14 The De-Jumbling

The De-Jumbling Ebenezer calmed Eduardo down by giving him the money to get a new fancy shirt that wouldn't prove anywhere near as tricky or murderous. His efforts to calm himself down, however, weren't quite as successful. Ebenezer clutched the shirt, and the shirt clutched at him—as if thrilled to be reunited. He stumbled back into the fifteen-story house and found Bethany in the grand sitting room, busily folding napkins into sat-on seagulls. "Bethany, I—" began Ebenezer.

"Thought I told you to bog off," said Bethany. "I'm too busy to chitchat." "Yes, I know. It's something important, though." "More important than getting the rest of the neighborhood to trust me?" "Well, I think it might be. Please, just give me a minute." Bethany stopped seagulling and looked at him. She tapped her foot impatiently to make it clear that Ebenezer better be saying something good. "Well, you see—it's about this shirt…," began Ebenezer. He didn't have time to finish his thought because Bethany picked up one of the forks and threw it at him. "A shirt?! You wanna stop me from preparing the most important party that's ever

been held anywhere to ask me about an outfit?" she said, angrily throwing another fork. "Get out of here, you selfish git!" "It's not just the shirt," said Ebenezer as another fork sailed above his head. "It's also about all those things that came back from the beastly sale, and there's this book I've found that—" "Now is NOT the time!" said Bethany. "We can chat about how strange the world is aer my party. If you don't leave right now, then I'm gonna have to start throwing the knives." Ebenezer yelped, dropped the gold- buttoned shirt, and ran back out of the house. He jumped into his car and started driving to the retirement home—not knowing what else to do.

As he drove, he saw that Claudette had plastered posters across the whole neighborhood. There wasn't a street corner, bus stop, mailbox, or public lavatory that didn't have Claudette beaming beakily from it. Ebenezer was so distracted that he took his eyes off the road and almost ran over the kindly old lady again. The lady didn't make a fuss, but a fellow pedestrian shook his fists angrily. "Open your eyes, you hooligan!" said the pedestrian. As Ebenezer drove on, he wondered whether he should follow the man's advice—and not just in regard to his driving. If Bethany wasn't going to talk to him until after the party, then maybe he needed to open his

eyes and have a proper think about all the peculiar things that were going on. The shirt, the book, the returned items—they had all been vomited out by the beast, and they were all behaving strangely. This seemed significant to Ebenezer, and he wondered whether the things might be playing up because of the death of their creator. It was a fine enough theory, but it didn't explain how the items were still able to move about the place. Moreover, it offered absolutely no insight into why the shirt had tried to stop him from doing do-gooding. Ebenezer honked his horn, thoroughly frustrated by his own confusion. He glanced out the window and saw that he was already outside the retirement home, and that his

frustrated honk had caused Nurse Mindy to emerge from the building. "Thank goodness you're here. Mr. Clinke has been asking after you all day," said Mindy. "He's proving to be one of the trickiest residents we've ever had." Mindy explained that the old man was not taking to the slow-paced atmosphere of a retirement home existence. He kept breaking out of the place, and whenever he was in his room, he wouldn't stop mumbling about how Dorris should have let him stay in a hotel instead. "We've tried putting dead bolts on his doors and sealing his windows, but he still keeps getting out," said Mindy. "Could you have a word with him and see if you can calm him down?"