Chapter Eleven

The scene was the brand-new burrow that Babs and Buster had dug together in rabbit tradition, two miles further from Acme Acres and that much deeper into in the forest than Buster's old home. As Buster had pointed out with a slight (but very brief) twinge of sadness, they were no longer having to dash into class every morning.

"Right! Let's sum up just what the situation is." With Buster, George and Elmyra as her audience Babs spun-changed into a historical General's costume. She pulled a large blank presentation pad and easel from her Hammerspace pocket, and began to doodle. "The enemy forces – here." She drew a rapid and unflattering portrait of Ms Eleanor Vandensnaffel on one side of the sheet, with a vague and ill-defined Committee like a fog-bank behind her. "Commencing assault on friendly lines – here." A cheerful doodle of George and Elmyra standing hand in paw was soon on the other side of the paper. "And the main point of attack – these punks' schwerpunkt – is here." A caricature of Acme Looniversity with a giant symbolic anvil hanging threateningly over it was soon in the centre of the page.

Buster looked on, relaxed. "You're not going to just – move an anvil a little to the left and let it drop on the Committee?" he suggested.

Babs tapped at her jet-black riding-breeches with her General's baton. "Tempting. Very, very tempting. But no. Committees are like that Hydra you fought in Adventure Day 601 class, remember? Cut off one head and the rest just grow back. Hitting with large heavy objects, same effect." She hesitated, tapping her chisel teeth with the baton. "Though it would be fun."

"So, we need to find the body – it works for hydras, anyway." Buster paused, reminiscing. "That was a great show we did, Jason Bunny and the Argo-Toons. But it'd have been kind of nearer the original if you'd been the one tied to the rocks waiting to be sacrificed, not me."

His pink-furred wife snickered, pushing her black peaked cap up at a jaunty angle. "Well, blue-boy, this is the twenty-first century! Besides – you looked good in your bare fur."

"Hey!" Buster protested "I had my gloves on all the time – and sandals! Which is more than Professor Bugs generally wears. The sandals were authentic, too. Argonaut-surplus stock."

"Thinking of Professor Bugs… like he says, rabbits have to use their brains, not their muscles." Babs blushed, casting a sidelong glance at George, the big lepine staring at Elmyra enraptured with his mouth wide open "present company excepted, of course." She strode up and down, her polished jackboots squeaking slightly as she thought hard. "We need an inside angle. And how do we need to do it? No way but..." she wriggled her ears invitingly. Buster rose and stood next to her, posed in mirror symmetry.

"Babs and Buster style!" That pair chorused, bumping tails.

"We need a disguise… something with amazing powers. So we can…" Babs broke off, considering the matter.

"Amaze people?" Buster suggested, one ear dipped quizzically.

Babs grinned. "I'd go in as Wonder-Bunny, but that costume needs cleaning. As you well know." She winked to Elmyra. "Wonder-bunny. Lots of amazing powers but she can't walk past a simple backyard washing line without getting tangled in it and losing her abilities, just in time for a handsome villain to take advantage. All in the best possible taste and for genuine plot reasons, of course." She sighed, a martyred expression on her face. "My poor cotton-tail… it was left like a soaked dish-rag. It took ages to clean and dry."

"If Wonder-Bunny ever came out and admitted she really likes that kind of thing, bang goes her Comics Code Approval ™," Buster looked up at the burrow ceiling innocently. "And here's everyone thinking she just had a perfectly practical reason for all those lasso tricks."

"So, she's out – till I get that costume dry-cleaned. And all the other super-characters Warner Brothers has the rights to are busy having their franchises rebooted." Babs pondered.

"All the A-list are. There's a whole gang that nobody ever heard of." Buster pointed out. "Usually for good reasons."

Babs nodded. "Like that one Hampton played for laughs in the third-year. How did the lyrics go? Oh, yeah," She sang:

"Spidey-ham, spidey-ham, can't do anything a spidey can

Can't spin a web, any size, can't catch crooks, he just eats flies…"

"Bleah." She stuck her pink tongue out in disgust. "Definitely not that one. But what about…" Babs spin-changed into an unfamiliar spandex outfit complete with a paw full of red star-shaped shurikens. "All quail before the might of Captainette Glorious Federated States of Western Molvania (Formerly Democratic People's Soviet Socialist Republic of Molvanian Federation)! Fighting for Truth, Justice and the Righteous Way of the [Glorious Federated States of Western Molvania (Formerly Democratic People's Soviet Socialist Republic of Molvanian Federation)]!" She frowned. "Bit of a mouthful. By the time I've said all that, the bad guys are long gone."

"Plus she only gets her powers kicking in after her late-evening snack. A bit of a downer," Buster agreed.

"That's a supper-heroine for you. How about this? Wacky-land's own crazed cowboys? Cow-bunnies, I mean." Babs spun out of her spandex uniform and reappeared in classical Western outfit, complete with guitar. "Dey ride, dey ride, de ranged all day, dey ride, dey ride, deranged…" she sang and strummed cheerfully. (Since Gogo Dodo had left for Japan, the Surrealist side of town had been ruled by a pretty Sphinx girl and three wild lion males who she had liberated from a circus. Things were managed more discreetly than many Toons expected who had expected it to de-evolve into Tacky-Land. As Sphinxie often said, she had her pride.)

"I think that's "de range"… but around here? You were maybe right first time." Buster stood for a moment in thought. "But how about… it's a while since the VanderBunnys got any screen time."

"Of course! Bertram and Buffy VanderBunny… now related. Really." Babs spun again and reappeared in a stylish, expensive-looking skirt-suit. She stood poised with Buster, hand in paw as he changed into a yachting blazer and cap emblazoned with the crest of an exclusive BosToon sailing club that would make even a Perfecto graduate look twice – once in admiration and again in envy. Their wedding rings sparkled, Buster appearing un-gloved for a change. She snickered. "The perfect snobby pair to promote same-species family values." She looked down admiring her old golden ring; even before they had married as Babs and Buster, the VanderBunnys had been a married pair. It had been a role she loved practicing as a full dress-rehearsal for the real thing.

"I was wondering when we'd give this pair an airing," Buster mused, lounging nonchalantly. "They've served us well."

"As long as you can keep to the script." Babs winked at Elmyra. "You weren't there in rehearsals for that scene we were planning our first Summer holiday… Buster bloopered. He only had to sing 'I will slack off every second that I can '. That's not what he came out with." She cast her buck a knowing wink. "We could believe his version, though. Healthy young 'jack' rabbit buck and all that. With a beautiful pink-furred doe to dream about." She posed seductively.

The blue buck's ear twitched in irritation. "I meant to say 'slack' off! Even if that's not what came out. They changed it to 'goof off' in the final edit anyway."

"Good thing we weren't going out live on air – or goodbye forever to our U rating. Oh, those blooper reels…" Babs sighed in happy reminiscence.

"You should know, former Miss Freudian slip fashion model of the week, you were on most of them" Buster gently tweaked his wife's cottontail. "I bet you pretty much wore out a Freudian patterned slip every season. You certainly got them dirty enough to need a lot of washing."

Babs put on a haughty air. "Why, Buster Bunny. When a distinguished lady talks about her rabbit hole – of course she's referring to traditional architecture. That's where we come from."

Elmyra scratched her head, puzzled. "I thought magicians pulled bunnies out of top hats?"

Babs cast her and George a sly glance. "You really DID sleep through that biology class. Never mind, you two'll find out where bunnies come from. And you won't need a top hat."

Elmyra's eyes went wide. Suddenly she giggled. "Oh. I get it now."

"Get it? I'll bet you do. I bet you do. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more." Babs quoted happily. "The problem is, this Eleanor Vandensnaffel doesn't appreciate the idea. Since she lost her boyfriend to a rabbit doe, she's been down on the idea ever since."

"That boyfriend, he must have been a human of rare taste and distinction," Buster mused. "They do exist. Jessica Rabbit, for starters."

"And Mary Melody, of course, even if she's aiming to be Mrs. My Not-so-Little and Not-exactly-a Pony. She's got her own axe to grind… but there's enough bulk on Ms Vandensnaffel for us all to carve a piece or two. Now, what Mary told us about Coal Black and what souvenirs she's got… that's interesting. I feel a Cunning Plan coming on."

"Take two aspirins and a tongue depressor – better still, a tongue elater – and call me in the morning." Buster demonstrated his spin-change technique, suddenly attired as a white-coated doctor specialising in bedside manners. "You can call me sweetheart."

Babs sighed happily. "Right. Now – we've set the stage – set the theatre – it's time to operate!"

Two spin-change blurs resolved once more as the Vanderbunnys. They held hands, posed in mirror sync, and chorused once more "Babs and Buster style!"


Back in a very different Acme Acres, the sun was beating down on a riverbank where two mallards stood poised over the shallows with fish-spears.

"Gotcha!" Margot spotted a curving shadow and stabbed down. The serrated metal point ground on a rock from thin metal that once had been part of a Numbmindo games console skewered the fish neatly. She pulled it out, and added it to the three that were already on her copper-wire belt. She was walking around unconcealed these days – there was nobody but Plucky to see her, and she relished the feel of the sunshine on her feathers. All her feathers. Besides, there were two small hungry bills to feed and her surviving clothes only got in the way.

"That'll do for lunch." Plucky nodded back towards the temporary reed shelter on the bank where the hatchlings lay asleep in the shade. "Woo-hoo! We're really nailing this fishing business. Enough for everyone and twenty pounds of smoked fillets back at the hut."

"Mmm." Margot busied herself blowing the camp fire embers back to life. "Makes you count your blessings. If Shirley had been an Emperor Penguin, not a Loon… you'd be 'in the wild' on the Antarctic ice shelf, balancing eggs on your feet and finding out just how cold duck feet really can get."

Plucky shivered at the idea. He looked over the two fledglings, his eyes softening. "It's been a week. Their first week. We have to name them. I didn't have any girl's names thought up. Shirley was going to handle all that."

"You've finally realised we're stuck here." Margot relaxed in the shade.

Plucky nodded. "I had to someday. But I had to give it time first. We might have been rescued." He flinched, remembering the Disaster Films 401 class in his fourth year. Having an improvised plotline involving being one of a party stuck in a lift in an abandoned mineshaft, the question of who to eat first would have arisen sometime. That was reasonable enough, surely. But he privately admitted that six minutes into being trapped had perhaps been a little hasty, even for him. From the one bite he had managed before being decisively sat on by the rest of the party, Fowlmouth really did taste exactly like chicken.

"Well, it's up to you to name them. They're not mine." They're not yours either, according to Shirley, Margot thought wryly. And she should know. Leaving him holding the hatchlings five thousand years away, means never having to say you're sorry.

"We should choose the names between us. They're part of you now, sort of. You're… feeding them." His eyes bulged at the thought. Margot's always stunning figure had grown several sizes, and from her expression when the hatchlings suckled she had found a new hobby she was greatly enjoying. The fact that she had originally planned the change purely for entertainment value was mind-boggling to the green mallard.

Margot looked him in the eyes. "Plucky Duck. Are you asking me to carry on doing that – all of us as a family? You want to make an honest woman of me?" She winked. "That's a big job for anyone to take on. Still, it's me or – maybe there are locals migrating through here in Autumn." She quietly crooned – "If I was the only girl in the world, and you were the only boy..."

Plucky was silent. "Shirley wouldn't marry me even when I begged her to. She wouldn't even stay with me. She dumped me thousands of years into the past, without even a picnic hamper. It's like being on a desert island, but worse – there's no ship out there to be rescued by."

Smart girl, Shirley. Even stuck here I wouldn't be – investing – in just anyone's chicks. Good chromoplasm in these. And I'm glad they weren't born with sharp beaks, only flat bills. Margot raised an eyebrow. "Well, at least around here we won't have to worry about what the neighbours think. I'm in no hurry. They'll build Acme Acres over there in maybe six thousand years then we can talk about it over a Foulplay traded coffee." She paused. "By then, I expect I could REALLY use one."

"We should maybe name them after something they'll never see, living here. Name them after something excellent, to keep the name alive." Plucky looked at the pale loon fledglings.

"Ferrari and Porsche?" Margot snickered. "At least they won't be bullied in school for having dumb names. No school. And who's around but us who speaks the language anyway?"

Plucky's eye fell on the empty Luxovice Lightweight wrapper that was included in their fire-lighting collection. "Candy. I can't ever give my kids candy. I can only give them the name." Plucky's eyes went wide. "I'll miss it too. That's what we'll call that one." He looked over at Margot.

"Well, hello to you, little Candi. I know what I'll miss more – seeing there's not a drop to drink around here but water. I appreciated a fine cognac brandy. So, Candi and Brandi?" Margot threaded the gutted fish on peeled willow twigs and propped them above the embers to roast. "Sounds a good pair." The food was healthy around here, she had to admit – and in a world without sugar and alcohol the two young loons would never need a dentist or a hangover cure.

"Candi and Brandi. Our girls. They won't ever see a schoolyard or a classroom – or a prom night, or a high-school dance. Or a movie." Though it caused his conscience a twinge, Plucky had to admit that Acme Looniversity had had its share of fun times. "But just think what we can tell them! We'll educate them ourselves. We'll tell them everything about where we're from, all about TV, and video games, and shopping malls, and…" he broke off, noticing Margot's disbelieving stare. "What?"

Margot sadly shook her head. She gestured at the fish steaming over the coals. "Plucky. We'll be lucky if we can catch them enough fish and clams to keep us all alive through the winters. You're going to tell them about food halls piled head-high with the most amazing feasts of foods they'll never taste, enough for hundreds of people, then tell them when they're hungry – we had all that, whenever we wanted it, but you can't ever have any? Not that I ever much cared about doing good, but… is that a good thing to do to the chicks?"

Plucky gulped, turning a sickly shade of pale green. "I hadn't thought of that." His feathers drooped, and he was silent for a minute. "But there's a lot we can pass on to them – stories and songs and the wisdom of the ages… even if the ages haven't happened yet. Hey! It'll put them way ahead of the game."

Margot nodded. "That sounds more like it. Did you memorise a lot like that?"

The green mallard pulled out his air guitar from Hammerspace. "Sure! I know hundreds of songs! My favourite band are…" his feathers drooped as realisation hit him. "The ones Shirley's making hot videos with now. Deaf Mettle Foundry. I'm their biggest supporter. I downloaded rips of all their albums off a server in KazakhsToon – and I've sneaked into their local gigs to bootleg ALL their live tracks."

"I'm sure they'd be very happy to hear that." Margot sat back, watching the fish cook. She could more easily see why Shirley would drop Plucky than ever take up with him in the first place. Opposites attracted, certainly – but more often than not the attraction finished in a violent planetary collision and ricochet with trailing debris. It looked like this time round some of the forgotten debris had been egg-shaped.

Plucky closed his eyes. He resolved to run through all the songs he knew, and make notes of them before they had a chance for the memories to fade. In his head was the only copy on this timeline of Deaf Mettle Foundry's first album, 'Spilled Ink for the Ink God.' His feather-fingers found the virtual chords on his air guitar, just as he recalled the first verse of his favourite track, 'Lost Canticle of Resorbius'. He sang:

"Out of the shadows of night, comes Resorbius

Seven fold demon he flies – the new moon is rising

Higher and higher and higher!

Resorbius! Incarnate again, brings despair

You slay him but know he'll repair!

Defeated, his body burns

But always, he shall return…."

Margot clapped, smiling. Plucky was actually rather good on air guitar. "Now that's really one they should make a film about. I read that time travel book where someone goes back and accidentally steps on a butterfly – and history changes."

Plucky looked around, blinking. "I don't see any butterflies. It's too early in the year."

Margot cast him a sidelong glance, then looked over at the sleeping chicks. "So far. But a world that started its oral culture with Dark Metal tracks and carried on from there – that looks like it'd turn out interesting."


Meanwhile, back at the ranch – "ranch" being very broadly the corral of unruly talents Colonel Fenix was tasked with keeping corralled and on task, that same Colonel was regretting his latest recruiting campaign. The scene was just outside of one of the ex-military trailers he had parked outside the McLoon household.

"Tell me, Corporal Barnes," the phoenix said slowly, looking into the trailer from the open door "exactly why is my office stacked wall to wall with a multi-coloured sea of waste bins?" The floor of the trailer was like an empty honeycomb, with open-topped bins packed together neatly.

"Sir! As ordered, while you were away I organised the office. In accordance with regulations." The border collie saluted precisely. "Regulations say there must be a separate secure disposal for every grade of document, from Unclassified through to Deny All Existence, Sir!"

"Mmm. That's six categories. What about the rest?" Hal Fenix gestured with a feather-hand. "All neatly coded, I can see that." The Corporal was not cleared to know that there were actually another two categories above Deny All Existence, and both of them were nameless. This caused less confusion than it might, since both categories were for knowledge far too hideous to ever be discussed or preferably even thought about.

"Sir! There are separate regulations about handling wet waste. Biologically or ink-contaminated waste. Chemically active waste. Radioactive waste. Demonically Possessed, or Cursed, or Theologically Dangerous wastes. Multiply all security grades by all possible combinations, and…"

"I see. So, if I had a document that was classified Kinda Secret that was wet, radioactive, soaked in ToonPox virus and contained Grade 7 heresies that could take down one of the world's major religions if it ever leaked out, which bin would that one go in?" Hal raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly.

"Bin 107, Sir!" The border collie pointed instantly to a bright yellow bin with fetching pink polka-dots, away in the corner.

"And if… the document was written on asbestos?" Hal hid his delight as he saw the ultra-keen canine's ears and tail instantly droop. Gotcha. You didn't think of that one.

"Sir! Regret I'll have to… recalculate. And requisition some more bins." To his credit, Corporal Barnes pulled out a calculator right away.

"While you're at it, requisition another trailer. Move all these bins into it. And yourself." Hal shook his head. Barnes might have a useful Talent (technically, an anti-talent) and a PhD in Crowd Control, but there was no denying he was hard work sometimes. "After that – good work, Corporal, I'll authorise you another six hours pack drill running over Mount Acme with a pack full of bricks."

"Sir yes sir!" The canine saluted crisply, his eyes bright and his tail wagging enthusiastically. He dashed off to requisition a Form M-17339, Requisition of [other forms].

"I could wish he wasn't so exacting," The phoenix pondered. "It's better to be vague about some things. As they say, the Devil is in the details."

"Makes you glad he's on our side, really." Hal turned to see Melicent McLoon, who had been watching events in her backyard with a detached air. "You do need the numbers."

"Yes." Hal's expression was troubled. "We're being rushed off our feet. It's like it's suddenly Open Season declared on Earth. Is there any mystic reason? Stars aligning or some such?"

Melicent shook her head. "No. It should be quiet, till Jupiter moves into Orion and Pluto aligns with Clarabelle_Cow and Clara_Cluck in the outer dark, after the Autumn Equinox. We're hardly expecting even the usual dead rising from their graves. Anything that's happening – someone's making it happen."

"As if someone got all the keys to the trapdoors into this dimension. And is letting through everything else from his side of the Veil, than wants to come on down and party on Earth. That's clever. The things he's letting through are running interference for him." Colonel Fenix's tail hiked in agitation.

"You think it's this chocolate-fiend vampire?" Melicent cocked her head to one side. "I'm sure it's involved. But – is it the main player, or just one of the bit-part actors something else brought in?"

"I don't know. But we'd better stop it, soonest. Things are happening all over. Sergeant Gander just intercepted a consignment of genuine 1950's Weenie Cola that "someone" sent forward through time to a local Historical Re-enactment Society. It was the original Secret Weenie-Cola Recipe; that was lost forever in 1961 and can't be made any more."

"And that is bad… how?" Melicent asked, an amused smile on her bill.

Hal opened his mind to show an image of a three-storey tall building on a river island by a city – it looked more like a factory, with pipelines and big old-fashioned electrical transformers around it. The doors were open to show a two-storey tall metal cylinder the size of a petrol tanker, into which everything was plumbed. Wisps of cold gas and condensing snow drifted from the pipework. Various Toons in a mix of classic tan military uniforms and civilians in white shirts with first-generation nylon pocket protectors, horn-rimmed glasses and slide-rules were standing around, looking disconsolately at empty cups and pitchers.

"Oh – I see it. They're really dedicated re-enactors. They can't go ahead till every single detail's authentic. And they're re-enacting… is it Bikini Atoll? I wouldn't have thought just off the BosToon river front was the place to do it." Melicent recognised the BosToon skyline from her trips to discuss Unspeakable Knowledge at the nearby MiskaToonic University.

"Nearly. Enewetok atoll, to be precise. Once they'd got the authentic 1950's Weenie Cola made with the proper Secret Recipe, they would have had an authentic refreshing break, pulled back twenty miles and – re-enactment time." Hal paused, contemplating. "There goes the neighbourhood. And as it's classed as a cultural heritage thing, it's not actually illegal till they fire it. After all, it's not technically a bomb, it's a Device."

"Yes." Melicent shook her head as she noticed the logo on the cryogenic gas tankers in the photo. "Someone really should have a word with ACME, about selling liquid deuterium to just anyone who phones up with a credit card. It only causes trouble." The company were notorious for sending out anything from fully working death-rays to occasionally working rocket-driven pogo-sticks to Toons as young as Acme Looniversity first-years. Calamity Coyote was sadly not the only one to fall for their persuasive sales pitch.

"And that's not the only one. Everyone's getting swamped – us, the Other Agency, the Other, Other Agency, and half a dozen other nameless Agencies. I know, I'm a member of several of them myself." Hal winked, and pulled out a totally blank business card. "After a point it gets less confusing, the more you join, really. But it's just as well your grand-children are out of the way."

"Even though they aren't where Shirley thinks they are. Oh, I've been watching them all the time." Melicent sighed. "While she was trying to hide them from her comrades, she couldn't even think about them in case they picked up the trail." She looked up at the clear skies. "There's danger where they are, but it's safer than here right now. No vengeful vampire on their astral trail – even if it read Shirley's mind, she couldn't give the location away because she hasn't done the calculation. Even so, she expects her spell just threw Plucky and the eggs clear. It didn't. It picked up Margot too and that threw things way out."

"As long as you know where they are. And I think your mind's about as well shielded as anyone's. Not that Shirley's at all bad, considering her experience." Hal smiled. "Acme Looniversity didn't do badly, considering none of their courses supported our kind of business. Then, neither did mine."

"Where did you go, exactly?" Melicent asked, interested. "Not to Acme Loo, you said." She recalled Hal regretting he had not attended the MiskaToonic University either, which would have given him a good head start in his career.

Hal's hard-to-explain avian teeth – flashed in a grin. "Believe it or not, I graduated from the original Rock and Roll High School, the famous one. There's still songs about that place. The four Ramone brothers were the year behind me; the only non-identical quadruplets I've ever met." He raised an eyebrow as Melicent mentally showed him where Plucky had got to. "Well. That's different. Safe from most pursuit, all the way out there."

"It has its dangers. But I have faith in Plucky." Melicent contemplated that idea. "More than my dear daughter has, to be honest. And here, there's always that chance that five hundred ferrotonnes of Intercontinental Ballistic Anvil is headed your way."

"Mmm. We're getting a lot of visitors from Outside, that's a fact." Hal's feathery antennae twitched, and a wry smile came to his beak. "Still, it's not all bad. Some inter-dimensional buyer spent a lot of money in town today. I'm not sure if he got it straight just what the customer wanted, though." He flashed her a mental image of two big removal trucks driving out through a Dimensional gate. One was filled with Catholic prayer books, and the other was laden with extravagant high-fashion hats.

Melicent smiled. "Oh, he might have got it right. After all – there's always an export market for missals and advanced millinery technology!"


Saturday morning a mile and a half away was somewhat less troubled. Fifi awoke with a smile on her face, yawned – and looked around the room. A bright Toon blush lit the room.

"Mon dieu! I 'ave – done it again." She spotted the two sleeping skunk males, and the memories of the previous night came flooding back.

"And again, and again, and again..." She rolled over to see Rhubella nose-to-nose in the bed with her. They kissed, tongues getting entangled in a Toonish manner. Rhubella sighed happily. "It's a good thing we found athletes. I always wondered what they meant by – 'Olympic standard' and now I know."

Fifi blushed. "I 'ope I 'ave not... 'urt zem?"

Rhubella looked down to the mattress where Rene and Jacques were still sleeping soundly – the bed was certainly big enough for two, but not for four. "I'm sure they'll be fine after a morning's rest. Toons are resilient. Athletes – doubly so." She stroked Fifi's soft purple fur. "You're amazing."

Fifi relaxed. "I am a lucky girl. To 'ave found anothair 'oo understands." It was probably a consequence of the Law of Conservation of Comedy, she reflected – she and Rhubella had fallen in love with each other, yet otherwise both remained extremely interested in "skunk-hunks". She hesitated. "Ruby. I know you do not want to do anything to… confuse ze stork, you say."

Rhubella nodded, looking down at her white stork feather – currently all she was wearing apart from her wedding ring. "Can't risk it. Storks make some pretty awful foul-ups anyway. All these handsome skunk-hunks are for you."

Fifi smiled, following her wife's wistful gaze to the two sleepers. "Aftair ze stork 'as been… If you wish it, Ruby, I will – try and return ze favour. Eef I can. Maybe I can nevair find ze 'andsome males for myself – but maybe I can find zem for vous."

"Mmmm. I thought when I married you, I'd found myself the hottest girl in town. I don't think so now." Rhubella's gaze was steady.

Fifi's ears and tail drooped. "Non?" She asked, in a small voice.

Rhubella laughed, hugging her tight. "Now I think I'm lucky enough to have the hottest girl – in the world!"


Down by Lake Acme, there were two toons who had not been told of Plucky's recent change of address. Gladys and Gracie were waddling towards the nest site carrying Plucky's breakfast plus his weekend's food supplies in their basket. The smell of freshly reheated pizza wafted across the swamp.

"He'll like this, I'm sure," Gladys commented. "I never felt right handing him all that food he really didn't want to eat." Suddenly she stopped, and a worried expression wrinkled her bill. "If Shirley isn't coming back – are we going to be doing this forever, Gracie? When the ducklings hatch, and everything."

Gracie shrugged. "As long as Shirley keeps paying. She's making money now, anyway. If she doesn't like what we're buying with it now, she can just do it herself. Anyway – I don't mind helping Plucky out, and the eggs." She sighed. "If only the stork would bring us some."

"We've tried, a lot longer than Margot's friend Rhubella did," Gladys agreed, her finger-feathers entwined with Gladys'. "She's got one on the way, from Fifi. So it can happen."

Just then they rounded the corner. And stopped, gazing wide-eyed at the water-filled crater where the nest had been. There was not a twig or a feather left of it.

Though they had never qualified for Acme Looniversity, both Toons' natural talents kicked in with a prize-giving Wild Take, their eyes bulging. They looked around wildly, as if expecting to see the nest moved to higher ground against the Autumn rains, or similar good reason to be elsewhere.

"Margot. We'll ask Margot. She's just around the corner," Gracie fought her panic down. "Maybe she knows where they've gone."

"Right. It can't have been anything world-shattering... we'd have heard about it." Though the nest site was in a secluded part of the swamp, there were always Toons passing by, and the two duck girls knew all their neighbours. They waddled in tense silence round the corner to the orange plastic life-raft, and found it empty. It looked as if it had been abandoned for days.

Two plain avians stared at each other in plain panic. Gladys pulled out her phone and dialled Margot's T-pad. She stared at the screen a minute, then silently showed the screen to Gracie.

"Device not found on all networks. Not stolen, or switched off, or gone to Mars – it's just – not there anymore." Gracie blinked. She began to dial another number, one they had been asked to keep off except for emergencies. This looked as if it fitted the bill.


That morning, Shirley was enjoying a few hours of much-needed relaxation, with the door to her caravan physically bolted and psychically warded against all intrusion. She was sitting cross-legged, levitating six inches above her bean-bag as she chanted her mantra:

"Ommmm, what a loon I ammmm…

Ommmm, what a loon I ammmm…"

While her bruised spirit-body rested and healed, her thinking mind ran through the previous day's events. She had kept in touch with all her Acme Looniversity friends – and some of them had surprising news. On the computer was a message replying to Calamity Coyote – the young tech genius had puzzled over an email from Japan, that had been entirely in binary machine-code. Not that he had taken more than a minute to decipher it, but the puzzle had been the message itself – someone had wanted Gogo Dodo's Number. Not his telephone number, but his cabalistic Number.

"Like, that's a good call by Calamity," Shirley nodded to her aura. "I'm the one to ask, fer sure." She had taken Gogo Wackston Dodo's name transcribed into ancient Hebrew and combined it with the dates his egg had been laid and hatched to calculate his numerological identifier.

Just like 666 is the Number of the Beast – and I bet Calgari has that on his phone's speed-dial – 1024 is the Number of Gogo, Last of the Dodos, her aura confirmed. Strange. A bird that odd, you'd totally think it'd be an odd number.

Shirley snickered. "That's just one more mondo odd thing about him. And someone needs to know it." She recalled seeing the picture of Gogo's Japanese girlfriend, a beautiful numerically controlled fabrication device normally used in shaping aircraft parts. The wacky bird had dated a wide range of domestic appliances and industrial machinery around Acme Acres, but now had found true love – and she evidently wanted his numeric input to work on.

Maybe he won't be last of the Dodos much longer, her aura commented if she's naturally into building flying things and tooled up for mass production… If Gogo would return to Wackyland was anyone's guess; although everyone had thought he needed its ambient insanity to survive for any length of time, apparently Japan was weird enough to sustain him.

Just then her telephone rang. She exerted her telekinesis, bringing it floating over. Her eyebrow rose as she noted Gracie's number. "Like, Shirley here." Her feathers bristled slightly at the panic-stricken voice until she realised what Gracie was describing. "Oh, it's cool. It was an emergency spell I'd put on the nest in case anything totally heavy went down. Sent Plucky and my daughters off to this safe haven time line, you know?"

She nodded, as Gracie described the scene further. "Fer sure. This major demon's in our part of the astral plane, snacking on Toons who snack on these cursed candy bars. We're hunting it." A thought struck her. "Like, you should avoid Luxovice Lightweight bars big-time. I'm just glad Plucky's never had any, with the harmonious diet you've been bringing him. Fer sure – that's what I said. Luxovice Lightweight. Why?"

There was an extra-gross sound-effect she was all too familiar with, that generally announced the sudden arrival of a ton of guano on the stage. Shirley heard it in stereo over the phone. Suddenly the colour drained out of her feathers as Gracie stammered out an explanation. "You fed him WHAT? One every day?" She had been content that the astral vampire had tracked Plucky by what it had read in her mind – Plucky was gone from that spot, and she thought he had left no trace. But if he had been eating the candy too – wherever he was, he was radiating a signal that the invader could follow with enough motivation. Having read her mind as to just what the mallard and eggs were to her – Shirley was sure it was extremely motivated.

This time, the sound effect was much nearer home. And it sounded like two tons of guano appearing on the scene.

"It's time to like bring them home. Now." Shirley put the phone down and summoned up all her energies. The spell on the nest had been accumulating power for weeks; she only had to plug it in the landscape's natural energy flows and leave it charging. This she would have to do the hard way. She brought the spell to mind and began the calculations – this was what Calamity Coyote would have called the difference between writing a program and actually running it. Input was the physical and psychic "weight" of Plucky and her eggs, plus the nest and its protections.

"Opening portal – now." She gasped with effort, summoning what looked like a portable hole but one that extended between the timelines. She looked through, nodding with relief as she checked it was exactly where she had intended to get to. There was a pristine Lake Acme, a sky clear of all pollution and a land unspoiled by its inhabitants. She sent her aura through, and experienced a stomach-churning spiritual disorientation as it was suddenly in a different time zone. A clock seen through the portal would hardly seem to be working, the seconds hand moving no faster than a minute hand usually would.

The landscape was certainly unspoiled. In fact it was empty – her aura spotted some distant bison toons, but apart from that there was nobody around. No Plucky, no eggs – nothing within a day's walk or swim of where the nest should have appeared. There was no trace of the nest, either.

"Like, gah…." Shirley's bill fell wide open in shock "where ARE they?" She called her aura back, and they furiously recalculated the spell. "There's no problem here – that spell threw that weight – here." She froze. Her electronics jinx should have stopped Plucky bringing into the nest anything like his beatbox or anything else that would have put the weight up – she had even calculated the amount of food there would have been uneaten when the spell fired.

But those two brainless feather dusters fed him chocolate, her aura remarked sourly who knows what else they brought him? The vision of Plucky sitting on the nest with a complete hundred-pound weight set of printed encyclopaedias to while away the time flashed across their minds. Well, maybe not that – but something.

Shirley's finger-feathers stabbed at her phone, dialling back to Gracie. "Gracie? Like, if I wasn't so centred I'd be totally furious with you two but – just tell me. Is anything else gone? Something that could have been in the nest with Plucky? Or near enough to get grabbed in the spell?"

Had Shirley been more prone to slapstick, her beak would probably have fallen off. "Margot Mallard's missing too?" She knew she was out of Calamity's league in maths, but she could add two and two together. Liking the result or not was no part of the math. She put the phone down, her eyes wide in horror. Not just that Margot had probably gone along for the ride – and with a Perfecto graduate there was no telling her motivations – but she had no clear idea of how much she weighed.

"Think. She's a head taller than me. She's built physically powerful – like she's trying to compensate for a bogus aura. She's got mammal chromoplasm in the family. No tail-feathers - Maybe she's got solid bones, mammal style? And she's got mammal… bulges. Way gross." Shirley unconsciously brushed her feather-fingers down her smooth sweep of frontal feathers. Unlike me, a pure-bred avian, she reminded herself proudly – I've everything a bird needs, and nothing I shouldn't have…

Margot's a Perfecto grad. Probably wearing a heavy armoured suit with a stash of gold bars for emergencies, her aura commented acidly. And a platinum credit card made from real platinum.

"Hush, you. This is bad enough." She shushed her blue-glowing astral form, guesstimated Margot's weight and recalculated the spell. "Oh, like totally wow. That'd put them – way over there. Maybe not even in a slow running zone after all."

What if Margot went for a morning swim? Wet feathers are heavy. Shirley's aura seemed to be enjoying herself.

Shirley blinked. Opening up dimensional gates like this was hard work. Holding a gate open long enough to explore rather than just grabbing her eggs and shepherding Plucky home, was harder. Having to recalculate timelines a dozen times and more with different starting weights was starting to look ruinous – and she had no idea of the strength of Margot Mallard's aura, which would have affected all the variables.

Like, go for it. Her aura merged with her physical body, adding her energies. They took their best guess and cast the portal spell again. Her aura plunged through like a ghostly reconnaissance drone and spent four minutes exploring. This one's a mondo nega-toro.

She closed the portal as soon as her aura returned and sat back, gasping. Just then there came a knock on her trailer door. Shirley relaxed her wardings a crack and took a look outside – her tail-feathers drooped as she spotted Angelina and Calgari standing outside.

"Like, what do you two Sith lord wannabes want?" she snapped.

Angelina held out her feather-hands placatingly. "We could spot what you're trying to do. Do you think you can hide that much power drain?"

"Come over to laugh?" Shirley looked at the pair disdainfully.

"Actually – we're here to help." Calgari winked. "We're on your team now, remember? And we have a responsibility to try and guide you to the light." A special-effect halo appeared over his head, only spoiled by being furnace yellow-red rather than white.

"You'll never do it, the way you're trying to. It's like breaking down every door in a city, trying to find someone," Angelina said. "I've got a tracker spell. It only needs one of your feathers and a drop of blood. It'll trace your chicks, fer sure. No matter how far in sideways time they are." She showed Shirley what she had in mind.

Shirley hesitated. True, she had enough energy for another three or four goes – but parallel times were stacked like pages in a library of books piled up across several dimensions. "I'll do it. I found out Plucky's been eating those candy bars. The astral vampire has his number."

"Oh, we found out how those work," Angelina said. "We've just been with Colonel Fenix. Almost all of them are really low-level cursed. But one in every crate – whoo-hoo! It's like having a Geiger counter scanning chunks of granite, just a few slow clicks on the dial, then the hundredth one – pure pluToonium. Needle goes off the scale. Falls right off."

"He had one of those mondo cursed ones." Shirley felt herself growing paler. "He can be tracked."

"Then there's no time to stand around arguing - 'hey ho, let's go!' As they used to say." Calgari grinned. "I just need a drop of your blood and a feather plucked willingly by you."

Shirley hesitated, but started to reach for her tail-feathers. Then she noticed in the mirror the gleeful look on Angelina's face, the magpie standing behind her. "No way! I just remembered Mother telling me what you can DO with that."

"No blood and feather, no spell. It's up to you. We're only trying to help." Calgari's beak had a well-practiced expression of injured innocence.

Shirley thought for a second, and then a slow smile spread over her bill. "So you can, like, help. I want that tracker spell. And I'll ask Colonel Fenix if he can spare that totally cursed Misfortune cookie pretending to be a candy bar. I have an idea."

Twenty minutes of Shirley's elapsed time later, she stepped out into another unspoiled version of Acme Acres.

This is it! I can see Plucky's ego from here! His aura, I mean, Shirley's aura flared bright with excitement. She had used the cursed candy itself as a tracker – betting that they only existed on Earth, she had used the spell with one modification – to exclude all traces except those away from her Earth timeline. Plucky's trace had appeared like a faint star appearing at dusk, once the tainted mass of the bars on Earth had been filtered out.

"You didn't have to come with me," she looked down her beak at her classmates.

"Oh – think nothing of it," Calgari replied smoothly. "We could use a break. And a laugh." He had noticed the local time distortion was running sixty 'times' faster than at their home plane.

They rounded the corner and spotted a reed hut that Shirley had last seen in Acme Acres – Plucky's old home. Inside was the nest she had built. Two mallards were in there asleep on what looked like a two-tone brown fur blanket, and two white chicks nestled between them. She froze. "They've already hatched. And bonded. And I wasn't there."

"My, how the time does fly," Angelina looked up at the dawn skies innocently. "Looks like everyone's alive and well." She rummaged for a brown foil pack, and offered it to Shirley. "It's breakfast time, here. Want a goat's blood MRE? Tlalocopa just got issued a stock, official issue. It's a chupocabra ethnic thing." She handed one to Calgari, who accepted it eagerly.

"Mondo gross." Shirley waved it away in disgust. Her eyes widened as they took in the scene. Plucky was in his bare feathers except for a fur hat reminiscent of a Davy Crockett style, except the tail part was not from a raccoon. Margot wore nothing – and more shockingly, was unconcealed though fast asleep. Shirley had seen her at the beach, and knew she naturally concealed. Or she used to. "Gah. How can she do that while she's asleep? Unless…" She remembered what Red Hot Riding Hood had once told the girls on the senior year, that Toons who normally 'walked around concealed' could chose to forever lose the ability by a determined act of will. Then her bill caught the mallards' scents – she sniffed in confusion, until she realised. The wrong scents were coming from the wrong birds.

Shirley looked on in horror. "Can you scent that? Plucky… his feathers are waterproofed – he's wearing her oils!" Her mood ring had flashed yellow in shock, but in a few seconds it darkened to black shot with an angry blood-red.

"And she wears his, all over. Isn't that sweet? What a darling, old-fashioned notion." Angelina snickered. "Looks like there's no wedding ring boutique around here – can you imagine that?" She looked at Shirley's mood ring, licking her sharp beak-edges appreciatively. "Oh, yes. Revenge time! Or if you're still, like, squeamish… just channel someone who'd be like mondo happy to do the job for you." Her light mental probe offered Shirley the psychic equivalent of a telephone number. "Call up my wolf friend Ilse from the 1940's… she's totally into that. And whatever she does won't be your fault. It's Karma-light."

"Or if you prefer – try a little something I've been tinkering with. I got an A for it in Practical Metaphysics class last term," Calgari smiled subtly. "It's an over-bored, stripped-down, hot-rodded, afterburning, jacked-up Egyptian Curse. Nineteenth Dynasty, full porphyry jacket. I think you'll be impressed."

"Coolest! What does it do?" Angelina's black eyes gleamed like polished coal.

The raven winked at her. "Put it like this… the last toon I tried it on? They think it was probably his gall bladder someone spotted bouncing down a country road in Wisconsin. Definitely it was some of his feathers that burned up on re-entry over the Antarctic icecap." He offered Shirley the psychic equivalent of a recipe.

Shirley blocked it with her mental shield, shaking her head in disgust. She slowly walked over to the two loon chicks, and her expression softened. They had been hatched for nearly a month, their time. A month that she had promised herself so much and would never see now. Both woke up in the same instant and fixed their eyes on her.

Shirley looked at them, her heart melting. Her mind made contact with them – and her expression froze at what she saw. She half-heatedly swatted at the intruding mental probe Angelina slid in while her defences were down, but not before the magpie had managed to peek at what she had read.

"Looks like they've not had a sheltered life," Angelina whispered to Calgari. "That fur they were sleeping on – it's wolverine fur. Plucky and Margot had a close encounter with one. Nil points, Team Wolverine. It involved a big pit full of spikes and them finishing the job with those spears. Way gladiator style. Nice."

"I can't believe it. They totally, killed and like – cut its dead body up and – ate it? They gave some of its flesh to my chicks to eat and – clothed them in its dead skin?" All the colour drained from Shirley's feathers. "They've eaten what was like, a murder?"

"Hey, it's all-natural, locally sourced organic food, like you keep going on about. So why are you complaining? Loons aren't natural vegetarians, so what's with you and all that Tofu?" Angelina sidled up to a horrified Shirley. "Besides – you want they should have tried relationship therapy with a wild wolverine? I know how that'd have ended. Wolverine four, waterfowl nil."

"Anyway – I can see you need to work more on your harmony. Colonel Felix only needs balanced Toons on his team," Calgari added.

"Me? Me unbalanced?" Shirley's beak fell wide open in shock.

"Fer sure." Angelina winked at her. "We're modern Samurai, totally into Zen harmonies. Don't you think so?"

Shirley wavered. She had thought of the idea a few times, trying to reconcile her nature and her job. "Well, maybe. But, so?"

"Samurai. They weren't just sword-waving Toons," Angelina's voice almost purred. "They were cultured; major into calligraphy and tea ceremonies, and Zen. They could put down their writing brush, turn and cut a ninja clean in half from shoulder to hip in one blow, clean the sword then sit down and finish the calligraphy without even raising their pulse. That's balance."

"Anyway – you chose to send Plucky and your chicks somewhere to live as part of the ecosystem, right? Maybe not here but one like it, right? It's an ecosystem. Ducks get eaten by predators sometimes. Or hadn't you thought about that bit?" Calgari put in.

Both loon chicks looked up at Shirley – then turned their beaks away and wriggled over to snuggle next to Margot. The sleeping mallard stirred, a smile on her beak as they started to nurse.

"Whose chicks, exactly?" Calgari put in snidely. "Not yours. They don't think so."

"Anyway – grab them and let's get out of here." Angelina shrugged. "If something's worth having, it's worth stealing. Mind over matter. We don't mind and they don't matter."

Shirley looked at the white loon chicks. She hesitated.

"It's not a problem," Calgari whispered in her ear-hole. "Grab them and – bamf! We're out of here, back to our timeline. They're legally yours, any chromoplasm test would prove it."

"Besides – what are those two going to do about it – call the cops? Around here?" Angelina's wing flicked dismissively, covering Plucky, Margot and the wide, primordial landscape.

"They'll probably just think some wandering sabre-tooth tiger grabbed the chicks for canapés. I can help." Calgari exerted his mental force and a huge feline paw-print appeared in the riverbank mud just in front of Shirley. "There's the evidence. Case closed."

Shirley angrily stamped on the deceptive print – her own webbed feet were near enough the size and shape of Plucky's as made no odds – not only was he no Sherlock Holmes, but the most bumbling portrayals of Watson would have run rings round him any day. "Like, totally no way." She bowed her head. Taking four charged crystals out of her official issue Molle webbing pouch [Unit M-2011 D Medium, Spell Component Carrier] she concentrated for half a minute with all her power. She drooped visibly and her aura dimmed with the power she was expending.

Angelina winked at her Addams Academy comrade. "See that? It's a Red Shoes series spell from Oz – the old 'there's no place like home.' That is so passé."

Shirley finished, gasping. She teleported the crystals to the inside of the reed hut, and with a light mental touch imparted on four sleeping minds exactly what they were – though none of them would be able to say exactly how they knew. "When they want to come home – they can. If they don't want to – that's like, karma."

End Chapter Eleven