"So what did he say?" Leroy asked me when I came out of the office.

I shrugged. "Ten grand. It's actually ten cheaper than what I paid for my car." I paused, frowning at the mouse. "Speaking of which, we need to make use of existing capital."

"A down payment?" Leroy guessed.

"Funny, I said. "The guy didn't even ask me for one."

I looked the mouse in his beady eyes. "How much money you got in that silver suit?"

"It's not ten grand," he said.

I held out my hand. "Money, please."

"It's just a stupid car. What's in it for me?"

I scowled at him. "How about joint ownership of that so-called `stupid car'?"

Sneezer rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "What else?"

"What do you mean, what else?" I wanted to slap that white blob of paint that he called a face, or maybe just reach into his outfit and grab the money myself, but neither one would achieve the desired result. Also, the thought of reaching into his spacesuit and finding his privates made me shudder.

"What do you want? Another free show?"

"Getting warmer!" he said with a grin.

I grimaced in disgust. I knew what he wanted, I just didn't want to say it out loud, for fear of giving him ideas. "I'm not sure I understand."

The mouse's grin widened. "I think you do."

"I really, really don't think so."

"You mean, you won't, or you really don't think you understand?"

"Let's go with the second one and see what I think about the first. What exactly are you implying?"

"You know," he said mischievously.

"No," I said. "I really don't."

"I know you do, or else you would have already gone out and said it."

"I always hesitate before agreeing to things I don't understand. That's how I avoid pyramid schemes and door to door knife selling gigs."

"You don't want to say it."

I narrowed my eyes. "I don't want to say it because you'll just get an idea that I never wanted you to have."

"It seems like you do know what he's talking about," Leroy said.

"You stay out of it!" I snapped.

The dog raised his paws defensively.

"See?" Sneezer said. "Even he agrees with me. You just don't want to say it out loud."

"All right, all right," I bluffed. "But me and Pippi Longstocking...what will the children look like?"

The mouse chuckled. "I knew you knew."

I sighed nervously. "Fine. Find me Pippi Longstocking, and we'll talk."

Sneezer smiled in a way that nauseated me. "I wasn't talking about Pippi Longstocking."

"I...don't follow you," I said.

"Yes you do."

The conversation devolved into that childish game where the two parties alternate between saying, "You do" and "I don't", for nearly an entire minute.

At last I yelled, "I'm not having sex with you!"

"What about when you're a rat in a kimono?"

"Still no," I said. "I don't sleep with anyone that wears a diaper!"

"I'm not wearing any now," he said, pointing to his silver suit.

"Still no," I said. "That's like kiddie porn. I don't do that."

"How about a date?"

I turned into Kimono Rat. "Seriously? You hang around me all the time already! I shudder to think about what you consider romantic!"

"You're not convincing me to give you the money," he said.

I groaned. Since I was in a female form anyway, I gave up. "Fine. We'll go on a date sometime. But don't expect anything-" I shuddered in disgust. "God, I can't believe I just said that."

Scientists must be right about men losing testosterone and gaining estrogen after sex.

"I think you'll change your mind after the first couple," Sneezer said.

I reddened. "Excuse me?"

"I want dates. As in plural." He pronounced that last word `ploo ral,' making it even ickier. "I'll provide your down payment if you agree to go out with me every day for a month."

"That's way too much Sneezer," I said. "Even people in love get tired of seeing the other person's face occasionally."

Sneezer looked surprised by that statement, as if the idea never occurred to him. "Twice a week for a month?"

"Getting warmer," I said.

"Once...a week...for two months."

"Deal," I sighed.

"And I get to watch the next time you have sex."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine."

I figured that would be just as likely as me sleeping with Sneezer anyway.

Actually, twice as likely.

I decided `cheating' or even `a double date' where I date a cute doodle while he or she dates me in my rat form, might be okay if I didn't mention it until I had the down payment.

Okay, so, no pressure. I led the mouse back into the building, which was still full of colored smoke, approaching the desk.

As in most cartoons, there was an inconsistency, for now the scary demonic smoke was actually the product of a cigar the creature gnawed between his teeth.

Noticing the guy's name was on a plaque, I said,

"Frank," I said (I read the demon's name from a plaque). "I got your down payment."

The mouse's eyes grew big as saucers as I him up to the demon. His legs trembled. I could see he wanted to bolt any minute.

"I think you're lying about that diaper," I muttered. "You probably just used it right now."

"Uh-huh," the mouse nervously squeaked.

"What's a down payment?" the demon said.

I looked at him like he were an idiot, which, apparently, was true. "I can see now why you let those cats get away with murder in your junkyard."

The monster's eyes widened. "They've actually killed someone? Oh my God!"

I rolled my eyes. "Not literally. Anyway, I have a good faith payment on the car, to show you we intend to pay of the rest."

"Oh!" Frank exclaimed. "A down payment!"

I stared at the creature's scaly fists and forearms. The guy seemed rather well designed for something that didn't appear in any cartoon show. I figured they must have overworked that area and skimped in the brain department.

"I'm guessing you couldn't cut it in the `immortal souls for recording contracts' racket."

Frank appeared to agree. "Have you been talking to my brother?"

"No," I said. I felt the urge to weasel my way out of the contract by somehow outsmarting the guy, but I guess I wasn't that bright myself.

The demon frowned at Sneezer. "Is he your down payment?"

With my face, I gave him a `Maybe?'

Frank leaned closer. "Looks kind of scrawny. I don't think he'll go for very much on the Souls Market. Yours, on the other hand..."

I smacked my face. "If you don't want the mouse, how about the mouse's money?"

"All right," he said, extending his hand. "Let's see the money."

"I made a number two!" Sneezer whispered to me with his legs trembling.

"Just hand him the money so we can get out of here!" I urged. "Hopefully he won't mind a little (ahem) dirty money."

Sneezer handed him several stacks.

Mr. Big apparently could count money by sound, for he flipped through whole stacks and muttered amounts like he knew what he was counting.

At last he slapped the money on his desk. "That's two grand. Is that all you've got?"

"Really?" I said, surprised. "It looked like a lot more than that!"

Frank shrugged, cleaned his hands with sanitizer. "It's mostly ones."

"Okay," I said. "Looks like I'm going to be on a hunt for the other eight grand."

I left him, returning to the dog.

"What's the verdict?" he asked me.

"I think I'm going to be needing that loan."

I pointed the dog's gun in the air and fired.

After a few moments of silently listening to generic Heathcliff incidental music, in which I wondered if I were wasting my time, I suddenly heard the William Tell Overture, and a masked man on a white horse galloped up to me. "Whoa, Silver!"

The horse and rider looked like something out of Dudley Do Right. The only thing that instilled confidence was the fact he seemed to be from the realm of innocent cartoons like Rocky and Bullwinkle, in which you could tell who a shifty crook was by how much they spoke with a Russian accent and twirled their handlebar mustache.

The horse stopped, and he dismounted, tipping back his hat. "Howdy! I came as soon as I saw the signal! Who needs a loan?"

I felt fairly certain my eyes were going to pop out of my head from rolling so much. I cringed a little. "I'm the one."

The Loan Arranger slapped Silver's rump. "Hop on. I'll take you to the field office."

A cartoon horse is far more docile and accommodating than a real one, so I got on right away without a problem. As for riding bitch, that part really couldn't be helped.

The Loan Arranger's `field office' was on the side of a mountain inside a poster. The horse actually jumped into the poster, carrying us up a rocky pass to a pair of tipis along a hill.

Inside one of these tipis, I came across an actual loan office, complete with desks and computers, and posters for various kinds of loans. A grumpy looking Indian occupied the main desk, clad in the stereotypical brave's headdress and buckskin ribbon shirt. "Who is this, Kemosabe?"

"A new customer," the Loan Arranger said. "Car loan. Eight thousand."

I had told him the amount on the way up. Oddly enough, he called me `sweet thing' and `sugar' even when I wasn't in my rat form. Maybe that wasn't so odd, considering comedian Lenny Bruce's take on the whole Lone Ranger/Tanto relationship. But I digress.

"Get him the paperwork and send him down with the check, will you, Tanto? I've got another customer at the Spooky Old Amusement Park."

The cowboy wasn't going to hang around. I suppose I did change into a female rat a little too much.

Tanto gave him a nod. "I make good deal for you, Kemosabe!"

"Thank you, Tanto." He mounted his horse, shouting, "Hi yo Silver! Your credit problems away!" as he galloped off.

"He always does that," Tanto groaned, shaking his head.

I won't bore you with the details, except to say that the due dates for my payments were completely arbitrary. It seemed you could pay anytime you want without penalty. Well, unless Masked Man brokered in indentured servants (i.e. impossibly high interest rates) or kept things in escrow like they do with Green Tree home loans, so you couldn't get anywhere.

At any rate, thanks to my `Indian guide,' I came down the mountain with a check for eight thousand, presenting the check to Frank.

Thunder crashed as junkyard manager filed away the check.

The moment I stepped out of his office, the background music stopped, and the lighting around me suddenly dimmed.

When I looked up, I saw a formation of swirling clouds, kind of like a tornado, except there was no funnel, as if someone had cast one of those spells from The Black Cauldron, or maybe that awful movie with Macaulay Culkin where he hits his head in a library and a sword drops out of the sky.

The monuments of junk shook as if in the throes of a giant earthquake, and for the first time in, what, two seasons, the mounds of accumulated debris actually moved, the televisions and Fiats and discarded entertainment centers rolling down mountains of trash like boulders during a volcanic eruption. I had to run out of the way to avoid being crushed.

Leroy, with chattering teeth, dove through the window of a rusty 1950's style Ford pickup, cowering in fear somewhere below the console.

There was a flash of lightning, then I saw...real clouds, pouring down rain.

They flickered animated once more, like nothing had happened, and I thought everything was fine, until lightning flashed again, and I found myself standing in an actual garbage dump, watching a truck unloading about give tons of rotting post consumer waste on top of an already massive mound. Birds flew down from PVC vent pipes, pecking at the rancid trash. The smell was intolerable.

Lightning flashed, and I was back in Cool World. Only now, I had company.

In the air above me, I saw four figures in red, hovering of the junk piles like gods. The blue faces and red outfits reminded me of the Green Guardians from Green Lantern, but they looked funny.

A blue koala bear floated to the east. To the west a blue cat. To the north a German shepherd, and to the south, a blue version of Glomer from It's Punky Brewster, sort of a fat hairy gopher, if you don't remember the show. All of them had glowing eyes, looking rather ominous and intimidating.

As they floated, they levitated televisions, tires, and other pieces of junk around them like force fields.

The cat spoke first, its voice sounding like a female demonic ghost from one of those horror themed Japanese cartoons. Lots of echo, lots of reverb. "The integrity of this reality has been compromised," it said. "Who has weakened our reality?"

"Come forward!" Glomer called in his weird voice. "So you may see the end of all things!"

I marched up to the mountain, raising my hands. "I bought the car, okay? Never mind that my dad and I slept with doodles, and my ex girlfriend might even now be screwing with your genotypes at the baby factory! You're getting after me for a legitimate automotive sale!"

The four creatures floated silently, as if considering my words.

"Your actions unravel ancient plot paradigms," the German shepherd said in the voice of He-Man's Sorceress. "The resulting vacuum will cause major portions of Cool World to collapse in on themselves, possibly causing the end of our reality."

"Like I was telling the demon," I said. "I don't see what the big problem is. Just make up a new story where they own the car and move on."

"Are you a writer?" the cat asked.

"Well," I said. "Not really."

"Then all of Cool World will be lost. All that is, was, and ever will be animated will cease to exist."

"So," I said. "Not good, I admit, but I know the world is surprisingly resilient. I think it will manage without cartoons, and I can't say I won't love to see what happens to the Disney Vault. That being said, what about me?"

"If you are human, you will be returned to the reality that birthed you."

"And if I'm not?"

"Then you will be erased from existence with everyone else."

"Either that," Glomer said. "Or half your body will disappear, and you will die from the missing vital organs."

This was not something I ever expected to hear coming out of Glomer's mouth. In any other situation, I would have been entertained, but now I was only scared.

"So," I said. "No pressure."

They bobbed up and down in the air, making no noise, waiting for me to solve their problem, I guess.

"Okay, okay," I said. "You got me! I'm a writer."

"Then write a replacement plotline to go into the vacuum."

"Uh, okay," I said.

I suck at writing , so I just threw them the first thing off the top of my head. "Riffraff was amazed when Drew brought him the title to his beloved Cadillac..."

"Weak!" the koala yelled. "Never start out a story with a character's name!"

"You didn't even introduce the characters!" Glomer said.

"I thought you said you were a writer!"

I cleared my throat. "The Child Like Empress's name is Serena! It means Moon Child!"

They just stared at me. I guess they had never seen The Neverending Story.

"I was hoping that would work," I groaned. "Why can't you guys write something? Surely in a committee of floating superpowerful beings, someone should be able to come up with a replacement story full of interesting conflicts and plot twists."

"We could," said the cat. "But you won't like it."

"So what else is new?" I said. "There's a lot of things that have happened to me as of late that I haven't liked at all! Just take out your little typewriters and hammer out a script!"

Glomer actually did wiggle his ears and make a typewriter float in the air, but the others scowled at him.

"What!"

"We have run out of ideas," said the cat.

"Our inkwell has run dry," said the koala.

I frowned. "Does this have something to do with our attempt to remove the cartoon from my system? I mean, we did drain some ink from the spike..."

They stared at me silently, like I had guessed the correct answer.

"C'mon," I said. "I only took maybe a couple gallons worth. There's other spikes. This place is huge. Surely that isn't a problem."

"We also have been blocked," said the German shepherd. "From the outside."

"As long as this barrier stands," the koala said. "Our idea resources remain severely diminished."

I pointed at the sky. "Is that a brainstorm?" I asked dryly.

Of course they said yes.

"What if I...toss you a few ideas? Maybe get those neurons firing again?"

"You are welcome to try," said the cat.

I opened my mouth, and random ideas tumbled out.

The four hovered in silence for a long time, and then lightning exploded all around me.

"It has been done!" Glomer announced.

"We will not make use of your suggestions," the cat said.

"But your ideas provide a valuable framework with which to build better, more profitable storylines and character arcs," the German shepherd added. "For the time being, you have restored the ink reservoir."

The eyes of all four creatures glowed bright as car headlights, and a thick fog rolled through the dump and the surrounding landscape, concealing the nearby hills, the buildings, the garbage piles, and everything else in an opaque red-purple wall.

The four floating creatures vanished like ghosts in Japanese cartoons, and as they did the fog cleared.

In the distance, I saw a pair of large buildings taking shape, a square gray two story structure with mirrored windows, and a taller glass and steel building.

As the objects gained definition, I heard that eerie song they always play in Indiana Jones films when Indy uncovers a huge treasure chamber or some other awe inspiring secret vault.

The clouds vanished, and I could at last read the signs on the fronts of the buildings.

One said Legitimate Solution Services Inc. The other read, Ewes Bank.

It looked so similar to my previous places of employment that I at once knew what they were. Telephone customer service and collections businesses.

"Good Lord," I said. "What are they going to do with that?"

"Your guess is as as good as mine," Sneezer said in a deep male voice.

Surprised, I spun around and saw...that he had grown up.

He was now my height, and he had a swirl of shiny black hair between his large ears.

Still clad in his space pajamas, he had grown into a reasonably handsome doodle.

"They were right," I muttered. "They didn't use my ideas."

Sneezer shrugged. "Maybe they used mine."

That's when I see an armada of storks bearing strange looking babies, to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries.

I couldn't see much from my vantage point, but I could tell from a glance that the storks' parcels seemed curiously well shaded.

I pointed to them. "Was that your idea too?"