"What?" Alan blurted out in horror.

"I didn't stutter," said his mother, her frown apparently glued to her face. "You weren't there when Bitzi and I were contending for custody of Petula. She convinced the judge that I was absent-minded and forgetful—just because I have some unexplained problems with my memory. 'A woman who forgets her own son can't be trusted with a baby,' she said. She should be named B!tchy instead of Bitzi—in fact, that's what I'm going to call her from now on."

Stunned, Alan could only gape silently and try to keep his tongue from lolling.

"And just because I call someone a b!tch doesn't mean you can do the same," Mrs. Powers went on. "It's still a no-no word."

Alan simply shook his head and walked away. She'll change her mind after she calms down, he hoped. But in case she doesn't, I'd better play the daddy card.

He found his father in the den, reading a book called Seven More Habits of Highly Successful Married Couples and occasionally outlining passages in yellow. "Hey, Dad," he said plaintively, "Mom says I'm not allowed to talk to Buster anymore."

Mr. Powers looked up at him and smiled slightly. "That's her prerogative," he stated. "Your mother has always taken the lead in setting down rules for the children—at least so she tells me. I can't actually remember, so I have to take her word."

"You should have heard what she called Mrs. Baxter," said Alan.

"You should have heard what I called her when your mother told me the outcome of the custody hearing," said Mr. Powers.

Seeing he would get nowhere with his parents, Alan wandered to his room to do the one thing that always took his mind away from his troubles—homework.

Unaware that the Powers family had just officially declared him an enemy, Buster knocked on the door to Binky's room. "Who's there?" came a gruff, bored-sounding voice.

"It's me, Buster," replied the rabbit boy, who held a large, worn dictionary under his arm.

"I'm busy," said Binky, who at that moment was trying to get his mind around the word adenoid.

"How busy are you?" Buster asked him.

Binky pondered the question for a moment, then answered, "Too busy for my girlfriend."

"Whoa," said Buster in amazement. "That's pretty busy."

He was about to depart without further ado, when Binky abruptly opened the door. "What do you want?" asked the bleary-eyed bulldog boy.

Buster grinned. "I couldn't believe it when you told me you were boning up for the spelling bee," he related. "But since you really are, I thought it would be nice if we studied together."

Binky suppressed a groan. My little lie is getting out of hand, he thought.

"I totally stink at spelling," Buster continued. "I keep telling myself I'll read the dictionary someday, but every time I try to do it, I wake up in a puddle of drool. Maybe what I need is a study buddy—someone who'll be there to clobber me when I fall asleep."

"Yeah, I suppose we could work together," said Binky, warming up to his friend's proposal. "What about Fern? Does she want to be a part of it as well?"

"Are you kidding?" Buster chuckled. "She won the last spelling bee."

"Only because Beat spelled dishonor with a u," Binky recalled.

Once seated at the desk, Buster flipped the pages in his old dictionary until he found the word Binky was currently examining (he didn't have to flip many pages). "Hmm…adenoid," he mused. "One of two masses of lym…lymp…lymph…"

"That's about as far as I got," said Binky.

"Fern knows what adenoids are," said Buster. "She used to have them, but she went to the hospital to get them removed."

"Dude, girls have a lot of crazy things boys don't have," Binky remarked. "If I was a girl, I'd want to get them removed too."

"You sure it's just girls who have them?" said Buster with uncertainty.

"Uhhh…" said Binky, deep in thought.

"Wait a minute," said Buster suddenly. "It says, one of two masses. You know those two lumps on Beat's chest that she wasn't supposed to get for another few years? Maybe those are adenoids."

"Yeah, you could be right." Binky felt a pleasant sensation in the pit of his stomach. "Hey, it really is fun to learn."

"I should ask my mom about adenoids," said Buster.

"No way!" Binky objected. "I asked my mom a question like that once, and she slapped me. We'll have to figure it out on our own."

Buster smiled wistfully. "Mmmmm…forbidden knowledge."

And he knew just where to find it. After an hour of rehearsing spelling words with Binky, he rushed to a nearby park, where his old friends Toby and Slink were enjoying a routine skateboarding session.

"Hey, guys," he called out upon reaching the paved area.

"Hey, check it out, man," said Toby, grinding to a halt with the heel of his sneaker.

"Check what out?" said Buster as he glanced around.

"You, man," said Toby, pointing at him. "Your ears just keep getting longer. I'll bet you could, like, hear an astronaut fart on the moon."

"What's your business, man?" said Slink with a hint of mockery. "You wanna learn some cool skateboard tricks? Or maybe you changed your mind, and decided you wanna read the little book about seeeex that our principal gives out."

Buster's heart pounded anxiously, but he put on a brave face. "Yeah, man," he responded. "You totally read my mind."

to be continued