DREW

I sat up in bed, absently gazing at a wall, which now held my drawing of Amanda, framed.

Amanda had put it up while painting the repairs, and it kept looking at me.

Even now, the ugly doodle was giving me this worried look, like it cared whether or not I was getting a good night's rest. I suppose, as an extension of Amanda's personality, it might.

Still, I couldn't sleep.

I was expected at work this coming Monday.

My car was parked at the funeral home. There was a time limit on parking there.

I would have to get a new license, speak to the hotel manager about damages, try not to go to jail.

My rent was due in a week.

I had utility payments, insurance, and a payment for service on that cel phone I had left in the hotel room.

But then I look down and see little rodent feet sticking out of a kimono.

Can I really go home looking like this?

And Jessica...whatever. She was a lost cause. The woman wasn't going to help me now. She was apparently busy...giving the NBF something interesting to do.

"It seems you're picking up doodle sleeping habits," Amanda groaned, scooting close to me, her arm wrapping around my waist as she rested her head on my hip.

"You know," I stammered. "If I didn't know any better..."

"Draw your own conclusions," she replied with a mischievous smirk.

I groaned and let it be. At least I was unresponsive.

I'm not sure if it were I that had woken her up, or the earthquake and the constant thundering I heard going on outside.

No flickering on her. One hundred percent human.

"Something bothering you?" she said gently.

"I need to get out of here," I said, my voice still unpleasantly high pitched. "I have a life. I need to go back to it."

"Why can't this be your life?" she purred.

"You of all people should know the answer to that one," I said as my body flickered into a cartoon identical to what I look like in real life. "You were trying so hard to be human..."

I rubbed my muzzle. "Look, is there a hole in reality somewhere they we can open, to get out of this nuthouse?"

"You're a rat, honey," Amanda said, and it was true. I was now kimono rat without the kimono, or underwear.

"That maybe so," I said. "But I have a name badge and a job, and I'm going to get fired if I don't go in. Also, my car is probably impounded by now, and I have to take care of that too. Real or not, I need to move that car!"

"You don't have a driver's license," she said.

"I'm animated," I countered.

"I do want to see your world..."

"Holli!" we said in unison.

"Yes," said Amanda. "She does have a dimensional hole in her suite." She frowned at me in my adult Drew Scout form. "Are you sure you want to do this in your state?"

I turned noid. "I need this, Amanda. For my sanity."

"Fine." She slipped back into her nearly indecent rubber superhero costume.

The costume had vanished shortly after the...afterglow, but somehow she was able to pull it out from under a sheet and dress herself with it.

"Don't you have anything...more modest you can wear?"

She shrugged. "Not really. They're all animated."

"I'm wearing animated clothes," I said. "The point is moot."

Amanda's eyes darted back and forth. "Don't say the m word again. I'd rather not have that thing in here again."

"I take it that's a pun of some kind."

"Yes."

"Okay," I said. "C'mon and grab something out of Vanessa's wardrobe so we can go."

"This is kind of sweaty," she said as she peeled off the rubber outfit.

As Little Drew, I watched her strip naked and pull a cartoon blouse and skirt out of a drawer hidden in the bookshelves. As a doodle, my jaw dropped to the floor, and I had to quickly push it back in when she looked at me. I hated myself for it.

The dress was purple, the long sleeved blouse yellow. It looked like something Babs Bunny would wear.

She straightened the skirt, grinned when she noticed my facial expression. "Let's go."

I followed her out the door, one minute clad in a kimono, the next in my animated suit, a Scout uniform or my boxers. I didn't care, I just wanted out of that place.

Amanda knocked on Holli's door. "Mother?"

"Oh now you want to call me mother," a voice grumbled from the other side.

"I had to," Amanda said. "You know why. Mother, it's done."

I heard nothing for about a minute. I turned into Adult Drew Scout again. The watch didn't seem to tell me much of anything, except what I was when it was happening. I didn't know what good Amanda got out of it, and this wasn't the right time to ask.

"Mom. I said it's done. The thing."

"I heard."

I reddened. Literally. "You did?"

"Yes!" the voice groaned. "I'm sure the whole damn building heard."

I blushed deeper, my animated form turning a solid magenta.

"Mom," Amanda said. "Drew wants to go back home. The tear is in your room."

I suddenly turned into an animated hobo clown, with overalls and a hole in my giant shoes. I don't know why. Maybe I was frowning too much?

"Are you going after The Spike?" Holli asked.

"I don't need it, mom. I'm cured!"

The door came open, and dad's animated slut stared at us both for a long time, her daughter especially, since, you know, she expected flickering.

Holli then looked at me.

At that particular moment, I just so happened to be Kimono Rat. She burst out laughing.

"Is this him? Is this Deebes' son?"

"What do you think?" I cried indignantly in my squeaky voice.

I had a paw to the side of my face, the other on my hip. When I flickered, I was myself, in my boxers, doing that same exact pose. This made her laugh again.

"What can we do for him?" Amanda asked.

"He needs the Spike of Power. Only that will heal him."

"Does it happen to be at the Union Plaza Hotel?" I said. "I know Jessica...my friend, was looking for that, but I didn't believe the stories."

"Oh it's real, Drew. I touched it."

"Then why do you still flicker?"

"I...I tried to take The Spike. That's why all the...doodles came into your world. For a time it did heal me, and I did stay completely animated, but then your father snatched The Spike out of my hands and put it back where it was."

"So it only cures you if you're holding it?" I asked. "That doesn't seem very helpful. Unless maybe you can chip off a piece and make it into a necklace...or a pill..."

"You see," Holli said. "I originally thought that if you could somehow turn the real world into Cool World, you know, animated, I'd either go back to normal or at least inhabit a world that doesn't care if I'm animated or not."

"That sounds like a terrible idea," I said as Adult Boxer Scout. "But I still want to go back there and see this thing."

She sighed. "Right this way."

I followed Holli to the hole outside her bedroom.

"All me and Jack had to do was grab this hole and stretch it open, and we fell right through."

"Sounds like a plan," I said, rubbing my hands together.

"Wait," she said. "I want to see The Spike. I won't let you do this unless you take me along."

I frowned at her. "Uh, based on what you've just told me about your adventures with The Spike, I'm not sure that's such a good idea. I mean, it's like you have cancer, and you're trying to give everyone else in the world cancer so they can accept you. Why not just try to cure the disease?"

"I'm not an idiot, Drew. I've been thinking about this since you were in preschool. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice. I've thought about it, and I've come up with a plan."

She reached behind her cardboard sofa, pulling out a roll of black film the width of a piece of paper, and a device that looked like part of a coffee machine.

"Here's the plan. We don't...remove The Spike, we simply put in a spigot. Put a little valve on it, and drink the fluids that come out. The doodles that come out from under The Spike are pure concentrated animation, a disembodied liquid with eyes. We only need to filter out the eyes, and we'll have the cure."

"That's not going to make us human." Ironically, that's when I turned real, clad in the cartoon tux. "Fully human."

"It will once I make the antidote."

"Are you sure that won't just make The Dip?"

"The Dip is made of paint thinner and other solvents. This will be-"

"The anti-doodle," I said. "I still think it will kill `toons."

I sighed, turning into Hobo Clown as I did so. "Fine. I like your Cartoon Espresso Machine idea better than the first one you described."

She gestured for me to grab the edge of the `dimensional tear'.

The hole widened as I tugged, my hands flickering like a strobe light as they made contact with the opening.

The punk rocker's living room was within sight. I could see all the furniture and everything. A much wider view than I had gotten last time.

It seemed nobody was there. I had no idea what hour it had gotten to, but it appeared to be night, judging by the darkness outside the sliding glass door.

I managed to make the hole widen to roughly the size of my head, but it kept shrinking, making me worry about guillotine slicing off body parts...or parts of them.

Amanda grabbed the opening as well, which helped somewhat, but it was like a rubber band. The moment I relaxed, it slipped out of Amanda's grip, and it snapped back to its previous tiny shape.

"Your father and I always had trouble with that one. You're better off using the one in my room."

Not wanting to get anywhere near Holli's bed, I stubbornly insisted on trying again.

I failed.

This time, when the hole snapped back to its original shape, it was gone.

Failure.

Amanda and I exchanged knowing glances. Her face seemed to say, `Getting anything out of this?'

I rolled my eyes.

"You've just made several doodles in Cool World very happy," Holli groaned. "They'd love it if all these conduits to reality suddenly vanished." She opened her bedroom door. "C'mon."

All of a sudden, I Riffraff jumped out from behind Holli's two dimensional couch, blocking my path.

"And where are you going, slave?"

I shrugged. "I'm not a slave tonight, remember? I promise I'll be a good slave. I just need to get a few things in the real world taken care of first, okay?"

His eyes narrowed. "You'd better not be lying."

I just shook my head. Of course I was lying. But then, since I was a real human...

"Why are your fingers crossed behind your back?" the cat asked.

I had turned back into the Scout. "Dammit."

Fuming at him enough to have animated steam blowing out my ears, I said, "Fine. Just tonight. Dammit."

"Don't worry," said Amanda. "He'll make good on his promise. I'll bring him back soon enough."

"Great!" Riffraff said with a grin. "And I'll come along just to make sure it happens!"

Sighing, I followed Holli to the other hole, the one looking into the teen's bedroom.

I pulled the hole wider and found myself the witness of a very unpleasant scene.

It was the girl and the guitar enthusiast. It seemed they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but things had gone south. I missed whatever transpired previously, but what I did catch was rather depressing.

It seemed the two had just finished sexual intercourse, and now the man was taking off. He stood, bare chested, pulling his jeans back on.

The man was not model material. His arms were unmuscular, and I could see his ribs. Someone had even messed up his tattoos. Hideous ugly things they were. I could have made better tattoos than that, and I have no talent. Something with skulls, Japanese writing and a rather poorly drawn woman.

His hair was a sloppy mess, though I wasn't sure if it had been any tidier before they hopped in the sack.

The girl sat topless in her bed, her purple hair in disarray. Her freckly chest was slight in terms of breast size, but still feminine. In addition to the three piercings on her left ear, the single one to the right, the lip and eyebrow piercings, she also had nipple rings. I even saw a sliver of gold or copper glinting from her belly button.

"So that's it then?" the girl, Dane, was yelling. "You just screw me and say goodbye just like that."

The man only shrugged, zipping his fly.

"You're leaving because of the baby, aren't you. Because you're too chicken to be a man and take some responsibility!"

"Maybe I'm just tired of your shit. Maybe I just want a little peace when I get home, and instead all I'm hearing is a bunch of bitching and complaining. Maybe I have to bust my ass to take care of you, and you don't do anything in return but sit around and draw those stupid pictures you can't even sell to put food on the table. And now you're going to have a baby and I'm supposed to take care of that too."

He pulled on a t-shirt with some punk band on it, The Jesus Lizards, featuring a crucified iguana. I'd never heard of the group, but I guessed it to be one of those bands that tries to be controversial in order to increase sales.

"But where am I going to live? Who's going to take care of my baby?"

"Figure it out. Maybe you can get off that pasty ass of yours and get a real job for once. I hear the IRS is hiring."

"Oh, and you're mister high and mighty because you work at Autozone and play your gigs at sleazy dives!"

The man glared at her, waving his fist threateningly. "I make it a rule not to hit women. Don't make me change my mind."

The girl shrank away from him. "You're still sleeping with Sheryl, aren't you?"

"That's none of your concern."

The girl jumped from her bed with a scream, beating on him with her fists before dropping to the floor and crying.

The man turned and stomped out the bedroom door, slamming it thunderously behind him.

I sighed, feeling sorry for the girl, and really uncomfortable about entering the room after such a dramatic scene. I would have said something to the young woman in apology, but I had held entire conversations outside the rip in reality without anyone seeming to hear.

"It's the only way," Amanda said. "We have to go in there."

And so I grabbed the tear, stretching the opening wider, Amanda helping me to get enough room to actually go through.

When she saw us making good progress, Holli actually helped us.

The opening remained stable looking,but I wasn't sure for how long. I took a deep breath and jumped through.

I fell on a floor scattered with discarded laundry, pizza boxes, crumpled drawings, rock magazines and biographies of rock musicians. A fuzzy white kitten was stupidly hissing at me from the top of a small mound of women's garments.

The girl's dressers were beat up, falling apart, with clothing bursting from the half pushed in drawers.

Amanda fell on top of me as she entered the room, but Holli seemed more practiced, stepping down onto a mound of papers without losing her step. Riffraff joined us.

The girl, not wearing a stitch of clothing, and seeing all of us freaks entering her private dwelling, let out a frightened scream.

"Oh my God!" she cried as she draped herself with the nearest piece of fabric, a pair of denim pants. "What the hell are you doing in my room!"

Her mouth fell wide open when she saw Riffraff.

"Oh my God! It's Garfield! I love that show!"

"The name's Riffraff," he said.

"Yeah," she said with a grin. "Awesome."

The cat waved sheepishly back.

The grin faded when the girl saw Holli.

"You!" she said, pointing at her. "I saw you! In my mind! I drew you! You were with..."

She frowned at me, narrowing her eyes as she thought about it.

I had been flickering back and forth between animated to real so much that she said, "What the hell are you?"

I solidified for a minute, and she snapped her fingers. "You're the guy!"

I nodded, turning into that grasshopper thing from The Brak Show. "I saw you drawing us."

"Wow..." The girl looked like she wanted to put some clothes on and get decent, but seemed to be afraid we'd disappear if she made the slightest move. "Why are you...doing that? That flashing thing?"

"He had sex with a doodle," Holli said. "It happens."

As if on cue, she turned real for a split second.

"Who are you?" Dane asked her.

Holli introduced herself.

She pointed at Amanda. "And you?"

"Have you read the latest Cool World comics?" I said.

She frowned. "No. What's that?"

Part of me was annoyed that she didn't know what Cool World was. The other part was glad, because I always did think that dad's success dwarfed everything I did. "Never mind. Listen, can we borrow your car?"