They sat for half a minute in silence, hearing nothing but the dripping of water from a leaky faucet.
"Dude, we shouldn't be doing this," said Binky with a worried expression.
"Why not?" Rattles glowered at him.
"Uh...because we're missing recess?"
Peering through the small window inside of the classroom door, Rattles saw that two girls were making their way to the bathroom. He grinned with wicked delight. "Two at a time. Awesome." Then he pushed the red button on his tape recorder.
"Francine and Jenna," Binky observed. "I don't know if I really want to hear their secrets."
Inside the girls' room, Francine caught up with Jenna. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, Francine," said Jenna, completely unaware that her every word was being preserved on tape.
"Remember last year when George thought you had a crush on him?" Francine asked her.
"Yeah, I remember." Jenna chuckled. "How could I forget?"
"What was it like?" Francine inquired. "He gave you flowers and stuff, right?"
"Yeah, he did. Flowers and chocolates. For a weird kid, he can be romantic when he wants to be. I finally had to tell him I didn't really have a crush on him."
"Hmm." Francine appeared deep in thought.
"Why do you want to know? You don't have a crush on him, do you?"
Francine lowered her face in shame. "I do," she admitted.
Binky smiled broadly as he listened in. "Francine and George," he exulted. "I never would have guessed."
"I told you this was a good idea," Rattles said to him.
"Promise you won't tell him, Jenna," said Francine earnestly.
"You have my word as a sister," Jenna told her.
"Like that's worth anything," quipped Binky. "Get it in writing, Francine."
"Thanks, Jenna." Francine turned and walked out of the girls' room.
The next sound Binky and Rattles heard was a stall door slamming shut. Rattles pulled off his headphones and stopped the tape recorder. "Well, was that cool, or what?"
"I wonder if I should tell George," said Binky as he removed his headphones.
"Why bother?" Rattles replied. "That's what girls are for. No amount of fiber optics will ever beat the good ol' grapevine."
----
After school, the kids started to gather at their usual hangout, the Sugar Bowl. At one table, Muffy and Francine sat across from each other, discussing the situation with Marina.
"The doctors still don't know how she lost her memory," said Muffy. "I've been calling them every half hour. I wish they'd pick up the pace."
At another table, Jenna and George faced each other. Jenna alternated between talking with George and turning her head to look at Francine.
A moment later Arthur walked into the ice cream shop and stopped in front of Francine and Muffy's table. "Hey, Arthur," said Francine. "What's the latest on Sue Ellen?"
"They're going in to remove another bone splinter tomorrow," Arthur informed her. "Hopefully she'll be out of the hospital this weekend."
"Spending so many days in the hospital must be vomitrociously expensive," Muffy remarked.
As Arthur sat down with the girls, a stranger shuffled through the Sugar Bowl entrance. She appeared to be about ten years old, and had the face of a white horse, with a patch of gray running down her nose. As she glanced around at the unfamiliar locale, her eyes caught hold of a girl who sat alone at one of the tables in the back.
Gathering courage, she approached the girl. "Fern?"
"Greta!" Fern leaped to her feet, a relieved smile on her face.
Greta, the white horse girl, smiled and grabbed Fern's hands. "I'm so sorry for doubting you, Fern."
"It's okay," Fern responded. "After what happened to Odette, I can't blame you."
----
Dark Bunny pulled himself over the edge of a rooftop and struggled to his feet. As he bent down to pick up his grapple, he saw out of the corner of his eye a faint outline in the shadows. Stepping closer, he beheld the voluptuous figure and pointed nose of his favorite super-villainess.
"Well, well," he said tauntingly. "Rat Woman. What's a bad girl like you doing out on a night like this?"
"Save the sweet talk for later, Dark," Rat Woman answered. "I'm here to help you." The moonlight reflected seductively off of her leather body suit.
"Why should I believe you?" asked Dark Bunny incredulously.
"The commissioner offered me my own series if I went straight."
Francine grinned slightly as she watched the proceedings from the couch in the Frensky living room.
In another corner of the apartment, her cat Nemo was busily grooming himself. Although he appeared placid on the outside, his cunning and dangerous feline mind was churning at supersonic speed...
"Eat, sleep, groom, eat, sleep, groom," he muttered quietly and bitterly. "That's what those accursed X-Pets have reduced me to. But soon my new laboratory will be completed, and then I, Magnemo, will have my revenge!"
Simultaneously, in the kitchen of the Read home, Mrs. Read was snapping Kate's jumper together. Lifting the baby from the table, she set her down on the living room floor and then turned to the unpleasant task of disposing of the soiled diaper.
Kate rose clumsily to her feet and waddled around, gurgling happily. A moment later Pal bounded into the room, chasing a rubber ball. When he picked up the smell of the diaper, he stopped in his tracks and grimaced.
"Ugh! Honestly, Kate! Cleaning up after your bowel movements is a labor worthy of Hercules."
"Who?" asked Kate obliviously.
Pal lay down and covered his nose with his paws, whining pathetically.
Then he perked up his ears. He heard something...an ethereal voice...
Kate stopped walking and looked at him. "Something wrong, Pal?"
In the Frenskys' apartment, Nemo also sensed the mysterious sound. He wiggled his ears this way and that, trying to find the source...but it seemed to come from every direction.
In the front yard of the Molina home, Amigo slowed down and stopped his pursuit of the bothersome snowbirds. Lifting his ears, he tried to make out the words that the strange voice was speaking...
Pal, Nemo, and Amigo all at once realized that they were not hearing anything with their ears...rather, the sound was coming from within their minds.
The voice became louder, more insistent. What started as curiosity quickly turned into an obsession, as the three pets found themselves unable to think about anything but the voice. They had to listen to it...understand it...obey it...
"Yes, my master," Pal, Nemo, and Amigo said in unison.
Then the voice suddenly faded from Pal's and Amigo's minds. Dazed and confused, they shook their heads and glanced around.
"Are you all right, Pal?" asked Kate, who was carefully scrutinizing the dog's face.
"Huh?" Pal suddenly became aware of his surroundings, and looked quizzically at Kate.
"You just said 'yes, my master'," Kate informed him.
Pal glared at her contemptuously. "I most certainly did not. I would never utter such cornball dialogue."
Meanwhile, Nemo was frozen in mid-groom, his will to resist having evaporated before the onslaught of the mysterious voice.
Must leave apartment, was the only thought present in his mind. Must go to master...
Rising to his paws, he stared at Francine, who was watching Dark Bunny and Rat Woman in the throes of a passionate kiss.
Then the doorbell rang. "I'll get it," called Francine.
The girl jumped from the couch eagerly. "It's gotta be George," she said to herself. "Please be George."
The moment Francine opened the apartment door, Nemo raced through the doorway and into the hall so quickly that she only vaguely noticed.
To Francine's gratification, George stood before her, clutching a bouquet of...
"Sunflowers?" she exclaimed unbelievingly.
"Aren't they pretty?" said the smiling moose boy.
Francine struggled to suppress the mocking laughter that she would have normally given way to at such an absurd sight.
"Uh...yes, they are," she stammered. "This is, uh, very thoughful of you, George."
George held out his hand, and Francine took from him the paper wrapper containing the flowers. "Thank you, George," she forced herself to say. "This is very sweet of you. Sunflowers are my second favorite kind of flower, next to roses."
"Roses," George muttered bashfully. "Okay."
"Red ones," Francine told him.
George waved at her and grinned. "Bye, Francine."
Smiling, Francine closed the door. As she turned, her expression morphed into one of extreme disappointment.
"Sunflowers," she grumbled. "They probably have insecticide all over them."
Her scowl grew darker and darker as she grabbed a vase from the shelf, filled it with tap water, and inserted the stems of the flowers into it. Resting it next to the kitchen sink, she turned it around so that the flowers faced the wall.
Returning to her seat on the couch, she sighed with discouragement. "Oh, well," she told herself, "there are plenty of other boys."
As she picked up the remote to change the channel, her sister Catherine walked out of her bedroom. "Oh, sunflowers," she remarked upon noticing the vase that Francine had set up. "Who gave you those?"
"Some boy," Francine responded indifferently.
Walking into the kitchen, Catherine turned the vase so that the flowers faced her.
"Catherine?" said Francine.
"Yeah?"
Francine took a deep breath. "Remember last year when you told me about that girl you liked?"
Catherine looked at her curiously. "Which girl?"
"The one you liked when you were my age," Francine answered.
"Oh, right." Catherine's expression came serious.
Francine paused, weighing her words carefully. "Were you ever afraid that... that you would grow up, and you would still like girls?"
"No," Catherine replied. "It was just a silly crush. I got over it. I'm normal, Frankie."
"Yeah," said Francine dejectedly. She looked away from her sister. "Normal."
"Where's Nemo?" asked Catherine, looking around the room.
Francine started to glance about as well. "Nemo? Kittykittykitty!"
At that moment, Nemo stood before the door leading out of the apartment building, emitting magnetic beams from his eyes. They enveloped the doorknob, causing it to turn. Within moments the door had opened wide, and Nemo strolled casually through the doorway.
He muttered single-mindedly to himself as he walked along the street: "Must go to master...must go to master..."
(To be continued...)
