12 The Broken Window

The Broken Window Ebenezer slammed the book shut. When he opened it again, the beast's snarl was replaced with another "happy" image of Ebenezer and the beast hosting a well-mannered Peruvian

bear in the attic. In the memory, Ebenezer and the bear were conducting a heated debate on the topic of winter footwear whilst the beast was keeping the party going by vomiting out party games aplenty. Ebenezer closed and opened the book again and again, but the snarl never returned to the pages. There was nothing but the supposedly "happy" times that Ebenezer had spent with the beast, and he began to wonder whether there had ever been a snarl there at all. As Ebenezer looked closer at the portraits, he noticed that all the memories were incomplete. For instance, the portraits didn't show how the beast had fireballed the Frost Fair when it had gotten jealous of Ebenezer talking with other people, and the portraits

revealed absolutely nothing about what had happened to the poor bear after they finished that last game of Twister. This was most unlike the memory book. Whenever it had previously shown Ebenezer images of the person he missed most in the world, the memories were always bad ones. When Ebenezer had used it to look up Nicholas Nickle (the First), he saw all the times the Nickles had bullied him, and when he'd used it for the late Lord Tibbles, the book showed him the cat scratching the sofa or bringing half-dead birds into the house. At the time, it felt like the beast had vomited out the book just to show Ebenezer that he was better off without other people in his life. But now he wasn't sure, because the

book was rewriting the beast as a charming, generous, and rather gorgeous creature. "Where are the rest of the memories?" said Ebenezer. "The real ones." In response, the book showed him another pleasing memory involving a hook-handed penguin, a tap-dancing giraffe, and an oddly nimble statue of Winston Churchill. Ebenezer threw the book across the room. The book flew back across the room and struck him on the head. "OWW!" said Ebenezer. The book bounced onto the floor. Ebenezer swore he saw another image of the beast snarling, but when he looked again, there was just another "happy" beastly memory. Ebenezer chased after the book and flicked through it.

Whilst he was flicking, the front door opened. He yelped and quickly threw the book under the chair. He straightened his outfit and stood, trying to look as normal as possible. Bethany burst in, carrying Quantum Mechanics for Morons under her arm. She searched the room before settling her eyes on Ebenezer. "Claudette?" she said. "Ebenezer, actually," he replied nonchalantly. He fervently hoped that the memory book wasn't peeking out from under the sofa. "You won't find a parrot wearing this sort of cravat." "Don't be a twit," said Bethany. "We need to find her. She flew away from me, and I can't find her anywhere. I've been looking for flipping ages."

"Maybe you should just take the hint. Sounds like she's wanting a little Claudette time," said Ebenezer. Bethany walked over and kicked Ebenezer in the shins repeatedly. The kicking was only stopped when they were interrupted by a scream and an almighty smashing of glass, which came from the front room. They both ran to see what was happening and found Claudette lying facedown in a pool of window shards, with a small plastic bag lying next to her.