An actor, an inventor, a romance, a past,

and a disaster none of the Rangers could ever have predicted.

Will anyone’s life ever be the same after.  .  .

Final Curtain

by Meghan Elizabeth Brunner

hat was a wonderful play,” Gadget sighed with a bit of a dreamy quality to her voice.  The setting did nothing to deter her mood as she and Chip made their way home; the full moon shone off the water in the park’s fountain and made the marble under their feet slightly iridescent.  She looked over at her friend and couldn’t help but shake her head; she hadn’t convinced him to doff his fedorra while wearing a tux any more successfully than he had talked her into wearing a dress instead of her usual lavender jumpsuit.

                Chip smiled to himself and thanked his stars once again that the others had been too busy -- Dale with a monster movie date with Foxglove, who had become quite knowledgeable about the latest flicks playing at the local drive-in as of late, and Monty and Zipper with a cheese ship down at the docks -- to attend the theatre with them. It made for the perfect romantic evening.  First going to see one of the most beautiful and sad love stories of all time, followed by a stroll in the moonlit park, and then he would confess his feelings to Gadget.  No, nothing could be more right in all the world, and she was so innocently oblivious to what would come next.  Sweep her off her feet. But first, I have to know one thing.  .  .  “I’m a little surprised Romeo and Juliet is your favorite play.  I never thought of you as the Shakespeare sort.  Why?”

                “It was how Mom and Dad met,” she recalled distantly.

                Chip missed half a step.  “I didn’t know your parents were actors!”

                “They got themselves through a lot of tough spots on their adventures by acting their way out of them.  Mom did a lot of  theatre work before she got handfasted, but I think Romeo and Juliet was the only play Dad was ever in.  It’s one of the few memories I have of my mother: her and Dad acting out the balcony scene when I couldn’t get to sleep, and using my dresser as the balcony.”  She laughed quietly to herself.  “Dad read it to me a lot as soon as I could understand what it was about.”

                “You said it was how they met.”  Chip smiled fondly.  She tended to get sidetracked easily.

                “Yes.  I don’t know why Dad auditioned, but in any event he landed the part of the hero. Mom was so thrilled when she was cast as Juliet that as soon as she got her script she started flipping though the pages and practicing her part.”  Gadget closed her eyes, reciting dramatically, “‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Rome -- oh!’“  Abruptly she found that walking near the edge of a fountain with one’s eyes closed is not a good idea.  Gadget stepped heedlessly off the edge and was caught by the strong arms of another mouse.

                “Gadget!”  Chip cried out in alarm as she suddenly disappeared.

                She did not hear him as she gazed into the mouse’s deep brown eyes.  “I- I’m so sorry,” she blushed, breathless.  “I didn’t mean to- to just.  .  .  drop in like that!”

                The mouse flashed her a smile as he set her on her feet.  He was about even in height with Monterey Jack, only thinner; his hair was jet black, and his fur as dark as Chip’s.  He wore a loose white pirate-style shirt with full sleeves.   “It is quite all right, Miss.  .  .  ” he trailed off in a thick British accent, inviting her to provide her name.

                “Gadget.  Gadget Hackwrench,” she smiled.  “It’s nice to meet you.”  She offered to shake hands with him, but he instead brushed hers with a kiss.

                “I am known as Hadrian.  Always a pleasure to catch the daughter of the greatest pilot in aviation history.  You are related to Wilec, no?”

                “He was my father, yes,” she smiled proudly at the praise -- although far from unusual -- of her father.  “You knew him?”

                “Sadly, no, though I have heard much.  May I escort you home?”  As he offered his arm, their eyes met again.  Gadget blinked a few times.  “A lady shouldn’t walk alone at such a time of night.”

                “Gadget!”

                “Oh, I’m not alone.”  She snapped her gaze away to look to Chip, running to join them. “Hadrian, I’d like you to meet Chip.”

                “In that case,” Hadrian began, lowering his arm to his side, “I shall bid you good night.”

                “Oh please don’t!”  Gadget cried without thinking.  She blushed slightly when he turned back to her.

                “I would be but a fifth tire, I’m afraid,” he explained.

                “Then maybe we could see each other again?  Some other time?”

                “I would like that,” he smiled again.  “If I might come calling.  .  .  ?”

                “Please!  I live in the biggest oak tree in the park.”  The inventor spoke quickly, as if afraid he would vanish into the night like an insubstantial dream before she had a chance to tell him.

                “Until we meet again, then, adieu, Miss Gadget.”  He swept a gallant bow.  With a swish of his cape he turned and disappeared into the darkness, leaving only the flutter of the inventor’s heart to mark his passage.

                Chip rolled his eyes.  “Let’s go home.”  He offered his arm with a hopeful smile that quickly faded when she took it without even appearing to register who her companion was.

                “Home.  Yes,” she agreed distractedly.

                Chip sighed, but took comfort in the fact that with any luck she wouldn’t remember by morning.

*                              *                              *

                “Gadget luv?  Gadget?  Gadget!  Gadget!”

                “Hmm?  What?  Oh!  Hi, Monty!  I didn’t hear you come in!”

                “Would you have heard a tornado come crashin’ through?”

                “What do you mean?”  she asked, pausing in dusting the control panel of the TV.

                “I mean that you’ve been dustin’ that there switcher for the past seven minutes!  Much more of this an’ you’ll wear a hole in the thing!”

                “Oh, sorry,” she admitted sheepishly, but with a smile. “I guess my mind’s on other things.”

                Monterey grinned knowingly. “Who is he?” he inquired, although it was more of a statement than a question. Dressed as always in his green turtleneck, flight cap, and trenchcoat-style jacket, Monty had long ago taken it upon himself to look out for “his little Gadget.”

                “He?” Gadget repeated, looking up at her friend -- a good head taller than she -- with blue eyes as innocent as a baby’s. “He who?”

                “That’s what I want to know. Chip or Dale. Or someone else.”

                “Monterey, I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

                “Well, it must somebody from the way you’ve been actin’ all mornin’, an’ I’ll wager it /ain’t/ Chip from how he’s been mopin’ about.”

                The girl’s eyes widened as she began to comprehend the older mouse’s implication. She put her hands on her hips. “Monterey Jack, of all the people on this earth I think I am the last -”

                Three crisp raps at the door cut her off. Before either could make a move to answer it, a chipmunk clad in a red T-shirt splashed with huge five-petaled yellow flowers shot down the tire slide at full force, a shouted “I’ll get it!” accompanying him. Dale flung the door wide and blinked in surprise at the unlikely candidate for rescuing. “Can I help you?” he offered doubtfully.

                “Yes. May I speak with Miss Hackwrench, please?”

                The chipmunk’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Okay.  .  .  but I hope for your sake that you’re not a door-to-door salesman.” He turned and hollered at the top of his lungs, “GADGET!!! DOOR’S FOR YOU!!!”

                She winced slightly as she rushed to the door. I am definitely going to have a talk with him about that, she promised herself. All thoughts about strict discussions with certain unnamed Rangers about politeness when answering the door vanished from her mind, however, when she saw who her guest was. Her heart skipped a beat. “Hadrian! Hi!”

                “That would be him,” Monterey stated matter-of-factly, only half to himself. “‘He who?’ she asks!”

                “I’m going out, okay?” she informed the other two, not waiting for their opinions before closing the door behind herself.

                “I could not stop thinking about you last night,” he revealed softly as they crossed the park. “Even in my dreams, you were there.”

                “You were in mine, too,” she confessed shyly.

                “I overheard you quoting Shakespeare.  .  .  you are an actress?”

                “Me? No, I’ve never been on a stage in my life!” Not counting the time with Sewernose, but that’s different. Becoming a marionette to an over-dramatic alligator doesn’t count. I didn’t have a choice about that one.

                “Would you like to be?”

                 Gadget could only blink at him in surprise.

                “I am sorry. Truly. It is just that I have been recently cast for the part of Romeo and am to choose an actress to play opposite myself in the role of Juliet... I was wondering if you would like to be the one?”

                 “Golly, yes!”

                “Splendid! We shall go and get you a script then, no? Practice will begin in half an hour. If we hurry, we can just make it.”

                 “Okay,” she smiled, taking his arm.

                In no time at all they reached a mouse-sized door marked “Cast and Crew Only” that led into the humans’ theatre. “Ho, Al!” Hadrian called out.  “Are you about, old chap?”

                “Haddi, my boy!” a mouse around Monty’s age hollered back with a smile as he rushed over to clap the actor on the back. He wore a green and yellow plaid wool vest over a yellow button-down shirt. “How be you?”

                “Just fine, Al. Look, I’ve found us a Juliet!”

                “Looks like another Juliet I worked with, back in my acting days. A lot like her, yes indeed.”

                “Gadget, I would like to introduce you to Alastair, our director. Al, this is Miss Gadget Hackwrench.”

                “Hackwrench!” A light went on in the man’s eyes, but his expression changed too quickly for Gadget to read it. “Well, now, that would explain it! You do look a lot like Sarah Haley, yes indeed.”

                “You.  .  .  you knew my mother?” she asked in wonderment. Everyone it seemed knew or knew of her father, but other than Monty and (of course) her dad, no one she had ever met had known her mom.

                “You betcha! Pretty flower, she was. Prettiest ever to grace the stage. Yes siree, you sure did get her looks. Good actress, too. Best ever to hit Broadway! Sure as anythin’! Though why she came here....  Anyhow, looks like you’ll be followin’ after her, sure ‘nough! Jus’ when I quit actin’ ta start directin’, well, whaddya know but -! Well!”

                “I don’t understand.” Gadget was justifiably confused.

                “Well, don’tcha know, now, missy! Yer mom, she was Juliet right on this same stage! I’d betcha you’ll be even more convincing than she was in the death scene, too.” The last sentence sounded as if he was saying it to himself; his eyes took on a distant glow and he spoke in a strange voice.

                “Why’s that? Did something happen?”

                Alastair looked startled for a moment, realized he had spoken out loud, and quickly explained, “Yer mom, see, she was supposed to be dead, an’ right in the middle of Romeo’s monologue what does she do on Closing Night but up an’ sneeze? Not that it was her fault, mind, but it did make things sorta funny. Everything else she did a honey of a job on, an’ even that part in rehearsals. Oh! Did make me wish I was that Romeo, it did, it did. What with her looks an’ all I don’t think a man alive what saw her didn’t fall in love. Only she had to go an’- well, now, how I do go on! You’ll be wantin’ yer script now, sure ‘nough! Yep, yep, that you will. I’ll just be goin’ ta fetch it fer ya, miss.” After running a hand through sandy blonde hair he studied his new actress through thick, round spectacles perched on his nose, shook his head, and walked away muttering to himself.

                “I don’t believe this!” Gadget exclaimed breathlessly.

                “What, Al? Oh, he’s harmless enough. It takes a while to get used to him, though,” he chuckled.

                “No, I mean that he knew my mother, and I’ll be- And this is -”

                “Oh, I see.”

                “Golly!” For once, Gadget was speechless.

                “Oh, jolly good! Here come some of the others!” Haddi gestured to three girls just entering the theatre, talking amongst themselves.

                A slender mouse in her late twenties halted, blinking starry hazel eyes a few times before rushing to embrace the newest addition to the cast.  “Kaley, Aletna, she’s back! She changed her hair and expanded her wardrobe, but she’s back!”

                “It marks thee and thy Romeo for trouble,” a pleasantly plump mouse with a raven-black bun perched at the nape of her neck predicted.

                “I didn’t see any of this in the cards,” the third mouse -- this one with pin-straight red hair to her bottom -- frowned. “But it is good to see you, anyway. It isn’t fair. Even on her worst days she could beat you and I put together, Kaley, and now it doesn’t look as if she’s aged a day!”

                Taking in the blonde’s startled look, the first added cautiously, “You do remember, don’t you? It’s me, Caprice. I always sat in the front row to watch you rehearse? And I helped you with your lines, too, when you were off-stage. Sarah?”

                Gadget’s heart went out to the young lady as her voice quavered at the last plea for recognition. “I’m sorry, Caprice, but I’m not Sarah Haley. She was my mother, though.”

                “Was?” Caprice cried.

                “Oh, alack the day!” the other brunette wailed.

                The redhead only nodded sadly. “The cards said as much. Your father as well?”

                Gadget could only nod wordlessly.

                She nodded again matter-of-factly, but there was sympathy in her emerald green eyes. “They were good people, child, and fine actors. You have reason to be proud to be their daughter.”

                “Thank you,” she acknowledged softly.

                “We welcome thee as we would thy kin,” the one with the bun declared solemnly. “I am known as Kaleerit, and she as Aletna.”

                “I’m Gadget,” she informed them warmly. “Why is it that everyone knows Mom and Dad? I mean, I know they acted here, but -”

                “New actors are few and far between,” Caprice told her. “I was the youngest for a long time until Haddi took my spot. Now it’s your turn.”

                “So you three acted with them?”

                “Kaleerit was Juliet’s nurse the first time we did this, and Aletna was Lady Capulet. I was too young to be even Juliet, but I was at every rehearsal to do what I could. Well, we’ve all gotten older since then.  Sandy -- she played Lady Monteague -- ran off to Broadway long ago, and Kaley is going to take her place. Letti has moved up to Nurse, and I’m just the right age for Juliet’s mom. It looks like you’ll be taking the part your mother had.”

                “Be thou forewarned,” Kaleerit cautioned. “The houses of Monteague and Capulet reconciled, but some were not there to have their say. Some-”

                “Kaley!” Aletna cut in sharply.

                “What?” Gadget asked. Something told her that whatever hadn’t been said was vitally important.

                A shadow blotted out hope for her question’s answer. “Here’s yer script.” She whirled to find the director standing over her, beaming as if he had done something brilliant.

                “Thank you,” she said softly, accepting it. How can anyone as heavy as he is move around so silently?!  Paying the thought only momentary notice, she turned her attention to the script. It was small enough to be held in one hand, and paperback; its sky blue cover boasted large, elaborate black lettering a little above the center to announce the play as Romeo and Juliet. The message at the bottom of the cover, “A tragedy by William Shakespeare,” was done in smaller and marginally less fancy printing. It was pristinely new, still smelling faintly of the printing press.  The scent was mostly drowned by the stench of Alastair’s cheap cologne. Gadget made an effort to appear not to notice, but the others only smiled wryly and nodded slightly as if to say, Pretty bad, huh?

                “S’nothin. Come, y’all! The others’ve arrived! I want ta talk ta y’all an’ getcha started on blockin’!” He gestured broadly, including those just entering as he walked to center stage, a trail of the pungency following.

                “Blockin’?” Gadget repeated, frowning at the unfamiliar word.

                “The movements. What you do as opposed to what you say,” Caprice clarified, then smiled slightly at her new-found friend’s expression. “Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it. It gets more bizarre before it gets better, though. Just wait till he starts in with stage directions!”

                Gadget groaned inwardly. Surrounded by all these people who knew what they were doing.  .  .   it promised to be a lo-o-o-o-ong rehearsal!

*                              *                              *

                 “Where could she possibly be?” Chip wondered aloud, peering into the fading twilight from the conference room window for the thousandth time. His bomber jacket with the fuzzy collar was quite a change from the previous night’s formals. It suited his hat better. “Gadget must be out of the state by now!”

                “Will you relax, Chipper?” Monterey asked in exasperation. “Gadget’s old enough to take care of herself! I bet she’ll be home any second. You’ll see.”

                As of to prove him right, the door flew open and one exhausted but happy Ranger sailed in. “Hi, guys!”

                “See? Toldja!”

                “Where have you been?!” the chipmunk cried.

                Gadget totally missed his tone as she bounced down the domino steps. “At the theatre with Hadrian.”

                “The theatre? Why?” Chip couldn’t keep the pain from his voice. “I know it’s your favorite play, but do you need to see it two nights in a row?”

                “Not see it,” she grinned, “act in it!”

                 “Act?!”

                “Yep! See my script? Hadrian’s Romeo, and I get to be Juliet! Just like Mom was before I was born! It’s even in the same theatre, and some of her friends still act there! Isn’t it amazing? Oh, you guys’ll come, won’t you?”

                “Of course!” Monty piped up, covering for Chip’s sudden silence.

                “Thank you!” she beamed. “Well, I’d better get to bed; rehearsal starts bright and early tomorrow morning. It’s more blocking, and that’s incredibly tedious, but the harder we work the sooner we get through it, right? We actually get to start with lines next Saturday, and that’ll be fun. I still remember most of them from when Dad read it to me. ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?  ‘Tis the East and Juliet is the sun...’ Whoops! Gee, that isn’t my line!  Hmm... maybe I could use a little practice.” Without further delay the star opened her script and began to make her way to her bedroom, softly reading as she went.

*                              *                              *

                “Off to rehearsal?” Monty asked, looking up from a game of Scrabble with Dale as the resident actress swept through the conference room. It was Saturday, a week after Gadget had taken up her new hobby.

                “Yep!” she replied cheerfully. “We actually get to start combining lines with blocking today. Caprice says it’s called ‘run through.’ It’ll be nice to do something besides just write stuff in our scripts, and I think I’ve played enough cards with Kaley and Caprice to last a lifetime!” She glanced at the Scrabble board, a jumble of letters that weren’t in any dictionary, and shook her head, but hadn’t really expected otherwise.

                “What about the other one?” wondered Dale.

                “Other one? Oh, you mean Aletna? She’d rather play solitaire, but with a special deck of cards. I gave up trying to understand the rules a long time ago. The others don’t see anything strange about it; I guess she must have done it during the other plays, too.”

                “I’ll save ya some dinner, ‘kay, luv?”

                “Thanks, Monty, but don’t worry about me. I’ll just raid the fridge when I get home,” she assured him quickly before closing the door after herself.

                “Everybody’s leaving,” Dale observed.

                “Who else?”

                “Chipper. He left about half an hour ago, but he wouldn’t tell me where he was going. Just that he’d miss dinner.”

                Monterey shook his head. “An’ I was makin’ me specialty tonight, the one with the cheese and marshmallows!”

                “Maybe,” Dale pointed out flatly, “they’re gettin’ out while the gettin’s good!”

                Outside, Gadget hopped into the Rangerwing and took to the sky, flying to the theatre as fast as the turboelectric engines would allow. When she arrived, the pilot executed a perfect ten-point landing and vaulted to the ground before dashing through the doors, script in hand. “Hi, everyone!” she called to the general mass of mice, squirrels, and chipmunks milling about in groups, psyching up for the first actual reading of their lines. Various cheerful greetings bounced back as she joined the other three women.

                “Hey ya!” Caprice hailed her sunnily. “Perfect timing; we just started up a new game. Join us?”

                “That again?” the recent arrival groaned. “How many games have we played?!”

                “Fourteen of ‘Go Fish,’“ Caprice counted, pulling her thick chestnut-brown braid over one shoulder as she checked a tally-marked slip of paper, “six games of  ‘War,’ eleven  of ‘Crazy Eights,’ fifteen of  ‘Kings’ Korners,’ and twenty-four games of  ‘Old Maid.’“

                “For what fate holds for me, I may as well practice,” Kaleerit added melodramatically.

                “I doubt you’ll be an old maid,” scolded Aletna with a knowing smile, as always hearing more than anyone figured for how intent she was on her cards.

                “Dost thou speak from thy Parrot cards?” Kaley teased.

                “Tarot,” the psychic corrected.

                “So that’s what they’re called!” Gadget peered at the cards with renewed interest.

                “Yep.”

                “We’re beginnin’ from the start! If yer part’s comin’, git yourselves ready!” the director bellowed.

                “Oop! That’s our cue!” Caprice informed Gadget and Aletna, setting down a hand of cards in favor of her script. “C’mon, Kaley. We’d better go listen in; our entrances aren’t far off.” With the swoosh of Kaleerit’s yellow skirts -- she wore pants as often as Gadget wore a dress -- they left Gadget and Aletna

to themselves.

                “What do you see in them?” Gadget’s logical side told her that there was no way a deck of cards could predict the future, but her curious nature wouldn’t let her rest until she explored at least a little further.

                “For you? I will check.” She flipped three cards into a triangle with the peak pointing away from her, six more into two triangles pointing toward her, another one below the peak of the lowest triangle, and seven cards upside down in a pile next to her. “This formation is called the Tree of Life. There are many less complicated, but this gives the most complete information.” She then pointed to each card, explaining its meaning to the curious onlooker.

                “Gadget?”

                “Oh! Hi, Hadrian! I didn’t see you when I came in!”

                “I did not have a chance to properly greet you. Forgive me. Your part is up next; we’re on scene three.”

                “Scene three.  .  .  scene three.  .  .  ” she murmured to herself, flipping through her playbook. “Oh! Golly! You’re right! We’d better get up there, Aletna!”

                Unbeknownst to anyone, Chip watched the proceedings from the concealment of the catwalk, and he perked up when he saw Gadget stand on the sidelines for half a minute before making her entrance. He stifled a yawn after a bit; his fellow Ranger had few lines in her first scene, and he wasn’t paying attention

to the others.  Noticing how she didn’t return to the strange card game when she was finished, the detective felt around for his binoculars without taking his eyes off his friend, but several minutes passed before there was anything important to look at. Something was coming soon, though, Chip remembered, and he dreaded it. At last, yet all too soon, she reentered the stage. Every word carried clearly to the watcher.

                “Saints do not move, though grant for prayer’s sake,” Juliet said elusively, trying not to meet Romeo’s  eyes. After a moment she risked a peek, and their gazes caught. The hand holding her playbook dropped limply to her side; the book fell softly to the floor. Everyone (even those who weren’t supposed to) became suddenly silent, intent, watching. The director stared with especial interest. The stars didn’t notice.

                “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.” As Hadrian bent to kiss her, Chip sat at rigid attention, blushing furiously. “Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg’d.”

                “Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” she contemplated softly.

                “Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg’d. Give me my sin again.”

                Oncemore he bent to her.

                “You kiss by th’book,” she apprised playfully.

                The one who portrayed Nurse ran up to the couple. “Madam, your mother craves a word with you.”

                Smiling and blushing intensely as she realized everyone’s eyes were on her, Gadget fumbled for her script, turned, and rushed to where her stage-mother waited. The room resumed action.

                “I never thought acting could be so hard!” Gadget breathed when the four girls were safely offstage.

                “De ja vu,” Aletna murmured softly. The other two nodded.

                “Why’s that?” the fourth asked.

                “Because,” Caprice smiled playfully, “that’s the exact thing your mother said after her first time through that scene. So, can we expect history to repeat itself?”

                “It’s all just acting,” she excused herself. “A stage kiss means nothing. You guys are actresses. You know that.”

                “Few are the times nothing means nothing, oft when it means something,” Kaleerit answered cryptically.

                Aletna hid her smile as she sat down and turned over one of the Tarot cards from the stack of seven she had left upside-down. Immediately she jumped up with a cry as if it had burned her, face ashen.

                “What? What is it?” the others questioned.

                Aletna could only point.

                Three pairs of eyes followed her terrified gaze, and their owners jumped back themselves when they saw what was printed on the card. None of them had enough experience with the mystic cards to be able to interpret their meanings, but anyone with eyes could get the message loud and clear from that one.

                Gadget swallowed hard. It’s just a stack of cards, she assured herself.  There’s no way a bunch of paper can predict the future.

                “The card.  .  .  of death,” Kaleerit managed to squeak out.

                “Vais ja du,” whispered Caprice. “The feeling I never want to be here again!”

                But if it’s fake, how did she know about my parents? a tiny voice in the inventor’s mind persisted. She blocked it out but could not shake the uneasy feeling. “It’s upside-down, though,” she observed hopefully. “That’s good, right?”

                “Disaster, political upheaval, revolution, anarchy. Death of a political figure. Temporary stagnation. Tendency toward inertia,” Caprice recited quietly, looked to her instructor. Aletna gave the barest of nods. Ordinarily, the dreamer would have been thrilled. For Gadget’s benefit, she added, “It’s good when it’s the right way. When it’s reversed, it’s bad.”

                I’ll never understand this game! Gadget vowed. “I- I’d better go. It.  .  .  it’s almost my part,” she excused herself before dashing to her place.

                Partially over the shock, Aletna gingerly picked up the offending card with two fingers, stuffed it in the stack with the others, wrapped the pack in a silk handkerchief, and filed the whole assortment in a box with the eternity symbol -- a sideways figure eight -- carved on the top. “Mind if I join you in a game of ‘Go Fish’?” she asked weakly.

                The others nodded. Even Kaley -- perish most supersition around her! -- couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable when that card turned up. “Sure.”

                “Drat!” Chip cursed softly as he saw the cards disappear. “I didn’t get to see what all the fuss was about!” He swung his binoculars to Gadget, now standing on a small stepladder meant to represent the balcony. She looked shaken, and her voice had lost its dreamy quality. What were they looking at?!

                The chipmunk watched as the scene ended and Hadrian rushed over to his co-star. She jumped when he laid a hand on her shoulder, and he immediately clasped her hands in his. Try as he might, Chip could not catch so much as a scrap of their conversation. The actor brushed some hair from her eyes and spoke softly. She shook her head, and he spoke again. Once more she shook her head, this time offering a weak smile and gesturing to the stage as one of the actors walked on and began talking. He said something more, and this time she nodded before sending him on his way. Gadget hurried back to her friends, who willingly dealt out another hand, starting a new game. They spoke often and laughed frequently, but Chip noticed that they remained as far from the box the fire-haired mouse had put her cards in as they could. Occasionally one would dart an apprehensive glance at it, as if expecting attack, but they otherwise studiously avoided looking at the thing.

*                              *                              *

                “How was rehearsal, luv?” Monty asked cheerfully when she stepped in the door.

                “Play any more card games?” Dale teased.

                The youngest Ranger stopped in her tracks, a stange expression on her face. “Yeah. Some.  .  .  real interesting ones.”

                “Neat-o!” Dale enthused, completely missing her tone of voice. “Did you figure out how to play that solitaire game with the weird cards?”

                “I got the general idea,” she answered carefully.

                “You feelin’ okay, luv?” Monty asked. “There’s quite a bit o’ dinner left.”

                “That’s supposed to make her feel better?” Dale wondered, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

                “What? Oh, no thanks, Monterey. I’m not real hungry,” she said dazedly as she passed through the archway to the rest of Headquarters.

                “Whaddya bet she played ‘spin-the-bottle’ a few too many times?” Monty chuckled.

                Dale had no idea what “spin-the-bottle” was, but he wasn’t about to admit ignorance. “Yeah, that’s a fun one!”

                “You’ve played it?” The mouse’s voice dripped skepticism.

                “Sure! All the time with Chip!”

                Monty could only shake his head. “Sometimes, Dale, I wonder about you.”

*                              *                              *

                “What are you writing, Caprice?” asked Gadget as she seated herself beside her friend the next day.

                Caprice jumped. “A story,” she blushed, quickly flipping the notebook cover closed.

                “Really? I didn’t know you were an author!”

                “I’m not. At least, not really. I just write little stuff. Nothing important.”

                “Oh, I doubt that. What’s your book about?”

                “It’s a love story.” She turned even more crimson.

                “Can I see?”

                “I haven’t really gotten very far...” She sounded doubtful, but handed over the notebook anyway.

                Gadget opened the book to the last page entered on and began to read silently.

            Gadget closed her eyes, reciting dramatically, “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore  art thou, Rome -- oh!” Abruptly she found that walking near the edge of a  fountain with one’s eyes closed is not a good idea. Gadget stepped heedlessly off the edge and was caught by the strong arms of another mouse.

            “Gadget!” Chip cried out in alarm as she suddenly disappeared.

            She did not hear him as she gazed into the mouse’s deep brown eyes. “I- I’m so sorry,” she blushed, breathless. “I didn’t mean to- to just.  .  .  drop in like that!”

            The mouse flashed her a smile as he set her on her feet. He was tall and thin; his hair was jet black, his fur the color of dark chocolate. He wore a loose white pirate-style shirt with full sleeves.”It is quite all right, Miss.  .  .  ” he trailed off in a thick British accent, inviting her to provide her name.

            “Gadget. Gadget Hackwrench,” she smiled. “It’s nice to meet you.” She offered to shake hands with him, but he instead brushed hers with a kiss.

                “You don’t mind, do you?” asked the author anxiously.  “I kind of took a little dramatic licence, but.  .  .  ”

                “It’s fine with me,” Gadget smiled. “It’s not going to be much of a love story, though. Hadrian and I are just friends. And your ‘dramatic licence’ wasn’t as far-fetched as you might think; I’m surprised at how accurate your beginning was.”

                “Maybe you two have ESP,” Aletna suggested.

                The conversation cut off as Alastair hollering for attention. As practice began, Aletna leaned against a nearby wall and closed her eyes; her entrance wasn’t for quite a while yet. Quickly she began to take notes on a spiralbound pad as Caprice resumed her own writing and the other two opened their playbooks to rehearse lines.

                After a bit the inventor frowned past the author to the other one, looking mysterious in yet another all-black outfit that accentuated her carrot-top hair. Gadget secretly wondered if she would ever wear anything with color in it. “What is she doing?”

                “Contacting the spirits,” Caprice informed her without looking up. “It’s not rare for her. She uses Tarot cards a lot, but for more complete answers she usually goes to a higher court.”

                “You actually understand all that?”

                She shrugged. “I’ve practically been raised on the stuff; she’s been doing it since your mother’s time, probably even before. She’s teaching me what she can, but I’m afraid I’m not exactly what you’d call a stellar student.” She giggled at her own pun. Then with a quick glance to her mentor, “Don’t listen

to her if she says otherwise. I’m far too slow.”

                “I’m sure you’re much better than you give yourself credit for, Caprice. Kaley, where were we?”

                “O swear not by the moon.  .  .  ”

                “Right. O swear not.  .  .  ” She frowned. “Do you get the feeling we’re being watched?”

                “You’re probably still a little paranoid after yesterday,” Caprice reasoned with a shiver. “I know I am.”

                “No, I’m sure someone’s watching.” Quickly she turned, and her eyes locked with Alastair’s. The director hurriedly busied himself with his script.  She shook her head to clear it and turned back to her partner. “I’m going crazy. Never mind.”

                “Don’t worry about it,” Caprice smiled, continuing to write. “You fit right in. Everyone around here is a few lines short of an act. There is no such thing as a normal actress; we’re all nuts to be in this business.”

                “That’s comforting to know,” Gadget said with a wry grin.

                “Isn’t it, though? Normal people are so boring. I wouldn’t be normal if my life depended on it.”

                “Methinks thou hast not to concern thyself with such matters.”

                Caprice swatted at her friend playfully, deliberately missing when Kaley ducked. “Keep her busy with her lines, will you? I don’t want her doing anything exciting until I get caught up in the story. I hate having things on backlog. Besides, I don’t think the practice would hurt. She’s got a honkin’ load of lines big enough to trip an elephant.”

                “To what?” Gadget’s eyebrows shot up.

                “To trip an elephant,” she repeated calmly.

                “Why would.  .  .  ? Never mind. Don’t ask something you don’t want to know.”

                “You don’t have to ask; I’ll tell you anyway, whether you want to hear it or not,” the loon offered cheerfully. “It’s a little thing I made up back who-knows-how-long ago about a doorstopper book I was reading. I believe the original saying was ‘This book’s big enough to trip an elephant if you put it in its path,’ but I’ve since shortened it a little. The animals are interchangeable; it just has to be really big.”

                Gadget shook her head. When she put her mind to it, Caprice could be as nutty as Dale!

                “Shalt return,” Kaleerit informed them, taking her leave.

                Caprice frowned at her book, tugging her braid indecisively. With a resolute nod she looked up again and took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts a moment before speaking.

                “Tell me about Mom,” Gadget implored.

                Caprice laughed. “Where should I start? There’s so much about her to tell, so many stories. Okay, there’s a beginning. Sarah loved stories, and she had a great number of  them, too. Mostly about acting, and funny things that happened to her or others on different plays. Oh, she was in so many of them, mostly lead roles.  Broadway especially, but with a voice like hers I don’t see how she could not be.”

                “Did you ever get to act with her?”

                “Only once,” she sighed. “She was the best actress that ever lived, and I would love to have done more. I was lucky to have as much as I did.”

                “What play was it?”

                “My debut: The Miracle Worker. We had a female director back then, and she naturally joined in on our ‘costume parties’ where we sat around, ate ice cream, and created characters to go along with whatever costume we pulled out of wardrobe and did little spur-of-the-moment improvisations. When she saw me she decided I was good enough to go on stage, I guess, so she picked a play with a character short enough for me to portray. She’d always wanted to direct that one, anyway. Are you familiar with it?”

                “Yes.”

                “Okay. Kaley was Kate Keller, Aletna was Annie Sullivan, and I was Helen. Sarah and Wilec came to see us on Opening Night, and they brought you.”

                “Really?”

                “Yep! They said it was your first play. Of course, you were so little you probably slept through most of it. Anyway, the three of you came to the second performance also, which was lucky because Aletna got sick. Sarah had played Annie once, it turned out, so she took over since we didn’t have understudies.” She closed her eyes, smiling at the memory. “I think that was possibly the happiest night of my life. Aletna felt better at the end of curtain call, so Sarah explained that she really had to go home, and she

wasn’t sure when she’d be able to return. When I asked if she’d ever be back, she gave me this.” Caprice had been working up her courage for this part. She removed something from her shirt and pressed it into her friend’s hand. “She told me to look at it and remember her if I ever doubted she would; it was her promise that she’d be back. She was entrusting it to me because it was one of her most prized posessions, and she knew I would take good care of it until she returned. That was the last time I saw her. At least I know now why.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Well, she won’t be back, and I want you to have it.”

                Gadget looked curiously at the object in her hand: a tiny bronze pin of the traditional drama masks. “Thank you, Caprice,” she said softly, “but I- I can’t keep this. This was a part of Mom you knew, and it’s something for you to remember that night by. She must have meant you to have it, or she would’ve come back for it.  Keep it, and think of Mom when you see it.” She placed it in her friend’s right hand and closed her fingers over it, holding the chestnut-haired mouse’s hand in her two.

                “Oh, Gadget,” she whispered, throwing her arms around her. “In a way, she kept her promise: she sent you. I’ll wear it always, and think of both of you.”

                Gadget hugged her back, then held her at arm’s length. “Now, get back to writing that story of yours. Remember, I want to see it when it’s finished.”

                “See it? I can do better than that; I’ll make you a copy!”

   “All the better!” She carefully picked up her script and gingerly opened it

to a random scene.

                “You know,” Caprice commented without looking up, “no matter how careful you are with the thing, it’s going to get all beat up anyway. It doesn’t matter; just gives your script a little personality. They all start out exactly the same, but no two are alike by the time rehearsals end!”

                Gadget pondered this wisdom a moment before Kaleerit returned; they worked on their lines together a while before deciding to study silently. Gadget read a passage, looked up to recite it in her mind a few times. Once again she glanced over at the psychic. “I wonder if she’s asking about the card. Who do you suppose it was for?” She half-expected to be reprimanded or teased that a scientific inventor would speak of Tarot cards as if they meant anything, but it appeared the others were worried, too.

                Caprice stopped writing long enough to look up at her friend with dread and pain in her eyes. Kaleerit wore the same expression. Gadget laughed nervously. “What? You don’t think.  .  .  ?”

                “Thou knowest not the whole story,” Kaleerit began.

                “Kaley!” Caprice cut in sharply.

                “What?” Gadget felt a faint sense of de ja vu.

                Hadrian strode up. “Forgive me for interrupting, ladies. Gadget, it is time for us to shine oncemore.”

                When Juliet returned alone a bit later, Caprice glanced up long enough to smile playfully at her blush. “Not much of a love story, is it?”

                The author was the shortest of the group. That she sat beside Aletna -- by far the tallest -- didn’t give her the illusion of height, either. Gadget couldn’t help but wonder why their roles hadn’t been reversed. Surely age couldn’t matter as much as height? She had to find out. Besides, it certainly wouldn’t hurt to change the subject. “Caprice, why didn’t they choose you for Juliet?”

                “Me?” she laughed. “It would have been fun, but it wouldn’t work.”

                “Why not? Did everyone think Hadrian would find someone -”

                “What? Shorter? Than me? I don’t think so. I’ll just wear thick-soled shoes the night of the performance. That or heels.” She grimaced and shook the thought away. “No, I think I’ll try stilts instead.”

                “But why didn’t they pick you since you’re shortest? That way you wouldn’t have to fuss with the stilts or whatever.”

                “To keep up tradition,” Caprice stated simply.

                “Tradition?”

                “Sure. It’s more fun, not to mention more realistic, to watch a Romeo and Juliet who are really in love.”

                So much for changing the subject. Gadget started to protest for the umpteenth time that she and her co-star were only friends when Aletna abruptly opened her eyes and turned to her comrades.

                “Do you know what it means?” the psychic questioned.

                “We have no idea,” Caprice returned. “You haven’t told us yet.”

                “Watch yourself, Gadget.”

                “Just because of one silly little piece of paper?” She knew she didn’t totally believe her own words.

                “Thou hast one habit of extreme irritation, Aletna,” Kaleerit informed her.

                “Thou thinkst we know what knowledge thy guides impart on thee.”

                “Names.” She explained, her voice so quiet they all had to lean in to hear her. “They all have meanings. Be careful, Gadget. Hadrian means ‘Dark One’ and Alastair means ‘He Seeks Revenge.’“

                “What’s in a name?” Gadget recited. “That which we call a rose by any other word would smell just as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Hadrian, doff thy name, and for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.”

                The other three raised their eyebrows sharply, and Gadget, realizing the slip of her tongue, turned a most interesting shade of pink.

                “The web is already being spun, the pattern being woven out. Gadget, take care. The Dark One’s poison is sweet, and you never know the bitter aftertaste until it is too late.”

                “But really, Aletna, what is in a name?” Gadget asked, not about to risk repeating the line and further embarrassing herself.

                “You want examples? Fair enough. Caprice means ‘Fanciful One.’ Kaleerit is ‘Speaks the Old Language.’ Your mother? Sarah means ‘One who Laughs,’ and Haley is ‘Bright’ or ‘Ingenious.’“

                “What about yours?” Caprice persisted.

                “‘Truth From Beyond’.”

                “So they all fit.” Gadget didn’t want to believe what she had heard. “My mother laughed a lot, true, and she was a great inventor, according to Dad. That doesn’t mean Hadrian -”

                “I’m not saying you have to believe me,” Aletna stated calmly. “I’m just telling you to watch your back. It only takes one time to wind up dead.  Your mother chose wisely, but it may be trouble for you.”

                Gadget frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand. Chose what? Why would -”

                Aletna cut her off with a commanding gesture. “I have said too much in a room with walls that have ears. Later, child. I will tell you when it is safer.”

                After rehearsal finished, Gadget walked distractedly to the Rangerwing. What’s so important? Why is it no one ever finishes their sentences on the topic? What could possibly be such a dangerous subject? What do my parents have to do with it? If names are more than just bunches of letters, why is Hadrian ‘Dark One’ and Alastair ‘He Seeks Revenge’? Who does he seek revenge on? For what? There are too many unanswered questions, she thought irritably. Chip would have a fit.

                Her thoughts were interrupted by the discovery of a small white flower on the pilot’s seat. Gently she picked it up to find a card underneath. The inventor absently placed the flower behind her ear and opened the little envelope. The note inside was written in an elegant calligraphy.

            Many speak of how nothing could be more sweet than the flowers of spring, but how they would find themselves mistaken to think a flower beautiful were they to meet you. Here is a flower for your beauty to shame.

            If the stars are the most beautiful things in the heavens, it is only because you are not there. Do they shine brightly? Only to those who have yet to see the sparkle in your eyes. Would that I could give you a necklace of the stars so the world could see how they are nothing compared to you.

            Does the sun create warmth shining to all? No, not to all. For me your smile could make the darkest corners light. Let them have their sun. I have something far more precious.

            Have I loved till now? Forswear it, sight. For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

                Gadget blushed and carefully put the note back in its case, and that into her pocket.

*                              *                              *

                “It’s nice to see Gadget back to normal,” Zipper remarked to Dale that night.

                “Or as normal as she’s been lately,” he responded with a frown.

                Monty, waiting out the commercials with his friends, could only smile. He had seen her dancing about Headquarters for the past hour and a half with a broom as her partner.

                Just then she literally swept by the door and up the stairs, singing a bit of Indigo Girls she had picked up from Caprice as her feet kept time to the music.

When you can fall for chains of silver

You can fall for chains of gold

You can fall for pretty strangers

And the promises they hold

You promised me everything -

You promised me thick and thin, yeah-

                “Hey, Gadget!” Dale called out.

                “Yes?” she answered, pausing long enough to peek around the door.

                “Rehearsal was good?”

                “Yep! Another day with the Nut Squad!”

                “Nut Squad?!” four voices chorused, as Chip had just come around the bend.

                “Yeah. It’s what Caprice calls our little band of actresses. Fits, too; we’ve all got our quirks. Kaleerit’s acted in so many Shakespearian plays that she talks like she’s quoting most of the time. Aletna spends her time with Tarot cards and stuff like that, and Caprice is just an all-out looney. The Nut Squad.” She shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything that could more accurately describe it.”

                “You want me to go through your lines with you?” Chip offered hopefully.

                “Sure. We can practice in my workshop; I think that’s where I left my script.”

                Monterey smiled. Maybe this would snap Chip out of the deep blue funk he’d been in since the day Gadget began rehearsals.

                 “Let’s do the balcony scene,” Chip suggested, helping his partner onto the worktable in the room’s center. They go through that scene so much on stage that I practically have it memorized. I shouldn’t sound like a complete moron trying to read the lines for that one.

                 “Okay,” she agreed, handing him her playbook. “You’ll need this.”

                “What about you?”

                The inventor shook her head. “I already have it memorized.”

                How come she has all the romantic scenes memorized? he fumed, but said nothing.

                Scarcely had the scene finished than Gadget hopped off the table.

                “Don’t you want to go through it again? Or something else?”

                “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you,” she informed Chip, looking him straight in the eyes.

                “What do you mean?” He shifted uncomfortably.

                “All you ever do lately is mope around. Chip, that’s not like you. Something’s wrong.”

                “It’s nothing,” he assured her.

                “Please, Chip,” she coaxed. “Tell me? Please?”

                “I told you, it’s nothing!” he said with a little more force than he had intended.

                Gadget jumped back, startled. She blinked a few times in surprise. “Okay,” she assented softly. “If you don’t want to talk about it, then like Hadrian says -”

                “There’s nothing to talk about!”

                “Fine! Then quit wandering around like a lost puppy! You’re not exactly helping with the team spirit,” she snapped, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Chip, I’m -”

                He didn’t let her finish. “Let me tell you about teams, Gadget.” His eyes narrowed as his voice became quiet and intent. “Teams work together. They stick together. They don’t let other things get in the way of the good of the group!”

                “And just what is that supposed to mean?” she demanded coldly.

                “This play! The stupid play! All you ever do is run around with the dumb script and memorize your idiotic lines!” he cried, slamming the playbook down on the table and pointing fiercely to it.

                “Chip, that’s not fair, and you know it.”

                “Do I? You stay up so late with rehearsals and that book that you’re walking around like more of a zombie than Dale is after he stays up with the late shows!”

                “You know that’s not true!”

                “Look at your tools! It’s been so long since you had time to invent stuff that they’re starting to collect dust! Because of your rehearsals we can’t go out looking for cases on weekends or at night!”

                “We never did that anyway!”

                “That’s beside the point!”

                “So what’s stopping you if I’m so useless?” she shot back. “Why don’t you go on without me? It sounds like you think I’m expendable anyway!”

                Chip suddenly realized how far they had gone. He knew he hadn’t meant a word he said, and he had to take it back before he dug himself in any further. “Listen, Gadget -”

                “No, Chip, you listen. Before I met you and the others, the only people in the world I knew were my parents, and not even Mom very much. I was so young when she died that I hardly remember a thing of her! This play is a chance for me to know her -- my mother, Chip! -- through her best friends. I can do something she did -- play Juliet -- and it means more to me than anything else in the world! I am not going to give it up! Not for anything, not for anyone!”

                By this time the other Rangers had been standing in the doorway quite a while, staring in disbelief. “Discussions” between Chip and Dale were routine, and quarrels between the others had come to be expected. But Chip and Gadget having it out at the top of their lungs? That never happened. Monterey knew it was high time he stepped in.

                “Time out,” he announced, separating them. “Cool down, you two, before you say anything else.”

                Chip ignored him. “Gadget, you don’t understand -”

                “I understand perfectly. Now if you’ll excuse me, O Righteous and Exalted Leader,” she finished icily, eyes flashing infuriation as she did a crisp one-eighty to stalk indignantly out the door.

                “Wait!” Chip called, but she paid him no heed.

                “Gadget,” Dale pleaded as he watched her march away.

                She turned briefly, azure eyes bright with unspilled tears. With a gasp they overflowed; she hid her face in her hands and took flight down the hall.

                “I’d better go talk to her,” Chip sighed, following.

                Monterey, Zipper, and Dale blocked the door leading to the hall. “You’ve done enough, mate,” Monty growled.

                “Yeah,” the little fly piped up.

                Dale advanced on his fellow Ranger. “Why’d ya have to yell at her like that?” he demanded. “You know how sensitive Gadget is! You know how easy she cries! You had to go an’ exag- exag- make everything sound worse than it is!”

                “Exaggerate?” Zipper offered.

                “Thank you. What he said!”

                Chip looked absolutely miserable. He turned his gaze to Monty. “Monterey,

talk to her? Please? She’ll listen to you, if no one else.”

                “I think it’s a right dirty thing you did, but I’ll go. For Gadget’s sake,” he added harshly, making his loyalties on the whole matter as clear as possible, then turned to Dale and Zipper. “Keep him out of trouble, ‘kay, mates?”

                They nodded, and Chip felt the ironic sting of the situation. Usually Dale was the one in need of baby-sitting.

                Monterey Jack found the door to Gadget’s room half-open; he padded in as softly as his heavy build would allow. The room’s occupant was too busy throwing everything she owned into a bag to notice him.

                “We’re going home now, Dad, that’s where. No, Mom, I won’t forget to take my tools. Or my script. I’m just going to wait until Chip’s out of my workshop before I get them. If I never see him again it’ll be too soon,” she spoke over her shoulder to a pair of framed photographs on her dresser, dashing a T-shirt into her bag for emphasis on the last sentence. She briskly ran the back of her hand over her eyes to clear away a fresh pair of tears.

                “Luv!” Monty exclaimed in shock. “What’re ya doin’?!”

                “Packing, Monty. I’m quitting the Rangers since I don’t seem to be of any use to certain unnamed chipmunks who made it quite clear that it was either quit the play or leave the Rangers, and there’s no way I’m dropping out of the cast.”

                “But where’ll you go? What’ll you do?”

                “I’ll drop my stuff off back home, maybe try Broadway for a while. Once Romeo and Juliet is done, of course.”

                “Broadway?!”

                “Sure! Mom did it, so I thought I’d give it a try. What’ve I got to lose, right? Why not?” she said bravely with a weak smile, and quickly turned back to her packing.

                Monty caught her by an arm on the next trip across the room. She studied the floor, but he tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “You know that’s not whatcha really want, luv.” Her eyes brimmed with new tears, and he wrapped her in a strong embrace, holding her close. “Oh, Gadget. Shhh, now, luv. It’s all right. Everything’s gonna be fine,” he crooned, stroking her hair as if she was a child. The awkwardness he had felt around her the first few months had long since vanished; Gadget took things very much to heart, and she usually turned to the eldest Ranger for comfort. True, she almost always got over it rather quickly, but it could just about break a person’s heart to see her unhappy.

                “Oh, Monty,” she sobbed. “I thought I was helping as much as I always do!”

                “You are, luv, an’ in any event, I don’t think that’s what’s got ol’ Chipper so edgy.”

                “Then what?” Gadget looked up at him with pain-filled eyes. “It’s something, but he won’t talk to me about it, Monterey. Why?”

                The Aussie knew he was treading a fine line. He could see why Gadget was so hurt; she could never stand to see someone troubled. If they didn’t come to her first, she went to them. Her gentle coaxing usually got everything out in the open. Never before had she met with a reaction like Chip’s, so fiercely defiant. On the other hand, he also knew what he suspected -- that Chip’s mood was due to Hadrian’s domin-ating presence in Gadget’s life -- was not for him to tell. “He’s real touchy with everybody lately. You jus’ don’t pay him any mind. Little things set him off. It’s not your fault.”

                “Thanks, Monty,” she smiled, giving him a final squeeze before going over to her bag. “I guess I should unpack now, shouldn’t I?”

                “Can’t it wait till after dinner?”

                I never thought I’d be thankful for Monterey Jack’s cooking, she marveled.  “Okay,” she agreed, and he shepherded her out ahead of him.  Gadget only got to the door before Chip appeared. She unconsciously backed into Monty, who put his hands protectively on her shoulders and glared at Chip over her head. If he said so much as one thing wrong, the detective knew he could expect to be burnt at the stake right then and there. And I’d deserve it, too, he reminded himself grimly.

                “I’m really sorry for what I said earlier,” he apologized humbly. “I didn’t mean a word of it. I don’t know where it came from, but I shouldn’t have yelled at you for something you never did. I’ve just been a little on edge lately, I guess, and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

                “It’s okay.” She held out her hand timidly.  “Friends?”

                “Friends,” Chip agreed readily, taking it firmly with a grin.

                “Now, let’s get down to dinner,” Monterey suggested, glad to see things back to rights between them.

*                              *                              *

eeks later, the soft sound of feet hurrying down stairs made Chip perk up from his book of Sure-Luck Jones stories. It was unusual that such a faint sound would disrupt him while reading his favorite tales, but even they could only half-hold his attention lately.

                That’s strange, he mused. No one ever goes down the stairs; everybody always takes the slide. Even stranger was the rustle of- “Gadget!” he gasped.

                The other three looked up to see the lone female Ranger float into the conference room with a smile. Zipper let out a wolf-whistle, and Dale fell off his chair from where he and Zip had been listening to one of Monty’s tall tales.

                Monterey smiled like a proud parent. “Yer dad should see ya now!”

                “You- you’re in a dress, Gadget!” Chip stammered. He felt like his eyes were about to fall out of his head. That has got to be the most stupid overstatement of the obvious in the history of the world!

                The boys were not overreacting. The gown was an off-the-shoulder style with floor-length skirts that puffed out slightly and a tight bodice decorated by silver embroidery. The whole outfit, including the ribbon in her for-once done-up hair, was a beautiful shade of pale blue that brought out the color of her eyes. She had even doffed her goggles for the occasion.

                “You like it?” she blushed.

                The spectacle of Gadget in such beautiful clothes still had the detective slightly off guard. “You never wear dresses! I didn’t even know you had one besides that red thing you wore as a costume on a few of our cases!”

                “Well, I don’t. Not really. Caprice helped me look through the costume room -- wardrobe,” she corrected herself firmly, “after dress rehearsal today, and we found this. It’s the one Mom wore the night Dad proposed to her. I guess she didn’t have any either. As for never wearing dresses, well, Hadrian said

pants would definitely not work tonight. In any event, he said it would look good on me.”

                “This might be the only time Hadrian and I ever agree on anything,” Chip commented half to himself. She never wore a dress for me! But then, he painfully noted that although they were friends again, Gadget had seemed slightly distant after he lost his temper with her.

                Three sharp knocks prevented Gadget from hearing him.

                “I’ll get it, luv,” Monty grinned. “You go half-way up the steps. It’s tradition for the girl not to be ready when her boyfriend comes.”

                “But he’s not my boyfriend! I mean, he’s a boy, and he’s my friend, so I guess that makes him my boyfriend in one respect, but I don’t mean it in the way you mean it.  .  .  I mean- Wait, no, he’s my boy friend, not my boyfriend, that is, a friend that’s a boy but not romantically attached, I mean -”

                Monterey rolled his eyes slightly. He loved the girl dearly, as much as he would his own daughter, but sometimes.  .  .  He reminded himself that she couldn’t help it, that she was just extemely bright (if a little naieve) and her brain was on perpetual overdrive. He spoke loud enough to override her, “Gadget luv, just go upstairs. It makes for a better entrance.”

                And I thought actresses were supposed to be over-dramatic!  “Oh, Monty! Just answer the door!”

                Monterey did as he was bidden. “Hadrian! What a surprise!”

                Dale clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing.  Zipper rolled his eyes, and Chip groaned.

                “Hadrian!” she gasped, taking an unconscious step backward at the sight of him in a black tux. “You- you look great!” Monterey, who had in the meantime gone to stand behind his fellow Ranger, gently pushed her forward.

                “‘She doth teach the torches to burn bright,’“ Hadrian quoted, offering a small box with a bow attached.

                Hesitantly she accepted it and slowly opened the lid to remove the contents: a beautiful corsage of one perfect pink rosebud and a cluster of baby’s breath. “Oh! It’s so pretty!”

                It was all Chip could do to stay seated, fingers digging into the seat of the couch as Hadrian helped his date attach the corsage, then took her hands in his. “Come, let’s away.” She took his arm and swept out the door with him.

                Once outside, Gadget looked worriedly at the Rangerwing. She had not thought of how to vault up to the wing, then into the pilot’s seat in a dress.  That sort of thing was why she never wore one. It appeared her companion had other ideas, though, when he helped her descend the tree to meet a buggy-type vehicle harnessed to a golden retriever. After helping her in Hadrian seated himself next to his love and instructed the driver to start off.

                Not long after a romantic Italian dinner by candle-light, Gadget found herself on the roof of the tallest building in the city. Almost everything was visible from that point: the park the Rangers called home, the precinct house across the way from their oak tree, the shining bay, the thousands of stars above. “It’s so beautiful,” she sighed, feeling safe in his arms as the breeze ruffled her hair.

                “Gadget,” Hadrian began, turning her to face him, “you are the most beautiful lady I have ever met in my life. You are smart, and charming, and warm, and a thousand things I do not think I could ever name. Most of all, you are you. I love you more than anyone or anything else that is, ever was, or ever will be.” He knelt before her and slipped a diamond ring over a finger on her left hand. “Gadget Hackwrench, will you marry me?”

                Gadget caught her breath a moment. It was something that happened in fairy stories to beautiful princesses, not to normal people. Not to logical inventors who lived with the same people they worked with. Certainly not to her. Yet, somehow, it was real. It all seemed so removed. There was only one reply she could possibly give him. Softly, in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, she said, “Yes.”

                He rose and swept her up in a kiss she knew was for her, as, she realized, were all those that she had passed off on acting. Perhaps he is my boyfriend, wandered the errant thought across her mind as she closed her eyes. When they parted Hadrian flipped on a descretely placed radio. Together they danced under stars that seemed to smile down on them.

                Blissfully late, Hadrian delivered her to her door.  He brushed her gently oncemore with a kiss before leaving without a word.

                Gadget entered Headquarters in a daze, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it. She smiled brightly, heart a-flutter as she twisted the ring on her finger. The TV was occupying the boys. Maybe she could slip by unnoticed.  .  .

                Darn! she thought as it hit a commercial break.

                “I’ll go get us some popcorn, ‘kay, mates?”

                “All right!” Dale and Zipper enthused. Chip shrugged.

                Monterey vaulted the sofa as he yelled, “Time me!”

                “Gotcha!” Dale called back. He pushed a couple buttons on the watch Gadget had made him for his last birthday. Why the chipmunk had wanted a watch, especially one with a timing feature, had been beyond her. He never cared what time it was anyway. Finally she understood. “On your mark! Get set!”

                “Hey, you’re back, luv! Have a nice time? There’s a great movie on; wanna finish the show with us?” the oldest asked, finally spotting her.

                “Um, no thanks, Monty. I think I’ll just -”

                “Well lookie what we have here!” he grinned, taking her hands in his. “It don’t take a rocket scientist to figure this one out! Oh, me little Gadget’s all grown up!” He hastily brushed away a tear and wrapped her in a strong hug. After a time, he held her at arm’s length.

                “You’re really getting married?” Dale gasped, his eyes as big as the UFOs on the movie he had been watching.

                She nodded, her smile brightening even more.

                Chip could only stare at the diamond ring and wonder how it was possible that a perfectly logical chipmunk such as himself could hate a rock so fervently.

                “So,” Monty asked, “what’re ya gonna do first?”

                “Take off this dress!” she laughed, although she knew she would wear it again in a minute if Hadrian pleased. She hated dresses. Strange what love can do to a person’s mind. “It’s a wonder I haven’t tripped over it yet!  S’cuse me.” She hiked up her skirts sprinted for the stairs. Seconds later they heard the door to her room close.

                “I’ll get the popcorn,” Dale volunteered. “C’mon, Zip.”

                “You okay, Chippo?” Monty wondered gently, placing a strong hand on his shoulder when the others were gone.

                “I guess,” he sighed, gazing after his heart’s desire. “It’s just.  .  .  ”

                “Listen, I know you love her, but.  .  .  ”

                “Why can’t she see that?” he demanded, plopping himself down hard on the couch. “I was going to tell her on the way home from the show that night.  And then Hadrian came and.  .  .  I thought it would all blow over by morning!  But it didn’t. It- well, look for yourself. She’s engaged. If only I hadn’t needed to ask that one stupid question before I told her! Why do I have to be so curious?! I always knew I loved her -- from the first second I saw her I knew she was the one! -- but I never realized how much until now. And what good does it do me? None. I’ve lost her.”

                Monty knew sympathy -- although he had a ton of it for his buddy -- would do no good here. There was only one way out for Chip. “Didja see the stars in her eyes?”

                “Yeah. They weren’t for me.”

                “She’s happy, me bucko, happier than she’s been in a long time. She’s in love. Don’t put those stars out, mate. If you really love her, let her go.”

                Chip sighed. He knew his friend was right, but...

                “Run for it, Zip! She’s gonna blow!” they heard Dale yell.

                An explosion of epic proportions emitted from the kitchen. The two Rangers looked at each other. “Oh, no! We let Dale in the kitchen!” they groaned in one voice before dashing off.

*                              *                              *

                At almost one in the morning the leader of the Rescue Rangers crept down the hall on his way to the kitchen for a midnight refrigerator raid. After all, a person can only stand so much of Monterey’s cooking. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. A line of light shone on the floor before him. He turned to face its source, Gadget’s room, and knocked softly. “Gadget?”

                No answer.

                “Gadget, are you awake?”

                When still no reply came, the detective opened the door a crack to peek in.

                Apparently she had gotten the same idea as Chip, for a tray of assorted munchies scrounged from the “forbidden fridge” was on the floor.  Gadget sat next to it, leaning against the bed with her head bowed like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

                Softly Chip padded in and gently removed the script from her hands. “You shouldn’t be up so late before Opening Night,” he scolded quietly as he pulled back the covers to her bed. Trying hard not to wake her, Chip tenderly scooped the sleeping inventor up in his arms. He held her a minute, closing his eyes and burying his face in her soft golden hair, pretending everything was like it used to be. He wanted to stay like that forever, for when the moment ended Chip knew he would never get it back, never hold her like that again.

                Gadget sighed in her sleep, placed her right hand over his heart. It’s a wonder you can’t feel it breaking, Chip mused sadly.

                If you really love her, let her go. The words Monterey Jack had spoken mere hours ago floated through the detective’s mind. He lovingly placed her in bed and covered her with the thick quilt. “‘Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow.  .  .  ’” I don’t think I ever really understood what that meant until now.  With a soft click he turned out her bedside lamp.

                She stirred, seemed to wake for a moment; Chip held his breath. “‘That I shall say good night till it be morrow.’ Good night, Hadrian. I love you.”

                “I love you, too, Gadget,” he whispered, taking her hand in his. No sense in telling her she addressed the wrong person, just so long as she was happy. He brushed some wisps of hair from her eyes and gazed at her a moment, biting back tears as the moonlight’s crystal purity streamed in the window to shimmer on her flowing tresses, play across her face as a soft smile lit her beautiful features. She looked so peaceful and innocent, like an earth-bound angel.  .  .  how was she to know a  heart was breaking over her? She’ll never find out if I can help it. She’s too sensitive. She’d feel sorry for me. I want her to be happy. “I don’t care who you marry, Gadget. I’ll always love you.” He brushed her hand with a kiss, pulled the covers a little more snugly over her, and tiptoed back to the room he shared with Dale, midnight raid forgotten.

*                              *                              *

                “I,” Gadget announced in the voice of someone who knows exactly what is coming, “am going to die.”

                “Oh, you’re exaggerating,” Caprice laughed. “You weren’t this nervous Opening Night.” When the other three looked at her like she was even more nuts than usual, she added, “Okay, maybe you were.”

                “Mayhap?” Kaleerit questioned, raising one eyebrow.

                “Okay, okay, so she was even more nervous than she is now.  But as I recall, she had something else to keep her mind occupied,” she added slyly, smiling with remembrance at how her fellow actress had bounced into the greenroom Opening Night with a grin to shame the Cheshire Cat’s and proclaimed, “Guess what?” No one had actually needed to guess; their eyes were sharp, and all three of them had descended on her in a flock when they spotted her engagement ring. Not that the ring was easy to miss; with a rock that size, how could it be?

                “Art thou, per chance, referring to thy death scene?”

                Gadget closed her eyes and sank into a chair.

                “Hey, hey, hey,” Caprice soothed, standing behind her to put both hands on her friend’s shoulders. “Look, it’s stagefright. It passes. It’s usually the worst on Opening and Closing Nights. C’mon. You know it goes away once you get out there.”

                “Speaking of acting, has Hadrian seemed a little strange to you lately?” she questioned, turning around in her chair.

                “Lately?” Aletna asked.

                “Like how?” frowned Caprice.

                “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that.  .  .  well.  .  .  since the night after Opening Night Hadrian’s been.  .  .   strange. The look in his eyes. Like he’s battling something. He alternately avoids and hovers over me and won’t go anywhere near Alastair or even look at him. He won’t say anything to me.  .  .  do any of you know?”

                “Nay,” Kaley said.

                “Something’s not right,” Letti voiced, stiffening.

                Gadget looked over to her. She was the only one whose hair was fixed, and to the inventor it still seemed just as strange to see the psychic with her

hair done up as it was to see the other two with their hair down.  “What’s not

right?”

                “Nothing,” she amended quickly. “I can’t explain.  Something about all this just doesn’t seem right.”

                “It’s probably just with performances and everything,” Gadget’s stage-mother assured her, auburn highlights shimmering as she tossed her waist-length tresses, wavy from all the time they spent in a braid, over her shoulder.  “Everyone acts funny during the running time.”

                “What about you guys?” Gadget asked. “You three -- and most of the other actors -- are calm as ever!”

                “We’re every bit as nervous as you are, Gadget. We just have better practice at covering it up.” Caprice gave her friend’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “After tonight everything will go back to normal. Trust me.”

                “I suppose you’re right.” Mollified, Gadget stood and went to the bar supporting various costumes the girls would need. She smiled slightly; if Caprice was right, Hadrian might pick her up and twirl her around the stage like he had done Opening Night right before Tammy, Foxglove, and the Rangers had rushed onstage to congratulate her. She pushed the thought from her mind; there were more immediate concerns demanding her attention. After shuffling through a few outfits she pulled out an ornately embroidered navy blue gown. “I’d better change; it’s not long until showtime.”

                “And I’d better water these poor flowers,” Caprice noted, stroking a vase sympathetically.

                “No wonder they look so bad if they’re drinking greenroom water,” Aletna muttered under her breath as the second-youngest left, then smiled to herself. “Caprice worried about the flowers even before The Miracle Worker, when she got her first bouquet.”

                “Strange to think I knew Caprice then,” Gadget mused.

                “Thou were but a babe, scarce able to speak more than a word at a time,” Kaley excused.

                “As I remember it, your first act of friendship was to prove to poor ‘Capsie,’ as you called her, the need for some advancement on the leakage protection in diapers,” the tallest recalled, her customary solemn expression losing some of its restraint. “It’s a good thing she wasn’t wearing her costume.”

                Juliet blushed fiercely as she asked the question she’d been wanting to for a long time. “You weren’t really sick on the second showing of The Miracle Worker, were you, Aletna?”

                The other two looked surprised and a little guilty. “No, I wasn’t. It was the one thing Caprice wanted more than anything on earth, to have Sarah play Annie beside her, so Kaley, Sarah, and I planned a way to make her dream come true. Don’t tell her. She doesn’t know. It doesn’t hurt her to believe as she

does.”

                “She’s a little quixotic in that respect, isn’t she. Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret,” Gadget promised, then stroked her script a bit forlornly. Alastair’s foul-smelling cologne had long since vanished, but the playbook was now looked as if it had been through one of the Rangers’ more active cases. Juliet’s entrances were dog-eared for easy location, her lines highlighted, and every available inch of margin space on those pages filled with penciled-in notes on blocking, tone of voice, warnings for tricky wording, and a hundred other things to the point that it almost contained more pencil than printing press ink. The poor thing was a sorry sight, but Gadget loved it all the more for the memories it had gained along the way. “I just wish Mom and Dad could be here.”

                “Thou needst not a talisman to bring them hither.”

                “What do you mean, Kaley?”

                “She’s right, Gadget,” Caprice agreed as she walked in and began to fill the porcelain pitcher she had borrowed from the set of Juliet’s chamber.  “The theatre is a Magickal place.  You see, when someone acts in this theatre -- or any theatre, I suppose -- a part of that person is left behind to haunt the stage. The memories here never leave. Everything ever said or felt here is somehow trapped in time. I’ve seen them. When the stage is deserted, the phantom figures open the doors from their realms and come back to reenact their favorite memories. It’s especially easy to find keyholes after a show because the actors and actresses crack the door to watch, and it gets them in the mood.”

                Aletna nodded. “When you’ve been on the stage once, you’ll always want to go back for more. It’s part of the Magick. It somehow gets into your blood.”

                “You three have found the key. What is it? How do I unlock the door?”

                “It’s not something you find. It’s something you have.” Caprice took Gadget’s hands in hers and pressed them to her heart. “In here. Only those who believe can unlock the doors.  Do you?”

                Gadget nodded.

                “Then thou hast the key. Thy kin shalt see thou this night, and they shalt make things right.”

                “Just watch,” the chestnut-haired mouse smiled. “I bet they’ll come out and do a special performance of the balcony scene just for their daughter.”

                ndeed, the stage seemed to be protected by a guardian angel, for all went well until the break right before act four.

                Somebody has forgotten to refill the poison vial after last night’s performance,” Hadrian noted.

                No big deal. I’ll just go fill it,” Gadget said simply, taking the bottle.

                It is quite all right, my love. I will go fill it for you.”

                “It’s no big deal, Hadrian!” she laughed. “I’m not helpless, you know. I can make it to the greenroom and back to fill up a bottle.”

                “Oh, but water in the greenrooms tastes so horrible!” he added hastily.

                “So I’ll act without it.” *Since when has he ever been nervous? He didn’t even blink on Opening Night!* “No one will ever know. It’s not like it ends up spilt on the floor or anything.”

                “Nonsense. I will just go fill it for you.”

                “I thought you said the water tastes awful.”

                “It.  .  .  it does. I.  .  .  will just fill it with Coo-Coo Cola.  I have some in the dressing room. I shall fetch it.”

                “Hadrian, I don’t need.  .  .  drat. He’s gone. What is with him anyway?” she wondered aloud.

                In a moment he returned. “Here you are, my treasure.  No matter what happens, know that I love you.” He gave her a quick kiss and hurried to the other side of the stage.

                Hadrian, what -? Wait! Hadrian!” He did not so much as turn, and she put the bottle on the table. With hands on her hips, she frowned after him. “It’ll all be different after the play,” she repeated a few times, fussing with the props. Without realizing it she twisted her engagement ring so forcefully it almost hurt, and she looked down at it.  It was larger than she would have picked, bordering on gaudy, but it was the thought that counted.

                 “Gadget!”

                She turned to smile at Temlyhin, a tall squirrel she had spent much time with when the rest of the Nut Squad was busy. He had played Mercutio in the first production, and his friendship with the Romeo then had gone past the stage. For the second time around he had changed houses and was married to Caprice on stage.

                Hi! You’re doing great as usual out there,” she complimented.

                Thanks. You too,” he returned, flashing her a grin.  “I’m curious as to what this huge surprise is.”

                Surprise? I never heard about a surprise.”

                Honestly, I don’t think I was supposed to, either. I heard Al muttering to himself about what a wonderful death scene you’re going to put on for us. I’ve seen Juliet’s lines a thousand times from both you and your mother, so I was just wondering what this whole surprise is supposed to be. You must be in

on it, but if you can’t tell me I’ll understand.”

                Gadget laughed. “It’s no secret. I’m just not going to sneeze is all.”

                The squirrel shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

                On Closing Night last time around, when my parents were acting, Mom sneezed when she was supposed to be dead. I’m surprised Alastair would make such a big deal of it.”

                “But.  .  .  that never happened.”

                “What?”

                “It never happened. Your mother looked as dead as she possibly could without actually killing herself every time.  If something like that happened, I’d remember.”

                “Four minutes until curtain! Four minutes until curtain!” a chipmunk in Shakespearian garb ran by calling to anyone within earshot, and paused at Gadget for a moment. “Tell the other girls, okay? Thanks. Places! Places! Four minutes to act four!”

                “I’d better go warn the others,” she said, starting off.

                “Wait,” Temlyhin called. Gadget turned back. “I really hate to ask, but Al got thirsty and sent me to get something for him. The water in the guys’ greenroom tastes horrid, so I was wondering if the stuff in the ladies’ dressing room was any better.”

                “I wouldn’t know,” Gadget replied honestly. “I’ve never tried it. Anyway, you’d better get back to him before curtain.” As she searched around for something that would serve as a beverage, her eyes landed on the poison vial. Quickly she emptied its contents into the cup her friend carried. “It’ll have to do. I hope he doesn’t mind Coo-Coo Cola; it’s all there was.”

                “Don’t you need it for the show?”

                “I’ll fake it. I’ve got to go tell the girls it’s showtime, okay?”

                “Right. Break a leg, Juliet!”

                “Thanks. You too, Dad!” She dashed into the greenroom with tidings of the approaching deadline to find one actress curling her hair and another trying to button up the back of the dress belonging to the third, who was touching up her stage makeup.  Upon receiving the news all three yelped in panic.

                Aletna, the first done, peered into the vial the messenger was still holding to see only a few drops remaining. “Here. I packed a thermos of water because the stuff in here tastes so dreadful.” She paused a moment. “On the other hand, if you drank the greenroom water it’d be easier for you to act poisoned.  .  .”

                “Thanks.” Scarcely had Gadget refilled the container than she sat down, shaking. “I- I can’t do this.”

                “What, ladybird? What, love? Art smitten with stage-fright?” Kaley inquired.

                “The death scene?” Caprice asked, and Gadget nodded, turning extremely pale. “It’s the monologue, isn’t it? You’ll do fine. You’ve gotten it perfect every show we’ve done, okay?”

                “I don’t think it’s my lines, but even if it was I can’t remember a single one of them. You know them, Caprice. You’ve got to cover for me.”

                “I can’t. We’re in some of the same scenes together. Besides, I think the audience would get confused if a formerly-blonde Juliet suddenly turned brunette. I don’t think many women got dye-jobs back then. Pull yourself together, Gadget; we only have about a minute until you have to get back out there.”

                This reminder of their impending doom produced a fresh cry from the others and a groan from Gadget.

                “Art adorned by thy pendant?” Kaleerit asked.

                “Of course!” The pendant was an iniation rite among the actresses. On

                Opening Night of the actress’s first performance there, the other girls got her a small pendant. Aletna’s was a yin-yang suspended by a black satin cord; Kaleerit’s was a triangular brown, black, and white agate fastened to crocheted brown yarn by a small ring on the top point; and Caprice’s was a flat piece of jade carved into a horse’s head and neck with sketchy details added in, hung on a gold chain.  Gadget’s was two silver dolphins encircling a mottled blue and green sphere of azurmalachite, held up by a cord like the red-head’s. Aletna had explained that the stone combination gave protection and the dolphins imparted tranquility.

                “If you get nervous or scared, just rub the pendant and remember that you’ll do fine. It’s what I always do, and it’s never failed,” Caprice smiled.

                “Just relax and let your lines come,” Aletna instructed as they all hustled out the door.

                “Ten seconds to curtain!”

                “Another makeover accomplished just in time, Nut Squad,” Lady Capulet congratulated.

                “Art thou not an actress? Act! Act that thou art not frightened out of thy wits!” Kaleerit instructed Gadget as everyone took their places.

                “Break an arm!” Caprice called to her.

                “What?!” the inventor returned in astonishment; it was not the customary expression.

                She shrugged. “We’re running out of legs!”

                With a moan at the bad joke, Gadget ran to where Friar Laurence waited with Paris and gave the poison vial to the former. Both gave her smiles and encouraging words, which she returned. She looked around at the cast and crew members with fondness. They were like a big family, everyone pulling together for a common cause, the play. They all had a special bond born of long hours of rehearsing, of mistakes and corrections, of joy and frustration, of practically living together while the play was in production.  Everybody looked out for one another both on stage and off, and she knew if she fell, someone would be there to catch her. Fear abated, the actress took a deep breath and concentrated on becoming Juliet, on feeling as Juliet would. Presently the audience grew hushed, and the curtain began to rise.  .  .

*                              *                              *

                With a satisfied sigh Gadget strode from the greenroom.  She had never been partial to makeup and only wore it when absolutely necessary for a case. The thick layer essential to keep actors and actresses from looking pale under the harsh glare of stage lights did not agree with her in the least.  Now that she was rid of the awful stuff, she felt much better. The other girls were busy taking their costumes off. Gadget would have been similarly occupied had she not forgotten something onstage. As it was, she intended to get what she needed and rejoin the Nut Squad as soon as possible; dresses really were not her style, and Juliet’s funeral shroud was a little morbid, besides.

                Now what was I up here for? I’ve completely forgotten! Oh, well. I’ll just go back and someone will probably ask if I found whatever it was.

                Forgetting something important did not bother the actress much. Not only was she used to it, but she had other things to keep her mind on. Reasons to be happy. The play was over and she could quit being nervous. There was, too, the prospect of getting things with her fiance back to normal.  But another part of her was sad when she realized the play had ended, forever. Forever is such a long time. She stopped abruptly.

                Everything was silent. Not a living soul moved, not a voice murmured, not a curtain rustled. She had never been alone on the stage before, in the eerie stillness. Unknowingly she stepped back, apprehensively twisting the diamond ring on her left hand. She felt someone’s eyes on her. Okay, Hadrian. You’re planning something romantic, right? I’ll play along.  “‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?’“

                Nothing answered but the pressing silence.

                She frowned, then brightened. All right, so you’re waiting on the other side of the curtain. Gadget confidently strode to the cheery red curtain and peeked around one edge. “‘O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou...  Romeo?’” she quoted again; the last word was quiet, tentative, almost a whisper.

                The only response was her own voice echoing off the vastness of the empty theatre, bouncing off every wall, every empty chair, mocking her as it repeated and faded.

                “Romeo?... Romeo?.... Romeo?..... Romeo?.....”

                Were the seats really empty? The eyes still watched, more intently now. Following her every move, wait-ing for something to happen.  .  . to her.  .  .

                Gadget fiercely shook her head to exorcise the feeling and pulled away from the curtain. Something was not right. Everything was dead silent. The urge to run seized her, but she forced herself to remain calm. Stop being so silly. It’s only your imagination. Just a hallucination caused by all the stress.

What’s the first thing Chip taught you? Don’t panic. She ran one hand through her hair in agitation.

                Then, ever so softly, came the reply. “Herefore I art!”

                Her eyes widened, and she eagerly looked past the curtain to the empty auditorium. The voice was familiar -- oh, so dearly familiar! -- but not Hadrian’s. It had not spoken in endless years, silenced forever; she would never hear it again save to haunt her dreams.

                A musical laugh rang out like bells. That, too, she recognized, though more distantly. “Ay, me.”

                “She speaks. O speak again bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being o’er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.”

                The actress gazed around with tears in her eyes, trying to locate the voices’ origin so she could go to them. She no longer wanted it to be Hadrian, just the people the voices belonged to. It had only been a halfvictory, playing the part of Juliet. It was nice to be told how well she lived up to Sarah Haley’s reputation, but what good was it without her parents there to see? She wanted her family there to say they were proud of her, their little girl. Her family together was such a dim memory, captured in snatches of happy

moments and faded with age. A small part of her argued that this was impossible; they were dead. No! They’re here, and they’re going to stay. Forever.  We’ll be a family again. A real family.  .  .

                How often had she stayed awake all night after her father died, talking to their photographs, afraid if she dozed off she would be unable to remember what they looked like when she woke up, terrified she would forget the sound of their voices? She still did sometimes, though not nearly as often.  She had gotten used to being an orphan, at least as much as anyone ever adjusts to that sort of thing, but no one ever manages to banish sadness completely. It seemed so many times -- times like right now -- the pain she felt, the emptiness, would never go away, never heal.  And if it did, would she have anything left to hold?

                She inevitably drifted into fitful dreams -- even after moving into Headquarters -- and woke with a scream that turned to a sob. She cried herself back to sleep with no one to tell her it would be all right although she knew it never would be. Monterey tried, she knew he did, but he could never replace family, never replicate the safety and comfort she always found when her father pulled her up on his lap, holding her close until her tears stopped.

                How many nights had she kept such vigils? Endless nights, nights without number, more nights than she wanted to remember, and all about to end if she could only find where the voices were coming from!

                True, she had few memories of her mother. In one, a lullaby carried her off to sleep as Sarah cradled her in loving arms. Even as she remembered, the voices stopped. The elfin one began the familiar tune.  .  .

Hush, my darling, don’t cry,

Hush, my darling, no tears.

In my arms, peacefully lie,

Wish away all your fears.

Now dreams so sweet,

Like stars shine bright,

In dreams, we meet,

In dark, you’re my light.

We will never part,

Forever, my heart.  .  .

                Never to part.  .  .  the one promise Sarah had been unable to keep.

                Gadget scrubbed vigorously at her eyes. “Mom! Dad!” she cried, but it came out a whisper.

                No one answered.

                “Mom? Dad?”

                Still no response. Gadget began to feel uneasy again.  Why had they not answered?

                “Please?”

                She realized the eyes were watching again. Heavy footsteps sounded behind her.

                “Bonza show as usual, luv!” a voice congratulated.

                She fought down a scream as she whirled around to find Monterey Jack with Zipper beside him. Somehow she managed to reply in a mostly level voice, “Thanks.”

                “Are you okay?” Zipper asked with a frown.

                Monty took her hands in his, about to say something, but cut himself  off before he began. She’s so cold!

                She smiled up at him, but Zip and Monterey painfully noted the fogginess of her gaze. “Of course I’m fine.” She paused a moment, debating, and finally added uncertainly, “You heard them, didn’t you?”

                “Who?” Zip questioned.

                “Mom and Dad. They did the balcony scene for me like when I was little. And Mom sang that lullaby like she used to.  .  .  Santa was right.  .  .  he brought me my wish after all.  .  .  ”

                “Come sit down,” the Australian beseeched, putting his arm around her shoulders and leading her to the nearest available place that would serve as a bench. “You look kinda pale.  .  .  ”

                “It’s just the lights,” she assured him gently.  “Stage lights make everyone look like a ghost.” For an instant she wavered, then the older mouse caught her as consciousness slipped through her grasp.

                “Zipper, find Chip! Hurry!”

                With a snappy salute Zipper flew off.

                Monterey rushed Gadget to the set of Juliet’s chamber and laid her tenderly on the bed. Gadget often talked to her parents’ photographs and imagined their responses, he knew, but something told him her hearing their voices was more than wishful thinking. Something told him this was urgent. “C’mon, Gadget luv, open your eyes,” he pleaded, pressing one of her hands between his two.  It was only about half the size of Monty’s, as always, but now its smallness alarmed him.

                Chip dashed up, looking as if he had sprinted from the uppermost balcony. Biting back his heart’s cry at seeing his love so deathly white in Juliet’s funeral shroud, he turned to Monty. “What happened?”

                “Dunno, mate. She was fine a couple o’ minutes ago,” he explained, worry filling eyes as green as Aletna’s. One corner of his mind recalled something like this happening before. Sarah Haley? it suggested. No! he fought back, not wanting to remember, for acknowledgement might cause the worst. Not again!  She’ll be fine!

                Hastily the chipmunk rested a hand on her forehead. She was so white compared to his chocolate-brown paw.  .  .  ! No fever.  .  .  He moved it to encircle her wrist, counting her pulse as he stared hard at his watch. Her pulse is too slow even for being unconscious, and she’s hardly breathing! What’s wrong with her?! Gadget never gets sick! He cast his gaze wildly about the stage, looking for an answer within the stage lights, the wooden floor, the folds of the blood-red velvet curtains, anything.  .  .  His eyes locked with Hadrian’s for a moment before the latter turned and left.  Chip’s impulse was to pursue him, but he knew Gadget could ill afford the time it would take for him to have it out with his rival. He glanced at Monterey, clutching the third Ranger’s hand as if he could give her part of his strength, staring so intently that Chip wondered if Monty thought he could will her awake. Someone had to do something -- and fast! But what?

                Dale jogged up easily, clothed for the theatre in a suit with green and red vertical stripes and a clashing tie of purple background with orange poka-dots. Anyone who didn’t know him might wonder if he dressed in the dark. “Hi, guys! Whatcha- Gadget!” Acting on impulse, the tackily-dressed Ranger grabbed a pitcher nearby and dashed the contents over the unconscious girl’s face.

                Gadget’s only stirred slightly, but it was enough for Monterey Jack. Still keeping his death-grip on her hand, he franticly fanned the air about her with the other while murmuring persuasive words. At length she began to come around.

                “Don’t do that to us, Gadget!” Chip gasped. Dale let out a breath he had unknowingly held.

                Monterey helped his patient sit up, supporting her with one arm. She deliberately brushed soggy bangs from before her eyes; they remained with the rest of her hair rather than returning to their usual unruly tuft.  The way her hair fell, her pallor, the bleary look in her eyes.  .  .  she looked so much like Sarah in her last moments in Wilec’s arms that Monty found himself valiantly fighting a rising tide of panic.

                “Are you okay?” asked Zipper, flying up. He had gone in search of Dale and, his efforts proving fruitless, decided to return.

                “Fine,” she mumbled, head bowed, about to fall asleep again.

                Chip knelt at her feet. She looked so impossibly small compared to her teammate’s bulk.  .  .  ! “Gadget, look at me,” he commanded a little more sharply than he had intended, shaking the thought away.

   Groggily she obeyed, watching him through clouded eyes. She tried briefly to bring the world into focus, her efforts were only rewarded with greater dizziness and a headache. Deciding nothing was worth that, she gave up.

                The detective produced a penlight from his pocket, shone it in her eyes, and frowned when they failed to respond. “How do you feel?” he asked gently.

                “Tired,” she murmured distantly, smiling faintly as she began to doze off.  .  .

   “Oh, no you don’t!” Monterey reprimanded severely, pulling her to her feet

and staring directly into her eyes. “You’re not fading out on us again!”

                “We’d better get her home,” Chip decided.

                “Too right there,” the older mouse agreed. His first instinct was to carry her to the Rangerwing, but he decided against it. If she doesn’t keep moving, like as not she’ll fall asleep again, an’ maybe this time she won’t wake up! “Come on, luv, we’ll getcha home an’ take care o’ you there. You’ll be fine, don’t you worry.”

                “NO!!!” The anguished wail of a madman echoed off the rafters.

                “What was that?!” four voices chorused; Gadget was still too out of it to take much notice.

                A middle-aged director, one Alastair by name, clattered down the stairs from the catwalk -- a place Chip knew extremely well -- and barreled across the stage. Chip and Dale, with Zipper hovering beside them, stood protectively in front of Gadget and Monty with their arms crossed. The onrushing rodent stopped dead in his tracks when faced with the barrier that had as much chance of moving as a ten thousand ton wall of granite. He stood there quivering with rage and insanity and pointed an unsteady finger past the three Rangers to Gadget as if they didn’t exist. “You! How couldja do this to me?!”

                “What are you talking about?” Chip demanded.

                “She knows right good what it is I’m sayin’, don’tcha?  Don’tcha, now?! Take a good look at that there ring on yer finger, the one what has all the sparklers. You jus’ be wearin’ that one when yous go off again with yer pilot Romeo! Y’all be knowin’ that I did give that there ring ta her! I did give it to her for her engagement ta me, I did, y’hear!  Y’all be knowin’ that she wouldn’t have none of it! Then I did give it to a new Romeo, to give ta her daughter, an’ now look who’s wearin’ it! The same one what did push it ‘way years ago, an’ took a dif’rent one ‘stead! He be no good fer ya like I’d be, Sarah. I did chase after ya fer near long as I can remember, an’ I saw you first, jus’ you remember that!  But then that flyboy sees ya an’ runs off with ya jus’ like that!”

                Gadget, looking like she very well might fall asleep any second, defended her father with an edge in her voice to chill a raging volcano. “Dad wasn’t -”

                Alastair cut her off before she could finish. “He never lovedja, Sarah, not

the way I be lovin’ ya! An’ you took him ‘stead o’ me!”

                “My parents loved each other! More than anything in the world!”

                Hadrian, still in costume, rushed to the madman’s side.  “He is making a joke,” the actor said with a nervous laugh, then hissed to his director, “Al.  .  .  ”

                “Oh, he know I don’t be jokin’ ‘round no more, he do.  He helped. That pilot o’ yours, he loves that little Gadget-girl, he does, an’ what causes pain best but losin’ the one ya love? I knows too much  ‘bout that, I do, an’ I aim on causin’ him as much as I’m able, seein’ he’s the one what made me lose you!”

                “But Gadget is Sarah’s child, too!” Chip protested.  “You’d wind up hurting her as well!”

   “How’d /you/ feel if the one /you/ loved up an’ ran off with some other’n

an’ got herself a kid?”

                “I’d love Gadget’s little girl just as much as I love Gadget!” Chip burst out, and immediately clamped his mouth shut in embarrassment. I didn’t mean to have her find out like that...!

                “I do be thinkin’ otherwise, I do. You’d be hatin’ the fact what that li’l one wasn’t yours, you would, an’ you’d wanna be rid of ‘er.”

                “I wouldn’t!”

                “Al!” Hadrian objected, beginning to panic, but Alastair shifted his attention back to Gadget and kept right on going.

                “Sos I thinks to meself hows I’m gonna go ‘bout doin’ it sos ya don’t suspect nothin’? I seen how much this boy here’s-”

                “Al!!”

                “-caught her fancy, sos’n I’s thinkin’ why not make the play real? Sos I gets Haddi-boy here to stick some powder in the bottle fer yer little Juliet ta drink. He says he’ll do it on Closin’ Night ‘cuz’n he don’t wanna miss a chance on stage, an’ it’s too late ta be trainin’ an understudy. An’ after the play’s done, right on cue she passes out -- dead!  Now go an’ tell that ta yer Romeo, an’ you won’t have no reason ta stay together no more. Ferget our parts. It was all make-believe. You’ll come home with me, an’ we’ll have our own kid, an’-”

                “AL!!!” This time Hadrian’s cry was more shock than anything else, for the schemer had suddenly fallen to the floor.

                Chip rushed to Al and quickly examined him, then turned to the others and shook his head; the director was beyond help. The chipmunk turned his attention to Hadrian. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

                “It isn’t true, is it, Hadrian?” Gadget asked, only slightly more alert. “What he said.  .  .  was a lie, right?”

                “Come now, my darling; you’ve had a rough night of it, what?” Hadrian donned a saccharine smile, his composure recovered. He began to approach Gadget as he added, “I will take you home and fix you some tea and tuck you in -” His sentence was cut off as an extremely protective Dale stepped between

him and his fiancee.

                “No, Hadrian. I want you to look at me and tell me what he said wasn’t true,” Gadget persisted, determined not to go anywhere before she got the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.

                “What was that, sweetheart?”

                “Tell me you didn’t put whatever it was in that bottle to try to kill me,” she implored, looking steadily into his eyes and trying to keep the room level at the same time. It was a struggle.

                Hadrian spread his arms wide to convey the absurdity of her request. “Gadget, darling, how can you doubt me?  You can’t believe the ravings of a madman, especially without proof.” Again he started to go to her, but Chip grabbed Hadrian by the arm to restrain him. As he did, a small wooden vial slipped from a hidden pocket in the actor’s vest and fell to the floor.

                 The detective’s reflexes were lightning-quick, and he snatched it up and read the label before Hadrian even had a chance to think about moving. “Iocane?” He carefully pronounced the unfamiliar word with a quizzical note in his voice.

                Monterey Jack’s eyes widened; he instinctively tightened his protective embrace around Gadget. I was right!  Of all the things ta try an’ kill ‘er with, he had ta pick the one that took her mum’s life all those years back! Well, we lost Sarah, but we won’t lose you, luv. I promise. He forced himself to keep his voice level.  “There’s yer proof, luv,” he said softly. “Iocane powder comes from a plant that grows back home in Australia. It’s odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, an’ it’s one of the deadliest poisons known ta man or beast. Takes a while for it ta take effect, but when it does, it just kicks in all of a sudden-like. One moment you’re talkin’ away, an’ the next you just keel over on yer face.”

                “Just like Al did,” Chip observed, the clues coming together like the last few sentences in a whodunnit novel. “Apparently there was a mix-up, and he drank the poison meant for you, Gadget.”

                “Ew! Talk about gettin’ a taste of your own medicine,” Dale grimaced.

                Gadget’s eyes welled with tears of anguish. “How- how- I thought you loved me!”

                “I cannot lie to you, my love,” the actor sighed heavily.  “I did put it there, but I didn’t want to! When he gave me that ring for you, I blindly promised to do one favor for him in return. A few days later, when he told me what the ‘favor’ was to be, I nearly repented. But it wasn’t just that I owed him; he black-mailed me! He said if I went along with him he would guarantee lead roles for me in this theatre for the rest of my life, and.  .  .  well.  .  .  you know how hard it is for an actor to get decent work -”

                “Hadrian!” she cried, pulling back from him in shock and horror. The world reeled, and she almost fell. “You never loved me to begin with! I was just an easy out for you!”

                “No, that is not it at all, my heart! Of course I loved you; I still do!”

                “No, no.  .  .  ” She shook her head in denial. It only made the room spin more chaoticly, but for the moment she paid it no heed. “Aletna was right all along!  She said Alastair’s name meant ‘He Seeks Revenge’ and that yours was ‘Dark One,’ but I wouldn’t listen!”

                “What’s in a name? -”

                “That which we call Dale’s socks by any other word would smell just as awful!” With that last shot, she stumbled into the women’s greenroom and slammed the door.

                Dale frowned and looked down at his feet, then at the others, who were too busy looking at the door Gadget had disappeared through to notice him. “But I don’t wear socks,” he told his feet.

                As Chip watched her go, he knew he should be happy Hadrian was no longer in her life. Yet somehow, and he was sure he could never explain why, he wished Gadget had never found out. Pity quickly changed to anger, and Chip led his

fellow Rangers against the unscrupulous actor.

                Meanwhile, the women’s dressing room fell silent at the addition. “Gadget! What is it?” Caprice wondered gently, laying a worried hand on the inventor’s arm. “You look like you’re about to faint!”

                In answer, the distraught Ranger yanked the diamond ring from her finger. It didn’t border on gaudy; it filled the definition to the fullest extent. Huge, flashy, tasteless, cheap.  .  .  it substituted quantity for quality. They were exactly alike, the ring and the one who had given it: pretentious, all talk of love and devotion... but she would bet that if put to the test, the ring would shatter as surely as Hadrian’s promises of love. She pressed it into her friend’s hand. “Here.”

                “What? Gadget, this is your -”

                “Take it! Maybe it’ll bring you some happiness. It’s certainly been nothing but trouble for my family.”

                “Whither art thou away?” Kaleerit asked with a start as the sunshine-haired mouse streaked through the room, her snow-white skirts fluttering behind.  For once the inventor failed to notice the sweet smell of  congratulation bouquets filling the room.

                “Home,” Gadget called through tears as she lurched through the door leading outside.

                “Gadget! Wait!” Caprice called after her, racing to the door. The others could only stare as she bolted outside after the youngest actress.

                A blinding flash of lightning streaked the sky, outlining the fleeing girl’s slim form, urged on by a sudden gust of wind that whipped her hair about her. A violent crash of thunder followed a second later.

                “Gadget! You’re in no condition to fly! Please -” the pursuer tried to yell, but the same wind that pushed Gadget on somehow also resisted the other’s progress, carrying her words safely away from the pilot. As the Rangerwing took to the skies, Caprice knew it was futile. She just hoped the rain would hold off until her friend got home. With a sigh of resignation she trooped back into the greenroom.

                The others gazed at her questioningly, and the writer suddenly realized she still clutched the little ring. She held it to the light; everyone looked at it a moment, then to one another. “Hadrian,” they decided in one voice and proceeded to the stage to hear the remaining Rangers giving a certain lead actor a piece of their minds. The actresses immediately joined in.

                “Ye foul villain! Fie! Fie! I bite my thumb at thee!” Kaley wailed, storming up to the foul villain in question and actually biting her thumb at him, the other two following with black clouds over their heads. All three females stared at him as though they were no longer mice, but cats advancing on a potential lunch.

                The un-Romeo turned to flee, but could not escape the wrath of four Rangers, who pounced on him before he took five steps. Within a minute a triumphant Chip pinned him prone on the floor.

                “Please,” Hadrian implored, “tell Gadget I still love her.”

                “This is what she thinks of your love,” Caprice hissed in a deadly-low voice, one fist yanking so hard on her braid that the boys wondered if she might not pull the thing out.  With equal fury she dashed the ring to the ground before his face and stomped on it with one shoe-protected foot. They was a muted crunch, and when the enraged actress stepped away all that remained of the ring was a band snapped cleanly in half to expose the grey of its less-than-pure center. Where the “jewel” had been, shards of something glittered coldly, daggers in the harsh light.

*                              *                              *

                “Lady Capulet!” Chip exclaimed in surprise when he opened the door the next morning. Despite having seen her in similar outfits during rehearsals, he hardly recognized her in white stretch pants and a royal blue sweater instead of a fancy costume.

                “I’m just plain old Caprice off stage, Chip,” she replied with a smile. “Is Gadget up-and-about yet?”

                “Well.  .  .  I don’t really know,” he admitted. “She didn’t come down for breakfast and won’t give us more than a brief answer when any of us knocks on her door, and we can’t get in because she’s got the thing locked. Monty would have kicked it down by now if she hadn’t kept answering, mostly that she wants to be alone. Still, we can’t help worrying. What if it wasn’t a little more potent than just causing her to faint last night? Maybe it was enough to ke ep her from remembering?” Or worse? Chip added silently. Oh, I hope not!

                “You sound as though you want her not to know about something, Chip. Something you said, maybe?”

                “What -? How did you -?” Chip looked startled for a second, then blushed, but managed to cover it up with relative speed. “I just don’t want her to remember how hurt she was,” he covered for himself. True enough.  .  .   “Anyway, would you like to try?”

                With a little practice, he could be an actor! she smiled privately as Chip let her in. “It couldn’t hurt. We were all really worried about her last night after the performance.  Um, where’s her room?”

                In no time at all she was at her friend’s door. “Gadget? It’s Caprice. I’m alone. May I come in? You can say no if you want; I’ll understand. I just stopped by to see how you’re doing after last night... but I can always come back later.”

                A soft click sounded, and to her surprise a muffled “Come in!” came from within.

                “You’re sure? You won’t hurt my feelings.  .  .  ”

                “Yeah.”

                Softly Caprice opened the door as little as possible and slipped through, closing it behind herself with the muted sound of wood connecting with wood. Her heart went out to her friend; the young Juliet had been so distraught that she had forgotten to remove her costume, and Caprice knew full well her friend’s attitude toward dresses. She’s wearing her necklace, the author observed. Well, Aletna was right; it protected her. She perched on the edge of the bed and gave her friend a squeeze. “How are you holding up?”

                “Okay, I guess, considering.” She lifted her hand to brush away tears she thought she had long since run out of. “At least the ground’s started obeying the laws of physics again.”

                Caprice produced a few mouse-sized tissues from her pocket and pressed them in the inventor’s hand. “Here. Thought you might need some of these.”

                “Thanks,” Gadget smiled.

                “I take it you do remember something of last night?”

                “Not much. Everything gets foggy after final curtain, but I remember what Hadrian said about Alastair ‘blackmailing’ him. ‘O, that deceit should dwell in such a gorgeous palace!’“ she denounced with an edge of bitterness in her voice, and paused, fuming, for a moment. “Still, it was Alastair who thought it up. Why? What did I do?”

                “That’s what Letti, Kaley, and I were trying to tell you the whole time but never quite made it. Sarah confided everything in her fellow actresses, and I remember almost every word she said. I think we all were a little envious of your mother. She was beautiful, and warm, and caring, and had a real-life Romeo who was the kind of guy almost every girl dreams of having come in his shining armor on the back of his white horse and sweep her off her feet. There was no white stallion unless you count the golden retriever they were friends with (he adored giving them rides anywhere they wanted to go), no armor except

that leather jacket and the flight scarf, but nothing really seemed lacking for the absence of them. Unfortunately, the first time the theatre did Romeo and Juliet, Al played Paris. He took his role a little too seriously, and never quite believed Sarah didn’t turn him down on the fact that she was supposed to marry Romeo and not Paris in the play. Al hated your father, and apparently it was one wound time didn’t heal. I talked with the others last night. That’s why Sarah quit coming to the theatre; Al was a little.  .  .  unstable. Gadget, he wanted to hurt your father by killing you.”

                “What?!”

                “I know, I know, it’s crazy. But then, Alastair was always in need of a screwdriver, anyway.”

                “Well!” She let out a half-hearted laugh. “Gosh, you would think Dale had been through here from the mess. Sorry. My room’s usually a lot tidier.”

                “It’s okay; I figured as much.” She gave a wry smile as she indicated the floor, strewn with paper torn into the tiniest conceivable bits. “So, may I  assume this is now the burial grounds for enough love letters to trip a hippopotamus?”

                She nodded. “I did it right after dumping the flowers he gave me out the window. I’m debating what I should do with them when I eventually sweep up my room. What’s left of the notes, that is.”

                “What are the choices?”

                 “Setting fire to them or flushing them down the toilet.”

                “Ah, the question of whether to cremate the romance or give it a burial at sea via the porcelain canyon. Both are pretty dramatic; hmmm.  .  .  that is a tough choice. I personally would save myself the anguish of deciding. Burn them, then flush the ashes.”

                “Works for me. Just as long as I can get rid of the things! I hate them. I hate knowing he didn’t mean a single thing he wrote in any one of them. I hate that I spent so much time re-reading them that I know every word by heart. Even more, I hate that I believed every individual word of it. How could I be so gullible?!”

                “Not gullible, Gadget. Trusting.”

                “Aletna kept telling me he was no good -- he and Alastair both! -- but I wouldn’t listen!”

                “All she can do is predict. Some things can’t be changed.  In any event, you were in love. You have an excuse.”

                “Don’t remind me,” she groaned, tossing the pillow she had been hugging onto the bed as she got up to stare out the window. “Fitting that it’s dreary and raining today, but it sure doesn’t help my spirits.”

                “At least it isn’t sunny and cheerful. When you’re feeling down and it’s beautiful out, it seems as though Mother Nature’s making fun of you.”

                There was a pause, then Gadget burst forth with, “I can’t believe I fell in love with him! I just wanted so much... It was such a storybook Happily Ever After for my parents, I just thought.  .  .  I was going to handfast, Caprice, to someone who didn’t love me!”

                “Gadget, I know you got burned this time. Most of us do the first time around.”

                “Did you?”

                Caprice traced the stitching on the quilt uncomfortably for a moment. “Well.  .  .  actually I’ve never really loved a boy, but... I’ve read a lot of books, and.  .  . ”

                “Books?! I was right the first time. Love stinks.”

                “No, Gadget, it doesn’t,” she said quietly.

                “You haven’t had your heart broken yet.”

                Caprice hedged that one. “I remember your parents extremely well. They were in a love that did not stink. You’ll find it someday, too. I’m sure of it. Your knight in shining armor will come riding up and carry you off to your Happily Ever After.” Or your detective in a fedora and leather jacket will come flying up in the Rangerwing. Maybe he’s already here. “But in the meantime, you have a lot of other people who care about you. Like the other Rangers.  .  .  they’re not going to do what Hadrian did to you. People like Aletna, and Kaleerit, and myself, two of whom have seen more than either one of us -- perhaps both of us put together -- and say there’s nothing like eating a whole container of ice cream straight from the carton to cheer a girl up. And you know what? They’re waiting for us in the greenroom with just such a thing. They’ve gotten hold of your favorite kind and four spoons.  You’re not going to tell me Monty’s cooking is so good that you’d turn down a chance at something edible -- something not made with cheese  --  are you? We’ll sit around and talk, and try on costumes, and be silly, and eat a whole honkin’

load of ice cream.  So, what do you say?”

                “You’re on!” She paused a moment before getting up.  “Caprice?”

                “Yes?”

                “I still want to read that story... what did you call it?”

                “I didn’t. I hate titles; I can never come up with anything good. Any ideas?”

                Gadget cocked her head in thought for a moment.  “Call it.  .  .  Final Curtain.”

*                              *                              *

Aletna, Sandy, Caprice, Kaleerit, Sarah Haley, Temlyhin, Hadrian, and Alastair are copyright 1993 Meghan Brunner. Wilec, too... er, sort of. All other characters copyright Disney and used without permission. All events and characters contained herein are purely fictitional, but only to those with limited imagination. ;)