Disclaimer: I'm not Arthur.
Through a quiet Elwood City neighborhood rolled an unremarkable yellow Mitsubishi. The vehicle showed a few scratches and dents, but the engine purred like a cat.
"Thanks for letting me take a ride in your new car," said George, smiling at Muffy.
"It's nothing to be excited about," replied Muffy emotionlessly. "I was really hoping for a new limousine, but as my dad always says, I need to learn to be patient."
"A limousine's just a car you can play board games in," George remarked.
"It's not even one of his own cars," Muffy went on. "He bought it from another dealer."
"It was a token of friendship," insisted her father from the driver's seat.
Muffy glanced out the slightly chipped window and beheld a dramatic sight. "Omifreakingosh!" she exclaimed. "That lady's having a baby in the street!"
"What the…" said George, his eyes widening.
True enough, on the sidewalk corner to the right of them, a squirrel woman was trying to aid a rabbit woman in the throes of labor. Her aid mainly consisted of rubbing the half-naked woman's back.
"Somebody get an ambulance!" shouted the expectant mother between gasps of pain.
"That's Augusta!" cried Muffy. "Dad, stop the car!"
They screeched to a halt at the curb, and Muffy leaped out of the vehicle, George racing to keep up. "It's so undignified," the monkey girl commented. "A baby should be born in the privacy of a hospital."
"I don't remember her being pregnant," said George as he and Muffy arrived at the scene of the birth.
"One of you kids, go call 911," Maria Harris urged them. "You know the number, right?"
"I'll do it," offered Muffy, grabbing her cell phone.
While she contacted the dispatcher, George wandered toward Augusta's writhing feet and learned some astonishing new facts. "Uh, Mrs. Harris?" he pointed out. "The baby's coming out this end."
"Not now!" said the perplexed Maria. "Wait until we get to the hospital! I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no baby!"
"Check out those cute little ears," George remarked casually. "They don't have any fur on them."
"I can't stop it!" Augusta wailed, her abdomen shaking violently. "It's coming out now!"
"Ohgodohgodohgod…" muttered Maria.
Curious, Muffy rushed to George's side while still talking with the hospital. "You'd better bring a cradle," she said into the phone.
Wanting to be helpful, George dove to his knees and supported the rabbit baby's sticky head. "It's…it's…" He carefully laid one hand underneath the infant's back. "It's…it's…uh, it's not a boy."
"Ewww," said Muffy, grimacing. "She's got a tentacle coming out of her belly button."
"That's no tentacle," said George. "It's an alien parasite."
"What kind of cord?" Muffy asked the hospital receptionist.
As the newborn slid into George's nervous hands, Augusta sighed with elation. A wonderful sensation spread from her toes through her entire body.
"Show me the baby," she pleaded.
George cautiously lifted the tiny, wriggling baby toward Augusta's outstretched hands. She gently embraced it, knowing instinctively how it should be treated.
"She's so beautiful," gushed the new mother. "I love her. I don't even have to try to love her—I just do."
"Isn't it the sweetest thing in the world?" said Maria tenderly.
"Yes, it is," said Augusta, pressing her lips against the infant's forehead. "I wouldn't trade anything for this moment, and this baby—not being a man, not being a witch."
Seconds later the cry of her baby was matched by the cry of a siren, as an emergency vehicle sped to the curb. "An ambulance?" said Augusta incredulously. "But I've never felt better in my life."
Muffy glanced affectionately at George. "So that's how it happens," she marveled.
"We'd better tell all our friends," the moose boy suggested.
He raised his arm, and Muffy took him by the hand. They exchanged loving looks.
to be continued