Mayor Oaks paced around nervously. In the hour he'd been there at the high school, the authorities had done nothing in regards to the students trapped in the school, apart from surrounding it to make sure General Blum didn't get out. He was scared stiff about Chandra. If she were killed before he got a chance to tell her how much he loved her, he'd never forgive himself. Nor was he the only concerned parent on the site. Quite a few had gathered since the news had gotten out that their children's lives were in danger, and many of them were now standing behind the police barricades. Some were simply staring blankly ahead, not having let the fact fully seep in yet. Others were hysterical and trying to break through to help their loved ones. He could empathize with them completely. Indeed, he could use a good conversation with some of them now.

"Good evening," he addressed a few of them after he'd strolled over to the barricades, "How're you all holding out?"

"As well as we can, Mr. Mayor," Mr. Clark said. The usually buff and gusto man was a pale, frightened figure now, clearly concerned about his son's fate inside the school. "I don't suppose they're going to do much about Andy and the others?"

"Unfortunately not where I'm standing, Clarence," the mayor said dismally, "I wish there was more that we could do."

"Well we elected you into office!" a concerned mother shouted, "You've got to have some power over what they're doing here! Doesn't this qualify as a local affair?"

"Mr. Mayor, Rather and Jennings want an interview with you, in no particular order," one of the cops called over to him before he could answer the question.

"Tell them to get someone else, Sal; I'd rather it not be me," Mayor Oaks told him.

There was the sound of someone pushing through the crowd. "Oh God, don't tell me the radio reports were true!" Samantha groaned upon seeing the chaos before her. Resplendent in a bright red dress, she thumped her head against the barricade. "So much for a nice Christmas Eve away from the family!" she muttered, "and that means Jake and Randi..."

"Hey Sam, don't be a sore sport about it," Clark stuck his head through the crowds of people, "You can still have a good night. We've just been formulating an idea here, and we could use your help."

Mayor Oaks had heard none of this. He was striding away toward Chief Radcliffe. "Chief, I think we should think of doing something decisive here," he told the policeman, "I just can't take the wait anymore, and I don't think the parents can either. And there's no telling what cruelties the kids are being put through in there."

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOh, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'm every woman, it's all in meeeeeeeeeeeeee!!" Marv yowled up on stage. In the audience, Tia flinched at the terrible singing that had so recently driven the McCallisters nuts. "'I'm Every Woman!?" she confided in Cutter, "He's a total moron to be singing that!"

"I know," Cutter agreed. Indeed, ever since he and his criminal associates had finished cleaning out all the students of their valuables, Marv had effectively tortured the Shermer High student body with his pathetic singing, often choosing essentially female songs (also including "I Feel Like a Woman"), children's show themes (a destruction of the otherwise revered Duck Tales theme), and songs that made no sense whatsoever (he'd just finished one that vaguely had something to do with blasting seagulls with a twelve gauge while surfing). Even when he'd chosen a relatively normal song, he would alter the lyrics so they went along the lines of how brutally he and the others would brutally destroy the student body once they all got what they wanted.

The mood in the gym was very somber, thanks in large part to the constant prescence of the gun-toting soldiers. Occasionally, somewhere among the throngs of scared students, a low Christmas song would break out, usually pertaining to the Nativity, and although warning shots in their directions would abruptly cut off the songs, they'd flair up again later somewhere else.

"Kevin was right," Miles commented, "They WERE too easy to beat!"

"What?" Chanice looked at him, puzzled.

"Nothing," Miles said quickly.

Buck glanced across to Sherman, who leaned against the snack table looking unhappy. "Hey bud," he called over to him, "You the general's son?" "That's me," Sherman told him, "You know my father?"

"Know him? Like a rabbit knows a fox," Buck told him, "Since you seem to be the only guy in here who has a conscience, I'd have to ask you, why would you so willing go and do something like this?"

"Because we have to follow orders," Sherman sighed, "That's way of the military."

"Hey, I've been through the military, and let me say that 'just following orders' doesn't always cut it!" Buck told him sharply, "I had a chance to just follow orders under your father, and my soul would have been damned forever if I had."

"What are you talking about?" Sherman looked confused.

"Oh ho!" Buck chortled, "Don't tell me he didn't tell you anything about all those massacres in Vietnam!?"

"What massacres?" Sherman was puzzled and scared.

"Oh, when I worked with him, we set about killing every Vietnamese person we could see, guilty or innocent," Buck informed him, "When did you join his command anyway?"

"1982," Sherman told him, "He picked me up from the foster home; my mother had died in a lightning strike....."

"Lightning strike? No no, he had her murdered," Buck told him, "She was going to squeal on his war crimes, and he had her electrocuted. Everyone under his command knew that."

Stunned, Sherman wordlessly backed off. "Boy, he's probably in for a shock when he finds out whatever the rest of the story is," Chanice commented. "Like you wouldn't believe," Buck told her.

"Well, the big question is, how are we getting out of here, if we're getting out of here?" Tia asked her uncle.

Buck looked around. The situation did admittedly look bleak, but then he noticed a possible out. "You see those tear gas canisters?" he asked, pointing to two of them attached to Private Siskel's beltline, "When I say now, break for the door and get as many of these kids out of here as you can. I'll throw them in opposite directions so they'll be doubly confused, got it?"

"Yeah, but I think it's suicide," Tia told him frankly.

"You've got any better ideas?" Maizy asked her sister. Tia shook her head. "Wait till I give you the signal," Buck told them. He listened as Marv broke into some strange howling; something from John Denver, he'd told his "audience." When the howling reached a pretty much unbearable crescendo, Buck reached out, snatched the canisters off Siskel, activated them, and tossed them. "Go, go, go!!" he shouted to his family, pushing them toward the gym's smashed doors. Before leaving himself, he grabbed hold of the hand of the nearest student, who just happened to be Claire. She motioned to the rest of the "Club," who linked up to her and several other students to be led out in a big human chain.

Across the gym, roughly where the other tear gas canister had landed, Ferris was already on his feet. "If we're going to get going, gang, now's the time," he told his entourage. They all nodded very willingly. Ferris waved to a large nearby group, which included Andie, Duckie, and Blaine, and led them out toward the door, all the while trying to avoid succumbing to the tear gas.

On stage, General Blum had overcome his momentary confusion. "Get them you fools, don't let them escape!!" he bellowed to his men, who promptly took off down the halls after the escapees.

"Everybody stay low!" Buck yelled to the kids following him. The zipping of bullets over all their heads left no doubt as to the wisdom of his words. They'd taken the soldiers by surprise, and so had a huge head start on them. As they approached the door, however, one well-aimed bullet unfortunately hit Chandra in the shoulder. Shrieking in pain, she collapse and fell behind the group. Seeing she was in peril, Brian doubled back, but before he could reach her, Colonel Champlin had gotten to her and was dragging her away. "Put her down, you Neanderthal!" the brain shouted at the colonel.

"Go, get out of here, Brian; I'll be fine!" Chandra called reassuringly to him, although she looked deathly pale.

"No, I won't leave....!!" Brian started to protest.

"Brian, we have to go!" Andrew took hold of his arm and pulled Brian struggling toward the exit. "I can't leave her, Andy!" he protested to the athlete as they went out the doors to safety, "I've got to go back and...!"

"It's OK Brian," Andrew said, giving him a look of great knowledge, "God'll be with her. Nothing will happen to her, okay?"

Brian sighed heavily. "You'd better be right," he told him.

Back inside, Champlin dumped Chandra at his boss's feet. "Unfortunate to report we could only catch this one, sir," he told the general.

"Where's Ferris?" Rooney swooped upon the colonel, hysterical, "I want Ferris! If you let him escape, so help me God...!"

"Ed, relax," Vernon put an arm around Rooney's shoulder.

"No Richard, I've waited too long to get Ferris!" Rooney howled, "I need to kill him for this to have been worth anything!"

"And we will, even if we just burn his house down before we go to the airport, now just take it easy and wait until we leave this forsaken place at midnight," Vernon told his underling firmly. Rooney let out an aggravated growl that he'd now be unable to off Ferris in person and skulked toward the hallway and his office.

General Blum advanced slowly on Chandra. "Why would you want to do something so stupid as try to escape me?" he asked her with a particularly sadistic edge to his voice.

"Why do you have to do this?" Chandra asked him through the pain of her gunshot wound, "You can't just kill all of us! You're violating the Fifth Commandment, 'Thou shall not kill.'"

"I wouldn't bring up God here," the general told her, 'Because this twisted psycho IS God as far as your concerned."

"No you're not," Chandra rose to her feet, "You're not even a shadow of what God should be!"

"Colonel, I think this young woman needs to be taught a very valuable lesson, don't you? "Blum asked Champlin. The colonel nodded and handed Blum a nightstick, which the general raised high in the air above her threateningly.

Outside, the escapees were immediately swarmed by both the authorities and the press. "Sir, can you describe what's happening in there?" one of the latter asked Buck, shoving his microphone right in the man's face.

"It's hell on earth," Buck told them, "They're all mad, every last one of them."

"Does General Blum really intend to blow up the school if his demands aren't met?"

"Does the word deranged mean anything?"

"All right, all right, give these people a break, folks, they've been through a lot," Chief Radcliffe cleared the reporters away. "Are any of you injured?" he asked the escapees.

"No, but there's quite a few people inside that've been shot, some a couple of times," Andie said, her voice quivering. Some of the people that had been shot were very close to her. "You'd better get in there quick before they bleed to death," she pleaded the chief.

"We're working on it," Chief Radcliffe said slowly and unhappily, "Okay, all of you wait here, and we'll get you a proper medical evaluation and debriefing."

He and his officers walked off. "Yeah, sure, they're working on it," Claire muttered, "Meanwhile more people will die while they stand out here doing nothing."

"I know," Sloane agreed, "It's a shame we can't do anything to stop them."

"Actually, maybe we can," came Del's voice from behind them. The shower curtain ring salesman, along with Neal, Clark, Samantha, Kevin, the orphans, and his father, had come up from behind. "I've been talking with Kevin here," Del continued, "And he told me he's got a couple of ideas that's worked the last couple of years on some of these people. We'd need more manpower for it, though, and if none of you have any place you're supposed to be....."

"Do you mean doing what you'd told us about last night, Kevin?" Andrew asked him.

"Exactly," Kevin said.

"Well no offense, Kevin, but there's several hundred of these guys in there, and they're all armed to the teeth, so even if we came up with a hundred good booby traps, your house really isn't going to be much of a defense," the athlete informed him.

"I know, that's a big problem," Kevin admitted, "We need some place that's big enough to be able to accommodate a ton of traps and still have us maintain control over what we're doing. And I can't think of anywhere that would......"

"I know, "Duckie spoke up suddenly, "We could use Walleyland."

"The park?" Chanice was skeptical.

"Yeah, since I work there I get a free security pass to all the areas," Duckie explained, "Including central control. It's more than big enough to rig a ton of booby traps, if that's what we're aiming for."

"And some of the rides could even be traps in their own rights," Ferris's face was brightening, "Good thinking, Duckman; it's perfect."

"But the big question is, how do we lure them all out of there and to the park?" Tia had to know, "They're not just going to up and leave the high school."

"I heard them saying something about how they're set up in the woods about a half mile behind the school, where the authorities can't find them," Gary told her, "Odds are they'll be there when they blow the building." "The codes," Del said, hitting another point, "We could pretend we still have them and use that to lure them--assuming the cops don't cave in and give them the real ones."

"I think this is a good plan we've got here," Buck not only liked what he was hearing, but he also saw a chance at personal redemption for his past sins if the whole thing was successfully pulled off. "So, I assume we're all going to do it, then?" he asked everyone else.

"Uh, not me," Cameron raised his hand, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd rather dig my own grave, since what we're really doing here is suicide, pure and simple."

"Cameron, I know you're not really into thrilling stuff like this," Ferris told his buddy, "But we stand on the great threshold of a momentous occasion. Here, we the average citizens have a chance to prove that it is we the underdogs that make this country great. The time is now for all those who actually care to stand up and spit in the face of the Cyclops of oppression, to tell all the world that we're going to live on, we're going to survive, that we will not go quietly into the night......."

"All right, I get the picture," Cameron waved him off, "What the hell, I'll do it. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory."

"So are we ready then?" Buck asked everyone. Twenty-seven other heads nodded in approval. "All right then," he said, pointing to an idle school bus parked nearby, "Let's roll."

It was twenty minutes later when the bus pulled up near the service entrance of Walleyland U.S.A. "So this is Walleyland?" Kayla asked, in utter awe of the architecture of Roy Walley's latest playpen, "They said it was grand on the news, but I never imagined it looking this great."

"Fifteen thousand acres of amusement rides, a water park, a sports complex, two miniature golf courses, a zoo, and a museum to Chicago makes anything great," Ferris told her as they exited the bus and dashed for the rear staff entrance, "I guess you lead the way from here on, Duckman?"

"Right, I'll take you all to Central Control; it's right on top of the castle," Duckie entered the entry code for the rear gate and led the group through an underground tunnel once they were inside.

"So, now that we know WHAT we're going to do, do we have any idea HOW we're going to pulled it off? "Neal inquired to anyone who might have an answer to this.

"I've been thinking," Brian spoke up, "Since castles were made specifically for defensive purposes, and this one's the real deal, we might as well make it the point of our command and our last stand. Make them go through all the other parts of the park first and save their final assault for the castle, if they have enough left by that point. Thus, we'd probably better save the highest concentration of traps for the castle. And it would probably work best if we each took a zone of the park to work with; then we'd be able to operate independently but together."

"Hey, you're not head of the class for nothing," Buck smiled at the brain.

"And while we're on it, let me remind everyone that we're not trying to kill or maim them," Kevin reminded the group, "Only to stun them temporarily. Which means," he gave Bender a rather harsh look, "no shooting , stabbing, choking, eye gauging, or anything like that."

"So in other words, no fun!?" Bender glared back at him.

"On the contrary, Happy Gilmore, I think we'll have lots of funs with this," Ferris told the criminal, "Seeing how you don't like Mr. Vernon--well none of us do, but I'd say you lead in that category--you'll be able to enjoy seeing him get his just desserts, just as I will with Mr. Rooney."

Surprisingly, considering this was the biggest and most elaborate park in the nation, only one guard was on duty in the control room, and he was sound asleep. Clark, after flinching at the sight of the man, as if he somehow knew him, wheeled the guard's chair into the nearest power closet and barricaded the door. "So, now what?" he asked the others.

"Now we formulate how we're going to lay it out," Buck told him, picking up a spare park blueprint from the guard's desk and laying it on the table near the back wall, "We're open to any suggestions, so if you've got any idea, it's fair game."

"I'd better go contact a friend of mien who also has experience with this," Kevin strode over to the nearest non-surveillance computer, which he was glad to see had IRL, although he had no idea why. He entered the program and typed in, "KMAC12 CALLING ADL3, COME IN ADL3." He really didn't expect a response, but miraculously he soon got, "HI KEVIN, WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

"NO TIME FOR PLEASANTIRES, ALEX," Kevin wrote his friend, "I'VE GOT ANOTHER BIG SITUATION HERE. WE'RE GOING TO CONVERT WALLEYLAND INTO A WAR ZONE, AND WE NEED YOUR HELP. COULD YOU GO TO THEIR OFFICIAL SITE AND DOWNLOAD THE MAP? I WAS THINKING WE'D GO OVER IT TO SEE WHAT WE CAN DO."

"RIGHT, I'LL BE THERE IN A MINUTE," Alex wrote him. After about a minute, he wrote back, "OK, HERE'S WHAT I'M THINKING.......

A half hour later, the basic plan of defense (or offense, depending on which way a person would choose to look at it) had officially been drawn up. Buck tacked it up to the wall. "Okay," he said, glancing at his watch, "We've a got a little over an hour and a half to put this together before they blow the school. Let's go home, get all the stuff we need, say goodbye to anyone we can, and pray to God that everything goes well. Don't forget which zone you're in, but be ready to help anyone who asks for it. We'll call the cops after they storm the castle and let them finish it; by that point they'll probably be glad to get arrested. Any more questions?"

There were none. "Okay then, everybody in here," the twenty-eight of them put all their hands together as if they were a genuine team. "We're going to show them what this town's made of tonight," Buck said optimistically, "Show them what real Shermer Bulldog pride's made of. One, two, three,....."

"LET'S DO IT!!" everyone else yelled as they broke up the semi-embrace.

"And don't forget, if you have a video camera, please bring it," Ferris informed the group as they filed out of the control room.

"What do we need video cameras for?" Sloane asked him.

"Well Sloane, if this works the way Kevin says it will, then America's Funniest Home Videos is going to kill for footage of it," Ferris told her, "This is America, after all; nothing says you can't make ten grand while upholding the law."

"I like the way you think," Sloane stroked her boyfriend's hair.

"I still think we're going to need more people for this, Buck," Chanice confided in him.

"I was thinking that myself, and I know just where to get that help," Buck picked up the nearest phone and dialed Bob's number. "Roger?" he asked his buddy, "Listen, would you like to redeem our one big past blemish? Tell the guys to come over to Walleyland; I've got a way that just might help us with clearing our consciences."