Beatty & The Beast

EIGHTEEN: Where the Beast Feels Compassion

The same day

That week, Villeneuve experienced something completely unprecedented: extreme weather.

Like the townspeople, the climate of Villeneuve generally avoided change at all costs, remaining at a level everyone could appreciate. Though it could get mildly cold in the winter, it never snowed or got near freezing, and in the warmer months it never seemed to rise above 72 degrees. Summers were more like springs and winters were more like falls. If there was anything to praise Villeneuve about, it was its pleasant weather.

Keefe figured the climate was being rebellious now, flipping the finger to the residents by jumping up to 97 degrees. The town was officially experiencing its first heat wave.

Coats and scarves were traded for shorts and T-shirts and every window and door in every house was propped open. The Marmontel K-mart had been cleaned out of standing fans and the local Villeneuve swimming pond was heavily over-populated. People just didn't know what to do with this heat.

Luckily Whistlebeck was one of the few who could afford and owned an air conditioner, allowing Keefe to work in comfort while the rest of the town sweltered. It was yet another reason for Keefe to prefer the Whistlebeck estate over any building in the whole town, his own house included.

"I hope his water doesn't start boiling in this heat," Andie's voice broke Keefe's thoughts.

They were still making their way home, walking slowly to avoid Friedrich having to endure typhoon waters and because the heat was just plain slowing them down.

Keefe, who was sweating in just a plain white T-shirt and jeans, had initially been amazed that Andie, even though she was visibly sweating, didn't take off her sweatshirt and even had her hood up. When he asked her about it, she said sun exposure wasn't very good for her scars, so she had to keep them covered as they walked in the blazing sun.

"Are you kidding? He's the luckiest guy in town right now," Keefe replied. "He's got his own personal swimming pool. Besides, he had to live at my house for the night, if he can survive that, he can survive anything."

"What's so bad about your house?" she said, still watching Friedrich as he bathed lazily in his waters.

"Other than it feels like a roasting rain forest right now not much," Keefe quipped. "But with my brothers around it could be hazardous. If I turned my back for a second they'd probably eat him."

Andie snorted. "Is that all your brothers do is eat? They eat your food and your temporary froggy wards?"

"They do other things than eat, but it's sort of a general rule that you can't leave anything edible out if you don't want it eaten by them."

"Really?"

"No, they're not that bad," he said as they began the climb up Beaumont Hill, soon spotting Whistlebeck's. "They're just..." he didn't know quite how to finish the sentence, so he didn't.

It was always a little hard to discuss his brothers and he didn't want to say anything negative, but coming up with positive things was getting harder and harder as the years progressed.

Andie was suddenly chuckling. Looking over, Keefe saw she was laughing at Friedrich. The frog was doing his aerobics again (or what they had dubbed "the cage wall shimmy.")

"I'm sorry, I was listening, he's just hard to ignore," Andie said, as if she were talking about her beloved child, not a slimy little frog.

"It doesn't matter, dead subject," Keefe said lightly as they made it to the white picket fence of Whistlebeck's.