A Change of Mime

by Jeffrey Wikstrom

Deda Forbus was a graduate of the prestigious New York Mime Theater Company School. Possibly "prestigious" was too strong a word. She was a graduate of the respected New York Mime Theater Company School. No, "respected" was probably too strong a word, too. She was a graduate of the existing New York Mime Theater Company School. Yes, that was good. The school definitely existed.
At least, Deda was pretty sure it existed. But then, how could she really be sure of anything?
Maybe she'd always been there, inside an invisible box on a walkway in Central Park. Maybe the whole universe had just come into existence thirty seconds previous, and she had been created there inside the invisible box, whole and with memories of the New York Mime Theater Company School intact, though she hadn't actually graduated eight weeks prior because she hadn't really existed eight weeks prior...
Deda found that she became much more introspective while trapped in an invisible box. She switched to tugging on an invisible rope, which usually made her feel proactive and self-confident.
Someone dropped some change in her bucket, and she switched to miming gratitude. Maybe she'd be able to afford some new black tights and a new beret; the costume she was wearing had been purchased secondhand through the New York Mime Theater Company Store. The beret smelled faintly of fish.

A few feet away from the mime (and her audience of four Japanese tourists and a jaded teenager), much closer to the ground, Monterey Jack watched the other mime, the one that was a rat. He wasn't bad, but Monterey wasn't interested in the show per se.
To his immediate right, Gadget stared at the mime, who was at the moment miming baking a cake. She had a confused look on her face, exactly the sort of look you see on the face of someone who had been disappointed in their expectation to spend the day without encountering a rat whose fur had been half inked, half bleached, and who was insistently pantomiming the sifting of flour.
Chip and Dale were to Gadget's immediate right, quietly jostling each other, jockeying for the position closer to Gadget. They were managing to avoid actually bumping into Gadget or knocking her over, but they weren't being very quiet about it. Gadget was ignoring them, however. Either she was too caught up in the professional display of Pretend Cake Baking going on before her very eyes, or she was too embarrassed by the obvious fighting over her to acknowledge it. Or both.
To Chip's and Dale's immediate right, stretching to Monterey's immediate left, was a ragged line of mice and squirrels, who by all accounts were enjoying the mime's performance. Monterey tore himself away from the performance art and looked them over each in turn. None of them were in the slightest familiar, except for the handful he recognized as living near the Tree.
There was something here, though, that had caught his eye and made him stop and made him make the other Rescue Rangers stop. Monterey was sure there was something, but he didn't know what. Not the mime's act, not the audience, not the 3x5 card with "Binky the Wonder Rat - Please Tip Generously" written on it, partially obscured by offerings of acorns and bits of cheese...
No, wait, actually that was it.

"Binky!" Monterey shouted, and leaped at the mime, who was right in the middle of pantomiming beating eggs. "The Wonder Rat!" he added as he got a grip on the mime's legs and started bending them.
"Ow ow ow get him off me get him off!" cried the mime. "Ow ow ow!" he continued as Monterey applied more pressure to his anatomy.
"Monty, what are you -" was as far as Gadget got before the crowd of mime enthusiasts, or at least tolerators, swelled forward to break up the fight. A rumble to the effect of "what's his problem" went through the audience, as they (working together) pulled Monterey off the mime and separated the two of them.
"Binky!" Monterey shouted again, his voice full of rage and vinegar.
"The Wonder Rat," spat the mime, who has dusting himself off. "I'm Binky the Wonder Rat."
"I'll tell ya what yas are -" Monterey strained towards Binky, but was held back by the assembled sundry.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there Monty," Chip said quickly from his position shoving at Monterey's left knee. "Calm down, no need to start a riot -"
"Start a riot? Oh, 'e's one to talk about startin' a riot!" Monterey cried. "Like that time over the Edge?"
"That was a long time ago, Monterey Jack," Binky said.
"Tell that to those poor -" Monty broke off, again, as Binky leapt at him, stepping on Dale (who was pushing Monterey back at his right knee) to do so.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa, whoa!" Chip shouted. "Everybody just calm down! Calm down!"
Partly out of deference to Chip, and mostly because there was a big crowd of mime tolerators all around them, Monterey Jack slowly lowered his clenched fists. Binky, too, seemed to relax.
"Okay, good, now we're getting somewh-" Chip was interrupted by Binky going for Monterey's throat again. Monterey countered by rolling quickly to the left, but was foiled when he realized a hapless squirrel was in the way.
"Aie!" shrieked the hapless squirrel, and fled, having narrowly avoided being knocked down.
"Monterey Jack," Gadget said coldly as Chip, Dale, and a few other audience members (with the limited assistance of Zipper) pulled Binky off to one side. "You're frightening people. This is not the time or the place!"
"Any time I see Binky the Wonder Rat, any time someone goes for me throat, and especially any time I see Binky the Wonder Rat goin' for me throat, that's the time!" Monterey said, eyes narrowed. "And the place, too," he added sulkily. Nevertheless he failed to jump back into melee with the mime.
"So who is this mime, Monty?" Dale asked. "He do a bad job for you some time, maybe talk during a show?"
"He's me nemesis," Monterey said slowly as Binky detached himself from the small crowd of small animals.
"No, no, you have that backwards," Binky said, baring his teeth. "You're my nemesis!"
"We're sort of each others' nemesises," Monty explained.
"Does this mean the show's over?" one mouse asked another. "The mime is talking."
"Nemesises?" Chip muttered. That didn't sound quite right.
"Naw, naw, naw," the other mouse said to the first. "It's whachacallit, performance art. This is all part of the show." She licked her lips, eager for violence.
"Well, that's no reason to just jump him like that in the middle of a performance!" Gadget said.
"He's not a very good mime if he's talking," the first mouse pointed out.
"Nemeses," Chip said out loud. "Yes. Nemeses."
"Nemeses? The candy company? No, wait," Dale said. "That's Nestle's."
"He's not just a mime," the other mouse said defensively. "Says right there he's a Wonder Rat."
"Everyone be quiet!" bellowed Binky. "Binky the Wonder Rat is going to talk! So shut up!"
Everyone shut up.
(Except for the first mouse, who muttered "see, now, shouting, that's the opposite of what a mime should be doing," but shut up when Binky glared at him.)
"I've known Monterey Jack for many years, since the day he and his idiot father and his stupid pet fly and his -"
This prompted some inchoate protests from both Monterey Jack and Zipper, who stifled themselves when Gadget, and therefore also Chip and Dale, turned (as if on synchronized pivot mounts) and glared at them.
"Irregardless," continued Binky as if he'd been interrupted, "he and I have no good will for one another. I did not recognize him in his ridiculous little hat, but rest assured! Were I to have spotted him among you I would have struck quickly and mercilessly! Therefore I will not be pressing charges against him for assault and do not begrudge him having assaulted me."
"Oh, bravo," cried the second mouse, and applauded. "It's all part of the show," she hissed at the first mouse, who reluctantly began to applaud as well.

"'Pet!'" fumed Zipper.
"I can't believe he's here! Have a hard enough time believing he's still alive, but here!" Monterey exclaimed, pacing back and forth in the kitchen.
"'Pet!'"
"Bad enough that explosion in the lab didn't kill him, but to have him jes' a stone's throw away from where I sleep at night, that's... that's..."
"Yeah... 'pet!'"
"Now, calm down," Gadget said. She was sitting at the kitchen table, which she'd built earlier that same day out of a pencil case, a box of kitchen matches, and several wooden spools that had once held thread. "I'm sure you and Binky the Wonder Rat can come to some kind of equitable agreement."
"Yeah," Dale said from his seat at Gadget's right hand.
"Yeah," Chip said from his seat at Gadget's left hand. "Just because you don't get along with someone is no reason..."
"Called me 'pet!'" Zipper tried to shout at Chip, squeaking slightly more loudly than was normal.
"Well, obviously he doesn't know you very well," Gadget said reasonably.
"So what does his opinion matter?" offered Chip.
"Uh... yeah," said Dale, flailing for a way to join the discussion and show up Chip.
"Yas don't understand," wailed Monterey. "Right now, he's in his secret Wonder Rat Headquarters, plottin' me downfall. Maybe he planted a bug on me durin' that scuffle. Maybe he has teams of agents dedicated to diggin' up dirt on us. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow mornin' and go to the library and boom, someone sets the place on fire and when I get back here -"
"You've never gone to the library in your life," Chip interrupted.
"I could've!"
"But you haven't," Chip persisted.
"Well, no," Monty admitted. "But my point is, is…"
"Tell you what," Chip said. "We'll be on alert. Tomorrow, when we go to the police station to look for cases -"
"Again?" asked Dale. "But we went today!"
"And we didn't get anything," Chip snapped. "Tomorrow when we go to the police station, we'll stop by Binky the Wonder Rat's spot, and..."
Monterey shook his head belligerently. "No, no, no, someone definitely needs to be on him all day. Watching him like a hawk. I should do it. I remember this one time at D'Aubainne University..."
"No, Monty, the problem with that is we're afraid you'll assault him again," Chip said.
"What with him being your nemesis and all, I can see how you'd expect that," Gadget agreed. "I mean, he's you-Monty's nemesis, so you-Chip would expect that," she added.
"I'll go," volunteered Dale. "Beats sitting on that filing cabinet all day."
"Great," said Chip, who had already scooted his chair closer to Gadget.
"No, wait a second..." said Dale.
Either to forestall conflict or to gain information, Gadget seized the moment. "Monty, who is Binky the Wonder Rat, anyhow? I mean, besides being your nemesis. How'd you meet him?"
"That's a long, strange story, mates," Monterey said meditatively.

* * *

"Wow, that was quite a story," Dale said.
"Yeah," Chip agreed. "Especially the stuff about Nimnul. I didn't know you knew him."
"Weell, Chipper, like I said at the time, back then Nimnul had hair," Monterey said, and laughed. "Of course, back then ol' Binky the Wonder Rat was brown, not black and white."
"It would've been a lot easier spotting him in the market if he were though, huh?"
"Too right," Monterey said. "Yas understand why I'm as worked up as a dingo at a kindergarten over Binky the Wonder Rat's bein' around, now?"
As she nodded, Gadget yawned, then checked the wristwatch hanging on the kitchen wall. "Golly, it's late. I didn't realize the story was so long." She rose.
"Mmm, yeah, bed," Chip said. "We can talk about this in the morning," he added as he followed Gadget out of the kitchen.
"'Mmm, yeah, Letterman,'" Dale corrected. "Want to watch it with me, Monty? Zipper? Martin Short is on tonight."
"Naw," Monterey said tiredly. "I'm too worked up over me nemesis bein' a stone's throw away to do anything but lie awake all night, teeth and fists clenched."
"Sure," said Zipper.
"Suit yourself," Dale told Monterey, and went with Zipper in tow to the living room.
"An' nobody stays behind to help ol' Monterey Jack wash the dishes," Monty muttered irritably to himself. Then he remembered that he'd already done the dishes, shook his head, and went to bed.

Monterey was up to his neck in cheese, in some beautiful dream. Someone had filled his bedroom with cheeses: fragments of swiss, cheddar, brie, gouda, and those little waxed-dipped discs you can buy at the supermarket. He was in heaven, as he ate his way through an alphabet of cheeses: aragon, beaufort, colby, double gloucester... He was started awake by voices coming from the living room.
He quickly rose and dressed (which doesn't take long when you don't wear any pants) and was headed in the direction of the living room and the voices when he realized the cheese was still there. He hadn't dreamed it up after all.
"Oh, how thoughtful," he said to himself. "Nice of the fellas to... wait, it ain't me birthday. Or any kind of anniversary... Hey fellas!" he called as he strode down the hallway.
"I've got all this cheese in me room, and..." Monterey began, then trailed off. It was something about the way everyone in the room (and there were more than he had expected) quit talking and turned their heads to stare at him. A wide variety of expressions were on their faces.

"Monterey Jack, these are Jenny, Cathy, Mrs. Crackcorn, Mrs. Tufted, and Mrs. Nestor," Chip said, pointing at each of the four mice and one squirrel sitting on the living-room sofa in turn. "They came to report a theft. Five thefts."
"Oh, good mornin'," Monterey said, trying to be polite to clients. "But if I can talk ta yas, or one of yas," he continued, glancing at Dale and Gadget and Zipper, "about all this cheese in me room..."
The third mouse, whom Monterey recalled was named Mrs. Crackcorn, looked at him in confusion. "You have the cheese in your room?" she asked.
"Whose cheese?" asked the squirrel, Mrs. Nestor. "Your cheese?" she added, suspiciously.
Monterey ignored them and instead motioned with his head in the direction of his bedroom.
Zipper, curious, flew off down the hallway. "Wow!" he squeaked, loud enough to be heard in the living room. "Lotsa cheese!"
"Did he say lots of cheese?" asked Cathy. "How many lots?" she called down the hallway. "Five lots?"
"Er, Dale!" Chip said suddenly, turning towards the chipmunk. "Please, tell the nice ladies about our pro bono policy while I speak to our trusted associate Monterey Jack in the other room."
"Our what now?" Dale asked, but gamely tried to cover for Chip's hasty exit with some improv. "So... what's in the news today..."

"Those sheilas seem awfully distrustin' for clients," Monty said to Chip as they headed down the hallway. "What're they missin'? Comic books? Do they figure Dale for a crook, is that it?"
"Those are our neighbors," Chip hissed. "The Nestors live higher up in this tree, and the rest of them have burrows right around it. And they... Whaaa!" Chip broke off with a yelp when he saw the interior of Monterey's room, piled high with succulent, delicious gourmet cheeses.
"Tol'ya," squeaked Zipper.

"I, uh, oh, I know," Dale said. "I saw this movie..."
"Dale..." Gadget said warningly.
"No, no, seriously," Dale said.
"A movie?" asked one of the mice, either Cathy or Mrs. Tufted, Dale didn't really care which.
"Yeah. See, there's this guy, named Adi Posel. Or Possel. I forget. But he wants to be an artist, his whole life he wants to be an artist.
"So, and it started back in like elementary school, this desire to make art... so he starts making art. Like coloring and little sculptures and stuff. And it sucks."
"Dale," Gadget said again, unsure where he was going with this.

"Is this all of it?" Chip asked, trying to keep from sounding aghast. "There's not nearly enough for it to be everything from all five..."
"Actually, Chipper, I ate about three-quarters of it already. There was just so much... it was like some wonderful dream." Monterey sighed. "Right now I can't think about eating any more cheese, and that's the truth."
"Okay, well." Chip thought for a second. "First we're going to gather these up, and return them, and apologize, and then I'm going to bawl you out like I've never bawled out anyone but Dale ever, you nitwit cheese-brain! And stop eating the cheese! I thought you said you couldn't think about eating cheese! This isn't your cheese, you big dummy!"
"I wasn't thinkin' about it, I just picked it up on auto-pilot," Monterey said defensively. He put the lump of gouda back down. "And don't call me a big dummy, either, ya little squirse, or I'll knock you into the kitchen!" Monterey accented his point by poking Chip in the chest, hard.
Chip bared his teeth. "The number one rule of being a Rescue Ranger is you don't break into neighbor's homes in the middle of the night and you especially don't steal cheese from them and carry it back to your room!" he barked, speaking very quickly.
The two of them squared off, eye to eye, for a good two seconds. Monterey looked at Chip, Chip looked at Monterey, and Zipper looked uncomfortable.

"So he thinks: how can I be a good artist when all my art sucks?" Dale continued, drawing out the story. "That's what he asks himself. He has this problem. So he decides, eventually after a lot of soul-searching in his teens, he decides that if he can't make a little bit of good art he can at least make a lot of bad art.
"I mean a *lot* of it, because he really has no talent at all.
"So once he commits to this method, making lots of art, he just stops throwing anything away. Everything he made or interacted with, he says, is his art. So he eats a candy bar, he crumples the wrapper, and boom, that wrapper is art. He makes coffee, and afterwards the grounds, they're art too, because he made them like that. His goal is to make one million pieces of art, which means he can't spend a lot of time on any one piece.
"So he's got all this, basically, garbage. And he carries it around with him wherever he goes so he can show it to art critics in case he meets one."
"Oh," said one of the mice. "A performance artist."
"Yeah, yeah," said Dale. "Anyway, one day not long after he's started doing this, he trips and he falls and boom, there's garbage -- his art, Adi Posel's art -- all over the street. And it's raining and the whole thing is ruined."
"How sad," said another one of the mice. "I think," she added.

"Come on, Monty," Chip said. "This cheese fixation of yours is getting out of hand. It's one thing to -"
"I'm tellin' ya, I didn't steal any cheese! Not even sleepwalkin', I didn't, because I don't sleepwalk, not since that time in Rio..." Monterey sat on his bed.
"The cheese didn't just walk in here by itself, Monty," Chip persisted. "Nobody would blame you for something you did while you were asleep; are you sure...?"
Monterey snapped his fingers. "Hold the sharon," he exclaimed. "This is obviously the work of me nemesis, Binky the Wonder Rat!"

"Yes!" Dale agreed, warming instantly to the receptive mouse. "Really sad. Our boy, Adi Posel, he's really depressed, because his plan for being artistic wasn't working. And then he gets another idea, when he sees someone putting something in a box.
"He decides to put his art in boxes. And bags. He puts the art in the bags and the bags in the boxes and the boxes in more bags and more boxes... everything is kept neat, everything is compartmentalized.
"And he starts carrying those big boxes around, like dragging them wherever he goes. He gets a big refrigerator crate to keep them in, and he drags them around and when they fall over nothing happens."
"Good for him," said the most receptive of the mice, a youngish and not entirely uncute one whose name Dale was pretty sure was Jenny.
"Yeah," Dale agreed. "Except that now he's spending all this time sorting and separating his garbage/art that he isn't making it fast enough. He wants to make a million pieces of art in his lifetime, so he'll be the most prolific ever, but he's falling behind. I mean, even if he gives himself fifty years, that's still like sixty pieces of art a day, every day!"
"What does he do?" Jenny asked, rapt.

"The mime?!" Chip asked incredulously. "'Hold the Sharon?'" he added under his breath.
"Ya don't know Binky the Wonder Rat the way I do," Monterey said. Zipper squeaked an agreement. "He’s cunning, he’s stealthy, and he ‘ates me guts.”
"And is he stealthy enough to not only steal the cheeses, but to sneak them out of the burrows and the squirrel-nest?" Chip asked. "And then plant them in your room without waking you?"
"He's a bloomin' mime! The one thing he does well is be quiet!"

"Adi starts stealing other people's art, I mean, their garbage. He rationalizes it, he thinks, well, the main thing is the collection, the boxing and the bagging and the numbering and stuff. He has these storage lockers just full of big crates that are full of boxes that are full of plastic bags that are full of little boxes that are full of little bags that each contain a numbered piece of garbage/art. And he starts taking other people's garbage and adding it to his collection. He gets a whole lot together and..." Dale paused for effect. He'd shifted position and was now directly in front of Jenny and directing the story primarily at her.
"And?" asked Jenny, who by this point was staring up at Dale with big wet soulful mouse eyes.
"And it doesn't work, because it turns out it was all a mistake. A big misunderstanding."
"No!" Jenny cried.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. You see, Adi Posel wasn't artistic... he was autistic."
"Oh, that poor man!" Jenny said, which very nearly the precise opposite of the response Dale had been looking for. The one next to her, Cathy, snickered, though. But on the other hand, Dale wasn't sure whether she'd thought the story was funny or just that Jenny was stupid.
Gadget winced.

“Okay, think. I’ve got to think,” Chip muttered to himself, and began pacing. Given that Monterey’s room was not very large, and that Monterey (who was very large indeed) was also in the room, and that the room was furthermore blessed with an abundance of cheeses, Chip had difficulty. He went into his and Dale’s room, which didn’t have cheese in it.
Monterey and Zipper followed him in, which (again) led to fairly cramped conditions. Chip was, however, able to pace in a tight circle.
“Option one,” he said after a few seconds’ thought. “We take the cheese out to the living room, apologize to the people who are its rightful owners, and offer to pay damages. Trouble: could indelibly damage our reputation, at a time when we need to be building up strong community ties. Also, you’ve already eaten most of the cheese.”
“If we tell ‘em it was Binky the Wonder Rat what set me up, Chipper…” Monterey started.
Chip gave him a cold look. “These people are our neighbors, Monty. They’ve seen you go after cheese. I mean, I barely believe you myself, and that’s only because I saw you and Binky the Wonder Rat going at yesterday.”
“Well, then,” Monterey said reasonably, between bites. “I’ll just tell ‘em about me and Binky the Wonder Rat and the kid and Da and all, and…”
“’Pet!’” Zipper muttered again, but Chip and Monterey ignored him.
“No, no, no, they’re not going to buy that. It’d sound like a lame cover story,” Chip said. “They’ve seen you go after cheese.”
“I’m not that bad,” Montertey huffed, and took another bite.
“You’re eating cheese right now!” Chip cried.
Monterey realized he’d picked up the piece of gouda again and carried it into the chipmunks’ room with him. He chewed, then swallowed. “Well, I guess I thought one more wouldn’t make any difference…” He cleared his throat sheepishly.
“Option two,” Chip said, glaring at Monty. “Option two, we go back out there and agree to investigate the theft of the cheese, we find out who’s responsible –“
“’S Binky, I’m tellin’ ya!” Monterey interrupted from the hallway.
“th’ Wonn’rat,” Zipper squeaked, slurring the syllables.
“The Wonder Rat or whoever,” Chip said. “We find him or her, we capture him or her, we get a confession, and then we reveal that the cheese was all along in your bedroom. So it won’t appear that we’re pinning the crime of cheese-theft on a patsy. And we return the cheese. If there’s any left.”
Monterey would have protested, but then he noticed he’d gone back to his room and grabbed a wedge of cheddar and eaten it while Chip was speaking.
“Important point!” Chip hissed. “Do not a) admit to the cheese being in your room. Do not b) lie. What are you not going to do?”
“Chip…”
“What are you not going to do, and put down that slice of Roquefort!”
Monterey put down the slice of Roquefort. “I’m not gonna say the cheese is in me room. I’m not gonna lie to ‘em.”
“Zipper?” Chip turned to the fly.
“Yeh, yeh.” Zipper shrugged.
“Okay.” Chip closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “They were suspicious when you came in; they’ll be suspicious when we come back. We need a cover. Monty, take off your coat.”
“What?” Monterey was starting to lose patience with Chip’s attitude.
“I want to look at your back and check it for possibly malignant growths,” Chip explained.
“I’d like ta say I’m touched by yer concern, Chipper, but…”
“As a cover!” Chip cried. “You are concerned that there may be some kind of growth on your back, a boil or something, so you asked me to take a look at it. No, wait.”
Monterey had his coat half-off. “What now?”
“Put down the cheese.”
Monterey realized he had picked the slice of Roquefort back up, and set it down again. “All right?”
“No, no,” Chip started pacing again. “You said ‘cheese.’ They all heard it. And then Zipper said ‘lots of cheese,’ which didn’t help any. And besides, it comes perilously close to lying.”
“I can lie,” Monterey offered immediately. It seems the simplest option.
“We’re treading a thin enough moral line here as it is,” Chip snapped. “We’ll just have to be loud and forceful and maybe they won’t realize.”

“So,” Gadget said, breaking the silence. Everyone in the living room had been sitting quietly, thinking. The uncomfortable pause had become an uncomfortable interval, and then a full-on silence, as they waited for Chip and Monty to come back.
“So, uh, what was the situation like, the finding the cheese not being there?” Dale asked Jenny. He sat down on the coffee table across from her.
“…with a ten-year warranty. Car & Driver named it one of the best ten cars of the year…” The television screen crackled to life, showing a herd of luxury cars thundering across the Serengeti.
Everyone jumped.
“Whoops, sorry, sorry,” Dale said. “Sat on the remote.” He hopped up and sat down again, once again depressing the power button on the remote control. The television died.
“Uh, yeah. What, what was the cheese like?” Dale asked Jenny again.
“I get up, I go into kitchen, I see kitchen is mess and window is open, I go into pantry, I see cheese is gone. What more to be saying?” grumbled a thickly accented mouse who Dale pegged as Mrs. Crackcorn.
“One at a time, you’ll each get your chances. We’ll go down from Jenny,” Dale told her.
“But she is in middle,” Mrs. Crackcorn protested. “Should do starting at the end, where is me.”
“I said we’ll go down from Jenny,” Dale said, and turned back to the doe-eyed mouse. “So you live right near here?”
“Yeah,” Jenny said, nodding. “Cathy and I share a two-bedroom burrow under the maple tree next to this oak.” She pointed to Cathy, the mouse next to her.
“And, uh, what do you do?”
“You mean for a living or for fun?”
“Well, you can answer however you want.”
“Ooh, choices.” Jenny smiled at Dale, and would have gone on to say something that could have been interpreted as flirtatious, had Chip not distracted everyone by stomping back into the living room, Monterey Jack and Zipper close behind.
“Wonderful news!” Chip cried needlessly loudly. “I’ve checked Monterey’s back for malignant growths and there don’t seem to be any. No tumors, polyps, or parasites!”
“Oh!” Gadget said quickly and loudly. “That is good news!” Though she was improvising, her lie sounded non-spontaneous, if well-rehearsed.
As if on cue, all of the neighbors/potential clients began protesting loudly.
“The big mouse has problems with his back? How is this related to cheese?” Mrs. Crackcorn’s thick voice carried over the din. “Tell me how!”
“Well, you see,” Dale told her, hoping he was going along with the plan and in the back of his mind already wondering whether Chip had neglected to fill him in on the plan or if Chip had in fact already briefed him on the plan and he’d been too busy thinking about sleep or television or cute mouse girls to pay attention. “You see,” he repeated, stalling. “Let me tell you about a little thing called the Crisis on Infinite Earths…”
Chip closed his eyes and thought for a second. “Okay,” he said to himself, then whistled through his teeth, attracting everyone’s attention and calling a curtain of silence down upon the assembled rodents. He even shushed Dale, who was in the middle of explaining how the Anti-Monitor’s fiendish plan to consume Earth-1 and Earth-2 was thwarted by the Flash.
“So, since Monty doesn’t need to be rushed to the hospital, we’ll be able to take your case or cases, and… you know, we’ll find your cheese. Or at least the culprit behind the theft, if the cheese turns out to have been eaten.”
“You are meaning the eater of the stolen cheese, then,” Mrs. Crackcorn said. “You should be speaking plainly.”
“Not necessarily,” Chip said, slowly and clearly. “We’re trying to keep an open mind at this stage in the investigation. I am positive, however, that the entire thing will be wrapped up soon. Very soon.”
“Tomorrow I have bridge –“
“Very soon,” Chip said pointedly. “Thank you, now, I’m sure you can find your way out…”

“Chip!” Gadget said as soon as the clients had left and Monterey had described the unfortunate circumstances of his bedchamber. “You lied to those nice ladies.”
“I didn’t!” Chip protested. “I didn’t. Monty’s back doesn’t have any malignant growths on it, he doesn’t need to be rushed to the hospital, and we will undoubtedly bring the culprit to justice very soon now. All true things. Where’s the lie in that?”
“That’s a very thin moral line and you know it.” She wagged a finger at him. “I know you want to us to get off to a good start in this neighborhood, but…”
“Yeah!” Dale joined in enthusiastically.
“This ain’t the time for blame,” Monterey Jack interrupted. “It’s the time for findin’ Binky the Wonder Rat and beating the truth out of him!”
“You can’t just go around attacking people,” Gadget said. “Even if they are your nemesis.”
“But he started it!” Monterey Jack protested. “I’m going over there, and I’m gonna get the truth!” He slammed the hunk of cheddar cheese he’d been fingering down to the floor, and stomped towards the exit.
“No, no, Gadget’s right,” Chip said as he ran to insert himself between Monterey Jack and the exit. “We need to know that Binky the Wonder Rat did it, before you beat him up.”
“I keep tellin’ yas, it’s bloomin’ obvious!” Monterey exploded, and shoved Chip out of the way. Chip rolled a few inches to the left, then ducked back between Monterey Jack and the door, noisily telling him to calm down. Gadget bit her lip, and tried to think of an engineering solution to the problem at hand.
“I!” Dale shouted, which was so unexpected Monterey Jack and Chip tripped over each other and fell down. “I have an idea,” he amended.
“Dale...”
“No, seriously. It’s a good idea, too. I got it from television.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Monterey Jack muttered. “I’ll get this all sorted out, you’ll see.” Pausing only long enough to finish off the chunk of cheddar cheese he’d picked back up, the large mouse stormed out of the room.

Binky the Wonder Rat was whistling a happy tune as he sat in his new burrow, thinking. He was thinking about the joy he would feel when next he saw Monterey Jack, his hated enemy. Soon, the various mice and squirrels he had robbed the night before would wake up and head to their larders for breakfast. They would see their cheeses were missing, their Swiss and their Camembert and their pepperjack. They would be at first confused, but then their puny minds would start to work, the gears would turn, and they would leap to a conclusion. Monterey Jack, whose dominant trait was his inability to see cheese without picking it up and eating it, would be blamed.
If Binky’s nemesis had managed to resist the urge to consume all the cheese, they would find it in his room. If not, they would smell it on his breath and besides eating that much cheese wasn’t good for you. Binky cackled, thinking of the hardening of Monterey Jack’s arteries.
“What’s so funny?” asked a familiar voice at the door.
Binky turned, and as he did his eyes swept past the digital wristwatch he’d leaned against one wall. Nine thirty… a little late.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Binky said in a well-rehearsed tone. “I’ve been here in my burrow all night and all morning.”
“You were laughing. You think I’m funny, Binky? Wonder Rat?” Monterey Jack asked coldly, and only then did Binky notice that his nemesis had not brought along a pack of angry homemakers.
“What are you doing here?” Binky asked, concerned. He rose and stepped away from his couch, so as to avoid getting any blood on it. Damage to the couch would be added to his rent.
“You think I’m a clown? You’re a mime,” Monterey Jack began.
“Why are you alone?!” Binky asked desperately. “You weren’t supposed to come alone. You were supposed to bring a lot of witnesses along!”
“Now why would I do a thing like that?” Monterey asked coolly as he stepped more fully into the doorway, which Binky suddenly remembered was the sole way in or out of the burrow. He cracked his knuckles.
“When they saw their cheese was missing, they were supposed to come to you…” Binky said desperately. Monterey Jack was bigger than he was – Binky liked to think of himself as the smart one, in a contest of brains against brawn.
“Yeah, they did. But me mates got rid of ‘em,” Monterey said softly, menacingly. “It’s jes’ you and me.”
“Your… your mates?! You’ve mated?!” Binky suddenly envisioned a swarm of tiny Li’l Monterey Jacks, ready to overwhelm him with sheer force of numbers.
“What?” Monterey asked, in a normal tone. “I mean, uh,” and he resumed the soft and intimidating tone, “I’ve got friends. So what was your plan, then, Binky?”
“I’m a Wonder Rat; it was a wonderful plan,” Binky said. He couldn’t resist the opportunity to show his nemesis the intellectual superiority that was Binky the Wonder Rat. “I wasn’t counting on this, though…” he muttered, and cast around for a weapon.
Monterey stroked his mustache, leering. “You were expectin’ me to show up with a passel of people? The ones you stole the cheese from?”
“Yeah, them,” Binky agreed quickly. “And you would be all ‘but but but he planted the cheese in me room!’ and I would be all suave and ‘now ladies, who are you going to believe?’” He noticed his bottle of Indian Ink was next to the couch. Really, he shouldn’t have left it there, the last time he’d touched up the dye job on the left half of his body. The couch might get stained if it spilled, after all. But in truth he was glad it was there, glad of the mistake he’d made.
“An’ they would have believed ya over me, I’m sure,” Monterey said. “But they ain’t here. I’m here.”
“Ker-plah!” Binky shouted as he dove for the ink.
“What?” Monterey asked, momentarily confused.
That moment was all Binky needed. He pulled the stopper off the vial of ink with his teeth, then hurled it at Monterey Jack. The big mouse didn’t have time to dodge – the lip of the vial smacked him square in the chest, splashing ink all over his head and body.
Monterey howled in agony, temporarily blinded, and Binky leaped up and over his mortal enemy, through the doorway, and out of the burrow. He had to get away, away from Monterey Jack. These “friends” of which his nemesis spoke (probably the chipmunks and mouse from yesterday) wouldn’t be able to keep suspicion off him forever. If Binky just lay low for a few days, sooner or later the mice he’d burglarized would put two and two together.
If someone hadn’t pulled a bag down over his head.
Once the doll’s pillowcase was down around Binky’s shoulders, Zipper released and ducked away. The Wonder Rat, realizing immediately what had happened, flailed wildly in an attempt to catch his nemesis’s hated pet. Thus off-balance, he was bowled over easily by Chip and Dale, who came at him from both sides. Once he was on the ground, it was easy for one of them to hold him down while the other tied him up. The entire process of capturing Binky the Wonder Rat took barely five seconds, three of which were tying.
“Tell me you got it,” Chip said to Gadget, once the villain was subdued.
Smiling wordlessly, she pushed a few buttons on the tape recorder.
“’the ones you stole the cheese from?’ ‘Yeah, them…’” blared out of the tape recorder. From inside the pillowcase, Binky whimpered.
“Wait!” Monterey cried as he strode out of the burrow, trying vainly to wipe the ink from his face. “Does me voice really sound like that?”
“But it was such a good plan,” Binky whined as Gadget reassured Monterey Jack that everyone’s voice was like that.
“The seed of crime bears bitter fruit,” Chip told him, and immediately wished he hadn’t – it sounded much too hackneyed. “When we play this tape to the people you stole from, I think you’ll find the neighborhood becomes a good deal less welcoming.”
“It was so simple,” Binky continued, oblivious. “And it would have worked, if not for you stupid rodents and your fly!”
“For… last… time!” Zipper shouted (or at least, squeaked loudly). “Am… not… PET!”

Deda Forbus, mime, was locked in an invisible box halfway down the Museum Mile when she saw it. She’d been honing her slowly-atrophying invisible box skills all morning, for without regular exercise anything will become bloated and useless, be it an overweight retired high school athlete whose best years were long behind him before he was thirty, or a professional mime’s skill at performing her least favorite of the Seventeen Traditional Routines she had been taught at the New York Mime Theater Company School. A school which may or may not exist, Deda reminded herself – for from within the confines of an invisible box, who could tell fact from fancy, truth from falsehood, or rhyme from reason?
Take, for instance, the small Wonder Rat, with the fur dyed half black and half white. Take, also for instance, the suitcase full of tiny, rat-scaled mime clothing and paraphernalia. Take, as a third instance, the crowd of jeering mice and squirrels and even chipmunks, which were following the Wonder Rat out to the edges of the park in a go-and-never-darken-my-towels-again sort of way. Was this strange sight real? Was it a hallucination brought on by the feelings of isolation and loneliness so common to one trapped in an invisible box? Was she, Deda Forbus, even real, or was she a figment, a flight of someone’s far-off fancy? Who could say?

The End

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