I could hear the music playing before I exited the men's toilets. Once back out to the main foyer, it became clear the music was coming from speakers dotted all around the pub.

Surprisingly, I recognised the song being played. I Can Stand a Little Rain by Joe Cocker.

And it took me a moment to understand it wasn't a coincidence, because I remembered telling Xandra a few of my favourite music artists at one point whilst we were running through the night together.

"Over here," came a voice.

It was Miss Toontastic's, or rather, Xandra's voice whilst she was still in her Miss Toontastic form.

She was sitting at the top of the flight of stairs.

"I got the sound system working," she said, "Hooked it up to – Burgess?! What did you do to your face?"

She shot to her feet and jumped down the flight of stairs and landed in front of me in what seemed to be a single motion. Her eyes were initially wider than usual – which was saying something – and then there was an unmistakable blush in her cheeks.

"I mean – wow," she said.

"I didn't do it," I said, "It was Slip – he forced this look onto me. Is it that bad?"

"Erm," said Miss Toontastic, looking away for a moment as she nervously twirled her clawed index finger around a lock of hair, "It's - erm…"

She was really struggling with what to say. She tried looking at me again and her pupils seemed to dip up and down as she took in my new face, but also the rest of me too.

"Sorry, what was the - erm – thing you said?" she said.

"I asked if I looked bad," I said.

I noticed I felt both tense and numb, and maybe only a little amused by Miss Toontastic's reaction to my new face.

"You look – yeah," said Miss Toontastic.

She turned away from me and pressed her palms against her face as if she were about to scream. It was kind of awkward standing in wait as she stood stock still as if in some kind of prayer. Then, having taken some time to collect herself, she moved her hands away and took in a deep breath.

"Would it be cool if we talked upstairs?" she said, looking down to her clawed feet.

"Sure," I said.

"Awesome," she said.

And she turned and started walking up the stairs, moving as if gliding because the motion was so effortless for her body to do so. I followed her up, taking measured steps.

The song finished and changed over to another. The next was My Life by Billy Joel. Another artist I liked and another song I remembered telling Xandra was one I really enjoyed.

On the first floor balcony there were more than a dozen dining tables with chairs tucked under them. Over in a corner was a seating area with a long knee-high coffee table. Miss Toontastic hurried over to it, with a dance-like motion in the way she moved, and it was then I noticed the tower of different flavoured crisps, peanuts, and numerous chocolate bars.

"Found some more food," said Miss Toontastic.

She sat on the large leather booth seat and brought her feet up, getting herself into a comfortable position.

"Mind if I…?" I said, gesturing to the food.

"No, no, go ahead," she said, "Pig out."

"Oink," I said.

Miss Toontastic giggled. I picked one packet of each kind of food and tore them all open. I started eating, and found my appetite increased the more I ate. Before, I used to be a slow eater, but that had changed in the last two months or so since really coming into using the power.

I didn't eat alone either. Miss Toontastic grabbed her own packets and started devouring packet after packet too. Together we ate with hungry barn animal frenzy.

"Yor'd'beshed," I garbled with my mouth stuffed with crisps, peanuts, and a chunk of chocolate.

Miss Toontastic made a noise that was so garbled from her own stuffed mouth the only intent I was able to get from her was a piggish grunt in agreement.

We spent several minutes eating in this way until there were just two packets left – one a crisp packet, prawn cocktail flavour, and the other some spicy flavoured peanuts.

"What about Clang?" I said.

"There's more food in the storage room," said Miss Toontastic, "They must've closed really recently."

"Are you sure the pub's closed?" I said, "Seems like it's still got everything."

"Yeah, it got foreclosed," said Miss Toontastic, "If you go in the kitchen there's lots of rotting food that was in the process of being cooked – the chefs must've found out they got fired and just walked away without bothering to clean up the stuff they were already cooking."

"That's crazy," I said, "But I guess the work stops the second they ain't getting paid."

Another track began to play. I had an immediate response to it, the song capturing moods and emotions I found so difficult to express on my own. It was Coffee and Cigarettes by Otis Redding. The song's intro alone was enough to bring me close to tears.

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"Hey, you okay?" said Miss Toontastic, bringing herself a little closer.

"Fine," I said, putting a hand to her shoulder to keep some distance between us, "I just really like this song. You remembered my favourites?"

Miss Toontastic eased back into her seat, resting her head back and smiling a little.

"Well we all have eidetic memories now so it's hardly hard to keep track of stuff like that," said Miss Toontastic.

Her tone shifted, becoming softer, as she said, "Do you remember my favourite anime, for example?"

"Truly Cooly," I said, my mind picking out the information in an instant, "That right?"

"Hai," said Miss Toontastic, playfully saying the Japanese word for yes.

She stretched all over, then sunk deeper onto the couch.

"You must be exhausted," I said and, sighing and shaking my head in playful disbelief, I said, "I can't believe you hijacked the helicopter."

"Was that bad?" she said, sounding genuinely worried.

"We're alive, aren't we?" I said, "You were amazing."

"Yeah," she said, playfully, "I was, wasn't I? You know you don't compliment me enough for all the good things I do."

I sat back on the couch. It made it much more apparent where the aches and pains were across my body. My arm and leg on one side still felt tender and not fully healed. But in a strange way I liked the ache from the wounds, because they were a reminder that I was, still, despite all the changes - human.

"I wouldn't want the compliments to go to your head," I said.

I smiled, and this had such an effect on Miss Toontastic she turned away from me.

"Don't," she said.

"Don't what?" I said.

"Smile at me like that," she said in a whining tone.

"I'm not allowed to smile?" I said.

"No – you're banned from smiling. Forever," she said.

"Okey dokey," I said, "Scowling's more my thing anyway."

Neither of us spoke for a while. Instead we both listened to the song, and let the unspoken tension between us build.

The next song to play was, again, another of my favourites. Me Just Purely by Brendan Benson.

"You have really out there taste in music," said Miss Toontastic, quietly, as if to herself.

"I like what I like," I said, softly.

Miss Toontastic lifted her gaze at me.

"D'you like me?" she said.

"Sure," I said, "You're alright."

She looked kind of hurt by what I said.

"Just that?" she said.

I took a deep breath and sighed. My brain started to work overtime, like an overheating computer.

Miss Toontastic was giving off hundreds of signals and I was picking up on all of them – or so it seemed.

"What did you want to talk about?" I said.

I wasn't sure if this question was changing the subject or not.

Miss Toontastic hesitated her answer. She laid her head down on one of her arms and closed her eyes.

"I want to tell you but I'm afraid you're going to hate me," she said.

"Okay," I said.

I waited and, slowly, Miss Toontastic made the effort to say what she needed to tell me.

"I killed a Pied Piper officer," she said.

"I know," I said, "Regina mentioned it-"

"-no," said Miss Toontastic, cutting me off, "It wasn't how she said it happened. I wasn't attacked. I had gone back to the bunker to get our supplies we left behind. And…"

Miss Toontastic sat upright.

"..and," she said, with her arms wrapped around her dress-covered legs, "I hadn't been noticed. I was going to get away with the supplies just fine. But then I saw there was a Pied Piper officer patrolling nearby."

My heart sank. I could tell where this was going.

"And," said Miss Toontastic, "I was angry. Just so angry. I wanted to make one of them suffer the way they were making us suffer. I wanted that officer to be afraid. So I grabbed hold of her and…"

It was clear Miss Toontastic was struggling to say what she wanted to say, but she wasn't close to tears either. If anything, she looked angry; made even more fierce from the raccoon-ish parts of her face contorting with the memory of the hatred she felt for that Pied Piper officer she had killed.

"...I started shaking the officer," she said, "And she begged for me to let her go. But I kept shaking. And I knew I had to stop but I was so angry I just kept shaking her. And when I finally calmed down she was dead. I broke her neck, Burgess."

"Slip," I said, correcting her.

"Can you drop the stupid names for one minute whilst we're talking about something serious?" she said, exacerbated.

"No," I said, firmly, "We're using the names for a reason."

Miss Toontastic reached for the coffee table and gripped it with her nails, which sunk into the wood as if the wood were made of warm butter. Whatever small relief she got from carving her claws into the wood must have felt good, because she sat forward and started carving into the table with both hands like a cat would a catpost. Chippings carved from the coffee table littered the floor as she let out her frustrations.

"Toontastic?" I said, aware of how strange it sounded to call her that given the heavy topic of conversation.

"What?" she said.

I didn't know what to say or do to make things better. It was a major shock to hear that she had killed a Pied Piper officer in a moment of rage.

"I know you, Slip," said Miss Toontastic, with some venom in the way she said my alter-ego name, "And I bet you're disgusted with me. I think you've known I'm a bad person ever since we met and now this has just proved it."

"What?" I said, "I don't think you're a bad person."

My mind was racing fast to find the right words to say. I was determined to not say anything that I didn't genuinely believe. But, that was hard to do when what I really believed wasn't fully clear to me either. To help solidify my thoughts, I tried to say only things I was sure about, like citations in an essay.

"You've stuck by me ever since we met," I said, "And you were the one that stopped me from killing Soaks. I'm not better than you, Miss Tastic."

"I didn't want you to feel what I'm feeling," said Miss Toontastic, "I felt so bad about what I did I threw myself into oncoming traffic. The only reason I didn't kill myself is because Regina took over my body."

I studied Miss Toontastic's face. She wasn't crying and she still looked angry.

"I just want to ask," I said, "Are you really, truly, sorry for killing the officer? Be honest."

Miss Toontastic's grimace deepened and she began to move her head from side to side. The weight of the question built as she seriously considered the question.

"No," she said, "That bitch deserved it. I'm not sorry. And I hate myself because I'm not sorry."

Before I realised what I was doing my hand, moving lightning fast, shot out and gripped hold of hers. The pressure from the grip would have crushed a normal person's hand, but Miss Toontastic's rubbery hand took the pressure easily.

"I'm not here to judge you," I said to her, making sure to lock our eyes, "But I want you to know that I'm glad you're being honest with me – and to yourself – about how you feel. I get it, I really do. These bastards have taken us from our homes, they've tried to kill us over and over again. And then you saw one of those bastards standing around and you saw an opportunity to fight back. And I get it. You're not sorry because…"

And I had to think for a moment to come up with the right analogy, "...because you're like a soldier that caught another soldier unawares. We're in a state of war right now. What they're doing to all us Mice is nothing short of genocide. So I'm not going to sit here and act holier than thou, because I tried to kill Soaks, because he threatened my Mum. It's not just the power that's pushing us to extremes, it's the Pipers too. If you never had the power, and Pied Piper's Return and Chellam and everything else never happened – I know for sure you wouldn't be a killer."

"But it's not okay," said Miss Toontastic, "I should feel guilty. I shouldn't be okay with being a killer."

"Well you've got to figure it out," I said, squeezing her hand tighter, "Because it's not going to get any easier from here. I don't give a toss how you feel about killing that officer."

I leaned forward to better make my point, "What I care about is what you choose to do next. Do you know what you want?"

"Yes," said Miss Toontastic, "I want to stick with you."

"Good," I said, "Because I want you to stick with me too. And Clang. We make a great team."

"But what happens now?" said Miss Toontastic.

She seemed at a genuine loss and was asking the question sincerely as far as I could tell. I had already given that question a lot of thought, but only really found the answer to that question with crystal clear clarity as I said it aloud then.

"I'm going back to find my family," I said, "I'm going back to Stowchester."

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