In which the author tells the most appalling lies.

Prologue

She pressed one finger into the small tense spot between her two eyebrows and regarded the computer screen with frank incredulity.

There was so much space to fill!

And so much to tell.

She supposed that she ought to just start, but she worried that no one would believe her. No one could possibly believe her, not even the bit about the estate in England, let alone the unicorns.

But she knew that the only thing she could do was to record it all, record it for posterity, record it for the little urchins on the street who looked to her to write down her own life in the most inept fashion possible. She owed it to them all.

So she decided she would tell the very, very exciting story of the past several weeks, and she would tell it in the third person, because she knew it would help her to look at everything wholly objectively.

"Right," she muttered to herself (causing her rommate to glance over at her in alarm). "I'll do it."
And so she began:

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Chapter 1

It all began with the marmots... No...earlier than that. It all began the morning she decided to have a bagel for breakfast instead of an egg.

Beth had been eating eggs for breakfast steadily for roughly the past year of her life. And while she admired the efficient packaging, not to mention the cheerfully bright yellow of the yolk, she found that morning that she had simply had enough. She had had enough eggs.

Unfortunately, despite her desire to eat a bagel, she was unable to find one anywhere in the apartment. (She even checked the 'secret shelf' where one of her roommates stashed particularly divine eatables.) So, to appease her craving, she dashed down the stairs of her apartment building, and down the street to a fine little French bakery. Which did not sell bagels. Alas.

However, while there, she noticed that there was a large cage set up behind the counter of the bakery. Intrigued even more than she was hungry, Beth inquired about the two animals that circled the interior, occasionally snapping at passing customers.

"Oh, zoze [those]?" said the man behind the counter, in an obviously fake French accent. "Why, zey are ze marmottes."

"Marmottes?" murmered Beth musingly.

"Oui, mademoiselle," replied the fake French bakery man.

Beth cocked her head in a manner which was meant to imply charming confusion (for even with a fake French accent, the man was not bad looking) and said, "But why marmots?"

"Ze marmottes, mademoiselle, zey haf been pilfering ze pastries!" cried the man.

Beth gasped in shock, for it is not every day that one meets rodentia who share one's tastes so completely.

"Thieving marmots," she said, shaking her head gently to express just the right degree of sympathy. "Shocking indeed. So, what do you plan to do with them?"

"Ah," the not-French man said, looking away from Beth and rubbing his upper arm with one hand, "Zat is perhaps not a sing [thing] I should be saying to ze young lady."

Beth hurridely glanced around for the young lady he spoke of and saw a woman with a parasol just exiting the building.

Once the woman had left, Beth turned back to the man and said, "Now that she's gone, won't you tell me?"

The man's face flushed, and a vein throbbed in his left temple. He pounded his two fists on the counter, causing the eclairs in the display case to jump up and turn upside-down. "I will drown zem all!" he shouted, causing the elderly gentleman in the corner to glance up nervously and fold his newspaper with some speed.

As the bell over the door marked the exit of the elderly gentleman, Beth turned her mind to the problem at hand. While she could not, in her heart of hearts, advocate pastry theft, she found she could advocate the drowning of the marmots even less.

Glancing over at the marmot-filled cage, and leaning forward to emphasize her earnestness, Beth said, "I'll take them."

The man of dubious nationality rubbed one hand through his hair, causing most of it to stand entirely on end (which, incidentally, made him just a little bit less becoming), and said, "Mademoiselle, you know not zese marmottes. Zey are full of ze tricks. Zey will make you meezerable, I believe."

Beth drew breath to argue: she did not care how miserable the marmots made her; she would not let them be drowned. But the baker spoke again before she could reply.

"But, I have not ze time to go to ze river today. I have ze orders up to here," he said, pointing to his left eyebrow. "You can have ze marmottes. But know zat I have given you ze warning, mademoiselle."

He looked grimly at Beth.

Beth looked grimly back.

Then the man who was not French shrugged, and shoved the cage forward with his foot. Beth smiled at him and reached for her purse.

"Now how much are those eclairs?" she asked.

(To be continued...)