A plexiglass barrier separated Fern and Buster from Binky and Molly at the visiting room of the Elwood City Juvenile Detention Center. The incarcerated kids wore their usual drab uniforms, and sported unworried smiles, as if they cared little about the fact that they were there.

"That's right," Molly boasted. "Binky and I broke into the museum and stole the diamonds on our own. My dad had nothing to do with it."

"We just talked to your dad," said Fern. "He has another explanation, and we think it's a good one. Mansch planted the diamonds in your dad's secret compartment. You were going to turn them in to the police when Mansch caught you with them. So you took the blame to protect your father."

"An interesting idea," said Molly. "But can you prove it?" Her hazel eyes, visible now that the hair overhanging her face had been shorn, bore a hint of pleading.

"We'll do our best," Buster promised. Behind the chairs on which he and Fern sat, a poodle woman in a police uniform stood motionlessly and listened intently to their conversation.

"Guess who's in here with us," said Binky. "Dudley Proctor."

Fern's and Buster's eyes widened at the sound of their former classmate's name.

"How'd he end up in juvie?" Buster wondered.

"He and some kids at his new school vandalized the principal's car," Binky replied.

"How's he doing?" asked Fern.

"Fine," said Molly, "as long as he has us to protect him."

As they spoke, Dudley the rat boy strolled into the washroom of the boys' quarters, clutching a toothbrush in one hand and a toothpaste tube in the other.

Unfortunately, he wasn't alone in the room. "Hey, what are you doing in here?" a rough voice called to him. "This is the boys' room."

Two larger boys stood imposingly before him—a stocky, muscular monkey boy, and a rather skinny-looking boy whose oddly-shaped head face suggested that his lineage included both ducks and horses.

"Indeed it is," Dudley answered politely, though a bit anxiously. "And I'm a boy."

"I don't think you are," said the skinny boy mockingly. "C'mon, Brick, let's take a look."

"I find your lack of manners appalling," Dudley scolded the pair.

"You'll lack something by the time we're done with you," the monkey boy threatened.

"Where are your big friends now?" asked the skinny boy as he stepped closer.

Dudley's big friends were, at the moment, wrapping up their visit with Buster and Fern.

"I'll see you guys later," said Binky with a grin. "I mean, if I ever get out of this place."

After Fern and Buster had waved their farewells, they wandered away from the visiting room and discussed their next move. "Maybe we should leave this case to the police," Fern suggested.

"No way," said Buster with determination. "We didn't fail Binky when someone wrote his name all over the school, and we won't fail him now."

"But Mansch is a dangerous criminal," Fern insisted.

"Stop being such a girl," Buster chided her. "He won't suspect a couple of kids. Now here's my plan."

----

Sue Ellen had already whistled all the tunes she knew, as well as all the tunes Francine knew. She had gone over the plot of the latest Series of Ill-Conceived Alliterations book in her mind, but her ride still hadn't arrived. It was starting to appear that she would be trapped at the aquatic center for the rest of her life. If Alan were here, she thought, he'd probably say that Carla and Nigel were caught up in a time-space warp and sent 75 years into the future.

A car pulled in front of the building, but it wasn't the Ratburns—it was Francine and her mother. They hurried into the building, and their solemn faces suggested bad news.

"Omigosh," said Francine with concern. "You must have been waiting here forever."

"Feels like it," Sue Ellen remarked. "What happened to Carla and Nigel?"

"They're in the hospital," Mrs. Frensky answered.

Fear welled up in the cat girl's stomach. "Wh-what?" she stammered. "Why?"

"Food poisoning," the monkey woman explained. "They stopped at a Japanese place while you were swimming, and ate some bad sushi."

"Oh, no," Sue Ellen mourned. "How long will they be in the hospital?"

"The doctor said they may be there for three or four days," said Francine.

Sue Ellen's eyes became moist as the Frenskys led her to their car. "Now there's no one to take care of me," she lamented. "I'm all alone again."

"You can sleep in Catherine's bed tonight," Mrs. Frensky offered.

"What about tomorrow night?" asked Francine.

"We'll see what can be arranged."

As they drove along the highway, Sue Ellen begged Mrs. Frensky to take her to the hospital so she could visit her temporary guardians, the Ratburns, but the woman's responses were noncommittal.

When they arrived at Westboro Apartments, Sue Ellen lazily watched TV while Mrs. Frensky made a few phone calls. "Hello, Mrs. Read? The Ratburns are sick, so I was wondering if you could spare your guest bedroom for... Oh, he is? I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks anyway."

Similarly, Mrs. Powers told her that they were expecting an occupant in their guest bedroom, and Mrs. Crosswire said that their condo was undergoing renovation. As Mrs. Frensky hung up the phone, Francine tapped her on the hip. "Why can't she stay with us until the Ratburns get better?" she asked.

Her mother made a weary face. "My new teaching job is stressful. I don't need another little girl to take care of right now."

Francine glared at her, unconvinced of her sincerity. "Why don't you ship me off to someone else's house while you're at it? Then you'll have plenty of time on your hands."

Mrs. Frensky shot her an annoyed look, and turned to pick up the phone again.

"Oh, I get it," said Francine accusingly. "You're afraid the people who killed her parents will come after us."

Her mother seemed to ignore the bitter remark as she dialed Mrs. McGrady's number.

----

By morning, Mrs. Frensky still hadn't found a place where Sue Ellen could stay. She drove the girls to school, whipping into the parking lot just as a familiar moose woman emerged from her convertible in the next slot over.

"Hello, Mrs. Frensky," said Mrs. Krantz in her usual high-pitched, grating voice. "Hi, Francine and Sue Ellen. Are you ready for another exciting day of school?"

"Another?" Francine joked. "I'm still waiting for my first."

The girls recounted the latest events of their lives as they followed their teacher into the building. "And it looks like they'll be in the hospital for the rest of the week," said Sue Ellen.

"You poor thing," said Mrs. Krantz sympathetically. "First you lose your parents, and now this. If you need a place to stay, Arnold and I have an extra room."

"Uh, that's very kind of you to offer."

Yet in her heart, Sue Ellen felt uneasy at the prospect of living at her teacher's house, even if only for a few days.

In her imagination, she was organizing plates, napkins, and silverware on the dining table in Mrs. Krantz' house. "I'm done with the place settings," she announced as she finished the task.

The moose woman scanned the table carefully. "The salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork," she said coldly. "Ten percent off your next spelling test."

As the meal progressed, Sue Ellen ate ravenously while Gladys and Arnold Krantz slowly ingested their steaks and salad. "You're chewing with your mouth open," Mrs. Krantz scolded the girl. "For that, you get twice as much math homework."

When they had finished eating, Mr. Krantz turned to his wife and smiled. "That was a fine meal, dear."

Then the pleasant silence was shattered by the sound of a rude underleg noise.

The Krantzes looked at each other, then looked at Sue Ellen, who shrugged innocently. "In Saudi Arabia it's considered a compliment," she remarked.

Mrs. Krantz scowled disapprovingly at her. "It's summer school for you," she said menacingly.

As she laid her bag on the desk and sat down, Sue Ellen chided herself for being so paranoid. After all, Nigel Ratburn was a teacher, and living with him and Carla was tolerable enough. But what if she had lived in Mr. Ratburn's house while she was in his third-grade class?

It was Tuesday morning, the third week of the school year, and all the kids in Mrs. Krantz' class were present with the notable exception of Binky. The line-up included girls Muffy, Sue Ellen, Beat, Francine, and Fern, and boys Arthur, George, Buster, and Van.

In Mr. Boughton's sixth-grade classroom, Alan, Prunella, Marina, and Mickie Chanel were among those discussing the unexplained absence of C.V. Oberlin from their midst. Not one of them missed him terribly, as he had spent most of the previous school day tormenting them and the rest of the student body with his strange ability to trigger fear in others. Only Alan knew the truth about C.V.'s current whereabouts, but he pretended to be as ignorant as his classmates.

The teacher, a zebra man, called the roll and then asked for questions. Alan raised his hand.

"This weekend my sister is coming to our house to stay for a while," he announced to the other pupils.

Surprised gasps spread through the room. "I didn't know you had a sister," Prunella marveled. "Why didn't you tell us about her before?"

"I guess I forgot," said Alan. "She goes to a special school. Her name's Tegan, and she's 14." There was much more he could say about her, but he dared not.

Throughout the school day Alan's friends bombarded him with questions about the mysterious sister whose existence he had suddenly revealed.

"Is she smart like you?" asked Arthur.

"She's an alien," George theorized. "That's why he kept her a secret."

"I wonder if anyone else has an unknown sibling," said Muffy suspiciously.

"I do," Van joked. "There's really twelve of us Cooper kids."

By the end of the school day, more than twenty of the kids had made arrangements to greet Tegan Powers when she made her debut on Friday afternoon.

----

Buster sat on the porch in front of his condominium after school, reading a joke book and waiting for Fern to arrive. A few minutes passed, and he saw a poodle boy crossing the street in his direction. The boy wore a ragged T-shirt, shorts, safety pads, and a helmet, and he toted a skateboard.

As he drew closer, Buster realized to his astonishment that the boy wasn't a boy at all. He leaped to his feet, his eyes wide. "Omigosh, you had me totally fooled."

"You asked me to stop being a girl," said the boyish-looking Fern. "So I did."

"You didn't have to do this," said Buster, marveling at how little Fern resembled a girl in her current guise.

"I figured Mansch would get suspicious if he saw a girl on a skateboard," said Fern sagely. "I've played boys before. It's easy. All I have to do is change my clothes, take out my hair ribbon, and look stupid."

Buster picked up his skateboard and helmet, which he had laid on the porch. "Let's get going, then. Since Mansch is a crook, he probably doesn't work a 9-to-5 schedule."

On the sidewalk across from Raymond Mansch's house, Buster tried to teach Fern (or Ferdinand, as "he" wished to be called) the finer points of skateboarding. Half an hour had passed, and Fern had fallen on her rear end about thirteen times, when they saw a fancy-looking Mercedes pull into the garage of the Mansch home.

"There he is!" exclaimed Buster, pointing.

"Don't point," Fern warned him. "Act inconspicuous."

"I can't even pronounce inconspicuous," said Buster.

They went on with the skateboarding lesson, pretending as if they were unaware of Mansch's presence. The short cat man, however, was observing them through the draped window of his kitchen.

"Hmm," he mused. "I haven't seen those boys before."

Reaching into a nearby cabinet, he drew out a digital camera with a telephoto lens...

----

Dudley Green, formerly Dudley Proctor, formerly Dolly Proctor, was the most miserable rat boy in the world, and possibly the most miserable boy of any species. It wasn't just the pain from his broken nose, but also the grim realization that the brutes who had beaten him were typical representatives of the gender that had been forced upon him.

"I hope those punks get whacked really good," grumbled Mr. Green, his adoptive father, who was driving his family away from the hospital.

"The bright side is, you get out of juvie a week early," said Mrs. Green, his adoptive mother.

"There is no bright side," mourned Dudley, running his fingers over the bandages and braces that held his nose together.

At his request, his new parents stopped by the real estate agency where his "aunt Augusta" worked. His mother escorted him into the offices, then sat in the waiting area while the unhappy boy stepped into the room where Augusta Winslow had her desk.

The blond rabbit woman gasped at the sight of Dudley's injured face. "Good heavens! What happened?"

"Boys happened," Dudley complained, tears starting to wet the bandages on his nose. "Boys are unruly savages by nature, and now that I'm one of them, I can't keep myself out of trouble."

"I'm so sad for you," said Augusta earnestly. She seemed tired and a bit pale, as if she had experienced a difficult, sleepless night. There was a faint, odd smell in the room.

"It's been half a year," said Dudley impatiently. "Have you made any progress towards finding a spell to turn me back into a girl?"

Augusta only lowered her face in sadness.

"Are you even trying?" Dudley tried to raise his voice in anger, but the pain from his bruised and broken face prevented him.

The rabbit woman didn't speak. It seemed to him as if she was concealing dreadful news that would break his heart even further.

"You don't care what happens to me," he said indignantly. "You have your boyfriend from the stars to make you happy, but I have nothing."

Augusta finally spoke, slowly and somberly.

"I can't help you, Dudley. I've given up my magical powers."

The words stung like a dagger through the rat boy's heart.

"You know that there are two of me," Augusta went on. "I'm the one who went to the planet Kron with Dr. Portinari. The other one was taken into custody by the Kron, so I returned to take her place."

Dudley only nodded, wondering how a lengthy explanation would help to ease his suffering.

"The Kron studied my powers while I was on their planet. They concluded that I could easily lose control of them, and cause tremendous damage to the universe. They offered to perform a surgical modification on my brain that would take away my Wicasta gift."

Dudley waited breathessly for the hammer blow that would destroy all hope.

"I accepted."

Augusta opened her mouth to say more, but not before Dudley burst into tears and fled from her office.

His mother embraced and cuddled him as she led him back to the car, but nothing could console him. As he rode away from the real estate office, still overwhelmed by grief, it occurred to him what the odd smell in Augusta's office was. Alcohol.

----

to be continued