Out from the vegetation burst Muffy, her dress gone, her slip fully exposed, tears flowing down her cheeks. As she struggled to pry a strip of duct tape from over her mouth, the kids in the playground took notice of her plight.

"Look, over there!" exclaimed Zeke England. "Something's happened to Muffy!"

"Bloody hell!" cried Beat when she laid eyes on the weeping, embarrassed girl.

"You said the H-word," Zeke pointed out.

Muffy, still tugging at the tape that clung to her skin, was soon surrounded by children she knew and some she didn't. "What happened to you?" asked the concerned Prunella.

"Mmph mmph mmph!" was all Muffy could manage. Impatient to hear her story, Binky grabbed one corner of the duct tape and pulled with all his might. "Mmph mmph oooowwwww!"

"Omigosh, Muffy, are you okay?" said Fern earnestly.

The monkey girl used her naked arm to wipe the tears from her eyes. "No, I'm not okay," she said bitterly. "My face stings like the dickens, and that horrible man stole my dress!"

The kids looked at her, puzzled. They looked at each other, puzzled.

"But what about you, Muffy?" Beat pressed her. "Did he hurt you at all?"

"My dress!" she wailed obliviously. "My beautiful dress! It was all I brought with me from Elci Kahaf, and now it's gone, gone!"

"We'll find the guy who did this," Binky vowed. "We'll find him, and I'll clobber him good."

"I'll clobber him myself!" cried the distraught girl.

Moments later she was seated in the principal's office, a mob of curious students assembled outside. "Tell me what happened, from the beginning," said substitute principal Rodentia Ratburn gently.

Muffy sniffled. "I went into the bushes," she recounted. "A man grabbed me, and then he took off my jacket, and then he…he…"

"Did he violate you?" asked Miss Ratburn.

"No, worse," said Muffy miserably. "He took my dress!"

Rodentia clasped her hands thoughtfully.

"I want my dress back," Muffy demanded tearfully. "I don't care who you have to call—the police, the CIA, the Bunny League. That dress is the only thing I own that's not from Earth, and I want it back!"

"The police will look into this, I promise you," said the rat woman.

In the adjoining hallway, Arthur and George discussed what they had heard. "I don't get it," said Arthur. "Who would steal a girl's dress, but leave the girl behind?"

"The answer to that is so obvious," replied George. "On Orelob it's just another dress, but here on Earth it's advanced alien technology. Ka-ching, ka-ching, if you know what I mean."

"Gosh, you're right," said Arthur. "It could be worth millions of dollars…and Muffy's been showing it off everywhere."

Prunella, who had heard their exchange, grimaced with anxiety. Millions of dollars, the words echoed in her head. Millions of dollars…

She immediately sought out Sue Ellen, locating her on the other end of the crowd. Pulling the cat girl away by her wrist, she whispered roughly, "Does anybody know besides you?"

"Know what?" said Sue Ellen, confused.

Prunella tapped herself on the temple. "The ipchay in my ainbray," she muttered.

Sue Ellen only stared blankly—she had been exposed to many languages, but Pig Latin wasn't one of them.

"This is serious," the rat girl rasped. "If Muffy's dress is worth millions, then an alien mind control chip must be worth billions, or even jillions."

"I haven't told anyone," said her friend.

"Good," said Prunella, "because if word gets out, who knows? Bill Gates may just decide to pick my brains."

Miles away, in a ramshackle laboratory filled with more scientific equipment than it could hold, a bespectacled man with a tube-shaped head muttered to himself while staring at the X-ray film in his hands. "Somehow, the microchip implanted in the girl's cranium protected her from the powers of the Brainchildren," he observed. "I must unlock its secrets—it's a matter of life and glavin."

To be continued