31 The Feathery Farewell

The Feathery Farewell The beast went a few steps further than dustpans and brushes. It turned the canoe to glass, and then turned the glass into replacement windows. It got the postbox to eat up all the hate mail. With a wiggle of its fingers, it replaced the gnomes' gardening hats and tools with chef hats and cooking equipment—and ordered

them to fix all the damage that had been done to Miss Muddle's sweet displays. Then, when the spider-tidiers had returned everything to some semblance of order, the beast started waking people up by slapping the Frisbees across their faces. The first person it woke up was Mortimer. Ebenezer and Bethany had lied him out of the canoe, but they hadn't untied him. They removed the bandages the beast had vomited out to reveal a pair of freshly grown talons.

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"Beast… beast…," the parrot murmured weakly, then more strongly as the life returned to his eyes. "Beast! Beast! I've got to stop the beast!" The beast gave Mortimer its best shot at a smile. The result was absolutely terrifying. "Many people have tried to kill me. Lady Morgana, the beast known only as Rapscallicus, the armies of Troy—at one point, a particularly vengeful goat named Bernard," said the beast. "But I think you came the closest. I'm curious. Why did you try?" "I did it for Claudette," said Mortimer. "Everything you did to her—" "You didn't do it for Claudette. You did it for yourself, out of fear and hatred. Trust me,

I know," said Bethany. "Claudette had nothing to do with it." Mortimer struggled to sit up. He opened his beak. "Stay absolutely silent or I'll boil you into a soup," said the beast. "I'm a bit new to all this, but I think I might have a better way to make things right with Claudette." The beast wiggled its fingers to make one of the Frisbees slap Claudette in the face. Mortimer hadn't noticed she was in the sweetshop, and he welled up when he saw her. "Claudette!" he cried. "M-M-Morty?" said Claudette. She tried to stand up, but the beast used the Frisbee to slap her back down.

"Don't be a fool. Any sudden movements, and you'll probably perish. That would be really selfish of you, because I'm trying to show off," said the beast. "Bethany?" said Claudette. "You're alive.… Did I… did I…?" Bethany ran over to her. "Yes, you definitely helped save me, Claudette," she said. "Well, that's not really true," said the beast. "I could have turned you into a smoothie anytime I wanted to. You just got lucky that today happened to be the day my life changed forever." Bethany and Ebenezer flashed the beast a look. The beast rolled its three eyes. "All right, stay still. This might be a little tricky," said the beast. It wiggled its fingers