't know about that anyway," he broke off and opened the porch door while Fuzzy struggled not to hyperventilate. She waved her hands through the air with excitement and peeped, "Ringo? Ringo is gonna come? Ringo Starr?"

"Calm down, will you?" Mary hissed at her, visibly making an effort to silence her friend by putting her hand over her mouth.

When he entered the dining room, a strange smell crept into our noses, which appeared to come directly from the adjoining kitchen. We sniffed, unable to classify the smell as something and exchanged questioning looks. Peter, too, inhaled deeply once, then he exclaimed in shock: "Oh my God! Davy's cooking again!" and stormed off into the kitchen.

Greenie snorted loudly, Mary said, "I've got to see this!" and we ran after him.

In the kitchen we encountered a sight for the gods: Davy stood there in front of the oven in complete cook's gear - including apron and hat - holding a ladle in his hand and regretfully staring alternately at the smoking frying pan in front of him, in which floated a single charred scrambled egg, and at the water bucket in Peter's hands, which he seemed to have emptied over Davy and the pan in the rush of the moment.

"WHAT was that supposed to mean?" Davy growled with exasperation. Peter pulled an embarrassed grimace and put the bucket away.

"Sorry Davy.," he began quietly. "I thought there was something burning."

We couldn't help breaking into loud laughter! Peter, too, grinned behind his hand. Only Davy gave us a scolding look.

"Mhm," Peter cleared his throat exaggeratedly to sound serious. "Davy, these here are the girls Miss Crayon sent," and we introduced ourselves one after another. Davy looked at us. Then he murmured, "Kids these days come up with the strangest names. At my time you'd get strange looks if you just had long hair."

"Uhm, I think we'd better go," Peter decided and ushered us out of the kitchen. On the corridor to the living rooms a greased lightning with a red cap rushed past us.

"M-m-mike? Mike, wait a sec!" Peter called after him.

"No time, Pete!" came the prompt answer, accompanied by a shrieking brake. "I'm in the middle of a trial run."

The shrieking stopped, and from a great distance came a disappointed cry: "Dammit! Still two seconds too slow!" and shortly after that the horrified exclamation from a nurse: "MR NESMITH! I was so happy I had cleaned off your last skid marks!!"

Peter shook his head with a chuckle. "My pal Mike. He's always trying to tune up his electrical wheelchair."

We exchanged looks, and this time it was Mary who struggled for air.

"That. that was."

"Michael, yes, I know," Fuzzy said proudly. I breathed with relief as well. Judging by this, Mike was up and going again, and no traces of his long sickness were left.

At the end of the corridor an elevator door opened, and a slender figure in brown pants, with suspenders and a cardigan padded out.

"George!" cried Peter and jogged towards him. "Keep the elevator door open, please!"

"That's George!" it escaped me a bit too loudly, and the others gave little cries too.

"George, really!" giggled Nev, and we ran to follow Peter.

George, completely misunderstanding the situation, opened his eyes wide and disappeared behind the door to his room with a cry of "Oh no! Not those groupies again!".

"Oh boy!" I laughed. "The poor guy!"

We reached the elevator Peter had fortunately reached in time before the doors could close again. He waited till we were all inside, and then pushed the button for the basement.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have warned you. Good old George has Alzheimer's and he's a bit beside himself now and again."

"Phhhh, gross understatement!" snorted Greenie softly, only intended for our ears.

Peter showed us Mike's work room, but only under the strict condition that we wouldn't touch a thing! Then the gong for dinner sounded. We took the elevator up again, and followed Peter to the dining room. On the corridor a door on our left opened, and Micky peeked out, hectically looking around.

"Hi Mick!", Peter greeted him. "Are you not coming to dinner?"

As he turned to Peter we realized the reason for his nervousness.

"Peter! Wiph iph an emerwenphy! Haph you pheen my teeph?"

Greenie buried her face in my shoulder and stifled a laughing fit with only moderate success. Fuzzy, Gwen and I put our hands to our mouths too, in order not to break out laughing loudly. Peter shrugged.

"Do I look like the lost and found? How should I know where you go and lose your teeth!"

"Oh man," Micky wailed pitifully. "Today of all dayph, wey're pherwing Phteak!"

With shrieking tyres Mike's electric wheelchair with him in it stopped at Micky's door.

"Hey Mick! Where are you? I thought you wouldn't have to be asked twice when there's steak for dinner?"

"He lost his teeth," Peter explained briefly. Mike rolled his eyes.

"Oh boy! Again? Mick, sometimes I think you're getting old."

"Ha ha!" said Micky. "Why don't help me look inphtead?"

"Ph!" Mike made a heartless noise. "In order to miss dinner too? Forget it!" - and with a loud Wooosh! he disappeared into a cloud of smoke. We remained, coughing and waving our hands.

"Well, I'm going too," decided Peter, "The girls will be hungry, aren't you?"

We nodded confirmation, which Micky commented with a pitiable look.

"I'm hungry too!"

"Come with us then," was Peter's reply.

"How am I phuppoved to eat wiphout my teeph?" Micky complained, which made us all laugh again.

"Wiph iphn't funny!"

"I'm sorry, but it is!" Greenie chuckled, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.

"Come on, girls, let's go before there isn't anything left," Peter ended the whole thing, and we set out for the dining room. "Oh, incidentally," he called back over his shoulder, "Have a look on your washbasin. They were beside your toothbrush last time."

There was a hissing noise, and seconds later a shrill cry of pleasure that echoed out into the whole dining room. A bit later Micky appeared, along with his dentures, and hungrily accompanied Mike devouring the dinner.

"Hm, they're like children," Peter said with a smile, while he ushered us to the staff table.





In the evening we sat for a long time in the three-bed room Gwen, Fuzzy and Mary were sharing, talking about the day.

"This is so great!" I cheered, sitting on the floor with my blanket wrapped around me like a cape.

"Yeah, it's almost better than last time," Fuzzy agreed. "Okay, the Monkees are pretty old, but it's just as funny as in the stories. And we're all going to see the Beatles!"

"And perhaps a wheelchair race between Mike and Paul!" Mary added.

"Why, of coooourse!" I said Florian-like, which caused Fuzzy to ram her elbow into my ribs.

"Will you stop that!"

"Sorry, sheer routine," I moaned, rubbing my side.

"Oh, I'm so looking forward to that party!" breathed Nev, on which we squeaked in unison, "It's so exctiiiiiting!"

"Baah!" Nev put her tongue out at us and started to shake Gwen, who lay on her bed like dead and didn't move. "Hey Gwen, do something! They're teasing me!"

No reaction. "Gwen?"

This caught our attention, and we lined up around the bed. "Gwen!?"

"Definitely the popcorn!" I diagnosed.

"She hasn't been eating any!" Mary replied, while Greenie kept shoving Gwen back and forth without any effect.

"Gwen, you're not gonna die, are you?!" She wailed theatrically. But Gwen just lay there with open, shining eyes, her mouth twisted into an enraptured smile.

"P - p ." she began quietly.

"Shh - she wants to tell us something!" said Mary, and we listened spellbound.

"P - p - p."

"Come on Mick, say it - pencil!" joked Nev, but all she got was an annoyed "SHHHHHH!" from four mouths.

"Peeeeeter...!" Gwen finished, and we groaned.

"Oh man! Not again!" I rolled my eyes with enervation.

"It was definitely the popcorn," Fuzzy said dryly.

"I can see it coming," I grinned, "Gwen will follow poor Peter around like a dog for the next few days, never leaving his side, and."

"I think you ought to go!" decided Gwen and jumped up from the bed.

"Oh Peter! Petah! Petah!" I teased her again, until a pillow hit my head.

"Oh goody! Pillow fight!" Nev was in it, and seconds later I was attacked by five pillows.

"That's mutiny!" I protested weakly, which earned me another missile from Fuzzy.

"I warned you!" she defended herself.

"I give up, I surrender to your charms," I sang. Seconds later we all jumped up when there was a knock on the door, and a pretty tousled Valleri peeked inside.

"Could you be a bit more quiet, girls?" she complained sleepily. "We've got to get up pretty early tomorrow, and you have, too, for that matter. So be quiet or go to sleep, okay?"

"Okay, sorry," we said meekly and waited for the door to close again.

"Uh-oh, I forgot completely that this isn't like the Monkees Pad," Greenie pulled a contrite face, and Gwen agreed yawningly: "Yeah, it'll be best if we all go to bed now. Tomorrow is another day."

". for adoration!" I finished the sentence with a grin while packing up my blanket and moving over to the door with Greenie and Nev. At once Gwen stood up and drove us out of the room with waving gestures.

"This does it! Out with you! Out! Out!"

"Out! Right! Out!" joked Nev in a pretty exaggerated Micky imitation. At the door I turned around once more and called back into the room: "Be sure to have an eye on Gwen! In the end she'll hit the idea and nick Micky's teeth! The poor guy will never be able to chew again!"

"Why should I?!" she laughed, and closed the door in our faces. Quietly Greenie, Nev and I sneaked back to our room to get at least a few hours' sleep.





Nurse Valleri's morning call was way too early for my taste. A glance at my wrist confirmed it - seven a.m.! I gave an annoyed groan and pulled the blanket back over my head. But not a minute later someone pulled it off me again.

"Help, help, robbery," I complained sleepily, but without success, for Greenie chased me from the bed without mercy.

"How can anyone be so awake at this time of night?" Nev grumbled as well, staggering to the bathroom, still hugging her blanket.

"Ready, girls?" Valleri's voice came through the door half an hour later, and a bit later the six of us stood more or less in line, more asleep than awake, in front of the nurses' room, receiving our instructions for the day.

"Breakfast for the occupants is from eight to ten," Valleri explained, pacing up and down in front of us. "I need one of you to help me lay the tables and distributing the food." In this instant Mary yawned heartily and thus sealed her fate. "How about you?" Valleri stopped right in front of Mary and smiled friendly but firmly.

"What?" Mary was caught completely unawares. She hadn't been listening at all. Greenie grinned at her.

"Congratulations. You've been selected for kitchen duty."

"But." Mary began to protest but didn't get very far, because the nurse carried on with her organisations.

"The others will go and make the beds, okay? That's not too bad. You'll get our nicest occupants. You," she turned to Greenie, "take Mr Dolenz's room. Do you know where that is?"

Greenie nodded. "Yes, Mr Tork showed us around yesterday."

"Good," she turned to the next one in the line, which was Gwen. "You can take on Mr Tork's room then. There's never much to do anyway."

"Okay!" Gwen agreed happily. Then it was Nev's turn. She got Mike's room - which almost made her jump up straight! And Fuzzy finally should take care of Davy's room. She made a long face.

"Why do I have to go round with that deaf little guy?" she grumbled quietly. Nev giggled: "Why? You've so been on a Davy trip for the last few months, I'd started to worry about you. I thought you wanted him desperately!"

"The YOUNG Davy!" Fuzzy lamented pitifully.

In the meantime Valleri had been immersed in a conversation with another nurse and hadn't been paying attention to us. Now she addressed us again.

"And what about me?" I peeped, "I haven't got a task yet."

"Well.," Valleri hesitated, "I don't know if you'd like that, but there's still Mr Harrison's room. I don't know if you know about his condition, and if you think you can do it. He's completely innocent, but sometimes he starts talking wild and."

"No problem!" I saved her from her stammering. "I don't mind. I'll pretend to be a room maid or something."

Valleri breathed with relief. "That's nice of you. I'd have gone with you otherwise, but I have to take care of the food."

"Really, no problem!" I assured her again. Secretly I was even happy to spent some time with George. He'd only had brief appearances in the stories I'd written so far, and to be honest, I knew as good as nothing about him. Perhaps something new would come of it!

"Good, and when you're done, you can come to the dining room for breakfast, okay?"

We nodded in unison, Nev saluted Mike-like, and then our ways parted. Mary followed Valleri into the kitchen while the rest of us went to the living rooms - Greenie, Fuzzy, Nev and I on the first floor, Gwen one storey up where Peter's room was.

"See you, Chickies!" she called and disappeared in the elevator.





Greenie pushed the handle to Micky's room and entered silently. The curtains were still closed, and from under the heap of blankets came a soft snore. Somehow she was sorry she had to wake Micky like this, but Valleri's instructions had been clear. She went over to the window and vigorously pulled the curtains open.

"Good morning, Mr Dolenz! Time to get up!"

"Oh, shut up!" was the prompt answer, leaving Greenie speechless for once.

"What?" she stammered finally, but this time there wasn't a stir. Hm, she thought. Perhaps he's talking in his sleep. But what was she to do now? She couldn't just pull off the blanket to wake him. So she tried it diplomatically once more. "Mr Dolenz? Uhm, it's 8.30, time to get up!"

"Shove off!" squawked the voice in such a rude tone that Greenie didn't know how to react. Was Micky always like that in the mornings? Sure, she knew TV-Micky to be grumpy in the morning, but with this one, it would be new.

"Uhm, excuse me." she began one more time, struggling to keep a polite tone, but she was hit by another cry of "Shut up!!!" and that's where she had enough. That Micky was no match for her!

"No, you shut up!" she countered.

"YOU shut up!" he answered briskly.

"No, you! You! You! You! YOU!" Greenie flipped completely.

"Okay - I will," said her opponent offendedly and remained silent.

"Finally!" Greenie relaxed. That moment the adjoining bathroom door opened and - Micky rolled out!

"Huh!?" - Greenie was totally baffled.

"What's all this shouting?" he asked with astonishment, looking around. Then his look fell on Greenie, who looked not unlike a human question mark. "Ah, you're one of the young volunteers? What's going on here?"

"I. uhm. uh, I thought that. uhm. you. and then, uh." she stammered, gesticulating wildly with her hands.

"OH SHUT UP!" it came again from under the blanket, causing Greenie to give a little cry and jump three feet away from it. This in turn made Micky laugh, and he rolled over to his bed, lifted the blanket up and produced a parrot that hopped up on his shoulder immediately.

"Good moooorrrrning!!!" cried the bird, and Micky raised his finger jokingly.

"Have you been looking for me again? I told you not to taunt people all the time!" And to completely thunderstruck Greenie he said with a grin: "Sorry, you couldn't know, but my parrot likes to hide some place and imitate my voice."

"Aha., " said Greenie and edged closer. "He's pretty good. Man, I was shocked!"

"BOO!" yelled the bird and uttered a series of loud croaks that sounded almost like laughter. Micky rolled around the corner of the bed and put the bird down on a peg that was fixed there, but which Greenie hadn't noticed until now.

"So, and now you'll be quiet while this girl does her job," he ordered. "I'll go down for breakfast in the meantime. You're getting on alright here, aren't you?" he turned to her. Greenie nodded a bit uncertainly, and as soon as Micky had rolled through the door, she cast a furious look at the parrot.

"One false word and you're gonna end up in the vacuum cleaner!" she snarled and started taking off the sheets. Just as she was putting new ones on the mattress, there was a shrill whistle behind her. Greenie whirled around, where the bird eyed her innocently. She put her fists on her hips and said with a final tone: "I warned you!"

Ten minutes later Greenie left the readily prepared room with a merry whistle, leaving behind a very embarrassed looking bird with a tiny gag around its beak.





At the same time Fuzzy fought with Davy - literally. It began when she entered. Fuzzy didn't feel much like doing housework anyway, and for Davy on top of it! Yearningly she watched Nev disappear behind Mike's door, and knocked on Davy's instead. But when there still wasn't an answer after a series of very loud knocks, she gave a deep sigh, entered and surrendered to her fate.

Loud snoring emerged from under the pillow, and Fuzzy didn't even bother to be quiet. She stomped to the window, pulled the curtains open, turned around and shouted at the top of her lungs: "MR JONES!!! RISE AND SHINE!!!"

This didn't bring the desired result, Davy snored peacefully on. Fuzzy was quite amazed. She stepped closer to the bed, took a deep breath and yelled: "WAKE UP!!!!"

Her face was bright red already, but Davy still didn't budge. She tried another two times, getting the feeling she was crying her intestines out, but then she thought this was going too far and settled for vigorously shaking his blanket.

"MR JONES! MR JONES!! WILL YOU WAKE UP!!!"

And finally there was a movement among the sheets. Davy stretched and yawned heartily.

"Good morning, nurse Mary! You've woken me softly, as always."

Then he recognized his opposite.

"Oh!" he squeaked. "You're not Mary!"

"No, I'm not," mumbled Fuzzy, which made Davy put a hand behind his ear and yell: "Whaaat?"

Fuzzy rolled her eyes and cried louder: "No! I'm the temporary help! I'm supposed to make your bed!"

"Could you speak a bit louder?" squealed Davy. "I can't hear you very good!"

"I'M NEW!!! I'M SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOUR BED!!" Fuzzy roared at full volume, but only got a puzzled "Whose head?" from Davy. She was about to have a nervous breakdown. She tried to make the deaf Monkee understand her with every limb available, but he only looked at her blankly. Finally he made a gesture.

"Wait, I'll just put on my hearing aid, I can understand you better then!"

And Fuzzy launched into a screaming fit!





Meanwhile Nev had lost a big part of her confidence when she entered Mike's room. What was she supposed to do if she had to help the old man out of bed? What if she couldn't do that alone, or even worse: If she hurt them both in trying? He wasn't the young Mike from the past any more - and had not been for a long time!

"Uhm, Mr Nesmith.?" she began carefully and looked around the room. It was alight, the curtains already pulled open and from the bathroom came some cheerful gargling. Nev shrugged and started putting new sheets on the bed. Just as she was doing the second pillow, Mike swept out from the bathroom - turbo on - and rushed past Nev without even noticing her. All she could see was his red bathrobe fluttering along behind him.

"M-m-mr Nesmith?" she made a full circle, but remained unheard, and the door to the closet slammed shut behind him.

Thirty seconds later Mike rushed out of it again, fully dressed - Nev could only guess from the sting in her eyes that he must be wearing his yellow pineapple shirt again - and disappeared in the bathroom again. Nev shook her head in irritation. When Mike shot out of the bathroom once more, Red Cap sat on his head. He was about to storm out of the room when he finally noticed the new "room maid" and came to a screeching stop directly in front of Nev, making her fret for her toes.

"You're new, are you?" he began without any ado. Nev nodded weakly. "Good morning! How are you?"

"I'm a bit dizzy," she admitted. Mike ignored the irony and came straight to the point.

"My cat is still sleeping over there in my green wool hat. Give her some food, please. Chicken ragout. The can is in the little fridge over there."

He pointed out the direction and started his turbo again. "I'm having breakfast!" He pushed his cap deeply into his face and grinned with anticipation.

"M-Mr Nesmith.?" Nev tried again, but it was too late. With a WOOOSH! and some impressive 40 mph Mike was gone from the room, and left a dumbfounded Nev in the midst of a dust cloud.

Coughing and waving her hands, she tried to chase away the smoke. And she kept mumbling, "Now this is. I knew Mike will drop anything for a meal, but this is ridiculous! Who writes this stuff??" Then she looked around. "And where's that cat now? Buddy! Puss-puss-puss."





Gwen's brisk knock on the door was answered by a cheerful "Come in!" from the inside of Peter's room. When she opened the door, her jaw dropped. The sight she faced was unbelievable indeed: Peter was hopping up and down on a small trampoline, wearing a blue tracksuit and whistling happily. Gwen registered at the back of her mind that it was "Pleasant Valley Sunday" - she wasn't able to do anything more in her first shock. Then she blurted out: "Pet. uh, Mr TORK! What are you doing?!"

"Sports," he said matter-of-factly and hopped on. That was enough for Gwen.

"But. your hip!"

"Ah, a bit of exercise is never wrong. And my hip hasn't complained yet either." With a last jump he skipped off the trampoline and landed softly on the carpet. "Okay, and now I'm going to take a shower, and then you can accompany on the way to breakfast."

Gwen had gathered herself and got practical again. "I can't. I have to make your bed."

"Oh, I've done that already," he said and smiled. "You'll have enough to do later this day, don't worry. And now you just wait. I'll be ready in ten minutes." And with this Peter disappeared into the bathroom.





"Finally!" George greeted me a little impatiently while sitting on the bed, tying one of his shoes. "Are you the room service? I rang you at least twenty minutes ago! Why did that take so long?"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled as modestly as I could. "This is my first day. I'm just the room maid."

"Okay, but I ordered an alarm call for seven o'clock as well. You forgot that too!" he complained. "Now I'm late again, and my band mates are already waiting for me! We're having that big gig on the Ed Sullivan Show tomorrow, and we've still got to rehearse. John will give me hell again for being late!"

I had to bite my tongue and engrossed myself in shaking up the pillows. George had spoken more to himself anyway than putting any blame on me, he was way too friendly for anything else. Now he was jumping up and looking around the room.

"Now where is.?" he began and crawled under the bed. I was totally perplexed.

"Wh-what are you doing?" I gasped, and George's head re-appeared.

"I'm looking for my guitar!" he explained desperately. "It's gone! I know for sure that it was here yesterday! I clearly remember putting it next to my bed to have it in reach this morning!"

"Uhm." I frantically searched for an explanation that would keep the poor man from creeping around on all fours. "Well, perhaps one of your mates took it with them?"

George puffed and got up again. "Hm, that's just like Paul! Oh well, I'll go then. now I can't even have breakfast!"

I looked up from the blanket I was dealing with. "Mr Harrison, the - uhm - breakfast is open till half past nine, as far as I know. You go ahead and have some. It doesn't matter now if you're one or one and a half hours late, does it?" I smiled at him friendly, and his posture got a little more relaxed.

"Yes, I think you're right! I'm hungry alright! Very well, I'll go and have something to eat. If you run across Paul, John or Ringo asking for me, tell them where I am, okay?"

"I will, Sir, believe me!" I grinned and turned away quickly to seemingly bustle about with the vacuum cleaner. With a cheerful "Thank you!" George vanished from the room.





Twenty minutes later I entered the dining room, looked around for the other Chickies, and spotted Greenie, Gwen and Nev at a table near the kitchen. I waved and headed for the buffet. There I filled my plate with a roll, some jam and honey, and then offered my cup to a disgruntled-looking Mary behind the counter.

"Having fun?" I teased her. Mary replied by pulling a face. I pointed to the cup.

"One full refill, if you please."

"Regular or premium?" she answered back.

"Premium of course," I replied, and Mary reached for the coffeepot. In that moment nurse Valleri came out of the kitchen and up to us.

"Mary, you can go now, and have breakfast yourself. I'll take over from here."

With a cry of joy Mary put down the pot and ripped off her white apron.

"Hey!" I protested. "What about my coffee?"

"Pour yourself some!" Mary said indifferently, taking a plate for herself and filling it with food. "It's my time off."

"What a service!" I grinned in mock-complain and returned to our table together with Mary.

"Hi!", I greeted the others, "Where's Fuzzy?"

"Not here yet," answered Nev slyly, chewing on a bun.

"Er, thanks for this detailed piece of information, but I can see that myself."

"Perhaps she attacked Davy?" speculated Mary, shovelling tons of jam on her bun.

"Nooo!" snorted Greenie. "First of all Davy functions best at night, as we all know," which made Gwen almost choke on her tea. "And second," she continued without hesitation, "the very same man is sitting over there with the other Monkees, and has been for some time, just imagine!"

"Is there something in those cornflakes?" I asked with astonishment. "If you're getting that sophisticated way of talking from them, I'm having some too!"

"It was the milk, Wolle," Greenie grinned broadly at me.

"Got milk?" remarked Mary, taking a deep gulp from her cup, which left a milksop on her upper lip.

"Got Mick!" Greenie corrected her.

"There she is!" cried Gwen.

"The milk???" we clowned.

"Rubbish! Fuzzy!" Gwen pointed to the door, where our missing Chickie was really entering the dining room. She looked pretty exhausted, and when she passed the Monkees' table, she pulled a despairing grimace.

"Now what came over you?" giggled Mary, as Fuzzy sat down and rested her head on her crossed arms.

"Davy," she stated simply.

"Whoo, that bad, is it?" Greenie seemed to sympathize. "Boy, that guy still seems to go for it pretty well, even in his old age!"

While we had a great laugh about that, Fuzzy only gave her an icy stare. "Ha. Ha," she said offendedly. "If this goes on any further, I'll be completely hoarse by tomorrow morning. Just now I had to yell at him for ten minutes until he came up with the idea of putting his hearing aid on - which of course wasn't working. It was an eternity until he got what I wanted from him! And now I've got a sore throat."

"What are you complaining about?" Nev asked without a trace of sympathy. "After all it was you who came up with this story and Davy's character!"

Fuzzy made a pained face. "If I'd only known."





At the same time, there was the following conversation taking place at the Monkees' table:

"What's up, Davy?" Peter asked, looking at his friend who'd been eyeing the girls' table with a suspicious frown for some time now.

"I dunno," said Davy, stroking his chin. "There's something strange about them."

"Ah, Davy, they're only kids!" Peter laughed. "What should be strange about them?"

"I liked them," murmured Mike, digging into his cereals. "A bit disorientated, but nice," which made Micky snort. Davy, however, wouldn't be talked off his opinion.

"Just look at them! Always putting their heads together, giggling and looking over to us. I'm telling you - they are up to something!"

This time Micky broke out laughing: "Listen to this! Davy's complaining about being stared at by some young girls! That I should ever live to hear this! Hilarious!"

Davy gave him a rebuking look. "Just be careful you don't choke on your dentures!"

In that moment there was more laughter from the girls' table, which made a smile spread on Peter's face too. He and Micky looked at each other with shining eyes and he said, "Well well, do you remember when we were their age?"

"Life was one big party." Micky agreed with a great grandfather's voice.

"Oh yeah, memories." Mike nodded with a smile.

Davy crossed his arms over his chest. "And I still think there's something fishy about it."





After breakfast the biggest part of the home's residents went to the garden to carry on with the preparations for the party. Ahead of all went Peter, supervising the whole organisation, but also lending a hand wherever he could. I caught myself several times wondering how there could still be so much energy in that man! One glance at the other Chickies told me they thought the same.

While Peter was once again crawling around in an apple tree, putting up a chain of Chinese lanterns into the branches, and I began to feel dizzy just watching him, Mike had retreated into his work room to take care of the technical equipment. He was planning a special light show for the gig the Monkees wanted to play - he hadn't said any more and just smiled mysteriously. Micky was in charge of decorating the dining room. Armed with a bucket of blue paint and ten volunteers trailing after him - Gwen and Greenie among them - he threw himself into his task. Where Davy was, no one knew. After breakfast he'd gone to his room to make a phone call. He hadn't been seen since.

Meanwhile we were really worrying about Peter.

"What are we gonna do?" Fuzzy asked me with a pleading look, when Peter climbed even higher. I shrugged helplessly.

"Pray he doesn't catch a rotten branch?"

"Not very helpful!" peeped Nev, while we all stared upward, unable to do anything. Then Mary poked our sides.

"Hey! Help is on its way." she grinned and pointed to nurse Valleri, who came running from the kitchen.

"MR TORK!!!" she shouted angrily, and at a volume that almost made Peter lose his balance from the shock. "Will you come down! You're gonna break your neck one day!"

"But nurse, I've got everything under control," Peter tried to defend himself, but Valleri interrupted him mercilessly.

"Nothing! This is enough! What do you have these young volunteers here for?"

We swallowed hard, and I prayed that Valleri wouldn't choose me to take over Peter's job. He himself shrugged with resignation and climbed down the ladder. Only when he stood on solid ground again, the nurse took off again.

"You heard it, kids," Peter said to us, "Who of you wants to go?"

We all pointed to some one else at the same time. "She does."

"Okay, I'm going," offered Nev and tackled the ladder. The rest of us exchanged some deep looks.

"Our Nev," said Fuzzy with a satisfied grin. "The gardening specialist."

"There's some advantage in growing up in the country," added Mary, prompting Nev to laugh.

"Hey! No rural jokes, please!" she called from the treetop. "Better give me the next lanterns instead!"

We chuckled and took up decorating again. We were so deeply involved we didn't even notice how time flew. Just as Nev had taken the last row of garlands from Peter and was fixing it to the tree, George came running into the garden, all upset.

"I think I'm going mad!!" he cried. Fuzzy threw her hand over her mouth in order not to break out laughing, and Mary and I grinned broadly as well.

Peter had the presence of mind to first of all stop him. He took him gently by the shoulders and asked calmly: "What's the matter George? I thought you were rehearsing, with the others?"

"That's the thing!" George wailed. "I've searched the whole hotel, but I can't find the others anywhere! I don't know where they are, and tomorrow is our big appearance in the Ed Sullivan Show!!!"

This was Mary's undoing. She burst out in peals of laughter, hitting the ladder on whose highest rung Nev was still standing. The ladder tipped over, Nev gave a small cry and instinctively grabbed the nearest branch.

In our shock we forgot about George and his problem for the moment and stared at Nev hanging from the tree.

"Nev? Are you okay?" Fuzzy called with concern.

"I'm hanging from a branch - how do you think I'm feeling?!" Nev pretended to be enraged. "Get me down from here!"

"I'd offer you my sweater, but I'm afraid that's not much use now," I couldn't stifle a grin. Fuzzy was giggling too, and Mary sang softly: "I'm hanging in the apple tree."

"Phhh. This brings a whole new meaning to the song 'What Am I Doing Hanging Round'!" I topped it off, and Fuzzy said, "I wonder if Mike was aware of that when he sang it?"

"Would you please get me down from here!??" Nev complained loudly, and with more giggling we put up the ladder again and rescued Nev from her dismal situation.

"Thanks, I think," she grumbled when she stood on solid ground again, but in the end a little smile did re-enter her face. When Peter, who had been watching us, was certain Nev was alright, he redirected his attention at the distressed George. He smiled as reassuringly as possible.

"Calm down, George. I'm sure it'll all turn out alright. It isn't that you haven't played those songs before, have you?"

"No, but." he began, but Peter patted his shoulder.

"See? You've been under some heavy stress the last days, George. The tour, the recordings. the parties! I think John and Paul had enough of it and simply made off. Ringo is probably just sleeping it off. You know how they are. Relax and wait till tomorrow. I'm sure everything will be okay."

George looked at him with big eyes. "You really think so?"

"Sure! Stress only creates negative vibes. Just take the whole thing a bit easier."

"Okay, Pete," said George and smiled a bit less tense. "Man, sometimes I wish I could take everything as easy as you do." And thus he padded back to the house.





In the afternoon we had a little free time for ourselves and were fervently spending it lazing around. Greenie, who had been assigned another short task by Valleri, rushed into our room, tousled and pretty furious.

"Whoa, what happened to you?" I yawned from the floor, where I had stretched out. I hadn't made it to the bed.

Greenie snorted. "Micky's bird! Can anyone please tell me who of you came up with this beast from hell?!"

Fuzzy and Gwen exchanged guilty looks and took a sudden interest in their own fingertips. But Greenie didn't want to go into it. Instead she dropped on the bed beside Mary.

"Hey, I'm getting seasick!" she complained half-heartedly. For a while we dozed around, everyone lost to their own thoughts and daydreaming about the next day. What would lie ahead?

Suddenly I jumped up. "The time machine!"

"Don't do that!" shouted Nev and clutched theatrically at her heart.

"What about it?" Fuzzy asked back. The others sat up to it too.

"Well, we ought to get it out of the way tomorrow, hide it our something," I explained clumsily. "Just to be on the safe side. Who knows, not that someone gets into it and teleports themselves into another dimension or time by mistake."

"Why should that happen?" Gwen objected. "It's not their car, after all."

"Yes, but we haven't locked it. And accidents can always happen! Especially around here. and with all the people coming tomorrow. We can't watch out all the time!"

"Wolle is right, you know," Greenie agreed with me wearily. "In the end our secret will blow up just because some curious person has to dabble with other people's buttons!"

"Hey, I'm taking that personally!" Nev scolded back.

I nodded. "Okay, so we wait until it's dark. Then we sneak outside and hide the time machine."

"Okay," said Gwen and Mary.

"Sure," confirmed Fuzzy and Nev.

There was only Greenie left.

"Greenie?"

Our heads turned when there was only a soft snore for an answer. Fuzzy giggled. "I thought you were the one that snored, Wolle."

I put out my tongue at her. Then I looked at sleeping Greenie. "Isn't she cute?"

"Our Mama Chick," sighed Nev. And we all gave a compassionate little cackle.

None of us noticed the small shadow moving quietly away outside our door, which had been slightly ajar.

"Well, well, a time machine. Very interesting," muttered Davy quietly. "I knew there was something odd about them. I've got to tell the others," he decided, placed his cane into the elevator's direction and set out on the way to Peter's room.





The door flew open, and Peter turned around to see what might be coming there - but at first there wasn't anything or anyone coming. Instead, soft panting could be heard. Peter exchanged a puzzled glance with Mike and Micky, who were with him, playing a game of poker.

Without even looking up Mike muttered, "Gotta be Davy," and in his next step relieved Micky of half his pension. In the next moment Davy's walking stick appeared in the door frame, and two minutes later the rest of him followed. His unmistakable incessant chattering however could be heard from the very start.

"Guys! Guys! I overheard something! Something unbelievable!"

Micky laughed out loud: "The very fact that you heard something is unbelievable enough!"

Peter hid his mouth behind his hand to cover his grin. Mike was not so polite and gave a loud snort at Micky's comment.

Davy scowled at his friends, but nevertheless he blurted on with his news. "I knew it! They're from another time! I heard it with my own ears!"

"Sure Davy," Mike said dryly. "You heard."

"I'm not disturbed!" yelled Davy. "This is for real!"

Peter tried to mediate. "Davy, calm down. No one is saying you're disturbed. We're just thinking that you misunderstood some things in the past."

"Misunderstanding?" giggled Micky. "Not getting it at all suits him better!"

Now even Peter couldn't help laughing out loud, and Mike had already buried his whole face in his crossed arms.

Davy was deeply offended, raised his head, turned on his heel and rushed from the room.





At night Micky was woken from his dream by a steady shake.

"What.?"

Unwillingly he opened his eyes and looked into Davy's face. "What's the matter? Why are you waking me up?"

"It's time, Mick! They're starting!" whispered the little man breathlessly.

"Time for what? What are you talking about?!"

Micky angrily expressed his annoyance at being disturbed in the middle of the night, unshaken by the fact that because of his missing dentures his speech was a bit wet as well as indiscernible. But Davy wouldn't let himself be put off.

"The girls! The time travellers! They want to hide the time machine! I heard them!"

"Stop, Davy!" Micky tried to interrupt. "I don't understand a thing you're saying! What is all this nonsense about a time machine and girls from another time? You're probably dreaming. Go back to sleep, Davy. And I should, too. I'm exhausted from all those festive preparations. Good night."

And thus Micky wanted to turn over, but Davy kept nudging and shaking his friend.

"Micky, please listen to me!" he whispered urgently. "I'm not dreaming! I couldn't sleep because you wouldn't listen to me this afternoon and I was so stirred. And just a few minutes ago I heard noises from the nurses' rooms - and before you start bickering again: My hearing aid is working perfectly!"

Micky, who had just opened his mouth for a retort, closed it again and sat up straight instead to listen to Davy's account.

"I went there to watch," Davy continued, "First there was only a bit of rumbling behind the doors, some muffled voices, then they came out, looked around to make sure nobody was watching them and then they sneaked off."

"All of them?" Micky asked with astonishment.

"Yes," Davy nodded.

"And where did they go?" Micky inquired. He was beginning to believe Davy - at least the things he'd seen. But he didn't believe the time machine story.

"I don't know," Davy shrugged. "Out, on the street, I suppose, to hide the time machine. I went to you right away to tell you. Come on, Mick, we've got to follow them and catch them red-handed! They're up to something."

"Now keep cool, Davy," Micky soothed the little man. "Okay, I believe that you heard or saw something."

"Thanks, Mick," Davy crossed his arms and smiled ironically. "Very kind of you."

"I haven't finished," Micky continued. "Perhaps the girls are up to something. But perhaps they only want to have a midnight party or something. Just think, Davy: They're young! They'll want to have some fun, that's all."

"You still don't believe me!" Davy snapped furiously. "But it's true! The six of them are from another time, and they are currently disposing of their time machine! What if they are from the future and about to destroy the earth?!"

"Davy, that's the biggest nonsense I've ever heard!" Micky grew loud now as well. "Time machine! Visitors from the future! Body Snatchers perhaps? You shouldn't stay up late watching those horror movies!"

Davy gasped for breath. "You! You toothless ignorant!"

"Deaf loony!" Micky replied venomously. Davy wouldn't take this without a fight.

"Old snake!"

"Oh thanks, the same to you!"

"Idiot!"

"Silly ass!"

"Geez-Goddammit! What do you two think you're doing!?" a voice rumbled suddenly from the open door. The two squabblers whirled around and found themselves looking at Mike's angry and sleepy face. "Man, do you know what time it is? Decent people like me would like to get some sleep. What are you shouting around here for?"

Micky and Davy exchanged a guilty look.

"Well, . " Micky was about to start, when someone rushed down the corridor behind Mike, then stopped short, turned around and more slowly jogged back to Micky's door. It turned out to be a slightly hot Peter in pyjamas and nightcap.

"Mike, you here?" he asked a bit breathlessly. Mike looked up at him, equally puzzled.

"Yes, why not? These two were having such a loud argument I woke up. But what about you?"

Peter took a few deep breaths more before he started on an answer. "You weren't outside then? I mean down at the garage?"

"No." Mike frowned. "What makes you think that?"

"The alarm went off," explained Peter with concern. "And I thought you were messing around with the lock again."

"Those accusations, Peter." Mike mocked him. "I was fast asleep in my bed, until these two," he tilted his head in Micky's and Davy's direction, "put an end to that."

"Wait a minute, that means." began Micky, and Peter finished the sentence: "Someone's at the garage!"

"Those girls!" Davy peeped eagerly. "I told you! They're up to something!!"

They were up and running at once.

"Davy's right! Come on, guys!" Peter was already halfway down the corridor. Mike gestured Davy to take a seat on his lap and switched on his turbo. Where their sacred Monkeemobile was concerned, the foursome understood each other without words.

Only Micky stayed a bit behind.

"Hey! Wait for me!" he cried after the others, heaving himself from his bed into his wheelchair. Thanks to his strong arms he was quickly at the door, but something came to his mind, and he headed back once more. Next to the bed stood the glass with his artificial teeth, which he popped into his mouth with a routine movement, but then nothing was to stop him, and he raced after the others.





"There it is!"

I flinched. "Nev, man - do you have to sneak up on me like that? I can see that myself!"

"You see something?" Fuzzy chuckled and cleaned her glasses. "You've got an advantage over me there for the moment."

"Shhh, Chickies," Greenie cautioned us with a whisper. "Get a grip on yerselves. We've got to get this done as quickly as possible before anyone notices."

"Alright, Mama Chick," joked Mary. "All we wanna do is put our car into the garage. Nobody knows it is a time machine."

"Dimension machine," corrected Gwen and pushed open the gate to the garden, which creaked softly. The black van still stood in the same place we'd left it the day before. One beside another we pushed ourselves out on the deserted street.

"Do we have to do that door gag over and over again?" Nev asked with a grin.

Fuzzy rolled her eyes. "Not again!" which made me top that.

"Be quiet, Nev, or Fuzzy will hit you till you laugh!"

"You do and I'll be sorry!" commented Mary.

Greenie laughed softly. "Right-o, and now let's get at it."

"Huh? Why? What?" The dumb look on Nev's face was some sight, and Greenie adopted an instructive air.

"To push the car to the garage. We can't start the engine. You would hear that for miles in this silence."

"What? Push? The car?" I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about it either, but resigned myself to my fate like the others. It was pretty exhausting and we were all sweating, but little Gwen of all of us seemed to enjoy the whole thing. Cheerfully she urged us on.

"Come on, come on! No lame excuses. It's only a few yards more!"

"Were do you take that passion from?" Mary asked with puzzlement. Gwen laughed: " What a question! There's the Monkeemobile in the garage!"

This changed our attitude completely. The prospect drove us to a top performance and a few minutes later we stood in front of the - unfortunately locked - garage door.

"Great," complained Fuzzy. "And now?"

"Why are you looking at me?" replied Mary. "It's your story!"

"Mine!?" blurted Fuzzy. But before she could launch into a quarrel with Mary, I intervened.

"No problem - just ask Wolle!" I said and stepped over to the door, starting to fumble eagerly at the lock. The others eyed me curiously.

"Uhm, I hope you know what you're doing," remarked Greenie.

"Sure," I answered confidently and devoted myself to the lock again. "It's my story just as well, so I know the code to pick this lock." I had barely finished talking when it clicked and the lock sprang open. "Voilá - that's French!" I took two steps backwards.

"We're so proud of you, Your Wooliness," Gwen said with a teasing tone to her voice. "Only, haven't you forgotten something?"

"I have? What?"

"Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this door have an alarm that goes off in Peter's room as soon as someone tampers with the Monkeemobile?"

I grinned confidently. "You just gave the crucial fact yourself: We're not tampering with the Monkeemobile. We're not even getting anywhere near it. Right?"

"Are you sure?" inquired Nev, looking around furtively. I put a reassuring arm around her shoulder.

"Hey, who's writing these stories?"

"Okay." Nev's mind was at ease. Greenie clapped her hands.

"Okay then - on we go! Push!"

With a moan we took up pushing.





"Be quiet!" whispered Peter to the others as soon as they had passed the Shades of Gray's big front door. Obediently Mike switched off his turbo. They tiptoed the hundred yards to the garage; Davy didn't even dare breathing and became more and more tense on Mike's lap the nearer they were approaching the garage. Even from a distance it was clear to see that the lock had been opened and the door was ajar. A pale light shone through the crack.

"There! See? What did I tell you?" Davy lost control again and skidded about on Mike's lap.

"There *is* something going on!" Micky had to admit. He turned to Peter. "I had a hunch that something was gonna happen with these social projects of yours! Your heart is too big! These kids today don't give a damn for us! Juvenile delinquents, they are!"

"Okay, okay, Micky, get a grip!" Peter flared up in a low voice. "I don't regret a thing I did for those kids. I live by the motto: there are reasons for everything. and I'm gonna find out about them now."

Thus he disappeared into the garage.

"Wait a minute!!" Mike called after him. "What about us?"

"You're even asking?" squeaked Davy and pointed to the door. "After him!"

Mike didn't have to be told twice and stepped quietly on the gas.

"Hey?! You can't just." Micky was about to say, but realizing that nobody listened to him exhaled resignedly and seized his wheels to enter the lion's den.





"Ooooh, isn't it beautiful?" Nev held her breath in awe. We finally had managed to get our time machine into the garage and put it on one of the empty private parking spaces. Now, as we had a little time to breathe, Nev couldn't be stopped. She stood in front of her dream car - the Monkeemobile! Carefully parked on the spot by Peter, who, as we all knew, wouldn't let anybody near his gem.

Though we had seen the Monkeemobile on our last time trip, this was totally different. It was special, for in this dimension the car was 60 years old, after all! But considering its age, it was in a fantastic condition, and it radiated a certain dignity. My stomach hopped up and down too, in fact it was leaping, even though cars normally don't impress me too much.

"Nev, I wouldn't go too near," warned Gwen. "Watch the alarm!"

"Awww, I just wanna have a look at it!"

Greenie, too, was getting curious. "Oh, I'd love to go cruising with this one!"

"Oh boy." sighed Fuzzy.

"Shhhh!" Mary interrupted her suddenly and fell back into a whisper. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" I asked warily, but was silenced by waving gestures from Mary.

"There was something there!" she insisted. "Some little scraping noise."

"Are there any rats here?" I squeaked at Fuzzy with a slight panic in my voice.

"Why are you asking me?!"

"These are your stories!"

"And not yours?"

"Hey! What about me?" Gwen intervened. Immediately Fuzzy and I darted at her. "So - are there any rats about?"

"Not in my garage anyway!" she defended herself.

"And I've never even written about the garage, so there," Fuzzy backed out.

"What is this then?" I enquired.

The answer followed on the heels of my question, in the form of a piercing cry that made us all jump. I got such a shock that I was certain my heart had stopped. Gwen wasn't any better, for I realized marginally that she, too, cried out loud with shock.

"Freeze! You are surrounded!!!"

One moment later came the muffled sound of Peter's slightly enervated voice: "Davy! Are you mad, yelling directly into my ear?!"

"This gives you a heart attack!" Micky's tenor joined in, and we breathed with relief.

"Sorry," Mike's bass grumbled. "But I couldn't keep my hands over the lil guy's mouth all the time, could I."

We suppressed a giggle. No one of us even thought of running away. We had manoeuvred ourselves into this trap, so we had to face the consequences. We had to tell our story, and the TV Monkees had bought it, so these here would believe it too, after all they were the product of our minds.

"Would you please explain what you're doing here?" Challengingly Peter stared at each of us. He looked almost dangerous when he was as serious as this. I swallowed, while Mary, much to my surprise, took the initiative.

"We didn't mean to do anything bad," she assured him, "We just wanted to put our time. uh, van into the garage."

At once Davy jumped off Mike's lap and went towards us, waving both his hands in the air, nagging away. "There! She slipped! I told you! They're from another time and want to spy on us - or even worse!"

"No, never!" Gwen objected, and Nev confirmed, "I only wanted to have a look at the Monkeemobile.!"

I nudged her. "That wasn't much of a help, Nev!"

"Hold it!" Mike intervened suddenly and domineeringly raised his hands. "Will you stop that. Now, one thing after the other - is there anything to what Davy's babbling there?"

"No!" Greenie, Mary and Nev assured him cautiously.

"Yes," admitted Fuzzy, Gwen and I, vigorously backed by Davy.

"See? They even admit it!"

"Now what?" Micky said in puzzlement. "For a change it's me who doesn't understand a thing."

"Rubbish!" said Mike and crossed his arms. "There's no such thing as time travel."

"Oh yeah?" I rummaged around in my back pocket, produced my ID card and held it out to Mike. "Then how would you explain that I should be over 40 according to this ID?"

Mike shot a brief glance at it, then said with a shrug: "A pretty bad fake. Anyone can do a thing like this with a computer these days."

Peter on the other hand had been watching us with a thoughtful frown all this time. "If I only knew. You've been looking familiar to me since the beginning, but not from Mrs Crayon's institution."

We exchanged some quick looks, and then I got another item from my wallet - two photos. One of them showed us at the concert Peter had given London, June 2000, the other our whole group with his then girlfriend Mary Jo. Wordlessly I handed them to Peter.

He looked at them equally wordlessly. Finally he stammered, "That. that can't."

"It's true," said Mary and gave Peter two more photos which showed her together with Peter in front of the club. Peter looked closely at those too, and then handed them on to Mike, shaking his head. After Micky and Davy had had a look too, there was an awkward silence in the garage. Even Davy was speechless, now that he was realizing that his suspicions had turned out to be true. Mike began by clearing his throat.

"Hmmm. and. uh. and how.? I mean, how is that possible?!"

"Well." I began, desperately thinking about where to start. "It all started when we met up at Fuzzy's and then found this car in Cologne, which turned out to be able to change into other dimensions."

"Dimensions?" Micky interjected. "I thought time?"

"Both," I squirmed. How was I supposed to explain this? I decided to make a slow approach. "First we went to the past, and already met you there once."

"Then how come we don't remember meeting you?" Mike asked briskly.

"Because. because." I stammered, but then Nev took over.

"Because they were the TV-Monkees." This fell in like a bombshell.

"I beg your pardon?!" Micky's face was full of question marks.

"That's because it is a dimension machine," Fuzzy explained on. "You can hop into every dimension you like."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Peter fell in, even though you could tell from his voice that he already basically knew.

"Uhm, does the word fanfiction mean anything to you?" began Gwen, and Peter simply nodded in silence.

"I remember a few stories someone sent to me once. That was you as well, weren't you?"

We nodded, partly embarrassed, partly proud.

"So that's where my constant deja-vus are coming from," and to our huge surprise a smile spread on Peter's face.

"Wait a minute!" Mike interrupted the upcoming peace. "You mean to tell me we're fiction too and don't exist at all?"

I threw a grin over at Fuzzy. Then I explained: "Of course you exist! I this dimension at least. Were we come from, it's still the year 2000, there you are nothing but fictional characters in the stories we write."

"Wow." was Micky's comment. "That's something to digest. Are you saying that everything we're doing here comes down to you? Far out!"

Mike, too, grinned broadly. "Which also means that every time you lose your dentures, these ladies are responsible."

"I think that's funny!" grinned Peter. "But it also means we can live in peace here and be certain that we'll always be well and it'll never get boring."

"Tell me," Micky asked, even increasing our surprise. "Where do you get your ideas, and how do you write them? Does each one write separately or do you work together?"

"Yeah, well." began Fuzzy, and soon we found ourselves knee-deep in our invented adventures involving the Shades of Gray. First Fuzzy told them how it all began, then Gwen took up the thread, with Mary, Greenie and Nev throwing in the occasional comment, we laughed as Fuzzy and I took turns in relating how our only cooperation, the Fairground Story, had come along, and the Monkees laughed along with us, all of them - except Davy. The little Brit had become strangely silent, which we didn't even notice at first. We were far too immersed in our story-telling.

". I simply can't get that image off my mind, Davy sitting on that wooden horse on the merry-go-round, and pretending to be a jockey!" I was snorting, and Gwen added, "Squeaking all the time: 'I can't get off!!!'", and we all burst out giggling again. When Fuzzy had recovered her breath, she added: "I was almost rolling on the floor laughing, when there was that merry-go-round in that mall, playing Daydream Believer! I thought: If there's Davy on that thing now, I'm gonna crack!"

"But that was I'm A Believer!" squeaked Gwen in almost perfect Davy manner, citing from the Fairground Story. Peter, Mike and Micky joined in the laughter, remembering the incidents.

"Oh, do you remember how Fuzzy and I read the story to Gwen?" I said, and Fuzzy nodded eagerly.

"Yeah, it was pouring, and we were sitting beneath our bridge on the Rhine bank."

"And Fuzzy imitated Davy's squeaking so well that people turned around," Gwen giggled and as if on cue we squealed in unison: "That's so EXCIIIIITING!"

"Enough of it!!!" Davy shouted furiously. Our laughter subsided abruptly. Nine pairs of eyes turned to Davy, who was staring at us, redheaded and with eyes narrowed in anger.

"You've been making fun of me for too long! We're all just clowns for you, and you even think that's funny!" he snapped at his fellows. "But I won't take that! I've had enough! You think you've got power over us, you. you. scribblers!! Giving me a hearing aid, this cane, and then making fun of me!? I call that rape!!!"

We really had to pull ourselves together not to start giggling again, for that would surely have aggravated the situation. We seemed to manage to turn Davy against us in every dimension. He was deadly offended and fuming with rage. I was deeply sorry for him, because we really didn't mean to do any harm.

Fuzzy tried to calm him.

"Davy, listen, it isn't." but she was immediately interrupted by him.

"You keep your mouth shut! You're the worst of them all! If you hate me that much, why have you come here in the first place? Just to watch me suffer?"

"But Davy, we don't hate you!" Fuzzy cried with total conviction, and stepped up to Davy. "Please believe me, I like you! If you only knew! I love you so much, Nev and Wolle are starting to worry about me!"

"Exactly!" confirmed Nev, and Fuzzy continued, "When I get my Davy-fits, I'll stop at nothing!"

Davy was beginning to thaw. He was really the same in every dimension, when somebody was idolizing him, he was okay. He loosened his blocking posture and peered up at Fuzzy warily. "Honestly? You're not just saying that?"

"No, definitely not!" I put in, before Fuzzy could answer. "I'll vow for that!"

"But." he began again with doubt in his voice, "Why do I have the most handicaps then?"

"That just kind of happened," Fuzzy shrugged, but didn't stop smiling. "We didn't mean anything bad. Hey, what should George say? Poor him is even worse off than you, but we still love him too."

"Yeah, and just think of all the stories we wrote for you," Gwen added. "You spice up every plot!"

"Come on, Davy," Micky suddenly chimed in. "We're not cross either. They're only stories!"

Micky's ability to get enthusiastic about things seemed to be the same in every dimension, too.

"And you really like me?" There it was again, that impish grin and the challenging tone in his voice, and we knew we had convinced Davy.

"Chickies?" Nev asked. "Group hug!!!"

And immediately we rounded up on the little guy, hugging him tight, which almost overwhelmed him. Finally Fuzzy kissed him on the cheek and winked at him.

"Well? Convinced?" And for once in his life Davy was too overwhelmed to reply.

We remained standing there for a few minutes more, then Peter decided: "Now let's go back to the house, shall we? Your car is in good hands here. And besides I'm beginning to get cold in my pyjamas. We can talk more tomorrow, okay?"

We agreed, and Nev yawned heartily as if to confirm the late hour. But before we finally set off, Greenie remembered something.

"How did you know we were here in the first place?"

Micky giggled. "I know it sounds unbelievable, but Davy heard you!"

"Do you have to rub it in!?" Davy gave his pal an icy glare.

"Plus the garage is equipped with an alarm," Peter explained. "As soon as anyone messes with the lock, it goes off in my room. But shouldn't you know that?"

Five pairs of eyes glared at me, and Gwen put her fists to her hips. I shrank a bit and shrugged with a sheepish grin.

"Oops."





I had saved the Holy Spectacles under the risk of my own life from the clutches of Bad King Frankie, and was now fleeing from the whole crew of the starship Enterprise. Only clad in a bathing robe whose belt was continually coming loose, I fought my way through the thick undergrowth of the jungle. I was in a great hurry, for I had to be at the subway station at precisely two minutes past two to meet Fuzzy, and even though I hadn't a watch on me I knew I wouldn't make it. Already I heard the chasers behind me, and somebody said with a Bavarian accent: "Yeah, alright, Chekov." and I ran on, faster and faster - but only getting ahead like in slow motion. I was just bending the twigs of the last bush to the side, to squeeze by, when I saw a plane plummeting to the ground from the sky - straight into my direction. I desperately tried to dodge it, but no matter which direction I took, the plane followed me. There was a loud bang - and I jerked up from my sleep in panic.

The light coming from the open door into the room was blinding me and made the figure in front of me look like a dark shadow.

"Oh, sorry," Gwen apologized, "I didn't know you were still asleep."

From the opposite bed I heard Fuzzy bustle and mumble something into her pillow disgruntledly. I rubbed my eyes. "Never mind, Gwen. You were heaven- sent. Man, have I ever been dreaming rubbish!"

"Something bad?" she inquired worryingly. "You look exhausted."

"Oh no," I shook my head weakly. "Not really. Just one of my usual adventure dreams without any sense."

"They mostly do have a meaning," Gwen said expertly. "You digest the previous day's impressions, or something you're afraid of, or the like."

"That'll be it," I raised my finger in mock seriousness. "My bad conscience was trying to tell me to wear my glasses more often. Too bad I've forgotten it in my home dimension."

This made Gwen laugh, but Fuzzy grumbled from her bed: "I don't care about the crap you dream about - *I* had a great dream, and Gwen interrupted it brutally."

"Old grumble girl," I teased back and got up. "I don't even wanna know what you were dreaming. You can tell by your swoony smile anyhow. And I won't have any pity with you, after all, you're able to dream of it whenever you like - unlike me."

"Bad luck," Fuzzy stated wryly, but one second later started giggling, while I crossed my arms in offence.

"Yeah, alright, keep harping on it!" Then I began to dress and changed the issue. "Gwen, what was the matter anyway? Don't you even keep from rising that early on a Sunday?"

"Early!?" she pretended to gasp. "It's almost eleven!"

"So what?" I said. "That's two hours before the waking call."

Gwen tapped her forehead. "You're crazy. No, I wanted to tell you some completely other thing when I came in. I've volunteered to help with the party preparations in the kitchen today, and nurse Valleri said yes! I told her how much I like to cook and bake, and that I'd love to do that professionally, and she consented!"

"Great!" Fuzzy cheered and finally got up herself. "And I suppose Mary will be delighted to hear she's dismissed from kitchen duty."

"Yeah, she's happy too," said Gwen. "She volunteered with Peter to do the gardening. uhm, Wolle? What are you doing?"

I'd been crawling under the bed. "I'm looking for my second sock," I explained my involuntary gymnastics, which earned me snorting from the others, which left me mystified.

"Which one are you looking for?" asked Fuzzy finally.

"Why, the left one of course! What a dumb question!"

"I see," said Fuzzy overly understanding while Gwen kept giggling. "Ahem, have you looked on your left foot?"

"What!?" I crawled out from under the bed in surprise. "Am I really wearing it? Oh well.!"

By now Gwen couldn't be stopped any more, she shook with laughter. "Wolle, what's the matter with you? Are you plotting on getting committed here? Shall we reserve a room next to George for you?"

By now a smile spread on my face, too. "Hm. it's really contagious, isn't it?"

After breakfast Gwen, radiant with joy, immediately went over to nurse Valleri, who was on her way to the kitchen.

"Valleri! I'm ready! When do we start?"

"Hey, you're really keen," the nurse smiled. "If you like, we can start right away. I can really do with some help in the kitchen."

Gwen didn't notice the special undertone in Valleri's voice, but she was to discover soon what was meant by that. First of all Gwen was handed an apron and then directed into the kitchen. Valleri opened the door energetically.

"And what shall I do."

Gwen's smile died away when she realized who else had volunteered for kitchen duty and was waiting there - complete with a cook's cap, apron and wooden spoon.

"'Ello, Chick!" Davy greeted her happily.

"Oh God!" Gwen gasped and Valleri whispered into her ear: "Now you see why I need all the help I can get."

"I'll do my very best," Gwen whispered back and forced a hopeful smile onto her face. "But I can't promise you anything."





Meanwhile Nev and I helped the other nurses to decorate the dining room, set the tables and put candles onto the tables that had been pushed up against each other.

"When will the guests arrive?" Nev asked a small, red-haired nurse called Sandra, while she was attaching a garland above the door from a ladder.

"Oh, in the afternoon," Sandra informed her kindly and handed her another garland. "At four o'clock the cake buffet will be opened." Then she turned to me: "Would you take over here? I have to go outside for a minute."

"Of course," I interrupted my creative task of folding napkins and went up to Nev. "As long as I don't have to climb that ladder - no problem."

Nev grinned at me, then realized something. "Where are Greenie and Fuzzy anyway? They wanted to help out here, too."

"Yeah, funny, isn't it?" I looked around as well. "They won't have got lost, I hope?"

"I'll go and look for them," decided Nev, climbing down the ladder. I could only shout after her: "Yeah, but watch out you don't get lost as well!", and she was gone from the room.





On the corridor she was almost run over by a hectically looking Micky. With indignation she turned after him.

"Hey! It's my right of way here! What are you up to? I'm not a stop sign that can be run over like that."

"Oh, phorry." Micky mumbled absent-mindedly. At once Nev knew the reason for his lack of attention as well as for his blurry pronunciation, and she grinned to herself.

"Uh. can I help you in any way?"

"Yeah, do you know where my teeph are?" he looked up at her desperately. "I can't find wem, and I've been looking for hourph!"

But Nev had other things to worry about and little sympathy for poor Micky.

"No idea," she shrugged. "I've got nothing to do with it. But have you seen Greenie or Fuzzy anywhere?"

"No," mumbled Micky, and then his expression brightened up as if someone had switched on a light bulb above his head. "Perhaph wey've phtolen my teeph!"

"My Fuzzy?!" Nev pretended to be enraged. "Never! I wouldn't put it past Mama Chick though." She gave a cheeky wink in Micky's direction, but he missed the irony and raced his wheelchair down the corridor.

"Oh yeah? Wupht you wait, you magpieph!!"

"Waaah!" Nev cried, taken unawares, when he swished past her and went running after him to stop the foaming Monkee.

"Chickens!" she corrected him, still running. "We're chickens, not magpies."

Suddenly a door sprang open, a tousled Beatle head appeared and Nev doubled over. She heard the grumbling behind her: "Can't you groupies let one have a night's sleep?!" then the door slammed shut behind her.

"Huh?" she was confused, and stopped running, because Micky had vanished from her reach and sight anyway. "Poor old George seems to be really beside himself today." Then she took on her search for the lost Chickies again.





"Greenie! Fuzzy! You're just the ones I need."

Peter was jogging over from the rose garden with the smoothness of a 55- year-old.

"Are you busy at the moment?"

"Well." began Greenie and pointed over to the main building, "we were supposed to help inside."

"They'll get on without you for a while," decided Peter and handed her a key. "You have to drive into town and get my special fertilizer for me. I've run out of it, and it's so hot I'm beginning to fear that the soil in the garden is going to dry out too much. I can't leave here, will you do me the favour?"

Fuzzy and Greenie exchanged a quick look, then nodded with big grins.

"Sure, we'll do it right away," Fuzzy said eagerly. Peter was grateful to them and happy about the two girls' readiness to help. After all he didn't know that there was a certain thought in both their heads when they skipped over to the garage with a grin.





"Okay, open it!" Fuzzy urged Greenie, who put the key in the lock with joyful anticipation. But suddenly she frowned and stopped.

"Wasn't this a combination lock just yesterday?" she wondered, but Fuzzy only shrugged.

"What do I know? I don't care either - open it!"

"Alright," Greenie resigned, then she stopped again. "Uhm."

"What's the matter now?" Fuzzy said impatiently.

"It's open," Greenie replied in amazement. "It wasn't locked."

"Oh!" said Fuzzy. "Our Pete is getting old and forgetful. Come on, let's go in!"

They shoved into the garage expectantly and then stood in front of the Monkeemobile again. The long red car shimmered promisingly in the dark of the closed room, only being lit by the scarce daylight streaming through the crack from the door. Fuzzy held her breath.

"It's forbidden." she breathed. Greenie, too, was contemplating reason for a split second.

"We could always use our own car." she interrupted herself, exchanged a brief look with Fuzzy, then both shook their heads in unison.

"Naaaaaah..!" And without giving it another thought they got in. Fuzzy sat behind the wheel and turned the ignition key. The engine roared with a delighted sound, and Fuzzy and Greenie, too, sighed with pleasure.

"Aaaahhh."

"This is like music to me!" Greenie gushed, and then Fuzzy put her foot down on the gas and drove out.





For the fifth time in the last half hour my eyes strayed to the dining room's wall clock. I was beginning to worry. Not only that Greenie and Fuzzy hadn't appeared, no, Nev was gone without a trace now, too. I had finished my work in the meantime and went out on a search, hoping earnestly that I wouldn't get lost as well.

When I passed the kitchen, I heard a rattling sound, followed by a stifled cry, and a too familiar voice said with a British accent: "Oh, sorry. Was that hot?"

The stifled cry turned into an enervated groan, and I cautiously peeked inside. The kitchen resembled a battlefield after a hurricane, and in the middle of it stood Davy, stirring four pots at once, and Gwen, sucking her left index finger with a pained expression.

The moment she recognized me she stormed up to me, grabbed me by the collar and hissed: "Please! Help me! Get me out of here for God's sake!"

"I'd love to, but don't have the time right now," I said regretfully. "I've lost Fuzzy, Nev and Greenie somehow, and I've got to find them."

"How can you be so heartless?" Gwen wailed. "I'll never get out of this alive!"

"I'm really sorry," I was saying when unsuspecting Davy cried from inside: "Gwen! I need you to taste this!"

"I'm going to die!" she moaned.

"Have fun!" I told her and pulled my head from the door. Seconds later something crashed against it from the other side. It sounded like glass shattering. I shrugged, a little surprised, but didn't take it personally.

Next I went to the elevator to go to the basement. Knowing the Chickies, they were with Mike to watch him build something, and they'd forgotten the time.

Before the elevator door even opened, a deafening racket met my ears. When I entered the work room, my suspicions were confirmed. Mike was totally caught up in his doings and welded, sawed, hammered, soldered about with the lighting he was preparing for the party. The bulky welders' goggles covered half his face, and with the earmuffs and gloves he really looked like a construction worker. Sparks flew around him, almost making me worry he might harm himself.

But I didn't see the Chickies I was looking for anywhere. I tried to make myself heard.

"Mike?" - no reaction. I cried louder: "Mike!?"

Metal shrieked when a saw cut into it - I didn't have the faintest chance of catching his attention. Nevertheless I started one last attempt: "MIIIIKE!"

The only effect was me getting a coughing fit, so I retreated into the elevator. The three definitely weren't here.

Perhaps I should hire some investigators, I mused jokingly, and was just about to enter the garden when I bumped into Mary.

"Ouch!" I complained. "What hit you? Is the devil after you?"

"No, Micky!" she replied with a hunted look.

I giggled. "I beg your pardon?" But she seemed to be really serious about this, for she clutched her watering can like a lifebelt and kept looking behind her. "Why?"

"He's after me, insisting that I nicked his teeth!"

"And have you?"

"No!" she said indignantly, but then started to stammer about: "Yes,. I mean."

"Now what?" I asked with a grin. "Have you or haven't you?"

"I don't know!" There was quite some desperation in her face. "When I made the beds this morning it was still on his bedside table. But I had to vacuum afterwards, and I don't know if. I mean, it could have dropped to the floor, and I accidentally."

I burst out laughing. "What!? You may have vacuumed it off and don't remember?"

"That's not funny!" she was miffed. "I was miles away in my head. With Mike."

"As usual." I chuckled.

"And besides." she was about to continue, but then she spotted at a great big distance something which approached us rollingly. "Oh God! He mustn't find me before I've discovered his dentures!"

She flatly thrust the watering can into my arms and hurried away in panic.

"Hey, Mary." Dumbfounded I stared at the green plastic thing. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Take care of Peter's roses! I don't have the time!" Mary called back over her shoulder, and then she was gone.

"Me!!?" I gasped. "But." She didn't hear me anymore. "Oh great." I grumbled with little enthusiasm and slowly trotted off to the rose garden.





In the meantime Greenie and Fuzzy were cruising down the main street in the open-top Monkeemobile. There were Monkees songs on the radio and both sang along happily.

"Hey! There's a Ferris wheel over there!" Fuzzy said and pointed the direction.

"Maybe that's *the* fairground?" Greenie said with anticipation.

Fuzzy grinned. "Maybe."

"Whoa! Can we go?!" called a third voice suddenly and Nev's head appeared on the back seat.

Greenie gave a startled cry and Fuzzy got such a shock that she stepped on the brake, the car jolting forward and both of them hitting their heads on the dashboard.

"Nev, what are you doing here?!" Greenie yelled when she had gathered her wits again. Nev grinned innocently at the two.

"Looking for you."

"How did you get there in the back seat and why are you hiding and giving us the shock of our lives?!" Fuzzy blurted.

As if nothing much had happened, Nev began to tell her story: "Well, Wolle was missing you two, and I went to look for you. And then I went to the garage, saw that it wasn't locked, and I thought maybe you're in there to have a look at the car. But you weren't there, and then *I* wanted to have a look at the car, and got in. And. then I must have fallen asleep in the backseat," she grinned guiltily. "You know me. And when I realized we were driving and there was music. I didn't want to startle you."

"You did very well on that one," said Greenie sardonically, but her grudge was gone already.

"And now?" asked Fuzzy. "Have you got another surprise for us perhaps? Someone else back there? Is Mike hiding in your back pocket?"

"Unfortunately not," laughed Nev, starting to stir about in her seat impatiently. "Can we go to the fairground now?"

Fuzzy and Greenie exchanged a contemplating look, and then Greenie said, "Full throttle, Fuz!"

And with a triple "Yeeeehaaaaaw!" the red Monkeemobile roared towards the fairground.





"Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod."

With drooping shoulders I stood in front of the rose bed, looking despairingly at the mess I had made. Clutching the watering can, I felt panic rise inside me. Caught in my dilemma, without any idea how to undo what I'd done, I started talking to myself.

"Why? Why did Mary leave me here? Why isn't she coming back? I hope Peter doesn't come back! Why don't flowers have a back button like computers!? Mary knows I can't deal with plants! Why did she leave me like that?"

The roses were indeed a mere shadow of what they had once been. The former crimson splendour had taken on a blackish colour and drooped its heads. In my panic I had emptied the complete contents of the full watering can on them, but that had only made it worse. For now most roses were swimming in a brown puddle and had drowned miserably.

"Oh shoot, I'm dead! Peter will kill me!" In my panic and disability to change anything I felt the tears swelling up in my eyes. I dropped weakly to my knees and buried my face in my crossed arms.

Suddenly I heard someone behind me.

"What has happened here!?" - it was Peter!

I bolted to my feet and started to stutter like mad, trying to compensate my diminished speaking abilities by wild gestures with hands and feet.

"I-it. I mean. I didn't mean. but Mary. and then."

I broke off, because there was a lump in my throat. I dropped my head and whispered, "I'm sorry!" and then my tears started to flow again.

"Hey, it's alright." To my great surprise a gentle arm was put around my shoulders. "It's not so bad you have to cry. My roses have experienced things much worse - and survived them. You should know best, shouldn't you? I'll get them up again."

I sniffed a few times more, but slowly relaxed. Peter's voice was so kind and his embrace sincere.

"Really?" I still asked cautiously and looked up at him.

Peter smiled. "Sure! There's nothing my special fertilizer won't put right! Everything okay again, hm?"

He squeezed me once more and I nodded. Then I laughed softly. The circumstances were really funny, in the last dimension it had been me who had had to comfort Peter, and now it was the other way around.

"Okay, and now you'll wipe off those tears and help me a bit round here, hm?" he put the matter to an end and handed me a rake which I eyed suspiciously.

"I admire your imperturbable courage," I said dryly and watched Peter devote himself to the rescue of his beloved flowers.





The fairground was in full swing, and Greenie, Fuzzy and Nev took several rides in the Ferris wheel, on the roller coaster and the swing carrousel, until Nev cried, "I'm craving for a donut!" and Fuzzy had to throw up right in the middle of their Breakdance ride. The showman threw them out immediately.

"Great," grumbled Greenie, who'd taken over steering this time, later in the Monkeemobile. "Just when I was having fun. Be sure to keep that window open!"

"Leave me alone." moaned Fuzzy and poked her head out of the side window again.

They left the freeway and turned right at an exit road.

"Huh?" Nev wondered. "This isn't the way back to the Shades of Gray?"

"Not?" asked Greenie. "But. oh, dammit, where can I make a u-turn now?"

"Please don't!" groaned Fuzzy, but her worries were groundless. The road was way too narrow to turn the big car around.

"I'm really lost, aren't I?" sighed Greenie. "I'll just keep going down this road - it's gotta end somewhere, or have a side road."

"I don't care as long as you don't make any sudden movements!" Fuzzy begged and leaned back against her seat. Nev threw her an expert look.

"Oh, you're better again. You're not as green as you were!"

"Thanks, I think."

"Huh!?" Greenie said suddenly and stepped on the brake. Fuzzy and Nev fell forward, which Fuzzy commented with a groan.

"What's the matter now?"

"Look! Over there!" she pointed to a street sign. Nev and Fuzzy shrugged.

"Yeah, so what?"

On the sign it said in big black letters: ROCKY BEACH, 5 miles.

"We gotta go there!!!" decided Greenie fervently and stepped on the gas.

"What's so exciting about that place?" Fuzzy asked. But Nev answered for her: "Isn't that the name of the town those investigators come from?"

"The three investigators, exactly!!!" Greenie nodded with a grin. "I'll bet my whole collection that we'll soon get to see the Salvage Yard and the headquarters!" She laughed to herself. "You really can see Wolle must have written this story - muddled as the places and plots are!"

Fuzzy and Nev exchanged a doubtful look, but didn't say anything and silently followed Greenie's enthusiasm.

They did enter a small town with a huge junk yard in the middle. A big sign identified it flatteringly as "The Jones Salvage Yard".

"Great," said Fuzzy indifferently. "Can we go home now?"

But Greenie couldn't be stopped now and fumbled at a brightly painted wooden fence.

"Now? I've got to get in there! Jupe, Bob and Peter might be in there! Now how does this stupid gate. ah!"

Her fingers had managed to find the little hole that hid a simple mechanism. When she pushed it, two boards swung to the side and a passage to a tunnel appeared. Greenie let out a cry of excitement: "Cool!" and even though the tunnel was very narrow and stuffed with files and stuff of every kind, she dropped to all fours and crawled through.

"Uh, Greenie, is that really necessary?" Fuzzy complained after her. And Nev decided: "I'm not going in there. Who knows, I might get stuck and starve miserably. Speaking of which! I'm hungry! You think there's food in this town?"

"Let's go and find out," said Fuzzy and called into the tunnel: "We're going to see if there's a café around here or something. You'll know your way better around here, I suppose, you'll be coming too, okay?"

But Greenie didn't answer. She was busy otherwise. And so Nev and Fuzzy set out into that strange little town called Rocky Beach.





It was already dusk when the Monkeemobile turned into the Shades of Gray's driveway, with a happy Greenie at the wheel and to exhausted Chickies on the back seat. In front of the gate they stopped and Greenie got off.

"We've got to be very quiet now," she ordered in a whisper. "Peter mustn't catch us."

While she opened the gate, Fuzzy crawled behind the wheel and drove slowly and as quietly as possible into the garage. There they parked the car in its accustomed place and got off.

"Okay, that was that," Fuzzy clapped her hands with satisfaction. "And no one."

"A-ha!" a familiar deep voice interrupted her, and the three of them flinched. "So you stole the Monkeemobile!"

From a dark corner an electric wheel chair appeared and Mike sternly crossed his arms on his chest.

"No, we didn't!" Nev defended herself. "We brought it back!"

"We couldn't resist the temptation," Fuzzy said submissively. "The door was open, and we had the key from Peter, because we were supposed to go and buy something for him and then. then." she groped for words, then extended her hand and pointed accusingly to the car. "I mean, look at the car! It's the Monkeemobile! You know what I'm talking about!"

"Please don't tell anyone!!" begged Greenie. For a while Mike managed to keep up the stern look, but then the corners of his mouth began to twitch and he winked at the three girls.

"Okay, but under one condition."

"What?" all three asked in a mixture of relief and tension.

Mike grinned, "Next time you'd better take me with you!"





When the four of them entered the Shades of Gray, the house resembled a disorientated swarm of bees on the search for honey. Everybody ran and drove around in a giant jumble, nurses, inhabitants, Chickies - and in the middle of it all: Micky.

"Come on, guyw! Pheartph! It'ph gotta be phome plaphe around here!"

"What's going on here?!" Mike gasped, pronouncing what his three companions weren't able to in that first shock. "You only leave for a few minutes, and at once chaos breaks out!"

In that moment Mary came rushing by from the right, not seeing in her hurry that there was an obstacle in the form of Mike's wheelchair. She couldn't dodge it and plopped onto Mike's lap.

"Oops." she mouthed, partly apologizing, partly excited. The others chuckled quietly, for that accident probably wasn't one. Fortunately Mike didn't realize that.

"Could you kindly explain to me what all this fuss is about? The guests will be here in an hour!"

Mary cleared her throat and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Micky's looking for his dentures and we're helping him."

Mike rolled his eyes. Then he turned to Greenie, Fuzzy and Nev. "Are you behind all this?"

"Uuuus?!?" Fuzzy shrieked. "How should we? We weren't even anywhere near Micky!"

"Let alone his dentures," added Greenie.

Mike moaned indignantly. "Okay, okay, you're right. Well, let's hurry up and help him, so that we can finish before the party begins. uhm." his eyes fell on Mary, who was still sitting on his lap. "Would you be so kind and get off of me? I can't exactly help them this way."

"Awww." Mary mumbled obediently and crawled from her spot as slowly as possible. Mike raced off - turbo switched on - and Mary looked after him with a sigh.

Greenie nudged her and grinned. "Not bad, that action, Mary."

"Yeah, why didn't I come up with that?" Fuzzy added.

Mary shrugged. "Well, you gotta rise to the occasion, girls."

And thus she flung herself into the turmoil of eagerly searching people again. The other three joined her.

After another stressful twenty minutes it was George, strangely enough, who called out loud: "I've got it, Mick, I found it!"

"Thank Heavens!" I said, a bit too loudly, because I really had no intention of going over all the places again I'd searched countless times before. All eyes were on George, who trotted over happily and handed the overjoyed Micky a pair of dentures, which he popped into his mouth right away. This ended the quest for all the volunteer searchers and everyone returned to their previous tasks. In most cases these were last-minute preparations for the big upcoming festivities. Only we Chickies and the Monkees remained.

"Well, now that we all." began Mike, but was immediately interrupted by Peter, "Good Heavens! The guests will be here in an hour and nothing's ready yet! Get a move on! Let's get to work!" he dashed away.

".have calmed down." Mike finished his sentence and pulled a face in Peter's direction. "Oh well, I gotta plug in the lighting stuff anyway," he resigned and rolled away too.

"And what are we gonna do now?" I asked helplessly, but before anyone could answer Davy's squeaky voice pierced the room challengingly.

"Gweeen?! Are you coming back to the kitchen? We haven't finished yet!"

"Oh my God - HELP!" shrieked Gwen and hid behind Fuzzy from Davy, who was sneaking up to us enthusiastically.

Mary giggled. "Clever, Gwen! Davy's never gonna find you there."

"You got a better idea?" she hissed back, prompting us to yell in unison: "Hide Fuzzy!"

"That's not funny!" complained Gwen. "This is serious! You should be helping me instead of making fun of me!"

In the meantime Davy had arrived at our side and was eyeing his prospective helper expectantly.

"What's there to do?" enquired Greenie, trying to pull out Gwen from behind Fuzzy.

"Yeah, sometimes she doesn't have a clue - I can tell ya!" replied Davy enthusiastically. Greenie grinned and raised her voice for a retry. "No, I wanted to know what's still to be done!!!"

"Oh!" Davy understood, "Quite a lot of things, the whole buffet hasn't been prepared yet!"

"Then let's work on it together," suggested Fuzzy, "we'll get it over with in no time."

"Oh yeah!" Nev cheered and made a little hop. "With Fuzzy in the kitchen! This is fun!"

"Are you sure???" Gwen looked at us in disbelief, lowered her voice and pointed at Davy. "Get into a kitchen with him, you'll definitely need an accident insurance!"

"Pshaw! Au contraire!" Fuzzy whispered back. "The more we help, the less Davy can do wrong."

"Hm," now Gwen understood and a relaxed smile spread on her face. "Let's be off then!"

"Everyone after me!" announced Davy and set off at snail's speed. We exchanged amused looks and overtook Davy.

"No offence, luv, but we'll go ahead," Greenie called back over her shoulder.

Together we really managed to prepare the cold buffet within a reasonable time. We worked hand in hand - meaning we didn't leave Davy a chance to mess anything up, but it still appeared as if he was in charge of everything.

Finally we carried all the platters, bowls and plates out into the garden, where the brightly decorated buffet table was already standing. It was already getting dark and some of the garden lights had been switched on, bathing the greens in a festive twilight.

"Wow - that looks fabulous to start with!" I stated with some satisfaction.

"Now all it takes is the guests to arrive."

"Hello, am I early?"

We whirled around and looked into a widely smiling face with a thick white moustache, topped with equally white sparse hair. My eyes widened with surprise and I was about to say something, but Peter anticipated me and delightedly went up to the visitor.

"James! So glad you could make it!" he welcomed his old pal James Lee Stanley, who we Chickies remembered very well too, and friendly patted his shoulder. "No, you're not early! Come on, have a look around, settle down a bit." and they were soon deeply involved in keen conversation, James letting Peter show him around.

"How sweet," said Fuzzy, "I didn't know James was coming too!"

"Look, there are the next ones!" cried Mary and pointed over to the entrance gate. We craned our necks, but this time it was only a number of relations and friends of the other residents.

"What are we gonna do now?" asked Gwen.

"I opt for eating." said Nev and reached for the salad garnishing. Gwen slapped her fingers. "Will you keep your hands off! The buffet hasn't been opened yet!"

"But I'm hungry!" lamented Nev, and as if on cue my stomach started rumbling too.

"Hm." I cleared my throat. "I wonder if anyone will notice if I nick a slice of cucumber?"

"Will you stop that!" protested Gwen, and Greenie added with a grin, "Please don't start off a food fight here, okay?"

"Accusations." I grumbled.

In this moment a kind of comet darted past us, only barely identifiable as a turbo wheelchair. It missed the buffet table by a hair's width, making the big salad bowl rattle alarmingly, but Fuzzy jumped after it with sheer presence of mind, preventing the worst.

"Good Heavens! Mike! Now he's really overdoing it!" said Nev and unnoticed by the others managed to put a slice of cheddar into her mouth.

"Where is he!?" someone growled behind her, and she jumped around with a little squeak.

"Mike!? Man, you're fast!"

"Where is who?" asked Gwen, and Mike replied angrily: "Why, Paul! That show- off has been fumbling with his designer chair and claims it'd go faster than my baby! Pah! And then that coward takes off before we even started."

"So that was Paul McCartney just now?" it dawned on Fuzzy, who was rearranging the salad bowl.

"Paul is here at last?" George chimed in all of a sudden. "Where is he?" He'd joined us, and nobody had noticed. "He'd better tell me if that gig tonight is definite!"

We tried to unwind the developing chaos.

"Well, Paul headed off into that direction." Mary pointed it out to George, who went off immediately, mumbling to himself, "All this confusion.! Where am I? Kindergarten?!"

Before Mike, too, could switch his turbo back on to catch up on his rival's speed record, I held him back.

"Hold it, Mike. Leave him be for the moment. Save your fighting spirit for later, when the official wheelchair race is on, okay?"

Having thought about that for a while he nodded his agreement. "You're right, I won't waste precious energy. But later on.!" He grinned triumphantly and rolled over to the garden gate where his daughter Jessica had just arrived and was waving happily over to him.

"Wow! This is going to be fantastic!" cheered Nev. "I wonder who's coming too?"

"I'll be damned!" called Gwen, "There are Hallie and Ivan!"

"And there's Christian and his kids!" added Mary.

"Oh, lookie there!" peeped Fuzzy, "Here's Sarah with the little one!"

"Well, he's not exactly a little one anymore!" chuckled Greenie, "He must have turned 18 this year."

"Just think. He hasn't even been born yet where we come from." I mused.

Suddenly Fuzzy started hopping up and down uncontrollably, emitting incomprehensible little squeaks. "Th-there! There! There!"

"U-huh, u-huh, u-huh!" I intoned.

"Wha'? Wha'? Wha'?" Nev joined us.

We craned our necks and struggled to see what made Fuzzy hit the roof like this. Gwen spotted it first and laughed, "Uh-oh! It's Ringo time!"

The name 'Ringo' caused a high-pitched squeal from Fuzzy.

"There, there, Fuz. Everything's gonna be okay," I teased her.

By now George had seen Ringo too and was running over to him.

"Ringo! There you are! Where have you been all day? I've been looking everywhere for you! All of you! Have you forgotten about our big gig this evening???"

Ringo reacted calmly, since it wasn't the first time he'd seen George in this condition. "Hey George! Calm down. I'm here now. Everything's gonna be just fine. We've done these songs over and over again, and we can play them!"

This seemed to put George at ease.

"Where's Paul?" asked Ringo, looking around. "Is he here yet?"

George nodded. "Yeah, I've seen him somewhere in the back, at the hotel. But I still can't find John anywhere!"

We swallowed hard. How was this going to end? George wasn't so stupid as not to notice John wouldn't come. But Ringo patted his shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry, George, he'll be there when the concert starts."

We would have loved to listen to the two ex-Beatles' conversation longer, but a shrill whistle from nurse Valleri interrupted the general mumbling on the lawn. All eyes turned to the sturdy woman who had stepped on a chair and was talking into a megaphone: "Dear guests! Dear residents! A very warm welcome to our 10 year anniversary party in the Shades of Gray! We're very happy see so many of you here and I can assure you, that every mile of travel will be worth it!"

She lowered the megaphone for a little while and turned inquiringly to a second nurse at her side, who whispered something into her ear, and then Valleri lifted the amplifier to her mouth again and announced loudly: "THE BUFFET IS OPENED!"

This fell in like a bombshell. In a split second a mile-long queue formed at the table - and we were too slow. Grudgingly we had to stand the very end, and when it was our turn after endless waiting, hardly anything was left.

"Oh man," Nev was on the brink of a breakdown, "I'm starving!"

I felt the same, and the others probably did too, so we decided to go back to the kitchen to get something from there.

With moderately filled plates we went back into the garden and sat down at one of the long tables that had been erected for the numerous guests. It was the same table the Monkees and their families were sitting at.

"Hello!" we greeted them with a smile, hiding the nervousness we felt at the thought of who we were speaking to!

"Hey Micky, could you pass me the salt, please?" asked Gwen and sat beside him on the bench. Micky turned to face her - and his face seemed to consist entirely of a giant, mad grin! Gwen got such a shock she fell over backwards and landed in the grass.

"Waaah!" Nev, sitting on her other side, threw the contents of her plate into Greenie's face with shock. Mary clutched her heart.

"Oh my God! Micky! What happened to you!?"

"Why?" he sounded surprised, regardless of the fact that he could hardly manage to get his jaws open, which gave him a bit of a hissing pronunciation. "Everything's okay, what's the matter?"

This grin was extraordinarily scary.

"Micky, are you sure these are your own teeth?" Greenie ventured cautiously, wiping crumbs of cake from her face. Meanwhile I helped Gwen up, but she preferred to sit a few feet away for safety.

"Yeah, why not?" grinned Micky, but started thinking. "Hm. It does feel a bit strange." he fumbled about with his dentures, until Davy made a disgusted sound.

"Oh please! Is this necessary, Mick? I'm trying to eat over here!"

"Don't look, then," said Mike unmoved.

"But I'm hearing it!" Davy complained.

"I beg your pardon?" Peter looked up with irritation, and we Chickies chuckled. Davy frowned at this general amusement. "Wha'?"

"Hey! You're right!" Micky called after inspecting the false teeth. "Wephe aren't mine!"

"Yuk!" went Davy and pushed his plate away.

"But whophe iph it wen?" Micky mused quietly, until someone snatched the teeth from behind and nagged, "Gimme wat, you phieph!"

Jack Nicholson protectively put his hand over his gem and threw devastating looks at Micky while his private nurse pushed his wheelchair over to the next table.

Micky slumped a little and grinned sheepishly. "Erm, no offenphe, Jack! I'm phorry, it waph a miphtake! Phee you later at we raphe . hmm." he cleared his throat in embarrassment and returned to his food. "Phuch phingph can happen. Great!" his voice got a slightly annoyed tone. "And how am I phuppowed to eat now???" Accusingly he brandished a meatball. And everyone at the table collapsed in peals of laughter.





After dinner everything was being prepared for the long awaited wheelchair race. The most famous participants were Mike and Micky, Paul McCartney, and Jack Nicholson wanted to enter too. The betting was in full swing, Mike's odds were very high, of course, but Gwen nevertheless naturally bet on Micky.

The course would run across the entire park area of the Shades of Gray, one single round. For this a special oval space had been marked with multicoloured ribbons, and around it the spectators gathered to cheer for their favourites.

The finish was marked with a red tape, drawn between two trees, one of which was the (especially for Nev) all too familiar apple tree.

We Chickies pushed up to the very front, near the finish line, to cry our hearts out.

Now the contestants rolled up to the start, supported by wild applause.

"Give it to them, Granddad!!!" a little kid with blond curls yelled into my ear. Rubbing my ear with a disgruntled face, I turned to look. The blond fuzzy mop of hair was waving like mad and her grin was a spitting image of the young Micky. This had to be his granddaughter! Now I noticed the little freckled boy beside her, who was almost a head shorter than her. He was dark haired, but looked more like Corky the circus boy Micky had played when he was a kid. Samuel and Michaela were the names of Ami's kids, if I remembered right. What are you thinking? I scolded myself a second later, you have thought the two up! This was getting extremely confusing. Luckily I didn't have the chance to get caught up any more in my mangled thoughts, because Valleri was just raising the starter's gun.

"On your marks!" she shouted.

Mike pulled Red Cap down into his face and with a patronizing grin hissed over to Micky, "Why don't you give up right away - to save you from yet another defeat."

"Ha!" Micky snubbed back. "You'd like wat, would you? Are you afraid I might beat you wiph time, Grandpapa Neph?"

"You'll both lose this time!" Paul said and let his designer engine howl. "You haven't got a chance against this baby."

"Show-off," Mike retorted and patted his arm rest with integrated controls. "This is all handiwork, what can you." He was interrupted by Valleri's brisk voice.

"Get set."

With one finger Micky flipped his dark glasses that had been sitting on his forehead down to his nose - which gave Gwen a little squeaking fit, but the others more of a shudder - and leaned forward, hands on the wheels. The others took up their starting positions too.

".and. GO!" - the starting shot exploded, Valleri stepped back, and the contestants rolled off. The audience thundered, clapped, whistled and yelled.

At first Mike was way in the lead, but Paul was catching up on him, and even Micky maintained a proper third place. The other participants too were having fun and personal ambitions, ahead of all a white haired granny with glasses thick as bottle bottoms, calling out to her friends, "Come on girls! We can do it! Down with those men!!!"

The tail ender was - Jack Nicholson, mercilessly urging his young nurse who was doing her very best to manoeuvre that monster of a wheelchair across the lawn.

"Come on, Magdalena!!!" he squabbled, reaching out to point the direction. "Come on! Go, girl, go! Faster!!!" while poor Magdalena huffed and puffed, sweat pouring down her forehead. It was hilarious to watch!

The first half was over, and Paul was on Mike's heels - excuse me - wheels.

"WATCH OUT, MIKE!!!" yelled Fuzzy, Mary, Nev and I in unison, but we had to watch Paul overtake Mike in a sharp left turn.

"Ow, dammit!" Fuzzy swore.

"I can't look!" peeped Nev.

"Micky, come oooon!" Gwen roared mercilessly over this. "This is your chance! Come on, I've laid ten bucks on you!!!"

As if he'd heard Micky went even more for it, grabbed his wheels even harder and managed to almost catch up on Mike - however only until he fired his spare turbo and raced off like a scorched rocket - leaving Micky vanishing in a cloud of smoke.

"Hey, that's not fair!" complained Gwen and put her hands on her hips. Greenie patted her shoulder and grinned broadly, "No, but cooool!"

But four Nezheads were jumping around on the spot, bawling triumphantly, "You'll make it, Mike!!!"

"Paulie, old chap, you're doing worse than your own grandfather!" there was suddenly a deep voice with a broad Liverpool accent. We turned around and spotted Ringo and George on the other side of the course, cheering for their bandmate. We all looked at each other questioningly and said as one, "George???" But he seemed to really enjoy the race. Who knows what he thought he was seeing? Perhaps George thought he was in the middle of the shootings for A Hard Days Night?

A whisper went through the crowd.

"There!" Greenie called suddenly and brought us back into the present.

"Where?" - "What?" we asked and looked around searchingly.

"There!" she pointed to a spot just before the home stretch - and we caught our breaths!

Mike sat there in the grass, beside his wheelchair! The chair's wheels, still revolving, were turned upwards. Paul McCartney was lying in the grass too, one hand propped up under his chin, the fingers of the other one crossly drumming on the ground, his face speaking volumes, while his wheelchair emitted a hoarse cough and also turned its wheels to the sky.

"Waaaaah!!!" cried Fuzzy. "What happened?!?"

"Mike went spinning in the last bend, and Paul crashed right into him!" Greenie informed us with cheeks blushed with excitement. Disappointment spread among us. "Pity, so shortly before the finish line," said Mary, unlike Nev.

"Come on, Mike! You can still make it! Crawl, creep, drag yourself along! Whatever!!!"

"Have a heart, Nev. It's no use anymore," I dropped my shoulders in resignation.

The only one who had gained new hope from this was Gwen. She went up to full throttle now: "MIIICKYYY!!! This is your chance!! Goooooo!!!!"

And Micky elegantly rolled past the two grumbling men on the ground, crossing the finishing line. Radiantly he raised his arms and let the wheelchair roll out, the red tape flapping along behind him, and from the Dolenz corner applause and cheering swelled up.

"Yeeeeaaaaaahhh!!!" Gwen was bouncing up and down like a rubber ball. "Finally! He did it! Finally Micky has won!!!"

Now the crowd dissolved from their places to hurry up to the lucky winner, in the middle of course us. After Mary, Fuzzy, Nev and I had made sure Mike and Paul were okay (apart from their bruised egos) and they were well sitting in their chairs again, Fuzzy tugged at my sleeve and whispered into my ear: "Wolle, was there something fishy about this?" upon which I only shrugged, grinned innocently and remained silent.





"Okay guys, another thirty minutes till the concert," Greenie informed the four in the evening. The Monkees had retreated into the Shades of Gray to prepare for their performance, and we Chickies were supporting them - groupie-wise. Micky erupted in a frenzy again.

"Phoot! I phtill can't find my teeph!!! How am I phuppowed to phing like wiph?"

"It's gotta be around here someplace," mused Gwen. "After all, you haven't swallowed it," she stared at him sharply. "Or have you?"

"Of courphe not!" raged Micky. While Davy was busy polishing his nails, and Mike was tuning his guitar, Peter joined in the search.

"It's like it's been jinxed! You'd need a clairvoyant. or investigators!"

"You called?" came a youthful but nevertheless superior voice from behind us. We whirled around.

"I don't believe it!" was my comment, while Greenie burst out in laughter. Fuzzy turned to her. "Have you smuggled them in with you or what?"

"I don't know!" chuckled Greenie, "They must have followed me!"

At the door were no others than the Three Investigators from Rocky Beach - Jupiter, Bob and Peter.

The stout boy with the straight black hair stepped up on Micky, followed by the other two.

"Excuse me, Sir, we heard of your calamity and would like to offer you our service. We are investigators."

"We have been able to solve many tricky cases," added the little blond one with the glasses.

"This is too much," I collapsed on Greenie's shoulder.

The third boy, a tall, athletic one with reddish brown hair, pulled a small white card from his pocket. "Here's our card, Sir."

Nonplussed, Micky took it and read it aloud.

"Whe Phree Invephtigatorph

- phree quephion markph -

Firpht invephtigator: Jupiter Jones

Phecond invephtigator: Peter Phaw

Rephearph and archiveph: Bob Andrewph"

"What kind of rubbish is this?" hollered Mike. "Quit those childish tricks! Is this one of your jokes?" he turned to us.

"Leave me out of this!" Greenie refused. "I've got nothing to do with it!"

Now all eyes were on me, giving me a bit of a helpless feeling. "I've got no idea either!" I defended myself. "I only know that these three boys can really help us. If there's anyone who can find your teeth, Micky, it's these three here!"

"What are those question marks supposed to mean?" squeaked Davy who had been studying the calling card. THIS was Jupe's cue.

"The question mark is commonly considered as."

"Oh Jupiter!!" he was interrupted by his two mates, Greenie and me.

"Never mind. Come on, let's start looking," Jupiter grumbled, a bit put off.

And really, a mere ten minutes later the three investigators proved a real credit to their reputation when Bob Andrews stormed from Micky's room, marked by a little feather-fight, with tousled hair and slightly blushed cheeks!

"Hey guys! I've got it! I found it!"

We rushed out of the other rooms, into the corridor.

"What, honephtly?" Micky shouted with awe.

"Where the heck was it?" Peter Shaw wanted to know.

"Now what happened to you?" Jupe growled, slightly disappointed that it hadn't been him who'd made the glorious find.

"I can imagine," Greenie exchanged an eloquent look with Bob. "The bird?"

"Yeah, that beast - sorry, Sir," Bob was all excited. "The parrot had hidden the dentures in a corner of his cage and hacked at me every time I tried to get it. That bird is crazy!"

"Whaaat?!" gasped Micky. "My bird?"

"Yes, your bird!!!" Chickies, Monkees and investigators assured him in unison. At the sight of such unanimity Micky suddenly became very subdued.

"Oh, alright. I'll try and teatph him mannerph." Then he sat up straight and complained, "Can I get my teeph back now?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry," relented Bob and handed Micky his pair of dentures, who had a thorough look at it, which was closely followed by 12 pairs of eyes, and then announced: "I phink I'll go and waph wem firpht."

"Excellent idea!!!" we agreed.





"Ladies and Gentlemen - can we have a great bid warm welcome for."

"STOOOP!" Micky's shrieking tenor interrupted Valleri's energetic announcement. She turned around in puzzlement. "What's the matter? It's 8 o'clock. You said the concert."

"Yeah, that's right," Micky waved his hands about excitedly. "But Mike isn't here yet!"

The three Monkees who were ready for the concert were standing behind the curtain, especially put up in the garden for this occasion, only opened a crack for them to see the stage and Valleri on it, but to conceal them from the audience sitting and standing in front of it.

"What!?" gasped Peter now, who was having his usual attack of stage fright before a gig - especially before such a big audience. "He was right behind you a minute ago! Where has he gone off to now?"

"Now you're not being fair, Pete," Davy intervened loudly. "I won't scoff at Mike for not being here!"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Davy, check your hearing aid - I think there's something loose here again!"

"How can you even think of drinking now?" the little man raged, "I don't want a root beer now!!!"

"Oh Davy!" Peter yelled back, "I'm not talking about root beer! I'm just wondering where Mike is!"

"Whaaaat?!" Davy put one hand behind his ear and narrowed his eyes. Peter threw both his hands to his face. "I'm gonna go berserk."

Suddenly there was a loud guitar riff on the audience side of the curtain, the amplifier yanked off, followed by laughter from the audience.

"I WANNA HOLD YOU HAA-AAAND."

George had jumped onto the stage and was going wild! He obviously thought he was doing the long awaited gig in the Ed Sullivan Show, and wasn't to be stopped by any means - for instance the fact that neither Ringo nor Paul were joining him.

"Oh my God." Peter mumbled. "This is too much."

"And how are we going to get this nut off the stage now?" Davy complained noisily.

"I dunno, why don't you talk to him - from one nut to the other," Micky replied, which Davy commented with an offended "Ha, ha!"

"Miiiiiiike!" Peter called desperately into no special direction, irrationally hoping that he would be able to resolve this chaos by simply appearing.

Strangely enough a silver spot appeared on the horizon as if by command, and seconds later Mike stopped in front of Peter, tyres screeching.

"You rang, Sir?"

"Mike! Thank God, my nerves are on the verge of breaking! What are we going to do?"

"Don't panic," droned Mike, calming the over-excited Peter down. "This will sort itself out."

"How can you.?" began Peter, but the answer followed right up when Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr joined George on the stage - accompanied by roaring applause from the audience. Fuzzy probably clapped loudest.

Paul took the microphone and announced, "This was the up and coming young artist George Harrison from Liverpool, Ladies and Gentlemen!"

George bowed proudly and relished the applause.

"And now we'll do our final number."

"Stop!" George interrupted, and Paul turned around. "What's the matter, George?"

"We can't play!"

"Why not?" Ringo asked with surprise. George gave him a "Am-I-the-only-one- thinking-around-here" look.

"Why, John isn't here!"

"Uhm." Paul and Ringo searched frantically for something to tell him.

"Well, John doesn't fell too well and he left for his room," Ringo ventured sheepishly.

"Not at all!" said a fourth voice suddenly coming from the right stage entrance.

Micky held his breath, while Davy was craning his neck curiously to see. A murmur went through the audience when the fourth man stepped onto the stage. George promptly ran up to the tall man with granny's glasses and blond hair that hung to his shoulders.

"John! Finally - I've been looking for you all day!"

"Well, I'm here now," said Julian Lennon and threw a wink over to the other two flabbergasted Beatles. "Can we play now? I've got some more things to do this evening."

"O-okay." stammered Paul, but got a hold of himself again. This was surely a unique event in Beatle history. He took the bass while Ringo took a seat behind the drums. Julian took the guitar and whispered into Paul's ear while putting it on, "This is only for George, and will never happen again, okay?" Aloud he said into the microphone: "We are going to play for you: Twist and Shout! A one, a two, a three."

The sound was almost identical to the original. Julian yelled the lyrics into the mike so hoarsely that you really could have mistaken him for his father. And this time it was Gwen who cheered and applauded madly. The crowd was taken by the performance and the music - the air was boiling!

Backstage three pairs of eyes turned to Mike.

"You arranged all this, didn't you?" Peter was the first to talk. Mike only folded his hands and smiled pompously.





Half an hour later the time had finally come! The Monkees' performance, greatly announced by Valleri, as a climax to the anniversary celebrations in the Shades of Gray.

"ONE-TWO-ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR!" Micky clicked his drumsticks together and initiated the thunderous intro to "Circle Sky". Mike had done a very good job - the lighting tinted the stage in one colour scheme after the next.

"Wooooo-hooooo!!!" In the first row six Chickies cried their very hearts out. The beat took us so much we nearly lost our minds. This was outta sight! This was fantastic! We were seeing the Monkees LIVE on stage! And they were better than ever!

In spite of his cane, Davy insisted on hopping around the stage in his well- tried rubber ball manner, and Peter added an extra hip swing to his bass solo. Micky worked the drums with incredible brutality, almost making us fear for the poor instrument, and Mike played casually and coolly as always.

"He moved! Look!" I squeaked and nudged Fuzzy, whose face was of a slightly purple colour and who kept fanning herself.

"Are you alright?" Greenie enquired, shaking her head. "Good Lord, how can anyone - DAVY!!!" she interrupted herself when Davy turned his back on the crowd and waggled his bum.

They finished "Circle Sky" with an enormous cymbal crash from Micky and a vibrant guitar chord, earning the well-deserved applause.

For the next song Peter handed the bass to Davy and went behind the keyboard.

"Hey Mike!" he called over, "Gimme a G!"

"Tea!?" gasped Davy with a deep frown. "Petah, we're in the middle of a concert!"

Laughter from the audience, Mike rolled his eyes while Peter's wide smile dug his dimples in even deeper. Then Micky counted off the next song. "The Girl I Knew Somewhere" - we Chickies sang along loudly, probably so loud that Davy noticed, grabbed his Microphone and went towards us. He propped the microphone under Greenie's nose, who only shook her head in utter surprise, but we others only sang the louder instead. Davy was evidently having fun teasing poor Greenie, for in the end he bowed down even deeper (hard to believe, but true!) and smooched a kiss on her cheek! Greenie commented this with a short cry and buried her face in Mary's shoulder, who only grinned at her.

"Okay, thank you!!" called Micky. "The next song is for all the girls named Mary!" - and now it was Mary's turn to freak out. She was bouncing up and down so wildly Greenie quickly gave up using her shoulder for support.

It was Peter's turn next. "The song I'm gonna play now."

"For Pete's Sake!" we yelled. He stopped irritatedly and asked in mock desperation: "For Pete's sake - what!?" Laughter.

"No, the song I want to do now is dedicated this time to six cheeky young girls," he winked over at us, "who probably know perfectly well what the lyrics mean, and it goes something like this."

"It goes exactly like this!!!" we screamed along, much to the amusement of the rest of the crowd and Peter. Then he played the intro and began to sing with all his heart: "Lo-ove is understanding, don't you kno-ow that this is true." mightily supported by six Chickie voices.

"I can't take much more!" Nev peeped at my side. A glance at Fuzzy told me she was feeling the same. I had no idea how I looked myself, but my stomach felt like molten lava and ice rain! So I could only nod, I wasn't able to do anything more. But if we had believed this couldn't be topped, we were proven wrong the very next minute.

"No heartache felt, no longer lonely." Mike began with a full voice - and at Mary's and Gwen's side a seat went vacant.

"FUZZY?!" we shouted as one and stared at the floor where our fellow Chickie was just arriving.

"Is she dead?" asked Nev.

"Don't be silly!" I scolded her. "At least I hope she's not." I added more quietly. "You never know with Mike's mind-blowing charms."

"Don't just stand there like that!" cried Mary, "Help her up on her feet again!"

Together we pulled Fuzzy up. Gwen slapped her face by way of trial.

"Fuzzy? Hey Fuz! Wake up! You're missing everything!"

"We are, too!" Nev said compassionately.

Finally Fuzzy opened her eyes - and a happy smile spread on her face.

"Miiike." she sighed.

"Hallelujah, welcome back!" Mary said.

"Congratulations, doctors, a successful operation!" Nev shook all our hands. "Can we get back to the concert now?"

"Your sympathy is overwhelming!" teased Gwen while Mary kept propping Fuzzy up. But she was fine - very fine at that!

The Monkees played for almost an hour more, and also songs they'd never performed live before, among others there was a fantastic duet from Mike and Davy with "Saginaw" and "Rainmaker", Micky sang "Alicia" and Peter his compulsory "Vagabond John". He'd hardly finished the song when he started to play the well-known intro to "Daydream Believer" on the keyboard and thus introducing the finale. The crowd roared once more when Davy started singing, sweet as ever. The stage lighting darkened and thousands of artificial stars glittered instead.

Awed "Ahhh!"s and "Oooh!"s could be heard and Peter turned around to Mike.

"This time you really excelled yourself!"

"Just wait - there's more!" - and there really was. Davy encouraged the audience to sing along and waved the microphone above his head. A second sky of stars lit up, it crackled alarmingly, but nobody except Peter seemed to notice.

"Uhm, Mike.? Listen, how much power have you put on there?"

"Don't panic, Pete, no one's gonna forget this finale for a long time!"

But before Peter could scrutinize this statement any further, Mike struck his guitar and sang out his "Listen to the Band" louder than ever. The lighting produced a colourful firework. Peter flinched.

"Groovy, huh?" grinned Davy and banged his tambourine in the air.

"I dunno." Peter was beginning to get a bit frightened. The fuse box to his left was emitting very strange noises, but he played bravely on.

At seconds rate, the Monkees changed their colours - red, yellow, green, blue, purple, orange.

Then they became pastel and then lighter and lighter while the bridge from "Listen to the Band" changed into the intro to "Porpoise Song".

"Mmmmmmyyy my - the clock in the sky is pounding away, there's so much to say." Micky's voice filled the air with a slight echo. The spectators took out their lighters to wave them about in the air.

Then Micky routinely beat up his drums and rocked, "The porpoise is waaaiiiting - goood byyye!!!""

"LISTEN TO THE BAND!" Mike came in again - there was a loud crash, and a shower of sparks rained down onto the musicians when the lighting exploded, this time for real.

"Waaaaah!" Davy panicked and flung his smouldering tambourine away from him.

"Take cover!!!" Micky ducked under his drums for safety, while Peter's bass went up in flames!

"Heeeeeelp!" he yelled, running around the stage in panic. "Mike, I'm going to kill you!"

The spectators rushed away to seek help or run to help somebody themselves.

"I think this is a good time to leave this dimension," I said dryly.

Five pairs of eyes pierced me with reproachful or furious looks. "WOLLE?!?"

"What?" I shrugged innocently. "This trip had to end *somehow*, and what would be better than a big bang?"

"You're impossible!" Mary scolded, and Greenie agreed, "Yeah, just have a look at poor Peter!" She pointed over to him accusingly, who was still running around with the burning instrument, yelling, "I'm on fire!!! Someone put me out!!!"

"No fear, he won't get hurt," I grinned and nodded my head into the direction of the stage until the other Chickies looked there as well.

Just now Davy was hurrying on - for his scale anyway - carrying a bucket which he emptied over Peter. A gush of water rushed over Peter and made the bass go out with one last hiss.

"Thanks Davy - I think," he grumbled numbly and looked down at himself. He looked more like a dog that had been caught by a shower than a 75-year-old ex-hippie.

Davy on his part shook with laughter. "I've been wanting to do that for ages! Now we're even!"

Greenie, Mary, Fuzzy, Gwen and Nev broke out laughing too.

"Like I said, everything sorts itself out," I grinned.

"Oh boy!" Greenie wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. "I think it's really time to go before you think up even stranger things for the poor guys here!"

"Meee?" I tried to sound innocent. "Why me?"

"Don't you think we should say goodbye to the Monkees?" Nev asked with disappointment.

"Believe me, it's better this way," I said, "They've got their minds on other things now. Better a sudden ending."

"Oh shut up!"

And together, unseen by all the others, we got off to the garage.

Minutes later we sat readily in the dimension machine, this time with Fuzzy at the wheel, Mary on the passenger seat beside her.

"But I wanna push the red button!" Nev protested.

"No, you did that the last two times," decided Mary.

"Chickies, now this was a trip!" Gwen sighed, "Completely mad and confused, but groovy!"

"Well, really Chickie-type!" I cheered. "Don't you think?"

"Very Monkees." Fuzzy praised.

"Thanks." I blushed.

"No really - the thing with the three investigators. Gee, Wolle!" laughed Greenie.

"What?" I didn't understand.

"Well, we'd really better go home now," said Fuzzy, "I need a bit of rest after that excitement in the last few days."

"Yeah, you're right," I agreed and yawned.

"Aaaw, but I wanna visit other dimensions as well!" shouted Nev.

"Oh no, Nev," Greenie contradicted her, "This is enough for now. Who knows where we'll pop up otherwise. This machine isn't ours."

Nev pouted and retreated to the back seat.

"Are you ready?" Fuzzy asked and made the last adjustment on the time engine box. Nodded agreement from everyone but Nev. "This'll take us back."

She gestured to Mary to push the button. "Would you be so kind, Mary-poo."

"Oh thank you, I'm honoured, Fuzzy-poo."

"Could you poo on when we're home?" Gwen lost her patience. "Will you push that button, or I'll get out again!"

"Okay." Mary pushed the button down till it stopped, a yank went through the car, it sizzled, a blinding light went through us for a tenth of a second - then we were standing in front of Fuzzy's house in Kempen, and rain splattered onto the car roof.

"Home sweet home," she said sarcastically. We others moaned.

"Well, let's get it over with then," I decided to do the first step. "This is it. Goodbye Monkees - welcome reality."

"Bru!" Nev grumbled at me and went off before me.

Slowly and like hypnotized we went off the car one after another and followed Fuzzy into the house. Only Greenie stayed back. At the door I turned around to her.

"It's a shame everything shall be over now. Just think of the possibilities this car can offer!"

"Yeah," Greenie sighed. "But just isn't ours. It's Tippy's car. And who knows? Perhaps there are other possibilities. This car can't be the only entrance to other dimensions and times."

"Hm, yes, perhaps this car will cross our way again sooner than we think," I speculated and stepped into the house.

"Hmmm. possible," murmured Greenie. Then she reached in through the side window, made a few adjustments on the time engine and pushed the button.

She took a few steps back and watched the black car flash up before her and then slowly vanish. One moment she remained, staring at the empty spot, lost in thought, then she put her hands into her pockets and went slowly into the house.

In this moment it stopped raining, the sun appeared from behind a big cloud and bathed the house in a warm light. One moment it seemed as if the landscape was vibrating, then everything was back to normal again.



-- THE END --