Now Belle and I noticed the singing so we turned around, but the townsfolk timed it just right: they finished before we could catch them in action. Belle and I turned back around and continued on. That's when Gaston and Gaston D caught up with us.
"Hello Belle." Gaston said.
"Bonjour Gaston." Belle said.
I only rolled my eyes.
Gaston grabbed our book out of Belle's hands.
"Gaston may we have our book please?" Belle said.
"How can you read this?" Gaston said. "There's no pictures."
"Well some people use their imaginations." Belle and I replied.
"Belle (Miranda), it's about time you got your head out of those books and paid attention to more important things…like me." Gaston and Gaston D said, tossing our book onto the ground.
Unfortunately the book landed in a mud puddle, but Belle rescued it.
The bimbettes sighed, but my friends obviously rolled their eyes.
"The whole town's talking about it," Gaston and Gaston D continued. "It's not right for a woman to read, soon she starts getting ideas and thinking."
You can definitely bet that the female members of the team were insulted, and even the boy members of the team disapproved of that.
"Let me handle this." I mouthed to them with a wink. "And what is wrong with thinking, may I ask?" I said sarcastically.
"Nothing I suppose, except thinking might cause a woman to go down the wrong path." The Gaston D said, apparently not being able to recognize sarcasm.
Now Ron W, Hermione, and the team were really annoyed.
"Oh I disagree," I replied in a sort of teasing tone. "Thanks to reading I know the difference between the right path and the wrong path, and right now the right path tells me to help my father instead of hang with you."
Ron W, Hermione, and the team grinned: my retort caused Gaston D to become speechless.
Meanwhile, Belle had her own wit to play:
"Gaston you are positively primeval." She said.
"Why thank you Belle." Gaston replied, not knowing that he was insulted instead of complimented. "What do you say you and me and our dogs take a walk to the tavern and take a look at our trophies?"
How dumb can you get?
"Maybe some other time." Belle replied.
The human bimbettes took turns disapproving her decision:
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's crazy!"
"He's gorgeous!"
Okay, so that last one wasn't a disapproval. Some of the team rolled their eyes at that while others shook their heads.
"What about you Miranda, surely you'd like to see my trophies." Gaston D said, having recovered from my last retort.
"No thanks." I smirked. "I don't need to see your trophies to know that you have gold ones for rudeness, vanity, stupidity, and cruelty."
Gaston D became speechless again. The poodle bimbettes looked shocked. Ron W, Hermione, and the team sniggered.
"Please Gaston we can't, we have to get home to help our fathers" Belle said. "Goodbye."
"That crazy old loon? He needs all the help he can get!" Le Fou and Le Fou D joked.
Gaston and Gaston D laughed with Le Fou and Le Fou D.
"Don't talk about our fathers that way!" Belle and I said angrily.
"Yeah, don't talk about their fathers that way!" Gaston and Gaston D repeated, hitting Le Fou and Le Fou D.
"That was really pathetic." Sam said.
"He should make up his mind." Ron S agreed.
"Our fathers are not crazy, they're geniuses!" Belle and I finished.
Suddenly there was an explosion back at our farm!
"Oh my gosh!" Jimmy E gasped.
"Not again." I muttered to myself. "Nice timing Maurice." I added dryly.
"Again?" Jonny repeated, confused.
Gaston, Gaston D, Le Fou and Le Fou D laughed. Gaston and Gaston D also did one of those 'slap on the backs' to Le Fou and Le Fou D, but the slaps caused Le Fou and Le Fou D to tumble upside down.
"Oh shut up!" I snapped.
They did, but just out of pure shock. The bimbettes gasped. Ron W, Hermione, and the team were impressed.
Belle, Ron W, Hermione, and the team and I quickly made our way back to the farm.
"That was really impressive." Mandy said.
Most of the team agreed. As for the rest I couldn't tell whether they agreed or were shocked by my bluntness. Actually I think they were torn between both.
"If I said that to anyone Grandmary would really be angry with me." Samantha said.
"If I hate someone, I don't hide it." I explained.
"We already figured that out." Kim grinned.
Belle, Ron W, Hermione, and the team and I reached a hatch to the cellar, where the smoke was coming from. I had to stay back – I'm allergic to smoke – for a while, so I talked a bit with Ron W, Hermione, and the team. Belle decided to wait too, so she watched us talk for a while. I explained to Ron W, Hermione, and the team that only Belle and her dad and Harry's owner – wherever they are – could see them.
"So, your dad's an inventor?" AJ said.
"Actually, he's really a writer," I corrected. "But if he plays an inventor's dog, he plays an inventor's dog. Oh, and don't worry about being 'ghosts', it's just a time traveling thing that happens sometimes."
The smoke cleared as I finished explaining this, so we went down to see if both Belle's dad and my dad were all right.
"Poppa (Dad)?" Belle and I said.
"How on earth did that happen?" Belle's dad, Maurice, muttered.
When we reached the bottom of the steps we noticed that Maurice had a barrel stuck around him. My dad was stuck in another barrel, but he managed to kick it off himself.
Just to let you know: my dad's name is Steve.
Maurice managed to push off the barrel at this point, but unfortunately this caused his pants to fall down. He quickly pulled them back up.
"Are you all right poppa (dad)?" Belle and I asked.
"I'm just about ready to give up on this hunk of junk!" Maurice said, obviously annoyed, as he kicked the machine.
"You always say that!" Belle and I said, amused.
"I mean it this time, I'll never get this bone headed contraption to work!"
Jimmy N and the other inventors smiled sympathetically, they knew how frustrating it was to have your inventions fail on you.
"Yes you will," Belle and I assured them. "And you'll win first prize at the fair tomorrow…and become a world famous inventor."
"You really believe that?" Maurice asked.
"We always have." Belle said as I nodded.
"Well what are we waitin' for? We'll have this thing fixed in no time!" Maurice said as if he had never given up.
"Here we go again." Steve shook his head.
Ron W, Hermione, and the team just saw the machine clearly at this point. The invention was made of different things, but the only things my friends could name – except for the geniuses – were a chair, an ax, and a teapot. They also noticed a log on a springing contraption.
"That looks like a log chopping device." Velma said.
"That's exactly what it is." I nodded.
"Hand me that dog-headed clincher there." Maurice said to Belle, getting under the machine.
"So, did you have a good time in town today?" He and Steve asked.
"We got a new book." Belle answered. "Poppa, do you think we're odd?"
"Hey I'm not odd!" I said, pretending to be insulted.
"Sorry." Belle smiled.
"Our daughters, odd?" Maurice said. "Heh, where would you get an idea like that?"
"Oh I don't know, it's just that I'm not sure we fit in here, there's no one we can really talk to." Belle explained.
"Speak for yourself, I've got my friends over there." I pointed out.
Belle grinned and shook her head, obviously thinking about how talking to Ron W, Hermione, and the team in the town looks weird because no one else can see them. Actually I also will have to deal with that in the Main World, but I don't care. Luckily my cartoon self is separate from my Main World self, so she can do the talking and I'll only listen.
"What about that Gaston? He's a handsome fella." Maurice said.
"He's handsome all right," Belle agreed dryly. "And rude and conceded and…. Oh poppa he's not for me."
"Yeah," I said. "And his dog is the same way, except he also smells fishy."
"Fishy as in suspicious?" Steve asked.
"No, fishy as in breath, like as if he eats fish or something."
"Rut rogs rate rish." Scooby pointed out, looking disgusted.
"Yeah, why would a dog be eating fish?" Scrappy asked. "Especially when there's all that food from the hunting."
"I don't know." I shrugged.
"Well don't you two worry," Maurice said. "'Cause this invention is gonna be the start of a new life for us." He got out from under the machine and prepared to pull a lever. "I think that's done it, now let's give it a try."
As he pulled the lever, a whistle sounded and the machine started. Maurice and Steve prepared for another explosion, but this time the machine kept on going. A pump pumped, fuel down a swirled pipe caused this thing to spin around, and the ax started chopping the log. As the ax finished, the springing contraption sent half of the log flying – causing Maurice and Steve to duck – onto a stack of other logs.
"It works!" Belle and I said.
"It does?" Maurice and Steve said, dodging another log. "It does!"
"You did it! You really did it!"
"Hitch up Philippe girls, we're off to the fair!" Maurice declared.
This time another log hit Maurice on the head, although Steve managed to duck.
Soon, our dads rode away with their machine on a cart being pulled by the family horse Philippe.
"Goodbye poppa (dad), good luck!" Belle and I said a little later as we waved to them.
Ron W, Hermione, and the team waved goodbye too.
"Goodbye Belle (Miranda), and take care while we're gone!" Maurice and Steve called back, waving back.
What we didn't know then was that they should have spoken for themselves: they ended up lost!