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The Star Attractions: A Pink & Blue Diaperfur Adventure in 9 Episodes

Part Two: Episodes 4-6

This continues straight on from [The Star Attractions, Part One](%5C)

So If you haven't read that, go there first.

And to see all the parts, as well as other stories in the pink/blue series, just click on "By Folder" in the view on your upper right.

Please note, I'll be posting the conclusion tomorrow or Saturday so if folks just want to read it over the weekend they can.

Here is the usual long list of deadly side effects: This is a mature story so please be 18+ to read. It involves furs in diapers, ageplay, crossdressing, and boys on boys, among other things.

It is an adventure and romance story involving these elements, rather than a straight-out fetish regression/sissification piece, and thus has a lot of plot and character story in addition to the fetish elements.

And one special warning: This story revolves around Dex the raccoon, probably the most serious character in the Pink and Blue series because he does not use diapers or regress voluntarily. Thus, although it is still generally a silly fetish story, it will have some darker parts than the others. Back to lighter stuff next time.

Don't like any of that, you've been warned up front!

Plot recap: The heroic faction of boyish Baby Blue AB/DL furs defends the city's age playing scene from complete domination by the pink forces of sissification now headquartered at Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys. It's a non-stop battle until . . . Spring break! The severely shortpawed blue and pink teams have called a break-long truce, and, with all the regular leaders on vacation, Dex the regression-prone raccoon is temporarily in charge of Baby Blue.

So when his friends Twitchy and Squeak go missing on a field mission, leaving only a mysterious distress call in the middle of a circus fairground, Dex sought help rescuing his friends from an unlikely source-the crack pink team agent and scheming panda girl Lin Lin. Now, the unlikely allies are about to hit the circus fairground - where Twitchy and Squeak are being held prisoner by an unscrupulous ringmaster and his thieving performers.

Episodes in this part (11,000 words total):

Episode 4. A Walk in the Woods

Episode 5. Showtime!

Episode 6. Friends Like These

Character recap:

Baby Blue Boys:

Dex , a sensitive raccoon martial artist, is Baby Blue's third-in-command and combat specialist. Currently the highest-ranking member of Baby Blue in town. Dex regresses, psychologically, to a kit whenever he loses a fight, for reasons not fully understood even by him. Something has been off about him ever since he fell into Lin Lin's trap in a major battle at the sissy academy, and he's losing the confidence of his team-so he's recruited the boys' worst enemy, Lin Lin herself, as an ally, and has just hit the trail with her.

The nervous, goggle-wearing bunny Twitchy ordinarily makes up Baby Blue's tech and behind-the-scenes support team at Hideout #4 together with his partner, the pocket-sized mouse and gadget engineer Squeak. Twitchy has learned that the circus workers have been stealing Baby Blue's diapers-and loads of other fetish gear. When he disrupted Alphonse's magic show, he was caught before he could escape with the intel, and is being held by the ringmaster on the pretext of working off the cost of the damage he caused.

Roger , a black Labrador, and Rian, his true blue wolf cub sidekick, are the regular leaders of Baby Blue, but are currently out of the country for spring break. Rian , Dex's best friend and sometime big brother, began dating the sissy princess fox Serafina after rescuing her from a chastity punishment during the boys' raid on the academy.

Empress Calliope's Academy for Special Boys (Pink Faction):

Empress Calliope , Princess Cassandra , and Princess Serafina are the regular leaders of the pink faction, but are out of town during spring break on a spa trip. Serafina recently began dating the boys' team's second-in-command Rian.

Lady Lin Lin , an undersized but overachieving, hypercompetitive, and perpetually scheming panda, set a trap to capture and sissify the entire boys' team in an attempt to steal Serafina's Princess crown-and nearly succeeded. Unhappy that she is still outranked by Serafina, whom she has always considered too friendly to the enemy Baby Blue boys. She lost a bet with Dex and is thus accompanying him on his mission to rescue Twitchy. Or is she up to something else?

The Circus

Tony , the ringmaster, a Siberian tiger, is holding Twitchy captive in a spare animal cage and forcing him to work off the costs of the damage he did to Alphonse's magic show by repairing equipment. But really, he wants to make sure Twitchy does not blow the whistle on the circus worker's large-scale thefts of fetish equipment.

Alphonse , an unhappy weasel magician and clown, accidentally found Twitchy's evidence when the rabbit disrupted his magic show. Now he is going along with Twitch's imprisonment, but for some reason has been sneaking the bunny changing supplies, and seems to know why he needs them.

And now . . .

Episode 4. A Walk in the Woods

Two years earlier.

Dex let his footpaws dangle in the brook as he stared down into its running water. To his left, a pair of crutches leaned against a tree. "I understand, Dad," he calmly answered the larger raccoon standing behind him, whose paw was resting on his shoulder. "After all, the scholarship depended on me being able to compete at a - certain level from the beginning. It's not your fault."

He reached one paw to his shoulder and squeezed his father's forepaw supportively, without looking up. "Don't you and Mom worry about it. City College will be fine."

*************************

Lin Lin, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she crawled out of her sleeping bag, made her way to the outskirts of their open-air campsite and watched the raccoon incredulously.

Dawn had just broken, and Dex was crouched by the edge of the stream, wearing his cowboy hat and the top of his karate gi but with his bottom half uncovered, humming to himself softly and rubbing his used cloth diaper vigorously against a small wooden washing board and a large chunk of aromatic herbal soap against both of them. His bulky, opened backpack lay nearby, and a small pawbrush with rough, rigid bristles lay about six inches away from him.

The coon's ears flicked as she approached. "Sorry if I woke you, Triple L," he said without looking up. "Had trouble sleeping. We don't need to move out yet. If you want to go back to bed we can pick up the paintball trail in an hour or so."

"Well I'm up now." The panda yawned and blinked incredulously, shaking her head. "We might as well get going when you're done with . . . that. I just know I'm going to regret asking this, but what is it exactly that you're doing?"

"Paying my debt to the planet," Dex said seriously, and he continued scrubbing and humming.

The panda pulled on a light pink Hello Kitty sweater over the tee shirt she had slept in and retrieved her pink Velcro jogging sneakers. "I suppose that's also why you wouldn't take any of the spaghetti-and-meatball rations from the academy?"

Dex still didn't look up. "I don't eat meat," he said with mild impatience. "Yes, same reason. Its environmental impact." He resumed humming and tried to ignore her.

Lin Lin squinted at him as she sat down on a stump to put her sneakers on. "You are even weirder than I thought. Trust me, that's really saying something."

She looked up at the dawn sun longingly and shook her head, thinking about the cadets she had let loose back at the academy. If only she could take them 24/7, she could make real girls out of them. There was only so much she could do with a class period here and there, and she was saddled with furs who thought the extent of being a sissy was putting on a dress for their boyfriends one night every few weeks.

That's not why she had been so excited about the pink age players' group, when she found it, or why she had been the very first to beg Calliope for a teaching position at the school. Sure, she knew there would be a lot of part-timers at the academy. But being transgendered was hard to admit, and she felt she had to be strict to keep the frivolous ones at bay long enough so that the few really serious ones might actually have a chance to step forward and voice what they wanted. If she could find just one or two in her time there, if she could help one fur make a real journey, it would be worth it. She could help someone transition with the kind of support that she . . . that usually couldn't be had. And in an environment where they could be made to feel, for as long as they were in her class at least, like a star, like the one fur who was doing everything right, instead of, well - an outcast.

"How did this happen?" the still sleepy panda complained aloud. "I should be second in command at that place. I work harder than anyone else there. Instead they're all on a spa trip and I'm stuck in the woods with Mr. Seven Years Old in Tibet."

Dex chuckled involuntarily. "Seven Years Old in Tibet. I kind of like that," he shot her a glance over his shoulder before he switched from using the washboard to scrubbing at spots on his cloth diaper with the laundry brush. "Some of your better work, Triple L."

She yawned. "If you're really that dead set against wearing disposables, can't you break role and go without any," she asked him, "just for this trip?"

Dex shook his head as he continued scrubbing. "Think you've got them confused with the cowboy hat. These aren't a costume for me, Triple L," he said matter-of-factly.

"But don't worry. It's only little dribbles lately. As long as I'm not-" He glanced at her-"you know-out of commission-the only serious stuff is nocturnal. So if I'm out here I just sleep near the water. This is Baby Blue territory. We know where most of the streams are in these woods. If I can't find one, I can leave it in the pail at one of our changing stations and a patrol will pick it up. We've made our woods totally diaper-safe." He frowned. "At least, we thought we had, until our hidden supplies started disappearing. Now the whole system might be in jeopardy."

"But anyway, worst case scenario for me, there are odor-sealing bags in here," he kicked his backpack with one foot as he kept diligently scrubbing.

"Oh." The panda seemed genuinely at a loss for a moment. "That all sounds . . . like a hassle. I'm . . . sorry you don't have a choice about it," she said, coolly but not unkindly.

Dex shook his head. "Just explained because you asked. Not because I want your sympathy. We all have our stories."

The coon stood up and began wringing out his diaper over the stream. "'I'll never assume any fur with our interests has had an easy path to us,'" he recited. "It's Roger's First Rule." He unrolled and shook out the diaper, then rolled it up in the opposite direction, beginning to wring it out again. "And part of the Baby Blue oath," he added proudly.

He finished and folded it up, sticking it in one compartment of his backpack as he took out another one, laid it over the outer layers already spread on the forest floor, powdered the new diaper generously, and then laid down on the triple stack and re-diapered himself on the forest floor. He had only washed the inner of his three diapers; it would be too time-consuming, and hardly necessary given the extent of his last accident, to wash all three, although the middle one would certainly end up showing some stains. Lin Lin pretended not to be watching. Dex pinned up the corners and leg gathers of his layered diapers very carefully, a process that took several minutes, then slipped a pair of red plastic pants on over them.

"Goes for you too," he offered when she remained awkwardly silent, as he retrieved the bottom of his karate uniform from the rock where it lay and pulled it on. "You're obviously a bright, multitalented Asian boy-or girl-I mean you're a panda, and really small, for a panda, no offense, and I don't think I've ever seen you changed, so I guess I never looked too closely into it. Pink is pink to me anyway. I don't mean to be too stereotypical, but you probably carry a lot of family expectations, I guess."

"I hardly use them. It's more of a comfort thing. And I'm a girl, thank you," Lin Lin snapped as the raccoon stood up and began repacking his backpack.

Then, biting her lip as she watched Dex struggle to zip his elaborate supply kit closed, added, more gently, "Well . . . now I am."

Dex let out a long, low whistle as he hoisted the backpack over his shoulders and picked up a walking stick he had left tilted against a nearby tree.

"What's that supposed to-?" Lin Lin started to ask defensively.

Dex cut off the panda by tussling her head and ears with one paw as he walked past her. "Here I thought all this stuff about being better than your academy teammates was just talk," he said without looking back at her. "But no wonder. You really don't do anything halfway, do you, Triple L? Trail continues up this way," he pressed on without a pause, pointing with his free paw. "Get your stuff together, let's not linger."

The panda stood up unsteadily and stared down at her Velcro sneakers, silent for a long, surprised minute while the raccoon made his way up the incline. "Thanks. . ." she whispered to her shoes, when she was reasonably sure he was out of earshot, slowly raising her eyes to look up after him, ". . . Dex."

The raccoon didn't hear her. Nor did they talk much, the rest of the way. Lin Lin was quiet and chewed on her lip for the rest of the walk as though she were rethinking something. Dex feigned absorption in following the trail. But in reality the raccoon was also lost, deep in thought, as his interrupted dream continued to play itself out.

**********

Two years earlier.

"There's my favorite patient," the otter smiled and gestured for Dex to take a seat as he buzzed somebody.

"Hello, Doc," Dex said with a grin as he laid his crutches down on the examining table. "I guess I'm about done with these. So I'll trade them for some X-rays and we'll call it even."

The otter nodded gently. "Yes, but while you're here, Dex-Ah, there you are," he looked up as the door opened and motioned for the white-coated doe to step inside. "Dr. Whitley, this is the fine young kit I was telling you about."

"Hi Dex," the soft-spoken doe offered a welcoming smile, shaking the raccoon's paw gently. "Have a seat. It's a genuine pleasure to meet you."

Dex lowered himself into a chair, carefully to make sure his tail slipped through the opening between the back and the seat, and looked from the otter to the doe inquisitively.

"Dex," the physician said good-humoredly as he stood up, "Doctor Whitley is a different type of doctor than I am. I thought it might be good for you two to talk privately just for a bit while I work up those X-rays. Don't worry about talking about me, either, if you feel like it. I know I'm not perfect! My wife never fails to remind me."

The doe spoke gently as the door closed softly behind the otter, leaving her alone with the raccoon. "That's right, Dex. Anything you say to me is confidential. Even from your parents. I'm a psychiatrist here at the hospital. But you're a smart young man, and I'm sure you already figured that out."

"Well this is embarrassing," Dex fidgeted and looked down at the floor, then up at the doe. "I know he means well, but I'm sorry he wasted your time."

The doe shook her head. "It's never a waste of my time to talk to people, Dex. Especially not to nice young furs like yourself. It's what I do."

Dex swung his foot in a circle and stared at it absently. "I don't understand why he called you, though. I haven't driven into a tree or smashed a window or anything. I sleep fine. There are the . . ." he tugged at the waist of his pants uncomfortably before he continued, "complications sometimes. But I'm sure they won't last too much longer anyway. I've been counting them, you know, and there were fewer accidents this week, and fewer last week than the week before. I really think that will all stop soon. I have a good feeling about it. Mostly, I just don't think about what happened. It did and it's done. It really doesn't bother me."

"That's right," she said calmly. "No one has heard you curse or raise your voice even once since the tournament, at least that's what your parents and your coach told Dr. Ramsey. You spend a lot of time concentrating, Dex? Developing focus? Cultivating-what is the right term-mental discipline?"

Dex nodded. "That's basic martial arts training. Don't let your emotions interfere."

Dr. Whitley touched the raccoon's paw gently, "I wish more of my patients had your problem, Dex."

The coon blinked. "What problem? I already told you; I'm fine. I mean here," he tapped his head with his paw. "There's just no point to dwelling on it."

Dr. Whitley smiled. "You aren't trained to ignore pain are you, not past a certain extent? Pain is a signal from your body. Not feeling it at all, or short-circuiting it, that would be dangerous. And a lot different than gauging how bad it is and deciding to fight through it; I'm sure you can tell that difference, when you're training. Other negative emotions can be the same way. I don't mean that you should act on them rashly or that you'd be justified in running out into the street and doing whatever you wanted. Not at all."

"But they're also," she moved one paw in a circle, "signals. That something is wrong, sometimes that you might need to step back a little, course correct. Or that something that happened is not something you would have done, or would have allowed to happen. It takes time, but working through those responses, it's important to making us better people. They can even become sources of strength, of motivation. They help us figure out the things that define our character."

Dex stared at her blankly and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dr. Whitley, but I have no idea what you're talking about."

The doe brushed his forepaw again. "For now, Dex," she said softly, "no fur would blame you if you were angry. I have to say it's a little strange that you're not. And if you're suppressing a mess of negative feelings about what happened," she caught the raccoon's eyes with her own large, limpid brown ones, which glimmered at him compassionately, "I'm just worried about where they'll all go."

Next time: Dex and Lin Lin hit the big top-and the big time!

Episode 5. Showtime!

It was a warm spring afternoon and the fairground was bustling with cubs and kits of all ages. Lin Lin had to keep looking down to wend her way between them as she made her way back from the concession stands holding a large stick of pink cotton candy in one paw and a bag of popcorn in the other.

Dex was leaning on the back of the ticket booth with his cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes to keep out the glare of the sun, surveying the surrounding crowd suspiciously. The cubs had left most of their supplies in a hidden cache outside the fairground while they took a first look around, but Dex still wore his paintball gun, although now the holster was hidden between his karate outfit and his undershirt.

"Well?" he asked as she handed him the popcorn.

The panda shook her head. "Worst magic show I've ever seen. And shortest-I think they're having equipment problems. Backstage looked about how I'd expect. The signal may be broadcasting from there, but as far as I can tell the bunny's not in that tent. How about you?"

Dex took the red and white-striped paper bag from her and started munching on the popcorn. "No better. If anyone manning the game booths remembers seeing Twitchy, they won't admit to it. I said at the ticket booth I lost something valuable here yesterday and had to talk to management, but they just gave me a phone number." He bit his lip poutily. "There were pretty rude too."

Lin Lin paused with a large tuft of cotton candy stuck to her lips and stared at him for a moment before she brushed it off with a paw and shoved it into her mouth, letting it dissolve for about thirty seconds. Then she frowned. "You asked to talk to management?" she asked in disbelief. "And you told them something that close to the truth?"

Dex furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "That's what I said I would do. You would take a first look at the magic show tent, and I would start down the booths and try to get an audience with someone who actually runs the place and isn't a day worker."

"I didn't think you would just ask for one!" she snapped. Even though Dex was holding the bag of popcorn with both forepaws, Lin Lin thrust her stick of cotton candy into his face. "Hold this."

Dex wrapped one arm around the popcorn bag and gripped the cotton candy, perplexed, trailing behind Lin Lin as she picked her way through the crowd to the end of the row of game booths and eyed the nearest ones appraisingly, tilting her head as she examined both the games and their announcers.

"What are we doing?" Dex asked impatiently.

She wagged her paw at him. "You," she whispered sternly, "are getting a much-needed lesson out of the pink mission playbook. Just hang back and tap your footpaw now and then. Look impatient and like you're not really sure what's going on."

She broke away from him and approached a booth where a wolf was rubbing his paws eagerly as another disappointed child departed without a prize.

Dex rolled his eyes. "That won't take much acting," he muttered. He munched on his popcorn as best he could with the cotton candy stick occupying one of his paws.

"Step right up!" the wolf shouted. Unlike some of the other attendants, who were wearing tee shirts and jeans, he was wearing a brightly colored visor and an apron with a name tag that identified him as fairground personnel, as well as an ear piece that he fiddled with now and again. The ceiling and walls of his small carnival booth were hung with stuffed animals of various shapes and sizes but of uniformly poor quality, and a few cheap plastic toys.

Behind him, a machine with rows of small, slowly moving targets and a blinking scoreboard played cheery, recorded accordion music. Beside it on the wall was plastered a faded poster that offered a nonsensical scale for converting points to tickets that he had probably never consulted more than the first two lines of. "That's right, folks, play for plushies, play for tickets! Win a toy or see any show! Five shots for five dollars! Ten shots for-"

"Ni hao!" the undersized panda said, smiling brightly, as she hopped up in front of him, waving a twenty-dollar bill. "And greetings, sir! My name is Lin Lin, and as you can see," she smiled up at the wolf, who watched the bill as she waved it around, "I am a very innocent and most feminine little panda."

"Also as you can see, being a panda," she went on, keeping her large, twinkling round eyes fixed on him, "I am very cute-and I also speak Mandarin. It is my original language."

"I am here with my big brother from my host family," she gestured at Dex with her free paw, "and this is all the money that he gave to me to spend however I wanted. I think that it is a lot but I am still getting used to American money. He has been helping me but I told him I wanted to play this game all by myself. Is that large teddy bear-" she gestured up at a huge, suspended plushie holding a heart-shaped box of chocolates, "one of your prizes?" She looked around confidentially and whispered up to the carnival worker. "Because I named him already."

The wolf chuckled. "Why, hello there, Lin Lin," he said with a grin. "Why don't you take one throw on the house?"

She giggled and tugged at the neck of her pink Hello Kitty sweater as she hoisted one of the bean bags and eyed the targets appraisingly, biting her lip. Dex, who could only hear snippets of the conversation, blinked in surprise as her first limp throw thudded onto the base of the machine between two of the targets. Hadn't he seen her take down a row of boys with dodge balls in minutes?

"Maybe you can give me some pointers?" Lin Lin asked the carnival worker, looking embarrassed, and he nodded and took her arm in his, demonstrating a light, gentle, underpaw throw, that knocked one of the small slowly moving targets over and rang a bell, adding a "10" to the scoreboard above the booth before the target popped up again.

Dex looked at his watch and tapped his footpaw. This was going nowhere and he was thinking about walking over there to see what was going on. He saw the carnival barker look from him to Lin Lin and back again and bite his lip thoughtfully.

"I'll tell you what, Lin Lin," the wolf said quickly with a glint in his eye. "We're running a special for little ladies. For $20-I can let you throw until you miss. Just keep them real careful and steady, like I showed you, and I'm sure you'll win something."

"Wow! Really!" the panda exclaimed excitedly, pressing the bill into his forepaw. "You are a super nice fur, mister wolf. I just hope it doesn't run out too too fast. After all . . . "

As the wolf pocketed her money, she picked up one of the beanbag projectiles and weighed it carefully in her paw, then whirled to hurl it with uncommon speed at the machine, which set off a clanging triple ring and lit the scoreboard up to 50 as it knocked over three targets in a row and, rebounding off the wall, hit a fourth one from behind. "I do throw like a girl."

The wolf opened his muzzle, but before he could say anything Lin Lin hoisted another bean bag and let it zip, then another, then another, and Dex stood rooted to his spot, feeding his popcorn into his mouth more rapidly as she built momentum.

After almost twenty minutes, the machine set off a cacophony of bells that caused even its usual attendant to cover his ears and turn to his prize chart in flustered confusion as the scoreboard began flashing jubilantly. The panda blew on her throwing paw and tilted her head to look back over her shoulder at the carnival barker.

"How many tickets can I get now?" she asked innocently.

The wolf slowly removed his paws from his ears.

"Hang on," he said through gritted teeth, glaring down at her as he turned back from the faded chart and turned a knob on his earpiece.

"I'll get my boss."

********************

"Let me guess, Alphonse," the ringmaster said without looking up from the ledger on his desk; he recognized the weasel's quivering, uncertain pawstep. "It's an encore of your 'Let's free the rabbit' routine. Let me warn you: that one's not a crowd pleaser."

The weasel, having just changed back into his magician's costume for the next show, and with the clown makeup freshly washed off his face, dropped his rubber nose on the tiger's desk. "I . . . I . . . . I just think you're asking for trouble, Tony," the mustelid stammered out. "What if Twitchy is right and these Dex boys or whatever they're called are looking for him? He doesn't seem like a bad kid. And it really doesn't look good, having him locked in a cage like that."

The white tiger looked up from his desk out of the sides of his eyes skeptically. "Please. There's obviously some kind of AB nursery or something around here that's paranoid about being found out if they're hiding their stuff in the woods, but a rescue team from a secret organization of diaper kids? That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard. Anyway what would they do, piddle on our legs?"

The tiger waved a large paw. "Enough about the bunny. He's just a weird college kid on spring break. Maybe even delusional. Come to think of it, he's probably on drugs. I bet that's why he kept tapping his feet like mad the whole time he was fixing your sound system-withdrawal. Why, we're practically doing him a favor by making him go cold turkey during his vacation! It might just save his life!" Tony paused to scratch his head and look back down at the ledger. "Why . . . maybe I can write off the cost of feeding him as a charitable contribution."

The weasel blew air out of the side of his mouth disapprovingly and started to protest, but Tony picked up his top hat, settled it on his head, and stood up, assuming an even grander tone.

"And don't you think of telling more furs than already know about this, Alphonse. It's totally unnecessary. Listen to me because I will only explain all this to you one more time: If he's not home with his parents now, they won't miss him until break's over, and he can help improve some of your lousy tricks. He couldn't possibly make your show any worse. We ship across state lines when spring break ends around here anyway. We'll dump him right before we do."

"Then, if he files a complaint about all that stuff he found-which I doubt he will really do, not once we hand him back a wiped camera-it certainly won't be anything the feds would bother with. I can't have that bunny blowing the whistle while we're actually in town. He just might be able to drag some bored local cop over here. And for the moment," he stared at the weasel pointedly, "since I'm saddled with talentless, disaster-prone hacks like you, fencing whatever fetish gear we can pinch is the only thing keeping this show in the black. The only good thing about having so many freaks on this crew has been that I know exactly what kind of stuff to look for, where to send you bumblers, and how to retail it."

He leaned toward Alphonse and rested his elbows on his table, fixing the weasel's gaze with his as he added, "And I know what cowards your type are, Alphonse, so I know the thefts won't be reported. Finding so many crates of diapers in the woods just may make this stop profitable."

Alphonse crossed his arms. "It still makes me uncomfortable. I want you to know for the record, Tony, I . . . I came this close to calling the police or busting him out of there myself. I even started to dial. I swear, if it wasn't for our deal . . ."

The tiger banged a large fist down on his desk, raising his voice and beginning a low growl. "But we did have a deal, Alphonse. I loaned you the money to start a hypnotism show and all you managed to generate for us was a bunch of embarrassing pictures. We're running a family-friendly circus here! So you owe me . . . big time . . . and until you've finally paid it off, I'll hang on to those photos just to make sure you can't set up shop anywhere else. Calling me before you gave back that kid's stuff is about the only useful thing you've ever done."

A tear trickled down the weasel's cheek. "Tony, why can't you-?"

Tony stepped out from behind his desk and approached the cowering weasel, looking down at the smaller fur, who was disappearing into his cape. "We live in a capitalist society, in case you missed that memo. The rules are simple: you want me to be nicer, make me money. If you can't do that, find me a fur who can. All this circus needs is to have-finally-one act that is actually good. Until then-"

He lifted Alphonse by his suspenders with both paws and, unceremoniously, tossed the weasel out his door.

The dazed magician sat outside the trailer on his rear for several minutes, until he felt a familiar paw on his shoulder.

"Hey, Alphonse," he heard the wolf whisper in his ear. "Looks like you need some cheering up. Come with me real quick!"

******************

Dex and Lin Lin both gazed around the empty sideshow tent apprehensively. The raccoon shook his head. "We shouldn't have followed that wolf back here. I don't think he's really coming back with the ringmaster. Let's get out of here."

The panda started to say something when a bright spotlight flicked on. Both the kits dropped their snack food onto the dirt floor and raised their paws to cover their momentarily blinded eyes as a loud crack echoed throughout the deserted arena.

The approaching jaguar cracked his whip again as he drew closer. "So," he said slowly. "You yuppie kids think it's funny to hussle us poor circus folk while you're out spending mom and dad's money, huh? Get your vacation jollies that way? Well, this will teach you not to do it again."

He didn't intend to hit Dex with the next flick of his whip, which was aimed a good six inches or so to the coon's right, but his mouth fell open in astonishment as the raccoon leapt and, landing lightly on his left forepaw, propelled himself up into a cartwheel off to his left, his cowboy hat falling off his head and onto the dirt.

"Hey, I was just . . ." the bemused jaguar started to say, but as soon as he landed Dex had already drawn his paintball gun with his right paw and discharged three yellow pellets that splattered across the jaguar's shirt and got in his eyes, sending him reeling backwards blindly as his whip fell out of his paw.

"Oww! Jack!! Help!" the big cat shouted as he flailed around, and a strong-man bear with rippling muscles waiting in the entrance at the other side of the arena pushed out a giant balance globe, as hard as he could, toward Dex's back.

The raccoon's ears flicked and he started to turn but he heard Lin Lin shout, "Eyes in front, Dex! I've got your back!" as she leapt up onto the ball.

Landing in the center of the ball, she extended her arms and pedaled her feet frantically. She stopped its motion and, teetering on it, began steering it back in his direction. Six years of gymnastics lessons hadn't been for nothing, she thought smugly.

"Dave!" the strong-bear shouted as he dove out of her way. "Help!"

Another whip, aimed more seriously this time, knocked Dex's paintball gun out of his paw with a clatter, but as soon as it hit the ground the coon dropped onto both his forepaws and, using them and his tail to steer, spun rapidly, his footpaws striking first left, then right, into the arm, then the chest of his attacker, sending the second bear down onto his rump and his whip flying backward out of his paw.

"Tom!" the bear shouted as he hit the ground and stumbled back up onto his feet and backward away from Dex, just as the coon flipped himself back up onto his own heels. "Help!"

A third bear leapt from the bleechers into the ring. All three of them converged on Dex, who crouched and readied himself, with one paw outstretched, his eyes flickering from one to the other-but Lin Lin, who had clambered off the ball up onto the acrobatic tower near the edge of the arena when the balance globe rolled to a halt against it, shouted, "Dex! Jump!" as she swung down above them on a trapeze, gripping it tightly as she could. Dex leapt up and grabbed her ankles, then as the two cubs swung backward, away from the confused bears, the coon let go and used the force of the trapeze's propulsion to spin in the air and redirect his landing.

He hit the ground unsteadily, but, thanks to his ability to correct his balance in the air with his tail, still on his footpaws. He landed behind the giant acrobatic ball, and, with a powerful kick and punch timed simultaneously, sent it hurtling toward the three now-terrified bears, who began shouting in confusion and running in frantic circles to get out of its-and one another's-way.

The wolf in the bleechers and the weasel standing next to him, who had entered from the spectator's entrance as the fight began, watched in such open-mouthed surprise that neither realized the wolf had dropped his soda and it was spilling all over the clown shoes Alphonse was still wearing.

"Who are those kids?" the lupine whispered in disbelief, shaking his head.

The depressed weasel's eyes narrowed to slits and, for the first time in many years, the corners of his mouth approached his ears in a wide, toothy grin. Then he dashed by the bemused wolf and into the nearest lighting control booth, yanking one of the levers.

Dex assumed a defensive posture, warily, in the center of the arena, and the trapeze swung to a halt, leaving Lin Lin hanging about ten feet over the ground directly above him. "Listen, everyone! We didn't come here to cause trouble!" the raccoon shouted. "We're looking for a friend! Now, if we can just talk for two minutes . . ."

But Alphonse had released a heavily weighted, entangling animal capture net over the center of the stadium that was falling toward the two furs. "Kids!" the weasel shouted from the control booth. "Just stay there! Calm down! Everyone, stand back! We don't want to hurt you! Don't hurt them! Everyone just stand still for a minute!"

Lin Lin looked up in a panic as she heard him shout and saw the weighted net falling. Her grip on the trapeze finally slipped when the net hit her, and Dex looked up in turn to see her plummeting, fast, toward him.

This was bad. He reached for the walkie talkie under his karate uniform and pressed a button-he had to signal Ace and Jax. Who knew if he could get a signal in here, but he had to try-he'd be in no condition to help Twitchy if . . .

The panda thudded into him and the walkie talkie he had just grasped skidded out of his paw as he hit the dirt floor on his back and let out a painful cough, the net falling over them both.

The coon felt like-this had happened before-his vision blacked out for a minute. He heard a crack; no, he felt a crack. Was it one of his ribs? He opened his muzzle to say something and he could taste his own warm, salty blood; he wasn't down - he punched - once, then twice - and felt his footpaws swept out from under him and a weight ram him hard, between his legs. He was in the air, then it hit again, his lower abdomen this time, and he heard shouting.

He had a sinking feeling, even as he fell, that something terrible had only just started. He knew this one wouldn't be five minutes of pain. Those he could fight through. As soon as he had felt the first crack he knew something was unfolding that could go on for months or years and that he was helpless to do anything about it. Helpless. He had never felt so helpless since . . . Something misfired in his brain. His thoughts were already fragmenting. What scared him more than anything was . . . He had to do something to switch himself off. He had to send his mind somewhere else because . . . - no, all that wasn't this time.

That was another time. None of it had happened just now.

Or rather, none of it had happened yet.

He only felt weak because - because he was small. Dex the raccoon pounded the ground with his fists and burst into tears. He let out a loud wail, kicking his footpaws against the net, which only caused him and Lin Lin to become more entangled. Infantile sobs wracked his body.

His whole diaper area felt warm as his bladder relaxed completely - and why shouldn't it? He couldn't be expected to control that all the time, not yet. Accidents were not embarrassing and were perfectly natural, at his age. He had to do something for someone, though - Twitchy. One of the furs who took care of him.

None of his caretakers, he realized glumly, were anywhere nearby. His daddy, Roger, was far, far away. He bet that his big brother, Rian, even if he had been there, would rather have been spending time with a girl than with a whiny kit who couldn't possibly be cool enough for him any more if he kept sneaking off to see her.

Sometimes he came by just to ask Dex to say they had been doing or would be doing something together that night, so the other boys would bug him less about seeing Serafina so much. And Dex always said yes, for his big brother, and Rian would give him a quick, grateful hug and a lick on the nose before he disappeared; that would bring a flush to the coon's cheeks. Then more often than not Dex would opt to spend the night alone, so he wouldn't accidentally throw off Rian's alibi, either at the dojo practicing, or at home, pawing in his diaper and thinking fond, happy thoughts about the wolf who had introduced him to it, and about his first-ever day of cub play, with Rian and Roger, and if he felt bad about it told himself he should be glad he could still do something special to help his first big brother out. But all the while it felt like Rian was actually around less and less.

That only left Twitchy. And no fur knew where Twitchy was. Little Dex was alone. No one was coming here to help him. "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!" he let out in a loud, piercing cry, trying to reach the walkie talkie, which had slid outside the net, with one paw, as Lin Lin rolled off of him.

The panda shook him briskly, looking frantically around the stadium. "Dex!" she said anxiously, and boxed his ears. "Come back! Snap out of it! Oh . . ." The battered strong men, as surprised by Alphonse's intervention as the cubs were, slowly stopped milling around and stared at the trapped pair curiously, as though unsure whether to approach or run away.

The weasel was waving his forepaws above his head as though signaling everyone to calm down. Then he was running for the nearest stairway down into the arena, his cape billowing out behind him and his top hat held on his head with one paw.

Lin Lin recognized him from the magic show tent where Dex had reported the distress signal and instantly concluded that he had had something to do with Twitchy's disappearance, after all. The weasel's demeanor had entirely changed since the show as though he had thrown off a disguise. In that case, however clumsy he might have looked earlier, there was no way she wanted to talk to him while she was at his mercy.

The panda let go of Dex and yanked something out of her pocket, going to work on the nearest strand of the net, sawing as quickly as she could. It snapped! She would just be able to squeeze herself out through the small, resulting expanded square. She tugged on Dex's karate uniform, but the oversized, tangled-up coon kit remained rooted to the floor, squirming away from her, trying to reach something he had dropped that she couldn't see.

Lin Lin shook her head. "I'm sorry, Dex," she whispered quickly, and dropped her tool as she eyed the weasel and the strong bears, who were cautiously reassembling and approaching the center of the stadium. "We're out of time. If you can hear me," she gave the heedless, crying coon one last shake, "do not trust that magician! Somehow, he's tangled up with the bunny vanishing and everything wrong about this place! I'm sure of it."

Then in a blur of black, white, and pink, the petite bear popped out of the small hole she had cut in the net and sprinted at full speed toward one of the unobstructed exits, grabbing Dex's cowboy hat from the dirt floor where it had fallen on her way.

"Hey wait!" Alphonse shouted after her, but she was gone in a blink. "Tom, Dave, Jack!" he shouted, "Go after that panda! Bring her back here! Get her to talk to me! Tell her I just want to talk! Tell her . . . I can help her find her friend!"

The still perplexed bears stumbled out of the tent after Lin Lin. For his own part, the weasel walked into the middle of the ring as soon as he had finished shouting and, adjusting his top hat on his head, turned his attention to the raccoon. "Did that girl call you . . . Dex?" he asked carefully.

Dex, whose crying abated as his tiny-feeling paw reached the edge of his walkie talkie, tilted his head and looked up sideways at the weasel. He flicked his tail against the ground at the mention of his name. That guy was wearing goofy clothes. His shoes were way too big for him. And there were gold stars on his black cape. That was silly. Dex smiled at him.

The jaguar, who had finally rinsed the sting of the paint out of his eyes, retrieved his whip and clapped his paw on the weasel's shoulder. "What a save," the big cat, his yellow-spattered leather outfit looking like it would need quite a dry cleaning, congratulated Alphonse. "Ha! Now that was real magic! To think Tony says you're not good for anything. I think this kid's learned his lesson all right. But this has gone far enough. Let's cut him loose and call it a-"

"No! Not yet," the weasel shook his head firmly and flicked the big cat's paw off his shoulder.

The jaguar shrugged and turned his attention away from Alphonse. He bent over to retrieve the discarded tool Lin Lin had used to cut through the net and make her getaway, and shook his head as he looked at it with curiosity-it was a metal nail file, with a pink, Hello Kitty-patterned plastic handle.

Dex continued to watch the funny bigger furs curiously. When Alphonse produced a quarter from behind his ear and began moving it in a slow circle, Dex opened his mouth and let out a small gasp. The coon's eyes followed the shiny object, and, keeping his right paw on the edge of his walkie talkie, he reached up with his left to trace its path in the air. He giggled and a little drool dribbled out of the side of his muzzle. There was another kind of dribble through the legs of his plastic pants and his diapers started to leak. The stomach of his karate uniform and under shirt warmed up as he continued to pee without making any effort to stop himself, regardless of the leakage.

"Is that your radio, Dex?" the ex-hypnotist and bumbling magician asked as he sat down cross-legged on the ground in front of the ensnared, rapidly regressing raccoon.

Alphonse picked up the walkie talkie and Dex pawed after it futilely and whined. "I've seen one just like it before," the weasel continued, setting it down in his lap. Dex stared at the device anxiously.

Now that his gaze was fixed there, Alphonse lowered the quarter in front of the walkie talkie and reversed the direction of its slow, circular motion. "Everything is going to be okay, Dex," he said softly. "I understand better than you think. Just relax."

Even as a kit, the coon looked hopelessly confused, but Alphonse continued, "Dex, could you be . . . Twitchy's friend? Are you trying to call Twitchy?"

Yes! the coon thought. That was it! That was what he needed to do. Find Twitchy! And fast too-because he needed a change, and that situation was only going to get worse. Could this nice man help him do it?

"Twith," he said happily, his tail flicking against the dirt again. "Bwo!"

"You can still help Twitchy, Dex," the weasel said gently. "I can help you help Twitchy. We can help Twitchy together." He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing as he watched the motion of Dex's paws and the flicking of his tail settle into a rhythm.

The coon was openly drooling now, and it would never have even occurred to him to raise a paw to his muzzle to wipe it off.

He felt the glaze of happiness settle over him as his darker thoughts began to fade. He was still going to find his missing big brother. This man was talking about Twitchy like he was okay. And nearby.

"Bwo!" he said, nodding slowly. "Twith!"

"Are you . . . in a safe place, Dex?" Alphonse said, gathering steam, as he switched to moving the uncommonly shiny quarter back and forth in a line, and watched Dex's eyes follow it. "Did you have to . . . make one? I saw you jump there. I told you, I understand better than you think. I can imagine, how that works . . . I bet something bad happened to you, huh?"

"Thafe," the coon flicked his tail again and his face relaxed into a smile. This man did understand. He just had to keep telling him what he wanted. "Twith. Bwo."

The weasel reached out with his free forepaw as he kept moving the quarter and patted the coon's head gently. Dex's ears collapsed as he relaxed even further. His bowel control had vanished now; and although no fur in the ring would notice it right away, he felt a small, warm squishiness beneath the base of his tail. He didn't mind it. It's not like it didn't happen to a kit like him every day, anyway. It would be years before he would grow out of that.

"Everyone is going to be safe," the mustelid reassured him. "Dex is safe. Twitchy is safe. Your panda friend is safe. You'll see her again soon. Everyone is going to be okay, Dex. We're all your friends."

"Fwens?" the baby coon asked, drowsily. Were these furs his friends? Come to think of it, was the panda his friend? He didn't know. He didn't think so . . . But they were all bigger than him. So they had to know more about how those things worked than he did.

"Friends," Alphonse nodded as he started moving the shiny quarter up and down. "Friends help each other. Like you and Twitchy. And . . . like you and me. That's how things work when life is fair. I just need you to do one favor for me, Dex," he tilted his head sideways and looked into Dex's dull eyes, watching them follow the path of the sparkling coin.

Dex, his walkie talkie forgotten, gurgled happily and reached out for the fascinatingly shiny circle with both paws.

Everyone was his friend! He didn't have to worry one bit. This mission was going to be a success after all. "Faiw!" he said happily, and clapped his outstretched forepaws.

"Fair. One little favor," the weasel continued soothingly, "you and I will work a little magic and make everyone happy. You and your panda friend will be famous. I'll be free. Twitchy will be safe. You'll be the hero who made all those things happen."

"Hewo?" Dex said heavily. But he was so little! He hoped he was up to it.

His eyes were starting to shut. He hadn't been sleeping much lately, because he'd had bad dreams and none of the bigger furs he could crawl into bed with when that happened had been around, but right now he felt like he would sleep really good.

"And everyone will be so happy, Dex, because of you, that you'll be rewarded with what you really want, too. You'll finally, finally, be able to stay in your safe place, where nothing in the world can hurt you," Alphonse patted the raccoon's head, and, leaning toward the dozing cub lowered his voice to a whisper as he concluded gently:

"Forever."

To be continued . . . Next time: Friends Like These: Oh no! Dex is down! At least Lin Lin got away. And she's his friend now . . . Right?

Episode 6. Friends Like These

Two years earlier. The U. S. Mixed Martial Arts Association National Tournament. Juniors. Break.

Dex leapt and spun from the padded mat in the training room, landing a kick square in middle of the punching bag while he was in the air and two light punches where its face would have been as he landed on his toes. He continued drilling, altering the sequence periodically, as he listened to his coach.

"This won't be like the first two fights, Dex," the badger said, studying a clipboard seriously. "Your usual approach-dodging until you've assessed what areas a fur usually moves to guard-won't work. Aim higher, he's taller than that."

"Got it," said Dex, spinning and tilting his upper body down, with one forepaw briefly touching the floor, to land a fast, jabbing kick from the right near the top of the punching bag.

"J. D. is a cheetah. And based on his matches so far, he goes for a quick kill instead of saving up his speed. At least in the first round, he'll be too fast for you to dodge. You'll have to switch your strategy; conserve your energy and take a hit to land a hit. Ideally, you'll want to take a hit to land two. So let's see more combos."

"Got it," Dex repeated, switching his rhythm to land, as near as he could, a punch and kick simultaneously, then hop back and duplicate the timing swinging from the other side.

"The bad news is, Dex, he'll probably expect that approach from you. This is a tough match for both of you. You've both been fighting slower opponents up until now."

"This time he has more speed, but he'll know you have a bit more versatility, being a climbing-type. So figure he'll be hitting harder than usual and trying to KO you before his speed starts to run out and you can get a fix on his defenses."

"You are one of the best kits our school has sent here in years. But the first round of this match," his coach looked up from his clipboard and eyed Dex carefully, "is going to hurt."

Dex somersaulted backward and landed on his forepaws, slowly adjusting his balance with his tail in order to bend over bit by bit and lower himself on to his toes. He looked up at his coach from between his legs and nodded.

"Got it," he said.

***********

The sun was setting.

Partly concealed by the dusk, the black-and-white bear tugged the hood of her purple windbreaker down lower over her face, most of which was covered with a soft, silk pink shawl as a wrap. She paused and flattened herself against the wall of the trailer, quickly looking both left and right to make sure she wasn't being followed.

She also wore a backpack covered with glitter whose straps jostled occasionally as she raced between tents following the tip of the raccoon's ever-receding tail. The door of the trailer he had vanished into remained ajar, with a welcoming light spilling out of it. Cautiously, she approached, one pawstep at a time, and stuck her head in.

"Dex!" she whispered loudly. "Thank goodness, you're back, but what in blazes were you doing in that show? And why did you lead me back here? I know you saw me in the audience. I was going to take your hat back to one of your bases as proof you were in trouble. But then I heard your name in all the announcements. Is this where they have the bunny? Or your missing stuff maybe?"

When there was no answer, she inched her way inside the trailer, and quietly pulled the door halfway shut behind her. Dex had wandered from the small entrance area into the kitchen on the left. Biting her lip, she approached the door gingerly.

The raccoon was standing at the opposite end of the room in front of an open refrigerator with his back to her, humming to himself softly.

"Hello, Lin Lin," he said, without looking over his shoulder at her, his tail and ears twitching, sounding depressed as he added, "You came back."

"Did you make some kind of a deal with these people?" she whispered more loudly, increasingly agitated. "Sure, we'll release your friend, just do three shows for us? That is the sort of stupid thing you boys would agree to and then be surprised when the bad guys reneged on it, right? Well, we're breaking it first! Come on, I have everything we need to bust him out in here." She tugged on the shoulder straps of her backpack. She smiled softly. "Hey," she continued, more encouragingly, "and you should try walking a tightrope in a dress. Now that would be hard."

Dex didn't respond to her. Instead he sunk down into a cross-legged sit and stared up at the open refrigerator wide-eyed as though overwhelmed by its contents. With a jolt Lin Lin saw that it was stocked entirely with baby formula of various flavors, apple sauces, and oversized baby bottles filled with various colors of milk, from regular white to strawberry to chocolate to buttermilk.

His paw found its way toward his muzzle as he sobbed out, "Dunno wha' I want!" and began sucking it, sobbing silently, vexed at having to make an impossible choice all by himself.

The panda wheeled on her heels and dashed for the exit, but it had already been pushed shut by the large paw of the brawny Siberian tiger, wearing a top hat, a red waistcoat, and black riding pants, who had been waiting in the room at the other end of the trailer. He smiled down at her.

The weasel at his shoulder, now wearing only a pressed white shirt and khaki pants, had already scurried past both of them over to Dex on the floor, and was lifting him up gently, as though he weighed no more than a teddy bear, rocking him as he said, "There there, little guy. I'm sorry you had to pretend to be big for so long this time. You did great. You really did. Look! You brought your panda friend back! Now you can be together again. And soon Twitchy is gonna be with you too."

"Twith!" Dex wailed at the mention of the bunny's name and burst openly into tears, pounding his tiny-feeling, exhausted fists futilely in the air over the shoulders of the weasel holding him. He had been running obstacles all day to get to his big brother. How much longer could it take? How much farther away could he be?

"I know, I know," the weasel whispered to the oversized baby coon, patting him on the back of his karate outfit. "Soon. Soon. We're almost done. Hush."

"So," the petite panda said through gritted teeth, ignoring the weasel and glaring fiercely up into the tiger's eyes even though he was about five times her size, "you're the management. Well I better walk out of here with what I came for or you can expect to be reading a strongly worded letter from me. In jail."

Tony, the ringmaster, tipped his hat to Lin Lin. "Lin Lin, is it?" he gestured into the opposite end of the trailer, now lit, where two easy chairs and an adult-sized high chair were placed around a small coffee table with a television.

On a small endtable in the corner of the trailer, a glass jar with tiny airholes drilled in the lid was held in place with six or seven giant elastic bands hooked under the rim of the tabletop from various angles. They ensured the jar couldn't be knocked over and rolled off the table.

"Squeak!" said the overall-wearing mouse inside, hopping up on to his legs when he saw the panda and waving his paws hopefully. He had fallen into a depressed funk after trying to get Dex's attention for hours, and seeing the coon do nothing except gurgle and giggle at him.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Tony continued, seemingly heedless of the other creatures in the trailer. "Please, don't worry. Just . . . have a seat. I'm certain we'll be able to reach a satisfactory arrangement. And there's a perfectly rational explanation for everything."

The panda made her way apprehensively into the small living room, plopped her backpack in front of one of the chairs and sat down in it, defiantly putting her feet up on the table. Alphonse, carrying the crying raccoon, made his way to the edge of the room and set the kit down in the adult-sized wooden high chair, which Lin Lin could see had restraints for all four of his limbs. A teddy bear, his arms held wide open in an embrace and with "A B C" on his chest, was carved on the panel against which Dex's back rested.

"Ahem," Tony cleared his throat and cast a somewhat uneasy gaze at the weasel. "Let me reassure you first that this is not my trailer. Certain members of our crew have . . . odd habits. That, apparently, many furs around these parts share."

"Now, I can imagine what you might be thinking, young lady. But there's nothing untoward about any of this. Dex here is a - and I rarely say this- very talented young performer. He performed three times today, as I imagine you know. The kids love him. At the third show, some of the older girls threw roses-in my circus! People came back! They paid more than once to see the same act! Some sat through all three!" Tony adjusted his top hat and grinned widely, looking as astonished as if he had just learned that Santa Claus was real. Clearly the tiger was describing something that had never happened before in his memory.

He pressed on with mounting excitement as though announcing in the ring.

"It's the weirdest stuff I've ever seen. You saw what he did the last time! He walked a tightrope with only a squirt gun to defend himself while the clowns were throwing balls at him, broke script and jumped off of it halfway through, caught himself on the trapeze, swung and let himself go to slide right through the hoop of fire he had been supposed to pole vault through from the ground, and blocked every pie the clowns could throw at him with his forepaws, sent them all straight back and knocked them down, one by one!" The tiger made a batting motion with his own paws in imitation.

"And right after each show he's ready to go again! He never gets tired. It's like he's on a mission. I've never seen anything like it. Alphonse says it's just a matter of helping him focus his natural abilities by reminding him that he's going out there to help your bunny friend. And it's true! Alas, that clumsy rabbit caused some damage to our equipment and almost brought a permanent end to poor Alphonse's magic show. He's been repairing the damage to work off his tab like a responsible young rabbit. But now Dex has signed a short-term contract with us in order to pay back Twitchy's debt himself and live out some of his . . . more harmless fantasies. You see, I know," the ringmaster jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Alphonse, "about your type. You're Dex's friend, so I'm sure you won't begrudge the kit his . . . happiness."

"After that, well, we'll take it from there. It's all perfectly legal. Alphonse, who is, familiar with the terms of performer agreements, not to mention sympathetic to your friend, brought the young man to me and is acting as his agent. There is still a lot on your bunny friend's balance sheet. But, I don't think we would have a problem letting him and his pet mouse loose right now, and even letting all three of you fraternize freely, if we could change one little thing."

The tiger smiled as charmingly as he could and rested his elbows on his knees, putting his eyes at Lin Lin's level. "I hear Dex's act is twice as good with a partner, and that you are quite talented yourself. Now if you hang out with these two boys, I don't know if you have any . . . preferences we could help accommodate, too. We have quite an impressive collection of equipment, and offer a welcoming environment that people like . . . well, like Dex here, won't find in many situations. We can just try things out, you and Dex and us, for the rest of the break season first, then take it from there. The pay's really not bad, compared to what you might get waitressing or cashiering, and it will look a lot more interesting on your resume. We just need you to sign a contract. Plus," he gestured toward Dex, "maybe you can have what you really want . . ."

Alphonse strapped in Dex's legs, and produced a shiny quarter from behind his ear. The coon seemed to calm down, his wailing in the background finally abating, as the weasel rolled it between his fingers and across the back of his palm in front of Dex's muzzle.

"Panna!" Dex said as he swallowed one of his last sobs, pointing at Lin Lin as though he had just noticed her. He clapped his paws and smiled, reaching out and leaning as far as he could from the high chair to grab at her nearest foot, his tail flicking back and forth. "Fwenn!"

Lin Lin yanked her foot away from the raccoon and turned her suddenly icy gaze on the overgrown kit, who wilted into his high chair, his ears drooping sadly and his previously twitching tail hanging down limply in a straight line.

"You miscalculated," she snapped as her eyes swiveled back to Tony. All the appearance of softness and concern she had entered the trailer with seemed to melt away in an instant and her eyes resumed the steely gaze they usually shot at her misbehaving academy students.

"Neither of those quitters is my friend. I'm not really here for them at all. In fact," she produced a business card from the pocket of her windbreaker and tossed it on the table, "you might say the boys and I belong to rival organizations."

The tiger took the card and eyed it curiously. "Academy for Special Boys?" he asked with raised eyebrows. "Special how?"

"You don't want to know," Lin Lin answered him briskly. "But I'll tell you what we can use there. All the stuff you've been stealing from the boys, and from who knows where else. I've known about their changing supply problems for a while. It's the real reason I've kept a skeleton crew at the school 24/7 all break instead of letting everyone go-to make sure whoever was moving in on the boys' territory didn't start pinching from us, too. I only agreed to tag along with the coon in the first place because I knew if he found his bosom bunny they would lead me right to the stolen goods. I'll show you what's in my bag if you don't believe me."

She bent over and unzipped her backpack, slowly producing from the top, Dex's cowboy hat, which she tossed aside on to the floor, then, carefully, one item at a time, the stack of supplies it had been covering-two pairs of handcuffs, two pairs of pink bondage paw mitts, two pink ball gags, two thin coils of rope just long enough to tie together somefur's paws, and a string of empty, folded up sacks attached to a sturdier coiled rope, a setup that would allow her to haul several furs' loads worth of stuff in a single trip.

"Squeak!" gasped the captive mouse, who was watching intently, and pressed his paws vainly against the wall of the jar, which only wobbled a bit, but remained held tightly in place by the large elastics.

Then, pointing at Lin Lin, and then at Dex, shaking his head, and holding his tiny paws crossed over each other as though to remind her that someone was being held in captivity, he chided her accusingly. "Squeak!! Squeak! Squeak!"

Tony stared at Lin Lin's array of supplies in confusion. "Well," he said skeptically, "it doesn't look like equipment for a prison break. I'll give you that."

"Of course it doesn't," the panda snapped. "It's what I left with from the academy when Dexie came by begging for my help. Your ring-tailed wonder over there," she jerked her head toward the regressed raccoon, "is so gullible he didn't even watch me pack. I've been planning to double-cross those two idiots from the beginning."

"As far as I'm concerned the only difference between them making fools of themselves here or at home is that here they can get paid to do it. But since you've saved me the trouble of taking the ambiguously aged duo out of play, let me repeat-I expect to leave here with every bit of their stuff. Or the next announcement you'll be making is that it's pizza lunch day for cell block D."

Baby Dex's face fell flat on to the feeding platform of his high chair and he resumed sobbing, silently this time. Not everyone was his friend! Alphonse said the panda would help him get to his big brother faster and everyone would be happy when she came. But she sounded mad and it didn't look like she was going to help him. One of them had been lying to him. Maybe both of them.

Why was everything so confusing without his real caretakers around? He couldn't even use the potty himself. That thing looked hard enough to figure out! How was he supposed to do anything harder if big furs didn't tell him the truth about things and keep their promises?

A trickle ran out his leg gathers, down the bottom of his pant leg and steadily dripped onto the floor. Alphonse hastened into the kitchen to get the distraught baby a bottle.

Tony, on the other paw, laughed deeply and slapped his knee, shaking his head.

"Sweetheart," the Siberian tiger said with a grin, "I really hope we get to keep you. You might almost make those other two worth the trouble. Fine. I'm willing to trade their supplies for your performances with Dex."

"I'd rather not. For practically two days I've been pretending to be buddies with the karate kit," she flicked her paw at Dex. "And it's about all I can take. How about," the panda proposed, leaning forward and resting her chin on her elbows, "we just play for them?"

Tony laughed and his eyes flashed. "Poker," he said decisively. "Sure, why not? I'm a sporting tiger. If you lose, you'll perform for us until the end of break with the flying raccoon. If you win, you'll leave with whatever you can carry. I'll even let you borrow a pushcart. Alphonse-"

Tony moved to motion Alphonse for something but Lin Lin unzipped the small front compartment of her backpack as she snapped, "We'll use my deck," and produced one.

The tiger tipped his hat to her and flashed a toothy, predatory smile, letting his gentlemanly veneer fall away. "As you wish. I just hope you're a better loser than your friend over there." He jerked his head in Dex's direction.

"Wouldn't know," the panda shot back coolly as she began shuffling. "I don't have enough experience."

Next time: Oh no! Looks like Lin Lin has sold Dex down regression river! Now the kit-coon is all alone-except for his memories. What could possibly happen now? Lots, in the three-episode conclusion!