As we approached the Owlmobile, I glanced at Dane with a frown. "I was hoping you could, you know, go back to our car, in the real world, and make sure it doesn't get towed..."

"I can do that later," she said.

I shook my head. "I'm not sure you can. The last time I came here, the door disappeared. I wasn't sure I'd ever get out."

She shrugged indifferently. "So? I like it here."

"But you're pregnant," I said.

"Can you think of a cooler place to raise a baby?"

"What about the car?" I said.

"It's not mine. It's your girlfriend's. Plus it's a hotel. You have to be there a long time for them to tow you out of there!"

"They do look at your validation, though," I urged.

"It's your ex's car. Who cares?"

I hated to say it, but she had a point. Plus, it was Jessica's car that had been parked at the hotel originally, before all this Cool World mess. Even if it did get towed downtown, I left her with a cleaner car, and a full tank of gas. She should thank me. "Fine," I sighed. "Don't wander off."

Our ride was hideous. A pink minivan, covered in feathers, inside and out, including the seats. It was like the world's largest feather duster. We had to sting Sneezer with the Nasonex bee to keep him from blowing off the sliding doors. Technically, it wasn't allergies, but a response to feathers tickling his nose. Still, it worked.

The vehicle had a few items of radar and surveillance equipment, an empty tool rack, and, bizarrely, a computerized library catalog, and a pair of loaded bookshelves.

"On a hunt for overdue books?" I asked dad.

He laughed. "Don't ask me. The library was doing a fundraiser." He shrugged. "Amanda kind of twisted my arm."

I chuckled.

Dane naturally sat next to Riffraff, just like she did in the house. I tried to sit in a passenger seat behind the driver, but Dad asked me to sit up front.

Dad's new girlfriend took a place at a console in the back, watching a radar and cameras as we pulled out of the garage, pushing buttons to retrieve data.

As I watched her work, I saw her flickering into a real Japanese woman. It answered a question I really didn't want to ask out loud.

I glanced at Dad in the driver's seat and found him changing the opposite way, becoming a large cartoon Ewok.

The pedals shifted to meet his stubby feet, the chair and steering wheel shifting to fit his body. He stayed like this for some time.

He leaned over the chair, talking to his daughter. "I'm guessing Holli said no about the party."

Amanda nodded. "Sorry."

The view out the front window was an unchanging desert landscape, not unlike the one I'd crossed to find The Land of the Lost Stuff.

Dane examined the inside of the sliding door next to her, which appeared to have been a weapons rack at some point, empty holsters, sockets for something cylindrical, possibly bombs or cartridges.

She turned around, smirking at the cat as she gestured at Sneezer. "Any particular reason why you never try to eat that mouse?"

"I don't do mice," he said. "That's just not my bag."

Dane chuckled, probably due to her imagining him doing a mouse. "Where's Odie?"

"I don't know no Odie," Riffraff said.

"But you're Garfield! You've gotta know Odie!"

"Babe," he said. "I like you, but you're confusing me with another cat!"

"Going back to Holli's place?" Dad asked.

"Looks like it," I said. "I don't imagine there's a hotel."

"You can always stay with me," Dad said.

I shuddered at the thought of spending the night in the same house where my dad could be screwing his animated girlfriend. "That's...okay. I'll figure something out on my own."

"Suit yourself."

Amanda leaned over my seat. "You can stay with me. We'll be close to mom's place. We can check her progress."

I nodded, hoping her offer wasn't another ploy to get in my pants.

My companions, however, were probably hoping that it was.

"Uh...fine."

I frowned at Dane. "What about you? I don't think there's room for you in my sister's apartment."

"Maybe I could draw a bed or something."

"I have some workout mats and a little couch," Amanda suggested.

"That's cool."

"Who's Margaret Shusher?" Sneezer said suddenly.

"I think she owned this car," Dad said. "Why?"

A minivan is not a car, per se, but that's how Dad always talked.

The mouse held up a plastic badge. "I found this in a seat."

Dad reached back and grabbed the object, staring at it with mild interest. "Huh." He handed it back.

Dad pushed a button on the dashboard stereo, and the faux classical music that followed us everywhere was replaced by...nothing. He pointed at the digital readout. "Apparently this is the soundtrack to The Librarian."

He made a set of airplane controls popped out around the dash with a few button clicks. "Fasten your seatbelts, and make sure your tray tables are folded in the upright position."

He pulled back on the steering wheel, taking us up in the air.

"This is kind of cool," Dane said.

"Cooler than some of this other junk," I agreed.

Dad pushed a lever all the way forward, and the super minivan somehow went into warp speed. We flew over a familiar looking stretch of buildings, touching down in front of Holli and Amanda's apartment, behind the black Trans Am.

"You know," Dad said to me. "I think I saw some vacancies listed in the paper. Maybe you could ask the building manager."

I frowned. It would make things less awkward. But then again, I didn't anticipate a permanent stay. "I suppose I could..."

We got out, and Dane again froze in one spot, gawking at her surroundings.

When I glanced back at our vehicle, I saw a pair of jet engines and small airplane wings retracting into the vehicle's body. A feathery vertical stabilizer was also trying to retract, but didn't quite go back in. It just clanked noisily, popping back out of the roof.

Amanda smiled at me. "I've got to get a key made for you. I'd hate to see you getting locked out and sleeping in an alley."

I pictured the scenario I'd seen in an old Donald Duck cartoon, the one where everything humorously prevented Donald's sleep. I figured I could just draw a key to the apartment, but I thanked her anyway.

She knocked on the flat knocker, and the mutant skull came to life.

"Wow," it laughed. "Looks like a party!"

The skull twisted its neck as it stared at my dad. "So. You finally came crawling back."

"N-no," Dad said, raising his hands defensively. "Just dropping off my daughter. Holli and I are done."

The skull chuckled. "Sure you are. Sure..."

It turned its attention to Dane. "Who's the new noid?"

The girl grinned, waving to it. "Hi. I'm Dane."

She reached up and touched the creature, chuckling when she noticed it uttering a low purring sound.

"Nice kid."

It turned two dimensional, sliding open.

Dad stared through the doorway. "This is new. I thought there was a double staircase and stuff."

"They just remodeled," Amanda said. "It was a mess the first couple weeks. We had flying superheroes taking us to our apartments."

"Anyone I recognize?" Dane asked.

She shrugged. "Kultoog Ha, Sargeant Stretchpants, Wonderbread, Child Prodigy?"

"In other words," I said. "No."

I and the others marched into the lobby, but Dad stayed out on the steps.

"I'd better not," he said with a sheepish smile. "Anyways, I've got to get Kit back to the garage."

"Kit has an autopilot," Amanda said.

Dad chuckled and shook his head. "I'm sorry. I just don't think I should go up there." He looked me in the eyes. "Come visit me at my place, anytime. My door is always open."

He gave me a smirk. "I'll see you around."

I offered my hand to shake, but he said, "Oh c'mon. You can hug your old man."

And I did so. Awkwardly.

Dad sighed, waved goodbye, getting in the Trans Am.

We took the elevator upstairs to Holli's place.

The door was locked, or rather, the drawing was, but Amanda let us in.

We didn't find anyone there. Holli wasn't in the main room or her bedroom.

"Where do you think she went?" I asked as I watched Dane poking a drunk mouse passed out in a martini glass.

Amanda peered through a window on a metal door to one side of the room.

A statue of a discus player stood on a pedestal to one side of the door. She twisted its throwing arm in a circle, and the door slid open, revealing a laboratory full of bubbling beakers and test tubes, the usual stuff they use in cartoons about mad scientists and Frankenstein.

Dane tried to grab a pair of vials and mix them, but I told her no. It would more than likely blow up everything in the lab (including my cure) in addition to making her into a Frankenstein Tweety bird.

"But that would be cool!" she said. "I mean, being Frankentweety."

"Tell you what," I answered. "If I can regain my humanity, I'll find you a chemistry set just like this, and you can blow yourself up to your heart's content."

"Right on!" she said with a grin.

Holli now had the black stuff sitting in one large vat, the original containers tossed haphazardly all over the floor. The only thing that really bothered me was the stolen thermos, because it wasn't mine.

The half doodle, clad in a labcoat and wielding goggles read from what appeared to be a cookbook as the big man-gorilla thing from the lobby (also clad in lab attire) mixed chemicals into a flask.

"How's it coming?" I asked.

"Lousy," came the bitter reply. "Of course, the only breakthroughs I can expect in twenty four hours are mutant superpowers. Unraveling the secrets of the universe take time, say a week to one month."

"Wow," I joked. "The future looks pretty bleak!"

"Actually," Sneezer said in a serious tone. "Those odds sound really good!"

"I know," I said. "That was called sarcasm."

I smiled at Amanda's mother. "That's really great, Holli. Please let me know when you find the cure, okay?"

She nodded, but I wondered if she really would let me know without pressing her about it. If she wanted it all for herself, for example...

"All right," I groaned, looking at Amanda. "I'm dog tired. Let's go back to your place."

Ironically, I said this while taking on the form of Scruff McGruff. Dane laughed.

I had the choice of four beds. I could try out the slot machine bed, and drop down into a pit, I could take my chances and share a bed with Amanda, or I could use a padded bench or sleep on some gym/sex mats on the floor.

Riffraff, seeing the sleeping options available to him, went home to see Cleo. Dane asked to go with him, but he said no. I think he was just annoyed at her calling him Garfield all the time.

Sneezer again took the slot machine bed, disappearing with a scream when he got a bar and two cherries.

When Dane saw what happened, she preferred to recline on the bench.

I tried the gym mats, but it didn't work. Joining Dane on the bench did cross my mind, but it didn't look like there was enough room, so I opted for sleeping on the bed with Amanda, with my back to her.

That worked for awhile, but after an hour or so she was wrapping her arms and legs around me, rubbing her crotch against my leg.

Eventually, after about ten minutes of me complaining about a headache and generally being unresponsive, she gave up and let me sleep.

I had only slept for maybe four hours or so before I felt a hand caressing my rear end.

"Amanda," I groaned with my eyes shut. "Don't do that. You're my sister."

The hand stopped, and it was like someone was driving knives into my butt.

I let out an agonized scream...and actually did that thing cartoons do when they sit on a cactus.

In my animated Scouter Drew form, my body somehow launched itself upwards, smashing a me shaped hole in the ceiling, causing a female cow in bloomers in the upstairs apartment to scream in fright and hit me with a purse as I fell back down.

I turned human halfway down, landing painfully on the bed.

And there was Riffraff, with his claws bared. "Good morning, slave," he said as he retracted them. "Ready for your first fun filled day?"