Since one police car looked much like every other, he did not recognize the one that plunged from the alley and slammed into the left rear quarter of his Chevette.

The car lurched and spun and threw Mickey against Rocky. Her arms quite automatically rose as if to defend him.

The curb exploded against the tires, and the car stopped abruptly amid the sounds of crumpling metal and breaking gla.s.s.

The windshield crazed and fell in pieces from its frame into Clem Padiddlepopper's lap.

Kilroy whined from the floor where the crash had flung him, but when he climbed back onto the seat and shook the gla.s.s from his fur, he seemed none the worse. Clem seemed dazed. Rocky was already reaching for the door handle.

Mickey was swearing. If the car--his car--hadn't been kidnapped by G.o.ddam s.p.a.ce aliens... It was obviously totaled.

By the time he stepped onto the sidewalk, two cops, one fat, one thin, were emerging from the battered squadcar. Across the street, a crowd of gawking pedestrians was growing. A siren growled in the distance. Two Bullwinkles and an Elvis were pushing through the crowd to gain a better view.

Ten feet away, a kid was making faces at them from the back seat of a parked VW Bug wearing Georgia license plates and a university decal. Its sides were turned to lace by rust.

The parakeets were streaming through the shattered shop window, squawking and screeching and oblivious to the chill in the autumn air.

A cloud of pigeons descended from cornices and ledges above the street, mingled with the parakeets, and then, as if some one among the mobbing flock had cried, "Attack!" flew at cops, Bullwinkles, and Elvis.

When Kilroy jumped through the opening where the Chevette's windshield had been, two parakeets and a pigeon attacked him, pecking at his ears and tail.

When Clem Padiddlepopper shook his head and crawled from the wreckage, one pigeon s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat and a parakeet landed on his head, pecked his ear, and flew away with his hair in its claws.

For some reason, the birds ignored Mickey and Rocky and most of the onlookers.

The cops waved their arms, turned, and ran. So did the Bullwinkles and Elvis.

Clem and Kilroy stood their ground.

In the VW Bug, the kid's mouth was wide with wonder.

"Your birds don't like us," said Clem. He waved one arm and knocked a parakeet to the ground. It gave him a baleful look and limped under the Chevette's broken front end.

For just a moment, Mickey wondered why he had never noticed birds attacking anyone. Certainly the city's pigeons hadn't seemed to pay particular attention to hydrant-woofers, backwards singers, Bullwinkles, Elvises, or Clem Padiddlepopper before this moment.

But then the now-baldheaded Clem said, "Let's get out of here." A few steps put him beside the VW, and a yank opened its door. "Out, kid."

A treble voice refused.

Clem Padiddlepopper wasted no time in negotiation. He reached into the back seat, laid his hands on the kid's shoulders, and dragged him from his seat.

"I'll tell my mother!"

"This should take care of it." He produced a business-sized envelope from somewhere beneath his overcoat and handed it to the boy. "Give that to her."

The kid began to scream.

The cops, Bullwinkles, and Elvis were nowhere in sight.

Peremptory gestures ushered Mickey and Rocky into the Bug's cramped back seat. Kilroy once more took the shotgun position. Clem slid behind the wheel.

"You don't have the key," said Rocky.

"No problem." One hand reached under the dashboard and bent upward. A second later, the Bug belched smoke and began to vibrate.

As soon as they were on the road once more, Mickey asked, "What was in that envelope?"

"A gift certificate," said Clem Padiddlepopper. "At Jolly Roger's Used Cars."

"You'd better have one for me, too."

At the first light, Mickey spotted a pair of teenagers sitting tailor-fashion beside a hydrant. The boy wore no shirt. The girl positioned a soda can between his shoulder blades. He arched his back and crushed the can into a hockey puck. Two pa.s.sersby tossed coins into the gimmee cap that rested, open side up, on the sidewalk in front of him.

As the girl held another can against his back, a pigeon dive-bombed them, beating their heads with its wings.

Half a block later, a parakeet swooped down upon an executive kneeling before a hydrant and attacked his right b.u.t.tock. He leaped to his feet, obviously swearing.

As Clem slowed for the turn into Roswell Park, they pa.s.sed a Bullwinkle rubbing something white off his bright red horns.

Just inside the park, they saw the backwards singer. He looked quite normal except for the crow sitting on his shoulder and pecking at his ear.

"They're everywhere," said Mickey.

"Quite so," said Clem Padiddlepopper.

"Where are we going?" asked Rocky.

"The flying saucer?" asked Mickey, and when Clem replied neither yea nor nay he nodded as if he now knew more than he had.

The Bug's rear-mounted engine whined in his ear. The floor vibrated against his feet. Corners made Rocky lean against him and he against her, though Kilroy kept his seat as firmly as a tongue-lolling statue.

A squad car, strobing blue and blue and blue, blocked the exit from the park. The Bug's brakes squealed, even Kilroy tipped forward, and Clem twisted the wheel frantically. As they accelerated back the way they had come, a siren began to sound.

There was no roadblock on the other side of the park. They whined around the corner, through a red light, and into an alley. When Clem said, "s.h.i.t!"

Mickey looked out the tiny rear window and saw the police car practically on their b.u.mper. The cops behind the windshield looked like Ronnie and Bonzo.

At the end of the block, Clem swung hard right out of the alley, barely missing a Federal Express van. He cut in front of a cab, jinked to miss a jaywalker, and made the next light just before a bus blocked the road behind.

Rocky pointed, and Mickey saw two teenaged boys squirting what looked like whipped cream down each other's shorts. Two belly dancers gyrated in the back of a pick-up truck, while a staring man walked into a lamppost. Oriental music blared from a boom box fastened to the top of the truck's cab with bungee cords.

"Weird," said Mickey. "Not normal."

"The city's full of flakes," said Rocky.

Clem Padiddlepopper said nothing at all.

An executive turned away from the fire hydrant she was eying speculatively and saluted the Bug as it pa.s.sed.