I thought I’d have to convince Beauty to give Mr. Beast a chance. But instead, I have to convince Mr. Beast to give Beauty a chance!

I bet it won’t even be that hard. He fell in love with her in the original story, didn’t he? And he would have fallen in love with her if Jonah and I hadn’t shown up. So it will happen eventually. It has to.

She’s Beauty and he’s the Beast. They’re the title of the story! They’re made to be together. They’re like ketchup and French fries. They’re going to fall in love for sure.

Okay, sometimes in the other stories, the characters got new happy endings, but the Cinderella story wasn’t called Cinderella and the Prince, now, was it? No, it was not.

“He’s going to like you,” I tell Beauty. “I promise.”

“But how?” Beauty asks. “He locked us outside!”

Good point. I knock on the door again.

“Go away!” Mr. Beast yells. “Your brother is happy here!”

“Exactly,” I yell back. “My brother! Not yours!” I take a deep breath. “But I’ll make you a deal, Mr. Beast!”

Beast opens the door a crack. “What’s the deal?”

“Jonah can stay,” I say. “For a bit. But not without us.”

He looks confused. “You want to stay here?”

I nod. “I can’t leave Jonah alone. He’s my little brother. It’s my responsibility to watch him. I shouldn’t have left him alone before, but I didn’t have a choice. No way am I leaving him again. I’m sure you have enough rooms. This place looks huge.”

“Of course I have enough rooms,” he says gruffly. “But no one has ever asked to stay here before. No one has willingly wanted to spend time with me. I pay Mr. and Mrs. Butler to be here.”

“You can’t be that bad,” I say.

I hear my brother shout, “Wahoo!” from the other room.

“Jonah seems to be having a fun time,” I add.

Mr. Beast smiles and I can see his fangs. “He is having a fun time. But most people are scared of me.”

I straighten my shoulders. “Well, I want to stay! And Beauty does, too. And Prince.”

Mr. Beast bends down and motions to Prince. “Hello, little dog. Do you want to play? Come play!”

Prince leaps onto Mr. Beast and licks his face.

Mr. Beast laughs. It’s actually a nice-sounding laugh, not scary at all. Then he turns around and goes back into the palace. He leaves the door open behind him.

“He won’t even look at me,” Beauty whispers. “Maybe I should leave.”

“No,” I say. “Please, Beauty. You need to get Mr. Beast to like you. Just be your awesome self.”

She hesitates. “Okay,” she says, and follows me inside.

The foyer is all white marble. There are chandeliers everywhere, too. It’s very castle-like.