CHAPTER 5

Here's the thing. I still want Gaston to be happy. But I still don't want him to end up with Belle. In fact, those two ideas seem like they would be… what's the word? Where two things are opposites of each other? Where they're fighting with each other like wrestlers? Gaston being happy and being with Belle is like Monsignor Murder and The Sausage. That's what I mean.

Seriously! Belle's got to be the worst possible match for him that could be! Not to mention, if he gets her, I'm outdoors.

"Uh, Gaston?" I say as the three of us ride the short distance across the village in the de Loons wagon, "Has it ever, maybe, crossed your mind that you could… um… try for a girl that is more interested in you?"

"What is that, LeFou?" calls Gaston. "I can't hear you."

Gaston is sitting up on the rider's perch with d'Arque, but there isn't room for me, so I have to cling underneath the wagon while it rides along. To make me ride in the back where the crazy people go would just have been too undignified.

I repeat what I was saying, louder this time.

"LeFou," answers Gaston, "when we go hunting, what do you call the animals we chase?"

"Umm… meat?"

"Sure! Meat. Why not. Now, what do you call us, who chase the meat?"

"Hunters?"

"Good! Now, if a girl were chasing me, what would she be?"

"Like in a hunt? Umm… a killer cannibal?"

"Exactly, LeFou! Exactly!"

We reach Belle and Maurice's house right then. Me and Gaston go inside — those bookworms aren't bright enough to do something like lock the door — but no one is home.

"Ah, well, guess it's not going to work out afterall," I say, hoping to get Gaston off of this before he embarrasses himself.

"They have to come back sometime!" he says, grabbing me by the tie as he sometimes does. It's actually better when he grabs me by the neck because the fat makes a nice cushioned handle — the tie just gets all stretched out, then I have to buy a new one, and it's so hard to find a pattern I like. "When they do, we'll be ready for them," Gaston says. Then he puts me down and tells me not to move from that spot until Belle and her father come home.

Aw, nuts.

Gaston rides off with d'Arque, and I'm outdoors just as good as if he already had Belle. I'm supposed to wait beside the front steps, next to a water-wheel, in the snow.

And thus begins my great ordeal. See, Gaston supposed that Belle and her father would come back in a day or so. But instead, I end up out there for three months.

The first month isn't so bad. Maurice left the door unlocked and the pantry fully stocked, so I just keep going in, making sandwiches and whatnot. I try on some of their clothes for extra warmth — Maurice's stuff fits okay, Belle's not so much (though I say, I look great in heels!)

By the second month, all of the pigs and chickens they were keeping had died of either freeze or starvation, because no one was taking care of them. The cold is keeping them fresh and I just start eating all the carcasses — I mean, can't let them go to waste, right? I make a little fire out of all Belle's books and roast the meat on the end of a stick. Actually, I'm getting to like the hobo life. I should learn to talk like a hobo and really embrace it. Let's see — hey there good-lookin', youse gots you a penny?

But that third month is when the lean times began. My all-important body fat is starting to diminish. Why, I get a glimpse of myself in a puddle one day, and I see this trim and handsome young man staring back at me. This isn't you! Mon dieu, LeGume, what have you become? Lucky for me, I go into the house to scavenge, and in the basement area where Maurice seems to have a workshop — a miracle! I find a whole barrel of tallow that he was using for some kind of axel grease. I eat all of that and soon I am back to my old self! Whew, that was a close one!

And actually, at this point I'm beginning to think it's been so long, Gaston might have forgotten about the whole thing. Maybe he's over Belle? I mean, I haven't heard from him in all this time, like I'd expect if he were anxious. But then I get worried. I'm hoping that he hasn't starved to death in front of a mirror and turned into a flower like Narcolepsy while I was gone. That would be awful. But I stay at it, and I try to trust poor Gaston, who really is so very very terrible at taking care of himself.

I'm busying myself by building a snowman one night, when Belle and her father finally come back. I figure I have to hide from them, so they won't realize I'm the one who ate everything in the house and wore all of their underwear because I didn't have a laundress out here. To get out of sight, I crawl inside of my snowman where they can't see me. Dang, it is cold in here! By the time Belle gets her father down from the horse — and he doesn't look in good shape, I'll say — I'm thinking I'm going to have to set myself on fire to warm up. Probably an alcohol fire would be best. Nice low flame, gets you warm and toasty.

While I'm making my way back to the house and patting out the last of the smoldering spots on my clothes, I start to think about whether there's a way to change Gaston's mind about all of this Belle business. I can't even remember what his plan was anymore, but it was something about the madhouse, and it was going to lead to him marrying Belle and all her books and her crazy father. Jeez, can you imagine having them for cousins?

When I get home, I find Gaston passed out on the livingroom floor surrounded by smashed eggs and dozens upon dozens of empty hooch bottles with labels that say XXX on them. He is snoring loudly and his clothes are even filthier than mine — though granted, my clothes are a bit fresher than they've been. I burnt off most of the body soil and caked up snot with that fire.

I'm concerned by Gaston's condition, and I hurry to shake him awake. Gaston gets up with a confused look on his face and he immediately pukes on me.

"Jeez, LeFou," he grumbles, puking while he speaks. "What took you so long? I've been waiting here for two whole days!" He collapses again onto his back.

"Two days?" I say. "I've been waiting at Belle's house for three months!"

Gaston tells me that's ridiculous. "I'd remember if three whole months had passed! It's not as if I could have been in a drunken blackout that whole time. Why, I would have needed to drink dozens upon dozens of bottles of the strongest mountain hooch for that to happen!"

He doesn't seem to be ready to stand up on his own and he continues throwing up on me as he's talking. I figure I'd better get him to bed and find him something to eat. He's probably getting hungry, throwing up like that. Works up an appetite.

Trying to get a seven foot tall rock like Gaston into bed is bad enough when you're not literally half his size. I try pulling him by the leg, but he doesn't budge. I try gathering him up and pushing him, but he just falls over, nose to knees (wow, he is flexible! I wonder if he's one of those guys who can… come to think of it, best not ask these kinds of questions.)

I finally just gather up the mattress from the bed and drag it out to the livingroom. I put it on top of him. Then I get a board, wedge it beneath him, and use it as a lever to force both him and the mattress up and onto their sides. Then I just let them fall into place on their backs, with the result that Gaston is (mostly) on top of mattress. Ta-daa.

I open the kitchen cabinet and there's nothing but spiderwebs inside. Gaston hates eating spiderwebs even if they are a delicacy in some places. I do find a bag of coffee, so I fix a pot of that — a soup pot. I just make it really strong, like the consistency of a porridge. I mean, coffee is beans — so it's basically a bean soup, right? It seems to do the trick, anyway — after a bowl of that, Gaston's up on his feet, ready and raring to get his plan into action.

We both change into outfits that haven't been soaking in three months of urine and vomit, and we go to the asylum to find d'Arque. Fortunately he's an honest man, and he's still willing to honor the arrangement even though he hadn't heard from us all winter. He admits he thought we were dead, because no one in town knew where we'd gone.

"I should advise you both," d'Arque says, "that I've taken out a series of predatory loans under your names, since I believed you wouldn't be using them anymore. But we can fix that problem later."

Indeed, we can. Right now, Gaston is all too excited about finally getting to see Belle again. He puts on all his weapons so he'll look attractive for the occasion.