Soon after Mr. Krantz came home from his job as an upholsterer, Sue Ellen received a phone call from Carla Ratburn. The Costa Rican woman sounded as if she had to expend great effort to speak.

"Nigel and I are back from the hospital," she related, "but we're still a little under the weather. If it's no bother, we'd like you to stay with your teacher for a few more days."

Still holding the phone to her head, Sue Ellen sneaked a peek into the computer room, where Mr. Krantz was engrossed in a game of Virtual Goose VI: Eggs Calibur. "Uh, yeah, that'll be fine," she said with a bit of reluctance.

"We'll see you soon," said Carla, and the call ended.

Mrs. Krantz, who had listened in, was overjoyed at the news. "This is fantastic!" she gushed in her usual grating voice. "We'll have so much fun. Arnold and I are going diving on Saturday, and you can come along."

Sue Ellen's heart did a backflip. "I love diving! Where are we going? Acapulco? Maybe we'll find some pearls."

"No, we're just going to the beach," the moose woman told her.

"That's okay, I guess," said the cat girl disappointedly.

"We'll have a great time," Mrs. Krantz reassured her, and then she did something very un-teacherlike. She kissed Sue Ellen on the cheek.

On the forehead was bad enough, but on the cheek? It was wrong on so many levels.

She wandered into the computer room, wiping the saliva from her face. "Care for a two-player game, Sue?" Mr. Krantz invited her.

"No, thanks," she replied. "I'm trying to give it up."

----

"Omigosh," exclaimed Jenna when she beheld the bandaged state of Dudley's nose. "What happened to your face?"

"My nose is broken," the rat boy replied with a nasal twinge to his voice.

"A bigger kid picked a fight with him," Muffy explained.

"Gosh, that's horrible," Jenna remarked. "What happened to the kid?"

"I don't know," Dudley answered. "Binky and Molly said they'd get even, but..."

"Wait," Jenna stopped him. "Binky and Molly are in juvie."

"That's right, they are."

Jenna's tone became hushed. "That means you were in juvie too."

Dudley nodded.

"Let's go, Muffy," said Jenna, turning abruptly to leave.

"What's wrong?" asked Muffy as she followed the pointy-nosed cat girl to the front door of Dudley's house.

"You didn't tell me he was in juvie," Jenna complained.

"I wanted it to be a surprise," said Muffy with a grin. "Some girls think that's cool."

"Not me," said Jenna with finality.

The two girls exchanged few words as they rode together in the back seat of Muffy's car. As they neared the Crosswire condo, Muffy heard her cell phone ringing.

"Hello?"

"Muffy, this is Beat. Would you please assign someone else to my time slot for meeting Alan's sister tomorrow? I'm afraid I can't come."

"Oh? Why not?"

Muffy heard a moment of silence on the line.

"I'm grounded."

The surprise nearly short-circuited Muffy's brain.

"You?" she sputtered. "Grounded? You've never been grounded before. Not even when we had that fight last year. Whatever you did, it must have been a doozy."

"It was a doozy indeed," said Beat, "except I wasn't at fault. I met a teenage boy, and we had an interesting conversation, and the next time we met, he asked me for a date. Because I look older than I am, he mistook me for a girl his own age. My mum heard a rumor that I tried to pass myself off as a teenager, and she grounded me. I tried to explain to her that I never misrepresented myself, but her mind was made up."

Muffy sighed. "That's a tough break, Beat. Here's what I think happened. After the boy realized his mistake, he told his friends that you lied to him, because he didn't want to look stupid in front of them. You know how boys are, especially teenage boys."

More silence greeted Muffy's ear. "I think you're right," Beat's voice finally came through.

"Am I ever wrong?" Muffy boasted.

"I must find that boy, and make him tell the truth," said Beat with determination. "Thank you for the advice, Muffy."

----

She knew that if she wanted to meet Alan's sister with her friends, she had to set things right with Alberto and her mother the very next day. That meant sneaking out of school during lunch, and running the eight blocks to Hogarth High School.

When she reached the school, slightly winded from the jaunt, she began to wander the hallways in search of the Ecuadorian boy. The high school resembled Lakewood for the most part, except the lockers, and the students themselves, were considerably taller, and the water fountains stood higher from the floor.

She walked up to a pair of teenage rabbit girls, who seemed to pay no attention to her. "And then I was like, whatever," babbled one girl to the other. "And he was like, as if."

"Like, no way," was the other girl's well-phrased response.

"It's like, totally true," the first girl insisted.

"Pardon me, ladies," said Beat politely, "but I'm looking for Alberto Molina."

The rabbit girls shrugged and grinned vapidly. "You could, like, try the lunchroom," one of them suggested.

"You're, like, kinda short," remarked the other. "Are you, like, a new freshman?"

"Like, totally," said Beat sarcastically, and she quickly strolled away.

Signs on the walls led her to the cafeteria, which proved to be significantly larger than the one at Lakewood. She made her way through the crowd of at least a hundred adolescents, who apparently didn't find her presence strange at all, until she finally spotted a dark-complexioned boy with pointed ears. That's him, she thought.

Alberto was seated at a table with four other big boys, feasting on a plate of meat loaf and cracking jokes about teachers, when an unwelcome sight hit his eyes. "Ay caramba," he groaned. "You again."

The rabbit-aardvark girl approached him, her gaze fixed. "Why did you tell your friends that I lied about my age?" she demanded.

"Go away," said Alberto with a forbidding scowl.

"Because of you my mum grounded me," said Beat, her little-girl voice sticking out among the deep bass tones of the boys. "I insist that you call her and tell her what really happened."

The boys at Alberto's table stopped talking among themselves, and set their curious eyes on Beat. The Ecuadorian boy rose to his feet and glowered. "I told you to go away," he said menacingly.

"Not until you call my mum," said Beat unflinchingly.

"I'm eating my lunch," Alberto pointed out.

Anger welled up in Beat's stomach as she stared at the petulant boy.

Then, with one sweep of her arm, she shoved Alberto's meal tray off of the table. It crashed to the floor, scattering bits of meat loaf and gelatin on the boy's sneakers.

The entire cafeteria fell silent. Every pair of eyes turned toward Alberto, who glared in disbelief and outrage at the girl who had spoiled his lunch and his shoes.

It almost seemed to Beat as if she were watching herself from outside her body, astonished at her words and actions, yet unable to control them. "Enjoy your lunch," she heard herself saying.

"I'll kill you!" growled Alberto, lunging at the British girl. She effortlessly dodged his advance, then grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back; it all seemed to happen in the blink of an eye.

Alberto grimaced as the muscles of his arm roared in pain. His friends looked on in wonder, amazed that such a diminutive girl had managed to subdue him.

"You have no idea who you're messing with, punk," Beat snarled into his ear. "Now do as the little lady says, or I'll grind you up and feed you to the locusts."

Too terrified to resist or reply, Alberto only whimpered. Beat tightened her steel grip on his arm.

"Let him go," ordered a male voice. Beat's fury-blinded eyes made out the image of a middle-aged, heavyset dog man with straggly red hair—obviously the principal.

As she calmed down and released Alberto from her hold, she realized that she could scarcely remember what she had just done. She vaguely recollected referring to herself in the third person, and speaking without a British accent...

----

Beat's attempt to defend herself before the high-school principal was unsuccessful, and she was sent back to Lakewood to face the wrath of Haney. Her mother was notified immediately, and she found herself in even hotter water than before.

Needless to say, she wasn't with Arthur, Francine, and George when they arrived at Alan's house to welcome his sister for her weekend stay. Buster, Prunella, Van, and the rabbit girl with the striped shirt who never spoke were on their way out.

"You won't believe how smart she is," Prunella remarked to Francine. "She makes Einstein look like a doofus."

"And she can play the violin like an angel," said Van, who held an instrument case in his lap.

The rabbit girl with the striped shirt smiled at Arthur, but had nothing to say.

Alan then introduced the newcomers to the 14-year-old Tegan Powers. The blond-haired girl looked quite a bit like her younger brother, but other than that seemed unremarkable, except for two features. A silver barette held her wavy hair in place, and appeared to be clamped to her ears and chin like a harness. Her knee-length skirt revealed a thick strip of gray fabric wrapped around her right leg. Arthur recognized it from a police show he had seen—it was an electronic monitor bracelet.

"Hi, my name's Tegan," said the girl. Her manner of speaking was slow and deliberate, as if she was unaccustomed to communicating vocally.

"I'm George," said the moose boy. "I like to build things. I just built a toy helicopter using a design by Leonardo da Vinci."

As George and Tegan launched into a discussion of Leonardo's life and works, Arthur led Alan aside. "Why does she have a monitor bracelet?" he asked quietly. "Is she under house arrest or something?"

"Not exactly," Alan replied. "Tegan's a bit absent-minded. Sometimes she wanders off and gets lost."

"Oh, I get it," said Arthur. "The bracelet lets you find her."

The last group to visit Tegan included Muffy and two of Alan's sixth-grade classmates. Once they had departed, Alan and his parents gathered around Tegan, who reached up and slid her barette to the back of her head. Her thoughts began to course into the minds of the other members of the Powers family, and their thoughts became audible in her mind. It was only the third time Alan had experienced the merging, and he still felt somewhat uneasy about being present in so many minds and bodies at once.

"I just love your friends, Alan," Tegan thought. "I really want to get to know them better."

"You will," Alan thought back. "But remember, you can't use your powers on anyone who doesn't know about them."

"Then I'll have to do it the old-fashioned way. By talking."

Tegan moved the barette back to the crown of her head, and the connection between minds faded and disappeared.

Then she turned to her brother. "You're worried about someone," she observed. "A girl. She's missing. She's in danger."

"Yes," Alan admitted sadly. "A friend of mine. She was kidnapped."

Her heart touched, Tegan lifted her hands to slide the barette again, but Alan motioned for her to stop. "Please don't," he urged. "It's embarrassing."

"Okay," said Tegan, dropping her hands.

His mind beset by worries once more, Alan shuffled to the front door and watched as his friends disappeared down the sidewalk. He glanced down at the wires and sensors that had been installed along the bottom of the wall. Sitting inside of his house, not permitted to leave, was a girl who held the key to finding and rescuing Fern. The scientists at Ballford had explained to him and his parents the complications that might arise if Tegan were allowed to freely exercise her mental abilities. "Society isn't ready for her," they had declared. "She isn't ready for society." Alan had never felt so powerful and powerless at the same time.

----

to be continued