A sharp kick to his leg awoke Mayor Oaks from a deep slumber. He rolled over to see his wife in an embrace with herself, saying softly, "As I lay you down in these clouds of white, I wish you a long and restful night. May your dreams be kind and laughter-filled, and may happiness find you as much as willed." He smiled; this was a poem she had told Chandra when she was a baby to help her go to sleep, before the mere thought of her daughter had turned revulsive. It made him happy to see her at least back to her old self, even if only in her sleep, but just as he was beginning to enjoy it, a truck backfired outside and woke his wife up. "What was that!?" she shouted out loud, turning on the light.

"Nothing, Victoria, just a car," he told her. He reached over to the nightstand and put his glasses on. "So, what were you dreaming about?"

"Nothing that really concerns you, John," she told him rather curtly. "I'm going to go have a coffee while I'm up; I could use it now."

She got up and strode out of the room before her husband could say anything. He started to get out of bed himself, but recoiled when there was a loud squeal below him as his feet touched the floor, or what he apparently thought was the floor. He looked down to see a familiar sight.

"Oh Tyler, another nightmare?" he asked his youngest child. Tyler nodded. Mayor Oaks lifted him up onto the bed. "We've got to get those worked out someday," he told him.

"Dad, what's with Mom these days?" Tyler asked him. "And why does she get so uptight with you?"

"I really don't know, pal," the mayor told him with a sigh. "She used to be so nice a long time ago, but..."

"I know, it's the money, right?" Tyler inquired.

"That's what I suspect," his father said. "Don't ever underestimate the corrupting power of cash, Tyler. It can strike the best of us."

"It's already struck me, Dad. Everybody just assumes that because I have money, I'm going to be mean to them," Tyler told him. "It's as if they think money equals a bad attitude."

"I know, I grew up in that paradigm myself," Mayor Oaks said. He glanced over to the corner behind the nightstand, where a brown Victorian tophat was resting atop a can with a multi-colored Moravian Star headpiece. "I met your mother at Christmas," he continued, lifting up his son into a more comfortable position, "and we were very much in love. I remember I took her out for a sleigh ride in Lincoln Park, and it was snowing heavy, just the right atmosphere for our first kiss. It really was a fairy tale for the first few years, it really was. But once her business took off, the beautiful woman I knew slowly died, replaced by one that I didn't know."

"Do you think the real her will ever come back?" Tyler asked.

"I don't know, pal," his father said, "Only she can break the spell."

"Well I hope she does, because it hurts that she's too busy to come to my Little League games like you do," Tyler told him, looking a little blue at this thought.

"I know," the mayor hugged him.

"Dad, I've been wondering, why doesn't she like Chandra that much?" his son now inquired.

"That's a good one," the mayor admitted, "I really can't say I know the answer to that. My best guess, though, would be that she's ashamed that something went wrong when your sister was coming together in the womb, and she can't find any other outlet but to take it out on her."

"So what exactly did go wrong, Dad?"

"I don't know that either, Tyler, but it was purely an accident; there wasn't anything that could have stopped it." Mayor Oaks said. "I hope you realize that Chandra's not evil for being unable to control herself sometimes, and that you can respect her for the wonderful human being she is."

I try, Dad, but then it's hard when she can't hold still or stop saying the strangest things," Tyler told him, looking like he was guilty of murder. "And then Zachary makes me do things that I really don't want to. Three nights ago, he made me help him tear up her Michael Jackson posters. I didn't want to do it, but he said he'd rip my head off if I didn't."

The mayor sighed, disappointed at how far his oldest son was willing to go to get at his sister. "Well, at least you can be honest about it," he told Tyler, patting him on the head, "that's always a good virtue to have."

"Thanks," Tyler smiled. Then he gave his father an X-ray look. "Is there anything in your life you're disappointed about, Dad?"

"Why are you asking that?" Mayor Oaks was puzzled and impressed at the same time.

"Well, lately you seem like being the mayor's burning you out, like you'd rather be doing something else."

The mayor looked his son in the face with amusement. "You really want to know what I wanted to do when I was younger?" he asked him.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Well then let me show you," Mayor Oaks reached over and opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a large script. Typed on the front was "BLUES BROTHERS II: WE'RE ON A MISSION FROM GOD...AGAIN" BY JOHN OAKS. Tyler's face lit up; he'd always enjoyed watching The Blues Brothers when it came on TV. "You wrote a Blues Brothers sequel!?" he asked, excited.

"Well, it was just an idea I had about what I thought might happen next with Jake and Elwood," his father told him.

"What were you going to have happen?"

"Well, I put it five years later," Mayor Oaks explained, "and these Satan worshippers seize the Sears Tower and plan to open a secret portal to hell in it and unleash the devil. The Archangel Gabriel comes down to Jake and Elwood in prison and tells them that only they can stop this catastrophe by finding the various pieces of a sacred relic, take it to the top of the Tower, and say the holy chant. They break out of prison, taking along a biker ganger named Rocky who's musically gifted and has been framed by his gang as their third brother, and go about putting the band back together again and use it as a cover for their search for the relic's pieces. For the climax I had them playing at the World Series in San Francisco, followed by a massive chase across the country back to Chicago. Of course, they win in the end, and the authorities drop all charges against them."

"So it's kind of like a cross between Die Hard, Ghostbusters, and Indiana Jones, then?" Tyler said slowly, still taking all this in.

"Sort of, yes," Mayor Oaks said, having never thought of it this way.

"So why didn't you try to have it made, Dad? It would have been at least twenty times better than the sequel they did come out with."

The mayor sighed the hardest sigh he'd ever let out. "I was all set to send it to Universal, Tyler, but your mother told me she didn't want to have to shuttle back and forth between California and here, and that she thought I'd be wasting my time trying to get into a field that's hard enough to get into, and I listened. That's the thing in my life I regret the most, especially since like you said, what they eventually came up with for the sequel stank."

"Well it's still not too late to try and get it through as the third picture," Tyler told him.

"What do you mean, son?"

"Well, just change the Archangel Gabriel to that Curtis guy, and throw in an angel Jake to help Elwood find the relic," Tyler suggested. "And then as the payoff at the end, have God bring him back to life as a reward for having stopped the Satan worshippers."

The mayor smiled. "You'd make a great writer yourself, you know that?" he said admirably. "Well those are nice ideas, Tyler, but we'd have to use a computer-generated John Belushi to pull that off, and first we'd have to get permission from his family, and they might not let us. And I don't know if Dan Aykroyd would be up to another one, that's the real selling point. Without his cooperation, it'll never see light."

"Well why don't you give it a try anyway? You never know, maybe all those things will happen," Tyler said.

"I'll keep that in mind, slugger," Mayor Oaks said. He glanced at the clock. "Well, I think it's time you go back to bed; after all, you've still got a half a day of school tomorrow before Christmas vacation."

"Can I sleep with you, Dad? It's kind of hard on the floor."

"Certainly," the mayor opened a crack in the blankets next to him for his son to squeeze in. "Good night Dad," Tyler told him, pulling the blankets up over his head.

"Good night Tyler," the mayor stroked his hair and flicked out the light. As he took off his glasses and put them back on the nightstand, he could help glancing at the script where it lay and saying to himself, "What if Elwood had a dog with him as a companion, a Blues Dog?" He pondered this thought for a minute then shook his head and slipped back under the covers saying, "Nah, they wouldn't buy that."

"I still don't see what we can accomplish from this, Ferris," Sloane admitted as she maintained a distance of a block and a half behind Rooney's car, easily visible to Ferris and herself from the heavy damage done to it the other day, "I mean, I think the man takes showers with his clothes on!"

"Darling, if Mr. Rooney were infallible, he'd have sent me up river four years ago when I came into Shermer High," Ferris told her. "Every bad guy makes one mistake, and I think I know what his might be."

"And what's that?" Sloane inquired, curious, but Ferris pointed to the car ahead of them and said, "Pull over here; he's turning into a no outlet street."

"Whatever you say," Sloane parked the car. "Now what?"

"Get the camera and get ready to start recording," Ferris said, hopping out onto the sidewalk.

"Sure thing."

They walked up to the corner, where they crouched behind a mailbox just in case Rooney might be watching. Peeking around, they noticed the principal leading Ms. Horgorth into the fourth house up the block. "Now," Ferris whispered once they were inside. He and Sloane ran up to right underneath the front window, being careful to stay low. They peered up into the front bedroom, where a light was on already, to see Rooney taking off his tuxedo and tie. "Let's just hope he doesn't notice the cold," Ferris said, sliding the window open ever so slightly. "Okay, start recording."

Sloane pressed play just as Ms. Horgorth came in, dressed in a gray-leather Stormtrooper suit. "Hurry it up, will you Ed; that was Federal Express on the phone, they're delivering my father's Christmas present in a half hour, so we've got to make it quick tonight," she told him.

"Let them come, Anita, nothing can dampen my spirits tonight," Rooney said jovially, unbuttoning his shirt. "Ferris is dead meat, and there's nothing he can do to stop me this time!"

"Well suppose that Frye boy doesn't give in to you, Ed?"

"Anita, Frye is a total wimp; he practically gave into me this afternoon when I confronted him with the accusation of attempting to bomb the school," Rooney said, wrapping his arms around the lower bedpost. "Start with the bondage, please."

"Sure, Ed," Ms. Horgorth handcuffed his wrists together on the other side of the post and then went about chaining his upper body to the post itself. "But what if the school board finds out that you fabricated that evidence just to get an excuse to have Ferris Bueller kicked out?" she posed him.

"Nobody's going to find out, Anita; only those two idiots I hired last night know, and I told them they're going to jail if they blab," Rooney said, grunting slightly as a chain across his chest was fastened a little tight for his comfort. "I've been waiting the last four years for this, ever since Ferris left me stuck atop the roof on Halloween while he proceeded to turn the whole high school into a costumed frat party. I swore then I was going to get him then, and if I can't get him legally, then I'll resort to something like this if I have to. I've waited too long for this to be disappointed again."

"Well, you are right about one thing, Ed, Ferris Bueller always was a bad egg," Ms. Horgorth said, fastening a strap across his waist. "I could tell it when he was in elementary school; even then he showed a severe lack of respect for any authority figure. If I'd been able to expel him then, I would have."

"You really should have, given that...Ow! That's too tight!" Rooney protested.

"Don't be silly Ed, you live for bondage," Ms. Horgorth retorted, "You want it tight!" She stepped back a few paces and picked up a whip from the floor. "Ready?" she asked Rooney.

"I'm always ready, Anita," Rooney told her.

"Very well then, what are you?"

"I've been a very naughty boy."

Ms. Horgorth cracked the whip over his back. Rooney's face contorted with delight. "Yes Mommy, I've been very, very naughty!" he shouted gleefully as he was whipped again and again. "Oh yes, yes, give it to me Anita! Give me everything you've got!"

Sloane had to put her hands to her face to stifle the huge laugh that erupted from her throat. "Can you believe this!?" she whispered to Ferris, "He's actually a sex kitten! I would have never guessed that for the life of me!"

"Well, it just goes to show that sometimes we don't know people as well as we think we do," Ferris told her. He himself had to cover his mouth as Ms. Horgorth let the whip side back to the floor, jumped on top of Rooney, who was still chained to the post, and began making love to him like the two of them had only seen in National Geographic specials.

"Oh my God, this is hysterical!" Sloane couldn't help but say out loud. It was at Ms. Horgorth's exclamation of, "Who's out there!?" that she realized she'd made a mistake. She turned to Ferris. "I think I just spoiled our plan!" she said sheepishly.

"Not really; just get the camera and get into those bushes!" Ferris pointed to some shrubbery a few feet away. They dove into in just seconds before Ms. Horgorth opened the window and glanced around both ways. "Show yourself, whoever's out here!" she demanded.

"It's Ferris, Anita!" Rooney shouted from the bed.

"How can you be sure, Ed?"

"Only he'd be here now. Get me loose from all this!"

"Right," Ms. Horgorth disappeared from sight. Ferris turned to Sloane.

"It'll take her at least a full minute to get him out of all that, so let's make tracks while she's at it," he whispered. "We've got everything we came for anyway."

"So now what do we do, blackmail him with this footage?" Sloane asked as they raced for her car.

"Yes, and no," Ferris told her. "I'll explain it in detail once we're away from here. Once I get home, though, I'm going to have to make one more phone call for Phase Two of this little operation."

"Oh, so this is a two parter?"

"Yep, and I think you're going to like what I have in mind for the second part."