"I take it you want to return those rings," said Maria Harris, who stood behind the counter in Stephanie's Jewelry and Coins.
Mr. Ratburn placed the two ring cases he was holding on the counter in front of her. She opened the cases and started to inspect the rings for damage. As she did so, she asked, "Black sheep in the family?"
"You have no idea." Mr. Ratburn sighed. "We can't turn our backs on her for a minute."
"Every family's got a bad seed," Mrs. Harris observed. "I married one. Thank goodness it didn't last long."
"Now she's come crawling to us for help again," Mr. Ratburn continued. "It's the same old story. We give her a little money to get her back on her feet, and the next thing we know, she's blown it all on some crooked scheme."
Mrs. Harris placed the rings back in their cases. "Well, the solution is obvious," she advised him. "Don't give her what she asks for."
"That's what I tried to tell Carla," said the exasperated rat. "But, no! She thinks families should stick up for each other."
"Families should stick up for each other to a point," said Mrs. Harris, who was writing out a check. "Beyond that, they become crime families."
"I couldn't have put it better myself," said Mr. Ratburn, grinning with amusement.
Mrs. Harris handed him the check, then leaned over the counter and smiled at him. "So," she asked, "now that you're unattached again, what are your plans?"
Mr. Ratburn started to grow uneasy. Her wistful smile and her soulful, squirrelly eyes seemed to communicate an unmistakable message to him. He felt an urge to leave quickly, but then something about her face reminded him of a pleasant childhood memory. Maybe, just maybe, he thought, the affection and trust he had sought for so long could be found in this pair of arms...
...then suddenly, the back of her skirt lifted and her tail started to wag.
Mr. Ratburn's face became slightly pallid. "You have a tail," he pointed out.
"Yes," said Mrs. Harris in a sultry voice. "Rightfully, we should all have tails."
"I'll...see you later." Mr. Ratburn hurried from the store, as if afraid that he would sprout a tail if he remained any longer.
----
Muffy, wearing a dress and cap straight out of the Italian Renaissance, stood in the balcony of her luxury tower in the woods surrounding Verona. "Oh, Romeo, Romeo!" she called out sweetly. "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?"
Moments later Van, clad in a doublet and hose, rolled out of the forest in a crude wooden wheelchair. Raising his hand to the heavens, he cried, "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
As Van pushed his wheelchair to the tower entrance, he saw that reaching Muffy's balcony might present difficulties. "A little help here," he said to her.
Muffy quickly pushed a button on the panel in front of her, and the tower began to sink into the earth, growing shorter and shorter until the balcony was even with the ground. Van reached out and took Muffy by the hand.
"Juliet, will you...will you hang out with me?" he asked earnestly.
"Yes, Romeo!" Muffy cried joyfully. "Yes, I will! But we must hang out in secret, or our parents will discover us."
"Leave that to me," came a voice from the woods. Out walked Mr. Pryce-Jones, dressed in ministerial robes.
"Friar Lawrence?" cried Muffy and Van in surprise.
"I can lead you to a place where your parents will never find you," said the friar. "But first, you must answer this question: Who ruled the Italian city of Florence from 1469 to 1492?"
Muffy raised her hand. "I know this one!" she exclaimed proudly. She was back in her classroom at Uppity Downs Academy, where Mr. Pryce-Jones was drilling the students on the history of the Italian Renaissance.
The teacher gestured at her. "Yes, Muffy?"
"Francesca da Rimini," she proclaimed triumphantly.
The other kids burst out laughing. It was the first time Muffy had seen them express any mirth at all, whether in or out of class.
Mr. Pryce-Jones waved his hand, and the class fell dead silent. "Good guess, Muffy. Now, would anyone else like to answer that question?"
A parrot boy's hand shot up near the front of the class. "Yes, Tristan?"
"It was Lorenzo de Medici, Mr. Pryce-Jones, sir," squawked the parrot boy.
"That's correct," said the teacher.
As Muffy left the classroom at the end of the period, several of the other students ribbed her about her incorrect response.
"That was really good, Muffy," said Mavis, a red-haired, bespectacled hamster girl. "I haven't laughed so hard in a long time."
"I think we should make you our honorary class clown," said Connor, a horse boy. "That would spice things up a bit."
"You're making fun of me," said Muffy, folding her arms.
"No, we're not," said Neville, a black-haired rabbit boy. "We're far too intelligent and sophisticated to torment someone for the sake of mere pleasure."
"This is making fun of you." Mavis spoke to Muffy in an exaggerated, mocking voice. "Hey, Francesca! Too hot in here for you? Could you use a little breeze?"
Connor and Neville laughed uproariously. "I don't get it," said Muffy.
"You obviously didn't read Dante's Inferno in third grade," Connor remarked.
"We did," said Neville. "In the original Latin, too."
Connor and Neville walked away, laughing. Mavis put a comforting hand on Muffy's shoulder. "Don't worry, Muffy. You'll catch up."
"But how?" Muffy asked dejectedly. "You're all light years ahead of me!"
"Mr. Pryce-Jones has his methods," said Mavis, who then turned and followed the boys.
Left standing alone, Muffy gloomily fantasized about what Mr. Pryce-Jones' "methods" might involve.
She saw herself at the end of the school day, sitting at her desk while the other students were leaving. Mr. Pryce-Jones, now dressed up like a devil with horns and a forked tail, approached her menacingly.
"You've fallen seriously behind in Latin and music," he growled in an earth- trembling voice. "I have no choice but to...getremedial on you! Muwahahahaha!"
Then Muffy saw herself strapped to a chair, her eyelids held open by a set of suspended wires. As the "Ode to Joy" chorus of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony played in the background, the Latin text of Dante's Inferno scrolled slowly by on a large video screen in front of her. Mr. Pryce-Jones stood nearby, still laughing wickedly.
Muffy shook her head sadly. "I need help," she muttered.
----
At the same time that Muffy was being miserable in private school, D.W. and Nadine were enjoying themselves in kindergarten with their friends Emily, Vicita, Dallin Cooper, and the Tibble boys.
Their teacher, Miss Cosma, returned from the washroom to monitor the progress of their watercolor paintings. "Oh, those paintings look wonderful!" she gushed, speaking in a Romanian accent.
"Thank you, Miss Cosma," said the kids in unison, as they had been trained to do.
The teacher looked at Vicita's painting, which resembled a large brown blur with five or six legs. "What's this, Vicita?" she asked.
"It's my dog, Amigo," Vicita replied.
Miss Cosma examined Dallin's painting next. The duck boy had drawn a remarkably accurate and detailed picture of a young chipmunk woman, and then carefully filled in the pencil lines with colors.
"Who's that, Dallin?" asked the teacher, although she had little trouble recognizing the subject.
"It's you, Miss Cosma," said Dallin proudly.
"That's very good," said Miss Cosma, blushing a little. "I had no idea you were so autistic...er, artistic."
She next looked at Tommy and Timmy's paintings. "How nice," she commented. "You painted yourselves."
"No, we didn't," said Timmy. "I painted Tommy, and he painted me."
"I can't paint myself if I can't look at myself, duh," said Tommy.
Miss Cosma moved on to look at Emily's painting. "It's my French nanny," the girl informed her.
Finally, she crouched behind D.W. and Nadine to take a look at their works.
"This is my best friend, Nadine," said D.W., holding up her painting. "She was my best friend when she was imaginary. Now she's real, and she's still my best friend."
Nadine held up her picture, a mass of dark colors punctuated with frightening humanoid shapes, and spoke somberly.
"This is a picture of Spiritus Mundi. It's a very evil place, full of monsters and bad people. A blind girl was trapped there, and I went in and saved her."
"That's...er...very nice, Nadine," said Miss Cosma. "You have a very vivid imagination."
Then she noticed that tears were starting to fall on Nadine's picture, smearing the paint. Nadine looked up at her, weeping.
"I have bad dreams about it every night," the girl sobbed. "They won't go away!"
D.W. and Miss Cosma embraced Nadine, trying to comfort her.
(To be continued...)
