His pulse racing, Mr. Cooper packed Odette, Logan, Dallin, and Megan into the other car, and rushed to the hospital at top legal speed. They found Van in room 221, lying on his back in a medical robe with a plaster cast coating his upper beak. Mrs. Cooper stood at the side of her son's bed, while a doctor dispassionately watched from nearby.

"Omigosh, Van!" exclaimed Odette, who held Megan in her arms. "Does it hurt?"

"Mm-hmm," mumbled the injured duck boy without moving.

"Don't try to speak," the doctor advised him.

The kids thronged about their bedridden brother, forcing Mrs. Cooper to step backwards. "How did this happen?" her husband asked, but she appeared too nervous and ashamed to answer.

"Dude, you smiled too hard again," Logan joked, and Van suppressed a chuckle.

"How did it happen?" Mr. Cooper demanded of his wife. "How did he break his beak?"

She spoke in a low, quivering voice. "He fell."

"Fell?" Mr. Cooper repeated. "From what? His chair?"

The duck woman looked away and remained silent.

"Answer me!" her husband ordered.

"The reverend," Mrs. Cooper mumbled. "At the Englands' parish. He said all things were possible through faith. He said Van could walk again if he had faith."

Her husband's eyes flashed with outrage.

"We fasted and prayed all day," she went on.

"Fasted?" snapped Mr. Cooper. "What about his blood sugar?"

"We went to the Englands' house," she continued, ignoring the question. "The reverend was there. We all prayed that Van would walk."

"Then what happened?" Mr. Cooper's face was livid.

"Then Van pushed himself up, and tried to walk, but..."

All of the kids, as well as the doctor, watched in breathless terror as Mr. Cooper struggled to contain the rage building within him. They were certain that at any second he would explode, taking his wife with him.

Mrs. Cooper looked at the floor and started to cry as her husband's face blazed like a thousand suns.

He made no attempt to shield his children from his furious tirade. "You've gone too far this time, Valerie. You will have nothing more to do with those fanatics and their superstitions, do you understand?"

His wife silently wiped tears from her cheeks.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"

She nodded weakly.

Mr. Cooper waited until he had calmed down a bit, then continued to speak. "As soon as we leave here, I'm going to give Social Services a call. The Englands are obviously unfit to raise children. I intend to see to it that Zeke is removed from their custody and placed in a foster home."

"No!" exclaimed Mrs. Cooper in anguish.

"Objection overruled," said Mr. Cooper half-angrily, half-jokingly.

"I won't let you take Zeke away from his parents," said his wife with sudden defiance.

"How will you stop me?" he challenged her.

Mrs. Cooper trembled as she worked up the courage to say something she knew she would regret.

"I'll divorce you."

The word 'divorce' blared like a siren in the ears of the horrified Cooper children.

"If you take that boy away from his parents," Mrs. Cooper vowed, "I will divorce you, and I will take the children. I'm not bluffing, Mel."

If there was such a thing as an 'angry grin', it formed on Mr. Cooper's lips at this moment.

"You can divorce me if you want," he said condescendingly, "but you can forget about taking the children. I'm a successful lawyer. You're a woman who believes in evil spirits and faith healing. Who do you think will win custody?"

Ice seemed to encase Mrs. Cooper's heart as she glared relentlessly at her husband.

Turning to the doctor, Mr. Cooper spoke as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "How soon will my son's beak be healed?" he asked calmly.

"You're looking at about four weeks," the doctor told him.

Ignoring his wife's scowl, Mr. Cooper reached over the bed and patted Van's feathery scalp. "Keep on swinging, slugger," he said supportively. He then walked over to the doorway of the hospital room, turned, and gazed upon his brood. "Children," he called to them.

Logan, Odette, and Dallin looked back and forth between their mother and father. Logan stepped forward to follow his father almost without hesitation. Odette dropped Megan into her mother's arms, then proceeded after Logan. As for Dallin, he ran to his mother and wrapped his arms around her leg.

"Dude, Mom's really blown it this time," remarked Logan as he accompanied Odette and his father through the hospital hallway.

"Do you really think she'll divorce you?" Odette asked her father.

"There's only one way to find out," said Mr. Cooper as he reached for his cell phone.

----

Too furious to face her husband, Mrs. Cooper spent the evening at a hotel with Dallin and Megan. Van remained at the hospital, his beak slowly mending, visited at times by friends from school who had heard of his misfortune.

The next day was a gloomy one in Mrs. Krantz' classroom. Fern was still kidnapped, Binky was still incarcerated, and Van had a cast on his upper beak that made it impossible for him to speak and be understood. The notes he wrote on the blackboard only added to the pall by describing the contention between his parents.

While time passed uneventfully at Lakewood, the Englands were about to receive some unwelcome guests. As part of her home-schooling duties, Mrs. England was coaching her son Zeke in his memorization activities.

"Now let's go through the Bill of Rights again, starting with the Second Amendment," she instructed the boy.

Zeke cleared his throat. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be..."

His recitation was interrupted by the sound of dogs barking. "I'll see who's there," said Mr. England as he reached into his gun closet and pulled out a firearm.

At the front gate, the two Dobermans were loudly protesting the presence of two uniformed people, a man and a woman, with nametags identifying them as agents of Social Services. Mr. England peered warily at them as he walked closer, the shotgun dangling from his hand. "Who's there?" he called out.

Once the dogs had jumped aside and ceased their barking, the woman handed Mr. England a sealed envelope. "This is an order to appear in court for a child custody hearing," she informed him.

"Child custody?" Alarmed, Mr. England pointed the barrel of his gun at the two agents. "I knew it was coming to this."

"Put the gun down, Mr. England," said the male agent calmly.

"If you want my gun," the pom man warned, "you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

"If you ignore this order, you will be arrested," the female agent cautioned him.

"Send all you've got," said Mr. England defiantly. "You're not laying a grubby finger on my children."

Fearing for their safety if they continued to agitate him, the two agents walked away from the gate. "Cowards," sneered Mr. England as he watched them climb into a car with government license plates.

----

Unlike his friends, Alan was in the habit of commencing homework instead of watching TV after returning from school. Engrossed in a simple but deceptively profound algebra problem, he barely registered when his mother called to him, "I'm going to pick up some groceries. I'll be back in half an hour."

He was alone in the house with Tegan, who sat in a corner of the living room, looking over a home furnishings catalog.

The doorbell rang.

Remembering that Tegan wasn't allowed to answer the door, Alan pushed his homework aside with a reluctant groan, and went to see who was calling. His sister raised her eyes from the magazine and smirked.

Alan opened the door.

Before him stood a short cat man with a goatee. His black hair was tied into a ponytail in the back. He wore an expensive-looking gray flannel suit. Alan had never seen the man before, but he had no trouble recognizing him from the descriptions of his friends.

Mansch.

"Good afternoon, young man," said the cat man in a gruff but polite voice. "Is there a Tegan Powers living here?"

Alan's heart pounded against his chest like a jackhammer. His worst enemy, the man who had kidnapped the girl he liked, was standing on the doorstep, inquiring after the sister he had just met and had sworn to protect. Surely his intentions were as black as hell itself. There was no escape, unless Tegan chose to use her mind powers in a defensive capacity.

Slowly, cautiously, he turned around and looked hopefully at his sister. The girl smiled at him and flicked her eyebrows. She didn't move from her chair. Why wasn't she worried?

Then it hit him.

"Tegan sent for him," he realized. "She wants to read his mind and find out where Fern is."

Time seemed to grind to a stop around Alan. He was faced with an impossible choice. If he allowed Tegan to scan Mansch's mind, she might discover a way to save Fern from a ghastly fate—but then he would have to face his parents' punishment, and untold other consequences, for defying the orders of the Ballford scientists. His other option was to tell Mansch to leave, and perhaps destroy all hope of rescuing Fern.

"Young man?" Mansch said again.

A battle raged within him, and ultimately his feelings for Fern triumphed over his fear of punishment. He gradually backed away from the door and motioned with his head for Tegan to greet the visitor.

The blond girl jumped to her feet and hurried to the door, nodding knowingly at Alan along the way. Once she was eye-to-eye with Mansch, she immediately raised her hands and slid her barette to the back of her head.

Far enough away to avoid Tegan's mind-merging influence, Alan watched in awe as the bear girl and the cat man stared at each other with blank expressions. The air seemed to quiver and rumble around the two.

Thirty seconds passed.

Tegan moved her barette to the top of her head and smiled pleasantly at Mansch, who seemed slightly bewildered. "I-I think I have the wrong house," he said meekly. "I'm sorry."

Once the cat man had walked out of sight, Alan confronted his sister. "How did you get him to come here?" he inquired.

"I called him and said I had a tip about the identity of the diamond thief," said Tegan in a carefree tone.

"You know I'll be in deep, deep crud if Mom and Dad find out what I just did," said Alan worriedly.

"I saw into your mind," Tegan told her brother. "I knew you wouldn't try to stop me."

Alan lowered his voice. "So...what did you find out?"

"He ordered Fern's kidnapping," Tegan began. "She was taken by a pair of petty thugs with no connection to him. He doesn't know where she is."

Alan sighed with disappointment.

"However, he intends to release her once Molly admits the truth about where she found the diamonds," Tegan continued. "Also, he knows where the other two necklaces are hidden."

"So we have enough information to save Fern and bust Mansch." Alan pounded his fist into his hand. "Excellent."

"Our course of action is obvious," said Tegan. "First we convince Molly to confess everything. Once Mansch sets Fern free, we go to the police with the location of the hidden necklaces."

"I'm on it," said Alan eagerly.

----

to be continued