When Beat Simon woke up the next morning, she was no longer alone in her brain.

She behaved normally, other than being strangely silent, up until she was seated at the dining table with her parents. As Mrs. Simon laid a plate of poached eggs in front of her, she announced simply, "Mum, Dad...it's happened."

"What's happened, dear?" asked her mother.

"Not everything has come back yet," said Beat with an eerie lack of accent, "but Mr. Putnam is now the dominant personality. That's only because he's older, of course."

Her parents stared at her with uncertainty and suspicion. "Can't you erase yourself like you did before?" asked Mrs. Simon.

"You don't understand," Beat explained. "She wants it this way. At first she was against the idea of a man transplanting his memories into the brain of a child, but after giving it some thought, she decided it would be an awful waste to let me vanish forever. So she asked Mavis to put me back in her brain. She knew exactly what she was doing, and acted of her own accord."

"Then why did you wait until now to come back?" asked Mr. Simon.

"I decided to use the opportunity to use an untested feature of the Opticron," Beat answered. "A feature that suppresses memories for a specific amount of time. Mavis copied everything from her brain into Beatrice's, then suppressed the new contents, as well as Beatrice's memory of having undergone the procedure."

"I think this is just wrong," Mrs. Simon protested.

"You're entitled to your opinion," said Beat coldly. "I happen to think death is wrong."

"How should we treat you, then?" Mr. Simon wondered.

"Like you always have," Beat replied. "I'm still your little girl."

----

No one noticed anything amiss about Beat as she walked past them in the hallways of Lakewood Elementary, except possibly the fact that she smiled more. She dressed the same as always, and had the same slight skip in her gait.

As she was on her way to Mrs. Krantz' room, Alan caught her eye and motioned for her to join him in a quiet corner. Once they were alone, he asked, "What did you mean yesterday when you told me to not let anyone near Tegan, especially you?"

Beat's expression became serious, betraying an intelligence far beyond her years. "I know what she is, Alan. I know what the device on her head is. The only thing I don't know is, what sort of powers does she have?"

"Powers?" said Alan, feigning ignorance. "She doesn't have any powers. Her last name is Powers, but that's it."

Beat reached up and stroked the chin of the boy who measured a full four inches shorter. "You can't keep the truth from me forever," she said with an affectionate smirk.

As the girl skipped away, Alan resolved that he would, indeed, protect Tegan from her.

When Mrs. Krantz read the roll, she included Sue Ellen's name. All were present except for, of course, Binky and Fern. Over the course of the first period, Beat astounded the class by giving answers even more bewilderingly brilliant than her usual offerings. This, naturally, made Francine very suspicious.

Wanting more than a few minutes alone with the girl, Francine waited until morning recess to confront her. "Who are you really?" she demanded to know. They were standing among the trees at the edge of the school property.

"I'm Beat," the British girl answered. "And Mavis. And Putnam. It's quite crowded in here."

"I'm not sure what to do," said the amazed and indignant Francine. "I could ask you to get out of Beat's mind, but you did that once already, and it was a trick."

"You have two people in your brain," said Beat flippantly. "Why can't I have three?"

Francine could only shake her head in despair.

"I hope things will be the same between us, Frankie," said Beat in her usual girlish tone. "I promise I won't try to switch you with anyone—unless you want to be switched, of course."

"No, thanks," Francine said firmly, and stormed away.

For the most part, the kids warmed up quickly to the new, improved, happier, smarter Beat Simon. There were still those who pointed and laughed at her early-blooming body, but she shrugged them off without a second thought.

During the lunch break, she and Muffy caught each other alone in the girls' room. "I noticed you're a lot less gloomy today," Muffy remarked. "What did you do, take sunshine pills?"

Beat didn't bother to reply to the small talk. "I understand you're trying to find a girlfriend for Dudley Green," she said seriously.

"Yes, I am," said Muffy. "But your mom won't let you have a boyfriend. Do you have someone else in mind?"

"You can't solve everyone's problems by matchmaking, Muffy," Beat informed her.

"Yeah, I learned that with Augusta," Muffy mused.

"I have another idea," said Beat, stepping closer to Muffy and speaking quietly. "Dudley isn't sad because he doesn't have a girlfriend. He's sad because he isn't a girl. The solution is obvious."

Muffy shrugged. "I don't know how to turn him back into a girl."

"Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course."

Beat narrowed her eyes and lowered her voice further. "Remember last February, when Sue Ellen and Francine switched bodies?"

"Yeah," said Muffy. "That was a cool joke."

"It wasn't a joke," Beat told her. "I did it."

Muffy replied with a confused glare.

"I have access to a device that can temporarily exchange the contents of two human brains," Beat confided. "I used it to switch Sue Ellen and Francine, and I intend to use it to switch Dudley with a girl."

"That's crazy talk," Muffy chided her.

Beat ignored the comment. "You know the girls better than anyone else, Muffy. If you can't point me to a girl who would like to experience being a boy for a few days, I'll do it myself."

"Good luck," said Muffy sharply.

Seeing she would get nowhere with Muffy, Beat exited the girls' room and looked around for someone else to talk to. Not far away Van was seated in his wheelchair next to a row of lockers, reading from a small leatherbound Bible.

"Hello, Van," said Beat as she approached the duck boy.

"Hi, Beat."

The rabbit-aardvark girl cut to the chase. "How would you like to walk again?"

"I will," Van replied simply.

"No, Van," Beat reiterated. "How would you like to walk again...now?"

"I will," Van repeated.

Mystified by the boy's answer, Beat left him and walked away.

----

At the end of the school day, Van waited at the curb for the family Buick to pull up as he always did. It arrived a few minutes late on this occasion, and Mrs. Cooper was the only one inside. As she helped him into his seat, she asked, "How are you feeling?"

"Hungry," the boy replied.

"Try not to think about the hunger," his mother advised him.

She drove him away from the school, but not in the direction of their home.

Once Beat returned to her apartment, she requested to be driven to Dudley's house. Her parents, curious as to their mind-altered daughter's interests, obliged her.

Most of the bandages had been removed from Dudley's nose, leaving a metal brace and a few scars. The rat boy was sulking in front of the TV when a familiar rabbit-aardvark girl arrived. "Hi, Beat," he greeted her. "You've grown a lot."

"It's nice to see you, Dudley," was Beat's warm reply.

They retired to the bedroom, where Beat took advantage of the privacy to make her proposal. "I have a way to make you a girl again."

Dudley's jaw dropped. "H-how?" he stammered. "Magic?"

"Technology."

The boy grinned hopefully as he imagined himself being pulled into a computer screen, digitized, reprogrammed, and pushed out as Dolly, the girl he once was.

"There's a catch," said Beat. "I can only make you a girl for a few days at a time. Also, you won't be the same girl you were before. You'll be a different girl. You'll be me."

"How is that possible?" asked Dudley as he looked up and down Beat's body, wondering how he would feel with such an appearance.

"It's a device that puts my mind in your body, and your mind in my body."

"But then you would be a boy," Dudley pointed out.

"I don't mind," said Beat flippantly.

"Are you sure you don't?" Dudley asked her. "Being a boy is a very sad existence."

"Like I said, it's only for a few days at a time."

Dudley gave the matter some thought, then said, "I'll try it."

"Good," said Beat with elation. "I'll come back tomorrow after school."

----

When Mr. Cooper returned to his house after a busy day at the law office, he found Logan in his room and Odette watching Dallin and Megan, but there was no sign of Van or his wife. "Where are Van and your mother?" he asked Odette.

The swan girl shrugged. "They dropped us off and went somewhere, I don't know where."

Figuring they had been called on an unscheduled errand, Mr. Cooper poured himself a drink of milk, sat down at the dining table, and flipped open a book of Super Challenging Crossword Puzzles.

"Hmm," he pondered. "Five-letter word for avarice..."

As he strained his mental faculties, Odette answered an incoming phone call. "Dad, it's for you."

The duck man tore himself away from the puzzle and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Mr. Cooper, your son Van is in the hospital. He has a broken beak."

----

to be continued