Spring Fever - a Tiny Toons Fanfic Simon Barber 11

Chapter Two - "The Break is on, the Brakes are off"

"Ahh - Spring Break! At last!" Buster ticked off the days on his calendar as he rose and greeted the dawn. The blue-and-white buck's ears brushed the burrow roof now; since starting at Looniversity six years ago he had grown considerably, and like the rest he had put on a growth surge in the past year that had made him grateful he had no need for trousers. He would have out-grown quite a few pairs before wearing them out. It also made packing for travel a simple matter. Half a dozen sets of his usual red top, a pair of sunglasses and a pair of red swimming trunks were all he really needed - after all, he could hardly swim in his bare fur on a public beach. His mentor Bugs famously wore trunks when swimming, as salt water would spoil his white gloves.

"Anybunny Hooommmeee?" His ears bent against the ceiling as they spotted Babs' voice outside. Grabbing his bag, he hopped up to greet her, one foot casually tripping the burrow's door locking mechanism. The hundred-tonne ex-Government surplus silo door he had bought via ACME slid securely shut with a slam of steel. As the catalogue described it - "Designed to be proof against the Cold War - and Cold Callers!"

"Hiya, Babs. Ready to go?" Buster's gaze swept over the entrancingly posed rabbit - Babs was silhouetted against the Spring sunshine, the wind blowing through her fur. Her long ears were poking through a straw sun-hat, and the cutest toes in Acme Acres were neatly brushed. An old urge to drench her with a water pistol briefly resurfaced, but he damped down the notion rather than the bunny.

"Ready and willing, Blue Boy." Babs looked at him under lowered eyelids. "One week of fun, and yes, sun. The ocean and the sky there at Surf City - they say it's all SO realistic." Her eyes flashed. "And Plucky is not organising this one. Remember the first Spring Break trip, he took us to Fort Lauderdale, Florida? Acme Acres is in California, not that he'd noticed! Three days travelling day and night cramped in that old bus - we only had six hours on the beach before we had to head back."

"Ah, Toon Geography. He never did take that class. Barely scraped a C in Toon Physics, either." Buster reminisced. "Or he might be better at dodging anvils. Plenty of scrapes from those."

Babs smiled. The Amazing Three had put their heads together and looked at the maps for days before organising this final trip. Just down the Californian coast from Surf there was a Point Conception marked on the charts - Fifi had giggled at that and Shirley firmly vetoed going anywhere near it. Background gags had pervasive effects on toons that might be unfortunate sometimes. She relaxed, sitting on the designer tree-stump beside the road, and pulled out her travelling stereo. "Music to share, Buster? I got this album just for you," She handed him the DVD case to inspect.

Buster nodded appreciatively. "Once again the band that dares to be different dives into the devil's bucket and comes up gasping," he read "You'll enjoy it whether semi-conscious, naked on roller skates - or both!" He accepted one headphone while Babs plugged into the other. For ten minutes they just sat, cheek ruffs pressing close to each other as they shared the moments together.

Babs was right, this is my style, Buster admitted - played full power on a ghetto-blaster - it wouldn't leave a wall standing of the whole Acme Acres ghetto.

"So, who's turning up then?" Buster asked, as the disc finished. "Apart from our class. Little Sneezer's not graduating till next year, but I know he's coming. How about Binky Bunny?"

Babs gave a hacking sound as if coughing up a hairball. "Please! Don't mention her. No, she's doing the usual."

"Wandering through the forest till she gets grabbed by Gene Wolverine and dragged off to his lair? Again?" Buster's ears went up. "We must have rescued her six times before we gave up."

"It's what she's into." Babs shrugged. "She's always back in class on Monday. Even when she doesn't get rescued." Gene Wolverine was one of the more formidable predators in the forest, and what Binky saw in him was something Babs had often wondered. The loud sounds of wolverine bellowing and excited rabbit squeals that echoed through the woods might have been a clue. "Maybe she practices puppet shows with him. She's the glove puppet."

"Eww. To think, I auditioned her for your job." In their second year Babs had vanished for two weeks to work on a vapid soap opera, leaving Buster without a comic partner. "I think she still watches "Thirteensomething." Is that the show's target audience IQ?"

Babs grinned. "It's on my resume, Blue-boy. A paid slot on a national show, while you were still doing newspaper rounds."

"Ahh… just like Plucky's resume. He accidentally blew up the Acme factory that one time but like he says – "Everyone will remember I was big in the national news – they'll have forgotten why."" Buster relaxed, sitting back to back with Babs. Their ears intertwined comfortably.

Five minutes later Babs spotted the Looniversity bus approaching, driven by Pete Puma the trusty janitor. "Here's our bus - this time six hours not days travel. Woe is me - they won't let me drive. Not since the accident. It's not my fault, really. The state of Colorado should have swerved. Anyone else would."

Their bags stowed in the cargo rack, the bunnies (no relation) waved to their friends and headed towards the back seat where Shirley, Fifi and Plucky were sitting. The back seating area had a big fold-down table sometimes used for on-the-move catering; right now it had maps and documents open ready for use.

Buster looked round, counting heads. "Where's Hamton? Didn't we go past his house already?"

Shirley glared up at him in a stony silence. Fifi, who had been looking subdued, suddenly burst into floods of tears.

"Le boo-hoo! Le boo-hoo! Mon piggy is not coming. And ... Buster ... mon piggy, 'e is not coming back to moi. Evair. He 'as told me it is all ovair." She slumped in the seat, while Shirley embraced her with a protective wing.

"Like, Buster, you know Hamton's parents are major neat-freaks or some junk? Hamton's Mr. Death-to-dirt fer sure but they're like Howard Hughes' reincarnations gone wild. Fifi can't help shedding like a snowstorm in Spring, can she? The Pigs don't shed - so they've a white pile carpet all over the house positively knee-deep. Even when she's not shedding purple blizzards ... like well you know, skunks."

Living in a junkyard had always been a black mark against Fifi with Hamton's fanatically tidy family, though being of a different species, nationality and religion had not helped either. She had even accepted wearing a sealed polythene over-suit to visit Hamton despite being twice hospitalised from heatstroke by it, but that had not been enough. "For 'im I will 'ave all my fur cut off and my scent glands cut out of my body with ze cruel sharp knives," she sobbed.

"Don't do it!" Babs and Shirley said in the same breath.

Fifi sniffed. "'Amton's mothaire, last night after I said ze bonne nuit, she used fifteen cans of ze Air freshener in ze room. 'Zen outside his father, 'e lit ze barbecue. La Boom! Ze soft furnishings zey are ze frazzled furnishings. And now 'ze family 'ave told me nevair to come back. 'Amton 'e loves 'is family. 'E will nevair disobey zem, nevair." She paused, looking up with a tear-streaked face. "And nevair would I ask 'im to. Elope - we cannot."

"It's not like they're not used to his Uncle Stinky," Plucky muttered. "That road trip with him to Wacky World in our first Looniversity Summer vacation. Ewwww. There was nothing like it till Acme Gigaplex screened Herd of the Zombie Buffaloes in "Scento-Vision". Had to flood the theatre to the roof with lye to clean the stink."

"Oh yes … you were trying to sneak in to catch a free show when they sealed the room," Buster recalled. "Duck and lye pickles. Flying lutefisk, anyone?"

"Le boo-hoo! Le boo-hoo encore! My 'eart, eet is broken forevair," Fifi sobbed, hiding her eyes with her tail tip. "I weel never be Mrs Fifi Piegenthaler."

"That's his real family name? Not Pig? How about that." Plucky wondered. "I never knew."

Babs gestured urgently to Buster with her ears - and Shirley's aura silently mimed what was wanted. Buster sat down next to Fifi, putting a brotherly arm around her and holding her close. Fifi leaned against him, pressing her damp cheek against his shoulder as she heaved with emotion. And so they passed the way to the seaside.

At the resort, the incredibly realistic sunshine and scenery seemed to have dried Fifi's tears for the time being. While Shirley led the skunkette up to the rooms, Babs pulled Buster into a secluded garden shaded with tall palm trees. They were alone for the minute.

"Babs?" Buster sat down next to her. "What are we going to do for Fifi?"

Babs looked up at him, her violet eyes locked in steely determination. "Buster. WE are going to see that she has whatever she wants. You know Fifi - she bounces back. And when she does ..." she drew a deep breath, and looked deep into Buster's eyes. "I'm writing you a blank check, Blue-boy. If Fifi asks, Fifi gets. Is the script clear?"

"Greater love hath no bunny than she who layeth down her buck for her friend." Buster quoted from "A tale of two burrows". He kissed her nose. "But ... I hope she doesn't ask me. I don't like to think of you handing out blank checks to anyone."

Babs smiled sweetly. "After this I've only got one more left in the book to give, Buster. Whichever way this turns out - that's for you, too."

An hour was enough for even the girl toons to find their rooms, unpack and change into their beach outfits; it was barely mid-afternoon when the party met by the hotel pool.

"Everyone's here - well, everyone who's everyone." Buster scanned the poolside. Montana Max and Elmyra had definitely not been invited, and nobody was mentioning Hamton. At first Fifi had kept looking around hopefully as if expecting to see the pig arriving somehow, but subsided with a glum look. Buster tried hard to smile. "Party time!"

The pool was generously sized, following the usual resort building codes that insisted a drunken rock-star's limousine could be driven at high speed into it and still leave room for the bathers to get out of the way. As ever, toons dressed in bathing outfits regardless of how little they usually wore and where - Plucky, Buster and Calamity wore the only pants they owned to swim in. Fifi who normally wore only a small bow in her head-fur was resplendent in an actual yellow polka-dot bikini that had obviously been bought with Hamton in mind - for special occasions she covered up as much as any human toon. Mary Melody's white bathing costume was if anything skimpier.

A small Martian looked on, shaking her head in bafflement. The dressing habits of Earth toons were a never-failing source of wonder to her. "It appeared strange enough when you had that "Prom" event," she complained. "You put on more clothes than you usually wear, to sunbathe? And everyone sunbathes whether or not they can tan? Earthlings are just out of this world."

"I can get darker." Mary looked over at the loon, who was enjoying having the two-tone adult plumage of her back massaged by Plucky. That Winter Shirley's new pattern had grown in, and she now sported a natty black and white "checkerboard" pattern that Plucky was currently exploring. "Shirley? I wanted to ask. I never thought you and Plucky had - plans that way."

Shirley gave a satisfied smile. "As in, I didn't for the longest time. But not everything's like, graven in stone. It'd make the scripts way too heavy to carry."

Mary nodded, her finger tracing one of Jaggi's stripes. "Same thing with a news reporter. You never can tell which way a story's going to break." Jaggi stroked her hair in return. The year before Mary had decided on a major style change and experimentally braided everything, but she had cut back to just a single shoulder-length beaded braid on each side.

There was a companionable silence, broken only by the crackle of one of Calamity Coyote's inventions short-circuiting as he tested it for waterproofing in the pool. The inventor sighed, holding up a board sign with an arrow curving out then returning to a drawing board.

Babs relaxed, reclining on a deck chair. "Ah, fresh air and sunshine on my fur," she declared "Only one thing could be finer - sunshine and fresh hare."

Fifi looked at her friend, her ears down and her tail drooping "You 'ave ze good luck. You 'ave the fresh hare on tap. As fresh as you want 'im, exactement."

Babs pulled down her extra-pink heart shaped sunglasses and looked at Fifi over the top of them. "It's your party too. This trip, the air and the hare are free to share."

Fifi gasped, pressing a purple-furred paw to her white chest. "Always ze Joker, Babs." She said weakly as she watched Buster and Plucky plunge into the pool. Buster looked very handsome in the outfit, she had to admit; the buck had filled out in all the right places. Her eyes locked on the race; Buster was well in the lead despite Plucky's natural waterfowl advantages.

"He looks good these days, don't you think?" Babs relaxed. "Well, this will be the trip when we'll really become a couple. I'll let you know when, Feef. But before that happens - if there's anything he can help you with? That's what friends are for."

Fifi gave a timid chuckle, her eyes still wide in disbelief. Babs might usually play the joker, but she was an excellent card player and it was a shock to imagine her giving away her ace - let along her king. "Bustair ... you can tell 'im I would be - pleased to talk with 'im. Anytime."

"That rabbit cheats." Plucky hauled himself out of the pool an hour later, having lost best out of three - which had then been best out of five, seven, eleven and (in a desperate attempt at "lucky for some") thirteen races. "Prehensile ears as propellers! It's not in the Olympic rules."

"One way - or another," Buster relaxed, towelling his fur dry. "So you can't cry "fowl" on me."

Plucky appealed to the crowd. "Is this fair? A duck gets beaten by a bunny - in the water?"

Fifi borrowed Babs' pink heart-shaped sunglasses and looked at him over the tops. "Why not? 'E beats you in ze classroom. Why stop zhere?"

Sweetie Bird skilfully pulled out a baseball bat four times her own size from behind her back and offered it to Buster. "I'm on Plucky's side. I bet a cent Buster can't beat him with this!" Sometimes the pink canary played to lose.

Plucky cast imploring eyes to the skies. "Everyone's against me. The world's against me."

Sweetie snickered evilly. "Because it knows you, see?"

Babs spin-changed into Groucho Marx. "The world, sonny, is bigger and older than you are. And I wouldn't place any bets on you wrist-wrestling against it either."

"Humph. I'll see you philistines later. I'm going in to shower." With his bill held high, the drake waddled off.

"Who's Phillis Stein? He called me Phillis?" Fowlmouth complained. Though the rooster had definitely grown, he was a bantam by species and the only one of the class who was still half the height of his mentor Foghorn Leghorn. Buster and Plucky were nearly the height of theirs.

"Well. Water-fowl temper," Babs winked. "Oh yes! While he's not here - Shirley - we've got something we've been saving for you."

Shirley blinked, as Babs pinned on her pink bikini top a medal Calamity Coyote had just handed her. "Like, what's with the decorations?" She asked, puzzled.

The young coyote's "signboard" flicked through a series of images. Plucky, the planet, a huge bloated shape then a symbol of arrows all pointing inward and finally a small dot.

"Calamity, he says … with you and Plucky, if Plucky ever thought it was him in charge … his ego would swell till it collapsed into a black hole and took everything with it," Babs translated.

The grey-furred scientist nodded vigorously, and his sign-board changed to read "Saviour of the World!"

Shirley giggled, but looked down doubtfully at the medal. "Happy thoughts, Calamity. But mondo military-type medals are really just not me."

Babs grinned. "Not even organic chocolate ones?"

The loon examined what she discovered was a gold foil wrapped chocolate medallion. She gave Calamity a quick kiss of thanks on the nose. "Now that, Calamity - is me for sure." Her eyes flashed in amusement. "Like, Plucky these days, he's not that bad. He actually asked me what I was thinking yesterday, you know?"

"First time for everything," Babs marvelled.

Shirley snickered. "Peeking into other people's minds is just too Dark Side of the Force ... but I can give him the ten-dollar tour of mine, all right." She paused. "I had my Aura grab his and throw him in like a club bouncer in reverse. He was like a kid trapped in a carnival haunted house with all the lights out - running from one room to another."

"Screaming?" Babs asked.

The loon considered the matter. "Fer sure. But he might have been kidding. Like why should he complain? He DID ask what was on my mind."

Mary cast the loon an appraising glance. "It seems like I started something."

Shirley blinked. "It was in the stars, Mary. That's karma – one way or another it'll, like, happen." She glanced up at the hotel, checking Plucky was not at a window pointing an Acme "Long ears" parabolic microphone at her. "I don't much look at my own future but I did last month – I checked out sixteen futures with my crystal – in fourteen of them Plucky's with Maria Mandarin right now, for sure, for keeps. I had about one day left before things diverged so far I could never steer it back."

"Oh? Do tell," Babs grinned, her own long ears perked up and a mischievous grin on her face. "So you saw the curve coming up right ahead of you, and had to turn the wheel pretty quick?"

A loon shivered. Her aura stood off to one side, arms on her hips and looking irritated. "Truer than you know, Babs. Sure, you can work it out. But I saw exactly how it'd be fer real." Her crystal had shown one particular scene happening that significant Saturday – Plucky and Maria sitting on the Acme Park grassland enjoying a picnic. Collateral damage from a nearby water-fight had soaked Maria, and her blouse had fallen down – oddly enough Plucky had not gone into a "Wild Take" nor had Maria malleted him in a reflex action as Shirley knew she would have herself. Plucky had politely offered her his own jacket to cover up. The sight of Maria shaking her head and shyly pressing his green feather-hand to her breast had steamed up the crystal ball, reminding Shirley there were things not to be spied on if she was to stay on the light side of the Force.

After the evening meal, the party scattered in various directions. Babs went up to decide what to wear the next day (yellow top, lilac skirt and ear ribbons seemed a likely contender) and Fifi hauled her heavy heart up to her room. An hour later she was sitting in the evening sunshine when there came a knock. Not at the room door - but at the partition outside that divided up the rooms' balconies.

"Buster?" Fifi stood up on the balcony where she had been reading. More accurately, she had been trying to read the usual collection of romance novels she brought on trips - only to find they left the equivalent to the taste of dust and ashes in her mouth. She had stared at the first page of her Bill Sandmoon paperback for half an hour and could not recall a word of it. Anything involving genteel, ball-gowned heiresses dragged off by dashing pirates or desert sheikhs generally had her musk flowing outrageously in minutes. If one of the leading males so excitingly described was a "skunk-hunk" she could blow her car's doors wide open.

"Fifi. Babs said you asked me to call round. May I?" As the skunkette nodded dumbly, Buster hopped over the tail-high wall that separated the two balconies.

Fifi smiled shyly. She had reverted to her usual outfit, though the hair ribbon was looking bedraggled and stiff with dried salt from the hotel's seawater pool. "I 'ave, nothing to give you. Such a hostess you weel think me! You must be starving, all zat swimming. And ze meal 'ere - only Dizzy Devil was 'appy with eet." Dizzy was unprejudiced, and had eaten the hotel's luxurious paper plates as well.

"It's a hotel room," Buster reminded her. "They do room service." He reached back to his side of the balcony and pulled up a picnic basket. "Carrot cheesecake?"

Although Fifi was less than keen on raw carrots, any kind of cheesecake had her trying not to drool. "But yes! Certainment!" One ear dipped slightly. "But what if Babs …"

Just at that moment she saw, over Buster's shoulder, Babs stepping onto the balcony one room past Buster's. The pink bunny saw her buck and her best friend together - she winked at Fifi, blew her a kiss and waved before stepping back indoors.

For a second Fifi's tail went rigid. Then her eyes slowly widened, as she understood. "Sacre bleu…" she whispered to herself. Her heart began to pound. "And … sacre pink, as well." She smiled for the first time in a long while. "Buster - with you and Babs - I 'ave the best friends a girl could wish for."

"You deserve the best," Buster assured her. "One slice or two?"

They took their plates indoors out of the sun, and Fifi looked around almost in despair. The economy-class room was spacious only compared to the abandoned car she normally lived in at the junkyard - there was one small plastic chair on the balcony, a shower cubicle by the door and just enough space to squeeze past the narrow single bed to reach the balcony. "Buster - there eez nowhere even for us to sit."

"They're all the same, our rooms," Buster assured her. "May I?" He motioned towards the bed.

"Mais certainment," Fifi assented, feeling her heart pounding as they both sat on it balancing their plates on their laps. She had often been alone with Buster, but never like this. Her mouth felt dry, and as she ate she was suddenly glad it was moist cheesecake and not cream crackers.

Buster's nose twitched as the scent level in the room rose. When Fifi started to feel romantic chemical alarms began triggering half a mile down wind. Contemplating how far up the dial it might go was an alarming prospect - remembering what Babs' stereo was like when the dial was pushed to ten and the seismographs started rattling all across the state. Fifi might have a setting for eleven yet to be triggered. If that happened, Shirley had at least assured him that to lay down his life in this cause would guarantee his next reincarnation would be a good one - though anything without Babs in it would not qualify as good to him. He steeled himself. "Fifi. We can just talk if you want to."

The skunkette gave a delicious shiver, a lock of head-fur falling over one eye. She smiled. "Thank you, Bustair. And we shall. But first … I would like it if you … untied ze ribbon." She patted her head-fur.

Buster swallowed hard. "Are you sure?" At Fifi's nod he gently undid the bow, taking care not to pull her purple fur. The ribbon fell to the floor like a fallen blossom, and the skunkette smiled at the sight. She stretched luxuriously, and her scent began to take visible density. For a toon who normally wore only her bare fur, one ribbon was as significant as a full outfit.

"What are you thinking, Bustair Bunny?" Fifi tossed her unbound head-fur back, reclining. Her elegant tail coiled and uncoiled slowly. Royal purple fur gleamed in the low evening light, as she proudly showed her full pelt to a male for the first time. She looked at Buster from under half lowered eyelids. He was certainly a lot more handsome than Hamton. Her hand touched his, feeling the blue fur against her luxurious purple.

Buster sighed, trying to ignore his eyes watering at Fifi's growing aroma. "If I tell you, you'll probably throw me out. I'm thinking that … all that time my friend Hamton was a very lucky pig. And now he isn't." He braced himself to receive the blast of Fifi's temper - or floods of tears that would have if not Fifi then Babs getting the mallet out. Probably both.

But Fifi smiled, if a little sadly. "Babs, she 'as sent me an honest buck. I was 'oping, yes, zat 'Amton would be the first to see me like zis, 'Amton mon petit kosher jambon." She ran a purple-furred finger along blue rabbit ears. "Bustair. Do 'zis for 'Amton - and for moi." She took his hand and pressed it to her unbound head-fur.

Buster kissed her, stroking. "What Fifi wants, Fifi gets."

While Fifi generally had books to read in slack time (abandoned cars in junkyards rarely having mains power available) Plucky had brought along his old games console. To Shirley's slight annoyance he was playing it in her room, sitting on the floor while Babs and Shirley sat on the bed with maps and guidebooks of the area spread for reading. There was no television provided in the economy rooms, since a convention of trainee wild rock-stars had held a TV-tossing contest out of the windows the year before.

"At least we've plenty of beach time this Spring Break," Babs commented. "When Plucky organised it, by this time on the trip we wouldn't even have got to that tricky turn at Albuquerque."

"Like, we have an atlas, see" Shirley agreed. She cast a fond gaze down to the mallard, who was sweating on the fourth screen of "Retro Rocket Rumble."

Plucky was intent on the screen, where ballistic re-entry tracks were criss-crossing a world map "Atlas C? First-generation firecrackers! I've just bought the Iowa Complex. Twenty rows of Titan 2's in deep silos! Look! They're proof against.... awww, noo!" The screen flashed violently as Plucky lost again. He threw the console down in disgust. "These games are rigged."

Suddenly Shirley's eyes went wide. A slow smile spread over her bill. "Babs? Picking up some happy, happy vibes hereabouts."

"You don't say." Babs stretched and went out on the balcony. A few seconds later there was a happy squeal audible two rooms away - and a visible blast of skunk vapour jetting out of Fifi's open window like a rocket exhaust plume caused palm trees to wilt and passing joggers to collapse in the street as if scythed down. Distant alarm bells rang and groups of gas masked and rubber-suited troops appeared waving sensors. Fortunately for the resort's tourist reputation, in California everyone assumed it was just another specialist costume convention letting out.

"That's going to burn the plaster off the walls," Babs commented idly. "They say in Vegas there's Roman type fountains filled with wine." She paused, thinking. "I wonder if room service can get Buster a bathtub of tomato juice?"

The sun rose on the first day of the Spring Break proper. Fifi awoke in the narrow bed with a cobalt-blue buck wrapped in her arms and tail - and her heart swelling with love and friendship for the blue and the pink bunny alike, for what they had given her. That Babs would give her buck to her … some gifts were beyond price.

The night before at Acme Acres she had not slept a wink, lying awake on the empty seat of her abandoned car home. It had always been a place of hope, but suddenly hope and Hamton had been gone. Living in a junkyard had been something of a joke to her before - as the long dark hours crawled past on her lonely back seat she suddenly felt it suited her as never before. Someday at least her scrap car home had a whole new life awaiting even if it was via the crusher and the furnace. All things ended. Her rusting Cadillac had finally become less than watertight in the last Winter rains, and the door seals were letting in drafts as the rubber perished. Had she been staying another year she would have needed a new home. It had been snug and comforting for years, always there when she needed it - not smart or flashy, but dependable. Like she had always thought Hamton Josef Piegenthaler, as she told herself through the long hours to dawn.

"Le sigh," Fifi stroked the buck's soft cobalt-blue fur, so softly she did not wake Buster. Babs trusted her with the most precious thing she had to give - and despite her passions she had resisted asking Buster to give himself as she had wanted Hamton. Babs deserved to be the first that way with her buck. "Certainment and you shall ... graduate with honour. Full honours."

Buster turned over slightly in his sleep, and Fifi squeezed back against the wall to give him room. She ran her gaze over his form - the fur pattern was very like Babs' own, with the white patch starting at the throat, widening at his chest and narrowing down to the tummy. She wriggled, her eyes wide with delight at the sight of his red pullover hanging up on the hook inside her door, with her own pink hair-ribbon draped lovingly around its shoulders. Actually, given their bathing traditions there was no piece of Buster's fur she had not seen before, but viewing it all at once was a treat to a toon. She knew she was hardly the only girl in class who had imagined Professor Bugs with his gloves off, or felt a twinge of envy for their teacher's new bride. "Honey Bunny she eez a very lucky girl," she whispered to herself "and today - zo am I."

Amazingly enough, at breakfast time it was a fairly unscented Buster who escorted Fifi down to the dining hall arm in arm, with no signs of having had his fur corroded off or even scenting of tomato juice. Fifi gave him a grateful hug and skipped off lightly, to sit down next to Babs with a contented sigh.

"Sooooooo?" Babs and Shirley chorused, eyes glued to their friend.

"Babs! Thank you! My 'eart, eet is mending." She cast a grateful glance towards Buster. "I am, bringing him back to you. Ze goods ... returned intact for you." She whispered in Babs' ear, then to Shirley. "If 'e evair asks to dine again on cheesecake and skunkette - 'e deserves to 'ave it. Formidable! Babs, you 'ave ze finest time to look forward to."

Plucky was looking at Buster with a mixture of awe and bafflement. "Buster - how come she didn't burn your pigment clean off?" In their first year a much rawer and more annoying Plucky duck had irritated Fifi to the point she had turned her scent on him full blast, and bleached him to a shadow. A translucent duck shape had wandered Acme Acres for days practicing ghost impressions while his colours returned.

"Plucky ... don't ask that sort of question. This isn't a locker room" Buster looked at his friend shrewdly. "But - remember that Action Adventure part we auditioned for in "Thar she blows!", when the drilling rig hit gas?"

"Oh joy. Oh happy memories. I may weep." Plucky had stuck his head down the drilling pipe to see what the rumbling was, and had his bill blown clean off by the blast. Buster had got his head out of the way in time. "Oh yes. Mister "Lookit-my-Reflexes" got the part as always."

Just then a collection of toon ears went up at the sound of panicked commotion from the hotel desk where a large and particularly grizzly bear in a tight black suit was having words with his staff (evidently cleaning staff, to judge from the mops and buckets they carried) who acting as one turned and pointed accusingly at the Acme party.

"Mondo negatory vibes heading this way," Shirley commented.

"Uh-ohh … Buster. Tell me Fifi didn't Really burn the plaster off the walls?" Babs whispered urgently, pushing aside her half-eaten bowl of sugar-flavoured coffee flakes.

Buster gave an embarrassed grin. "What can I say? Seems it's a skunk thing."

A large bear-shaped shadow fell across them. "What's the big idea? Room 205 is trashed like a bomb hit it! And your party's the only ones on that corridor - this'll cost you big time!"

"The manager person appears annoyed," Marcia made careful notes in her Alien Cultural Studies notebook.

"Like, keep your fur on, Manager type person," Shirley stepped forward. She picked up a sheaf of plain white napkins off the breakfast table. Looking up into his snarling muzzle, she exerted her will. "You see my I.D.? The highest Government clearance you ever heard of. Actually it's higher." She thrust the blank napkin towards him. "Read and forget you ever saw it. This document here -" she waved another blank napkin imposingly "should tell you all you need to know about us. Alien investigation squad."

The bear nodded, dazed. "Uhh … yes, Ma'm. But … Room 205? The walls? The ceiling? The structural beams?"

"Aliens." Shirley whispered confidentially. She waved Marcia Martian forward. "You see? Even now they walk amongst us. This one's a friendly, working with the Department."

"Yes Ma'm." the bear reeled on his paws. "Aliens did it. I'll … move you all into new rooms. No charge."

"Your cooperation is appreciated, citizen" Shirley nodded curtly. "Remember - these are not the toons you've been looking for." She gave an arcane gesture, her aura glowing brightly.

"They are not the toons we've been looking for…" the manager shouted to his staff, scattering them like chaff as he headed back to his desk.

Plucky gulped. "Shirley… he believed that?"

The loon snapped her wing-fingers, smiling. "Get crucial, Plucky. Weirder things happen here for real like, daily? This IS California."

Babs completely failed to hide a smirk, spin-changing into an oddly familiar sci-fi uniform. "Engaging loon power, dead ahead at Charka Factor Nine, Capt'n!"

Plucky cast her a dirty look. "Spare a thought for a poor Dilithium Crystal…"

Fifi cast a playful gaze over him. "So says Monsieur Clean, Green renewable energie. 'E will not be cruel to ze windmill evair again."

"Mmm. Bit of a comedown. He always wrote himself into the script as the jet fighter ace." Buster raised an eyebrow. ""Loon's spare fuel tank" somehow hasn't got quite that ring to it."

Plucky glared at him, his bill jerking up disdainfully. "Hummph!"

From the staircase, Mary Melody called a cheerful good morning as she and Jaggi came downstairs together. She was dressed in a long white beach robe that covered her from neck to ankles, although the sun was shining brightly. "This is K-ACME, roving reporter Mary Melody, reporting from the coast on the holiday special show," she announced to an imaginary microphone. "Weather, hot and bright, with slight chance of skunk smog later on. Radar reports suggest a possibility of heavy aura activity by late evening."

Shirley gave Plucky's hand-feathers a squeeze under the table. "I predict your predictions are like harmonious, seriously," she smiled. Suddenly her eyes went wide, and she whispered something to Plucky. The drake's eyes went wide.

Plucky's reply was clear and indignant. "What? No way. She wouldn't. You're pulling my tail, Shirl."

"Hear and believe, Plucky. Or put your duckbill where your money is. One dollar, ten to one against?" Shirley winked at Mary Melody.

"You're on!" Plucky scribbled something on a napkin and handed it to Fifi. "You hold the bet, Fifi. Shirley never gambles, she'll be no good at this. In ten minutes I'll hold ten crisp new smackaroos!" His eyes turned to dollar signs, while behind his back Shirley and Fifi exchanged conspiratorial smiles.

Ten minutes later the beach echoed to an anguished bird cry as the party unrolled towels on the sand - and Mary Melody stepped out of the long robe to show what half an hour's artistic work with two tubes of Acme's strongest white sun-cream could do to make her match her zebra-striped boyfriend. Plucky's eyes bulged, and the green duck turned even greener as he clutched his chest melodramatically. "Oh, my heart." then he blinked, a look of greater horror coming over him. "Oh, my wallet!"

"Nevair bets, hmm?" Fifi smiled, confirming what was written on the paper. "She never gambles – eet was ze sure thing. You are ze winnair, Shirley. Plucky, pay 'er,"

The loon gave a serene smile, levitating three feet off the sand while Plucky thrashed and wailed in an overdone "take". "Give it to charity, Fifi. Gambling is bad karma. I just predicted... today is a good day for my predictions."

Plucky subsided, the duck looking extra green with envy as he looked on at Buster. The blue buck relaxed on his beach towel between Babs and Fifi - both girls taking obvious pleasure in grooming him. "Sheesh. Mister Popular, as ever." He raised an eyebrow, looking at Shirley. "But, hey! A duck of this quality doesn't get lent out like a pair of bowling shoes at the Acme Bowl-o-rama."

Shirley smiled sweetly. "You are so right, Plucky. I'd never lend you. Not to a friend."

"Aaaah. Sweet appreciation, at last your day is here." Plucky basked happily, closing his eyes. Which was just as well - as seeing Shirley, Babs and Fifi just managing to stifle their giggles would have quite spoiled his mood.

A relaxing morning on the beach was followed by a picnic luncheon up on the grassy bluffs looking out over the Pacific. Shirley had been calmly meditating, chanting her mantra for half an hour as she levitated a yard off the ground. Suddenly her eyes snapped open. "Plucky … you still play "Stealth sniper" on the console till your eyes go square?"

"Yeah?" Plucky asked "So?"

"And so… like, remember when a target shows on radar and your 'puter squawks "enemy unit I.D.'d?" I've got a psychic contact just like that - twenty yards, over there. Don't look round but - those bushes. Someone we know." Shirley inclined her head slightly towards a dense patch of flowering bushes up the hill.

While Shirley conjured up a showy aura display to fix the attention of whoever was watching, Babs and Buster spin-changed into "big-game hunter" outfits complete with oversized butterfly nets and went round one side of the clump while Jaggi and Mary went around the other. The tall zebra wore a similar practical khaki bush outfit most of the time anyway; he was often typecast as either "Native Guide" or "game warden" but never seemed to mind. Ten seconds later the bushes shook and a triumphant cry of "Gotcha!" rang out.

"Well, well. Look what the cat, I mean bunny, dragged in," Babs looked critically at her catch, before dragging the wriggling net round to the front of the bushes to dump it in front of Shirley.

"Threat library identifier…" Plucky imitated the console's voice "Target locked, Rhubella Rat."

"Will you Acme Loo-sers get this off me?" An annoyed rodent glared up through the mesh.

Babs raised an eyebrow. "So, what's Miss Evil Queen of Perfecto doing sniffing around at our little clambake? This isn't your usual kind of resort. No gold-plated beach sand."

"Yeah, Rhubella. And where's the rest of Team Snob? Don't see any limos parked around the corner." Plucky looked at their captive. Even allowing for being netted and dragged through a hedge backwards, the rat looked miserable.

"This is Mary Melody, reporting from the Acme zoo expedition to Surf City," Mary pulled out her pen microphone. "They searched for the monster, and found its lair. Was it an alien invader? A ghastly genetic lab experiment escaped? A mutant crawled from the toxic swamps? The jury's still out on that, folks."

Rhubella just sniffed, her sharp nose raised in a vain attempt at dignity. "That's all I need. Getting captured by a pair of beach bunnies and a pair of jungle-bunnies."

Shirley's aura crackled. "Try staying awake in class sometime, Miss Preppie Princess. Zebras don't live in jungles - you find them on the Great Plains."

"Like Kansas?" Plucky queried. Everyone ignored him.

Babs gave a fiendish grin, spin-changed into a historical costume and pointed towards Shirley. "Ve haff ways off making you talk," she intoned as she strutted stiff-legged around the net, popping a monocle in one eye and slapping her black breeches with an elegant riding crop. "If ve let Shirley loose on your mind... so regrettable" She dropped the accent and black uniform but kept the riding-crop. "Still, you've not much to lose in there." Her grin became manic. "Your spirit torn apart like fresh bread! Thrown in the pond to feed the ducks! In itty bitty crumbs!"

"Plucky needs the calories, these days," Jaggi commented neutrally.

Babs gave a cackling laugh, rubbing her hands together in her best Mad Science mode. "Doing that'd give Shirley bad karma and .. and .. and that'd make her get REALLY mad at you!"

"As in, cool it Babs, I'm picking up some seriously bad karma already," Shirley raised a hand.

"She IS from Perfecto," Buster pointed out. "You know, "We Never Lose" Perfecto? Isn't that part of their dress code?"

"'Fer sure, Buster. But - not like that." Shirley directed her voice so only Buster could hear. "As in, her aura's flat-lined like Fifi was yesterday?"

Buster considered, and untied the Acme "Happy Hunting Grounds" brand patent toon-proof net that boasted Elmyra as its best customer. He sat down, next to the depressed-looking rat. "So, what's the story, Rhubella?"

Rhubella cast a glance at Buster. "Oh, what's the use? What do I care if the spotty toons of Acne Acres laugh at me? Everyone else has."

"Gee, I didn't know anyone in Perfecto could raise a joke on a thousand acres," Plucky observed.

"Plucky!" Babs and Shirley snapped warningly.

"So... what are you doing here? Alone?" Buster asked. "It's a nice place but it's not exactly your usual five-star."

Rhubella gathered up her skirt and some of her dignity. "Roderick got two exclusive holiday tickets. There's only two black-market permits issued a year, in the world, to go big-game hunting in the Galapagos Islands. That's where he is right now, laughing his head off and blasting away at stupid old turtles with a fifty calibre."

"Two permits?" Buster's ears raised. "So why are you here?"

"So we all played poker for it and Margot Mallard's his girl for the trip!" Rhubella snapped. "Then we had a re-match and I lost again - Danforth Drake got me!"

"Ewwww…" Plucky stuck his tongue out. This time nobody complained.

Babs frowned, her ears twisting together as she though. "And if you'd have won?"

"Then I'd have won Danforth!" Rhubella snapped. "Duh!"

"And the difference is what, precisely?" Jaggi Di Speckle was scribbling in his notebook, a puzzled expression on his long muzzle. Mary was the Newshound but he was often cast in the films as "scholarly adventurer" - not in a leading role as yet, but more the kind last seen wounded and sacrificially holding a pass against a horde of Natives as long as the ammunition lasted while the party got away. Acme Looniversity was more diverse than most people realised; its vaults held massive stockpiles of Romance, Film Noir and War films even if the most high-profile classes did concentrate on comedy.

"The difference, horse apples, is that … I … Lost. There! Now you can all laugh at me." Rhubella folded her arms defiantly. "Like I care what you think."

"And Danforth is, exactly, what? Apart from a duck?" Jaggi had heard a lot about the ongoing rivalry between the two academies, but never met the "command squad" before. "Danforth and Margot Mallard, are they …?"

"No relation," Rhubella snapped.

Buster looked at Babs, a wry smile on his face. "Haven't we heard that line before somewhere?"

"Danforth," Rhubella considered. "Well. He has a very good car. He's pretty well off in proper Old Money, and has a finger in a lot of very low-overhead manufacturing overseas. So he's pretty high up the scale, I could do worse." Her eyes scanned around the Acme toons, reading their incredulous expressions "So?"

"Do you like 'eem?" Fifi asked brightly, her eyes shining. "Ees 'e good to you?"

Rhubella looked at her as if the skunkette had grown an extra head. "He won me, lame-brain. Why should he bother?" Her long naked tail twitched. "Anyway, after the first night he went out to tour the Casinos up the coast, looking for some "classy feathered action". Furred girls don't much hold his interest. He's not been back since." She was silent, before looking around again. "Well? Why aren't you laughing?"

Fifi gave a disappointed sigh. "Pauvre Rhubella."

Buster looked at his friends. "Babs? Shirley? What do you say?"

Caffeinated neurons worked fast under a pair of long pink ears. "Rhubella. Do you want to join us instead?"

A full psychic blast from Shirley could hardly have rocked the rat back any harder. "Join you? The Acme Loo-sers? I'm staying at Danforth's six-star hotel up on the hill not some flea-bitten beach motel. Just because I saw you in the distance and… tracked you and... heard you … laughing and... having fun and everything …" Her voice trailed off. Suddenly she raised her head again, her eyes defiant. "If I go with you I have to know one thing - it's been driving us nuts for years. Your status and control over each other. Just how DO you keep score?"

There was the over-dramatised noise of wind in the trees and distant chirping crickets for half a minute while Rhubella looked from one face to another. The colour slowly drained from her face. She clapped her paws to her cheeks as realisation sunk in. "Oh, for Toon's sake … is that IT? Roderick hired private eyes to watch you for weeks and stole six hours time on a supercomputer to try and crack it and the answer is … you don't care?"

Babs gave an embarrassed grin. "You know, I always thought there was something I forgot to ask about on Day One. So, is anyone keeping score around here?"

"Only playing Astro Blaster," Plucky quipped. Shirley smiled, her aura mirroring her.

"We've enough food fer sure, if you want to join us," Shirley held out her wingtip invitingly. "And yes, it's free."

From her expression at first, Rhubella anticipated that as soon as she had accepted lunch the Acme crowd would sit on her and force-feed her with Thai bonnet peppers till she spontaneously combusted. But gradually she relaxed, though obviously thoughts of being slipped laxative-packed cookies were never far from her mind.

"So, this is your last trip together?" Rhubella looked around. "We've got dossiers on all of you, you know."

Babs grinned. "I hope you file mine under "humour"".

"It's good to know that we're having our star profiles written already," Plucky nodded. "Did your dossier mention my three series of "Bat-Duck the Scourge of Crime?" A stark and gritty docu-drama - my best piece of method acting though I say it myself."

"We did file that one under humour." Rhubella deadpanned.

Shirley nodded significantly at Babs and Fifi, and the Amazing Three relaxed. "It's fer sure our last trip from Acme together," the loon confirmed. "But it's you know, our first trip - together, for some of us."

Rhubella nodded, counting the obvious couples and mentally comparing them with the expensively produced dossiers that Perfecto held on their rivals. Ex- KGB personnel worked cheap these days. "Is everyone here? I know Mr. Maximilian is away on a religious pilgrimage to Fort Knox. And Miss Duff is still in hospital after she tried to "hug and squeeze a cute punky kitty" - that wasn't one."

"Porcupine?" Babs asked dryly.

"Porcupine," Shirley confirmed.

Rhubella did another head and tail count. "Apart from that - you're only missing Hamton Piegenthaler?"

"She knew. Everybody knew! My best friend and I never knew his real name," Plucky's grumble broke an otherwise stony silence.

"Some of us are … missing him more than others," Buster said.

"Life 'as its rainy days," Fifi said, looking up at the clouds coming in from the ocean. "'Zis was to be the special trip of 'Amton and moi. Aftair zo many years, my mind eet was made up. On the final day - 'e is so shy, if 'e 'ad not proposed ze marriage - I would 'ave asked him. I 'ave ze ring for ze engagement sitting lonely in my purse." She sighed. "But no - now 'zat will nevair 'appen."

"He dumped you too?" Rhubella's naked pink tail swished angrily. "Boys! Jerks, the lot of them!"

Fifi gave a sad smile. "Ah, non. Mon 'Amton, 'e gave up his own 'appiness for 'is family. Eet is sweet and romantic - but not for moi. 'Is famille, 'zey 'ave known about us for ze years. When 'e was only three 'eads high eet was no problem. A skunk girl to share ze 'omework and ze weenie-burger, yes. Zey are not liking zat we are, getting ze serious."

The rat cast her a sour look. "You Acme brats. Haven't you ever heard of lawyers? You could sue the fat off him for Breach-of-Promise, and his parents for … whatever, that's a lawyer's job. I've read the dossiers on that family ... a Perfecto lawyer could serve them up for you in great steaming rashers. At least you'd get something out of Hamton."

"I 'ave. Five years of ze 'appy memories. And 'Amton - 'e is foravair a friend." Fifi raised an eyebrow. "Is money and winning all you evair think about?"

"Asked the loser …" Rhubella snapped. She looked into Fifi's eyes, her own full of confusion. "What is it you Acme toons WANT of me? Just say it."

Fifi looked her over, the rodent glowering and sad. "My mentor Pepe Le Pew, 'e is a very wise toon. 'E say - "in love and friendship, what you give is what you get". I 'ave ze most generous friends."

Large rat ears blushed. "You're not joking. Right?" Rhubella sat down heavily. She felt a strange and unpleasant feeling in a little-used part of her spirit, as she recalled all too clearly how she had lived at Perfecto and where it had got her. "You're actually not joking." She stroked her tail-tip nervously. For a minute she was silent, her eyes on the ground. "Fifi. I ... I think I'd like that. I'd like to try."

Fifi smiled, looking out at where Babs and Buster were happily chasing each other around the beach with firehose-calibre water pistols. "You are welcome."

A Toon rabbit retained nature's excellent sense of approaching danger, which years at Acme pitted against screen villains in and out of class had honed keenly. Although Buster lacked Shirley's ability to read an unfriendly aura, he could feel his ears itching a warning. Suddenly he pointed at a party of tall toons in bright yellow chemical suits. "Fifi - they look as if they mean business - and they're coming our way." The dozen Hazmat-suited toons had "County hazard control" stencilled on their backs, and were waving what looked like small vacuum cleaners as they methodically worked their way up the coast.

"They could just be, like, channelling DEVO," Shirley suggested innocently.

"I recognise those moves, Shirley, some of us take Predator Evasion class. They're tracking a scent trail. Looks like someone doesn't appreciate Fifi's perfume," Buster frowned. "And I think there's too many of them for Shirley's mind trick."

Rhubella gave a small smile. "My hotel's air conditioned. Very much so."

Fifi sniffed. "Well, good for you." The weather was getting close and humid, and despite Mary's predictions there might be more than loon-powered lightning that evening.

The rat gave an exasperated snort. "It works both ways, Miss Hazmat. Come up till the heat's off, they won't find you in there" She sighed. "Since Danforth took off, I've not t...talked to anyone in three days." Hotel staff did not count, she thought - then her tail twitched guiltily. Did the Acme toons think that way?

"Won't the desk staff notice?" Buster asked. "A post-grad ninja couldn't sneak a free guest into our place."

"Not that you'd want to…" Plucky grumbled.

Rhubella gave a tight smile. "In my kind of hotel, rabbit, you get staff service exactly when and only when you want. Other times …" she held up an electronic card "private street entrance and elevator, duh? Private rooms are just that. You could host a military coup in there and nobody's going to object - they just put it on the bill."

"Danforth is a duck, so he puts everything on his bill," Buster mused. "Logical."

"Hostiles incoming, estimate three minutes to impact," Babs intoned. "We need a diversion. Plucky, I need your beach towel - I've got mine here. Fifi, wrap them round your tail."

"Eet is not ze disguise that would score ze marks in Professair Coyote's classes," Fifi shrugged, but did as Babs suggested. "And now what?"

"And now ... Buster, kiss her. Now. Kiss her for me." Babs' eyes were alight in fiendish glee as she looked on. "Hostiles, two minutes and closing."

"'Tis a far, far better thing I do, than ever I have done before," Buster proclaimed dramatically, stepping up into the skunkette's willing arms. He had learned that Babs' schemes were generally insane enough to work.

Rhubella looked on in shocked surprise as the rabbit and the skunk kissed - first softly, then passionately. Buster held her close, his fingers caressing the skunkette's ears gently, something she had showed him to do the night before. Fifi's tail twitched, and the towels began to fume with a virulent yellow-green vapour soaking through them. The quartz sand on the beach began to corrode. "Babs? But I thought he was, your..."

"My buck - who I trust with Anything, shave-tail." The pink bunny grabbed the towels, gauging the wind direction from the toxic plume that was wilting bushes and boulders alike. "Rhubella! Up the hill with Fifi. Plucky! Take this, go North, lay a trail. I go south. Shirley? Mindsmog the hunters, jam them all you can. See you back at the hotel tonight!" She began to accelerate and with a cry of "Engaging After-bunner!" turned into a red-shifted blur and vanished, a visible green skunk contrail following her and settling on the ground as she wound up to full speed. In a few seconds the double bang of a regular sonic boom echoed across the hills. The louder bang of a Toon supersonic one followed a few seconds later.

The green duck winced as the corrosively dripping towel scorched his feathers. Flapping it as if it was scalding hot, he dashed up the beach road. "Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo! Whoo-hoo!" he yelped, running in a crazy leaping zigzag out of sight.

Shirley cast a smile after him, her powder-blue ego separating and floating after the duck like a guardian angel carrying serious psychic fire support. She looked down at the blue Toon puddle on the floor that was slowly reconstituting; evidently Fifi had given quite as much as she got. "Buster? Is it just me or - are the vibrations getting better around here?"

"So, this is it. It's not much, but it's home for now." Half an hour later Rhubella clapped her paws, and the lights in the suite came on to reveal a palatial set of rooms - the bathroom alone was twice the size of Fifi's whole hotel room, and tastefully furnished in gold and marble. "Usual stuff - the thousand channel TV is all that wall, the room service is five minutes guaranteed for meals - cleanup maids arrive in two minutes." She cast a glance at Fifi. "Impressive or what?"

Fifi shrugged. "I live in ze junkyard. I 'ave the bath in ze tarpaulin when eet rains. I am not 'zhere for long most days, I am out with Babs, and Shirley, and 'Amton and all ze othairs."

"Well, tonight you can do things in style. Danforth's treat." Rhubella paused, looking at Fifi's expression. "You don't care about all this, do you?"

"Zhe gold-plated bath taps? Zhe chandeliers? I care about friends, Mademoiselle le platinum-card," Fifi looked at her steadily. "Ze telephone - now zat is a luxury I will say yes to. Eet is looking dark outside. I 'ope Babs and Bustair and ze rest are safe."

Five minutes on the phone to Babs left Fifi looking more relaxed. "La! 'Zey are all back safe at ze 'otel. And just in time - here eet comes, ze storm. I shall be wet when I return to ze room. Pas de problem." Fifi put the handset down and threw the curtains wide, looking out at the dramatic skies. "Heh! 'zat Babs, she lay ze false trail all ze way to Tijuana. She say, "when ze bunny speed comes up till ze shock-waves zey lean right back - it covers ze distance." Formidable, non?" With that she went in to shower, noticing with interest the wide choice of Tiny Toons Bar Soap that the hotel offered its guests for their entertainment. Half an hour later she emerged, freshly groomed and happily humming a tune. Outside night was falling early as the clouds moved in.

The hotel was perched four hundred feet up the hillside, with a wide view over the bay where a storm front was rolling in as evening fell. A brilliant burst of lightning flashed less than a mile away, silhouetting the skunkette in stark black and white. "Magnifique!" Fifi shouted against the thunder, her eyes wide and her tail swishing in excitement as she stood by the picture window, the lights dimmed in the room behind her.

"Could you ... c...close the c...curtains? Please?" A small voice sounded behind her.

Fifi turned, her tail waving in the lightning to see Rhubella looking lost in the middle of the Empress-sized bed that could have accommodated a dozen of her, clutching her knees tight to her chest and with the silk blanket pulled up to her neck. "You are not liking ze thunder? But it ees Nature's free light show! So grand!"

Rhubella winced. "I can't cope with it. I had two years of the best psycho-analysis there is - nothing worked. At home I have a soundproof room in the cellar I have to go to when it storms."

"Pauvre Rhubella. I am no Doctair ... but I know when it is no time to be alone." Fifi sat down on the bed. Even a yard away she could feel Rhubella shivering violently. "May I?" At Rhubella's mute nod she relaxed companionably beside her, sitting up with her back resting on the huge headboard. Fond memories of sleepovers with Babs and Shirley came back as a comforting glow. They had camped out in forest clearings smaller than the bed here, and still had room for a campfire. "In ze junkyard eet much louder." She giggled. "Zhey say such bad things about girls 'oo spend time on ze back seats of cars. I live on one - but without ze company."

Rhubella looked at her. "How do you manage? Living all alone like that?"

"I am nevair alone," Fifi said quietly. "I thought I was so when 'Amton 'e must tell moi au revoir, that night. But 'e ees thinking of me always. And ze othairs. Does Roderick not do zat for you? Hold you when you need 'im?"

"We go to the best restaurants. We play golf on the finest greens. We've cruised across the Caribbean." Rhubella's defiance faded under Fifi's steady gaze. She swallowed. "Does he hold me in a thunderstorm? Of course he doesn't. He hates weakness - in everyone. He hates till you can smell it in his musk. He tries to overlook it in me though, sometimes."

"Charming, non?" Fifi's snout wrinkled. She hugged the rat close, remembering what Buster had done for her on the coach over. In half an hour, Rhubella's shivering stopped. Fifi smiled. When she fell asleep, Fifi would tuck her in and head back downhill to her own hotel - it was still pouring outside, but the one comfort her room had was a hot shower. Not quite big enough for two, as she and Buster had found out that morning - or rather, too small for two and a half including her tail. Babs and Buster would have far less trouble should they try it in their room, as she knew Shirley and Plucky already had in theirs.

The bed certainly was more comfortable in the six-star hotel than the zero-star. Fifi found herself getting sleepy, holding Rhubella in her arms. Just as she was about to mentally shrug and fall asleep there, her ears pricked up. Years of living alone in a junkyard had honed her danger reflexes at certain sounds and especially stealthy footsteps approaching; apart from her natural scent as a defence she kept a truck tyre iron handy under her back seat bed and had needed it several times. Gently, she nudged Rhubella awake while briefly squeezing the rat's jaw shut in a mime-show to be quiet.

"So!" The lights had dimmed, but they clicked to full as someone entered the room. "I leave her alone and what do I find when I get back?"

Coming Next: Chapter Three: "Duck and Cover!"