"Now have a seat, and we'll call your name," said the pleasant rabbit woman. Fern took a chair in a room where about a dozen other children were sitting, all of them having pieces of sheet music in their possession. Some sat quietly and thoughtfully, while others obsessively scanned their music as if still memorizing it.

Fern left her music ("They Can't Take That Away From Me" by Gershwin) lying in her lap; she had performed the song many times, and knew it by heart. She glanced around at the other children, a few of whom appeared nervous and even sweating. Only a year earlier she would have been paralyzed with fear, but Mr. Baker's drama coaching and Mrs. Stiles' poetry assistance had built her confidence to the point that she felt only a few shivers of anxiety.

Next to Fern sat a poodle boy who appeared to be about eight years old. He wore thick prescription glasses and a green sweater, and was holding Copland's arrangement of "The Boatmen's Dance" in his sweaty palms. After looking at Fern for a few seconds, he suddenly gasped. "Oh...omigosh..."

"What?" said Fern to the strange boy.

He pointed a quivering finger at her. "You...you're the girl who sang at the Wynton Marsalis concert!" He smiled excitedly. "You're fantastic!"

A blond cat girl sitting across from Fern groaned. "Oh, man. We may as well all go home now."

"Why?" Fern asked naively.

"You're better than all of us put together," the girl replied. Over her short skirt lay a copy of a recent hit song by Christina Doggilera.

"She's not better than me," came a haughty voice. A ten-year-old aardvark girl with braided orange hair and an exquisite sequined gown was staring directly at Fern. "Sure, you got lucky when Wynton Marsalis showed up late, but luck is no substitute for real talent, which I have in abundance. If I'd been there instead of you, the audience would have booed Wynton off the stage and asked me to do an encore." She then looked down at the piece of sheet music she held, which contained a Puccini aria.

"You've got some attitude," the cat girl snapped at the wealthy-looking aardvark girl. "Just who do you think you are?"

"I'm the obnoxious rich brat who everybody wants to lose," the aardvark girl replied. "There's one in every contest."

A moment later, a uniformed monkey man stuck his head and torso through the door that the rabbit woman had used to leave the room. "Kimberly Reznicek," he called out. The cat girl slowly rose to her feet, clutched her music, and followed the man out of the room.

The remaining kids fell silent for about half a minute, and then the poodle boy introduced himself to Fern. "My name's Wyatt. Wyatt Holberg."

Fern flashed him a shy smile. "I'm Fern Walters. Nice to meet you."

"I'm surprised you're trying out for this part," said Wyatt quietly. "You could be the next Diana Krill if you wanted to."

"I don't think I'm that good yet," said Fern in a humble tone.

"Seriously," Wyatt insisted, "I think the role of Mini Moo is a little beneath someone with your talent."

"I'm only here because Jean Stiles invited me," Fern informed him. "She was my teacher once. If anyone's overqualified to play a singing cow, it's her."

----

While Fern waited breathlessly for her shot at fame and fortune, the Coopers went about their usual business, unaware that fame and fortune were about to make an unwelcome, forced entry into their home.

In her bedroom, Odette was rehearsing her ballet moves, which she hadn't used much since the kidnapping, to the strains of Delibes' "Coppelia". Her gossamer skirt bounced and swayed as she executed one flawless grand jete after another. In the living room, Van and Logan battled each other in a new video game, "Bunny League: Webmaster's Revenge". They played Bunny League members who had been digitized and transported into a computer network, where they struggled against waves of cybernetic monsters generated by the evil Webmaster. Dallin sat next to them, his attention absorbed by a coloring book, while Mrs. Cooper labored at the sewing machine, mending a pair of Logan's jeans. Quinn sat in the study, poring over her pre-calculus homework to make sure her answers were correct. Baby Megan waddled about at her feet, occasionally falling face-first and leaving a saliva mark on the carpet.

The front door swung open, and Mel Cooper strolled inside, wearing a brown suit and clutching the handle of his briefcase. "Welcome home, dear," his wife greeted him from the sewing machine.

Mr. Cooper wore an expression of surprise. "Valerie," he asked, "why is there a news van in front of our house?"

Intrigued by his question, Quinn, Dallin, and Mrs. Cooper left their work and hurried to the still-open door. As he had said, a white van with an antenna dish on the top was parked at their curb. On the side of the vehicle was painted the call sign of Elwood City's premier news station, WOOD-TV. It was the first time they had been visited by reporters since the aftermath of Odette's safe return, and it filled them with eager anticipation.

"What are they here for, Dad?" Dallin inquired innocently. "Are they gonna ask Odette questions and show her crying on TV?"

"I hope they're not making another TV-movie," Quinn muttered.

"I'm not sure why they're here," Mr. Cooper answered. "But I suppose it has something to do with..." As he spoke, a black stretch limousine pulled to the side of the street immediately behind the news van. He grimaced with distaste. "Oh, no..."

Odette, Van, and Logan took up positions behind their parents and older sister while Mr. Cooper watched two camera-wielding TV reporters chatting on the sidewalk with Ed and Muffy Crosswire, who had arrived in the limousine. "What's going on?" asked Van impatiently. "I can't see."

"Do your best to act friendly, children," Mrs. Cooper commanded her brood. "Here they come."

Mel Cooper knew exactly why Mr. Crosswire had decided to annoy them with the courtesy of a visit, but he had no desire to make anyone look bad on TV. He forced a smile and stretched out his hand to the approaching used-car dealer. "Well, if it isn't my good friend, Ed Crosswire," he said insincerely.

Mr. Crosswire shook his hand vigorously as the two reporters trained their shoulder-mounted cameras on the men. Muffy bounded over to their side, turned to face the camera, smiled ingratiatingly, and waved. Her cell phone suddenly rang; she ignored it, and hoped that the TV studio would be able to edit the offending noise.

The crowd at the front door, which included the Coopers and their children Quinn, Logan, Van, Odette, and Dallin, dispersed to allow the Crosswires and their entourage to pass. "To what do we owe this pleasure, Ed?" asked Mrs. Cooper.

Mr. Crosswire bent down and rubbed his palm over the top of Dallin's head. "You didn't think I'd forget, did you?" he said warmly. "It was your son who helped the police to bring Muffy home." He patted Van's head with his other hand. "And no good deed performed on behalf of a Crosswire goes unrewarded."

Mr. Cooper waved his hands dismissively at him. "I can't possibly accept your money, Ed."

No sooner had he said that, when he found that everybody else in the house, with the possible exception of the baby, was gaping at him in shock.

Muffy watched the proceedings carefully. As she expected, the Cooper children began to express reservations about their father's rejection of the reward money.

"But, Dad, you could send us all to college with that money!" Van protested.

"We could buy a really big house with a bedroom for every one of us," Dallin suggested.

"We could get, like, a really cool game system," Logan mused.

"Dad, not all of us will get full-ride scholarships," Quinn pointed out.

"What if Van needs expensive surgery someday?" Odette contributed.

"Think about this carefully, dear," Mrs. Cooper urged her husband.

It appeared to Mr. Cooper as if his entire family had started to mutiny against him. He gestured toward Ed Crosswire. "I'd like to talk to you in private."

Curious, Mr. Crosswire followed the lawyer as he marched determinedly into the study, his wife and children still shouting after him with suggestions on how to spend the lavish reward.

Once he made sure that nobody had followed, Mr. Cooper shot an indignant look at Mr. Crosswire. "Send the reporters away," he said coldly and firmly. "I won't let you use my home to film a Crosswire Motors promotional spot."

Mr. Crosswire smiled and shrugged. "Is that what you think this is? Come on, Mel. This isn't about me. It's about you, and your son."

"Don't take me for a fool," Mr. Cooper growled. "This is about you handing me a big fat check while the entire viewing audience of Elwood City watches and learns what a kind, giving man Ed Crosswire is." He fought to calm his voice down. "You don't owe us anything. Your daughter helped us get Odette back. So let's call ourselves even, and be done with the whole matter."

The ends of Mr. Crosswire's smile drooped slightly; his patience was obviously wearing thin. "I know you don't trust me, Mel. And I know that you know that I don't care whether you trust me. But you've earned this reward fair and square, and I want you to have it. It's not like you're selling me your soul, Mel."

Mr. Cooper's eyes seemed to flash fire. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough," he muttered threateningly. "When I said I couldn't accept your money, what I meant to say was, you can take your reward, and you can stick it up your..."

(To be continued...)