25 The Man from Dorris

The Man from D.o.R.R.i.S. W-W-What?" said Ebenezer. "No, you can't be, Mr. Clinke!" "I can be and I am. But I'm afraid my name isn't Clinke. I like to jumble up the letters of my name when I'm creating a new identity. The name's Nickle. Well, Mr. Nicholas Nickle the Twenty-Third, if you want to be accurate about it," said the old man. "Do you remember my great-great-great-great-greatgreat- great-great-great-great-great-great

great-great-great-great-great-great-greatgreat- great-grandfather? The whole reason I joined D.o.R.R.i.S. in the first place was because of a story passed down in my family—one of an evil beast who threatened to puddle people, and a strange child named Loser." "Ebenoozer Loser is not my name," said Ebenezer, with as much dignity as he could muster. "Is anyone gonna explain what the flip is going on?" asked Bethany. "This is the retirement-home man I was telling you about," said Ebenezer. "The one who I thought I was helping." "You were helping me," said Mr. Nickle the Twenty-Third. "But perhaps not in the way that you expected…"

Mr. Nickle explained how one of the global D.o.R.R.i.S. knowledge gatherers flagged the beastly yard sale and conducted a sweep for supernatural activity. After the sweep came back with intriguing results, D.o.R.R.i.S. decided to send their head agent and number one beast expert into the field. "I arrived the day after the sale. I wanted to stay in a hotel, but D.o.R.R.i.S. insisted that I would blend in more at the retirement home," said Mr. Nickle. "I headed straight for the house to inspect the items from the sale, and that's when you invited me in, Squeezer. As I was leaving, I planted a long-range listening device so I would be able to hear everything that was going on." Mr. Nickle produced the formerly waxy hearing aid from his pocket. The audience

would have oohed and aahed if they'd had a clue what the heck was happening. "Of course, my suspicions were on this Claudette character from the beginning, but every time I scanned her, the results just suggested that she was an incredibly healthy parrot," continued Mr. Nickle. "So I bided my time and continued looking for clues. Those words you played during Word Jumble helped me an awful lot, Squeezer." At the mention of Claudette's name, Bethany ran across the stage to check on her friend. She was unconscious, but she was breathing. On the other side of the stage, next to an increasingly perplexed Gloria, the beastly egg began to crack. "In my time at D.o.R.R.i.S., I've captured werewolves, humanoids, vengeful ghosts,

psychopathic printers, demonic iguanas, and even the great slug of the Black Sea. But nothing compares to this—after all, the beast was the whole reason why the organization was set up in the first place," said Mr. Nickle. "I don't know what I'll do next.…" The cracks spread across the egg like a spider stretching its legs. A few of the audience members who were seasoned pantomimegoers were quite tempted to shout out, IT'S BEHIND YOU! but sheer terror prevented them from opening their mouths. "What happens to me?" asked Ebenezer nervously. "What do you mean?" asked Mr. Nickle. "I mean my beastly behavior. All that time I kept it hidden," said Ebenezer.

"Oh, I see," said Mr. Nickle. He scrunched up his wrinkly brow, creating even more lines in his forehead. "Well, I think that your punishment for hiding the beast for five hundred years will have to be… well… the fact that you've lived with the beast for five hundred years. In my books, that's plenty of time served for bad behavior." Ebenezer was so exhausted from the sleeplessness in the attic that he nearly collapsed into sobs of relief; however, he managed to pull himself together, because he didn't want to look stupid in front of his very first secret agent. Whilst he was pulling himself together, a tiny, beastly hand pushed out of the egg. A few seconds later, the other did the same.