In early June of 3003, Abigail graduated from Mason City West High School.  About a week later, she finally turned 18.  Like Melissa, Abigail was also an attractive mousette.  However, she wasn't as willing as her older sister to let males yiff with her (at least not at first).  Once Abigail was 18, Melissa started to make plans to leave Mason City for Minneapolis.  However, Melissa had a problem.  At that time, Melissa was in the middle of a 3-year contract.  Because of her popularity and the high amount of money she generated for the club, the owners would not be willing to let her go so easily.  But because of "Penelope's Law", Melissa was free to seek long-term relationships while working at the club.  Eventually, the owners offered to make a deal with Melissa.  They would release her from her contract if she could find someone who was equally attractive (both physically and sexually) to take her place.  The only female that Melissa could think of that could possibly take her place was Abigail.

 

At first, Abigail didn't want anything to do with that.  Melissa explained to her sister that it was time for them to have independent lives.  Melissa wanted to marry Gen. Sherman and start a family of her own.  For several years Melissa and Abigail were the only family each other had, Abigail didn't want her sister to leave her all alone.  On the other hand, Melissa had been taking care of Abigail for years and now that Abigail was capable of providing for herself, it wouldn't be fair for Melissa to stay with her when she had her own needs.  Gradually, Abigail started to understand that they couldn't possibly live together forever.  In early July, Abigail finally decided that she would go down to the club with Melissa to try out.

 

A couple days later, Melissa and Abigail went down to the Mouse Hole to see if Abigail met the owner's requirements.  Even though they were born about 6 years apart, Melissa and Abigail looked nearly identical.  They were the same height, nearly the same weight, and had a similar physical appearance (the only discernable differences between the two are their eyes and hair color*).  When the owners saw that Melissa and Abigail were nearly identical, the owners decided to give Abigail a chance.  But before they let Abigail go out on stage, the owners considered making Abigail look more like Melissa (so the audience wouldn't be able to tell the difference).  However, both Melissa and Abigail didn't want to deceive the audience like that.  It took a bit of convincing, but the owners eventually agreed to let Abigail go out on stage as she was.

 

The final arrangements had been made, if the audience liked Abigail, Melissa would be free to pursue her relationship with Gen. Sherman after her farewell "fan appreciation" performance.  Abigail then went out onto the stage to perform for the large crowd (many of whom came to see Melissa).  When most of the fans saw the timid mousette walk out onto the stage, they started to get irritated (this would normally be the time the Melissa was out on stage).  With dozens of sex-hungry males staring at her Abigail had no idea what to do.  In preparation for this day, Melissa tried to teach Abigail how to attract the audiences attention.  Melissa often used her tail to hang upside down from a handle bar above the stage.  She was the only mousette who had a tail that was strong enough to hold onto the bar without slipping.  Uncertain about what else to do, Abigail quickly took off her clothes and tried to hang upside down from the bar.  Abigail wrapped her tail around the bar and then put her hands on the floor to stop her from falling head first if she slipped.  Suspended from the bar, Abigail felt her tail grip it tightly as she hung upside down completely nude from it.  Eventually, Abigail removed her hands from the floor and let her tail do the work.  When the audience saw her maintaining her grip on the bar, the once rowdy audience started to enjoy what they were seeing (mousettes are extremely agile, which is one of their traits for attracting males).  When Abigail could hear the crowd cheering for her, she started to feel her natural instincts kick in.  Soon, $5 and $10 bills started to appear on the stage below her.  When Abigail saw the crowd producing money, it seemed like all the things that Melissa had taught her came into mind.  Abigail began performing with much more confidence.  From backstage, Melissa could hear the crowd cheering for her little sister and was eager to find out how she had done.

 

About 10 minutes later, Abigail came back from the stage with an armful of money.  When the owners of the club counted the money to see how much Abigail had earned, they found out that she had earned nearly the same amount of money that Melissa did when she first started.  Seeing that Abigail could draw as big of a crowd as Melissa could, the owners agreed to give the remainder of Melissa's current contract to Abigail.  Afterwards, Melissa went out on stage for the last time before she would leave to go to Minneapolis.

 

A couple days later, Melissa arrived in the Twin Cities.  When she arrived at Twin Cities International Airport, Melissa hopped on a city bus to go to a hotel near the Mall of America.  She figured that she would get settled in her hotel room and maybe go to the mall before she started looking for Gen. Sherman.  For Melissa, being in the Twin Cities was different from living in Mason City.  For starters, Melissa found out almost immediately that the manners of most people weren't exactly the best in the world.  On the other hand, Minnesota has the highest native Vulpine (or earth-born Vulpines) population in the U.S. and the majority of the people there didn't ask questions whenever they saw a mousette (or any other Vulpine citizen) going about their business.  Still, it would be a significant adjustment for the young mousette who was used to living in a peaceful environment.

 

A few hours after arriving at her hotel by the Mall of America, Melissa decided to go to the mall itself.  A new specialty department store recently opened in the Mall of America that sold clothing made for Vulpines, by Vulpines.  Melissa wanted to buy some new clothes so that she could look her best for Gen. Sherman when she found him.  At that time, Melissa had no idea that he would find him...again.

 

End of Act 8