Mirror, Mirror

Chapter 4

"All right," Mike said, "we've waited long enough." He got up from his chair and started towards the mirror. "It's time you tell us-" A soft snoring made him look over at the couch, where Gina and Micky had both fallen asleep, Micky's head resting on Gina's shoulder, Gina's head resting on Micky's curls.

Devona pinched Gina's shoulder. Mike got right up next to Micky's ear and hollered, "MICKY!!!" Both Dolenzes awoke howling, flailing their arms so much they smacked both Mike and Devona in the face.

Once everyone had calmed down a bit, Mike cleared his throat, reached up to his neck as though he was about to straighten his tie, remembered he was still in his pajamas and smoothed down his collar, and went back to what he was saying. "All right, mirror," he continued, "why did Shawn kidnap Sharon?"

"You'd have to ask him," the mirror said. "I don't fully understand it, myself."

"Oh, you're a lot of help," Mike said. "You made us wait for a new chapter to tell us that?"

"Okay, let's try an easy one," Micky said. "How did Shawn get into this world in the first place?"

Petra answered, "Through his own mirror."

"Hey, who's telling this story?" the Kockatoos' mirror said indignantly.

"Well... so far, nobody is," Petra answered.

The mirror spluttered for a moment and then groaned. Well, the girl was right. "Okay, here's the scoop," the mirror said. "Across town, we've got one of us- a mirror- with a big mouth. He spilled the beans about us to Shawn. And then Shawn went through, grabbed Sharon, and brought her back."

"And you don't know why," Davy said.

"Nope."

"Why'd she leave us?" asked Michelle.

"It wasn't by choice," the mirror said. "His mirror found out about Sharon through me, and then told him where she was."

"Oooooooooh," Peter said. "So Shawn's mirror isn't the only one with a big mouth."

"There are no rules against mirrors' sharing with each other," the mirror said defensively. "We do it all the time. Otherwise, we'd go crazy and break ourselves out of sheer boredom.

"Anyway, he found Sharon and dragged her through into his world. That was yesterday afternoon. Sharon escaped back into this world, and he chased her to the beach, where the Kockatoos found her. Last night, Shawn broke in through the back door, kidnapped Sharon, and dragged her through me, into the Monkees' pad."

"And she got away and came looking for help," Micky said.

"And that's when you came into the story," the mirror said.

"Why'd she go to Micky specifically?" asked Devona.

"Yeah, any of us would've helped her," Peter said.

"It was probably because she and I hit it off so well," Gina said. "Sharon said I had the sincerest face of all the Kockatoos."

They all looked at Gina, whose face was about as sincere as Micky's. Then, of course, they all turned to Micky.

"Now, we really gotta help Sharon," Devona said.

"Help her get away from Shawn?" supposed Peter.

"No," Davy said. "She means the-" He twirled his finger around his ear, clucked his tongue, and whistled like a cuckoo. "That kind of help."

"I wonder where she is now," Micky said, ending the statement with a dreamy sigh.

"Well, she didn't come back through me," the mirror said. "And the traitor and I are the only two magic mirrors in town."