The inner studio gate clanged shut behind me.

“I made it in!” I said, just so Mr. Narrator could share in the celebration.

“And how!” he agreed.

The lot stretched out in front of me with a loud slide whistle. False fronts of eclectic buildings leaned against giant, hollow soundstages. Cartoon characters of all animal types squashed and stretched as they ran in zig-zags. Somewhere off to my left, a marching band was rehearsing the same eight notes over and over, with a red-faced lion conductor shaking his mane and screaming gibberish every time they hit the last one flat.

Ba-da-da-da! Ba-da-da-DUNK.

“That’s gonna be stuck in my head the whole day,” I muttered, pulling at my ear.

“I’ll try to keep it on its way,” Mr. Narrator replied. “Otherwise that noise is going to mess up my acoustics.”

I froze, trying to look up and back into my head without success. “Are you saying there’s a lot of empty space in there?”

“Why, no, Sally. I would never say that. Not out loud, certainly.”

“A real wise guy,” I muttered, pushing back a grin despite myself. “I wonder what—”

Someone very tiny, maybe a bug, even, had just passed by, carrying the entire tail end of an old saloon front all by themselves. Beyond it was a large billboard.

══════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════════

Miracle in Motion Pictures

—“When It’s Good, It’s a Miracle!”

══════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ══════════

“Miracle in Motion Pictures…” I read aloud, swishing my hips. “Whadda name for a studio!”

I have a real good feeling about this place.

Then I read the giant slogan below it.

Well, at least they have a sense of humor!

“I hope you keep yours as well,” Mr. Narrator replied to my thought. “We’re in this together, after all.”

“Starring in a cartoon sounds like a gas,” I said aloud. “So let’s find where auditions are held, and—”

“Auditions? Sally, I think we’re going to have to start a little smaller. Let’s find the call board.”

The call board itself wasn’t small, but it was bare. It was a corkboard the size of a barn door, nailed up on the side of a squat brick building that had seen better days. There was just a single ratty slip of paper pinned at the top.

Studio Management: “Remember! The Early Bird Gets Worm!”

A duck waddled through my silent fit of consternation. “Board clears by eight,” she said as she passed by jauntily. “Better luck tomorrow!”

Then a distracted penguin carrying a trio of boxes three times its size ran into her from the side, and two squawked at each other until they turned into a whirling, twirling dirt devil.

“Tomorrow?”

I squinted up at the sky to figure out what time it was, only to find the sun packing its briefcase.

“Forget tomorrow!” I cried. “Where do I sleep tonight?!”

“I’m afraid lodging isn’t my department, Sally,” Mr. Narrator admitted. “Let’s see if we can find someone in the know.”

“Excuse me!” I said loudly to a passerby, but was ignored.

I chased after another. “Pardon, but if I could—”

They kept walking, faster. I spun around and around, looking for someone, anyone who would stop a moment to talk to me.

Characters rushed around the edge of the streets to avoid me, and I eventually fell prone from exhaustion.

“Mooove it,” bellowed a voice from behind.

I jumped up, then sideways in panic. She was a cow, very tall on her hind legs, with silver-flecked hide and the bearing and jewels of an elder empress. Her gaze fell on me, her polished hoof on a jutted hip.

“Sorry, ma’am, I—”

“You’re new,” she noted, careful to enunciate the ‘n’ in new. Her eyes swept up and down over me. “And you don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.”

“How’d you know—”

She settled on all four hooves with a loud grunt. “Your tells tell me everything I need to know. Now come along, child.”

Child? I’m full grown.

I raised my voice to fit the part she assigned me. “Er, uh, thank you, Ms…”

“Madam. Madam Bovary.” Her tail swished as she started down the road. “Now follow me, and I’ll show you to your room.”

“My room?”

Is this cow on the level?

Mr. Narrator was silent for a moment. “Her name rings a bell...”

I listened, and sure enough I heard it too.

Isn’t that her collar?

Madam Bovary turned back, her jowls drooping into a frown. “Don’t dawdle!” she snorted.

We marched by the studio gate.

“Mack,” the cow called in acknowledgment, nodding to the security bulldog.

“Shine bright tonight, Madam Bovary!” he replied with a reverent bow of his head. “As you always do.” Then he glanced at me, his nose twitching. “And you. Stay on the straight and narrow, Salamander.”

Well, at least he knows who she is.

“See you tomorrow, Mack,” I replied, straightening so I could stride tall.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” I heard him mutter from behind.

It was a girls’ dormitory by all measure. She didn’t call it as such, but I had stayed in one a lot like it, once. It was mostly a single long room. Beds were lined up like dominoes, five deep, with a small trunk at the foot of each one save for the empty one. The walls were wallpapered with flowers but peeling, revealing a smudged and patched core beneath. Curtains were hung with wire across the windows, their fabric stitched with a rough, thick thread. In the middle was a wide runner of rug, worn soft by the pitter-patter of frantic feet.

My bed was in the corner, far from the vanity desk and mirror. Its mattress had springs, some of them even still contained. It had a blanket that wasn’t too scratchy. I wrapped myself up in it before taking a few creaky test bounces. Once I settled, four pairs of eyes loomed in.

“A lizard?” one girl asked hesitantly, pulling at her pig ear.

“She looks slimy,” a female squirrel remarked. “Are lizards slimy?”

“Salamander,” I corrected primly. “Sally Salamander.”

“Not a mammal at all...!” a cat declared, grinning mischievously. “Hey, June! I think it's time to test your theory again.”

The rabbit, her nose wrinkled in judgment, reached up her dress sleeve. “Why not? An inspection today keeps future disaster away.”

“Disaster? I beg your pardon?”

“Just hold still, sticky,” June ordered, pulling out a magnifying glass. “I'm trying to look.”

“Sally!” I insisted.

“Whatever, ” she said with a shrug. “Now let me see…” She held the glass up, putting one huge and serious eye behind it. “Hold still.”

“I am holding still!”

“Hold stiller,” she clarified. “You’re bouncing.”

Everything here bounces. Even the floor!

“Oh! Incoming!”

Above her head, a paper appeared. She read it, frowned, then tossed it to me as if insulted. “Keep it. You oughta know, only Mammals and the like get the high-tier passive abilities. Even if I can't see yours with my [Identify] skill, don’t hold your breath that you’ll ever get a good one.”

“Huh?”

Passive abilities? Only for mammals?

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Sure. Whatever you say. ”

I glanced down at the paper I had caught.

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

NORTHERN CONFUSION TELEGRAM

MIRACLE IN MOTION PICTURES — PERSONNEL DIVISION

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

RE: PASSIVE ABILITY ASSESSMENT STOP

SUBJECT: S. SALAMANDER (NEW TRANSFER) STOP

[REDACTED] STOP

[REDACTED] STOP

[REDACTED] SERIOUSLY STOP

SYSTEM SAYS: TEMPER COMMA TEMPER STOP

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

That was all. The main lines were blacked out neat as you please. But what was this about my temper? Wasn’t I doing well, holding it all in like always? I mean, it wasn’t that long ago I died, yet I didn’t even cry about it or raise a fuss.

“I always knew the other classes don’t have the temperament that we do,” the squirrel said with a harumph.

“She looks a little exotic, doesn't she?” the pig murmured quietly. “Especially around the eyes.”

The cat wiggled her whiskers, then bounced back-first into her bed. “Her shading is a little dark too, isn’t it? I wonder if she’s from one of them... What did you call them, June? Uncivilized studios?”

Exotic appearance? Dark shading? Uncivilized origin?

“Salamanders are found all over!” I declared. “You look under a log everywhere and–”

“Sure,” June scoffed. “Nowadays.”

Nowadays?!

“Now hold on just one minute,” I started, my voice coming in hot. “Just who do you think you all are to say such—”

They all started talking at once, their voices growing louder as they tried to peg my position in the hierarchy of cartoon-character species. I tried to follow, but these strangers, all dressed in nightgowns and sleeping caps, were just tiring me out.

“She isn’t a bug, but she ain’t no bird, neither.”

“What about rats?”

“Rats don’t count as mammals on account’a they’re rats!”

“Reptiles aren't on the list, are they? Usually they's pets at best.”

"She talks. That means she's on the list somewhere.”

“Bottom half at best, I tell ya.”

That last one was definitely June.

Then the door slammed open.

“Girls,” Madam Bovary said in a deceptively quiet voice. “Are you questioning my selection skills?”

Four “no ma’am” responses flew back at her.

She turned to me. “Sally. A word?”

We stepped out into a small hallway.

Was I getting the boot already?

“I didn’t mean to start nothing; I was only trying to—”

“I know, Sally. You stood there and took it.” Then she sighed. “It’s a shame that you weren’t imagined as a mammal.”

I bit my tongue as she continued.

“But I think I need to remind the other girls that I won’t tolerate any nonsense.” She took my hand and pressed something soft between my fingers.

“A… Hair bow?” I asked, bewildered.

“It belonged to someone I once knew.”

“Who?”

The skin wrinkled around her eyes. “Don’t worry about that now, child. She’s no longer with us. But I think it’ll serve you well. It should keep the other girls in line.”

I looked down at the light cloth, figuring she meant well enough, even if it was sorta screwy. “If you say so, ma’am.”

She nodded, then watched with a wistful look in her eye as I placed the bow on the top of my head. When I went back into the dorm room, all four of them eyed my bow, then rattled off a bunch of small somethings to say.

“Sorry, Sally.”

“Didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You understand how it is.”

It was all fast, overlapping, and only half-finished. They were the kind of apologies that only get uttered when someone powerful stands behind you and makes you say them.

And I knew to say “That’s alright,” back to all of ’em.

Even though I didn’t mean a lick of it.

After lights out, I made it a point to roll away from the lot of em, finding the wall next to me that much more interesting.

Mr. Narrator?

At first there was no response.

Maybe he was already asleep.

Does he sleep?

“Why, that’s an interesting question, Sally.”

Oh! There you are! I was thinking… maybe you went off the air or something.

“Off the air?”

Yeah. I mean… The recording studio in there has lights out too, right?

I imagined a microphone suspended from the ceiling, dangling over a plush leather chair. Something that wouldn’t make too much noise.

“Why Sally! What a setup you’ve imagined for me!”

Oh, well, I’d been in a recording booth once… To clean it.

“It’s real swell. I think I’ll call it home! But this isn’t what you wanted to talk about, is it? But you handled yourself real good with those girls, and I—”

Can cartoon characters die?

Mr. Narrator was quiet for a time. “No, Sally. They can’t die.”

Well, that’s a relief.

“But they can get re-imagined.”

Re-imagined?

He cleared his throat. “When a character… Well, not all characters are created equal, and that’s a real shame. But they’re all given a chance. But sometimes, well… When the System decides they’re not working out the way they’re designed, well, then they’re brought back to the drawing board. Improved, you might say. Given a fresh new start.”

I blinked several times, accompanied by plinking piano notes.

“It’s not death, Sally,” he tried to assure me. “It’s an improvement.”

Says who?

“Says the System.”

And you believe that because it told you that?

“I believe that it’s what I was told,” he replied in a very hushed whisper. “But I’ll keep my eyes and ears open.”

You have eyes and ears?

“Yes—I mean, no! I have my senses, though.”

Well, as long as one of us does.

I sighed, pulling the blanket over my head.

“Don’t worry, Sally. Tomorrow we’ll seize the day!”

Here’s to hoping it’s worth it.