The news of Prunella's dreadful condition quickly spread to all of her friends. They swarmed upon her house after school--the fifth graders, the sixth graders, a few from other grades, and some staff and faculty members. The most glaring absence was that of Alan Powers.
"Is there nothing more the doctors can do, Mrs. Prufrock?" inquired the worried Principal Haney.
"All they can do is wait, and hope that her brain heals," was the rat woman's reply.
Prunella herself sat curled up on the edge of the couch, her dress disheveled, fear and desperation in her eyes. She had nothing hopeful to say as the other kids tried to comfort her.
"At least you're still alive," said Buster.
It was the third time Prunella had heard that sentence. "I wouldn't call this being alive," she complained. "When I wake up tomorrow, I'll forget everything that happened today. When I'm an old woman, I'll still wake up thinking I'm a little girl."
"You'll get better," Beat promised her, "though it may take time."
"How much time?" the girl lamented. "A week? A year? Twenty years?"
Not only were the kids having no success at making Prunella feel better, but they, themselves, were starting to feel much worse. Some of them had watched relatives die of cancer or heart disease; some had stood by Sue Ellen when she had been (falsely) diagnosed with HIV; yet nothing had prepared them for the predicament in which Prunella found herself.
Kids came and went, but Binky remained. Mostly he sat in a corner, watching intently as the afflicted girl's friends offered their aid. When he was finally alone in the living room with her, he ventured forward.
"Gosh, Prunella," he said meekly, "I can't think of anything to say."
"What's there to say?" grumbled the despondent rat girl. "My life is over. Am I the only one who's accepted that?"
Prunella's sharpness stung his heart, but he pressed on. "I know you have a crush on me. You've had a crush on me for a long time."
The girl shook her head weakly. "Yes, Binky. Yes, I have."
"I'm going out with Molly now," Binky continued, "but if it makes you feel any better, I'll...I'll..."
"Kiss me?" A small hint of hope appeared in Prunella's voice.
Knowing his duty, Binky bent over. Prunella straightened up, closed her eyes, and waited for it to come.
Their mouths pressed together. For Prunella, the boy's moist lips were like angel food cake from heaven. Binky, on the other hand, didn't find it particularly pleasurable.
He pulled away, leaving the rat girl in a magical trance. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
Then reality forced its way back into Prunella's heart, and she lowered her head. "That was so nice," she remarked. "But tomorrow I'll forget about it, and you'll have to kiss me again."
"I'm willing to make that sacrifice," said Binky. Prunella groaned.
----
Alan lay on his stomach. At the moment, he felt that his stomach was useful for nothing else.
"Dinner's ready," announced his mother, sticking her blond curly head into the room.
"I'm not hungry," the boy mumbled.
He wondered how awful Prunella was feeling, and tried to make himself feel equally awful. It wasn't hard. One thing above all tormented him. The same temptations that had led him to this catastrophe were still in his heart. He longed for technology, for excitement, for power. The fantastic events he had passed through--sharing thoughts with Tegan, mall shopping as a girl, draining unwanted memories from the minds of his friends--had only whetted his appetite for more. He feared to imagine what he might do if he had another Opticron in his hands, or if Tegan were at his side.
He understood now that he was a Brainchild like his sister, like C.V., and like countless others. Separated from his sister, he was powerless. Mind-linked with his sister, he and she possessed the ultimate power--total control over human identities.
It was a curse. His parents would visit Tegan from time to time, but he would never be allowed to do so again.
He tried to soothe his troubled thoughts by staring out the window. Only a few kids were frolicking in the grass and on the sidewalk, most having gone indoors for dinner. One rather unusual thing caught his attention--a trio of girls, about his age, virtually identical in both physical appearance and dress. They were Siamese cat girls, who stood rigidly and in single file behind a Siamese cat woman whom he took to be their mother. All four were clad in simple blue velvet dresses, and the girls had red ribbons in their wavy blond hair. Their position was directly in front of the old Tibble house, and a certain rabbit woman was talking to them.
Alan's heart still shuddered every time he looked at Augusta Winslow--man, woman, savior, destroyer, curator, alchemist, witch, real estate agent. Her history was baffling and bizarre. He had originally known her as Angus Winslow, a dabbler in the mystic arts who had attempted to harness the essences of good and evil. His plan to create a perfect world had nearly led to global disaster, and as a side result he had been transformed into a woman, Augusta, with even more terrifying powers. Her next scheme, aided by April Murphy (Sue Ellen from the future), had threatened millions of lives. Only a judicious use of time travel had saved the day, at the same time creating a duplicate Augusta with the same eldritch gift. One of the Augustas (the one he was watching) had been stripped of her powers, while the other had absorbed the essence of evil from an entire planet, becoming the all-powerful Dark Augusta. In an irony of cosmic proportions, the good Augusta had been instrumental in defeating the evil Augusta and saving Earth from obliteration. Yet Alan still felt uneasy. What hidden resources did this woman possess?
A thought hit him. Augusta was still a world-class alchemist, and might know secrets that would bring about Prunella's recovery. He simply had to talk to her.
----
The room was beginning to light up, and Prunella snapped into consciousness. She was afraid to open her eyes, afraid of what she would see. She had experienced a strange dream--had it been a dream?--in which she was a teenager, and had forgotten five years of her life due to a problem with her short-term memory.
A realization struck her. If she could remember the "dream", then either it was indeed a dream, or she was cured of her memory problem.
She sat up abruptly. The vibrations of her body made it obvious that she was still a teenager. Recollections from the previous day flooded her mind. She turned and yanked aside the pillow.
It was still there--the flat, rounded, sapphire-hued stone that Augusta had spent five years developing. The stone that had been magically programmed to absorb her memories of the day's events as she fell asleep, and regurgitate them into her brain when she awoke. It had worked.
Thrilled beyond her capacity to express, she rose to her feet and leaped into the air with a cheer. Unfortunately, she had forgotten that she was much taller than before, and her head crashed painfully into a ceiling beam.
"Owww!" she groaned, rubbing her curly scalp. It was nothing to worry about--she had endured much worse head injuries.
As she hurried down the stairway, she thought about the many ways she would celebrate her new freedom. Other than Augusta, none of her old friends had visited her the previous day--they had all long ago become frustrated with her inability to remember their meetings. Now she would see them all, and discover how their lives had changed.
Five years' worth of back homework would be daunting, but not impossible...
Her mother was in the kitchen, still five years older, still sporting hair down to her hips. "Mom! Mom!" Prunella cried out with joy. "I remember yesterday!"
----
to be continued