"What's the matter, George?" said Molly with insincere sweetness as the moose boy cowered speechlessly before her. "Can't you talk without Wally?"

"Of course he can't," Rattles joked. "He's the dummy. Wally controls him."

It was at this moment that the bold Mary Sue walked up to George's side, raised her arm into the air, pointed at Rattles and Molly, and shouted, "Leave...him...alone!"

At first Molly and Rattles were surprised, but then they grinned even more maliciously. "I'm, like, seeing double, man," Rattles marveled. "Instead of one little moose girl, I see two." Molly glowered at him, and his expression became sheepish. "I, uh, didn't mean to imply anything by that statement."

Mary Sue placed her hands over George's trembling shoulders. "Don't be afraid of them," she reassured him. "They may be bigger, but we've got antlers."

"Like antlers are gonna do you any good," said Molly, clenching her fists. "All they're good for is getting your head stuck in your locker."

"Yeah," Rattles added. "You should just file 'em down. Get rid of 'em."

Molly reached into her pocket and pulled out a metallic object. "Hey, I've got a nail file right here."

"What are we waiting for?" said Rattles, and then he and Molly, brandishing the file, advanced threateningly toward the two moose children.

George remained rooted to the spot with terror...but not so Mary Sue. Screaming like a banshee, she flung herself at Molly, plowing into the larger girl's belly with her antlers. As Rattles watched disbelievingly, Molly landed on her back in the gutter and lay still, moaning and clutching her stomach.

Mary Sue stood proudly over her, grinning triumphantly. She then turned to see how George was faring...when a pair of strong hands latched themselves onto her antlers. "I've got you now!" gloated Rattles, and Mary Sue's futile attempts to twist her head free from his grasp convinced her that the boy's boast might be true.

Fury welled up in George's heart when he saw his new defender in peril. Lowering his head, he charged with all his strength and smacked Rattles directly in the posterior. Mary Sue stepped aside as the bully flew forward and relaxed his grip on her antlers. A moment later there were two toughs lying in the gutter, groaning in pain.

"Oh, my stomach," Molly whined.

"Oh, my butt," Rattles complained. "Now I'll have to think with my head."

George and Mary Sue looked each other over, making sure neither was hurt. Then George took the strange girl by the hand. "Thank you," he said with emotion. "Thank you for helping me."

The touch of George's fingers caused Mary Sue to experience a strange and wonderful feeling. The moose boy had always been one of her favorite characters, in spite of the fact that he didn't appear much. It had something to do with his long-suffering nature, his purity of heart, his weird charm. And now she was holding hands with him, and he was thanking her for saving his life. And she was in the body of a moose girl, hardly distinguishable from him except for the curly hair and the dress. And even though she knew it was a dream, it seemed utterly real, at least as real as she imagined a cartoon existence could be. Was she in love? Was it possible for eight-year-old animations to fall in love?

"What's your name?" asked the suddenly handsome-looking George.

"M-M-M-M-M-" Mary Sue sputtered bashfully.

George smiled and let go of her hand.

"M-Mary S-Sue," she managed to blurt out. "And you're G-G-George."

"Yeah," said the moose boy. "How do you know me?"

Mary Sue stared blankly at him as Molly and Rattles crept out of the gutter and shuffled painfully down the sidewalk, cursing silently all the way.

"Where's your mom and dad?" George queried.

It occurred to Mary Sue that she hadn't given a single thought to her foster parents since landing in the Tibbles' juniper bush. They might be worried about her, uncharacteristic as it seemed. She wasn't sure how much time had passed in the real world since the beginning of her dream. Perhaps she had fallen and struck her head, and the Fosters had called an ambulance to carry her unconscious, possibly comatose, body to the hospital. If that were the case, she might never wake up...

"My...mom and dad?" Mary Sue wanted to tell George the truth about the world she came from, but feared he would mock her as the other characters had.

"We're right here," came a woman's voice from behind her. She recognized it as Mrs. Foster's. Had the dream ended?

She dreaded to turn around. George was still standing in front of her, looking up as if he had seen someone tall approach. Somehow Mary Sue was straddling the two worlds, the cartoon world and her beloved George ahead of her, and the real, uncaring world behind her back. If she turned, the dream world would certainly dissolve, possibly forever. Yet for all she knew, the Fosters were trying to call her back from unconsciousness, and maybe death...

She had no alternative. Leaning forward, she gently pecked George on the cheek. "Goodbye," she said plaintively. "I hope I'll see you again."

"Uh...bye," said George, grinning, waving, and blushing a little. He apparently had no conception of what the lonely girl was giving up.

Mary Sue turned around.

To her shock, it was not her foster parents that she saw, but two stern-looking moose people, a man and woman. Amazingly, they were dressed and groomed in a similar manner to the Fosters.

"Shame on you, Mary Sue," scolded the moose woman in a voice identical to Mrs. Foster's. "Hitting other kids with your antlers. Just for that, you'll go to bed without dinner."

Mary Sue glanced down at her hands. They were still cartoonish. Reaching up, she felt antlers sprouting from her head. She wasn't in the real world.

Then it hit her.

"Y-you're my parents," she said to the moose couple in astonishment. "M-my c-cartoon parents."

"Uh-huh," the moose man grumbled impatiently. "Now, are you coming with us or not? I'll give you a hint. You're coming with us." As Mary Sue feared and expected, his voice exactly resembled Mr. Foster's.

She looked down at her feet and the green grass, and thought about how foolish she had been to not see this coming. She hadn't simply fallen from the sky. The moose girl whose identity she had assumed had a home and family of her own. She had to go along.

Mary Sue gazed up at her moose parents with pleading eyes. "Will I ever see George again?" she asked earnestly.

"Maybe," said the moose woman coldly. "If we ever come back to this part of town. Now let's get moving."

Fearing to disobey, Mary Sue started to walk toward the moose couple. Turning her head once last time, she called, "Goodbye, George. I'll call you."

"My last name is Nordgren," George yelled out as Mary Sue and her parents started to shrink out of sight. "My dad's name is Carl. My mom's name is Lena. We're in the White Pages."

Moments later, Mary Sue was strapped into the back seat of an animated Buick. In front of her, the moose father waved his head back and forth, his large antlers scratching the car's ceiling, as he pulled away from the curb and turned on the headlights.

The moose mother looked back at Mary Sue with a scowl. "You shouldn't have run off like that," she admonished the girl. "There could be bullies in the neighborhood. You don't know."

As the Buick rolled along the highway to another part of Elwood City, Mary Sue wondered about her fate. Maybe, she thought, this cartoon moose existence was her new life, and she would remain a part of it. Maybe her memories of being a human girl in the real world were an illusion. She was only certain of one thing--she wanted to hold hands with George again.

The car disappeared into the twilight, and the words THE END appeared on the TV screen.

"Whoa, that was sweet," said Jimmy, one of two human siblings who had just watched the latest episode of The Mary Sue Show.

"Yeah," responded his sister Becca, who was two years younger. "Mary Sue's got a boyfriend."

THE END