EPISODE 3-4

Charlotte had finally managed to break free of her chain-link prison. After working at the hook in the castle wall for most of the day, she had managed to pull the hook out of the wall. She was now bounding excitedly all over the front of the castle, hopping and barking and generally behaving in ways typical to a chain chomp.

Count Bleck was watching her from the window in the entry hall. Nastasia, Mimi, Dimentio, Tippi, and O'Chunks were all gathered around.

"I can't tell yeh how it happened," O'Chunks was pleading. "I'm sure I hooked 'er up tighter'n an angry fist."

"Chomps have ways of breaking free, on occasion," said Count Bleck. "It's just something they can do."

"It's okay, I'll get her," said Mimi, reaching to open the door.

Count Bleck grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. "You will do no such thing," he said harshly. "That chomp may be a best friend to you, but you can be sure it doesn't view you in the same way."

"What? Charlotte loves me," Mimi scoffed. "I gave her that neat-o makeover."

"Chomps don't appreciate makeovers," said Nastasia. "And, um, how exactly did you manage to get it in that dress?"

Mimi paused. "… I don't want to talk about it," she finally mumbled.

"I should have put a stop to this when I first heard about it," Count Bleck continued. "Now we're going to have to ship Charlotte out."

"Ohh…" Mimi whined. "I don't want Charlotte to go!"

"Yes, you've made that clear." Count Bleck pulled his hat over his eyes and thought for a moment. With his vision blocked by the brim, he had a few seconds in his own private mind to think the situation through.

He was thinking so hard, in fact, that he didn't catch himself thinking out loud. "I never even would have let her stay if you hadn't caught me with that…" but he trailed off as his mind changed gears.

Mimi heard him talking under his breath. "I would never have told anybody I'd caught you reading the Dark Prognosticus, Count Bleck!" she said indignantly.

Count Bleck looked up, panicked. Mimi's hands flew to her mouth.

"Oooooooooops," she mumbled. "Not on purpose, anyway."

Tippi jerked in surprise. "You were doing what?"

"You still have that old thing lying around?" Dimentio asked teasingly.

"This is why I never tell you anything!" Count Bleck said angrily.

"Blumiere, why do you still have that awful book?"

"Hey, I worked hard on that," Dimentio said gloomily.

"What?"

"I said nothing."

"But I could have sworn you—"

"Nothing!"

Count Bleck changed the subject. "Timpani, I didn't have the book to do evil. I had it as a last chance to do something good."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid it would hurt you," he said.

"If you were afraid it would hurt me," said Tippi, "why did you think it was all right to be doing at all?"

"Because I wanted to do something good!"

"That you were afraid would hurt me," Tippi finished.

Count Bleck opened his mouth to respond, closed it, and then opened it again for a moment before saying, "Yes. That is, as they say, the scenario."

"Count, I am soooo sorry!" Mimi cut in. "I just forget that I have a big mouth sometimes—"

Count Bleck spread his arms apart quickly and she stopped talking. Whenever Count Bleck spread out his cape, he commanded attention, and he got it.

"All right," said Bleck, "This is what we are going to do. Dimentio, you are going to use magic to send that thing back where it came from. O'Chunks, back him up. Mimi, I don't want to hear another word about Charlotte anymore, do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," she mumbled.

"Do you understand me?" he snapped at Dimentio and O'Chunks.

"Oh, yes, yes I do," said Dimentio. "Come along, O'Chunks. Let's teleport that chomper back where Mimi found it…"

"I'm not mad because you were reading the book," Tippi told Count Bleck as they walked away from the doorway together. "I know that in your heart you're a good person now."

"Then why are you mad?" asked Count Bleck. "You humans never make any sense to me."

"It's not a human thing," Tippi said. "It's a trust thing. And I'm not a human right now, anyway."

"You're still a human," said Count Bleck. "On the inside. I just wanted you to be human again on the outside. Is that what you want?"

"Of course I do," she said, "but if I spent the rest of my life like this, it would be all right as long as it was with you."

"Then why are you angry?"

"I'm not angry!" Tippi said, a little too angrily for her statement to have any validity. "I'm upset because you were keeping secrets from me! If you really loved me, you'd trust me, and if you trusted me you would have told me."

"You know I love you!"

"I know you love me now, but what if that changes?"

Count Bleck again found himself speechless. He stopped walking on the spot, swayed a little, and leaned against the wall. He hit his face in his cape and took a long, long time to compose himself.

"Blumiere," said Tippi, "I'm not afraid we'll stop loving each other. Ours is a kind of love that's too pure for time to tarnish. If we want our love to stay pure, we have to treat it like a precious gem. Keep it polished, keep it safe, and treat it like a valuable treasure. I know we can do it, and I'm not afraid we can't, but we still have to try…"

Count Bleck didn't look at her. He started walking down the hallway again, trembling a little as he moved. Tippi fluttered close behind him.

"I'm sorry I was so angry with you," she said. "I mean, if it happens again… I'll talk to you before I yell at you. Okay?"

She fluttered up next to his face and saw that he wasn't crying at all- he was laughing.

"What are you laughing about?" Tippi demanded.

"This!" Count Bleck turned around and pulled Tippi into a large, though awkward, hug. "This whole thing! You're mad at me for keeping secrets from you to keep you from getting mad so that I can fix something that isn't entirely wrong to begin with! I finally feel like we're a married couple!"

"Whaaaat?"

"Bleh heh heh heh heh… Oh, it's nothing, Timpani… I just love you so much, that's all."

They walked off down the hall together, a picture-perfect moment for the purest couple.

Mimi cornered Dimentio as soon as he came back into the castle.

"Where did you send Charlotte?" she barked. "You'd better tell me."

"Relax," said Dimentio coolly. "Your precious Charlotte has been sent back to Bowser's Castle, where he belongs."

"She!"

"No," said Dimentio, "Charlotte was a male chomp."

"Was not!"

"It's hardly the thing you can argue, Mimi."

"Well, you stink!"

Dimentio shook his head. "My, my, my, there's no need for you to take your anger out on me like a spoiled child. After all, I was certainly not the only one who had a problem with your chomp chomp. I wasn't even the one who sent him away."

"You set it free the second time!" Mimi argued.

"You can't prove that I did."

"I know you did! You didn't like Charlotte and you don't want anybody to be happy since you don't rule the world!"

"I don't care about anyone else's happiness," Dimento said, the irritation beginning to rise in his voice. "I never did, nor did I ever pretend to. Your chomp stole my room and tore apart my possessions, and was in no way fit to belong as a pet in this castle. And I don't care how you feel about it."

"Mimimimimimimimi!" Mimi cracked her neck. "Why don't you say that again, stupid face!"

Count Bleck closed his door as Dimentio tore down the hall, followed closely by spider-Mimi. "Amazing," he said to himself. "She cared so much for that chomp."

"Mimi gets attached to things very easily," said Tippi. "The chomp was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Nevertheless, Count Bleck has hatched a plan to make this all better." He held out his hand. "Come with me- we'll make it right."

Mimi was lying on her bed, writing furiously in her diary. She had gone on for pages about her love for Charlotte, how they had been best friends, and how they had been selfishly torn apart by the collective wills of all the rest. It was melodramatic, to be sure, but therapeutic as well.

There was a knock at the door.

Mimi slammed her diary shut and crammed it between the mattress and the box springs- the second most popular hiding place for a girl's diary. Make a note of that. (I personally keep mine under the ferret cage- who's going to have the guts to look there? If they do, they really earned it. I'm just sayin'.)

Anyway, Mimi shoved her diary into its hiding place, smoothed out the covers, and called out, "Who's there?"

"It's me, said Count Bleck."

"Go away! I don't wanna talk to you!" She crossed her arms and hunched over, getting ready to put on a pouty show in case he came in anyway.

"Come now," said Tippi from outside the room, "I think you'll like what we have for you."

"Is it Charlotte?"

"No," said Count Bleck. "It's not Charlotte… but it's as close as we could get."

Mimi paused, and eventually her curiosity won out over her petulance. "Okay," she said, "you can come in."

Count Bleck opened the door and Tippi flew straight into the middle of the room. Count Bleck followed behind slowly, carrying a small bundle in his arms. (For lack of a better word- he has to have something there, doesn't he?)

"I've been thinking," said Count Bleck. "I think having a pet really would have done you good. Chain chomps just aren't good pet material."

"If you're trying to replace Charlotte, you can forget it," said Mimi.

Count Bleck gave the bundle a gentle stroke. "I thought you might say that," he said. "Why don't you at least take a look at what I have?"

He put the bundle on the bed and gave it a gentle prod. It stirred, and a small beanlet jumped eagerly out of the bag. It was decorated with a bright red bow around its neck and a dab of eye shadow on its face. It went to Mimi right away and started sniffing eagerly.

"Aww," said Tippi. "She likes you already."

Mimi crossed her arms and looked away. But the beanlet continued to sniff and sniff at her eagerly, so that she turned around and looked at it again. And once you've looked at an adorable, puppy-like bean creature, that's it. You've had it. She picked it up and it started nuzzling her face.

"It's not Charlotte," she said. "But it's not ugly, either. I'm gonna call her Félicie."

"Excellent choice, noted Count Bleck. The French feminine form of Felix meaning lucky or successful in Latin."

"I didn't know you were an etymologist," said Tippi.

Count Bleck gave Félicie a pat on the head. "Take care of this little one," said Count Bleck. "I'll leave you to get better aquainted with each other."

Count Bleck and Tippi left Mimi alone with Félicie. Mimi sat cross-legged on her bed and pulled out her diary.

"Okay," she said, "this is gonna take a little bit of work. I'm gonna show you how to look as pretty as you possibly can. You might wanna take notes…"

THE END

I'm not entirely happy with the way this turned out, but I wanted to finish it and post it so that it would be done, and I could look at it retrospectively and learn something from it. This is how I wanted the story to go, but I wanted the characters to be a little more in-character and I lost a lot of the gags I wrote for it. Well, I hope that you like it, at least.