**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

I think I've set a record for the longest gap between fanfic parts.  Anyways, same cautions
apply as before, though not to such a degree.  {quit cheering at the back!}
Comments/thoughts/ideas/etc welcome, and feel free to be honest.  All characters are
copyright Warner Brothers/Amblin Entertainment except Sandy, Falloner, Carter and
Brad, who are (c) me.  And now.........................



A CERTAIN LONELY TOON - PART TWO
By Foxy Fellow {foxyfellowuk@yahoo.co.uk}


Chapter 3

Normal Service Has Been Resumed


Although in most schools the sight of a two foot green dodo using his own head as a bell
by the simple means of detaching it from his neck and shaking it would have had most
people booking psychiatric appointments, the youngsters streaming past him and into
Acme Loo's hallowed halls knew it to be perfectly normal.  Sandy, walking alongside
Buster, Babs and Falloner, was one of the few to even notice.
  "Does he suffer from frequent headaches?" he asked, watching askance as the dodo in
question ceased ringing his head, and began drumming it instead, using his feet as the
sticks.
  "I have this weird pounding on my skull," Gogo pronounced, genuinely confused.
  Sandy rolled his eyes, which the dodo took as a cue to roll his - by snatching them from
their sockets and bowling them along the floor.  Before they'd even stopped moving,
they'd sprouted legs and belted off in the general direction of Wackyland.  Gogo took off
after them, frantically walloping his body parts back in completely the wrong places. 
Thus his head begged them to come back from the end of his left leg, whilst his right foot
waggled ineffectually from the top of his neck.  Repeatedly rearranging himself, yet
never quite getting the positions perfect, the dodo vanished into the distance.
  "Makes a change," Buster noted, as they trooped into a classroom whose door was
labelled 'Advanced Chases, with Wile E Coyote, Super-Genius'. "Normally he loses his
head."
  Wile E himself sat behind a particularly immense desk, and a foot high by three feet
wide placard with 'WILE E COYOTE, SUPER-GENIUS' written on it in five inch high
letters, watching his pupils file to their places.  Once all were seated, he made a show of
pressing a very large and very shiny maroon red button just to the left side of the desk.  A
portion of the desk slid aside, allowing a mechanical hand, complete with pristine white
glove, to emerge.  It extended smoothly toward the door, pushed it firmly shut, then
withdrew to the desk, where it lay flat on its palm in front of a super-smug super-genius.
  Calamity expressed the thoughts of his equally slack-jawed classmates by holding up a
room-sized sign with IT WORKED?!?!?!?! written upon it.
  Wile E gave a supremely self-satisfied nod, and patted the robot hand with one paw,
whereupon it clamped onto his arm and flung him clean over the desk, to slam head-first
into the floor right in front of Calamity's table.  The younger coyote buried his head in
one hand, the other holding up a new sign - Oi-yoi-yoi.  Meanwhile, the robot mitt
amused itself by casually smashing Wile E into whatever surfaces it could think of.  Soon
everything from the doors to the desks bore a dent shaped like a certain super-genius'
head, physical proof of his incredible repertoire of pained grimaces.
  Eventually the hand released the coyote, who was now about half his original height and
with no muzzle to speak of, and retreated into the desk.  Wile E dragged himself out of
the room, returning a moment later his normal self, and laden down with wood, nails and
hammer.  He then proceeded to board up the trap door in his desk with almost manic
fervour.  Upon finishing, he actually looked quite self-satisfied as he viewed his
handiwork...until he realised he'd nailed his own paw to the desk.  Taking a brief moment
to scream silently in mortal agony, he then feverishly prised his hand free.
  Over the next hour, he imparted his vast knowledge on the subject of totally failing to
catch what you're chasing, ably supported by his sign collection and special guest the
Roadrunner.  His cause was definitely not helped by the hand managing to break free of
the boarding, and choosing the worst possible moments to pull him into the depths of the
desk.
  It seemed to enjoy inventing new tortures for him, judging by the varying sound effects
to echo from the desk whenever it had Wile E in it's grasp.  First came the sound of a
razor in overdrive, then the coyote re-emerged shaven from head to toe (although the
hand had been kind enough to provide him with a fig leaf).  Then a rush of aerosol
spraying proceeded a Wile E painted the colours of the Stars and Stripes.  For its third
trick, the hand turned him into a coyote-shaped ice cube (though it refrained from dicing
him or dunking him in a glass of cola).
  Everyone knew who'd fiddled with the device, especially since a certain feathery speed
merchant kept nipping round the back of the desk to tweak a few things whenever Wile E
wasn't looking.  Five minutes from class end, Bugs sauntered into the room, leaning on
the wall with carrot in paw.  This had an amazing effect on Wile E.  He actually began to
speak.  The only person to be startled by this was Sandy, though his only visible reaction
was a raised eyebrow.  Bugs didn't miss it.
  With a wicked grin he stepped out of the room and out of Wile E's line of sight.  The
coyote's voice stopped dead, mid-word.  Without a flicker of reaction, Wile E returned to
sign language.  Then Bugs popped his head round the door.  Wile's voice magically came
back to him.  Bugs spent the next few minutes dancing in and out of the coyote's view,
resulting in yet more abject humiliation for the unfortunate super-genius, as he battled to
retain some continuity between his sporadic speech and frantically scribbled-up signs. 
As the end of class bell rang, he collapsed in a panting, utterly exhausted heap.  He still
had the energy to glower at Bugs as Acme's principal walked toward him through a rush
of exiting students.  Only Babs, Buster and Sandy remained.
  "Sorry, Wile," Bugs apologised, screwing on his most ingratiating grin. "Couldn't resist."
  Wile E opened his mouth to fire back a suitably withering retort, but was painfully cut
off by the mechanical hand clamping round his throat and pulling him back inside the
desk.  This time, though, he didn't reappear, the thrashing, crashing cacophony from
inside the desk raucous and relentless, punctuated by ragged screams from Wile E.  Bugs,
the Road Runner and the younger toons worked frantically to break the desk open, but it
wouldn't give an inch.  Bugs, Buster and Sandy produced crowbars from body pockets,
jamming them under the lip of the desk lid.
  The vicious beating stopped dead, as did Wile E's screams.
  "WILE!" Bugs all-but-screamed, his composure deserting him at last.  The Road Runner
had lost his much earlier.
  With a tremendous effort paws and crowbars and sheer brute strength slowly tore the
desktop free, a roar of splintering wood and cracking, snapping nails filling the
classroom.  The toons allowed it to drop heavily back against the chair, gazes fixed on
the desk's contents.  A rangy, brown-furred form lay lifeless alongside the dormant
mechanical hand, a typewritten note resting atop it.  It read:

    ONE (1) DEAD COYOTE

  The Road Runner collapsed into unconsciousness, his mind unable to comprehend what
his eyes had revealed.  Buster, Babs and Sandy stood stock still, utter horror and disbelief
etched into their youthful faces.  As for Bugs...
  "No.  NO!  Dis can't be happenin'!  It just ain't possib..."
  "Uh...urghhh..." It was faint, but it was indubitably Wile E.
  "Criminy - he's alive!" Bugs exclaimed, both astonished and delighted.
  Those toons still conscious leaned over the lip of the topless desk, to see the super-
genius roll with difficulty onto his back,  and stare weakly up at them.  Intense relief on
their part found a release in extended laughter.
  "Jeez, Wile," Bugs grinned, helping his colleague sit up. "You had us goin' there!  Only
you could shake a beatin' like that off!"
  "Road...Runner...?" Wile managed, then spotted the somnolent ball of feathers propped
against a nearby wall.  A thankful sigh escaped his lungs, followed by a slight chuckle.
"He's always...afraid...of going...a little too...far."
  "This weren't his fault," Bugs replied, providing a supporting arm as Wile E climbed
from the desk, and got unsteadily to his feet. "Let's get ya ta Granny.  You tree," he went
on, turning his head to look at Buster, Babs and Sandy, "bring the Runner round, then get
ta my office and wait fer me.  Got that?"
  "Got it," came three sharp answers.
  Bugs nodded, then helped Wile E out of the room.  Buster produced a tumbler of cold
water from behind his back.
  "Wakey-wakey!" he called, throwing the chilled liquid in the Road Runner's face.
  The bird spluttered to life, jumping to his feet and instantly noticing the disappearance
of Bugs and Wile E.  He gazed questioningly at the three students.
  "Wile's alive," Sandy assured him. "Bugs is escorting him to the infirmary."
  Giving the most exuberant "MEEP MEEP!" they'd ever heard, at such a volume the
windows vibrated, the Road Runner blasted off in the direction of the medical room,
leaving a trail of fire in his wake.
  "Gee, and not a word of thanks!" Babs drawled.
  Then the sprinklers kicked in, showering them in cool water, saturating fur and clothes
in seconds.  Though the flaming trail was quickly doused, Babs rapidly approached
violent eruption.
"I already showered today!" she bawled, flames dancing in her eyes.
"Let's get to Bugs' office before she explodes," Buster suggested, dragging the infuriated
pink bunny from the room. "I don't fancy being hit by the shrapnel."
  Noticing with a yelp the countdown suddenly ticking in Babs eyes, and the way she
uttered "Two minutes and coouun-ting...one minute fifty-five seconds and coouun-ting..."
like a Bond villain's lackey, Sandy gladly obliged.
  Together they hustled Babs along corridor after corridor, battling to reach their goal
before she ticked down to zero.  The sudden accompaniment of the Mission: Impossible
theme didn't do their nerves any good.
  Bom, bom, bom, bom, ba-dum; bom, bom, bom, bom, ba-dum; bom, bom, bom, bom,
ba-dum...
  "Fifteen seconds and coouun-ting..."
  "We ain't gonna make it!"
  "Only three more doors!"
  BA-ba-dum (bom, bom, ba-dum)...
  "Ten seconds and coouun-ting..."
  BA-ba-dum (bom, bom, ba-dum)...
  "Okay, we ain't gonna make it!  Throw her in here!"
  "Five seconds and coouun-ting..."
  SLAM!
  BA-DUM!
  KA-BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
  Sandy and Buster slumped against the now-convex door, exhaling massive sighs of
relief.
  "Does she do that often?" the fox asked.
  "Only once a month," Buster assured him. "Now let's assess the damage."
  He opened the door, revealing a blackened, ash-filled shell that might once have been a
classroom, a charred sable lump with dazed eyes and twin pink bows slumped in the
middle of it.  It gasped out a cloud of smoke, which rapidly shaped itself into the single
word OUCH.
  "You okay, Babsie?" Buster asked, warily, ready to whip out a lead screen at the
slightest provocation.
  "I've felt better," she answered, dryly. "Excuse me a moment." She stepped briefly from
view, reappearing in pristine condition. "Shall we continue?"
  "After you, Babs," Buster insisted, partly through chivalry, partly through a keen sense
of self-preservation.
  "Why, thank you!" she smiled as she slipped past, kissing the blue bunny lightly on the
cheek.
  "No trouble..." Buster replied, his sudden inability to move and giddly happy smile
indicating his brain had checked out for the time being.
  "Yoo-hooooo!" Sandy carolled, waving a paw in front of Buster's immobile face.
"Anybody ho-ooooome?"
  Buster's mouth moved, but the voice that emerged wasn't his.  It sounded more like that
of a telephone operator with a personality bypass. "I'm sorry - the rabbit you have dialled
has been disconnected.  Duhhhh..."
  "THAT'S MY GAG, MISTER!" Babs yelled from some thirty feet down the corridor.
"EXPECT A VISIT FROM MY LAWYERS!" Then she flounced out of view.
  "Whoa, is she protective of her material," Sandy noted, staring wide-eyed after her. "I
hope she wasn't being serious about the lawyers."
  "Babsie, serious?" chuckled a familiar voice.  Buster, fully recovered, leaned casually in
the doorway behind the fox. "That's about as likely as Hamton saying no to seconds."
  "Or you not losing 30 IQ points every time she kisses you!" Sandy grinned back.
  "I think you'll find that's 25 IQ points." Buster riposted, as they strolled along to Bugs'
office. "I do have some self-control, ya know."
  "When compared with Plucky after someone's dangled a ten dollar bill in front of his
face, maybe."
  Together they entered the office, wherein Babs already sat, but of the Principal there
was no sign.  Blue bunny and fox eventually managed to persuade the pink rabbit not to
sue Buster "for every last cent ya got, Jack!", just before Bugs strolled in, accompanied
by a noticeably nervous Falloner.  The raccoon sat next to Sandy, whilst the Principal
assumed his seat behind the desk.
  "Now, then," Bugs began, leaning forward, face intense, elbows resting on the desk, and
fingers steepled. "I take it you've noticed de odd things happenin' at de moment?"
  Four firm nods.
  "Hard to miss 'em," Buster answered, mildly sardonic.
  Bugs took a slim card folder from the top of a pile near his right hand, and opened it in
front of him. "I've listed dem here.  Tell me if I've missed any.  Foist Daffy plummets
t'rough ta Australia, Canberra in fact.  Wile gets beaten to the limit by his own device. 
Sam's backfiring shotgun gag goes wrong, when de gun blasts him no less than fifty times
without pause.  He's in de infoimary, too."
  "Shouldn't shotguns have only two rounds, one per barrel?" A stunned and confused
Sandy asked.
  "Have you ever seen Sam reload?" Bugs returned, pointedly. "Dat ain't ya average
shotgun.  Now, have I missed anyt'ing?" He picked up a pen and held it poised to write.
  "One or two things..." Buster recounted, as concisely as he could, the events of the
previous evening.
  Bugs listened intently, ears fully erect, pen whirring across the paper, and eyes rapidly
widening to encompass most of his face.  He paused to think for some moments once
Buster had finished, as well as conclude his note-taking.
  "We can safely assume," he stated, evenly, "dat someone's got it in for us big time.  Da
question is who and why?" In less than the blinking of an eye he became a snarling,
puffed-up (literally - he was twice his normal size) US Army general, complete with
overlarge three-star helmet resting on his nose, mile wide shoulder pads with more
stripes than a herd of zebra, and enough jangling medals to give Hercules a hernia. "CAN
YOU ANSWER DOSE QUESTIONS?!"
  "YES, SIR!!" bellowed back four strangely-familiar US marines, decked out in
camouflage gear, daubed in several gallons of war paint, wrapped in a couple hundred
feet of bullet chains, and brandishing more heavy artillery than a Schwarzenegger film
season.
  "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
  "YES, SIR!" Four sets of powerful young lungs propelled the words out with such force
Bugs had to fight to remain vertical.
  "DEN GET OUT DERE AND ANSWER DEM!" The principal/general ordered, his
helmet rattling around on his head with the volume of the shout. "Though that don't mean
ya can skip classes," he added, the principal half of his brain assuming control for a
moment.
  Babs, Buster, Sandy and Falloner saluted smartly, then turned to troop from the room.
  "Left, right, left, right," chanted Buster, taking the lead.  They started down the corridor.
"Left, WHOAH!" One of his feet snagged on a bullet chain, and he tumbled head over
tail.  Babs, Sandy and Falloner dutifully followed his example.  Instantly their entire
arsenal went off, the toon marines caught in the crossfire.
  "AND NOR DOES FATALLY WOUNDIN' YOISELVES!" Bugs shouted over the
assorted explosions, gunfire and awful screams of mortal agony.  He shook his head.
"Pete's gonna hate dis."
  Then he relaxed, deflating to his normal size.  This proved a bad mistake, as it allowed
the high tonnage of disc-shaped metal attached to his chest to pull him violently down
onto the desk, a sharp, metallic CLUNK ringing out.  His helmet hung in space for a
second, then fell back onto his head with a CLANG-G-G like a church bell dropped on
concrete.
  "I really gotta cut back on de medals - dey ain't good for me."

  At about the same time, Carter sat in a room somewhere in the bowels of Perfecto Prep,
taking high speed and copious notes.  He may not like having to take Perfecto's unique
classes, but he could still make use of them.  Right now he was enduring Decking 101. 
Rather than jotting down the finer points of laying someone out cold in as many and
varied ways as possible, he was concocting methods of avoiding a sharp visit to the floor.
  No-one noticed his jottings, mainly because no-one noticed him.  This was something
he'd put a lot of effort into ensuring, always avoiding things that might draw attention to
him, and generally keeping a lower profile than Richard Kimble.  He was just another
face in the crowd, a number in the school's accounts; nothing more.  Other pages in his
notepad were filled with ideas and schemes all geared towards getting out of Perfecto and
into Acme.  He didn't want to end up like Albert.
  Albert had started school at the same time as Carter.  The sable raccoon had found the
orange cat pleasant enough company, if more than a little naive.  That had been his
downfall.  He'd turned up to the very first Decking 101 clad in overalls and a tool belt,
and was therefore more than a little put out on discovering its true nature.  Ridicule
pummelled him from almost every direction, including the teacher.  Albert ended up
being used as a living dummy to demonstrate and practice the decking techniques on.  At
end of class he'd been dragged off to the chemistry labs and never seen again.
  Carter had invested a little time trying to track him down, but had only succeeded in
deepening the mystery.  All of a sudden no-one remembered the cat, blank faces greeting
every carefully-judged enquiry.  His name disappeared from class roll calls, and vanished
from the front of his locker, replaced by the single word 'vacant'.  The only hint Albert
had ever even existed was a tiny scrawl etched into the metal back of the locker.

  Help

  At least, that's what it seemed to read.  The 'writing' was so shaky and uneven it was
barely recognisable as lettering.  It still disturbed Carter, left him feeling distinctly
uneasy, dogged by a nagging feeling that something wasn't adding up properly
somewhere along the line.  However, his restless, inquisitive mind could never pin down
exactly what part of the equation was out of step, no matter how often it roved over the
details.  That one small word - help - often spent time echoing around the inside of his
head, defying him to define why.
  It tried to do so as he continued to make his notes, but he managed to effectively quell it
by one simple thought.  Falloner.  It was always a fight not to let a smile break onto his
dark face whenever the white raccoon popped into his brain.  Suppressing it was a must,
though, as he didn't like to consider what the Perfectoids might do if they knew he had
such a strong emotional bond with another male.  Tolerance wasn't one of their strong
suits, he'd noticed.  Should a Perfectoid ever get hold of Falloner... He shuddered
inwardly.
  Such a mild creature, Falloner.  Reserved even.  At least, he was when among those he
didn't trust, which amounted to everyone bar two.  Although, those Acme Loo toons were
strong candidates to be added to the list.  He still couldn't quite believe he'd got Falloner
to actually share a kiss with him in front of them.  The otherwise empty theatre had
definitely helped, but even so, the occurrence was something to note.  Opportunity
beckoned, he knew, and he wasn't about to let it slip under his or Falloner's noses.
  Decking 101 came to a close moments later, leading into a fifteen minute break,
providing Carter with a little time to think a few things through. When opportunity
knocks, he mused, you grab him, yank him inside and pump him for information.

  Back at the Loo, the small military incident outside Bugs' office had rapidly escalated
into a four-sided, all out, toon-style World War.  Thus Bugs watched through his open
office door as Buster shot past in a blur, closely pursued by a six-foot explosive projectile
with 'ACME Rabbit-Seeking Missile - With Love From Babs' written along the side of it. 
Ten seconds later the rocket burned back in the opposite direction, the 'Rabbit' prefixed
by 'Pink'.
  "Dat boy's gettin' quicker," Bugs noted, a ghost of a grin curving across his face.
  The missile made a second brief encore, now with 'Pink Rabbit' crossed out and 'Fox'
written above it, and pursuing a frantic Sandy.
  "I must not call her Barbara Ann, I must not call her Barbara Ann, I must not call her
Barbara Ann..." the fox gibbered as he ran.
  Bugs shook his head. "Dat means trouble's about ta blow up."
  BOOM!
  "Right on cue."
  A blackened and smouldering Sandy stumbled into view. "Does anybody mind if I
smoke?" he burbled, voice frazzled, before coughing up a cloud of black and keeling over
backwards.
  "Why do so many kids pick up such bad habits?"
  A rumbling, floor-shaking growl filled the corridor.  A sign poked round the door from
where Sandy lay happily burning, only his feet visible to Bugs.
  Mother...
  Fifty-five tons of Chieftan tank rolled heavily past the doorway, a white raccoon face
painted on the battle-worn metal front.  Sandy's sign span round, as a wince-inducing,
drawn-out CRUNCH filled the air.  It now read, in tiny lettering:
  Ow.
  "My t'oughts exactly," winced Bugs.  The sign flipped round again.
  Anyone for pizza?
  "Eh, t'anks, but no t'anks, Doc," Bugs answered, then winced again as he realised what
he'd said.
  That hurt more than the tank, the sign complained.
  "Dat was a bad one," Bugs agreed.  He got to his feet and strolled to the door.  A red
and white homburg-wearing puddle sporting a pair of deeply pained eyes lay just to the
left, and a pink bow-bedecked one further down the corridor.  Falloner, having ditched the
tank, ran towards Bugs, dodging the missiles, bullets, knives, grenades and paper pellets
being launched by a fully Rambo-ed up Buster.
  "ALL RIGHT!" Bugs bellowed, causing the Babs and Sandy shaped smears to balloon
back to their normal selves, and Buster and Falloner to skid to a halt. "Cease da World
War.  Sam's still recovering, and so is the only possible replacement, so yer next class is
cancelled.  Youse de free time ta do what I asked ya.  Except you, Sandy.  I'd like a woid
with ya."
  "Okay." Sandy, looking just a touch nervous, padded into the office, Bugs shutting the
door behind him, leaving the bunnies and raccoon to shrug puzzled shoulders, and hurry
off.
  "Now," Bugs seated himself on one of two chairs huddled round a small table in a
corner of the room, motioning for Sandy to take the other. "I need to talk to ya about a
few rumors going round de school.  The only constants with dem are you and Falloner.  I
need you ta help me sort out what's real, what's half-real, and what's complete baloney. 
Okay?"
  "Al...all right," Sandy agreed, paws fidgeting slightly as they rested on his lap.  Bugs'
Brooklyn/Bronx twang had softened quite a bit, he'd noticed, not unlike it had in
detention the other day.  This time, though, there was an extra quality to it, a tint of a
tone that actually helped to calm him a little.
  "We'll start with you telling me all about you, Falloner and Carter," Bugs decided. "Then
we can get to de rumors."
  Sandy sucked in a deep breath, marshalled himself mentally, opened his mouth, and
began.

  "What d'ya think they're talking about?" Buster asked, as he, Babs and Falloner patiently
watched the library computer process the query Bookworm had entered.  A search of the
entire database for any similar events to what they'd experienced at the Megaplex was
guaranteed to take time.
  "I can guess," Falloner answered, softly, his gaze dropping a little.
  "Oh?" Buster prompted.
  "Maybe later," was all the white raccoon would say.  Gentle coaxing gained no result, so
the matter was quietly dropped, though some minds still niggled determinedly away at it.
  "How much longer?" Babs wondered, impatiently eying the "Finding..." message
displayed on the monitor in front of them. "It's been going thirty seconds, already!"
  "Well, if you wanna do it the hard way..." Buster gestured towards a filing cabinet quite
literally bulging with old Acme Gazettes, to the point the side panels looked ready to fly
off at the slightest provocation.
  Babs shifted her chair nearer to the computer. "Nah.  This is safer."
  "Ah - it's about done," Falloner piped up.
  The toon trio focused fully on the computer, watching it flash up "Complete" in silent
anticipation.  As the results displayed, the power went, and everything vanished into
impenetrable blackness, despite it being the middle of the morning.
  "All right - who forgot to put ten cents in the meter?"

TO BE CONTINUED! {don't ya just love a cliffhanger? :-)}