The blue Orelob sun rose on schedule, at first making little difference in the brightness of the sky. The Nordgrens and Crosswires found that Jenny had provided placards with English language instructions on how to use the alien showers—in particular, how to ensure a flow of water as opposed to nitric acid.
Excited to greet another day in the bustling megametropolis of Elci Kahaf, Muffy dressed up in the gray cashmere gown she had purchased, and made an attempt at operating her new anti-gravity pumps. Five minutes and three knocks on the head later, she changed back into her old buckle shoes.
"Hey, beautiful," said George, sauntering into the hotel room in his Earth clothes.
"Hey, georgeous," was Muffy's wistful reply.
They kissed for a few seconds, and then George asked, "What do you want to do today?"
"Everything," said Muffy, whirling around in her new dress. "I want to dance among the stars, swim in an ocean of chocolate, explore uncharted lands, climb a mountain of ice cream, touch the face of God…and then I'll eat breakfast."
"I hear Elci Kahaf has a huge children's museum," said George, "where you can ride around on a robot dinosaur, and see all kinds of old spaceships."
"I wanna ride on a dinosaur!" bellowed Sal, who had charged into the room behind George. The little moose girl, naked except for her stockings and underpants, was in the process of pulling on her slip.
"Come back when you're decent, Sal," George chided her.
"Do they have giant snakes at the museum?" his sister inquired eagerly. "I've always wanted to get swallowed by a giant snake."
"The only way to find out is to go there," said George.
Muffy tugged on the boy's shirt. "You know, you're gonna have to buy some alien clothes sooner or later," she told him. "You can't wear the same drab duds every day."
"Oh, I don't know," said George thoughtfully. "I'm still holding out hope that this'll all be over soon."
"Nothing's over," said Muffy earnestly. "It's only beginning, George. You've watched the news stations—the Heath Holcombe murder is all they're talking about, 24-7. Good gosh, don't these people have any celebrities to fawn over?"
George stood patiently and silently while his girlfriend ranted. Sal, in the meantime, discovered the joys of playing with a clapper lamp.
"We may as well set down roots here," continued Muffy as the lights flashed off and on. "How long do you think it'll take them to select a jury? Everyone's heard of Heath. Everyone's seen his face on TV. They'll have to deny recognizing him in order to get in."
Deny recognizing him…
"And another thing…" began Muffy, only to stop when she noticed George's startled expression.
"I just thought of something," said the moose boy slowly. "Remember when Heath looked at your pictures of the Belnaps, and said he didn't recognize them?"
"Oh, geez," Muffy grumbled. "Who do you think you are, Encyclopedia Brown? Leave the mystery-solving to the Thrags."
"No, I think I'm on to something," insisted George. "What if Heath really did know the Belnaps, but didn't want us to know that he…stop that, Sal!"
"Sorry," said the little girl as she ceased clapping.
"That's silly," said Muffy. "The Belnaps are from another planet. Heath couldn't possibly know them."
"Why not?" said George in a fervent tone. "He works for the Black Veil. His bosses are aliens."
"Okay, maybe you're right," said Muffy. "Maybe Heath went to the planet Yordil on business, had a date with Zoe Belnap that ended badly, and has denied knowing her ever since."
"Except why would a man visit Yordil willingly?" wondered George. "The Yordilians are man-stealers. He wouldn't be safe. Unless…he had some kind of diplomatic immunity."
"Diplomatic immunity?" said Muffy, intrigued. "You mean the thing that keeps diplomats from getting sick when they go to other countries?"
"No," answered George. "I mean he had special permission from the government to be there. You remember what the Thrags told us—the Yordilians are very careful about which men they invite."
Muffy opened her mouth to reply, then did something extremely uncharacteristic. She thought about what she was going to say.
"I just had a crazy idea, George," she said in a hushed voice. "Maybe Heath wasn't a Black Veil agent at all. Maybe he worked for the Yordilians."
George's jaw slowly fell.
Muffy slapped her forehead. "Oh, great," she groaned. "Now I'm turning into a Sherlock."
On Earth, the bleary-eyed Augusta drove up to a particular street address, carried Petula out of her car, and shuffled to the front door. Inside, Mrs. Powers answered the ringing doorbell.
"Good morning, Miss Winslow," said the bear woman. "And good morning, Petula. What a cutie!"
"Good morning, Mrs. Powers," said Augusta somberly.
"You don't look well," said the woman of the house. "Come in and sit down, please."
Augusta did so. As soon as her back hit the easy chair, she began to relate her woes.
"I had a talk with the police yesterday. They think I have something to do with the disappearance of Van Cooper—and in a sense, I do."
"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Powers. Her son Alan emerged from his room, yawning and stretching.
"I mean nothing," said Augusta cryptically. "Everything means nothing. It's all meaningless. I'm sorry if I don't make any sense—I didn't sleep last night."
"What's this about Van disappearing?" asked Alan.
"Let me finish," said Augusta in a grumpy tone. "I'm scheduled for a psychiatric evaluation today. They may lock me away in the looney bin, or they may not. I'm only sure of one thing—that they'll declare me an unfit mother, and take my baby away."
Tears cascaded down the rabbit woman's cheeks. "I want to help," Mrs. Powers offered. "What can I do?"
Augusta sobbed quietly for a few seconds, then stood up. "Hold her," she requested, carefully placing the swaddled Petula in her friend's waiting arms.
"She's so precious," gushed Mrs. Powers, fondling the baby's chin. "Look at those little ears."
"I understand you've just been robbed of a daughter," said Augusta, wiping her face with a rag. "I'm terribly sorry. I came here because we can help each other."
Mrs. Powers, consumed by affection for the giggling Petula, barely raised her head to acknowledge the rabbit woman's statement.
"I can't stay here," Augusta went on. "Not only do the police suspect me, but yesterday, someone came into my apartment and destroyed all my potion ingredients."
"Oh, my gosh," Alan blurted out.
"Cutest baby ever," said Mrs. Powers in a whiny voice as she tickled the infant in her arms. "Yes, you are, yes, you are…"
"I'm going back to Salem," Augusta told them. "My family's there."
To Alan's growing alarm, she turned and slowly made for the door. "Mom?" he tried to alert his mother, but in vain—the bear woman paid attention to nothing but Petula.
"Thank you for everything," said Augusta sadly. With a turn of the doorknob, she slipped away into the bleak November dawn.
"Mom!" cried Alan, shaking his mother's hip.
"Gootchie gootchie…huh?" Her son's urgent voice yanked her back to reality.
"Mom, don't you see what just happened?" said Alan.
Augusta's old Ford Fiesta raced away from the curb. She couldn't stop crying, but she felt proud of herself at the same time.
I was right, she thought. It wasn't the unicorn horn that forced me to have maternal feelings for Petula—it was her witch powers!
"She looks hungry," said Mrs. Powers. "Alan, would you mind getting dressed and running to the Speedy Mart to buy some infant formula?"
"Mom," said her son calmly but indignantly, "Augusta is not coming back."
"You're still here," said his mother, tapping her foot impatiently. "I'm waiting for that formula."
His head still ringing with Petula's cries of hunger and his mother's baby talk, Alan stared at his feet as he walked to school. I thought I was supposed to get a nine-month warning before a baby sister came along, he mused.
The first friend he met at Lakewood Elementary was Francine. "Hi, Alan," said the girl. "Got a minute? It's important."
"Sure," said the bear boy emotionlessly.
Francine led him to a row of lockers, then began to whisper. "You may notice something a little different about Van today," she advised him. "Actually, two things."
"What things?" asked Alan.
"You'll see," said Francine, restraining a giggle. "Do me a big favor, and pretend you don't recognize her, okay?"
"Okay," Alan agreed. "I'll pretend not to recognize…her?"
"A new student is joining us today," announced Mrs. Krantz to her fifth-grade charges. "Class, let's give a big fat Lakewood welcome to Vanessa Hooper."
Into the room walked a smiling duck girl in a peach-colored dress. Her long brown hair was tied back with a bow, and her ivory shoes tapped as they made contact with the floor.
The kids were dumbfounded, but they had promised not to comment on their friend's transformation. They did their best to remain nonchalant. Binky pretended to write in his notebook, Sue Ellen whistled, and Zeke snored as if asleep.
"I'm happy to be in your class," said Vanessa to the group. "I hope to make friends of all of you during the time I'm here, which may not be long."
"I have a friend named Buster," George recounted. "A while ago, he was taken away to the planet Yordil by a girl named Amy Belnap. She wanted to marry him, because there are hardly any boys on her planet. Some of my friends went to Yordil and rescued him."
"I'm aware of the Buster Baxter case," boomed the voice of Lieutenant T'l'p'g'r from the sound dome above George's head. "I also had a hand in his rescue."
"Good," said George, relieved. "Then you know what I'm talking about. You see, Muffy and I have this funny idea—it may not be important, but we thought we should tell you, in case it turns out to be true."
"I'm all ears," said T'l'p'g'r.
Muffy took her turn to speak. "We heard on the news that some of the planetary leaders want to cut off all contact with Earth because of the Heath Holcombe incident. If the Alliance does that, there'll be nothing to stop the Yordilians from invading Earth and taking all the men for their own."
"An unlikely scenario," said the Thrag lieutenant. "Yordil lacks the strength to carry out an assault on Earth."
"Lacks the strength?" Muffy shot back. "Why? Because they're all girls?"
"I was referring to military might," T'l'p'g'r excused himself.
"What if they had allies?" asked George.
"Again unlikely," the Thrag responded. "Yordil has made all of its neighbors suspicious through its covert program of illegal immigration. Please continue."
"Okay," said George. "We have a friend on Earth who switched bodies with Amy Belnap. Heath talked to her for a long time, but later, when Muffy showed him a picture of the Belnaps, he said he didn't recognize them. I think it's because he did know them, but didn't want to admit it. I think he might have been a Yordilian agent."
"An intriguing theory," said T'l'p'g'r. "But why, then, would a Thrag faction want him dead?"
"I don't know," answered George. "Maybe they were in on the conspiracy."
"It could've been a double cross," Muffy theorized. "You know, you send a man to do your dirty work, then when his back is turned, you shoot him to keep your plans a secret."
"I assure you," said T'l'p'g'r sternly, "if any of the Thrags under my command are secretly plotting with Yordil, I shall deal with them mercilessly. I'm afraid I must end the transmission now—the longer it goes on, the more chance that a hostile party will trace it to your location."
"Thanks, Tillpigger," said Muffy, waving goodbye to the sound dome.
Lieutenant T'l'p'g'r pressed a button on his console, and the voices of George and Muffy faded out. The sphere-headed alien left the control panel and began to walk down a corridor with long strides, apparently in a hurry.
A diagonally-grated door slid open, allowing the Thrag passage. Inside the large, rather luxurious prison cell, three people wearing drab uniforms stood to welcome T'l'p'g'r into their presence.
"What news?" asked Hank Armstrong.
The Thrag stopped and folded its long arms. "Your friends, the well-dressed girl and the boy with the antlers, are drawing a bit too close to the truth."
April Murphy suddenly became emotional. "Leave Muffy and George alone!" she pleaded. "You've already killed one man! Isn't that enough?"
"Relax, dear," said Daisy Armstrong, rubbing the girl's shoulders.
"They're still subject to Provision Theta," T'l'p'g'r continued. "They can do little harm—but I shall monitor them closely, nonetheless."
"Keep your hands off them, fishbowl-head!" bellowed April.
"Quiet!" Mr. Armstrong shouted at her. "You are a Yordilian. You will cooperate."
"I hate being a Yordilian," said April, her voice quivering.
"You must learn loyalty to your home world," said Mr. Armstrong gruffly, and then his tone became gentler. "Our plan will benefit both Yordil and the Alliance, April. We all know that Earth is home to mysterious and deadly forces—Dark Augusta proved that much to us. For the good of all, Earth must be overthrown. The Alliance can't interfere directly, though—that's why they asked the Yordilians to do the fighting."
"In no time at all, the Alliance will establish a policy of non-interference in Earth affairs," said T'l'p'g'r assuredly. "Once they take that step, Yordil will be free to strike."
"It'll be a happy day for you," Mrs. Armstrong told April. "You'll see Sue Ellen and all your friends again, and you'll be free to travel back and forth between Earth and Yordil."
"I wish I'd stayed on Earth," grumbled the cat girl.
to be continued