PART ONE: TAMMY


I wanted to be like you.
I wanted everything.
So I tried to be like you
And I got swept away.

I didn't know that
It was so cold and
You needed someone
To show you the way.
So I took your hand and
We figured out that
When the tide comes
I'd take you away.

If you want to
I can save you.
I can take you away from here.
So lonely inside,
So busy out there.
And all you wanted
Was somebody who cares.

I'm sinking slowly,
So hurry hold me.
Your hand is all I
have to keep me
hanging on.
Please can you tell me,
So I can finally see,
Where you go when you're gone.

If you want to
I can save you.
I can take you away from here.
So lonely inside,
So busy out there.
And all you wanted
Was somebody who cares.

-"All You Wanted", Michelle Branch


Chapter 1: Homecoming

The only oak tree in the park, as everybody knew, was the home of the Rescue Rangers. Few of the animals who visited that tree paid much attention to the taller spruce tree next door, its dark green needles intertwined with the long leaves of the oak. While the Rangers had the oak to themselves, the spruce tree was the home of six families of mourning doves and seven families of red squirrels; the doves lived in the crown canopy, and the squirrels lived in apartments carved into the trunk. The families were physically connected in two ways: a common staircase running just inside the bark on one side of the tree, and a common room that took up the top floor of the trunk, with the doves living above and the squirrels living below. The apartment right below the common room was the home of the Chestnutts: Isabel and her two daughters Tammy and Beth (or Bink, as she was known to her oldest friends).

The Chestnutt apartment had been rather quiet for the last week as the family had been out of town, but the calm was shattered with a bang as the door to the staircase slammed open and Tammy stepped in. Several years older than she had been when she had first met the Rescue Rangers, Tammy was wearing a white commencement gown and carrying a stuffed suitcase in each hand. Her long red hair was gathered into two braided pigtails. Putting the suitcases down in the hallway, she announced to nobody in particular, "I'm home! I'm home!"

Her mother, who was right behind her in the staircase, tapped her on the shoulder. "We noticed," she said gently. "Now could you please let us in?" Mrs. Chestnutt was wearing a full-length lavender-colored dress and carrying an overnight bag. Her shoulder-length auburn hair was styled in a manner reminiscent of the 1940's. Behind her was Beth, a rambunctious six year old in blue jeans and a pea-green turtleneck sweater, swinging her own overnight bag around and inadvertently hitting her mother's legs with every swing. Her short blonde hair was somewhat mussed.

"Oops!" exclaimed Tammy, picking up her luggage and leading the way down the narrow semi-circular hallway that surrounded the core of the tree. She walked past open doorways on her left for the bathroom and the kitchen, through the living room, before finally reaching the door to her bedroom. She opened the door and walked in to allow the others to continue on to their own rooms. Putting her suitcases down, she removed the gown to reveal blue jeans and a white tee shirt with the words "Allegheny River Academy" across the back. The shirt had already been signed numerous times in blue ink. Tossing the gown onto her bed, Tammy walked out of her room and strolled two doors down to the room of her younger sister.

"Need any help?" she asked from the doorway. Beth's bed had an open suitcase on it, small but nevertheless nearly as big as its owner, and Beth was busy transferring items from the overnight bag into it.

"Nope!" Beth said confidently. Then she forgot where she left her favorite hairclip. With a little help from her big sister, that potential disaster was averted, and she was able to finish packing. Donning a large old-fashioned aviator's helmet that was hanging on her bedpost, Beth picked up her suitcase with both hands. "Tower, this is Captain Beth, ready for takeoff," she declared in a grown-up voice, looking at Tammy.

Tammy raised an eyebrow.

"I'm a cargo pilot," Beth whispered, putting the luggage down and pointing at her helmet.

Tammy recognized it as one of Monterey Jack's and smiled. Adopting a Texas twang, she said, "Tower to Captain Beth, you are cleared for takeoff on Hallway 1."

Beth responded by making the sound of a prop engine and waddled with her suitcase into the hall. Tammy followed leisurely, her hands behind her back. She had to duck into her room as her mother rushed past with at least three suitcases in her wings, forcing Beth to pick up her pace to avoid being accidentally run over. Both Beth and Isabel left their suitcases in the living room.

When Tammy saw Beth returning to her room she held out her hand. Beth took it and looked up at Tammy, a twinkle in her eyes. The girls' mother, rushing back to her bedroom to get more suitcases, was stopped in her tracks by this roadblock.

"Beth and I were going to catch up on what we missed while I was in school," said Tammy.

Mrs. Chestnutt turned and pointed at the dial of a human wristwatch that was mounted on the living room wall. "The graduation party starts in fifteen minutes. The party in your honor, the party that I got the Rescue Rangers to agree to attend. Do you really have time..."

"Oh, I'm nearly ready," Tammy interrupted. "Are you ready, Beth? Do you have time to talk with me for a bit?"

Beth nodded her head rapidly, her eyes still on her sister.

Mrs. Chestnutt sighed. "Very well, I'll let you know when the Tanglefoots arrive." She watched with hands on her hips and a bemused expression as Beth followed Tammy into her room and the door closed. "Well, at least my two daughters get along," she said to herself happily. Then she remembered with a start how many suitcases still needed to be transferred to the living room, and resumed the dash to her bedroom.


Tammy's was the largest bedroom in the apartment. It had the disadvantage that the sun always made it too warm on summer afternoons such as this one, but this was more than compensated by its commanding view of the top of the Ranger Tree. The walls of the room were adorned with posters depicting cute animals and affirmative slogans - no cats, though. The bed, converted from a sea sponge, was in one corner next to a small wardrobe, and a desk occupied another. Tammy transferred her suitcases to the bed and began unpacking as Beth wandered around the room, peeking into the wardrobe and looking under the desk. Tammy had to walk around her to get to the wall calendar, which still showed December from last year, as that was that last time she had been home. She removed the calendar and replaced it with the one from her dorm. The date of June 12th was repeatedly circled in red ink. She then returned to the suitcases.

"Is she here?" Beth asked.

"Yes," Tammy said, hanging up the commencement gown and stowing the suitcases between the wardrobe and the wall. She sat down in the desk chair and began to work on her hair with a brush. Looking over her left shoulder at a poster depicting a puffball of a mouse, Tammy said, "I can't believe it. I don't really feel any different than before the ceremony, to tell the truth. Maybe it will sink in tonight. I hope you didn't miss anything earlier. I sensed you were gone during the speeches, but I'd have done the same thing if I were you."

Beth rushed over to the mouse poster and waved. "Hi, Molly!" she shouted.

Tammy shushed Beth and cast a nervous glance at the door. When she didn't hear anything from her mother she turned to Beth. "'Molly'?" she asked.

"Your imaginary friend."

"Her name's not Molly! And she's not imaginary. She's not quite there in a physical sense, but she's not imaginary!"

"So, what is her name?"

"I...I don't know. Our conversations are rather one-way," Tammy said apologetically.

"Well, I'm gonna call her Molly," Beth said with a note of finality. She turned around and walked over to the desk, the top of which was about eye-level for her. Standing on tiptoes, she tried to see what was on it. The desk was covered with scraps of Post It notes, framed drawings, and a worn but stuffed scrapbook with the legend "Rescue Rangers" on its cover. The scrapbook was open, and Tammy had been idly turning the pages. It was currently open to a sketch of Chip working on his casebook.

"Wait, isn't your imaginary friend named Molly?" Tammy asked.

"I'm too old for imaginary friends," Beth replied proudly, drawing herself up to her full height of two and a half inches. "So you can have the name."

With a bemused shrug, Tammy changed position and set to work with the hairbrush on her large unruly tail, resuming her conversation with "Molly", who had apparently moved to the door in order to remain behind Tammy's left shoulder. "I think you came in while I was talking with Herbie. He told me that Grandpa and Gadget got together and wrote a scientific paper, and one of the animal-run journals had printed it. He showed the issue to me - the thing looked like a mail-order catalog, it was so thick. I only got to glance at the paper, but Herbie has already memorized it, no surprise to you, right?" She waited a moment for a reply she knew she couldn't hear. "Well, Grandpa got a copy of the published article, and he's going to present it to her tonight at the party."

Beth reached out to pick up the lone picture frame on the desk and then climbed up on the bed to look at it. The photograph, clipped as so many animal photographs were from the corner of a human photograph that "accidentally" included him, depicted a male squirrel with fur and hair color similar to Beth, wearing an immaculate white shirt and pith helmet. He was standing proudly at the entrance of a meercat colony and was surrounded by its members, who towered over him with toothy smiles.

"Tammy," Beth asked, "how long was Daddy in Africa?"

Tammy scratched her nose for a second, remembering. "Six years, off and on," she finally answered. "He came back for good three months before you were born." She bent down to work on a particularly bad snarl. "Anyway," she said to her unseen guest, "the Rangers will be at the party tonight, so this is the perfect opportunity to corner Chipper...I mean Chip, and give him the Speech. I've been working it over in my head on the way here, and I think I'm sure that this will have to convince him. Do you want to hear it?"

"Oo! I do, I do!" Beth replied, jumping up and down on the bed. This caused the picture frame to bounce dangerously close to the edge of the bed.

Tammy quickly stood up and grabbed the photograph, setting it back on the desk. "Beth, I need you to promise not to say anything to Chip or the other Rangers about the Speech before I have a chance to give it."

Beth stood up on the bed and put a fist dramatically to her chest. "Is this the speech that goes 'Marry me, you fool!'?"

"No!"

Beth fell down on the bed and started laughing, rolling back and forth on her tail.

Tammy scowled. "It's not like that anymore between me and Chip," Tammy explained, at least as much for "Molly" as for Beth's sake. "I got it all wrong last time. I thought I wanted to be like Mom and take care of the house while Chip went out adventuring like Dad. But Chip's not like that, and I eventually figured out, I'm not like that, either. At the Academy I figured out I'm actually more like Dad - if there's adventure to be had, I'd rather be in the middle of it." She looked wistfully out the window at the Ranger Tree. "In fact, I think with everything I've done in the last four years that I might finally have a chance at working alongside the Rescue Rangers. If they'll have me." She looked back at Beth, who was looking up at her with wide eyes. "That's what 'the Speech' is about - it's my chance to correct Chip's misconceptions about me, to tell him that I'm not the same silly girl he had to save from the clutches of Fat Cat." Tammy noticed that Beth was not in fact looking at her, but was instead peering over Tammy's left shoulder.

"I think I saw Molly," said Beth, her eyes as round as saucers. "But she's gone now."

"Really?" cried Tammy, jerking her head around, and then turning rapidly in a circle. "She's still here, but I can't see anything. What did you see?"

"It was a reddish blur, and I only saw it for a second. It was when you were getting really worked up."

"I wonder if I can make her appear again?" Tammy asked herself.


Just then, there was a knock at the door. "Tammy, Beth, the Tanglefoots are here."

"Almost ready, Mom!" answered Tammy in a loud voice. She hoped to get some more time to ask her sister about what she saw.

Beth however had hopped down from the bed and raced for the door with a joyful cry of "Auntie Binkie!" She stopped herself at the doorknob and looked back. "You don't need me in here to make Mommy think you're not talking to yourself anymore, do you?"

Tammy sighed and shook her head. "You can go, Beth; I'll just try to be quieter."

"OK." Beth reached up, turned the knob and let herself out of Tammy's room, leaving the door swinging as she accelerated down the hall, crying "Auntie Binkie! Auntie Binkie!" the whole way.

Tammy closed the door, then moved the chair as far from it as possible and positioned herself so her left shoulder was pointing at the wall. She waited until she was sure there was nobody in the outside hall before continuing in a whisper. "Did I almost make you visible?" She sighed at the expected silence. "Oh, well. Let me finish this up - I'll give you the Speech, the short version. I tell Chip how foolish I was before, how I'd much rather be helping people than setting tables, mention some of the stuff I've been doing at the Academy, and ask for a chance to prove myself. I mean Chip's got to give me a chance, right? He advertised for another Rescue Ranger, right, so he has to at least give me a chance, right?"

"TAMMY! We're leaving!" cried Tammy's mother.

"IN A MINUTE!" cried Tammy.