And More Worse

Having given Elizabeth a soap opera future in the comic strip For Better or for Worse, let's start on her brother, Michael. Lynn Johnston left Michael happily married to Deanna, his grade school sweetheart, with two children and a literary career.

But with the economy being what it is right now, I think Deanna's wealthy father would lose all his money and hurl himself off a bridge somewhere, thus leaving Deanna's meddlesome mother nothing to do but move in with her daughter's family, which would, of course, drive Michael to drink, a common affliction of writers. Like Fitzgerald before him, he'd end up in rented rooms in Hollywood, slugging down the whiskey and eking out a living penning minor screenplays.

Then there's April, the third Patterson child. Johnston left her still in high school and planning to become a veterinarian, but Fio has other ideas in mind. How about having April hitchhike through Canada during the summer before college and end up joining a commune? And what if she meets, Eric, one of her sister's old boyfriends, there and they started making sweet music together? Of course, their relationship would strike a dischord when Eric runs around on her, as he did her sister, and April would have to take off for England, where she would meet Prince Harry. Hmmm--Princess April.



Stay tuned tomorrow for the future of Elly and John, the parents of the family.