The next morning, Beat went to Arthur's house before the start of school, hoping to dissuade the boy from his purpose.

"I don't understand you," she said pleadingly. "Are you planning to spend all your free hours in front of the piano? Is Dr. Fugue really so demanding?"

"I've made up my mind," said Arthur, who was placing his foot on a chair to tie his shoe.

"And I'm trying to change it. Being student body president doesn't require that much..."

Arthur heard a creaking noise from the stairway leading down to the laundry room. "Quiet, Beat," he ordered. "My mom's coming."

"Why should I be quiet?" the rabbit-aardvark girl demanded. "Why shouldn't your mum be a part of..."

"Shut up!" Arthur barked.

"Don't argue, kids," said Mrs. Read, who had appeared with a basket of dried clothes.

Still determined, Beat followed Arthur along the street, urging him to reconsider.

"Maybe it's not just the piano," said the boy. "Maybe there are other things I'd like to do more than trying to improve the school."

"You're keeping something from me," Beat suspected. "You're in some kind of trouble, aren't you?"

She trailed him all the way to the principal's office, having no success.

"This is where we part ways, Beat," he told her. "It was nice having you as a campaign manager."

"Yes, it was," Beat admitted, "but don't ever ask me to do it again."

Once inside the office, Arthur closed the door on the consternated girl.

"Can I help you?" asked Mr. Haney, who was eating his usual breakfast of a bran muffin and a lollipop.

"Yes," Arthur replied. "I want to..."

He stopped upon noticing that something had changed on the principal's desk. In place of the framed portrait of his late wife, there was a different portrait--one of Zoe Belnap.

"Wow," he marveled. "You and Mrs. Belnap..."

"Yes, Arthur," Haney acknowledged. "We're dating now. We have so much in common."

While the principal extolled Zoe's virtues, Beat wandered toward her classroom, lamenting the effort she had wasted on the political campaign of a boy who had given up in midstream. As she rounded a corner, someone coming from the opposite direction nearly bowled her over.

"Pardon me," she said to the giraffe boy whose head was elevated about eight inches above her own, "but you've failed to notice that there's someone down here."

"Sorry," said Matt Blomdahl glibly.

Before he could walk away, Beat observed another curious thing about him. "Say, is that an MP3 player?"

"Yeah," replied Matt, glancing down at the device on his belt that pumped music into his ears. "I bought it last weekend."

"Fab," Beat remarked. "If I could afford one of those gadgets..."

All of a sudden, Beat knew what had happened to Arthur.

At that moment, the aardvark boy was still listening to Mr. Haney's gushing praise of Zoe Belnap.

"We share the same philosophy when it comes to education," he told Arthur. "Her family is a living example of it. Her daughters are perfectly well-behaved and remarkably intelligent. True, they think about boys too much, but that's..."

The door to the office flew open, and Beat stormed in, her face a mask of outrage. "Arthur Read, stop what you're doing this instant!" she commanded.

Startled, Arthur could think of no response.

"I know why you decided to quit," Beat claimed. "Mickie bought you out. She made you an offer you couldn't refuse."

"That's not true," Arthur insisted.

"I just ran into Matt Blomdahl, the boy who dropped out the same day he signed up," Beat went on. "Would you believe he bought himself a new MP3 player last weekend? Now where does a fifth-grader who can't even afford decent shoes get that kind of money?"

"Maybe he worked for it," said Arthur. "Or stole it."

"What did she offer you?" Beat demanded to know. "Money? Clothes? Fast food?"

"She didn't offer me anything."

Beat glowered at Arthur; by this time she had a four-inch height advantage over the boy. "You...are...lying," she snarled.

It was true, and Arthur knew it. Twenty-four hours earlier, he would never have dreamed of deceiving Beat Simon, who had once briefly been his girlfriend. Yet Mickie would dream of it; had he again become a puppet in her dream?

Shame filled his expression. "It's true," he confessed. "She offered to arrange a catering contract for my dad if I dropped out."

To his amazement, Beat started to laugh. She clutched her sides as if they would burst.

"You, sir, are the silliest goose I've ever known," she chided Arthur. "Mickie doesn't make those decisions for her family. She's eleven bloody years old."

Arthur could feel himself shrinking under Beat's derisive glare. He felt as if he was two inches tall, and feared she would step on him.

Mr. Haney looked back and forth at them. "Is there...anything I can do for you?" he inquired hesitantly.

"Uh, no," said the sheepish Arthur. "Our business here is finished."

----

A large canopy had been erected in the back yard of the Chanel mansion, to accommodate the guests at Mickie's campaign party. The entire school had been invited, so Mickie had instructed her servants to set up row after row of food trays. Deliverers from Chicken Licken and Dunkin Donuts had filled the trays with their wares. A huge banner had been draped over the front of the mansion, bearing the imaginative slogan MICKIE FOR PRESIDENT.

At 6 p.m. on Friday, the festivities began.

Hundreds of children, as well as many teachers and staff members, attended. Principal Haney was there, arm in arm with Zoe Belnap. Muffy busied herself handing out pro-Mickie pamphlets. Buster had come for the food, not the politics. Amy was by his side, and they had also managed to drag along George and Becky. Cally stood by her mother, having failed to secure a date, and feeling blue. Mickie's parents remained inside with Zeke, who felt uncomfortable in crowds.

Some of Arthur's supporters wandered past, attracted by the noise and smells, but unwilling to cross "party" lines.

"She spared no expense," Beat remarked. "I hope she makes a lot of new friends, because she'll gain nothing else by hosting this extravaganza."

"I'm not so sure," was Fern's response. "The election's only three days away. She can turn it around, unless Arthur has something planned for the weekend."

Underneath the canopy, Buster struck up a conversation with Muffy.

"I can eat all I want, and not have to vote for Mickie, right?" he inquired.

"Sure," Muffy replied, "as long as you leave some for everyone else."

She noticed that the rabbit boy was holding Amy's hand. "So, you two are an item?"

"Uh-huh," said Buster, nodding. "As soon as she accepted that I couldn't kiss her every second of every day, we got along fine."

"Oh, look," said Muffy with a wave. "There's George and Becky. Hi, George. Hi, Becky."

"Mmmf mmmf," said George, whose lips were planted firmly against Becky's.

Fern and Beat watched and sniffed for a minute or two, then continued down the sidewalk. Then Beat's powerful ears heard the sound of a vehicle coming to a stop. She turned, and saw an old covered truck that had just parked in front of the Chanel mansion.

The doors of the truck flew open, and four men burst out. They were dressed in grubby work clothes...and carried shotguns.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Beat. Fern swiveled and gasped in horror.

The armed men had rough hands and faces. One was an anthro-Pomeranian, one was an anthro-bulldog, and the other two were rabbit people.

As the men rushed toward the Chanel house, Beat grabbed her cell phone. "I must call the police," she stated.

One of the rabbit men seemed to hear her, as he aimed his weapon in her direction and fired a shot...

----

to be continued