"Well, it looks like the school day is over," squawked Mrs. Krantz as she glanced up at the wall clock for the fiftieth time during the lesson. "You survived your first day with me. You kids have a fun weekend, okaaay?"

But the miserable fifth-graders knew that the weekend would be anything but fun, with the spectre of Monday and more tiresome lectures by Mrs. Krantz looming over them. Could things possibly get worse?

They could. Alan took advantage of the few remaining seconds to ask a question. "Mrs. Krantz, aren't you going to assign us any homework for the weekend?"

It was the first time they had seen the moose woman smile. "Very well." The kids almost expected her to start cackling. "If it's homework you want, it's homework you'll get. I want each and every one of you to write a three-page report on a health food of your choice, and bring it to me on Monday, okaaay?"

The bell rang, the students rose wearily from their desks, and Alan could tell from the tension in the air that most of them were about ready to take whatever they could get into their hands and club him to death.

"Two words," the spiky-haired Lucy said to him as she walked by. "Brain...dead."

Alan shuffled slowly and sadly from the classroom, while Prunella walked closely behind to shelter him from any hurled projectiles. Floyd strolled past him, grumbling, "Health food? Was that your idea?" Max shook a fist at him, threatening, "Dude, you're gonna need health food when I'm done with you." And Bonnie treated him to the eminently intelligent remark, "You are, like, just as much a dork as she is. And that's, like, really dorky."

"Don't listen to them, Alan," Prunella urged her friend.

"Listen to who?" was Alan's glum response.

As they were passing through the school's front exit, they were suddenly met by the polar bear boy Harold Farmer, who went by his Kipling-inspired middle name, Mowgli. To their surprise, the usually shy and quiet boy spoke to them boldly.

"They have no right to talk to you like that," he stated. "It's not all your fault Mr. Baker was fired. I complained about him, too."

Alan was startled. "You...you did?"

"You bet I did." Mowgli sounded more confident than ever as he bounded down the stairway. "I go to school to get an education, not to hear stories about space aliens and unicorns."

"So what's your opinion of Mrs. Krantz?" Prunella asked him.

"It's her first day," Mowgli answered. "She'll get better."

The three fifth-graders ambled down the sidewalk past Fern, who had just reacted in shock to something Binky had said to her.

"QUIT?" she roared. "You can't quit! We're in the middle of taping an episode!"

"I can't do this anymore," said the distraught-looking Binky. "All the kids are making fun of me. It's torture."

"So?" replied the indignant Fern. "Just ignore them!"

"I can't," Binky moaned. "I'm at that stage of life where my happiness depends on what other people think of me."

"I don't believe this!" Fern's face was red with outrage. "You're Binky Barnes! You're the terror of the playground! Why should you care what they think? If they laugh at you for dressing up like a cow, just clobber them!"

Binky sighed. "It's no use, Fern. Everybody knows I'm just a big dumb coward who's afraid to sleep without a night light."

"Talk to Mrs. Stiles," Fern urged him, grabbing him by the hand. "Maybe she can help you."

"Forget it." Binky yanked his hand away from Fern and began to trudge down the street away from her.

"BINKY!" Fern shrieked desperately, and a car alarm went off in the distance.

Van, his wheelchair parked at the curb, wondered what Fern was screaming about but didn't get a chance to ask her, as the Buick driven by his sister Quinn had arrived to take him home.

As Odette helped him into the back seat and folded up his chair, he noticed that someone was sitting in the front of the car opposite Quinn. Someone with cat ears and curly orange hair tied into puffs in the back.

A moment later Odette squeezed into the back seat next to Van, and let her swan neck slowly straighten out until her head bumped against the roof. "Van, I'd like you to meet April Murphy," she announced. "She's the new girl in my class. April, this is Van, my brother."

The girl with cat ears turned her head and smiled pleasantly at Van.

The duck boy's eyes bulged. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"Hi, Van," said April Murphy.

She was clearly the same age as Odette, probably twelve. Yet everything about her appearance--her face, her hair, her ears--unmistakably identified her as Van's former classmate, Sue Ellen Armstrong.

"Um...uh..." Van stammered helplessly.

"Don't worry," said the cat girl. "I won't eat you."

"Uh, hi, Sue...er, April," Van managed to get out. Even the shaded areas on her face matched Sue Ellen's. Who was she? A lost sister? A clone?

As the Buick rolled down the street, Van became more acquainted with Odette's new friend. "That's what I thought when I first saw her," Odette recounted. "Of course, I only met Sue Ellen a few times."

"You look so much like her," Van told April. "You've got to be related somehow."

"I don't have any relatives named Armstrong," the girl replied.

"I told April about your jazz quartet, Van," said Odette as the Buick came to a stop in the Cooper driveway.

"I love jazz," said April wistfully. "I can play sax and drums."

"That's funny," Van remarked as Odette lifted him into his wheelchair. "There's a girl in our quartet--well, it's more of a trio now--but there's a girl who also plays sax and drums."

April suddenly gasped, and Van couldn't tell if the girl was frightened or delighted. Now that she was out of the car, Van could see that she was wearing a green blouse and skirt, much like Sue Ellen had customarily worn.

"Something wrong?" he asked April.

"Uh, no, nothing," she replied, although it was obvious she had experienced a powerful emotion. "I...just don't meet many people who can play both sax and drums."

"Hey, we could use a new member," Van said to her. "Why don't you try out?"

"I can't now," April replied as she started up the access ramp to the front door of the Cooper house. "I'm too busy with school."

Even the way she talked was the same, Van thought. The slight accent brought about by years of traveling around the world, mixing with non-native English speakers of every nationality. But this girl was at least three years older than Sue Ellen. They couldn't be the same person...

TBC

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Author's Note: If you're still reading by this point, you're probably asking yourself a few questions:

1. Are April and Sue Ellen one and the same? The answer will be revealed before long.

2. Just who is Angus Winslow, and what's up with his magic ring that makes people tell the truth? Is he good or evil? I promise to keep you guessing until the very end of the story.

3. When do we get some action? Where's the "force of evil" that Alan told Buster about in the flash-forward chapter? Bear with me a little longer, my friends.

4. What does the Los Cactos crystal have to do with all of this? Obviously something, or I wouldn't have bothered to mention it.

Happy reading!