Well, we were wrong. We didn't see Belle again for over a week, and we didn't see Maurice, either. We figured they were just inside, fiddling with their pastimes.

Eventually, however, I walked by and saw Belle and Maurice in front of Belle's house, in mid-conversation. I darted over to the tavern and gathered together Monsieur D'Arque and a mob. Gaston was to hide among us, waiting for the right moment.

It was a perfect plot, of course. And it SHOULD have worked perfectly. But, when Gaston approached Belle, that ungrateful… she slapped him! He was about to slap her back, and in my opinion perhaps he really should have, (but why would Gaston hit a woman? Gaston was perfect, he would never do that, it was just a bluff… Oh, I don't know!) but we all looked at him and he stopped, hand in mid-air.

"Take the old man!" he exclaimed, letting his arm slink at his side. D'Arque and the other stronger members of the mob moved forward.

"My father's not crazy!" Belle yelled, still flinching slightly from her near-miss of Gaston's punch. "I can prove it."

"I'd like to see her do that," I mumbled to D'Arque.

Then, to my astonishment, she pulled out a mirror. What, I thought to myself, is she going to tidy herself up to marry Gaston at last?

But instead, she looked straight in the mirror and commanded, "SHOW ME THE BEAST!"

She's lost her mind, too, I thought, maybe the Maison des Lunes needs TWO new inmates.

But on the mirror appeared a reflection of someone or something definitely NOT among us – a huge beast, with white fangs that looked as sharp as a sword. I jumped in the air and attached myself to the arm of D'Arque, who promptly dropped me with a look of disgust.

As I pushed myself up, still shaking, I saw Gaston and Belle arguing. Belle was telling Gaston that that beast was actually a kind, sweet creature.

Yeah, right.

And then she called GASTON a monster. I saw his eyes swell up in a mix of anger and pain, and I saw him snatch the mirror out of Belle's hand and raise it in the air.

"She's as crazy as the old man! She says this creature is her FRIEND! Well, I've hunted wild beasts and I've seen what they can do!"

Chanal, Dominique, and Anne looked at each other, as if wishing they hadn't decided to follow Gaston around on this particular day. Anne looked like she was about to faint. The other townspeople were muttering fearfully amongst themselves, as Gaston described the castle to them. Now, he'd never SEEN this castle, of course, but from the picture in the mirror and some obvious deducing regarding Maurice's delusional ramblings – or what we THOUGHT had been delusional ramblings – about the woods, he and I both knew where the castle was. D'Arque and I took a few steps forward and stood behind Gaston. Soon, the entire mob had lined up behind us, and we were all certain of what must happened.

"We'll kill the beast!" Gaston declared, ignoring Belle's promises to stop him. Soon, we found our way to the road through the woods… Belle was nowhere in sight. No fear of wolves or bugs or even spiders could hold us back now. Nothing would stop us. The beast would die, and Gaston would be everyone's hero yet again. Forget Belle, if that crazy girl wanted to run around trying to save a monstrous, flesh-devouring creature, let her. And now I didn't have to worry about her marrying Gaston. Maybe, just maybe, he would reconsider if she begged him to marry her.

Just maybe.

But as for now… we had a menace to the village to confront.