Author's Note: Sorry for the delay everyone, but thanks so much to everyone who has written in and reviewed. I hope this doesn't come to late for you. As always, write a review, get a response.
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"Well, it's official." Wade said over the line of the Kimmunicator. "You guys can't even go to the movies without tripping over a super villain."
"Your sympathy is heartwarming." Kim let out dryly as she watched the police role up lines of yellow tape around the scene of their latest crime.
"So, she was really dressed like a squirrel?" Wade asked, making sure he had heard Kim correctly.
"Yep." Kim replied, still in disbelief over the matter herself.
"Tail. Acorns. Yeah, definitely had a squirrel vibe there." Ron chipped in. He had not moved one inch from the theatre window, steadfast in his determination. "Although that is a new one for us, you gotta admit. I mean monkeys, rampaging kangaroos that one time, Gemini's freaky dog thing and all sorts of really freaky DNAmy specials, but no squirrels anywhere in there. We've definitely charted a new section of the villain's animal kingdom KP."
"Yet another of my life goals satisfied and all in the same day." Kim could not restrain her grim sarcasm. Somehow, thoughts of going home to her warm bed seemed to dance further and further off into the distance, waving farewell to her as they passed.
"Well I got some footage of the attack." Wade offered, trying to be helpful. "Don't know if it's anything you guys don't already know."
After the press of a few choice buttons on Wade's computer console, the image on the screen of the Kimmunicator changed to a traffic camera's replay of the disturbance. Kim still refused to believe that she had actually had to fight as hard as she had against someone with a tail on their costume.
"You know, one of these days KP, we have got to find out where our super villains get their outfits made. I mean granted, fashion isn't really my thing, but please… a tail."
Kim's eyes suddenly widened at Ron's proclamation. "Wait a second, Ron I think you're onto something."
"Yeah, I mean look at Shego. You know, I get that green is her thing and all, but she could spruce up the design a little."
"This coming from the guy who wore purple trousers when he was a super villain." Wade observed over the Kimmunicator.
"Hey, as I recall, you were the one who picked out that costume." Ron bit back defensively.
"Gentlemen." Kim interrupted. "Could we please get back to the fashion disasters of the criminally insane another time?"
"But I thought you said I was onto something?" Ron asked in confusion.
"You were, but not about Shego." Kim turned back to the image on the Kimmunicator. "Wade, what do you think of that costume that Squirrel Girl is wearing?"
"Hmm." Wade paused for a moment, examining the images on his computer monitor. "It actually looks pretty professional. Nylon fibers, definite grade 'A' stitch work. It could even be the genuine article."
"Genuine article?" Kim asked.
"The original costume of the original Squirrel Girl from the Fearless Ferret TV series." Wade explained with growing excitement.
"You mean there actually was a super villain called 'Squirrel Girl'?" Kim refused to believe this as she turned questioningly back to Ron. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?"
"Uh, duh KP. Everyone knows about Squirrel Girl. She was one of the Fearless Ferret's greatest enemies." Ron explained, stunned that he actually had to describe this to his girlfriend.
"It's hard to be sure." Wade piped back in. "But the costume she's wearing in this footage looks to be an almost flawless match to the original costume from the TV series. It even has the exact same dimensions."
"Then if we track down what happened to the costume from the series, we can find who this Squirrel Girl is." Kim concluded aloud. "Wade…"
"I'm on it." After another few choice keystrokes. "It looks like the costume was bought by the original actress to play Squirrel Girl after the show was cancelled." Another few keystrokes produced an image of a young to mid-aged woman with brown hair. "Karen Currage."
"The Karen Currage?" Kim asked. "She was one of the principle voices of female equality back in the seventies and eighties."
"She was also an actress, or at least she was for the few years that the Fearless Ferret series was on the air." Wade typed some more, producing another picture of the same woman, now clearly much older, at least in her fifties, her face well aged by only one or two wrinkles while her hair had begun to grey in certain areas.
"Got a current address?"
"Believe it or not, she's a local." Wade pulled up the information. "Got the address."
"Great. So we've got another White Stripe on our hands. Guess Rudolph Farnsworth wasn't the only one clinging to the past." Kim noted bitterly, even as she grabbed Ron's arm, dragging him with her. "Come on Ron."
"What? But… tickets. KP, tickets! NO." Ron screeched and hollered as he was dragged off.
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Kim tapped at the door with the classical gold painted knocker, after doing a quick double check on the address.
"Lunch at Bueno Nacho says she shows up still in the costume." Kim offered to Ron.
"I say the front door is booby trapped and the entire house is redecorated to look like some evil lair." Ron replied.
The sea blue front door swung open, revealing an older woman dressed in a thick white sweater and jeans. She looked to be at least ten years younger than her biography insisted and in nothing short of fantastic shape. The picture Wade had shown them didn't do her justice.
"Hello? Can I help you?" She asked politely, smiling at the young pair on her doorstep.
"No costume." Ron noted aloud.
Kim rushed the older woman's confused expression, jabbing gently at Ron's side as she asked "Karen Currage?"
"Why yes. And you are?"
"I'm Kim Possible. This is my partner Ron Stoppable. Could we talk to you?" She asked, still trying to hide her expectations of flying Acorns of Doom.
"Why of course. Would you like to come in?" She offered politely, stepping back inside. Kim and Ron looked at each other in slight disbelief before stepping inside.
"Definitely not an evil lair." Kim noted as she took in the decorum. Straight from the pages of "Home America", the house was the model of American suburbia. Kim was reminded very much of her own home as she took a seat on the large couch with Ron next to her.
"Cookies?" Karen came back into the room, offering a plate to the young pair. "They're store bought," she admitted slightly sheepishly as she set the plate down and took a seat opposite Kim and Ron on a rocking chair. "I'm not much for baking."
"Ooh, chocolate chip." Ron roughly grabbed a handful, oblivious to the crumbs he spilled around himself as he stuffed his mouth full in one swift motion. "Whhuht?" He asked, spilling more crumbs as Kim looked at him in disbelief.
"Oh boy. Cookies." Rufus noted, his nose having guided him from his resting place in Ron's pocket up for some fresh air, diving into the remnants of the plate, finishing it off without missing a crumb.
"Uhmm, Ms. Currage." Kim tried to remember her manners before their host.
"Please, call me Karen." The older lady insisted with a smile.
"Ok, Karen. First, let me say what an honor it is to meet you." Kim couldn't help herself as she began to gush. "I've read so much about your work in the seventies. I mean, you've organized so many walks for Women's Rights, you've done so much for education reform, you even stood before Congress and…"
"Are you a super villain?" Ron interrupted Kim's tirade, drawing astonished looks from both ladies in the room.
"Ron." Kim whispered harshly, slapping at his side again.
Kim was stopped from saying anything else by a chuckle from the woman sitting opposite them. "You must be a Fearless Ferret fan." Karen noted with an amused grin.
"Loyal Ferrets since age four." Ron saluted proudly.
"Uh-huh. To the end." Rufus squeaked, mirroring Ron's salute.
Kim turned to Karen apologetically, but her grin didn't falter in the slightest as she laughed softly to herself. "Oh my goodness. All these years and people still remember Squirrel Girl. Oh, that seems like a lifetime ago." She smiled nostalgically as she leaned back in her seat.
"Ms. Currage, I understand that you kept the costume from the show after it was cancelled." Kim asked.
"Actually, it was a gift. Timothy North gave it to me so that I'd have something to remember the show by, though just between us, I think Tim had a hard time letting go of the show. I heard some crazy rumors years later that he'd actually had a cave dug out underneath his home."
Kim and Ron shot each other wide glances, silently agreeing not to say anything else before Kim asked. "Could we see the original Squirrel Girl costume?"
Karen hesitated for a moment before answering "Oh I'm sorry. I'm afraid I sold it on eBid years ago. It was a nice sentimental reminder but I just thought it was time to put it all behind me. Besides, I'm ashamed to say that marching and talking before Congress don't actually pay as well as I might like."
"I don't suppose you know who you sold it too?" Kim asked.
"Sorry." Karen replied. "I think all I ever got was a screen name and an email address. But their credit rating was good and their check cleared. I'm afraid that's all I was really interested in at the time."
Kim listened closely to Karen, her words, her voice tone and pitch before smiling politely. "Well, thanks for your help. Come on Ron."
"Why? Is she out of cookies?" Ron asked confusedly as Kim pinched his arm. "Ouch."
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Not one minute and thirty feet from the front door later and Kim stopped Ron in his tracks.
"What's up KP? We still catching Bueno Nacho for lunch?" Ron asked, noting the expression on his girlfriends face, informing him she had unfinished business.
"Why don't you go ahead and keep our booth warm? I'll catch up." Kim insisted even as she looked back at the house where they had just come from.
"You got some thing else going on?" Ron looked at the house, still confused.
"Just going to find out what really happened to the original Squirrel Girl costume." Kim answered.
"But I thought…" Kim shot him a knowing glance. "Ooh. She did that thing they do where they don't tell us the truth, didn't she?"
"Something like that." Kim smiled knowingly.
"You sure you don't want any back up for this?" Ron asked.
Kim merely responded by leaning in, planting a light peck of a kiss on Ron's lips. "I got it. Keep my seat warm for me."
"Anything for the lady." Ron smiled, returning the kiss.
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Karen returned to the sound of her knocking door, surprised to see the same red headed young woman from before. "I'm sorry. Is something wrong?"
"Ms. Currage, I really need to talk to you." Kim insisted, just less politely than before.
"Look, I told you," she rushed Kim. "I don't know who bought the original costume. Now if you don't mind…"
Karen Currage tried to close her front door, but Kim's hand caught it as she held up a black and white still of the footage from earlier in the day.
"Ms. Currage, an hour ago, some girl wearing the exact same costume that you wore in the sixties showed up at the Middleton Mall, in front of the theatres, beating up a bunch of fans and throwing mini-grenades painted like acorns. No one was seriously hurt… this time, but if you know who this girl is or if you know anything that could be helpful, I really need to talk to you."
For a long second, Karen Currage stared at the photo in Kim's hand in grim acceptance before finally pulling back on the door. "Please come in."
A few seconds later found Kim sitting at a table in Karen's kitchen. "Some tea?"
"Yes please." Kim replied politely. "Ms. Currage, who is this new Squirrel Girl?"
Karen didn't pause for one second as she put on her pot. Then, reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out her wallet, before retrieving a picture that she handed to Kim. The photo was a high school picture of a young girl with the same smooth brown hair that Kim had fought earlier in the day.
"That is my daughter Sarah." Karen explained as she sat down opposite Kim, handing her a cup.
"Your daughter is Squirrel Girl." Kim looked at the woman wide eyed.
"She always wanted to be." Karen admitted with dry amusement as she looked back at the picture. "Her father died when she was a little girl, and I just kept my old name even after we married. Growing up, I wasn't around as much as I wanted to be, and for whatever reason, she grew up idolizing Squirrel Girl. Maybe it was because I wasn't there for her as much but the old reruns of me on TV were."
"But, Squirrel Girl was the villain on the show, wasn't she?" Kim asked, admittedly uncomfortable with the course this story was taking.
"I take it you didn't watch the show like your boyfriend did, did you?" Karen asked with a wry smile.
"How did you know he was my…?" Kim didn't finished the question as Karen shot her a knowing glance, almost identical to the one she had shot Ron almost a thousand times since they were kids. "That obvious?"
Karen answered with another smile before continuing with her story. "Squirrel Girl was technically a villain yes, but in her own way, she was a hero for her time. She was the first female character in a major television show for the time who was strong, capable, intelligent, self reliant. The show's producers almost scrapped the idea from the beginning in favor of making her some kind of female seductress or succubus or some other nonsense. It was actually Timothy North who helped me argue that she should be more."
Karen paused in her story, obviously carefully deciding how she would continue her story.
"Seeing ordinary people do amazing things helps remind the rest of us that we can be amazing too. Watching Squirrel Girl on TV turned out to be a big motivator for Sarah. Maybe that was part of the problem. She always believed that if she set her mind to it, she could be just as amazing as Squirrel Girl. But things went bad for her when she went to school, or rather; they just never seemed to go right."
"What happened at school?" Kim shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"Oh, even since pre-school, everyone treated her differently, like she was some kind of outcast. From the very first day, she was singled out as some kind of scapegoat by every bully that ever got a look at her."
Karen Currage paused for a moment, looking as if she had to fight back a spare tear before continuing.
"Since she didn't spend much time with friends, she spent all her time at home, running around, jumping, any physical activity you can imagine. Some girls get into dolls when they're little, but she… I honestly think she was in training to be a super hero. She always would run around in the backyard in her own made different costumes, flipping and jumping. She even took karate classes. In high school, she went out for the cheer team. She was so proud to make it and I thought for sure things would improve for her once she did."
"I'm guessing they didn't." Kim asked uneasily.
"No." Karen replied with a sigh. "She was so good at it, she completely showed up all the other girls on the squad, who were much more popular than her. Obviously, that just ended up making things worse for her, and they never got better. Not even once. I sometimes think her life might have been completely different if she could have just made one friend in school. Instead, she just retreated back into her fantasy of being a super hero."
"And then she took the Squirrel Girl costume." Kim attempted to swallow a lump in her throat.
"I came home one day and found it missing. When I asked her about, she completely flipped. Lashed out, saying I was never 'worthy of it' or something like that, and then just ran away." Karen couldn't help herself this time as she wiped a tear from her face.
Kim felt herself want to say something but she couldn't think of anything even remotely appropriate for this situation.
"She's not a bad person." Karen defended emphatically. "She just… she's just confused is all. She needs help."
"Ms. Currage, I promise we'll do everything we can to help her."
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"Whoa." Ron whispered as he bit into his Naco. "So I guess we got a name to go with the tail now."
"Sarah Currage. Daughter of the original Squirrel Girl." Kim sunk into her seat, barely having touched her lunch salad as she finished relaying the story to Ron.
For a moment longer, the two sat in silence, before Ron eventually did what he did best. "You know, when I was little, I honestly wanted to be a naked mole rat when I grew up. I mean they have it so easy."
"Muh ha! Good choice." Rufus gave his thumbs before returning to marinate in his own pool of nacho cheese.
Ron noticed Kim's lack of amusement as she continued to stare off at nothing. Deciding to switch gears, he asked "So, how do you want to handle this one?"
Suddenly, Kim lit up like a bulb as she looked at Ron, inspiration flashing before her eyes. "I think I'm gonna let the Fearless Ferret handle this one."
"Huh?"
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Kim furiously tore through her closet as Ron sat at her bed side, looking between Kim's back and Rufus' face in confusion.
"Uh, KP, I really don't think now is the time for a fashion crisis." Ron noted.
Kim finally ceased her scavenging as she grabbed a large brown box. Taking the box in hand, she walked across the room before offering it to Ron.
"KP, my birthday's not for another month."
"It's early." Kim smiled as she handed it to him. Ron could stare at her with a puzzled expression before taking it in hand. The look on Kim's face encouraged Ron onward as he opened the box, removing the lid to reveal a folded, neatly presented, familiar brown costume.
"The ferret suit." Ron gasped as he held it up. This one was different, it was fresh. And it noticeably did not smell like it had been gathering dust at the bottom of some dirty cave for the last few decades.
"Actually, think of it as the Ferret Suit 2.0." Ron looked at Kim and she merely smiled as she continued. "I asked Nana to do the stitch work, and Wade did the rest."
Ron's eyes went wide as saucers as he looked down at the suit again. "You mean, this is my… my…"
"Your very own super suit." Kim smiled as she sat down next to Ron. "Custom designed."
"KP," Ron curled his lip over itself, trying to control himself. "This is the most badical gift ever… well besides your Pandaroo… and that Cyber scrap book… and…"
"Ron, Ron." Kim interrupted with a wide smile even as Ron threw his arms around her, grabbing her tightly. "I'm glad you like it."
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The suit's a tight fit. Tighter than I remember it. But I can't help but feel totally badical in it. This isn't just some Halloween costume. I've worn those. I was a horse's butt once.
It wasn't one of my favorites.
No. This is more. This suit makes me something more than just a weirdo in a costume. Or someone who forgot to check their calendar and see what day of the week Halloween actually was on. That's an honest mistake that anyone could make by the way.
It only happened that one year!
I wore this costume before. I didn't have all the kinks worked out then, but I do now. I know what I have to do. Somewhere out there is a girl in a squirrel costume… and she has a tail. I mean it's a real tail of all things. I've seen some weird stuff, but that's just…
"Ron! Enough with the tail already."
KP? How did she know what I was thinking?
"Because I can hear you. You're saying all this out loud!"
I am?
"Yes."
Oh. Uhmm… oh man, now I lost my place in my heroic monologue. Where was I?
"Girl in a squirrel costume."
Right. Right.
Somewhere out there is a girl running around in a squirrel costume. If someone doesn't get to her first, she might hurt someone. She might even hurt herself. Now this…
"This looks like a job for the Fearless Ferret." Ron pulled the mask of the Fearless Ferret down as he stood, ready for action.
"Duh dun dun dundundun. Wonder Weasel!" Rufus added proudly as he leapt atop Ron's shoulders.
On to the shoulders of the Fearless Ferret.