Welcome to the loony bin, Cassie. Save the skunks! Hug the trees! Let dogs vote!"

The others all laughed. I laughed a little, too. Marco always made fun of my being an environmentalist. Usually it was okay, because I knew what I believed in.

But now his humor cut just a little deeper.

I wasn't saving the whales or the panda or the spotted owl. I was saving a handful of skunks.

There were plenty of skunks in the world. They weren't exactly endangered.

It all went back to the termite queen. A bug. I had killed a bug, and for some reason, that had shaken my deepest faith.

Maybe Marco was right. Maybe I was crazy.

65 Chapter SEVENTEEN

Over the next two days we protected and nurtured a foursome of baby skunks. And as impossible as it seems, it worked. More or less.

Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I think the others started enjoying it, too. Typically, it was Marco who decided, after his first shift guarding the skunks, that the kits needed names.

"Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C.j.," he announced, like it was obvious. "The Ramones. The godfathers of punk rock. They would be honored. The one with the white stripe that kind of goes really wide? That's Joey. Now, Johnny ..."

At first, I was the only one to morph the skunk mother. Then Ax did it. Then the others, one by one. I almost felt jealous.

Right after school three days later, I went to the skunk burrow and found Tobias flying cover above the burrow.

"Hi, Cassie. "

"How's it going, Tobias?"

"Well, we had a little excitement. A hungry badger stopped by to check things out. But I chased him off. "

"So the kits are all right?"

"There are still four of them, if that's what you mean," Tobias answered. "But they won't stay inside. They keep coming out and looking around. Especially Marky. This isn't good.

Especially if they do it at night. "

I morphed into the skunk mother and crawled inside the den. Tobias was right -- the kits were restless. They were growing fast, and they instinctively wanted to go out into the great big world beyond the burrow.

"I think I'm going to take them for a walk," I told Tobias.

"Is that a good idea?"

"Sure. Why not? You should take a break. Stretch your wings. " Tobias was relieved to have an excuse to take off. But as soon as he was gone I started to have doubts about my brilliant idea of taking the kits out for a stroll. How could I keep track of them? What if they wandered off? But then, while I was debating, Marky made a wild dash outside and I had to scamper to catch up to him. As soon as I appeared, though, the kit went meekly to stand behind me. One by one, the other three babies came out. And to my amazement, they lined up like obedient first-graders.

"Okay," I said, although of course the kits couldn't understand me. "Let's take a walk. " I waddled slowly away, took about ten steps, then turned to look back over my shoulder. The four of them were all lined up behind me. I was their mother, as far as they knew. And they were programmed to follow their mother. I waddled off, feeling a little strange but happy.

66 We walked that way for half an hour. We paused to sniff things from time to time. Various animal scents, mostly. And then, I realized something. We weren't supposed to just be going for a stroll. The kits were hungry. I was their mother. And it was my job to provide for them.

If I didn't teach them to catch bugs, they wouldn't survive. Skunks eat some plants, but they also eat crickets and mantises and grass hoppers and even shrews and mice.

I stopped walking and looked back at "my" kits. Four almost identical little balls of black-and-white fuzz. Four curious little faces watching me. Waiting to see what I was doing. Eager to learn.

I'd been feeding them thawed frozen grasshoppers and thawed mice I'd brought from the clinic. Just as I'd been giving Tobias food since he was too busy to hunt properly. But these skunk kits couldn't be fed by humans all their lives.

Suddenly ... a crashing sound! Something rushing through the woods, careless, wild, noisy.

And coming right toward us!

I started to lead the kits back to the burrow, but the noise was getting closer. It was coming too quick! I tried to smell what it was, but the breeze was blowing the wrong way.

Then . . . ROWR! ROWR! ROWROWROWR! A dog!

A wolf would have known better. A wolf would have seen the black-and-white fur and decided he had an appointment somewhere else. A bear would have known. Just about any wild animal knew better than to annoy an adult skunk.

But this big happy dog was not wild. He lived with humans. He knew absolutely nothing about skunks.

Without even thinking, I turned my back to the dog. I raised my tail in warning.

The dog kept coming. Drool was dribbling from one side of his mouth, and his tongue was hanging out the other side, and he was having about as good a time as a dog could have. He was in the woods, and he had a bunch of little black animals to play with.

The kits were still lined up. They were watching me intently. It almost made me want to laugh -- if I could have. It was a big moment for them -- they were about to learn why no sensible animal picked on adult skunks.

I had no experience in spraying. But the skunk mind within my own knew exactly what it was it had to do.

I aimed.

I looked over my shoulder to judge the distance.

I targeted that dog's face, and I fired.

Just at the instant when I fired, I had the strange sensation that I knew this dog from somewhere. But it was too late by then. Way too late.

67 At a distance of ten feet, the spray hit with the accuracy of a laser-guided smart missile.

ROWR? ROWR?

The dog stopped dead in his tracks. The look in his eyes was sheer horror. How could it be?

How could the little black-and-white creature have done this to him?

And then, I heard something that made me feel really bad.

"Homer? What's the matter, boy?" Jake asked. "Oh. Ohhhhh, Homer. I told you not to follow me into the woods."

"Rrrreww rrrreeewww rrreeewww," Homer whined pitifully.

Jake, Marco, Rachel, and Ax all came up at a run. Marco was already laughing.

"You hosed Homer!" Marco giggled. "Cassie sprayed Homer! Wait, that is Cassie, right?"

I seriously considered pretending to be some other skunk.

"Sorry, Jake," I said.

"Man, that is nasty," Rachel commented. "No offense, Cassie. But I mean . . . gag! Oh. Ugh."

"Fascinating," Ax said. "That is possibly the worst thing I have ever smelled. " Homer tried to nuzzle up to Jake, but as much as Jake loves his dog, he was not going for it.

"I don't think so, big guy. I told you to stay home. But oh no, Homer, you had to come with me. Now, go home. HOME, boy!"

Homer decided home might be a better place than the forest, after all. He trotted off, tail between his legs.

"I believe the smell is causing me to become deranged," Ax said calmly. "I may have to run away in panic."

"Take me with you," Marco muttered.

"Well, this is perfect," Jake said. "Wonderful. My parents are going to so appreciate it when Homer gets back to the house reeking of skunk. Man, let's move away from this spot, okay? I mean, jeez, that's just awful."

We moved away from the scene of the stink, back toward the den. I led the kits inside, where they seemed happy to curl up and sleep. It had been an exciting outing for them.

I went back outside and demorphed. "Homer will be okay if you bathe him in tomato juice and leave him outside for a few days," I said to Jake. "Sorry."