The cheez doodle no longer blocking her ability to scream, mitts lets out the most blood-curdling scream pansy, falling next to her, has ever heard! Even Rowan, who passes them head down to the north, gapes in fright as he plummets wildly. Then visible way below them is a mighty city of domes and minerets and white stucco buildings and palm trees. Mitts gazes in terror as the ground looms larger. Then she spies a wide, peaceful river and gestures to pansy to follow her lead and "swims" so that her fall will land her in the water. Pansy stays right beside her and in unison, they point their toes and hold their noses. With two tiny splashes, hit the water seamlessly, descending below the smooth surface of the river, and then floating up to the top, gasping and choking. "We're alive, pan!" mitts splutters. Pansy coughs, treading water with all fours, and grins. "Did you happen to see where the cheez doodles landed, mitts?" Before mitts can respond, she notices Rowan splashing toward them, face grim.

Forgetting all about her cheez doodle obsession, Pansy turns and starts paddling madly toward shore, with Mitts clinging to her fur and making tiny frightened sounds. With a final adrenaline-powered heave, she hoists them up onto the banks of the river, just as Rowan lunges for Mitts' toes... missing her by mere centimeters as a tiny shriek escapes her lips. Panicked, they scurry toward the crowd of well-dressed, elderly ladies who are picnicking in style at the park by the river. Survival instincts aside, one thought drives Pansy as she runs, "maybe they have cheez doodles."

Mitts frantically hoofs along behind pansy. The "clomp clomp clomp" of Rowan's black Santa-like boots is right behind them...his hot breath scorches everything on the ground, including the back of mitts' neck! "Aaaaaaaaaaaaa....," mitts wails in terror as she speeds up, almost passing pansy, certain her end is near. But the spritely pansy maintains the lead and dodges into an outdoor bazaar where men wearing caftans and women wearing flowing robes sell vegetables and live chickens and bolts of colourful material and gaudy jewellry. The two frightened mice dart into the crowd, slowing Rowan down and giving them the opportunity to leap sideways into a booth where a swarthy, turbaned man smokes an oriental pipe, and a cage of chickens squawks loudly. Mitts and pan leap behind the cage, holding their breaths, as Rowan clomps by them. "Jeeeez, pan," mitts squeaks. "I thought we were goners!" "Ssshhhhhh!" pansy responds. "I think I smell cheese doodles......" and ducks out the back of the booth and heads deeper into the bazaar. Mitts scurries after her, wondering what sort of peril awaits them.

Racing along following the scent of cheese doodles, Pansy carelessly forgets the perilous situation they're in. Mitts follows cautiously, trying to warn Pansy, but being shushed mercilessly each time. Pansy spots a packing crate filled with what appear to be cheese doodles, and she races ahead and does a perfect three-twirl dive in head first, only to discover that they are just styrofoam packing popcorn. In horror, Mitts watches as a crane picks up the box containing Pansy, and with all her might, she leaps up and grabs onto the bottom of the box. Clinging in horror to the box, she watches the bazaar shrink away below just as Rowan spots her and starts pushing through the crowd towards them. With her heart in her throat, she musters a last little bit of adrenaline and shimmies up the side of the box and throws herself in, landing with a tiny "oof". The crane lifts the box up and up, and then trundles through customs, where Rowan is stopped (his papers are not in order). Mitts and Pans peer out through tiny holes in the crate and give each other a high-five when they see that they've escaped Rowan. The box is placed none-too-gently on top of a stack of other identical boxes all marked "Fragile" in the cargo hold of a giant freight ship.

The two exhausted mice recline in the packing popcorn, too tired to chat, finally able to sleep in safety, grateful to have escaped from the vengeful Rowan.

As they sleep the box is lifted and hauled and put down none to gently, but mitts and pansy sleep on...and on...and on....

Finally, mitts wakes to a gentle rocking movement and a soft creaking and she instinctively knows they're on a boat. Pansy is curled up in a little ball, hugging a piece of packing popcorn. Mitts sees the corner of a book exposed among the white styrofoam and tugs until the book is freed and she can see the title. She mutters to herself when she sees that it's not in English.

"Pan!" she says loudly, poking the sleeping mouse. "Pan! What does 'Produzindo Ratos Para O Divertimento E O Lucro' mean?"

Pansy wakes with a start, gives mitts a dirty look, then gazes at the huge book. "Good grief, mitts...don't you know that's Japanese??" And with a studious expression she looks at the title and says, "Uh...it says....uh....'Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus'.

Mitts raises one eyebrow while giving pansy a suspicious look, then hefts the cover of the book open with a grunt. "Then why is there a picture of a big, macho mouse holding flowers and a bottle of wine, and a cutesy little big-boobed girl mouse, pan?? huh?? huh???"

Pansy gazes wide-eyed at the picture, then flips to the next page. "Hmmmm...look at this picture, mitts. It's mother mice in their nests with pink, bald little babies! Maybe I read that title wrong....Actually, it says 'Men MICE Are From Mars, Women MICE Are From Venus'."

Relaxing in the packing popcorn, alternately studying the mysterious book, giggling, and making faces at each other, Mitts and Pansy start to recover from their string of harrowing adventures. They reminisce about their brief stint in heaven, unsure of how they even died in the first place... the reincarnation elevator... reawakening as baby mice... the daring escape from the pet store... the haunted house with the large maze... the odd mouse cult and nearly being sacrificed to a weird Rowan-Atkins-esque deity... Safe and happy, Mitts slips out the back briefly to take a pee, while Pansy scouts around for cheeze doodles. Returning to their large packing crate, they discuss the cargo hold that they're being transported in. Tired again and without cheeze doodle bounty, Pansy turns around three times and plops down onto a cushy packing popcorn. Mitts flops down beside her. They briefly scuffle, half-heartedly... pushing and poking one another until they're both comfortable. Just as they reach the first stage of dozing into sleep, they hear enormous footsteps from above, and then a loud creaking. Together they bolt up and peer out of a crack in the crate. A beam of light illuminates the staircase in the far corner of the cargo hold, and loud footsteps begin descending the stairs.

Pansy and Mitts' senses are at alert as they peer out the crack in the crate...the scent of Old Spice aftershave wafts through the air and a jaunty rendition of "Blow The Man" is being sung loudly in a pleasant baritone. Then a boot...then the entire sailor steps lively across the cargo hold dodging boxes and bales and tarp-covered large objects and stops at the box where the terrified mice now cower, trying to hide beneath the inefficient packing popcorn.

A loud "CRACK" and the lid is raised. A large, red-bearded face peers inside, then sticks his hand into the packing popcorn muttering, "A library...a bleedin' library the cap'n says 'e wonts...." And then, "What the deevil???"

Mitts feels herself being lifted through the air by the tail and she squeaks pitifully as the sailor raises her to his bushy-eyebrowed level. "Well noo...yair a bonnie wee mousie, ainchyee??" and he laughs loudly. Mitts attempts a grin, swinging to and fro from his large paw, staring into not unfriendly blue eyes, but almost pees in fright.

"Noo noo noo," the sailor croons. "Doncha be gettin' yer tail outa whack, wee bairn. Oy'll be tackin' ye to me cabin where there's cheese 'n' ole good tings fer mousie's ta eat," and he cups her carefully in his hand. Mitts squeaks and points downward to where pansy's head is poking up

through the packing popcorn, eyes wide. But the sailor turns, crooning to mitts all the while he circumvents the cargo and climbs the stairs. Mitts' eyes fill with tears and she sobs loudly, afraid she'll never see her friend again. And the sailor, thinking it's from fright, pets her head with one large finger and croons, "Noo noo noo," as he carries her carefully to his cabin.

Pansy, back in the crate, suddenly feels terribly alone. Now what's she to do? How can she go on without mitts? Her chest convulses with grief as she wails while attempting to claw her way up out of the wooden crate.

Emerging onto deck into the bright sunlight, Mitts squints in discomfort from the shock after being in dim light for so long. Perched on a large, calloused hand, she scans the small, old, but well kept boat, spotting other sailors here and there, going about their business.

A voice from behind suddenly booms, �What�chee go� therre, Angus? Coome on, gie� us a loook.�

Deftly, Angus tosses Mitts up his sleeve, and she briefly catches the frightened look that flits across his large, fuzzy-red-covered face. �Nothin�� I go� nothin�, he mumbles, as the smaller, menacing looking man darts in front of him.

�Loooked loyke a wee rodent ye be packin� ter me� coome on, �and it over.�

�Tole you oi got nothin��, as he pushes past and heads towards his cabin.

�No fair, Angus, �idin� y� wee snack froom y� mates� best be sharin�!� the man yells after him as Mitts burrows deep into Angus� sleeve, trying to make herself small and invisible. She hears the man muttering to himself about Angus taking in all walk of creatures and feeding them food from the crew�s dwindling supplies. At that, her spirits lift slightly and her tummy starts to rumble, hoping maybe Angus has some cheeze doodles.

Meanwhile, below deck�

Pansy struggles out of a deep, deep sleep. Her only reality has been her dream world for so long she has trouble remembering where she is and how she got here in this dark enclosed place, curled around and resting on styrofoam popcorn. She closes her beady little eyes and shakes her head, wondering where Mitts is.

�Mitts?� she squeaks. �Where are you?� But she hears only the dead echo of her own voice...feels only the gentle swaying of the world she�s found herself in...hears only the creak of wood rubbing on wood, and the lap of water.

Slowly she gets up and stretches, wincing at bruises and stiffness and tight knots in her limbs. �I wonder how long I was sleeping....it seems like a month....� she groans. She looks around at books, half covered in styrofoam...and the walls of a wooden crate. Overhead is a wooden lid, half broken off.

Then it all comes back to her. The boat...the sailor who sang �Blow The Man Down� and how he carried Mitts away, and how she � Pansy � unsuccessfully struggled to escape from the confines of the crate to follow him.

A deep sob scrapes her chest as she remembers leaping into the air over and over...against the wooden sides of the crate...banging her head and wee paws...falling back into the crate again and again until, exhausted, she had given in to sleep. Clearly she hadn�t used her best judgment, pummeling herself recklessly and needlessly like that. �Use your head, Pan,� she tells herself, looking around at the material at hand. Then she slowly pushes a large, heavy book into the corner of the crate. After it�s in a satisfactory position, she finds a slightly smaller book, pushes it over to the first book, lifts a corner of this book up onto the other, and positions it on top in a stair-step manner. A third book, smaller than the other two, is next, and is much more difficult to life and push high onto the others. But eventually she�s successful, and regards her handiwork with pride. Then she burrows into the styrofoam popcorn looking for more props to use for her escape.

�Aha!� she cries as she uncovers a wooden ruler. �I can�t believe this...it�s a perfect ladder!� Happily she drags it over to the stair-step books, hoists it up to the third level, leans it carefully against the side of the crate, and creeps up, inch by inch (heheh) until she perches on top of the crate, beaming toothily.

Then, joyously, she makes her way quickly to the floor, down broken, slanted crate lids; plots her course through the maze of boxes and other cargo to the stairs; and then hopping and scurrying, hopping and scurrying, she soon finds herself on deck, hiding behind a mountain of coil of rope, watching the activities of large, boisterous men shouting and laughing and paying absolutely no mind to her at all. But where could Mitts have been taken?

�I need a better look around,� she decides, and stealthily creeps to a towering mast. Keeping it between her and the men, she climbs slowly upward and upward. She sees the ocean...a spectacular sun-streaked blue...feels waves gently rocking the boat...smells such rich salt air it almost bursts her lungs with the joy of being alive. She reaches a small mouse-sized platform on the side of the mast and hunkers down on it, surveying the whole of the boat below her, ready to wait for some clue as to where Mitts might be.

From atop her perch, Pansy scans the ship with her beady little eyes, when finally, wayyyyyy across on the far end, she spies the soft glow of candlelight through a small window. Instinctively, she knows that she'll find Mitts in the vicinity (or at least some cheez doodles).

She creeps carefully back down the mast and sneaks toward the window, watching for appropriate opportunities to dash from hiding place to hiding place. At last she stands beneath the window and climbs up to the ledge to peer inside.

A tiny shriek of hurt and jealousy escapes her lips as she drinks in the scene within. Mitts, reclining back on a mouse-size pink fuzzy chaise is being hand-fed a cheez-doodle by the sailor, and conversing with a very handsome foreign-looking male mouse who is reclining on his own mouse-size blue fuzzy chaise. Mitts looks healthy, sleepy and content, and has put on... oh... at least four ounces.

Pansy feels a tear well up in one eye that she has been so easily forgotten and discarded by her friend... after all they've been through together... and after all the times she's selflessly rescued Mitts from so many of her hair-brained schemes...

Before long, despair turns to envy and fury... "just wait 'til I get my paws on her", she thinks to herself...

Mitts, feeling all snuggly and warm, sated with cheez doodles and eye candy, gazes at Sharif from beneath half-lowered eyelids. "Tell me again about your home village in the mountains, dear Sharif. You tell such fascinating stories!"

As she listens raptly to the swarthy, mondo macho mouse, her conscience wanders occasionally to Pansy. She speculates as to whether Pansy is still in the box in the ship�s hold. But Sharif's black eyes hypnotically draw her back to the here and now.

The large sailor has left Mitts and Sharif alone in his cabin after crooning a gentle �Noo noo noo wee tads...ay�ll be back soon an� you ken be surrre of it.�

Mitts, after waving one dainty paw at the sailor, shivers with the thought of being alone with Sharif.

Suddenly there�s a loud tapping on the cabin window. Mitts lets out a high squeak as she sees her little purple pal, Pansy, pounding with her tiny fists, more furious than Mitts has ever seen her.

With one regretful backward glance at Sharif, Mitts grabs a cheez doodle in each paw and scurries through a tiny hole in the wall she�d found while casing the cabin earlier. Scurrying onto the deck of the ship with the cheez doodles, she looks up at Pansy who is now stomping up and down the windowsill while cursing crazily and shaking her fist in Mitts� direction.

�You traitor! How could you forget about me? Were you going to leave me in there to rot? You�re no friend of mine! This is it! We�re finished! El finito!� and Pansy draws her paw fiercely across her throat.

Mitts sputters, �But...but...but....� while holding the cheez doodles above her head, offering them to Pansy, and grinning sickly.

At last Pansy notices the cheez doodles and, interrupting her histrionics long enough to sniff the air deeply, says, �Don�t you EVER do that again, Mitts!� and agilely nips down to the deck and grabs the cheez doodles.

�I�m sorry, Pan....�

�You should be...� she says, kicking Mitts� shin while munching hungrily on a cheez doodle.

Mitts emits a small squeak. �I wasn�t going to leave you forever....�

�Hah...I don�t believe you,� Pan frowns, whiskers covered with orange crumbs.

�Sharif wants to meet you....� Mitts quavers.

�Who the devil is Sharif?� Pansy demands.

Mitts points up toward the window where Sharif, standing in all his handsome mousely maleness, gazes down at them. Pan�s beady little eyes meet his and the cheez doodle falls to the deck. The next thing she knows, Sharif is standing before her, kissing her orange-crumbed paw.

�Charmed, my dear,� Sharif intones while gazing into her eyes.

Pansy blushes and giggles. Mitts shakes her head and rolls her eyes upward in disgust. Then something in the sky above the ship catches her eye.

�PANNNN!!� she shrieks. �It�s him...it�s him...it�s HIM!!� and pokes Pansy in the ribs to get her attention.

Pansy looks into the sky and sees Rowan and his unicorns descending.

There is a sudden flurry of activity behind Mitts and Pansy as Sharif bursts from the small cabinet into which he dove at the sight of Rowan. Only this is not the Sharif who was suavely drooling on Pansy's paw moments ago... he has grown to about five times his original size, with muscles bulging out from under the green spandex superhero costume with a purple symbol on the chest that looked something like this: 뼭

With super-rodent strength, Sharif lifts Mitts and Pansy up and sets them around the corner out of harm's way and bravely races into Rowan's trajectory, looking back briefly to throw a kiss in the direction of Mitts and Pans who gape in disbelief.

Mitts and Pansy scrabble to peek around the corner in disbelief, heads still reeling from the miraculous transformation of Sharif.

�Pan??� Mitts squeaks. �Is Sharif actually.....Mighty Mouse??� and her eyes widen, pupils dilate, as she wonders what the small cryptic square on Sharif/Mighty Mouse�s chest means.

Pansy sighs and flutters her eyelashes as she watches the diminutive freedom fighter catch Rowan, his horned team, and the sky-flying vehicle in one small but mighty paw. �Oh yes...yes. He�s my hero!� and she clasps her hands in delight as with super-rodent strength, Sharif sets the bellowing Rowan and his rig on the deck of the ship, ties Rowan to the mast, and sets the unicorns free to fly away.

Pansy scampers in delight to the transformed Shariff�s side. With small smoochy noises, he lifts her into his arms and flies into the west, toward the setting sun, while Mitts watches from the deck, tears of rage flowing freely. �AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!� she yells, shaking one fist in the air, then stomping over to the tightly bound Rowan and kicking him on the shin.

Rowan squawks in pain, and then � unexpectedly � begins to tell Mitts his story...how he came to be the mighty Ah Xoc, his quest for the elusive purple and calico rodents, and his amazing proposal to Mitts.

Mitts listens raptly, slowly adjusting to what Rowan is telling her, relishing the thought of thwarting Sharif and Pansy�s liaison.

"It was back in 1993", Rowan began. "'Mr. Bean' peaked in popularity in '92 and had begun a downhill slide after the episode, 'Mr. Bean in Room 426' in February, 1993. The network started pressuring me to revitalize the show, otherwise they would make '93 the last season."

Mitts, absently gnawing a cheez doodle, listened with unexpected fascination.

Rowan continued, "One night, about 2:47AM, I was visited in my sleep by a talking crow named Jeremy. This Jeremy explained that I could ensure the continued success of 'Mr. Bean' if I assumed the persona of a religious icon known to a small group of genetically modified rats and mice. This religious icon was named Ah Xoc, and the only problem was that he didn't actually exist. Jeremy had been manipulating the rodents for years to do his bidding, and had become quite dependent on their support. Lately, they'd started to lose faith in him, especially since their promised savior, Ah Xoc, had not appeared to them as Jeremy had promised. Jeremy wanted me to help him regain their confidence, and was willing to use his powers to help me in return for my appearing as Ah Xoc."

Glancing at the 1/2 eaten bag of cheez doodles, Mitts thought to herself, "Boy... this guy is REALLY weird!", and began to feel the first niggles of having to pee.

"Although I didn't feel right about it, and was afraid of being under the control of Jeremy, I agreed to assume the identity of Ah Xoc to keep my beloved show on the air for as long as possible. I awoke the next day feeling incredibly energized and wrote the scripts for the next three 'Mr. Bean' episodes, which turned out to be the most successful yet ('Do It Yourself, Mr Bean', 'Mind the Baby, Mr Bean', and 'Back to School, Mr Bean', incidentally)."

"Uh-huh", nodded Mitts, with a mixture of fascination, horror, and needing-to-pee-ness.

"That night, I was visited again by Jeremy, who demanded that I appear as Ah Xoc for his enslaved rodents. Night after night this continued, until, half crazed from sleep deprivation, I could no longer distinguish between my waking life, and this dream life. I became Ah Xoc. At first, many of the rodents were skeptical of me, but as time went on, and each new generation of mice and rats was born and died, and as I became more and more convinced of my Ah Xoc identity, the rodents accepted me. Jeremy is quite old, now, and no new episodes of 'Mr Bean' have been made in years, but I have been unable to separate myself from his control. He's promised me my freedom if I can deliver to him a calico mouse, a purple mouse, and a tartan caelocanth. The caelocanth was a no-brainer - a quick trip down to the fjords of Madagascar, but the mice... the mice... I have searched so long for the mice..."