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An Unfortunate Incident

Rachel has been kissing the Beast. We have not seen her, yet we are convinced. The Beast yowls when he is not hungry. He yowls when Rachel takes her morning balloon ride across the valley. The Beast’s nose-prints smear Rachel’s latticed shower window. When Rachel comes into the room we all leap out from behind the furniture and shout: ‘We suspect!’ Rachel breaks down and confesses. It is worse than we suspected. We knit our eyebrows, and say we love her like a brother, but something has to be done. Rachel sobs and says it wasn’t against the rules. It was an ‘unwritten’ rule we say. We all knew that. No kissing the Beast. Or anything else. All the same we quickly write it down. Rachel is undressed and dipped in tar and then in feathers. She is confined to the tower for fourteen days and fourteen nights without food or filtered water. And with some restrictions on television. Donald argues against the restrictions on television. Jeremy and I over-rule him. ‘Shut up Stumpy,’ we say. Something has to be done. The Beast kicks up a dreadful fuss. Torches the church, molests the villagers’ cows, chases the mailman. But we stand our ground: something has to be done.