"Two words that have the same meaning are synonyms," Mr. Ratburn lectured. "And two words that have opposite meaning are antonyms. For example, happy and sad are..."

Buster raised his hand. "Uh...hominids?"

"No, Buster," said Mr. Ratburn. "The word you're thinking of is homonyms."

"Hominids are prehistoric human-like creatures," explained Brain.

"Like cave men," George added.

He imagined himself as a Paleozoic moose boy clad in a bear skin, wandering the stone age world in search of food. In time he found a tree from which several bunches of ripe bananas were hanging. After several jumps that didn't take him high enough, he managed to grab on to one of the banana bunches and wrestle it loose from the tree. He fell to the ground and landed on his back, clutching the bananas eagerly.

Cave George pulled a banana out of the bunch and started to unpeel it, but before he had a chance to take a bite, a shadow fell over him. It was the shadow of Cave Binky, a filthy, fearsome-looking bulldog dressed in a mammoth skin.

"Unga la gunga bunga!" Cave Binky exclaimed angrily.

George started to tremble. The words made no sense, but he understood the meaning behind them all too well. He slowly crawled away from the banana tree. Binky bent over, grabbed George's precious bananas, and threw them over his shoulder. As he started happily on his way, he reached up and snatched a single banana from one of the lower bunches in the tree. George sank his head into his hands dejectedly.

Hours later, as the increasingly hungry George continued his quest for sustenance, he saw a strange-looking object in the distance. As he drew closer, he observed that it was very tall, black, and perfectly rectangular. He gazed upon it in wonder, while the opening bars of Richard Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra" played in the background.

Not long afterward, as Binky sat in his cave eating bananas and humming contendedly, an angry George suddenly appeared in the cave entrance. Binky glanced at him and grunted threateningly.

Then George lowered his head, aiming his antlers directly at Binky's position. When Binky saw this, he rose to his feet and glowered at the intruder.

With a mighty roar, George charged at Binky, his antlers still pointed forward. Binky's confident smirk started to fade. Soon George was only ten feet away, and showed no signs of lessening his speed.

Binky cried in terror and ran sideways, narrowly avoiding George's antlers. He scurried towards the cave entrance, George dogging his tracks all the way.

As the frightened Binky fled, George stopped at the entrance and growled menacingly. "Ooga googa la booga!" he shouted as he thumped his chest.

"Would you mind telling us what that means?" asked Mr. Ratburn as George snapped back to his third-grade reality.

"Uh...it's Paleozoic for, 'This is MY cave now!'" George explained.

The other kids chuckled. Mr. Ratburn looked at George somberly.

"Ah, the stone age," the teacher began to rhapsodize. "Back then, if you were lucky enough to survive your childhood, then you still had to contend with famine, disease, saber-toothed tigers, and worst of all, other humans. It was a jungle, where only the strongest survived. I, for one, am glad those days are behind us. Now, let's look at some examples of synonyms and antonyms..."

Before Mr. Ratburn could resume his lecture, the classroom door swung open so forcefully that the doorknob punched a hole in the wall. Into the room trudged a hulking rhinoceros boy, wearing a somewhat baggy shirt and pants. All the kids gasped in shock, and Mr. Ratburn regarded the newcomer with curiosity.

Then the rhino boy opened his mouth and spoke with Binky's voice. "What are you doofuses staring at?"

After another moment or two of stunned silence, the kids began to laugh hysterically. Mr. Ratburn continued to gaze quizzically at the boy.

Rhino Binky walked in front of the class and stamped his foot loudly. The kids stopped laughing. "Nobody laughs at the rhino!" he bellowed.

The kids closed their mouths tightly, all except for Fern, who suddenly started to laugh again. Binky stamped again, and she covered her mouth bashfully.

"Please be seated, Binky," said Mr. Ratburn calmly.

Binky went to his usual desk, but found that he could no longer squeeze into it. So he walked forward to the teacher's desk, grabbed the plush chair that sat next to it, moved it a few yards away, and sat down on it, folding his arms.

"Hmm," mused Mr. Ratburn as he took a seat on top of his desk. "Kids turning into rhinoceroses. I thought it was just a wild rumor. Amazing."

"So," said Rhino Binky impatiently, "are you gonna teach me, or what?"

Mr. Ratburn gave him a puzzled look. The kids, one and all, stared at him with astonishment.

"Fine," said Binky petulantly. "If you don't wanna teach me, I'll just run around and smash stuff."

"No, that won't be necessary," said Mr. Ratburn a bit nervously. "We were talking about synonyms and antonyms. Can anyone give me an example of..."

"Hold it!" Binky exclaimed. "Did I miss something? You'd better start over from the beginning."

Mr. Ratburn sighed deeply.

----

As the kids left the classroom, most of them circled around Binky, marvelling at his new form but keeping a safe distance. Only a few dared to come close enough to speak.

One of them was Muffy. "Where did you get those awful, baggy clothes?" she asked haughtily.

"They're my dad's," said Binky gruffly. "What's your excuse?"

"Hmph," said Muffy, offended.

Moments later, Buster approached him eagerly. "Binky, I know what's causing these transformations. It's the first stage of an alien invasion plot."

"Yeah, right," grumbled Binky incredulously.

"First," Buster continued, "they turn us into all kinds of different animals, in order to confuse us."

"It's a little late for that," Binky remarked.

"Second, they generate a huge EMF pulse to knock out our electronic equipment."

"Third, once we're all microwaved, they serve us up for dinner," said Binky sarcastically.

"How'd you know that?"

Rhino Binky clenched his ham-sized fists. "I'm gonna count to ten, and then I'm gonna pound you into a fine white powder. One. Two. Three..."

"One," said Buster quickly.

"Two. Three. Four..."

"One."

"Two. Three..."

Not long afterward, Arthur and Francine were walking down the hallway, discussing Binky's astonishing metamorphosis.

"I've heard that dozens of kids have turned into rhinos," said Francine. "Nobody knows what's causing it."

"Whatever it is, I think the Tibble twins have got it," said Arthur. "Mrs. Tibble says they're sick, but you can hear things breaking a mile away."

As they spoke, Buster came running towards them. He stopped in front of them, pulled out his inhaler, and gave himself a dose.

"Binky's gone totally psycho!" he said after catching his breath. "I barely escaped with my life!"

"We're doomed," Arthur groaned. "Nothing can save us from Binky now. He's twice as big and twice as strong."

"And twice as dumb," Francine observed. "So there's still hope."

----

During morning recess, most of the kids in Arthur's class (indeed, most of the kids in the school) made it their first order of business to stay as far away from Binky as possible. Not all of them were successful.

George strolled nonchalantly across the playground, unwrapping a candy bar that he had brought from home. Suddenly it became dark...very dark. Too dark.

Wondering what had happened to the sun, George stopped and turned his head. As the strains of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" once again played in the background, he beheld a towering colossus before him...

...but this time it was Rhino Binky instead of an alien monolith.

George knew the routine. He lowered his head meekly and held out the candy bar.

"Keep it," said Binky, much to the moose boy's surprise.

As George withdrew his hand, Binky began to lecture him. "You know what, George? You're just asking to be bullied. Walking across the playground with a candy bar in plain sight...it's like sharks and blood. The bullies can't resist."

"I never thought of that," said George.

"Don't sweat it," Binky continued. "You don't have to worry about bullies anymore. From this day on, I, Binky 'The Rhino' Barnes, will be your best buddy, pal, and protector."

George gaped with disbelief. Could it possibly be true?

"That's right," said Binky warmly. "Anybody who picks on you will have to answer to me. And when they do, I'll clobber 'em."

After a moment's thought, George smiled broadly. "You got it!"

Not far away, Arthur, Francine, and Buster were gathered on the basketball court around Sue Ellen, who was trying to break her hoop record.

"So I was thinking," said Francine, "since you haven't been here very long, and we haven't taken the opportunity to get to know you well..."

"That's very nice of you," said Sue Ellen as she concentrated on her next shot.

"You may not be aware of this," Francine continued, "but all the other kids think you're cool. Some of them have even taken up tae kwon do because of you."

"That's funny," Sue Ellen remarked. "I never see them at my dojo. Do they go to a different studio?"

"Uh..."

As Francine struggled for an answer, Rhino Binky lumbered towards the basketball court, with George following not far behind.

"Here he comes," said Arthur with a knowing smile.

"This should be fun to watch," said Buster.

Binky confronted Sue Ellen, whose head barely made it up to the level of his ribcage. He glared threateningly at the pint-sized girl.

"What do you want, Binky?" Sue Ellen asked calmly.

"My friend George here wants to shoot some hoops," said Binky as he snatched the ball from her hands. She stood still, lowering her arms, not showing any trace of anger.

As Binky handed the basketball to the eager George, Arthur, Francine, and Buster watched Sue Ellen with baited breath, expecting her to launch a bone-crunching attack at any second.

George wandered away from the group and started to practice his shots. Meanwhile, Binky took hold of the hairband on the right side of Sue Ellen's head and carefully removed it, causing her hair puff to droop.

"I never liked your hairstyle," he commented as he started to remove the left hairband. Soon Sue Ellen's curly hair was hanging down to her shoulders.

Arthur's, Buster's, and Francine's jaws dropped lower and lower as they watched her suffer these indignities in stoic silence.

Then Binky dropped the hairbands, bent over, and started to unlace Sue Ellen's shoes, again without encountering any resistance. Once he had untied them, he joined the left and right shoelaces in a square knot.

He straightened up. "You and I really need to spend more quality time together," he quipped.

As the rhino boy walked away gloating, Arthur bent over and attempted to unmake the tight knot in Sue Ellen's shoelaces, while Francine chided her.

"I don't believe it! How could you let him do those things to you? Why didn't you fight him?"

"Yeah!" Buster complained. "He embarrassed you in front of all your friends!"

"The whole point of martial arts is to avoid violence," said Sue Ellen wisely. "Just because you can beat up somebody doesn't mean you should."

"It's just like Bionic Bunny always says," Buster added. "With great power comes great responsibility."

"I'm so disappointed in you!" said Francine indignantly. "You're the only one of us he's afraid of, and now he's not afraid of you anymore."

"Yeah," Buster lamented. "Some anti-Binky device you turned out to be."

"Besides," said Sue Ellen as she started to replace her hairbands, "even with tae kwon do, it would be really hard for me to defeat someone that big and strong."

"Yeah," said Buster. "His dad shot him twice with a hunting rifle, and it didn't hurt him. How do you beat a guy with bulletproof skin?"

"Buster, would you please choose one side or the other?" said Arthur as he was retying Sue Ellen's shoelaces.

"Come on, Buster," said Francine. "We'll have to find someone else to protect us from that big scary rhinoceros." She shot Sue Ellen a dirty look, then turned and walked away with Buster.

Arthur stood up after finishing with Sue Ellen's laces. "I'm sorry Francine is being so rude," he said to her. "It's been a really crazy day, with the rhinos and all..."

"You don't need to apologize," she replied with a hint of repressed outrage.

George came up to her, holding the basketball. "You can have your ball back if you..."

Sue Ellen walked away without a word.

Her expression remained stoic as she made her way to the school building and into the girls' washroom.

Once there, she looked at herself in the mirror, and started to adjust her hairbands.

After doing this for a few seconds, she stopped. Her eyes filled with tears.

The students passing by the washrooms were shocked when they heard Sue Ellen screaming with anger.

She screamed again and again.

And her voice was changing...getting deeper...rougher...

(to be continued)