"I love your books to death, and I'd hate to see the series end," Rubella muttered to herself as she jotted the words onto a slip of pink stationery. "If nothing else, please write a new series about the adventures of Persephone after she graduates from Pigblisters. Yours truly, Rubella Degan."
Her sister, Prunella, folded up the note and opened an envelope to receive it. "Thanks for helping with my campaign," she said warmly. "But why do you still call yourself Rubella Degan? Mom's remarried now."
"Yeah, I know," said the teenage rat girl. "But in my opinion, Degan's a way cooler name than Prufrock, which has a dorky ring to it."
"I don't think it's dorky," said Prunella.
"Oh, puh-leeze, Prunie. You know the poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot? Do you know why the guy is fifty years old and still single? 'Cause of his dorky last name."
Both girls heard a vigorous rapping on the door. "I'll get it," Rubella offered.
On the porch stood a multitude of Prunella's friends, and a strange-looking man in a smock whom Rubella didn't recognize. "Yeah, she's here," she told the group. "I'll grab her."
Alan was foremost among them, and he greeted Prunella with an eager grin. "How would you like to save the world…for the third time?" he asked the girl.
"Uh, well, I'm trying to save Henry Skreever right now," she answered, "which is more important."
"Nice to, gloyven, see you again, Prunella," said the man with the spectacles and the overbite.
Recognition was slow in coming, but it came. "You…you're that crazy scientist," said Prunella, backing away fearfully.
"Let me explain," said Alan, approaching her cautiously. "When you lost your memory that day, Professor Frink was studying the alien implant in your brain."
"I knew it!" exclaimed the now-livid Prunella.
"But that's not a bad thing," Alan went on. "It's not, because your implant is the only thing that can save the alien ambassadors in New York, and prevent Earth from becoming the pariah of the whole galaxy."
"What's a pariah?" inquired D.W.
"And how, exactly, is my implant supposed to do all that?" said Prunella warily.
"It's quite simple," said Frink, pulling out of his pocket a metallic device with buttons and a microphone. "Using this remote transmitter, I…"
"Put that down!" said Alan, shoving the scientist's arm out of sight. "You'll scare her!"
"I won't do it," said Prunella, her eyes on fire with firmness. "Nobody's gonna turn me into a robot slave ever again."
Sue stepped forward. "You don't understand," she said assuringly. "We need you to destroy the magical sphere that turned us all into zombies. You won't have to shoot Mr. Haney, or anyone else."
"Why can't I do it of my own free will?" said the anxious rat girl. "Why do I have to be controlled?"
"Because the sphere takes over anybody who gets too close," replied Arthur.
"That's why you're the only one who can destroy it," Francine added. "If Frink controls you, then the sphere can't. Make sense?"
Prunella shook her head. "Find another way. Let Rubella hypnotize somebody. Let Rubella hypnotize me. And get rid of that remote whatchamajigger. I'm not a puppet, I'm a human rat being!"
"Let's do it, Prunie," said Rubella excitedly. "It'll be fun. I've always wanted to see the Empire State Building, and with everyone mobbing the Hilton, the lines will be short."
"Do it, Prunella," said George. "The fate of the world depends on you."
"Do it, Prunella," said Frink. "Free will's an illusion anyway."
"What's a pariah?" D.W. asked again.
The sight of her friends' earnest faces began to soften Prunella's stubborn heart. "I'll…need some time to think it over," she said hesitantly.
"You've got forty-seven minutes," Frink told her.
"Forty-seven?" said Prunella, puzzled.
"Forty-seven minutes until the next flight leaves for LaGuardia," said Frink.
"Awesome!" squeaked Rubella. "All expenses paid?"
"Including a $60-per-day food allowance," the scientist replied.
Prunella's jaw dropped. "Sixty dollars a day just for food?"
Frink nodded.
"Is there a Ben & Jerry's in New York City?" the girl asked him. "Please say there is one!"
"There are thousands of ice cream shops," said Frink with enthusiasm.
"I'll do it!" said Prunella with delight. "Wind me up and set me loose! Oh, I'm gonna eat so much ice cream!"
"I want to meet the Soup Nazi!" said Rubella.
"Excellent," said Frink. "We must leave at once, with the speed and the haste and the not looking back. Do your parents mind?"
"I'll check," said Rubella, who shouted to the second floor, "Mom! Prunie and I are going to New York City to save the world!"
"Put on your makeup first," her mother called back.
As they waited for the rat sisters to finish preparing, the kids encircled Frink and gazed in admiration at the sophisticated transmitter in his hands. "It's the most powerful transmitter known to man, with the megawatts and the megahertz and the messed-up TV reception," he boasted. "With it, I could make her dance an Irish jig from a thousand miles away, ga-hoyven."
"Okay," said Sue with a hint of disbelief, "but can you get her past the mob and the Thrags with laser guns?"
"Have no fear, wee one," said the man in the smock. "I've planned everything perfectly, including the funeral arrangements in the off chance she doesn't make it."
to be continued