It was a warm, cloudless Saturday morning, and April Murphy was sunning herself on a beach chair atop the Westboro apartment building. She wore a green one-piece bathing suit, having given up two-piece suits out of concern that acquaintances with more curiosity than discretion would see her scars and inquire about them.

Her rest was interrupted when Francine burst through the roof access door, holding a newspaper page in one hand. "April, you've gotta see this," the younger girl exclaimed with some urgency.

Sitting up, April took the paper in her hands and peered at it through her dark sunglasses. It was from the Saturday issue of the Elwood Times, and contained the weekly kid's section. Halfway down the page was a story entitled, MY FRIEND IS A TIME TRAVELER, illustrated with the same front and side pictures of herself and Sue Ellen that she had seen in her school's web site. The author's name was given as May Wayne--the concatenation of Fern and Alan's middle names.

She growled under her breath as she read the story, whose fluid prose suggested that Fern had written it. When she finished, something struck her as odd. "She didn't say anything about the CIA," she remarked.

"I doubt the paper would've published it if she had," Francine observed.

April sighed bitterly. "They're just nine-year-olds," she remarked. "I wonder if they even understand the seriousness of what they're doing."

"Do you really think enemy agents could be in Elwood City looking for you?" asked Francine with a hint of worry.

April pulled off her sunglasses, revealing a pair of sober eyes. "There's something I haven't told you. The reason why we had to move away from here so suddenly...it was because Dad found a listening device in my bedroom."

To her surprise, Francine started to laugh.

"This isn't funny!" April barked.

After snickering for a few seconds, Francine regained her composure. "There's something I haven't told you," she confessed. "There was a listening device in my bedroom too. Beat planted them so she could monitor the body-switching experiment."

Startled, April could only stammer incredulously.

"It wasn't her fault," Francine continued. "The device she used to switch us is called the Opticron. It was invented by Mr. Putnam, who ran Uppity Downs Academy before he died. He used it to copy his knowledge and memories into Beat and Mavis. Then they tried switching our bodies with it, but it didn't work correctly. Right after you moved away, all my memories of being Francine came back, and I had two personalities in my head."

"The same thing happened to me," April acknowledged. "But I've learned to live with it." She replaced her sunglasses over her eyes and stared thoughtfully at the newspaper section in her hands. "Hmm...I never would've suspected Beat..."

"Beat and Mavis are normal now," Francine went on. "They erased Mr. Putnam from their brains."

April nodded at her. "Thanks for showing me this."

After Francine left the roof, the cat girl lay in her chair for a while, pondering what she had just heard and read. Perhaps the danger wasn't as great as she had feared--yet she couldn't afford to let down her guard. She had considered a certain method of self-protection and dismissed it as too extreme, but perhaps it was time to revisit it, at least to gauge its feasibility.

She returned to the apartment she shared with Augusta, and pulled from the desk compartment a scarlet-colored stone. Grasping it in her palm, she closed her eyes, concentrated...and disappeared. Her body was now invisible, even to her own view.

She had never employed the invisibility stone for more than half an hour at a time, even when sneaking into Los Cactos to steal the crystal. She hadn't bothered to obtain detailed specifications from the future Augusta, so she had no way of knowing how long the stone's magic would last if used constantly. On top of that, the present Augusta might grow suspicious if she found it missing from the desk. The only way to know was to try it out...

The door to the apartment seemed to open and close on its own as the transparent girl passed through it.

She wandered directionlessly about the neighborhood for a full hour, satisfied to observe that the stone in her fist had kept her invisible the entire time. Noticing something curious, she hurried toward Muffy's mansion, where a van was removing the last of the Crosswire possessions--and the For Sale sign had been taken down.

Augusta had proudly mentioned the fact that she had sold the mansion, but April had learned nothing about the buyers from her. She guessed they were the elegantly dressed aardvark couple who stood in the front yard conversing with Ed and Millicent Crosswire. A little girl with braided orange hair and a red silk dress was with them, apparently their daughter. None of them noticed April as she slowly walked closer.

"There's a downside to suddenly being rich," said the aardvark woman. "Now everybody thinks we're the owners of that perfume company."

Mrs. Crosswire chuckled. "I suppose you wish you were."

Muffy herself appeared a few times in her usual dress, carting her boxed porcelain dolls to the limousine. April watched as the aardvark girl approached her, wearing a haughty smirk.

"Why are you carrying those boxes by yourself?" she asked Muffy.

"I don't feel safe putting my dolls in the truck," Muffy replied, tightening her grip on the two boxes in her arms.

The aardvark girl leaned over for a closer look. "Oh, there are dolls in the boxes? I didn't notice. You're right, they don't belong in the truck. They'd be out of place in the middle of all those beautiful furniture pads."

Scowling, Muffy turned away from the girl and marched toward the limo. "Your dolls look like they rolled off an assembly line," she heard the girl taunt. "I own a handcrafted porcelain doll from Belgium. It's worth twice as much as all your dolls put together."

April was sure she didn't like this new girl, and tried to imagine a way to prank her without being noticed. Just as she was formulating a plan that involved the exposed zipper in the back of the girl's dress, she heard the voices of children drawing nearer. Turning on her invisible heel, she saw a multitude of Muffy's friends--Arthur, Prunella, Alan, Fern, George, Francine, Binky, and Mavis--who had arrived to offer their best wishes. April knew it would be very bad if Fern and Alan saw her while she was invisible, so she backed away to the side of the mansion.

Fern was the first to notice the new girl's presence. While the other kids swarmed around Muffy, she cautiously walked up to the aardvark girl and gaped at her somehow familiar face. "Don't stare," the girl admonished her. "It's rude."

Then it all came back to Fern. "Oh...my...gosh," she said unbelievingly. "Mickie Chanel."

"I'm surprised you remembered my name," was the girl's belittling response.

"It was you who told me to remember it," said Fern. "You said it would be in lights someday."

"And it will be," said Mickie Chanel proudly. "I remember you, but I don't remember your name. I only remember things that are important."

"Fine," replied Fern with a scowl. "If it's not important to you, I won't tell you what it is."

At that moment Prunella strolled up to her and asked, "Do you know this girl, Fern?"

Mickie snapped her fingers. "Fern! That's it."

Deciding that the snobbish girl was worthy only of being referred to in the third person, Fern turned to Prunella. "Yes, I know her. We competed for the Mini Moo role. She has a beautiful voice--as long as she's singing and not talking."

"Prunella Prufrock," the rat girl introduced herself, extending a hand to Mickie, who shook it hesitatingly.

"Mickie's about your age, I think," Fern told Prunella. "Maybe she'll go to your class."

"If she goes to a public school at all," said Prunella.

"Sadly, I will," Mickie chimed in. "I used to have a private tutor, but my parents think my social skills will improve if I attend a public school. As if my social skills need improvement."

While Prunella briefed Mickie on the joys of fifth grade at Lakewood Elementary, Fern let her gaze wander to the front wall of the house, where she saw a pair of shoe-shaped indentations in the grass. It appeared as if someone very heavy had stood in the spot for a long time--and quite recently, as the flattened blades of grass were still green.

She looked back at Mickie and Prunella for a few seconds, then scanned for the indentations again. They were gone...

TBC