"Whoa! Roy!"

The brakes squealed as Roy swerved violently to avoid hitting the lump in the middle of the quiet neighborhood road. As the truck came to a halt, Pam looked back to see what it was that they had nearly hit.

Her eyes opened wide in shock as she tried to process what she was seeing. Emerging from a hole in the middle of the street was what appeared to be a slender, red-haired woman, probably about her own age, wearing a gigantic, fluffy wedding dress. Pam turned to look over at Roy, but he was similarly speechless.

They watched in transfixed silence as the woman hauled herself up onto the street, looked around warily for a minute and then, catching sight of her dress immediately attempted to put it to rights, smoothing the wrinkled fabric and brushing angrily at the dirt stains.

Pam couldn't decide whether the woman looked more like an escapee from a beauty pageant or the nearest mental hospital, or possibly both. Just then, Roy seemed to come to his senses, opening his door and quickly rushing over to the woman. Pam hurriedly followed him.

"Are you all right?" they asked the woman in unison.

"Me?" her bright blue eyes lit up and she smiled as she seemed to notice them for the first time.

"Yes," Pam continued, "what in the world were you doing down there? You could've gotten hurt." Pam didn't mean to sound so harsh, but the woman's innocent smile was throwing her off, it was almost as if she hadn't realized she'd been crawling out of a manhole not twenty seconds ago.

"Oh, well... I was just..." the woman smiled again, obviously trying to compose her thoughts. "Well, you see... What I mean is, there was this huge black monster roaring at me all of a sudden and then it was gone and so I crawled out. But everything is fine now. I think. Except... I don't suppose you two could tell me where I am. I'd be so obliged." The woman finished with another smile.

Pam turned to Roy again, now fairly convinced that it was the mental hospital they should be calling.

Roy just spluttered for a minute. "Um, you're uh, you're in Scranton," when the woman just looked at him he tried again. "Pennsylvania? Scranton, Pennsylvania in the United States."

Pam considered tacking on a 'planet earth' to that statement, but thought that might come off a little rude. She didn't know why, but after knowing her for only thirty seconds this woman was already starting bug her. She wouldn't admit it to herself, but deep down she knew that part of her annoyance might have had something to do with the way Roy had obviously noticed that the woman's neckline revealed far more than any of Pam's dresses ever had.

"What's your name?" Pam asked to keep herself from getting more annoyed.

"Princess Kaytinalissian Mirabella Angeline Nicolina Eloise Verabeth of the Realm of Ciridon, but mostly people call me Katy," she replied demurely.

"Okay, wow. That is a um... that's an interesting name. Look, uh, Katy... I'm sorry," Pam pursed her lips, trying for patience, "but we're kind of running late for work. Are you okay? Or can we maybe give you a ride somewhere? I'll bet the police could help you find your way home. Back to Keera-what's-it."

"Ciridon," Katy helpfully supplied. "And that's awfully sweet of you to offer but my father is much too powerful and much too stubborn to be persuaded by the Police, whoever he is. No, I'm afraid there's no going home for me. Not for a long, long time." The woman's eyes started filling with tears and Pam's heart softened a little bit. Obviously the woman was just lost and confused and probably a little mentally challenged. It didn't matter that she looked gorgeous, she still needed someone to take care of her. With a little sigh Pam put her arm around the girl and started to lead her down the street. Roy gave her a questioning glance; he'd been keeping his distance ever since the tears started. Pam kind of shrugged her shoulders back at him and the three of them continued walking back toward the truck.

"Come on, just come with us, we'll take care of you, okay?" Pam tried to reassure Katy.

"Thank you," Katy moaned between sobs. Her hands were covering her face and Pam could feel Katy's body shaking a little as she cried.

When they were about ten feet from the truck Katy looked up and instantly screamed. Pam jumped and then tried to wrestle her arm away from Katy who was clinging to it tightly. Maybe helping her had been the wrong idea after all.

"What is it?" Pam asked.

"There. Right there," Katy whispered, pointing. "That's the monster! Be careful, he's very fast. We'll have to be quiet so he doesn't notice us."

Pam looked in the direction the woman was pointing, but all she could see was the truck.

"What? No. That's not a monster, it's a truck. It's what we drove here in."

Katy gave her another confused look. Roy, who had obviously overheard everything, started laughing and then ran ahead of them to open the passenger door.

"Look," he said, calling back to them. "Just climb in here, okay? I promise it won't eat you."

Pam couldn't help but smile herself.

It took them a few more minutes, but they finally managed to convince Katy to sit between them on the bench seat. She freaked out again when Roy started the engine and then once more when they started moving, but after a minute or two she seemed to settle down. Pam glanced at the clock on the dashboard and cursed quietly.

"What?" Roy asked.

"Nothing," she said. "It's just that Jan told me she'd be coming in early today to check up on the branch and I was supposed to be there fifteen minutes ago."

"Jan from Corporate?"

"Yeah. And I'm sure Michael is just losing it already and..." Pam trailed off, an idea occurring to her. "Hey, do you think you could drop me off on your way to the police station? It's not that far out of the way and you can deal with Katy, right?"

"Uh... I guess so..." Roy said.

"Great," Pam interrupted before Roy had a chance to change his mind.
When they arrived at the office Pam quickly hopped out of the truck. "Good luck, Katy. See you later, Roy." she said, in a rush to get upstairs and make sure Michael wasn't trying another one of his Janet Jackson impressions that he'd been working on so much lately.

"Oh, good bye!" Katy looked up from the radio buttons she'd been playing with for the last few minutes. "And have a lovely day, Pam!" Katy smiled widely, sounding for all the world like a cross between Barbie and a Disneyland tour guide.

Pam nearly rolled her eyes, but managed to smile back instead before closing the truck door and running inside the building.

Two hours later Pam was just beginning to settle into her solitaire game after all the morning excitement both out of the office and in it. As she'd suspected Michael had been acting like, well, like Michael, and it had taken Pam quite awhile to smooth things over between he and Jan and the client they had been talking on the phone with. Then she'd had to discuss her tardiness with Dwight, and finally Angela had come to her with an angry glare and a stack of forms that she said had needed to be organized first thing that morning and that were now going to be late, thanks to Pam's inability to tell time.

Sometimes Pam felt like she was the only sane one in her office. She didn't mind her job really, but was it really asking so much to have someone to talk to once in awhile? Angela was never interested in her problems; Phyllis, Meredith, and Kelly were all far too interested. Toby was nice, but it seemed like whenever they started talking Michael would quickly interrupt them. It wasn't like she was looking for a best friend, she had Roy for that, but it would've been nice to have just one other normal person around. Especially for days like this.

Still a little lost in her thoughts, Pam was about to put the red 7 on the black 8 when she looked up to see Roy opening the main door to the office. Her eyebrows shot up when she realized that he was holding the door open for Katy, who was nonchalantly walking in behind him, still wearing that ridiculous white wedding dress, and still with that innocent smile plastered across her face.

This was so not what she needed today.