How did Bubbles respond? She smiled, of course, and picked up her crayon. "Now Mojo, tell me about your life."

He snorted. "This is ridiculous."

"Do you want me to go?"

His face lit up, just like in the girl's story.

"So the sooner you tell me, the sooner I'll be gone!"

Mojo grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. What did I ever do to deserve this...

"Now, what's the first bad thing you ever did?"

A long sigh. "I remember pulling the hair off another young chimpanzee."

She was aghast. "You pulled the hair of another monkey?"

"No, I pulled the hair off another monkey. Two handfuls, perhaps more." He couldn't help but grin.

Bubbles dropped her notebook and crayon, covered her mouth. Her eyes were wide. "Mojo!"

"May I remind you, my dear, that you asked."

"But that's terrible!"

"Precisely. Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

He stopped. His laughter -- it had rang out as strong as always. He flexed, unflexed his fingers. His strength, was it returning? Were these pleasant memories recharging his vitality?

Ha-ha, little Bubbles! Go on, ask me more questions! And be obliterated by my Atomic Puff-Buster before you know it!

"What else, Mojo? But nothing else nasty like that!" The girl shivered.

He drew a long sigh. "All right. My father -- "

"Ah-ha! He was mean to you?"

The chimp bristled. "I beg your pardon! He was the respected mascot of a Merchant Marine captain, held in high esteem by the entire crew!" He pointed across the room to a portrait of an old white-bearded monkey in a naval uniform. "He most certainly did not mistreat me! As to the rest of my early years, I remember very little before the accident in the professor's laboratory." Hopefully that would get him off the hook.

"Ahhhh!" She jumped up, waving her notebook and crayon. Her notebook had little purple stick-drawings of monkeys, trees and clouds; she had been doodling. "You have re-pressed memories!"

He harrumphed. "I do not!"

"Maybe you always felt in-fe-ri-or to humans 'cause you're a monkey, and that's why you want to take over the world. I'll bet that's it -- an in-fe-ri-ority complex!"

"No! No!" He clenched his fists. "A chimp is all I ever wanted to be, and it is all I ever want to be now! At no time did I ever want to be human! I would rather be me with my swollen brain than you with all your superpowers and charm!"

"Yes you would, Mojo! You just don't remember, is all. Try to remember."

He gnashed his teeth. Ohhh, when he got his chance to use the Puff-Buster...

She jumped as if touched with a live wire. "Oh, wait! I know! You've got some kind of dis-order! There are lots of dis-orders. And anyone with a brain bigger than the whole rest of his head has gotta have one of them. That's it!" She bounced on the bed. "So we just need some kind of med-i-cation for it! Do you have any aspirin? I have some hot chocolate at home, and when I'm sad it always makes me feel better. Or," (he could almost hear the gears whirring in her pretty little head) "I could get you some sugar, spice, and everything nice! One spoonful of that'll fix you right up!" She clapped her hands and bounded about in the air, giggling.

"I would sooner eat sludge." He yanked the covers over his head.

"Oh. Well...maybe just ther-a-py's good enough."

Suddenly he felt her grab him. "C'mon, Mojo. I've got a great idea for your ther-a-py!"

He instinctively tightened for another beating; but she was only gathering him up, blanket and all, and lifting him out of bed. He barely managed to pull his hidden weapon inside the scarlet blanket that was wrapped around him, before Bubbles zoomed him out the observatory door and into the sunshine.