30 The Battle Inside the Beast

The Battle Inside the Beast Don't do it, Bethany!" cried Claudette. She started wobbling on her talons because she was so exhausted. "Get back—NOW!" shouted Ebenezer. He tried to pull Bethany back from the beast, but she pushed him away.

"Oh, ah—bother, bother. Please don't eat Bethany," said Geoffrey. He ran forward, tripping over some spilled marmalicious gobblecracks. "Eat me instead." "Nah—that's not gonna work. There's only one child the beast wants," said Bethany. She was holding her hands tight behind her back now, because she didn't want the beast to see that they were trembling. "What do you say, beast? You feeling peckish?" Everyone in the sweetshop was watching. The beast felt the eyes on its skin, and it didn't care for the pressure. It's awfully hard not to feel self-conscious when everyone's watching you eat. The beast came up with a simple solution to its stage fright. It wiggled its fingers at the hoatzin stink-box and got it to emit a gas that

knocked out everyone in the room except itself, Bethany, and Ebenezer. It wanted Ebenezer to watch Bethany's death, as punishment for all the do-gooding he had tricked the beast into doing. "Any last words?" asked the beast. "Yeah—four," said Bethany. She could feel her legs start to wobble. Fortunately, the beast hadn't noticed. "Get. On. With. It." Bethany scrunched her eyes shut. So did the beast. It was hard to tell who was more afraid at this moment—Bethany, of death; or the beast, of what it meant if it couldn't go through with this particular feast. The beast wrapped one of its tongues around Bethany's sneakers and turned her upside down, high in the air—just like it had done in so many of her nightmares. It flared

its fangs and slowly started lowering her toward its mouth. "Don't do it!" begged Ebenezer. "You're better than this, beast. Anyone can change, anytime they choose!" The beast's mouth was wide enough now to lower Bethany past its rows of teeth without slicing her apart. If Bethany had opened her eyes, she would have caught sight of the beast's long and winding insides—filled with mazes of intestines, bubblingly poisonous stomach acids, and treacherous caverns of half-digested meals.

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Ebenezer was blinded by tears. He collapsed completely to the floor, letting out one guttural sob after another. The first sound he heard was the beast belching, which made him sob with renewed frenzy. Then, a second later, he heard a thump land next to him. "Eurgggggh!" said Bethany, getting to her feet. She was covered in dribble. Some of the stomach acid had bubbled up and set her sweater on fire, so she was forced to take it off. "That was the grossest thing in the world." "Oh, Bethany!" said Ebenezer. He went to pat her lovingly on the head, but then quickly backed away. The smell of the beast's insides was astonishingly bad.