2 The De-Beasting

The De-Beasting What a creature—so unlike anything I've ever seen! Such beauty, such poise, such grace—you deserve the world, and I'm going to jolly well make sure I give it to you." Five hundred years later, Ebenezer was soaking in his morning bubble bath, whispering sweet nothings to the reflection in his handheld mirror. Over the centuries, he had learned that mirrors are much easier to talk to than walls—especially when you have a rigorous potion-and-skin-care routine that

gives you a face as beautiful as a twilight moon. "Why the sad face?" Ebenezer asked himself. "The morning bath has always been a happy occasion!" Over the course of his long, long lifetime, Ebenezer had soaked in almost two hundred thousand baths, and they had all been very happy occasions indeed. Today, however, there was something amok. For one thing, Ebenezer's windup rubber ducky was missing. This was a serious blow to proceedings, because Raphael was a ducky who had performed tricks and sung moving sea shanties every morning since the beast had vomited him out. For another, there was something peculiar about the smell in the room. Thanks to the

beast, Ebenezer was accustomed to baths that were bubbled and salted with only the very finest products a man can bathe in, and yet there was a distinctly cheap and nasty odor leaking out of the bubbles—as if someone had replaced his salts with dishwasher powder. For the third, final, and most-disturbing-of-all thing, there was a smudgy, greasy-fingered message from Bethany on his handheld mirror: OI, GITFACE. NO TIME FOR BATHING TODAY. DE-BEASTING TO BE DONE. Naturally, Ebenezer had ignored the message, because it was his long-held belief that there is always time for a bath. He believed that you often need to take a bath

right at the moment when other people would have you believe that there is no time for one. However, the message continued to vex and irk because it made him wonder what Bethany had planned for their day, and eventually his curiosity could take it no more. He cut his bath short by a couple of hours; threw on some loungewear, slippers, and a dressing gown; and made his way downstairs. His journey was fraught with confusion and peril because certain items in the fifteen-story house seemed to have gone walkabout. Confusion clouded his face when he noticed that all the furnishings from the velvet suite had been replaced with deck chairs and whoopee cushions. The confusion gave way to alarm when he found that his favorite collection of beautiful paintings had been

taken off the wall. In their place was a selection of doodles and unconvincingly proportioned stick figures, which had been graffitied onto the wallpaper and signed by Bethany. "No, no, no!" said Ebenezer, sprinting downstairs to address Bethany in his best I'm really rather cross with you sort of voice. "What on earth are you doing?" "Stupid question," said Bethany. She was quite right, because it was perfectly obvious that she was trying to remove a piano from the front room of the house. "Gimme a hand, gitface. We've gotta get this onto the street with the other stuff." "I shall do no such thing!" said Ebenezer. "I'm not going to help you rob me."

"We're not robbing you; we're helping you. Claudette and I have been working our flipping butts off," said Bethany. And then, as if to show off her butt- working, Claudette the Wintlorian purple-breasted parrot flew into the house. Her feathery forehead was slightly damp with sweat. "That's the last of the dancing teapots done, poppets!" she said, spreading her wings in a Ta-da! pose. "Hi-de-hi, Ebenezer! Has Bethany told you about our wonderful de-beasting mission?" "De-beasting?" asked Ebenezer. "Yeah," said Bethany matter-of-factly. "De-beasting." Claudette sank her talons into the piano and assisted Bethany in her efforts to drag it