Rob relaxed his grip on RJ and lifted his paws. "Sorry, RJ," he apologized, "I didn't know it was you."

"Who else could it have been?" asked RJ, as he stood up and brushed his fur off. He studied the wolf closely. "Rob, what the heck happened to you?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Rob laughed humorlessly. "Seems that every time I get nervous or agitated, basically, I turn back into a wolf. I've gone days before I can get back to normal, RJ. It's driving me insane."

"So how do you get back to normal?" asked the raccoon, circling Rob.

Rob shrugged. "It's simple enough — I just have to calm down — but that's pretty hard to do when you're stuck as a wolf."

"I guess it would be," muttered RJ. "Does your family know?"

"Are you kidding?" said Rob. "If I told anyone about this, I'd get hauled off to another lab for more testing. No way would I want to do that again."

"I don't blame you," said RJ earnestly, "It's nasty stuff."

"I don't know what to do, RJ," said Rob, pacing nervously. "I mean, I'm not a scientist or anything, and the lab was destroyed. How am I supposed to get a cure?"

"Let's just try to figure out how to change you back for now," said RJ reasonably, "and then we can worry about a cure. Now, how did you calm down last time?"

"Well, I —" Rob started, but was cut off as another distant, but much louder, roll of thunder came rumbling across the sky. The two of them glanced at the horizon and saw the storm clouds some distance away; as the two of them watched, another flash lightning hit the air. And RJ missed the rest because a small orange blur came streaking out of the log and promptly tackled him. Dazed, RJ looked up to see Hammy staring down at him.

"RJ!" he said frantically, "The thunder woke me up and you were gone! I knew you hadn't left, I knew it I knew it I knew it!" He suddenly eyed the raccoon with a concerned look, and asked sympathetically, "Did you have another nightmare?"

"Didn't we agree we wouldn't talk about that, Hammy?" said RJ cautiously, standing up.

"Yeah, but it's only the two of us here and — and — oh." Hammy suddenly noticed Rob standing in front of them, eyebrows raised. "Hi, Rob!" the squirrel said, waving. "Oh, wait a minute. Aren't you supposed to be a human now?"

"Yes, Hammy," Rob said, rolling his eyes. "I seem to be having trouble staying that way, though."

"Wow!" said Hammy. "It's kind of like you're a werewolf, except — not. What do you do to change back?"

"I don't know," said Rob, pacing again. "Usually all I have to do is stop thinking about it, but it's not working this time."

"It's probably really hard to stop thinking about being something you're not!" Hammy chirped with his usual innocence.

"Yes, that's my problem," Rob replied dryly.

"I have an idea," said RJ. "Do you know if the morning paper's come yet?"

The sky overhead darkened as thin gray clouds rolled in. Above the log, a leaf snapped off a tree branch and drifted downward, floating lazily until it reached Verne's shell, where it promptly slithered into a tiny opening above his arm, tickling him. "AWK!" the turtle screeched as he woke suddenly. Frustrated, he spun around on the spot and quietly ranted, "If it's not snow, it's leaves, and if it's not leaves, it's water! Maybe I need to get a bigger shell. One with smaller holes..."

Muttering darkly to himself and patting his stomach, Verne shuffled out of the log. He stopped by RJ's little homey area to grab a brush and some soap. Ever since RJ and the porcupine kids had played a joke on him by filming his bath, Verne liked to bathe in the morning, when the kids were sure to be asleep.

Finally he reached the bathing pond. He clumsily slipped off his shell and touched the water with his toe. "Oooh! That's cold." He looked up at the darkening sky. "Hmm. Storm coming soon. Should start preparing when the others wake up..."

Sighing, he waded into the water, grabbed some soap and began to scrub himself clean, whistling a tune.

In a thicket a few yards away, Snowy and John were dozing contentedly, sleeping late after yesterday's raid. Too tired to walk all the way to the log, they had fallen asleep in each other's arms and now slowly began to wake, looking around blearily before noting where they were.

Snowy blinked, then smiled. "Good morning," she purred, stroking John's furry cheek.

John gave a huge yawn, showing sharp cat teeth. "'Morning," he replied, stretching. "What's on the ol' agenda today?"

"Nothing much," said Snowy, also stretching. "We got a lot of food from the raid yesterday, so we should be good for at least a week. What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, just spending some time together," John smiled. "What say we head back to the log for some breakfast?"

"Sounds good to me," said Snowy, and the two of them set off.

Bucky was the first of his family to wake up, late in the morning. And his siblings woke up two seconds later, thanks to his shouting in their ear. The three of them then proceeded to gamble about, wrestling and horsing around with each other. Not paying the slightest attention to where they were going, they rolled through leaves and thickets until at last they lay down, exhausted, panting and gasping. They remained there for awhile, getting their breath back.

"We've been awake for five minutes and already we're really tired," said Quillo, rolling over.

"That's got to be a record or something," said Spike, sitting up. Something shiny, nestled in some branches a ways away, caught his eye and he bounded over toward it. "What's this?"

He pulled on it and suddenly fell back with a screech: the shiny thing was Verne's shell, and the turtle had currently been trying to put it on after he finished up his bath. "KIDS!" Verne shouted at them, and the three of them sprinted away, laughing and high-fiving each other. They didn't get very far, however; as they rounded a corner, they suddenly ran into their parents, who were staring down at them with murderous looks on their faces.

"Kids..." Lou started in a very serious tone of voice that signaled trouble.

"We've told you time and time again not to bother Verne while he's bathing!" said Penny, shaking her head. "What are we going to do with you?"

"It was an accident!" Bucky said defensively, and Quillo and Spike nodded in agreement. "We didn't know it was him!"

"Whether that's the case or not," said a voice, and the five of them turned to see Verne, now back in his shell, strolling toward them, "you're still going to help me out today. Penny, Lou, is it okay if these kids help me stock up the log?"

"Why, sure, there, Verne," said Penny. "But what for?"

Verne pointed toward the horizon. "There's a storm coming. It'll probably start tonight, but we don't know how long it could go on, and we need food if we're going to stay sheltered in the log. The kids can help with that."

Lou nodded. "We'll help you out there, too. C'mon, kids," he said, gesturing, "let's go clean out the mini-bar!"

"Sodas have the last priority!" Penny added, following.

"This isn't working!" exploded Rob in frustration. "It's worked before but it won't work now. We've been at this for half the day and we haven't gotten anywhere!"

"Rob, you need to calm down," said Hammy, with infinite patience. "That's the whole point. You calm down, you stop thinking about it, you change back. Simple!"

Behind them, RJ pressed a couple of buttons on one of the Hedgies' cell phones, glowering. He had found the classifieds section of the paper early in the morning, dug the cell phone out of his bag and called the SPCA, only to be told he'd have to wait until the office opened at ten o'clock. When that finally happened, he'd had to work his way through an automated voice-mail system which had already hung up on him three times. His patience wearing thin, RJ pressed one again, and was now told, "To locate an employee, please enter the first three letters of their last name."

RJ keyed in 7-2-7 (P-A-R), and waited, hoping for the best.

There was silence on the line for a minute, then the automated voice came back, saying, "Dr. Parker is currently unavailable. To leave a voicemail message, press one."

"What?" RJ shouted into the phone, and both Rob and Hammy stared at him. "I waited two hours for this?" There was no reply from the phone, only the same message repeated again. Grimacing, RJ pressed one.

"Dr. Parker's voice mailbox is full. Please try again later."

"AAAGH!" RJ shouted, and hurled the phone as far away as he could. He heard a distant thump, indicating that the phone had landed in a clearing some ways away, and sat down on the grass, trying to cool his anger. Finally he looked up at Rob. "I think I'm starting to know how you feel."

"I think so," agreed Rob, walking over to the cell phone and turning it off. He cleaned the screen, checking for scratches, then snapped the phone shut and tossed it away. "But that gives me an idea." He turned to RJ and Hammy with a gleam in his eye. "If we can't reach Parker by phone, maybe we can go to his office. The SPCA building isn't far from here."

"That sounds fun!" chirped Hammy, dashing over to RJ and pulling his arm. "C'mon, RJ, let's go let's go let's go!"

"Are you sure?" RJ asked Rob, standing up. "We'd have to stay hidden."

"I know," said Rob, "but I had a lot of practice at the lab." He smiled and extended his paw to RJ and Hammy. "Hop on."

RJ hesitated, then smiled also. "Oh, why not?" Slinging his bag over his back, he climbed up onto Rob's shoulders with Hammy; the squirrel promptly pointed forward and shouted, "Hiya, mush!" Rob looked up at him and raised an eyebrow; Hammy faltered. "Or, not mush. Either way is good."

Rob grinned, then said, "Hold on!" Rearing up onto his hind legs, he burst through the hedge and was soon running down the streets of suburbia with powerful strides. "Bye, Steve!" said Hammy, turning back to wave at the hedge.

"Okay, Marissa, let's go over this again," said Katrina with a voice of forced calm as she and her sister gripped an umbrella, ready to open it. "The storm's about to hit, we need to be prepared. Now, this is how you do it —"

She was cut off as Marissa suddenly yanked on the umbrella pole, wrestling with it; the canvas promptly opened up, turned inside out, tore off and blew away in the breeze. Marissa watched it go and turned to grin sheepishly at Katrina.

Katrina held her head in her paws. "You know, Marissa, I've tried to be patient, but your inability to use things is really tiring."

"Come on, I can do it!" said Marissa defensively. "We still have some time, right? So let's go and get another umbrella and —"

Suddenly there was a violent gust of wind; when Katrina looked up at the sky, rain promptly began pouring down on them by the bucketload and within seconds the two of them were soaked. Katrina glared at Marissa as they held their paws over their heads and splashed back to the log.

Across the glade, the rest of the Hedgies were doing the same. Stella and Tiger had been having a romantic candlelit dinner; the candles had now been extinguished by the wind and rain, and Tiger was bolting back to the log as fast as his feet would carry him (he hated water). Behind him, Stella scrambled to keep up.

Snowy and John had been exploring together on the other side of the Hedge. A couple of little humans had discovered them, and decided to take the two cats home; they was only saved when the kids ran inside to avoid the rain. Snowy and John jumped through the Hedge and shook themselves off before also returning to the log.

Ozzie, Lilly and Heather had been sleeping in a tree, hanging from a branch by their tails. They had only woken up when the rain caused the branch to bend and send them tumbling to the ground. Ozzie had promptly played dead, thinking a predator was attacking; an embarrassed Heather pulled him to his feet and ran with him and Lilly to the log.

Verne and the porcupine family had already been prepared, and had stashed up on food accordingly: there was enough to keep the family in the log for a week, if needed. Right now Verne stood at the entrance with a clipboard, checking off each Hedgie as they entered. Behind him, the porcupine kids gamboled about (having just finished a Dr. Salt soda) as their parents struggled to keep them under control.

Last to reach the log were Jackson, Willow, George, and Frank the frog. The two rabbits shook themselves off and cleaned their fur. George found a spot in the log and laid down, careful not to poke anyone with his quills. Frank got the porcupine kids under control by amusing them with his tongue: it was so long that it made for some funny tricks (right now he was tying himself up with it). Verne put a little tick in the last box on the clipboard and checked the list over.

"Hang on, wait a minute..." the turtle muttered as he scanned the list. He saw two unchecked boxes and sighed. "Oh, great."

"What?" said Snowy, coming to peer over Verne's shoulder. The turtle showed her the list. "We're missing two of our family."

"RJ and Hammy," said Stella, also looking at it. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Well," Verne amended, checking the list again, "technically we're also missing Rob, but he does have his own home to go to, after all."

"Maybe RJ and Hammy went there?" suggested Heather.

"I don't know ... they didn't happen to take a cell phone with them, did they?" asked Verne, searching through the stockpile in the log. "We have a couple ..."

"Yes, they did," said Willow, slightly nervous, "but I called the number and they're not answering. The phone's been shut off ... and it looks like there's no way to reach them."

"Should we look for them?" asked Jackson, daring to look out of the log. "The rain's not very heavy now, but there's lightning and thunder coming."

"Nah, they'll be fine," said Frank with a flip of his hand. "RJ's seen worse than this, I'm sure."

"I just hope they get back soon," said Verne, looking out into the rain. "Otherwise I'll have to go out and find them myself."

"Oh, brilliant," said Rob sarcastically, as the rain poured down on the three of them. "Really brilliant. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best idea to go to the SPCA with a thunderstorm on the way."

"It's not a problem," RJ smiled, and as he dug through his bag he located some dollhouse umbrellas. He gave one to Hammy and opened one himself; when he offered Rob one, however, the wolf declined. "It probably wouldn't do much good," he said, looking at the umbrella, which had been designed to fit a twelve-inch-tall doll.

"No," RJ agreed, slinging his bag back over his shoulder, "probably not. Do you want to head back?"

"Nah, we're almost there," said Rob, now walking forward again. "And hey, I probably won't get any more drenched than I am already."

The wolf continued walking in silence. RJ, noticing Hammy start to shiver, wrapped an arm around the squirrel's shoulder and pulled him close to keep him warm. Hammy blinked, then stopped shivering and rested against RJ with a contented sigh. RJ closed his umbrella; the one Hammy was holding was enough for both of them.

Suddenly there came a screech of tires from behind them; turning around, RJ saw a large, black surveillance van careening around the corner. It swayed unsteadily across the street before righting itself and continuing forward, increasing its speed.

Rob hopped off the sidewalk and into a bush. Crouching on the wolf's shoulders, RJ and Hammy waited for the van to pass. "That guy should be more careful, driving in the rain," said Hammy disapprovingly. "He could..."

He was cut off with another screech of tires: The van was now zooming down the street at an alarming speed, much faster than was safe. It lurched to the side ominously and left tire marks on the road, but didn't stop. The wheels spun every which way, squealing in protest. Finally the van swiveled and zoomed forward again.

Right toward the bush where Rob, Hammy and RJ were standing.

"...get ... someone ... killed..." Hammy trailed off.

Rob leaped out of the bush just in time; the van plowed through it in a shower of branches, the left tire crushing the leaves into dust. Rob bolted down the sidewalk as fast as he could, RJ and Hammy clinging tightly onto his shoulders. RJ chanced a glance behind them and saw, with a chill, that the van was changing direction again: it was following them. And worse, it was gaining.

Rob ran through the streets of suburbia, ignoring the continuous screech of tires that meant the van was still pursuing them. The wolf rounded a corner sharply and RJ and Hammy were almost thrown off; tightening their grip on Rob's shoulders, the raccoon and squirrel looked behind them again. The van was also careening through the street, and almost smashed into a house; but righting itself, it continued to chase them. RJ squinted, trying to see through the windshield of the van, but the glass was tinted black and the driver could not be made out.

Soon the hedge came into view, but rather than slow down, Rob increased his speed. Without a glance backward he hopped through it and then slowed, panting slightly. RJ looked around: they had come in on the wrong side. The rest of the Hedgies were some distance away from them, on the other side of the clearing. But that didn't matter: they were away from the van. There was no way it was following them through the hedge.

Or was there?

The three of them heard the squeal of tires, the revving of an engine — and slowly Rob turned around to see the van breaking through the branches and leaves, shoving the hedge aside as if it were no more than an ant. Rob's eyes widened and he backed away slowly, turning to run as the van finally burst all the way through and headed for them again.

"Have to — lure them — away —" RJ heard Rob muttering under his breath as he ran, and the raccoon realized that, rather than run toward the log, Rob was going the opposite way, so as not to lead the van to the rest of the Hedgies. A sudden long, droning note blasted through the air and RJ covered his ears: the van was honking at them. And that horn was much, much too close for comfort.

Rob leaped over a row of bushes and fell straight into a pond; the shallow water splashed around the three of them as the wolf continued running right through it. RJ heard another splashing sound behind them and knew that the van had also entered the water. The raccoon turned around again, and saw that rather than getting stuck — as they had hoped it would — the van was continuing to move forward, going even faster.

Suddenly Rob screeched to a halt: in front of them loomed the hedge once again. "I told you it never ends!" said a terrified Hammy, before the wolf burst through the leaves, back in front of a row of suburban houses. He turned and ran down the right side of the street, rounding another corner. RJ noticed that the wolf was looking around him with confusion; it was clear that this part of the neighborhood, which had just finished construction several weeks ago, was new to him. Rather than risk getting lost, Rob rounded another corner and, before the van followed them, ducked into a narrow divide between two houses. It was here that the wolf finally stopped running, and the three of them listened intently, waiting to see if they had lost the van.

"Don't ... breathe..." whispered Rob, as he heard the van's tires squealing in protest as it attempted to get through the hedge again. Then the rev of the engine grew louder, and RJ knew it was approaching the alleyway. Rob slinked back into the shadows, not making a sound, waiting to see if the van would pass them.

It didn't.

With another honk of its blaring horn, the van spun on its squealing tires and shoved itself into the divide with a crunch. Rob backed away, but noticing the van getting caught in the alley, he changed course and ran forward again. "Hold on!" he shouted at RJ and Hammy, and the wolf jumped ... right on top of the van's hood.

Quickly the wolf climbed over the car and leaped back into the street, running again. Behind them, the van's engine shifted into reverse and spun out of the divide, taking some of the wood from the houses with it. Ignoring this, the van revved forward again, pursuing the trio.

Panting, Rob rounded another corner. Suddenly he skidded to a halt — in front of them was a large yellow sign, posted to a concrete wall: END.

"Oh no," whispered RJ, looking up at it: the wall stretched very high — too high for Rob to leap over. Terrified, the wolf glanced to his left, then his right, but with the van in front of them, there was nowhere to go. It was a dead end.

Another honk split the air: the van had noticed the trio's plight and was increasing its speed even more. Rob looked around again, dashing from side to side, hoping for an opening — none was there. And the van would be upon them at any second.

"Oh no," Hammy was squeaking, over and over. "Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no —"

Suddenly Rob reached up and grabbed Hammy and RJ in his paw, bringing them in front of him. RJ looked into the wolf's shining eyes for one brief moment before Rob whispered, "Sorry" — and threw RJ and Hammy up into the air.

Screaming, the raccoon and squirrel hurled over the van, which zoomed under them in a blur. Thinking quickly, RJ grabbed onto Hammy and shielded him with his body as they approached the ground. They landed on a patch of grass in one of the humans' front yards, some distance away from the van, and bounced across. Ignoring the dull pain in his back, RJ leaped to his feet.

"ROB!" he shouted after the van — but it was too late.

WHAM.