Note: The music cue in this chapter is the Pavane by Gabriel Fauré. If you search YouTube for "Faure pavane cemetary", you'll find a good performance.


Chapter 10: Take My Hand

Stumped for the moment, Tammy and Herbie returned to the living room to survey the damage.

"What's that sound?" Tammy asked, hearing a reedy melody drifting in from the broken window. "Is that a pavane?"

Herbie rushed to the window. "Gadget and Monty! They're gone!"

Tammy quickly joined him. They easily spotted the two mice scrambling down the tree towards the source of the mysterious tune. They were soon passed by a racing Chip and Dale. Even Zipper was struggling in Tammy's arms.

Before them the sky was slowly brightening. It would be dawn in another hour. The music was coming from a picnic bench located next to the Ranger Tree. Sitting there was Freddie the witch, playing on a pipe, and on the table was Foxglove, swaying slowly to the rhythm. Freddie was holding her purse open, and gesturing for the bat to climb in.

"Chip was right," Tammy said in a whisper. "She is up to no good." Quickly passing Zipper to Herbie, she hopped out the window and raced down the bark of the tree. Herbie, still uncertain about his wings after his last tumble and encumbered with the fly-turtle, followed more slowly.

The feral Rangers were all crawling steadily for the purse when Tammy suddenly leapt down into their midst, screaming at the top of her lungs. The chipmunk that was once Chip was the first to panic, followed quickly by the rest. They scattered in all directions into the scrub that lined the jogging trails. Before the human had a chance to react, Tammy quickly hopped down to the ground and then raced back up the tree trunk to a branch which was too high for the former witch to reach.

Winifred dropped her silver pipe in shock and stared up at the squirrel. "What have you done?" she cried.

"You can't have them!" shouted Tammy. "The Rangers are mine!" With that, she collapsed into a pile, just as Herbie landed beside her.

The dove crouched down and put a wing around her shoulder. "You had no other choice," he said. Standing up, he scanned the sky until he saw the diminishing silhouette of a pink bat. "Now we'll never know what happened," he muttered.

"We may have lost the Rangers," Tammy said, wearily getting back up, "but we can still find out the answers... from her." She stabbed one finger in the direction of the former witch.

"What?" Winifred asked in a weak voice. As Foxglove had known, the human still retained the ability to understand animal speech.

"You are the missing piece," Tammy said accusingly. "The one with all the connections. Isn't that right, Winifred Cadwallader?"

"Don't call me Freddie!" Winifred snarled out of habit, then abruptly realized she had been addressed correctly for once. "I mean, wh...what am I accused of?" she asked, regaining her indignation.

"Isn't it true that you work at the mental institution at the edge of town?"

"Yes."

"And isn't it true that one of the so-called patients of this institution is a scientist by the name of Norton Nimnul, a man that shares your hatred of the Rescue Rangers?"

"Wait - no, that's not true! Well, the part about Nimnul registered as a patient, but the patient is not really Nim..."

Tammy didn't allow her to finish. "I think the two of you planned this all along. You knew where the Rangers lived, but you've lost your magic, so the Rangers would only treat you as a medium-level threat, while Nimnul had developed the technology to eliminate the Rangers, but would never be allowed to get anywhere near the tree, so he pretended to have lost his memory while..."

Tammy looked at Herbie, who had been tapping her shoulder for the last minute. "Do you mind?" she asked through clenched teeth.

"I, uh, hate to interrupt a good rant, but I really think we should let Winifred finish her last sentence."

Tammy thought for a moment. "Now that you mention it, what did you mean about the patient not being Nimnul?"

"The man in room 411A is not Norton Nimnul," Winifred said. "He claims his name is Norris Nulton, and that he came from another world back in February, although not by choice."

"Another swap!" Tammy and Herbie smiled as the final piece clicked into place. "Nimnul's invention wasn't a failure, and it wasn't a teleporter at all!" exclaimed Herbie. "He must have grossly overestimated the power requirements." Tammy shook her head to keep him from revealing too much.

"He kept telling me that only the Rescue Rangers could help him," Winifred continued, not paying attention to what the squirrel and dove were discussing. "He...he knew an awful lot about the Rangers...and about me. Some things even I didn't know. Got rather upset whenever I asked him about that. In fact, he appears to still be half-convinced that this whole world is a mad dream of his, one that he is unable to wake from."

"He may be closer to the truth than you know," Herbie said under his breath.


As a result of their conference, Tammy and Herbie had hesitantly come down from the branch to the park bench, although they still kept their distance from the human and remained on the side of the bench nearest the Ranger Tree.

Winifred re-opened the conversation: "Do you mind me asking what happened between you and the Rescue Rangers just then, with the shouting and the scattering ? If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were acting rather fer... "

Tammy quickly cut off that line of thought to resume her interrogation . "What were you planning on doing if you could convince the Rangers to help you?"

Winifred sighed as she realized she wasn't going to be getting any answers. "Norris thought that the inventor mouse...Gadget...would be able to invent something to put him back where he belonged."

"And you were just going to smuggle them in your purse?" Tammy asked incredulously. "How did you expect them to trust you if you were going to put them in an enclosed space that would be difficult for them to escape?"

"Have you got a better idea?" asked Winifred.

"As a matter of fact, I do. Herbie, go up to the workshop. In the north-northeast corner is what looks like a pink human pillbox purse. In reality, it is a miniature command center. Bring it down here, and Winifred will use it to take me to the asylum."

"When did the Rangers make that?" asked Herbie.

"They converted it from the Easter egg last September. It was to infiltrate the Guild of Calamitous Intent."

"Oh, I remember." He turned in preparation for his launch, then stopped himself, opened his chest pocket, and handed Zipper over to Tammy. "I think you're better off holding him," he said, before taking to the sky and making his way up the tree, corkscrew-fashion.


Tammy turned back around to face Winifred, who was giving her a very odd expression. For a moment Tammy imagined what she must look like right now to the human, a tense squirrel cradling a fly in her arms. The image made her laugh out loud. "You must think I'm a villain from a Dirk Suave movie!"

Winifred cringed. "I don't watch many movies," she apologized.

"Look, I'm sorry if I can't explain everything that is going on right now."

"I understand," said Winifred in a quiet voice. "My reputation precedes me."

Tammy stopped to get a good look at Winifred Cadwallader. Up close, her face was lined with fine wrinkles, most of them frown lines but surprisingly there were some laugh lines as well. She could also see that the human's bright red hair was streaked with white, as if she had witnessed something that had scared her half to death. Her own capacity for evil, perhaps.

Tammy took a big breath as she made her decision. "I think we should start over," she said, closing the distance between them and extending her hand. "My name is Tammy. I work with the Rescue Rangers in...an associate capacity."

Winifred grinned as soon as she heard the name. She lightly shook the outstretched hand between thumb and forefinger. "'Associate capacity', huh? Is that a promotion from 'Chip's Biggest Fan'?"

Tammy's eyes went wide. "Where did you hear that?" she demanded.

"I told you that Norris knows a lot of things that he shouldn't. He also seems to enjoy the sound of his own voice."

"This is going to come out all wrong," Tammy said apologetically, "but why exactly are you here this morning? The Winifred I read about in Chip's case file would never come out here like this and expose herself to whatever the Rangers might decide to do against a one-time enemy. What changed?"

Winifred looked away. "I changed. When I was in prison I spent a lot of time in Solitary Confinement. My crime may not have been that bad in human terms, but I had made some powerful enemies, and I was still arrogant enough to provoke them. In Solitary I had time to review my life, to affix blame for my problems where it belonged...with myself.

"I'm...I'm trying to do better. To atone for what I did and what I almost did. I'll never have back what I threw away in pettiness and greed, but helping that poor man out makes me feel a little less empty inside. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Tammy patted her on the hand. "I understand. Tell me about Norris."

Winifred's face brightened as she thought of him. "He's a sweet, sweet man. So trusting, so hopeful. The first thing he ever said to me was, 'You've come to save me!' Me, a hero! He thought I was Francine, his wife from that other world. Apparently, I look just like her."

"Like Norris looks just like Professor Nimnul?"

"Yes, I thought of that. 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,' and all that. Unfortunately for Norris, Francine is not like me at all, or rather, she's exactly like I was before, made even more bitter by the fact that magic doesn't work in her world. Reading between the lines of what Norris tells me, she despises him, and yet, he loves her more than life itself." She looked up at the sky, tears in her eyes. "Despite the fact that my face will always remind him that his beloved Francine is lost to him, he's still the only human who has ever cared about me."

"You do realize if we succeed in helping this man, that you'll never see him again. Not as you remember him."

Winifred sniffed. "I know. In the grand balance of things, the happiness of Norris Nulton means far more than the meager hopes of a broken creature such as myself."

"You're a good person," Tammy assured Winifred. She then sighed deeply in regret as the implication sank in: "And that means I lost the Rangers for nothing." She backed up several inches so she could see Winifred in the eyes. "Let me tell you what happened to them..."


With a slight "ding!" a patch of bark at the base of the Ranger Tree slid aside to reveal the freight elevator. From it emerged a small human's purse, pushed by Herbie. Due to the extensive contents of the purse, moving it was not easy.

"Need any help?"

Herbie looked around the side of the pink cylinder. "Sparky, is that you?"

"I dunno," said the voice. "Is it?"

The two of them soon pushed the purse to the foot of the picnic table. Seeing them, Tammy hopped down, leaving the feral Zipper with Winifred. "Hello, Sparky!"

The rat strolled casually around the side of the purse, then froze and pointed. "Aaah!" cried Sparky. "Human!"

Tammy walked over to him, stopping herself before she put her arm around the electrified rodent. "It's all right, Sparky," she reassured him, her hands safely behind her back. "This one's OK."

"Are the Rangers awake?" Sparky asked. "I've got a delivery for them."

Herbie gestured vaguely. "They're...around. Ah, there's a bit of a problem with them."

Sparky pulled out a screwdriver. "I can fix it."

Tammy rolled her eyes. "Sparky, the Rangers are not themselves this morning."

"Then who are they?" Sparky asked, wide-eyed.

"We think their minds have been swapped with those of their counterparts from an alternate universe," said Herbie.

"Have you tried applying 60 volts in a two-thirds phase-modulated pulse induction field to the inferior lateral gyrus of their left frontal lobes?" Sparky asked, speaking rapidly.

Herbie blinked, then blushed. "Alright, I'll admit it: that went completely over my head. Still, I wouldn't mind trying it if we get the chance."

"Chance to do what?" asked Sparky, completely forgetting what he had just said.

Herbie sighed then looked up hopefully at the lab rat. "Gadget said she'd have the solution for her power supply problem by this morning. I'm assuming that you're it?"

The mouse let a spark shoot between two outstretched fingers. "Well, I could power her viewer, but Gadget didn't think it fair to use me like that, so I borrowed a rodent-scale Tesla coil from the university for her to use. I left it back at the tree. Of course, now that she's in another dimension, I guess I should be taking it back..."

"Well," asked Herbie, "could we use it first? We want to find out what happened to the Rangers."

Tammy nodded in agreement, a grim expression on her face. "Alright, but since our counterparts are feral, I don't see how they are going to be very useful, and trying to use any sensitive equipment with the Rangers in their current condition is just asking for trouble. Say, Winifred," she added, brightening, "maybe you should try it!"

"Try what?" asked Winifred, leaning down.

"Aaah!" cried Sparky. "Human that can understand us!"

"She's OK," Tammy reassured Sparky.

"The Rangers have a device for spying on other worlds," Herbie explained to Winifred.

"It's designed to show what your counterpart is doing," said Tammy. "In your case that would be Norris' wife."

"Winifred-A is Norris' wife?" Herbie asked.

"'Winifred-A'?"

"Well, we need some logical way of referring to counterparts when we don't know their names. The swapped versions of the Rescue Rangers are: Chip-A, Dale-A, Gadget-A, Monty-A, Zipper-A and Foxglove-A."

"Her name is Francine."

"Well, as I said, the rule only applies when the true name is unknown, and I didn't know that name until you just said it."

"Will Francine know I'm spying on her?" Winifred asked.

Herbie nodded. "Gadget said that there was a limited form of empathic communication between somebody using the viewer and their counterpart. She theorized that if the counterpart had their own viewer and was using it at the same time, that this might trigger a full telepathic junction, a 'meeting of the minds' as it were."

Winifred shook her head violently. "Bad idea, very bad idea. The last person you want to tip off in this situation is Francine Nulton."

Tammy shrugged. "Well, that just leaves the three of us, and our counterparts. I don't have very high hopes, though."

Zipper-A peered down at them from the top of the table. At Tammy's urging, Winifred carefully picked up the fly and lowered him to the ground. Herbie watched as the fly grazed on the grasses growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. He suddenly clicked his beak, the avian equivalent of snapping your fingers . "Tammy?" he asked, looking Tammy in the eyes. "Now is the right time to tell me what you've been wanting to tell me since the graduation ceremony."

"Wait, that? Now?" Tammy stammered.

"Yes."

"Well...I, uh...Oh...drat." Tammy nervously rubbed the fur at the back of her neck with one hand. "I was hoping there'd be less witnesses around when I finally said this. Makes it seem less ridiculous that way." She looked around to see if there was anybody else around, then lowered her voice. "You see, there's...an invisible somebody...watching me. Sometimes." She then looked over her left shoulder, accusingly. "She hasn't been around, lately," she said to the empty space next to her, "like for the last four or five hours, when I could have really used her support." This being said, she faced the group again. "She's...well, she's me. Don't ask me how I know, since I never saw her or heard her or anything. I think...I think sometimes I might share her dreams. Do you believe me?"

"Yes," Herbie said, quietly. "Is she human?" he asked as calmly as he could.

"Yes," Tammy said without thinking, and then what she said sunk in. "I...never thought about it, but yes, yes she's human, and her favorite TV show is Rescue Rangers."

"The Rescue Rangers have their own TV show?" Sparky and Winifred asked simultaneously.

"I thought she was just referring to the stories I told her about the Rangers, but I think she was thinking of an actual show. That could mean she's my counterpart from Earth-A, and if she's human and has a viewer, and if she's anything like me (she's just got to be!) then that's it! I use the viewer to make contact, and tell her what's wrong, and she'll rescue the Rangers! And beat Nimnul, since he's obviously behind all this. And then force him to switch everyone back, including him! And everyone will live happily ever after."

"I love a happy ending," said Sparky.

The three of them started walking towards the Ranger Tree, until Tammy suddenly stopped and put a hand on Herbie's shoulder. "You can't come," she told him.

"Why not?"

"Because you need to go with Winifred to the asylum. We need to find out anything that Norris knows that could help us."

"Aw, but I wanted to see it!"

"You'll have plenty of time to see later."

Herbie sighed. He looked up at the human with uncertainty. "Are you sure we can trust her?"

"Absolutely."

"All right." He walked up to the pillbox purse, opened a secret compartment in the side, and stepped inside. "YOU CAN PICK ME UP!" a voice boomed from inside. "Oops, sorry, had to set the volume. You can pick me up."

Winifred picked up the pink object with some reluctance. "Pink is not my color," she said to no one in particular. Brushing some mud from the bottom, she tucked it under one arm and hefted the patchwork bag with the other. "Good luck," she told Tammy.

"You, too."


Tammy and Sparky moved Sparky's miniature Tesla coil into the elevator and began the arduous process of pulling themselves up to the workshop level. Eventually, they emerged from the elevator and pulled out their power source.

Sparky looked around. "Which one of these inventions is the viewer?"

Tammy pointed. Sparky set up the Tesla coil. "I shouldn't have to connect anything," Sparky explained. "The static electric field will work just fine at this distance."

Tammy moved a chair into position, sat down, and looked at the dials of the instrument. She compared a set of notes taped to the device with the settings. "It's already pointed at Earth-A." With a deep breath, she held her hands just above one of the two metal handles, mentally preparing herself.


The pink purse came to rest for a moment on the roof of a beat-up beige Plymouth Suburban Wagon as Winifred started fishing for her keys. A little door opened up on top and a dove's head emerged to get a last look at the Ranger Tree and the spruce tree, their branches intertwined. "Just think," he said incredulously, "she's about to see the Real World!

"I wonder what it's like?"


End Part One