Chapter Seven

(Author's note: I have read accounts of the Tex Avery heyday of WW2 cartoons, suggesting the scene Professor Bugs describes, actually was made and animated. The artists sometimes included one sacrificial scene so extreme that the censors would sieze and cut it on sight, and having done their job they'd let the rest of the film through more or less untouched.)

Acme Looniversity students, like most of their kind, generally did their best all Summer to forget about the upcoming term. All too soon there would be that fateful Monday morning when alarm clocks had to be set early and everyone knuckle down to hard work again. Being called in to see the Principle the week before the classes were due to begin was generally bad news for someone.

Professor Bugs did not seem too happy to be pulled away from his final days relaxing on the beach and yacht with his wife Honey Bunny. He was even less happy to have Elmyra in his office first thing in the morning and at the news he had to give her.

"Eeeh, youse a sweet kid, but youse in a whole pile o' trouble with a passle o' pretty powerful, pernicious palookas." He stopped pacing, and looked at the four in the office – Rymela, George, Mary and Jaggi. He shook his head. "If only you'd 'a graduated alongside of your class, Elmyra, dis wouldn't be happening. Dis kinda thing got dis grey hare grey hair."

Mary and Jaggi had come along as moral support, and because Elmyra and George between them were about as sharp as wet mud. "Professor Bugs. I've checked the laws and there's absolutely nothing wrong. Elmyra's of age, and her family all like George." The prospect of anyone eventually taking the Terror of Acme Acres out from under their roof naturally thrilled the rest of the Duff family.

"Dere's laws and dere's laws," Bugs said cryptically. "I gotta tell youse a story that we don't cover in class. So I'd be real happy if you keep it outa class, Elmyra?" At Elmyra's nod, Bugs pulled out an old photograph album. "End of World War Two, it was a real jumpin' time for Toons. Real wild. There's all kinda things got inna flicks we'd never get away wit' now. You've met Red Hot Riding Hood, seen that cabaret film she made wit' da wolf?"

Elmyra and Mary nodded. Miss Ridinghood (her family name outside the studio was actually Rhydenhode) gave girls-only talks to the senior two years, that covered a lot of practical Toon biology not in the generic textbooks.

"I think it'd go down well today, though," Mary said thoughtfully. "Her grandmother was the one who was keen on the wolf at first sight and spent the rest of the film chasing him. A woman who turned the tables on him, that's a very modern thing. And she's an older toon who won't be stereotyped – that'd be popular too."

"Well, yeah, dat's the film made it to da screens," Bugs sat back in his executive chair. He was silent for a few seconds. "Wait here." With that he vanished to an inner room. There was the sound of combination tumblers clicking and a large metal door creaking open. Eventually Bugs returned, bearing a faded folder. He passed it to the two couples without comment.

"Oh my. Grandma really did… catch her wolf, didn't she? And she got caught, too." Mary's eyes went wide as she looked through the stills, each one bearing an official production number. "That's not the finale that I saw. The original – is this Grandma and the wolf years later watching Red singing – and they've got cubs?" Evidently Melicent McLoon was far from an extreme case when it came to older Toons carrying on their families.

"Red has umm… wolf brothers?" Rymela scratched her head.

"Not brothers, they're her young half-uncles." Jaggi corrected, as he closely examined the stills. "This is labelled as original studio footage – I take it this is an ending was made but never released?"

"Ya gots dat in one," Bugs nodded. "And for why? Da books officially said it was the Hays Code. But dere's nothing about dis in the letter of the Hays Code. Believe me, I know dat piece o' paper backwards - we useta spend our days ducking and divin' around dem rules."

"The Committee of Responsible Cartoons?" Mary hazarded a guess.

"And another one got it in one!" Bugs applauded. "Da foist time anybody heard o' them, ta be exact. After the War was over, the lid went back on, and dey's the ones sat on it. Dey's a big name backstage in the film business, but you ain't gonna read nuthin' about it in the papers."

"And can they really block Elmyra from graduating?" Jaggi asked.

Bugs looked uncomfortable. "Dey can try." He waved an arm around at the view of the Looniversity through the big picture windows of the Principal's office. "The studios pay for dis place. You're gonna be the new stars making their headlines and their dough after you graduate, see? But if the Committee twists the Studio's arm behind their back, we all gots trouble." He twitched an ear. "If'n dis was just you and me, I'd be out puttin' a hotfoot under dose blue-noses right alongside of youse. Now, I gotta whole Looniversity I gotta think about. But I can give you the ammo, in a manner o' speakin'." With that he briefly stepped in the other room again and came back with a bundle of folders. "A bunch of us on the Staff had run-ins wit' dem palookas over the years – Professor Le Pew in particular. Here's the facts. What dey done, what dey tried ta pull on us."

Mary Melody flicked through the top folder and her eyes lit up in glee the way they had on many childhood Christmas mornings unwrapping presents. "Oh, yes. Thank you, Professor Bugs. If we can't come up with something now, we surely wasted our time at Looniversity." She had never scored top marks in the vengeance based comedy Babs and Buster majored in, but she had picked up a few pointers over the years.

"Mmm." Jaggi looked over her shoulder. "We have more than ammunition. We just got handed the enemy's training manual with all their game plans. I think that'll do."

Professor Bugs saw them to the door, and waved. "You be good, kids." A mischievous gleam came to his eye as the trickster supreme sent them on their way. "Don't ya go doing nuthin' I wouldn't do!"

Margot Mallard unzipped the door of the tent-like liferaft shelter, and looked out at another morning in the swamp. It had been clear the night before, and there was an unmistakeable chill in the air. She breathed out, noting she could just about see her breath. Autumn was definitely on the way.

Yawning, she washed in the lake, ran a comb through her head-feathers, and relaxed. It was a strange feeling for her. At Perfecto, a Toon who let their guard slip for a minute sorely regretted it – and any minute not spent on defence was planning the next offensive stage in clawing ahead of the competition.

"The accommodation around here might not be five-star, but it has its compensations," she murmured to herself. "Time to see what the neighbours are doing." With that she gave her feathers a final pat and walked round the corner of the reed-beds.

"Plucky?" She blinked. She had seen the mallard in many moods, but never with tears streaming down his beak. "What's wrong?"

Plucky blinked, and wiped his beak clean. "Fifi phoned me first thing. Shirley was right here in Acme Acres all last night – and she didn't even phone!"

Margot sat down just outside the nest. "How long is it since you saw her?"

"It's been seven weeks. Seven weeks of this. And she told Fifi last night she was staying in the Toon army. She didn't ask me. She didn't even tell me." His beak drooped. "I don't think she's coming back."

Well, I told you that. A dozen profitable lines of exploiting the situation flashed through Margot's mind – she looked at them in detail, and dismissed them all. Somehow she did not feel like it any more. "Poor Plucky. What are you going to do?"

Plucky winced. "These eggs are going to be hatching soon. It's the wrong time of year for it! Waterfowl are meant to hatch in Spring. If I stay here in the wild I'm going to freeze – and then they will."

"Mmm. Ironic, Shirley's the one who always makes such a fuss about natural harmonies. You're going to take them home?" Margot asked.

Plucky looked around the nest. "I can't stay out in the open!" Most years saw the first week or so of term at Acme Looniversity enjoying a golden Indian summer, specifically to annoy students now knuckling in to hard work in the classrooms – but after that, Acme Acres rapidly got cold and wet.

Margot considered the matter. "If you don't want to abandon that nest – and it has some fierce protections on it that'd be hard to match elsewhere – there's another way. I can bring your home to you."

That lunchtime saw another two arrivals at the reed-swamp; Fifi and Rhubella walking paw in paw as they carefully scanned the surroundings for the Elmyra swarm.

Fifi shivered. "Eh, eet eez ze scary idea – we 'ave reformed our Elmyra, tres bon… now six of ze originals zey turn up togethair!"

"Worse than the Acme Acres buses," Rhubella agreed. "They won't be here for long, though."

"Neither will we. Ruby… we are going on ze travels again when ze weather turns, non?" Fifi looked up at the clear skies. A high flying V formation of geese was heading South in the finest dramatic film tradition.

"That'll be the best time. We can see the world together for a few months. That's one good thing about my going the stork route – up till the day our little bundle arrives, I can still be running hurdle races – if I want to." Rhubella smiled. "I'm getting more in the mood for nest building, with all this egg-sitting."

Fifi's tail coiled around her, though her eyes kept scanning the horizon for threats. "And eet eez ze good deed – to 'elp out poor Plucky. Mon dieu! I could nevair believe Shirley she would be so cruel. Not to even telephone."

"Shirley did say before she joined up, she was worried about how it'd affect her aura." Rhubella paused. "Maybe it's something like passive smoking. She's going into all sorts of... situations, other psychics around her are probably enjoying blasting away left and right and she can't help but pick some of that up. It's bound to change her."

Fifi gave her a sad smile. "And ze things she is put against… she cannot protest, someone 'as to fight zem and she 'as ze qualifications. Shirley she loses ze karma eef she quits 'er eggs or 'er job – and she cannot 'ave both."

Just then Rhubella stopped. "That's changed." She pointed ahead to the position of Plucky's nest. Where before there had been just a circular open nest, now there was a square structure made from large panels of woven reeds obviously re-used from another building.

She turned her head at a familiar hail. "Margot?"

Margot Mallard was walking up the beach towards them slowly towing an orange life-raft laden with the wall units of Plucky's old house, half a dozen piled up on her impromptu cargo boat. She pulled it up to the beach panting hard, and briefly ducked her head underwater. Steam rose off it as she grinned at the new arrivals. "It's all aerobics. And to think, I used to pay good money in a gym to work out."

Rhubella looked hard at the mallard girl. "So, what's the idea?"

Margot shrugged. "Even if Shirley's not coming back, Plucky's still going to be looking after the nest. There's going to be hatchlings, soon enough – and imagine that in the November rains. He won't leave this nest to go to his house – so the house comes to him."

"Very good of you." Rhubella's eyes narrowed slightly. "I know you, Margot. Since when did you ever do anyone a favour?"

Margot pulled the liferaft up on the beach, and sat down to rest on an exposed corner of the inflated plastic. "Never, back when I was clawing my way up the ranks in Perfecto. But now…" she rested her beak on her feather-fist, a strange expression on her face. "So maybe you've been giving me ideas. I just realised that if I spent the rest of the year scrabbling for money… it really won't make much difference. I've got the Corona project about to yield, anyway."

"You're really… helping Plucky? Without getting anything out of it?" Rhubella's tail twitched as she studied her comrade. Margot seemed to be thriving in her open-air life; her feathers were shining with a gloss that no boutique had ever given them, and even her figure seemed to be filling out.

"Oh, I'm enjoying myself. In a rather strange new way – strange for me, anyway. It's rather pleasant, being full of the milk of human, I mean Toony, kindness. In more ways than one." Margot relaxed, closing her eyes. "You told the Perfecto staff you were marrying Fifi for tax reasons – and they believed that. If you don't believe me you can look for my secret plan if you like – but you won't find one."

"Hmm. This from the girl who's into things so strange they never made internet alt. binaries newsgroups for them?" Rhubella suddenly blinked as a thought hit her. It actually made a weird kind of sense. "It really is a new thing for you. It was for me."

"This from the Perfecto graduate who likes sitting in a nest!" Margot snickered. "And the only feathers you've got are what the stork gave you."

Rhubella's tail swished. "Well, while we're here – we can help too. Let's get a roof over Plucky's head."

Another two hours saw the reed house rebuilt, though lacking in amenities such as mains power and water. As Fifi joked, at least there was going to be cold and cold running water whenever it rained.

"Le sigh," Fifi sat in the nest, her gorgeous expanse of purple tail covering the eggs like a duvet. From her Toon pocket she pulled out knitting needles and woollen yarn. "I am, 'ow you say, 'good to go' for ze hour or three."

Rhubella kissed her broad nose. "I'll be back in time to change shifts. Plucky could use a real break." She glanced over to the corner where the drake was sadly piling up his currently useless collection of electrical goods. "I've got things to do, people to meet." She cast her wife a long, smouldering look. "If all goes well – you'll be meeting them yourself."

After moving the last salvageable piece of Plucky's old house to its new location, Margot towed the life-raft back to its usual mooring. She set up the tent-like shelter, pulled out the removable air mattress to a sunny spot on the beach alongside it and relaxed.

"Margot?" She turned to see Plucky, the green mallard looking at her twisting his feather-fingers in embarrassment. "I wanted to say thanks."

She smiled. "That's all right. It beats watching the clouds go by." She patted the air mattress next to her. "After your… bad news today, you could use a break."

Plucky's eyes were downcast as he sat alongside her. "All I ever wanted was Shirley. I'd do anything for her. Break into Hollywood. Start at the bottom, bit parts if I had to. Stunt duck on the Happy Tree Friends show, even! But none of that – impresses her. I could win Oscars as Hudson Duck and she'd complain about the 'way mondo macho' plotlines."

"She's more into mystic explorations than fame and glamour," Margot mused. "Well, she's got that now. She's working her own way up. From what Rhubella tells me, she's clearing out evil spirits like a Prohibition-era cop raiding a bootlegger's warehouse." An idea came to her. "It's a shame you aren't getting your chances. My T-pad works as a film camera. Why not film a few test scenes?"

Plucky blinked. "We've no script. No scenery. No costumes."

Margot snickered. "And you're the Looniversity graduate! Studios have all that. What they need is talent. Let's show them you're it."

Two hours later, a dozen two minute screen-tests of Plucky as a tortured soul were neatly edited and T-mailed out to the casting departments of a dozen minor studios. As Margot mused, Plucky was having no difficulty staying in character – to get any more tortured he would have needed a full medieval dungeon and professionally qualified, union-registered operatives. In California, demand for such always far exceeded supply.

"And that's a wrap." She put away her T-pad, glad that she had ordered solar recharging panels on the lifeboat. "Fifi and Rhubella are nest-sitting till sunset. What do you say to a swim?"

Plucky nodded, bracing himself as he tried to put Shirley out of his mind. "You were in the Perfecto formation swimming team. I used to watch you."

"Undefeated champions. Five years of it," Margot drew herself up proudly. Suddenly she chuckled. "We had a joke about your Loosers – I mean, Looniversity formation team. 'At Acme we stick together – if one of the team drowns, we all do.' Some of us believed it, too."

The first smile for days appeared on Plucky's beak. "I can still beat you to the bridge and back."

Margot turned, looking back over her shoulder and tossing her luxuriant mane of purple head-feathers. She cast him a mischievous smile. "Bring it on, Acme."

An hour later, the two mallards were relaxing on a sandbank in the late afternoon sun. Plucky had won two half-mile heats and Margot two – the "tie-breaker" had been too close to call, and neither had wanted to make it 'best out of seven'.

"Yes. Definitely." Margot closed her eyes, feeling her muscles glowing after the hard exercise. She recalled a day the year before when Danforth Drake had bet against her in a swimming contest against a cormorant Sports Scholar girl in the Perfecto Cup. She recalled the forfeit she had demanded from Danforth, in place of easily-forgotten cash. I made him work harder that night than I did on fifty lengths of the pool, she inwardly smiled as she recalled the details. There was a certain honesty about Perfecto from one point of view – nobody ever tried to reform anyone else the way she had heard Shirley had tried to reform Plucky. Finding a rival's hidden weaknesses was far too much fun, and profitable as well. The last thing they wanted was to remove them.

She turned to face Plucky, and opened her eyes. The drake had fallen fast asleep, the sudden exercise after weeks of nest-sitting having knocked him as flat as any comedy mallet. For a few seconds she briefly 'unconcealed', imagining Shirley walking round the corner that instant. That would be interesting. Margot reached down, stroking her oil glands near her tail-feathers and preening her damp feathers with her natural waterproofing.

Just a little something for him to remember me by. She very delicately touched Plucky's bill with a finger-feather, leaving a dab of her musky oils just around his nostrils. Plucky stirred, still fast asleep, but in a few seconds a smile came to his bill. Like her, he carried mammal chromoplasm somewhere in his ancestry, though in his case there was no outward sign of it. Their chemistries must be extremely similar, she reflected.

Margot 'concealed', stood up and quietly headed back towards her liferaft as the sun dipped towards the horizon. "Just because I'd like to win fairly for a change," she told herself "there's no reason to throw all my advantages away. Fair's fair, but it's not stupid."

Not two miles away, there was someone who was trying very hard not to think of Plucky. Shirley McLoon was at her mother's house still, with some less welcome company. Colonel Fenix could interview extremely fast using his psychic powers, and apart from Angelina there were now two more Addams Academy toons on her team. She had been fending off mental probes from them all morning. In her mind she held up shield-like the image of the GRAVUS METALLICVS, and especially the compound angle of its glacis plate, a rune-hardened six inch thickness of high dourness steel.

"This is mondo bogus." As another intrusive probe bounced off her mental armour she looked on in distaste at the raven and the Chupacabra responsible, who were being shown around the filming compound by Angelina Angelique. "And I thought she was like un-harmonious enough. They're worse! It's like totally bad karma trying to look into toons' minds like they're trying to."

Clarke Gander consulted his notes. "But they have talents. Tlalocopa should be useful if we run into any ancient Mexican spirits."

"Fer sure." Shirley's bill wrinkled. "She's a fanatical born-again Aztec from Poxopeletec. That flint dagger's not a museum piece either. It's totally practical, for what she wants. Historical re-enactments aren't always so cool." The Chupacabra was greatly respected at Addams Academy, having won the vote for 'girl most likely to be found in Priestess regalia laughing manically on top of a sacrificial pyramid.'

"And we even have a musician." Clarke nodded to the raven. "Calgari there. He's quite famous. His Telecaster guitar is a spellcaster."

"Pe-ew. He told me how he got it that way." Shirley shook her head in disbelief. "Another 'great old tradition' the Deep South can totally do without. He waited at a deserted crossroads at midnight. A toon turned up to meet him who was black like a hole in the film – more than Marcia Martian, even – and tuned his air guitar for him. Those are going to be mondo expensive lessons when the bill's due."

"In the meantime, we can put him to good use. We need the help." The goose looked at the next page in his notes. "Colonel Fenix found another Talent already serving with a local Army unit. Corporal Barnes, he's quite powerful. Even though nobody knew till yesterday. Not even him."

"How do you have like, abnatural powers, and not know?" Shirley blinked. "Isn't it a part of you, or some junk?"

Clarke hesitated. Just then they spotted Colonel Fenix arriving with a newcomer, a border collie dressed in a spotless regular Army uniform rather than the conceptual camouflage Unit Four Plus Two favoured. "He's a sceptic. As to paranormal powers, he disbelieves in that kind of thing."

Shirley sniffed. "How does that make him a Talent?"

The collie turned to look her direction. Just before their eyes made contact, Shirley's glowing aura moaned and slumped to the ground in a dead faint, merging with her physical body like a wounded animal crawling into its lair before passing out completely. To her horror, Shirley suddenly re-experienced that terrible isolation from the spirit world she had endured twice before.

Clarke Gander gave an embarrassed grin. "They say faith can move mountains. With his level of disbelief, he can walk right through those mountains and for him they won't even be there."

"Gah. If he doesn't believe it – it doesn't happen? I-Ching sticks just turn into kindling when he's around, and Ouija Boards are drinks coasters?" Shirley's pale feathers turned paler yet. "He's like the psychic version of Dip!"

"Except that things recover when he's gone. He could be very useful – even if the rest of us aren't, while he's around." Clarke suddenly stiffened as a psychic call came through. Evidently their new comrade was not scoffing at telepathy that minute. "It's your mother – she's found something!"

Down in the second sub-basement of the McLoon family home, there was a mixture of high-tech and arcane-tech that would have both fascinated Calamity Coyote and given him a severe headache. There was a large computer screen displaying maps, across which were icons showing the paired mirrors now scattered across the country.

"Ah. Welcome to my lair." Melicent McLoon was looking at the supercooled crystal ball; a perfect sphere made of metallic hydrogen. "It's back. Any second now." She waved at the screens. "A hundred of the outermost of these flashed - it's focussing in now towards a centre – somewhere near Pittsburgh." As they watched, the computers drew a "join the dots" across the map, a dozen lines almost crossing in a suburb in New Jersey.

"Sergeant Clarke – ready with the transport!" Colonel Fenix was suddenly all business. "I left Barnes outside. Everyone else – power up!"

Shirley's aura re-emerged, rubbing a sore head but highly annoyed and ready to blast someone. Shirley looked around; of the new arrivals, Calgari the guitarist had summoned his air guitar and was strumming deep, sinister virtual chords to the backing of a portable drum and bassoon box in his backpack. Angelina Angelique's left feather-hand popped its black claws out, unnaturally sharp and eager to rip ectoplasm.

"I have it. It's materialised. There!" Melicent McLoon looked up from her scrying and jabbed a finger-feather at the map which was zooned into an aerial view of one unremarkable street. "That house with the grey roof, second storey."

"Summoning…" Clarke Gander worked out the probability of a big enough portable hole to fit everyone appearing by chance – he visualised the huge number and the hole appeared. Like parachutists leaping out of the back of an aircraft, Unit Four Plus Two jumped.

One second later and several time zones away, they were piling into a small bedroom, bouncing off each other – the crystal ball had not shown quite how small the target area was. There was a toon there – a toon raccoon, flat on his back. His chromoplasm was desperately faded; Shirley could already see the carpet through him. There was no sign of anything else, though there was a spiritual smog filling the room far worse than anything at Addams Academy.

"We're too late. That vampire works fast." Colonel Fenix looked around. "McLoon. You're the nearest thing to a Healer we've got. Anything you can do?"

"Like, I don't know. It looks like he's about to pass through to the next plane of being, fer sure." Shirley shook her head, bending over the fading form. "He's in a terrible state."

"New Jersey." Angelina muttered, a small smile on her bill as she swished her feather-claws through the air in disappointment.

As they watched, despite Shirley's best efforts the raccoon faded away, the last vestige of his chromoplasm evaporating. Shirley bowed. "He's totally gone." It was the first time in this incarnation she had seen a toon leave the mortal world, but if she stayed with Unit Four Plus Two she was grimly certain it would not be the last.

"We were too slow. But we couldn't have got here any quicker. There has to be a way of slowing that thing down." Colonel Fenix shook his head. "Any sign of what brought it here? Look for clues."

Half an hour later, the search came up blank. "Like, there's no mondo Forbidden Books, or ACME Home teleporter gone hideously wrong – none of the usual ways to open the walls of existence," Shirley reported. "It jumped out of nowhere, fed and jumped back."

"There had to be some kind of focus to summon it." It was Calgari who spoke, his voice an unnaturally melodious one that Shirley could tell came from no ordinary singing lessons. "Something that left no trace. Something he said, or sang, or thought."

"Hmm. That's going to be hard to pin down." Colonel Fenix said. "It looks like the target had a healthy body, at least."

Shirley's beak wrinkled at the sight of an empty crate of confectionary. "Totally calorie-free chocolate. Like, zero nutrition. Probably made from all sorts of unnatural junk."

As Sergeant Gander summoned the portable hole to take them back to Acme Acres, Shirley picked up one of the empty wrappers. A strange feeling ran through her aura. "Luxovice Lightweight bars by Resorblus Inc. Resorblus." She pondered, folding the wrapper and storing it in her jacket pocket. "It's a long time ago, but… one of my previous incarnations knew something with a name like that."

Back in Acme Acres as the sun set, Fifi and Rhubella finished their shifts at nest-sitting and returned to their borrowed burrow. Rhubella took a last look around at the lengthening shadows and closed the door. "Fifi. It's six months to the day since we met. I was planning a celebration – and we'll have that. Something special. Something I can't buy you with all my money." She smiled shyly and took her skunkette bride's paws in hers. "Do you still want me to find you a 'skunk-hunk' someday?"

Fifi nodded. "Oh, oui, Ruby. I 'ave been thinking about eet." Her tail twitched in an unnoticed reflex.

Rhubella took a deep breath. "What if I said 'someday' is tonight? Right now?"

Fifi's eyes went wide. She closed them for a few seconds, and nodded again. "Oui." Her tail was already beginning to fume.

Rhubella kissed her nose. "You said you were worried you couldn't look him in the eyes without thinking about our wedding oath, 'forsaking all others'? I've thought about this too. It's a bit extreme, but… you're Toonier than me. Extreme, is what it takes." From her pants pocket she pulled out a black silk blindfold and gently secured it around Fifi's eyes. "And now – we've got company."

When Babs' family had refurnished the extension for Fifi that Autumn, they had saved time by using some components that had been lying about the place. Babs and Buster's new burrow had used the armoured door of the ACME surplus missile silo, but it had left the tunnels and silo exhaust ducts unused – and the exhaust ducts had been plumbed into Fifi's part of the burrow as a safety device for the explosive skunkette (exactly how one stored and moved a tunnel was 'a bunny thing' and difficult to describe to other species).

Sometime towards midnight, the nocturnal inhabitants of Acme Forest were alarmed when the night was split with a thunderous roar. The exhaust vents' doors popped open and twin plumes of skunk fumes blasted out into the darkness. That night, it happened many times.

As the stars began to fade, a solitary figure emerged from the main flower-ringed Bunny family burrow entrance. Bonny Clarice Bunny looked around cautiously, and walked fifty paces out into the quiet woods. She carried her violin; the studious rabbit practiced for an hour a day and even now she had her own room, preferred not to risk waking her siblings.

Just as she was inspecting her instrument ready to play, she noted movement. Quietly stepping into the bushes, she looked on in interest as from the new doorway Rhubella emerged with a skunk who was certainly not Fifi. Rhubella handed him what looked like a black scarf, and whispered something in his ear.

The skunk male was tall, mature and distinguished-looking. As Bonny watched, he bowed respectfully to the rat and kissed her hand, then straightened up and clicked his heels together – a difficult feat with unshod feet. With another bow he turned and walked away into the forest, his splendid expanse of black and white tail waving a fond farewell.

Bonny smiled as she recognised him. Her rabbit tail twitched; her boyfriend was a younger skunk, Henri who was back home in France till the Christmas break, but it seemed she was not the only one around who liked two-tone fur. Handsome, successful, sophisticated. Oh, yes. Bonny nodded approvingly. She would not be mentioning this to anyone. It's a skunk-hunk thing.

End Chapter Seven