DREW

Holli turned to the next page in the sketchbook and frowned. "We have to go back."

"The world's always getting destroyed in comic books," I said. "That's Cool World, not here. We'll live."

"When have you seen a comic where the villain literally destroys the earth?"

"Oh?" I said. "Quite a bit. The Walking Dead, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hitchhiker's Guide, probably a bunch of others...Especially in Japanese cartoons. They either destroy a huge section of the world, wipe out all life on the planet, or blow up the planet.

"Plus she's only messing with, what, babies? Maybe that's where X-Mutants come from in the first place."

Holli looked at me uneasily, but I didn't care. When the world ends in a comic book, it's called entertainment, possibly trivia.

"You guys are acting like this stuff is real," Dane said.

"It is," I replied.

Dane chuckled. "Wow."

I explained what Holli told me about channeling cartoon characters.

She just shook her head. "Wow. If I didn't see you actually animated and glowing, I'd say you were crazy."

Holli ripped off a drawing, stuffing it in her cleavage.

"You guys can keep those," Dane said. "In fact, I could make some more and ink them if you want."

I stared at her for a moment, giving it some thought. "Pencil is fine. As long as you keep drawing what you see."

She rolled her eyes. "Will do...So, uh, do you guys need me for anything else, or are we good?"

"We're fine," I said. "I'm just going back to my apartment."

Holli gave me a dirty look. "And returning to the hotel once we have our supplies."

"Which we can do tomorrow," I insisted.

Holli shot her daughter a pleading glance.

"He's right," Amanda said. "We can wait. I really want to know more about my brother, and where he lives."

Holli frowned at Riffraff.

"I'm kinda curious about it myself," the cat said.

"Me too," said Sneezer.

Extra popped out of my shirt. "Are we going to see where Master lives?"

"Apparently so," Holli groaned.

"We might be needing your services tomorrow," I told Dane. "What would be a good time?"

"Oh, anytime," she said. "I'm not working, so...whenever."

"Is there a best time to call you?"

"Oh, in the afternoon. I sleep sort of late..."

I frowned but told her all right. "I suppose I can always walk or call for a taxi."

"Don't do that!" she said. "Just let me know and I'll take you...wherever. This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me." She paused. "Oh. Before I forget..."

She handed me a frozen pizza. One of those deep dish pizzas with a picture of a mustache on the cardboard box. "I know it's not lasagna, but it's all we had. I would have heated it up, but I figured you guys were in a hurry, and my oven stopped working."

"Uh, thanks," I said, feeling sorry for her. I handed her a ten. "Here, uh, for gas and the pizza."

"No, no, it's okay," she said. "You guys are awesome."

She took the money anyway.

"Is she supposed to do that?" Riffraff whispered to me.

"Don't worry about it. I wanted her to have it. It's not like stealing from a store."

"Oh!"

"Call you later," I said.

Dane hugged me, then picked up Riffraff as well, giving him a hug and a kiss, then shook Holli's hand. "I'm sorry. I never got your name."

Holli told her, and we gave a belated round of introductions.

So. Pizza and my own personal shuttle service. Maybe being animated wasn't such a horrible curse after all.

I loaded everyone in the car, cheerfully driving down that old familiar route I took to get home. My gas tank was full, so I figured it would be a straight shot, without any unwanted detours.

I noticed, to my annoyance, that Dane appeared to be following close behind like some kind of private investigator on a stakeout, but I could neither blame her nor condemn her for her obsession. It would, in fact, be handy if she continued to lurk nearby.

The car was quiet, my passengers' attitudes changing from that of fascinated tourists to those same fascinated tourists forced to sit in a bus station for five hours, sort of a deer caught in the headlights look.

I turned on NPR, listening to BBC news reports, something about how the United States should have never gotten involved in middle eastern politics. Irritated, I changed it to the rock station, which happened to be playing Love Bites by Def Leppard.

I was daydreaming about real things, like trying to save my job and my apartment when I heard the distinctive warbling chirp of a cop car.

Glancing back, I could see the chirp was for me, so I pulled over, rolling down the window.

Dane wisely made herself scarce, driving off into a connecting street.

"Quick!" Riffraff cried. "Floor it!"

"No," I said. "Remind me to show you a program on real police chases."

The cop got out of his car, marching up to my door.

He was your average stocky buzz cut jarhead type. Stern, no nonsense expression. A CB crackled from the shoulder of his Kevlar vest.

As Bugs Bunny, I looked up at him (for he towered above the window) and said, "What's up, Doc?"

The cop suddenly had this expression like he had just smelled a fart. "License and registration please."

"I'm going to get my registration from the glove box," I said with deliberate care and slowness. You had to do this with cops or they'd pull a gun.

Sure, as a doodle, bullets may possibly not have been able to injure me, but I didn't want to take that chance.

The man nodded, still making that disgusted grimace.

"Someone stole my license," I said as I reached over Amanda's lap, opening the glove compartment.

I said this mostly to the cop, but when I returned to my seat with the registration, I saw a dainty animated hand holding out a plastic card.

"It was in his diaper," Holli explained.

I was a little disgusted, but said thanks anyway, presenting the items to the cop.

He stared at my photograph, then at me, as a caricature of myself.

"This...doesn't look like you," he said, looking uncertain.

I turned real. "How about now?"

He scowled at the picture, comparing it to me.

"I...shaved," I suggested.

"Can we go on a high speed chase now?" Riffraff asked.

"No," I hissed. "That's not something I can win."

At last the cop sighed, handing my stuff back. "Your turn signal light is out. I'm going to let you go with a warning. Just..."

I was Bozo the clown now.

As he stared at me, the look on his face said he was questioning his own sanity.

It seemed this may have indeed been the case, for then he slowly retreated from the car and got in his own, driving off.

"What was that about?" Riffraff asked.

"I'm not positive, but I think he's going to seek psychological help."

"So he went crazy?" Amanda said. "How strange!"

"We don't know that for a fact," I said. "I can only assume. But, I mean, if I saw something like that, and I was a cop..."

"He didn't laugh maniacally and twiddle his lips," Riffraff said.

"Or jump up and down and scream with his head going back and forth," said Sneezer.

"There's many types of crazy," I said. "But I'm thinking he might just decide to take a little paid time off work. That's what I'd do."

Sneezer frowned. "But we will never know, will we?"

"That's right," I said. "That's absolutely right. Just like that guy that stole my mom's car five years ago. We got the car back, but the guy who stole it...who knows?"

"Wow," Riffraff and Sneezer said in unison.

"No resolution!" the cat cried. "That's so weird!"

I shifted into drive, and in a few minutes I at last arrived at my apartment.

I have a studio. Not really a place for guests. I picked it out because it was the only one in my price range.

A drab yellow and rust orange two story building at the entrance of the complex. Mine sat at the bottom.

I parked at the rock wall near the right side of that building, leading my companions up the staircase. A couple little Hispanic girls with braided hair and plump faces giggled and pointed at us as we came up the walk.

The grass and greenery at my place was a little more well tended than dad's, but the apartment still had its flaws. For one thing, the dirty orange main door to the building was hanging by nothing but its bottom hinge, and the interior hallway smelled like old tamales and pot.

A striped orange cat meowed at me, rubbing against my legs, but I'm allergic and didn't want to pay the pet fees, so I ignored it, clomping down a narrow carpeted grimy staircase. The cat had crapped in a corner.

When the cat rubbed against Amanda's leg, she of course cooed and picked it up, stroking it as she followed me downstairs.

My apartment is down the hall from the laundry room. Although that's handy, it's not as nice as you think. There are always flies that somehow find their way into my room every time I turn around. I can only guess it has something to do with the damp and the smells of soiled underwear.

"Could you please put that cat down?" I scolded Amanda as I unlocked my door.

"Why?" she said indignantly.

"I have to pay an extra fee if I have pets."

Glancing at the cartoon animals, I added, "Real pets. Morris already hangs around me every time I walk out my door. No need to encourage him."

"He's cute," Amanda said.

Rolling my eyes, I let her and everyone else, including Morris, in.

My place was not much to look at, but it was a little cleaner than Dane's. I had a tiny stove, a sink that barely had room for one dish pan, a refrigerator one skillet deep, and one of those window air conditioning units instead of central. My bed was your basic box spring with a cheap pine frame around it.

A gaudy blue loveseat and three office chairs served as my sole furniture pieces. My TV was the old heavy type with the tube, which I situated on top of a desk with my computer and a pile of computer parts for a second one I'd been refurbishing.

"`Be it ever so humble,'" Holli said disapprovingly. "`There's no place like home.'"

"Unlike you," I said. "I can't just paint myself a plasma TV and a Barco-Lounger."

She sighed and shook her head. "Where are these containers you mentioned?"

I opened my cabinets, showing her some pitchers, sports bottles and Tupperware containers, which I threw in some grocery bags, along with rolls of duct tape to seal the items more securely.

"Is that all you got?" Holli complained.

"It's better than nothing," I said. "Though I suppose we could either go to Wally World or my mom's house to get some more."

Immediately she dumped my trash can on the floor, making a horrible mess, which Morris, of course, loved, dragging slimy meat packages across my clean carpet.

"Wow," I groaned. "Thanks a lot. As if I didn't have problems with bugs at it is."

"This container is perfect," she said, clapping the lid back on.

So then I had to clean all that shit off the floor and rebag it. And of course Morris ran away when I tried to take his greasy bologna package.

I put my phone on the charger, then popped the pizza in the oven (an oven which incidentally isn't much larger than the size of the pizza) as I balanced my checkbook, trying to figure out how many months I could keep my apartment and associated parking spot while I played around with Cool World nonsense.

I estimated a month, unless I could milk some extra dough out of the vintage currency I found at the hotel. It seemed a trip to the pawn shop would be in order, unless I decided to park at mom's place...which may still end with my car being towed.

Being an adult now, I was not a direct recipient of the Deebes' fortune. He owed a lot of money, so all the profits went to mom.

I did, however, appear to have a free subscription to dad's comics. Although they didn't arrive weekly or monthly, I'd find new issues in my postal box at random times during the year, no payment solicited.

While I balanced my books, Amanda looked through a box of them, making that face people do when they see photographs of themselves where their eyes have been closed or they've found a pimple they thought wouldn't show up in the glossy 8X10.

Being organized as I am, I wrote a check for next month's rent, walking it to the night drop.

When I returned, I found Riffraff waving action figures of Master Splinter and a Ninja Turtle in my face. "Hey! I know these guys! Where's the one of me?"

"You don't have one," I said. "If you did, I'd be sure to buy it."

He pointed to the rat. "You also have a framed picture of this one by the bathroom."

"So what?" I said as a rodent. "It's a cute poster."

Then I cleared my throat. "I meant, it's neat. He's kicking boards and stuff."

"You're blushing," Riffraff said.

"Am not!"

I checked the pizza, pretending like we hadn't had this conversation.

Amanda sat down on the edge of my bed (the side facing the oven) with comics bearing her likeness.

She called to her mother, who was now seated in the loveseat adjacent to the footboard, smoking a cartoon cigarette that formed vaporous elephants and hippopotami in tutus.

"I just spoke to dad a few days ago," the daughter said. "He wants you to come over for a little Christmas get-together this year. It's not even close to the date yet, so you got plenty of time to plan..."

Holli puffed out a Mighty Mouse shaped cloud. "Not interested."

"C'mon. You're both my parents. You can at least have the decency to pretend you're a family for the holidays."

"I don't go to Christmas parties," Holli said with an icy tone.

"It's not a party. It's a get together."

"Jack and I are done. I don't want to see him again, even if it's only for an evening."

"Is it so wrong to want to celebrate the holiday with the parents I love?"

Holli just frowned and silently puffed a out dragon shaped cloud.

Noticing how Sneezer and Riffraff kept rummaging through my dressers and cabinets, and generally acted like obnoxious little kids, I put the Muppet Party Game on my Gamecube and let them play that for awhile.

Amanda became engrossed in one of my books on the Hopi Indians, but Holli looked like she were bored to tears. She puffed a smoke Godzilla, the logo for Twelve Monkeys, and, strangely, my father's face. "What do you do here?" she asked with obvious impatience.

"Do?" I said. "I just...unwind, work on computers...I have every Quentin Tarantino film on DVD."

"Who's that?" she said.

"He's a director. He's great."

She rolled her eyes. "Sounds thrilling."

I still had ten minutes left on the pizza. My animated pets were becoming bored.

As primitive as it is, my TV actually had cable. Riffraff and Sneezer soon became glued to the set, rapidly flipping back and forth between programs: World's Scariest Police Chases, Breaking Bad, Soapnet, Chica Vampira on the Latino Fox Network.

To my dismay, they also ordered something from Playboy on Demand. I knew it was bad when it started with a slut in a kitchen and a delivery guy ringing the doorbell.

"Oh. I didn't order any package..."

"Change the channel or I'll unplug the TV," I ordered.

And so they changed it to Sex Sent Me To The E.R.

"Whatever."

For awhile, there was only icy silence between Holli and her daughter, nothing passing between them but the sounds of the TV.

"You don't like the fact I work in a strip club, do you?" Amanda finally asked.

"I...I just think you could do better, that's all."

"You're not that bad off..."

"That's where I disagree with you, and where I actually agree with your father. If you studied, and really applied yourself..."

"Mom. It's Cool World. You can't get a masters in biology or veterinary science. Remember what dad said about our scientists?"

Holli sighed. "Well maybe you should stay here, then."

"I can't do that. Dad says I have no social security number. How am I going to get a job or go to college or anything, when everything revolves around that number?"

"So you'd prefer to just work at a club, night after night, mindlessly exposing yourself to a bunch of creeps."

"It's the most secure job I can think of that pays the bills. If you're so smart, why don't you become a scientist, or whatever?"

Holli had no answer for that.

As a rat, I noticed, to my dismay, that Sneezer had been, from time to time, eying me with his mouth hanging open, and little hearts popping out. He didn't get this way about my other forms, but as a female rodent...

"You're making me sexually confused," he said in between moments of drooling.

"Could you get sexually confused elsewhere?" I pointed to the TV, which was now playing something about the world's deadliest snakes. "Look! That snake is eating a mouse!"

"I don't care." His eyes had turned to Valentine hearts.

I sighed. "I'm not interested. You're a little creep, and I like girls. Got it?"

The little hearts shattered. He looked like he he were going to cry.

Well, I thought. That's just too bad. Shacking up with Sneezer would be pretty horrific.

As expected, I had to divvy up the pizza with my companions...and Morris.

There wasn't much to go around, so I just let the others have it while I made myself a peanut butter sandwich and ate some cold hot dogs. I really hadn't eaten since breakfast, so I had a lot.

Brushing my teeth was a surreal experience. I only knew where my molars were half the time. The other times they were titanium white and not in need of any brushing. They didn't even have a textured surface with which to grind down food.

The bedding situation was doubly awkward. I had a couple sleeping bags, but my bed would only fit two, and only if one person kind of spoons with the other.

Also, doodles don't want to sleep. I guess that should have narrowed the bedding situation down, but it only made things more inconvenient.

My original plan had been to put Riffraff and Sneezer on sleeping bags on the floor, and let Holli use the loveseat, but Riffraff insisted on taking the bed, and, of course, Holli, being Amanda's mother, got dibs, so she shared the bed with him.

I tried to argue that it was my bed, but in between not wanting to get that close to Holli, and Amanda telling me to be a good sport about the bet, I gave up, just trying to sleep as comfortably as possible where I was.

Truthfully, I was comfortable. I had the lights off, the temperature was mild, I had my shoes off, I was in my socks and comfortable khaki shorts...when I was real...

But then, as I began to doze, I suddenly noticed a glowing hand reaching into my pocket for my keys.

I grabbed the glowing wrist attached to it like a pissed off viper, scowling at the indignant pink face.

"Leave those the hell alone!" I shouted. "The car's where I want it, and I ain't moving it! Get some damn patience!"

Groaning, I flipped the lights back on, staggered into the bathroom to change, then called Dane while I made some coffee.

"Hello?" moaned the voice on the other end.

"Sorry to wake you," I said. "It's just I'm about to lose my-"

"No, no, it's fine," she said.

I could hear the tiredness in Dane's voice. "Are you sure this is okay? I could get a taxi or walk or something. I think the exercise could do us all good."

"No, no," she said. "You're animated. It's like getting the direct line to Bigfoot or a UFO. You don't plan something like this, and it probably will never happen again. It's fine. If E.T. wants a ride home, I'll steal a bicycle."

"All right then," I said. "I'm over at-"

"I know," she blurted. "I'm outside the apartment."

I swallowed. "And how long have you been there?"

"Oh? Awhile."

I sighed and shook my head. "Normally I'd say that was creepy, but in this case, I really, really appreciate it. Anything in particular I can do for you?"

"Does E.T. pay people for letting them hang out?"

"Well, no..." She paused. "Can I have some food? I'm starved."