As Flip was put in the paddy wagon for his trip to jail, the chief of police tossed him in with no restraints other than the handcuffs behind his back. They assumed he was sincere with his begging and supposed he would try to be penitential and accept his punishment. Flip, however, saw the lack of restraints and the open space of the paddy wagon as an escapable containment. Seeing this might mean the end of his freedom for the rest of his life, the tubby man righted himself, slid the handcuffs under his feet to the front of his body and reached for a small smoke bomb in the pocket of his sopping wet jacket. He scooted towards the rear door of his entrapment and began to kick at the lock. Since he was the first prisoner ever to use the vehicle, the wagon had spent many a day outside rusting. Flip noticed this from the very start and realized this might be his last chance of escape. The jail was highly secured and meant for people like him. He sneered slyly as his legs worked hard to break him out.

Eventually his feet broke the lock open and the heavy blue metal doors clanged open. As soon as freedom was evident, Flip set off the smoke bomb, enshrouding the whole vehicle and nearby surroundings in thick black smoke. As the wagon slowed to a stop, he jumped out, scampering over to where he knew there was sufficient cover after the smoke's clearing. The policeman in charge of the paddy wagon tried to breathe as he ran from the thick smoke filling his lungs.

"Now, what could possibly have happened?" he asked himself. He waited until the smoke was a dusty fog before he went over to the wagon again. Luckily for Flip, the policeman was asthmatic and could not stand to be in the pollutant.

Flip sat in the bushes, listening intently to the retreating of the policeman away from the smoke, then he took off in the opposite direction of where the cop's footsteps went. The short man hopped into a thicket of rabbit-shaped shrubs. He was far from the earlier crowd of people and figured the boundaries of Slumberland must be around within his reach.

"OH NO!" the officer yelled as he stared at the open back doors of the vehicle. His name was Cornelius, and he was second-in-command under the chief of police. One of the believers of death for Flip, Cornelius was now terribly distraught over the escape of the master escapist. Thinking quickly, he ran back to the driver's seat of the wagon and grabbed his flashlight. The sky was beginning to darken as night approached. "I have to find that scoundrel, if it's the last thing I ever do!" he cried as he wiped his runny nose with his sleeve. He felt the urge to cry, for it was his wife that was now lying in the hospital because of the person he let escape. "He deserves punishment for what he did…."

Giggling insanely, the clown-like figure under the rabbit shrubs watched Cornelius from a hundred-yard distance. "No one can catch ol' Flip!" he scoffed indignantly and a little too sure of himself. For about ten more minutes, he viewed the poor cop searching all around the wagon, in the bushes, and questioning evening out-and-about citizens. Eventually Cornelius gave up and trudged tearfully back to the empty paddy wagon. The jubilant Flip sighed deeply and sunk back into the soft shrubs, where he fell asleep in the safe haven of the branches.

Professor Genius's helicopter landed at the royal base in the center of the castle complex about a half-hour after the escape, rotors whirring, whipping around nearby trees and shrubs in the courtyard. The lanky Professor dizzily stepped off the flying machine, stumbling towards the main entrance to the castle from the courtyard.

Morpheus, wearing his locomotive engineer outfit as his train chugged across the courtyard, greeted the Professor as he sat merrily on the locomotive.

"Greetings, K- um, Morpheus. How are you enjoying your retirement so far?"

"How do you think I'm doing?" the King laughed jovially. He lovingly patted his train engine below him. "I get to play with my train sets all day and do things that I never had time to do!"

The Professor smiled half-heartedly and immediately a troubled look replaced the smile.

"What's wrong, Professor?"

"Um," the Professor stumbled in his words. "Was there some kind of arrest made earlier around the main fountain?"

The former king stood up before the Professor, a serious grimace on his face. "Yes, it was Flip's arrest. He caught a landing dirigible on fire and it fell on the thousands of people below, hurting and burning many severely. I feel sorry for my daughter having to put up with that pest. Now he's not only a pest, but also a criminal. You would have thought he'd have learned after Nemo left…." Morpheus trailed off, looking thoughtful but not saying anymore.

The Professor spoke up nervously. "I thought Flip was going to change after Nemo told him what to do and what not to do, and his horrible misadventure. For the first few weeks after the boy left, I thought for sure it was true."

"Then he went back to being old Flip," Morpheus muttered.

The phone rang, and Morpheus ran over to pick it up. As soon as the receiver was lifted to the ex-king's ear, Morpheus's brow furrowed with anger and he stomped furiously on the wooden floor of the entrance hallway. "No! You can't be serious!"

"Yes, it's true," the Chief of Police replied sadly.

"Flip has escaped?!? And he's gone now?"

A look of horror crossed the Professor's face as he heard the terrible news.

"…And how did he do this?" the big man asked anxiously.

The disappointing answer from the Chief was too soft to be heard by the Professor.

"Oh my goodness…." Morpheus spoke a bit more with the Chief and then ended the conversation. Once off the phone, the big man spoke with Professor Genius about the horrible escape that would drive his daughter up the wall once she knew.

Queen Camille and Nemo reached the palace about five minutes later and were informed of the shocking escape. Immediately Camille called back the Chief of Police and rehashed the details of the escape once more. She got off the phone furious and vengeful towards the one man who kept screwing up her reign as queen.

Nemo and Camille spent the night in the same room of the royal palace tower but not the same bed. Morpheus had his standards for his daughter, and would not allow the virgin Queen to become deflowered before she was married. He knew very well that Nemo and the Queen loved each other and would be betrothed in due time, but since all the happenings with Flip, the royal marriage would have to wait. All night Nemo and the Queen discussed the harsher punishment that Flip would now have to receive.

"Nemo, does Flip want to die? He seems to have a death wish."

"Well, when I was here before, Flip just thought of the police as a nuisance and nothing more. The police were merely a hindrance to his plans."

"He will be punished severely this time," the Queen stated gruffly. "I can't put up with this anymore."

Nemo patted her on the shoulder. "I agree. Flip is wrong."

"He PROMISED he wouldn't do anything again! PROMISED! And he broke it within, what, ten minutes?"

"I don't know what to say, Camille." He looked down at his hands, nervously twiddling them. He was supposed to be furious with Flip but couldn't feel as strongly about it as the Queen felt about the situation.

"You know what I've been wondering, Nemo?"

Nemo looked up from the twiddling of his hands to give an interested smile.

"What happened to your little ra-squirrel friend?"

"Oh, Icarus…. He died about six years ago. None of the pets I've had since then have been as fun as he was."

Camille expected that kind of answer, since she hadn't spotted the animal peeping out anywhere unexpectedly, and she was sure that if Nemo still had the rodent he would have brought it along.

They both continued the conversation until they collapsed from exhaustion of strong feelings. The flirtations between the two would have to go on pause until Flip was apprehended once more and brought to justice.

Morning came, and with it the shocking news of Flip's escape on the trip to prison spread to all the citizens of Slumberland.

"That Flip fellow makes me sick."

"He just can't accept punishment. Doesn't he EVER feel guilt for anything he's done?"

"What is wrong with him? The next time they catch him he'll be shot and killed on the spot for sure."

"Very true. He should've kept with the luck in the fountain and went along with it. He was almost killed then, but they spared him."

"So much for the penitence he promised."

Flip awoke from his deep slumber, sitting up dizzily as he overheard the citizens of Slumberland talking about him. Wait! How am I hearing this?! he thought, alarmed. After having picked the lock of his handcuffs, spreading the branches of his hideout ever so slightly with his newly freed hands, he noticed that his nook lay right in the middle of the central park of Slumberland. Cobblestone paths meandered throughout the shapely bushes and small fishponds, adding to the natural beauty of the land. Most people went on quiet morning strolls when the sun hadn't shown yet with the full fury of daylight. Now, how am I s'posed to escape off into the darkness when there's light and people all around? Flip asked himself, not murmuring a word that could be heard.

The whole police force was out on the rampage the next morning, searching every crevice and cranny that Slumberland contained. They all carried guns, loaded pistols that could be drawn at the very glimpse of the fugitive. As a few of the police force entered the park, Flip could see the glint of their pistols gleaming in the glow of the sun. He became extremely nervous and had to find a route out of the park before the police approached closer to his spot. The force soon began to perform the dreadful check of all the fixtures in the park, including all foliage. Now came the cold sweat and the quickened heartbeat and breathing. If he was found, he was dead. As the police came closer to his clump of bushes, he listened for where the footsteps stomped on the grass and made a plan to run off in the opposite direction of all police sounds.

A megaphone boomed. "IF YOU ARE HIDING IN THE PARK AREA SURRENDER NOW OR BE KILLED."

Flip scoffed quietly. "If I surrender I will be killed for certain."

He then decided to make a split-second attempt at escape towards the gardeners' shed twenty yards away. "One, Two, GO!" he whispered anxiously to himself and took off on the count of three towards the shed. Immediately a banging of gunshot exploded towards him, deafening him as he ran blindly towards his point of temporary shelter from the rain of bullets upon him. Another gunshot sounded, and a red-hot singe in his calf spread all the way up to his chest as the pain of the bullet wound dragged him down. He had his back turned as he retreated, and the shed was closer as another bullet got him in the shoulder blade and he fell onto his stomach. Clutching his throbbing, bloody wounds of terrible pain, Flip knew the end was near. As he lay helpless and hurting, he heard the police clomping towards him and stumbled back up again for one last try at life as another bullet hit him, this time in the backside. He stumbled again and tripped into the shed as soon as three other shots were fired in his direction. One shot went through the top of his hat as he fell for the last time. Flip's world went black as the police force reached his bloody body, ripped up from the shrubs, soot-covered from the smoke bomb, and encrusted with drying black blood. One cop kicked the lifeless being to make sure he was really gone and not tricking again, and two others pointed out where precisely the bullets had hit him. The cops went back towards their ammunition-piled cart to get the body bag, for they did not want the citizens of Slumberland to look upon such a horrible sight as the body of Flip.

While the cops were gone, an old gardener spotted the body and hauled it up onto his wheelbarrow. He was tucking in Flip's broken limbs as the force returned to the shed.

"Sir, what do you suppose you are doing?" the Chief spoke up loudly to the old man.

"Um…. I'm sorry, officer, I thought you were going to leave it here, and I supposed I'd take it off everyone's hands and out of everyone's view to use as fertilizer." The man managed to mumble out demurely. "…For the Queen's royal flower garden a little ways from here…." He pointed off to the gardens, a little more than sixty yards away from the shed. "…It's yours; you can take it. I didn't think that you'd just leave it here…"

The Chief looked confused and slightly sick as he pinched the lifeless body once more to make sure of Flip's passing. Another cop came over to the body and placed a finger upon its neck for any sign of a pulse. There was no pulse whatsoever.

"He is dead. You can have the body, but please be subtle about it. If any of our civilians knew that you use dead bodies to fertilize beautiful flowers, the flowers would no longer be beautiful to anyone."

The old man nodded carefully and began to push the fat man in the wheelbarrow towards his destination.

"Do you need some help?" the Chief inquired.

"No," the old man mumbled. "I'll be okay."

"Another thing, Sir, we must put that in a body bag so no one will see you pushing that thing around." He pointed at the bloody corpse, and grabbed the body bag in the other hand.

"NO!" the old man asserted loudly. The police were all stunned and gave questioning looks. Immediately the man felt embarrassed at his outburst. "If you put it in a body bag, then the body will become damp with condensation and I… won't be able to make full use of it for the garden."

The police nodded and hastily left, unsure of how to feel about the death of Flip.

Seeing that the police were gone, the old man quickened his pace until he was running with the wheelbarrow in front of him back to his home a bit further away than the flower gardens. Once he reached the house, he pushed the wheelbarrow inside and shut the door. He pushed the wheelbarrow next to a bed and draped the body across it. Working quickly, the old man brought the wheelbarrow back outside and rushed back to the bed with a mystery concoction he had made with his own plants. He checked once more for the pulse, and seeing there was none, took a filled spoon out of the bowl and pried open the mouth to receive the concoction. After pouring it down Flip's throat, he waited for a few seconds, and with no response, tried once more. Soon, the whole bowl was gone and he stomped angrily on the ground. The floor shook and a table lamp fell onto the bed, causing sparks from a short circuit in the wiring. The body, with which soon would advance to the stages of rigor mortis, instead trembled with the electrocution that had taken place on it.

"Oh, my…" the gardener silently prayed. His name was Fernicus and he was a deeply spiritual man who hoped that somehow his concoction could bring the dead man back to life. Gardening was his second passion, and he loved to find secret uses for the many different types of weeds and domesticated plants he came upon in his lifetime. Fernicus had been deeply shattered by the passing away of his wife and could not find a single way to revive her, but was still determined to discover the way. The plant he had found, a rare purplish fern he knew as Plumweed, held many uses in restoring oxygen in dead tissue and, mixed with other plants and substances, could be used to restore respiration and thus restore life in organisms.

As the lamp's sparking came to a halt, Fernicus unplugged and removed the fixture from the wall and the bed and again checked for a pulse in the short man on the bed. At first he felt none, but then the second time he checked a faint beating could barely be observed, but nonetheless detected, in Flip's neck.

Excitedly, he pulled the faintly breathing man up to a half-sit and let him swallow a little bit more of the concoction he so cleverly designed. Eventually, the breathing and pulse was normal enough to be detected easily as a sign of life. He carefully removed Flip's overcoat and hat, and then took off the other clothes to find the bullet wounds. The first one he found in Flip's leg, and it was a bluish bloody mess. Fernicus stood up and rushed over to the kitchen sink to fill a bucket up with clean water and soap to clean the wound for a minor surgery to remove the bullet. As he returned, however, he realized the bullet was no longer in Flip's leg; it had traveled all the way through, and shattered the bone along the way. After cleaning the wound out and setting the bone, the old man proceeded to search for more of the bullet wounds, for he was certain that the bullet wound in the leg did not kill this man. He could not find a bullet hole on the front of Flip, so he would need to turn him over to look on the back. Flip was unconscious but breathing, and as he turned the man over, keeping his face in the open air and not buried in the pillow. Fernicus easily saw both wounds and attended to the shoulder wound first, the wound that most likely did him in. It was a nasty sight, and the blade was shattered from the power of the gunshot. The bullet was somewhere lodged in the chunks of bone and he had to find it. He cleaned out the wound on Flip's backside briefly and then covered the unclothed body with a blanket as he worked with the shoulder. Within a half-hour of the careful surgery, the bullet was found and removed and bandages were wrapped around the broken area.

Next came work on the backside wound. The bullet was removed and bandaged, then Fernicus turned Flip back over to make breathing easier. Luckily for him the mystery man he had saved was unconscious during the surgeries, but if he hadn't been Fernicus would have anesthetized him with his wide variety of sedative plants and herbs.

Nemo and Camille received the information of the death of Flip as soon as the police reached the station. They were eating a quiet lunch when the phone rang and the Queen went to answer it. Her happy hopeful replies to whatever was said on the phone interested Nemo and he wondered if they had caught Flip again and put him in prison. He didn't want Flip to be killed by the police and crossed his fingers for just some capture. However, as the Queen hung up the phone, she skipped over to him and gave him a hug and a quick peck on the lips.

"Guess what, Nemo?" she giggled in a childlike voice.

"Did they catch Flip?" Nemo answered, frightened at what she would say.

"Well… I guess you could call it that. He's gone forever."

Instead of Nemo responding the way she thought he would, the boy looked away and avoided her questioning gaze.

"What's wrong, Nemo?"

Nemo pulled away from the hug slightly as he looked down at the ground.

"How did they… uh, do it?"

Camille twisted his face gently back so he could look her in the eye. It bothered her that he wasn't making any eye contact.

"Um… They found him sleeping in a bush in the center park. Apparently the smoke messed him up too with direction. He must've thought he was further away from the kingdom than he actually happened to be. Well, this morning he tried to run out from the bush before they got there to check it, and they brought him down."

"With a gun?"

The Queen nodded. "They said they shot him three times for sure, and one time they aren't completely certain about."

"Why wouldn't they be certain? Don't they have his body?"

Nemo looked at Camille. "I'll call and ask them, Camille," he volunteered. He dialed the number for the station and waited for it to ring. The phone rang a couple times then the Chief of Police answered.

"Hello. Slumberland Police Station speaking. May I help you?"

"Yes. This is Nemo. I was wondering about the, um…." He began to stutter. "About the…. Well, you know…."

"The what?"

"The death of Flip!" Nemo stammered out. "How many times was he, uh… shot?"

"Well, we know three for certain."

"Can you check for me?"

There was a pause on the other end. "Nemo, can you keep a secret?"

Nemo stammered, a bit of hope in his voice.

"Yes…." He was now intrigued. Perhaps the police didn't kill him after all.

"Well, we killed him… But some gardener wanted his body as fertilizer or something along that line so we gave the body to the gardener."

"So…." Nemo was disheartened. "He's dead then."

"Oh, yes, Sir. Not one sign of life when we gave the body away. …Nemo, you must please promise not to tell the Queen about the gardener using Flip as fertilizer. He is supposedly going to use it in her flower garden, and if she knew a corpse was feeding her flowers, she wouldn't like that at all."

"Alright…. I promise…." Nemo murmured, feeling nauseated. "Thank you, bye." He hung up the phone, sick to his stomach.

Camille ran over, hugging Nemo around the waist. "What did they say, Nemo?"

The boy looked into her hopeful eyes and murmured softly, for it was going to be hard for him to lie to his beloved. "Yes… They have his body. They shot him only three times."

"Well, those three times got him. No need wasting another bullet on that man." She squeezed Nemo tightly and was surprised to have him remove her arms from around his waist and stagger off towards the main hallway of the castle.

"Where are you going, Nemo?" the girl questioned.

"I need… to go to the bathroom…." Nemo said, half-sobbing.

Once Nemo was inside the bathroom, he let the tears flow. Flip had been his friend eight years ago, and now all that was ended without a goodbye. He had been a fun guy to hang around, and although he had his problems, was generally a good person. Nemo pondered the reasons why Flip would have wanted to escape after such a close call minutes before where he had to plead for his life. "Maybe he felt it was his last chance for freedom. Maybe he thought that we had horrible punishment waiting for him once he was in jail." Nemo spoke over and over again in a meek, tear-strained voice. "That man never purposely wanted to harm another human being. And now he's dead."

Nemo sat down on the cold stone floor of the bathroom and put his head on his knees. "He could have had such a good future…. And now there is no chance of a future for him," he said shakily to himself.

Suddenly, he heard a noise outside the locked door. "Nemo, are you alright in there?" It was Professor Genius's meek voice. He hadn't seen the Professor in several years. The Professor had indeed arrived yesterday, but had disappeared into private conversation with the ex-king before he and Camille had came back from the fountain arrest. He wiped off his watery eyes and stood up, preparing to meet his old mentor.

As the door opened, Nemo gave a big, appreciative hug to Professor Genius and then glanced at Camille, who was staring at him inquisitively. Professor Cloud also emerged from a room down the hall and gave his uncle a handshake, Professor Cloud being about 55 to his uncle's 70-something . After the brief greeting between the relatives, the Professor smiled at Nemo proudly, tears in his eyes. "My, you've grown, Nemo, my boy. I'm so proud. You've turned out wonderfully, Nemo."

"Thank you, Professor. You're looking good yourself. What have you been up to?"

"Well, um…" the Professor stammered shyly. "I helped with the invention of the helicopter I flew in. I also helped with the new telephone industry. We really needed better communication in Slumberland." He straightened his tall crooked top hat as if he expected Nemo to explain about his life happenings.

"That's really great, Professor," Nemo replied to the Professor.

"Nemo, what have you been doing these past eight years? We've really missed you in Slumberland. By the way, where's your squirrel friend?"

"Well… Icarus passed away about six years ago." Everyone immediately looked down sadly until Nemo broke the stillness of their grief. "He was a good squirrel. I never had another after him… As for what I've been up to, I've been attending school and playing sports, which is about it."

"I'm so very happy that you've come back to Slumberland, Nemo. And so are all the citizens. We've all missed you terribly."

"Thanks." Nemo could feel his face flushing, but immediately losing the warmth of blush when he thought of Flip. The only reason he's dead is because I came back. He decided he had to get away from the group and have some time alone.

"Well, everyone, I'm sure that I'll talk to you later. I better get back to… to planning on my future in Slumberland." He began to walk away, but the Queen grabbed his arm when he was beyond hearing distancefrom the others.

"What's wrong, Nemo? Ever since Flip's death was mentioned, you've looked a wreck. Is there anything you want to tell me?"

"No, Camille, I just need to think for awhile. It's all my fault he's dead, and I am finding that hard to accept."

Camille turned Nemo to face her. "Nemo, it is NOT your fault. Flip would have been fine to comply with orders, and proceed to prison. Instead, he chose to escape. Please don't fret over this."

Back at the gardener's house, Flip was beginning to flutter his eyelids. The miraculous concoction had brought him back from the dead and into consciousness very rapidly. Along with helicopters and telephones, this miracle drug was another one of Slumberland's advancements over the world in which Nemo lived.