I awoke to a white hand slapping my face, and the sound of police sirens.

The Ninja Turtles had left me in an alleyway close to a busy street corner.

"Wake up, you stupid beefcake!" a high pitched voice shouted.

My face got slapped again.

I groaned and sat up.

As I did so, I suddenly noticed that my arms and legs had been tied together, my whole body cocooned in rope.

"Beefcake?" I asked.

The mouse shrugged. "It was the only thing I could think of that didn't sound weird."

I rolled my eyes. "Great job on that. Now could you get me out of this stuff?"

The mouse pulled a switchblade out of his diaper, sawing the ropes. "So you're really Jack Deebes's son."

"I thought you would have figured that out from my driver's license."

"I just thought it was a coincidence," the mouse said.

"How oddly un-cartoony of you."

He poked my face. "You don't exactly look like him."

"I take after my mother," I said. "Can you finish these ropes before I get arrested?"

He cut the rest of them, and I dove behind a dumpster a second before the headlights of a cop car shined in the alley.

The beams from the headlights were opaque. It reminded me of scenes from that serious Batman cartoon from the 1990's.

"We need to keep going," said the mouse.

"Yeah?" I said. "Like where?"

He pointed to a garbage dump beyond the opposite end of the alley.

I frowned. "By the time we get there, we'll be in their line of sight."

"Got any better ideas?"

I patted my shirt pocket and found the pencil stub. "Actually, yes."

I sketched a small hole in a nearby brick wall, uncovering the conveyor belts and machinery of a cheese factory.

I hurried through the hole, hiding behind a molding machine just seconds before one of those spotty orange-yellow dinosaurs from all those Kraft commercials came by in a hard hat and lab coat, inspecting samples.

Sneezer hopped through the hole, then rolled it up and stuck it in his diaper once he stood on the other side.

"So," I said. "What now?"

The mouse's pupils suddenly turned into cheese wedges, his mouth hanging open as he drooled.

I waved my hand in front of his face, but he was gone.

Good riddance, I thought, sneaking down the line of machinery to a giant vat of cheese.

Above the vat, I could see a tiny green bug, a female mouse in a jumpsuit, and Watson from a Great Mouse Detective tied up and dangling by a rope. A big Persian cat in a pinstriped suit and a pair of weasels stood on top of a nearby machine, laughing wickedly at their plight.

"You'll never get away with this!" the girl mouse cried. "The Rescue Rangers will rescue me!"

"Oh, I fully expect a rescue attempt," the cat said. "They will make an interesting sort of...fondue."

Fat cat frowned when he saw me. "And who are you?"

"Uh...a repairman," I lied. "Uh, if I find any contaminants shaped like a little guy in a jacket and a bucktoothed squirrel with a red Hawaiian shirt, I'll be sure to bring them to you."

The cat rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "If you bring me those...squirrels, as you say, you might find yourself in a very lucrative partnership."

"I'll let you know," I said. "P.S. I saw no criminal activity here."

Fatcat smirked. "Good! I was thinking about how it would be a shame to kill you."

If you care for explanations:

1. I thought Fatcat deserved to win at least once.

2. The Rescue Rangers would likely turn me in, whereas a crook would not, without self incriminating.

And...

3. I hoped to use another bad guy's criminal operation as smoke screen.

I hustled closer to the rear of the factory, ducking behind a towering stack of cardboard boxes, apparently full of cheese.

A garage door slid open, and a suspicious looking black truck rolled in, manned by the ski cap wearing muscular hoodlums from Inspector Gadget. The words `Definitely Cheese' had been painted on the side of the vehicle.

I looked at the black and red uniforms and thought they might as well write `bad guy' on their foreheads.

I squeezed past the truck, pressing my back against the building's rear wall.

Ahead of me, I saw cheese trucks, stacks of palettes, discarded machinery, and a road leading to the dump.

Almost there.

I looked from the left to the right, hoping I hadn't been followed.

I suddenly noticed Sneezer standing right next to me, eating a piece of cheese. "Whatcha doin'?"

I clutched my chest. "Don't do that!"

"Do what?" he said innocently.

"Never mind. Let's get out of here before the cops find us."

The mouse froze, looking around.

"What. Now."

The moment I said this, we were surrounded on all sides by cops.

The entire cast of Police Academy and Future Cops, the police from Batman and Ninja Turtles and Spider Man, and that fat security guard guy from Animaniacs.

They even had classic Batman and a search helicopter with Chief Wiggum in it.

"Shit."

"Freeze, dirt bag!" the chick with the annoying high pitched voice yelled through a bullhorn. It was that chick from Police Academy. The one with the high pitched annoying voice. The whine of electrical feedback didn't make her sound any better.

As fast as I could, I rushed back into the factory, hiding behind a wall.

I suddenly noticed the cat glaring up at me. "Is this your doing?" he growled over the sirens.

"No way," I said. "They only want me. Just act natural and-"

A second later, a thug was dragging me out the door.