Thursday, February 16, 2006

Beastie Update ( I wrote some more )

The Young Folks’ Guide to Beasties
By Willard Mardi
(Alias Adora Svitak)

An Introduction
To the Beastie
Debate

The history of beasties has long been debated over by the famous archaeologists Soront and Toraday. While Soront’s theory was that beasties were calm, innocent, and tame until proven otherwise, Toraday vehemently disagreed.
‘The nature of all beasties’ Toraday said in his lecture at Thormin Hall to quite a number of eager college students, ‘is always vicious and crafty. Wait and strike, wait and strike. This is how beasties find their food.’
However, a new paper from Soront’s private collection of beastie research, kept hidden behind a rusty toilet for over a decade, brings things to a new light.
‘This paper from Soront,’ the Licensed Beastie Philosopher of Cambridge College in England said, ‘is perhaps the key to one of the greatest questions in history – are beasties tame or wild? This paper describes one of Soront’s personal experience meeting a calm beastie named Asilefa, who welcomed him into her dwelling and gave him tea.’
However, there is living proof to defend Toraday’s view on the subject. Felisa Rogers, a direct beastie descendant of the twelve ruthless beasties who lived before the dawn of time, is a teacher at Seeds of Learning school in Redmond, Washington, USA, and often bares her teeth and sharpens her claws when a student does something wrong. Controversy, puzzlement, and simple confusion has followed ‘the deal on beasties’ since 1159, when a beastie was discovered off the coast of Africa by shipwrecked Arabians, and I do not think that we are about to break the mystery right now.

An Introduction
To Beasties’
Habits and
Hobbies


Beasties tend to be gentle WHEN PLEASED. [Study suggestion – use a model of a beastie to test your skills – not a real one!] Meeting humans is not exactly pleasing, but eating one can turn the wildest beastie into a gentle, humble creature.
“Once upon a time there lived a beastie named Hurra-Hurra who liked to eat little children. After eating children she would be very nice.” That is an example from the hidden afterward of Hansel and Gretel, which was excavated from Utopia Bestia Malvada, an inhabitable ‘city of the beasts’ near the Bermuda Triangle. This gives credence to Toraday’s theory that the nature of beasties was vicious and crafty. Soront’s theory is still approved by those who feel safer thinking of beasties as the make-believe antagonists of nursery stories, but Toraday’s descendants and disciples are scattered about the world. Fights often broke out between the two beastiology enemies, one of the most famous being the Thomas vs. Samuel duel in 1789.
We shall now do a bit more of talking about the ‘habits and hobbies’ of beasties. The habits of beasties include:
· Washing after dinner, not before. This seems to be because beasties tend to get more blood on their paws/claws/monster hands after devouring the unlucky victim.
· Circling trees before scraping. Scraping trees is another habit because it tends to give the eucalyptus traymin, or energy vitamin, to the beastie after eating.
· Pulling up any violets, roses, hyacinths, tulips, etc, before creating a new lair. This is probably because weeds are the preferred “decoration plant” for beastie homes.
Hobbies of beasties are much harder to discover; the only way to study hobbies of beasties in the early 1800s was to get in close-range with one, and of course that meant there was a danger of the beastie eating you. However, when Don Juan Ramon Coré de Calla, a rich hacienda owner in Mexico, invented the Beastie Binoculars Model 1000, using up the rest of his slowly draining inheritance, the following beastie hobbies and games were revealed:
· Fishing with one right hand paw and one left leg paw.
· Leaving food from the day’s hunt by the river where other beasties raced to steal it. If another beastie stole your food, that was too bad. If you managed to successfully guard your food, the beasties who had dared try to steal your food were forced to give their hunting day food to that beastie.
· Knitting with shark fins and twigs, which, if actually finished, will create a huge robe of twigs, covering most of the face (except for the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth) and all the rest of the body. Wearing this robe is a sign that you are hard-working, or a “peasant beastie”, so most do not deign to finish their knitting.
· Reading Beastie Runes, which are a mix of Viking runes, Chinese characters, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The only people who are allowed to read Beastie Runes are those who have passed a special Beastie tribe test.
Many people have disagreed with this treatise, but all our information has been proved, disproved, proved again and searched thoroughly. Guaranteed.

An Introduction
To the Anatomy
Of Beasties

The anatomy of Beasties is complicated enough to be considered college level; however it is simple enough to suit the beasties, who like to spend their time thinking on complicated plots to capture rabbits instead of spending their time thinking about complicated bodies.
Drs. Tremerson and Tillerton, licensed Beastiotoligists, both agree that the anatomy of beasties consists of one huge skeleton and a tiny heart, with a lot of other stuff. The heart is tiny because both the stomach and the brain take up most of the body. These are kept tightly inside by two ribcages, which first circle inside and then circle outside, on the fur. There are four long, thick bones for the limbs, and huge muscles. Only the legs of a beastie can bend, however, due to a problem with the arms of Beastie Bob who was the ancestor of all beasties.
Beasties have three sets of nerves. One is for the “back body” (beastiessius ellgirarum), one is for the “middle body” (beastiessius mellgirarum) and the “front body” (beastiessius sellgirarum). If hit in the back, middle, or front body, beasties will first feel excited, then happy, and finally melancholy. Total it lasts about three seconds.

An Introduction To
The Personal Life
Of Beasties

Beasties tend to have many children (by the R.B.S, or Regular Beastie Standards, ten a year), and it is very difficult to keep more than five children under your paw. Or hand. Humans already have a hard enough time with it. Therefore, beasties tend to rule their household through fear as to keep the children obedient and docile. When beastie children grow to the age of ten, they are taken to view their first hunt. This is generally done in packs. This gives beastie mothers/matriarchs a chance to spank, scold, and etc, while the rest of the pack does a war dance involving antlers, shoving, and smelly fishes. To probe farther into the personal life of the beasties is regarded as impolite, but what do I care? Let us begin studying a beastie’s personal life.
Teenage beasties tend to be rebellious, bossy, and independent. This is the age where beasties become obsessed with carnivorous diets, trimmed fur, and other such things. They are influenced by the cultures of the tiger, the lion, the leopard, and the jaguar.
The greatest ambition of a teenage beastie is to be chosen for the once-in-a-century coming-of-age ceremony, probably because this particular ceremony offers much free refreshment. A teenage beastie must first be nominated by their parents, however, and not many parents are that eager to nominate their rebellious offspring. Therefore teenage beasties force themselves to act obedient and entirely respectful towards their parents in hopes of tricking them into nominating them. This strategy does not often work, however, and most of the time earns the teenage beastie the severest punishment that can lawfully be inflicted upon any beastie—going to bed without supper.
Older beasties are more private and often hire beastie lawyers to protect their personal information. However, it can be easily concluded that these senior citizens of the beastie community dote upon their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on, perhaps because they feel that they were too harsh with their own children when they were younger. There was even a gift-giving beastie holiday these old beasties created to be able to give gifts and receive gifts without being laughed at, which you can read about in the next chapter.

An Introduction To
The Holidays of
Beasties

One of the major holidays of the beastie community is “grrgarglewachadfdfmelldam”, or grrgargwachdfmedam in shorter terms, better known as Christmas. The Christmas the Beasties celebrate is somewhat different, however. For instance, there is no Santa Claus, simply the Potato-Bellied Devil Who Steals Gifts from Humans and Gives ‘Em to Beasties. A popular gift in an average beastie household would be something like a new hunting device, warm pawsulls (flat shoes made of dried leaves and mud, tied by a strap of leather), or a new raft. Like us, beasties put up stockings, except they call them Trrgrrgrowls and decorate them with thorns. This is basically the only holiday on the beastie calendar except for The Meatteargrrgrowl, a grand event which is mainly made up of dancing and eating. For more information go to www.spaces.msn.com/adorasvitak, add a comment saying you wish to learn more about beastie holidays, and I will get back to you shortly.

An Introduction
To Beastie Religion
And Culture

Beasties are divided into tribes, each tribe worshiping its own god. For instance, a more aggressive tribe, a band of beastie hunters, might worship the Hunter God Gralvirgoreessiunmeat, while a more agricultural tribe might worship Aterroya, Goddess of Rain and Sun and Crops. Beasties create new deities by the minute, so there is no real official religion.
As for culture, most beasties like to hunt, but some like to farm. Those who farm are usually beasties shunned from the hunting groups because of lack of swiftness, smartness, or other qualities a good beastie hunter needs. Over time these farming groups multiplied and multiplied until there were two groups; the Hunters and the Farmers. There were also Explorers (who worshipped the Sailor Spirit Samorrissail), but they hardly came up in the history books. Farmers held festivals to show their appreciation of Aterroya or whoever they worshipped, where there was more joyful dancing and much consuming of alcohol, whereas the Hunters did more serious dancing and worshipping.

An Introduction To
The Hunting Strategies
Of Beasties

Beasties are expert hunters and have many different hunting strategies to catch their prey. One of the most important strategies is one every beastie child learns at the age of ten:
TREAD CAREFULLY AND POUNCE. The “Tread carefully and Pounce” strategy involves much tiptoeing, and will get food for a beastie any time. Basically a beastie must hide, advance, and strike. A more complicated hunting strategy beasties use is the:
FLATTER AND DEVOUR strategy. The Flatter and Devour strategy involves complimenting the “talent” of your prey. Beasties tend to compliment most often the looks or voice of the prey, this causing the prey to get more cocky and daring and then, well, into the beastie’s mouth for them. One of the Beastie Teamwork strategies is the:
SURROUND AND ATTACK strategy. Surround and Attack needs to have at least twelve cooperative beasties, with practice in the Tread Carefully and Pounce strategy. These beasties will form a circle around prey and attack from all sides. This is only used, however, with packs and only if the prey is something large or is in great number. A strategy used for teaching child beasties to hunt is the:
RUN QUICKLY AND DO IT strategy. The hunter beastie only needs to run quickly and sink its teeth into the neck of the prey, and does not have to worry about hiding or anything else. This is not actually used very much in real beastie hunting, but it is a handy strategy to use in strategy practice because it helps beastie children run faster. It is also a last resort strategy, and beasties will think badly of your hunting skills if you have to use it. More arrogant beasties like to hunt using the:
HIDE AND DROP strategy. The Hide and Drop strategy is very easy (although the arrogant beasties say otherwise to build up their hunting reputation) because you only need to hide in a tree and drop down on the animal.

An Introduction To
Humans’ First Reaction
To Beasties

The first sight a human got of a beastie was when Captain Tollincice brought back a ‘curiouse animale’, as he wrote in his journal, ‘with the thin taile of a rat and skin of a snake.’ He brought it to his employer who observed it, declared it a badger, and sent it into the wild. Beasties do not all look the same on the exterior part of the body, however, but the reaction of Tollincice’s employer might just have been reasonable if you consider the fact badgers looked quite a lot different back then. Over time people became more paranoid, thinking that any wild animal would attack at anytime.

An Introduction To
Beasties In
General

Beasties in general can be classified as cunning predators and enthusiastic eaters. They do, in general, have large bunches of fur and narrow slits for eyes. They are strict with teenage offspring, and keep a mostly carnivorous diet. This is the kind of “general” most people identify with. We can delve a little deeper into “general”, however, just to keep this from repeating what has already been written in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters.
Beasties are not what you would call prone to disease, when one beastie gets sick everybody else just moves away. That’s all I can put in here without going into “specific”. Look at the next chapter for that.

An Introduction To
Beasties In
Specific (Featuring Beastie Disease)

As soon as a beastie starts coughing/sneezing or showing any signs of sickness, the rest of the beasties move away to leave the ill beastie to its own devices. It is considered a sign of weakness to die from disease in beastie packs, or even let it enter your body, so there are no mourners to weep and sob for the death of a beastie struck with disease, and there is nobody left to take care of the ailing beastie. This may be considered uncivilized by other creatures, but by the beasties it is considered perfectly normal.

An Introduction To
Beastie Society

Beastie society is controlled by ten top chieftains. The chieftains get to their high seat by battling their opponents; the victor becomes one of the ten top chieftains. If an opponent challenges one of the ten top chieftains to a battle and wins, he becomes one of the ten top chieftains. Below the ten top chieftains are the tribal chieftains, who control their own tribes and carry out orders of the ten top chieftains. Below the tribal chieftains are the tribal chieftain deputies, who carry out the orders of the tribal chieftains. Below the tribal chieftain deputies are the tribal war organizers, who arrange everybody in their proper position when battling with other tribes, and below the war organizers are the beasties of the tribe, who mostly eat and drink and brawl amongst themselves and with other tribes. Below the beasties of the tribe are the beastie slaves of the tribe, who are either captured in battle or born into slavery. By the way, female beasties are as eligible to these positions as are male beasties.

An Introduction To
Law and Order
Among Beasties

“Order” among the beasties is not very severe; it’s common to get into a brawl with another beastie over some name-calling or stealing or false accusations, but do not let that make you think there is no order among the beasties. A beastie who bothers everyone and does annoying things will be gagged with grass and restrained by ropes of fur, and beasties who act disrespectful to a tribal chieftain or one of the top ten chieftains will be tied up and left without a meal for the entire day in solitary confinement, in the “jail-hut”. It’s not actually written in beastie law that you cannot do annoying things, but beasties punish people for doing it anyways. Law is more of a set of beastie runes which form statements which say what you can and cannot do, what is tolerable and what is intolerable. Here is an excerpt from the Beastie Encyclopedia of Law, translated with Beastilite44:
Beasties of all stature and rank are henceforth requested to follow the beastie laws as directed by one top ten chieftain, tribal chieftain, etc., strict punishments will follow those miscreants who dare disobey the great and invincible divine law of the beasties, this has been ordained by the committee of the Grrgrowlruffbark, or the official committee of law and order for the beastie community, and the following laws are to be the guide of every beastie in the beastie community.
Never speak of the top ten chieftains with disdain, contempt, or a superior air, all of which mean practically the same thing. One will only be allowed to speak of a top ten chieftain in this way in a battle for the high seat.
Never do anything that will taint the reputation of your beastie tribe, beastie tribal leader, beastie tribal leader deputy, or etc.
Never show any signs of cowardliness, loss of valiance, or heart attacks during hunts.
Never betray your beastie tribe secrets to beastie enemies and those whom we hunt.
These laws will be enforced throughout beastie land and territory belonging to beasties.
This was written by the famous top chieftain Mopri, who defeated every opponent for the high seat until his death in 1304. Mopri’s set of laws were put into the Beastie Encyclopedia of Law, which still remains a guidebook for the society of beasties today.
EXTRA: Beastie children who break the law or act disrespectful towards the top ten chieftains will be put into a juvenile beastie correctional facility, basically a place where beastie children are tied five hours a day and then sent out to hunt. The fruit of their hunting is given to the people who run the juvenile beastie correctional facility, while they must eat only vegetables and water, which is torture. A beastie’s regular diet is meat and blood.



An Introduction To
The Judicial System
Of Beasties

Only one who is equal to the rank of a tribal chieftain deputy may become a judge. There is one judge for every tribe, and in winter all the judges for all the tribes will come with all the defendants and the top ten chieftains will come and one person will list their grievances against the defendant or a tribal chieftain will say what law he has broken. Then the judge lists the facts from the investigations in a boring, droning tone and the top ten chieftains decide amongst themselves who is guilty and who is innocent. This can go on for a whole day, two days, or even a week if there are a lot of beasties to be tried.

An Introduction To
The Beastie
Educational System

The beastie educational system has changed much over the years, but in general beastie children are taught how to hunt, speak, and at the end of each “class” each one of the beastie children is given a special test by the tribe to see whether she/he is worthy of writing/reading beastie runes. After this, the parents come to pick the beastie child up, to teach them more hunting, and then, finally, they have dinner. Girls and boys are regarded as equal and are taught the same things in beastie society, but punishments for girls are severer then those for boys because girls are expected to behave well.

An Introduction To
Beastie Revolutions
In History

The most famous beastie uprising ever to be put into the history books is probably the Monte de Cornell Revolution, better known as the Day of the Beastie Blood. It’s an incorrect title, however, because no beastie blood was lost—it was human blood that was lost. At the time it was considered fashionable to have a beastie or two caged up in your house, because it symbolized that you were brave enough to capture a beastie, and if a lady was given a beastie from her lover or admirer, that meant the admirer had a deep love for her. Beasties were very indignant at this (as they probably had a right to be), as the conditions for the captured beasties were not very good and many died, so they organized a war band led by the top ten chieftains themselves. The war party had been drilled for two weeks in the Tread Carefully and Pounce strategy, and were eager for battle. This is an excerpt from one of the top ten chieftains’ war journal:
Sunday, Midnight
Paris
We have agreed to wage war upon those who claim to be people of flesh and blood. People, fah! Devils, more like. They are most unnatural: They have two eyes, soft skin, and cowardly faces. I find it shameful to even be near them, but it makes it much better to be able to massacre them. We are going to be using the Tread Carefully and Pounce strategy, mixed in with a bit of Surround and Attack. We will surround the city and attack the city, tread carefully and pounce. The fact remains that there will not be many people out on the streets at midnight, but how to get into the houses without making noise? The pesky policemen might be wandering about, also, but they are so full of arrogance that they think nobody will dare attack their grand city. They’ll be asleep, I’m sure. All we need to do is pounce. The beastie warriors who are better with the Tread carefully and Pounce strategy will be able to slip into the Parisian houses unseen and unheard. We’ll use run quickly and do it some too. I am off to consult the other warriors.
The Monte de Cornell revolution was a success, for the beasties at least. More than ninety Parisians were killed, and ten more died from terror. The beasties were thinking of making the city their new dwelling, but they disliked the place because of its buildings and houses so they moved back to their forest home with the former beastie prisoners, itching for the next big battle.
Young Englishwoman Mary Morrison was fetching water, watching the young children run around the town square, when all of a sudden, everything stopped. One hundred beasties had jumped from a castle window, from where they had already slaughtered the gentle Lady Helena, her husband, Lord Likethormnton, their daughter, the snooty Lady Prunelle, and all the lord’s retainers and all the ladies’ maidservants. Those one hundred beasties were followed by a whole horde of wolves, who tore the people to pieces and ravaged the entire land. Having done sufficient damage, the beasties went away back to their forest home, to rest once again.

An Introduction To
Thoughts of the
Beasties

This is the section where many journals, notes, letters, and works of the beasties will be shown. We have translated all the Beastie runes with Beastilite44.

This is the drawing of a beastie who was afraid of death. Glory and war was not all in the beastie community. As you can see, he used his own blood to color the cloak, and probably pasted his own fur to make the blackness of the cross, the eyes, and etc. Here is the journal entry that came with it:
Why must death come to us invincible beasties? Are we not, as the tribal chief deputy says, invincible? We have overcome Parisians, the English, Germans, and Hungarians. Why must we die, like the filth who call themselves humans? Why must we be subject to regular death, the Bubonic Plague, smallpox, beriberi, and scurvy? No beastie is scared of war. No beastie is scared of killing. No beastie is scared of hunting. No beastie is scared of life. I am not scared of life. I am scared of death.
This beastie was shot in the back while taking a vacation in a police department. He died without food, money, or glory to his name. However, let’s have a look at the letters of a more contented beastie, who was in fact his cousin, named Colonel Gurgurgrowl:
Dear Wife,
I am very pleased to inform you that my regiment marched into Berlin on Saturday. We surprised the Berliners and took a few humans to be our slaves; since we were in such good moods we didn’t even feel like killing any people to be our slaves. As the colonel, I of course chose who lived and who died. I chose a scrawny little slip of a girl, brunette, to be your personal servant, as I know you like brunettes, and also a fat yellow-haired fishwife for you to use as a pincushion. I took a few strong-armed men, braggarts of course, but useful nonetheless, to work for me, and then the other beasties took their spoil. We all broke into a German pub and drank some beer, and then we started back. I’ll be with you soon.

Keep Hunting!
Your Gurgu
Colonel Gurgurgrowl lived a long life, was promoted to the position of War Organizer in his tribe, and died in his huge hut in the forest. We’ve been reviewing males mostly so far, so here we’ll show the diary/scrapbook of a young beastie girl:
This is quite pleasant, indeed. I’ve been drawing and I stole that picture from the class bully, Young Hunter Lim. We’re starting up a mass trade in pictures and we’re very prosperous. Lim is by far the one who has the most pictures, though. He always bullies people into giving them theirs. I think it’s completely mean behavior. Lim says we’re all peewee little cowards and that we’ll grow up to be farmer beasties. But I’m not peewee and I’ll not grow up to be a farmer beastie. I’d much rather be a hunter, like Mum. She’s quite admirable in her hunting skills, even though Lim says she just says so. I’ve seen Mum myself. We beastie children always accompany our mums when we hunt, at least when we’re ten about, and I’m already ten and a half. It’s quite impressive to be so old.
Going along hunting with Mum is very fun. First she takes me up on her back, so I have a ride, and we all are very quiet. I think that’s a strategy called Tread Carefully and Pounce? I hardly dare to breathe, you know, diary, since it’s so exciting. We caught two deer, and nothing else but a few freckled bears with warts. Maybe they’re some other sort of species, though. I’ve never seen a bear with warts. Now I must go to help Mum.
Young Margrowl was obviously quite excited about hunting. We’ll have a look at the journal of her sister, Barkara, a teenage beastie who was not quite so excited:
I consider hunting to be a waste of time for young, proper teenage beasties. I’d rather eat what Mum brings home, like all the other teenage beasties do. They get to sit and flirt with their boyfriends and have a good time hearing the famous beastie comedian Robeg Roggergis Rogue Rillias Relyis on forestwide shoutphones. I haven’t seen my boyfriend for more than a month, ever since Mum sniffed the whole affair out. She thinks having a boyfriend is frivolous. I asked her then how in the whole world did she marry Dad and all I got was a slap.
By shoutphones, Barkara meant small things which were like headphones which fitted into a beastie’s ears. Robeg Roggergis Rogue Rillias Relyis’s comedy show was heard by thousands of beasties around the forest through the shoutphones. Basically, shoutphones begin with a microphone looking thing near the speaker’s mouth. Beasties with unusually loud voices were employed by Robeg and their mouths were placed in holes in the shoutphone wires. They memorized what Robeg said and shouted it through the wire, and since the shoutphone wires were coated with stuff that made the beastie’s voice echo, beasties all over the forest wearing shoutphones would hear Robeg’s show. Next we’ll be reviewing the scrapbook of a young orphan beastie:
Father Terruff, who’s in charge of this beastie orphanage and helps us all with our prayers to the Hunter God, gave me this great dragon. He says he drew it himself and that it was a gift of the Hunter God. I doubt it, but at least some of the orphanage workers gave me a whole set of pictures:
They say this is what humans look like. Imagine, so ugly! Their fur is so dirty and yellow, and it emerges from their scalp! However, they are very delicious to eat and kill. They have red blood, quite a sight, and if I grow up to be a hunter, I shall eat them. They’ll taste good. Hopefully.
Beastie orphanages were often fenced clearings in the forest, with circles of sleeping huts inside the fence surrounding the grand eating hall/classroom hall/meeting hall. Orphans were taught how to hunt all day, until dinner at midnight. We’ll have a look at the Official Orphanage Logbook of Mrs. Marchy Beastie:

January 22
Name: Mrs. Marchy Beastie
Occupation: Orphanage Manager
Beastie Orphan Observed: Grormin Guasgorg Nvagi
Reason Observed: Ten Detentions In A Row
Observations: Grormin is a mischievous boy, has played pranks on teachers, other orphans. Has his own gang, by name Beastie Rebels Against Orphanage Which Doesn’t Give Enough Food To Us. Has had ten detentions in a row, which requires immediate attention. These detentions are all because of trouble he has made in class, which involves breaking a valuable glass which was to be used for hunting practice. He denied these charges and acted so well that my daughters who operate the orphanage were almost fooled themselves.
January 22
Name: Mrs. Marchy Beastie
Occupation: Orphanage Manager
Beastie Orphan Observed: Renga Nvagi
Reason Observed: Complete Opposite of Her Brother, Most Important Informant To Us About The Beastie Rebels Against Orphanage Which Doesn’t Give Enough Food To Us gang, however is petulant and puerile and spoiled and throws terrible temper tantrums
Observations: Renga demands to be waited upon, thinks she is superior to other orphans. Has gotten into many fights with her brother, causing much disturbance to the entire orphanage. As punishing her would risk severing our already thin ropes of alliance with her, we have let her grow more and more conceited.
Mrs. Marchy Beastie ran the orphanage in a military fashion, like most of the other beastie orphanages of the area. The reason for this is that orphanages were usually considered rogues, hooligans, and offspring of villains, so these military-like orphanages were thought to be necessary to raise the orphans to be “good beasties”. Last of all we will look at the manuscript written by a beastie in jail to get a better understanding of the judicial system:
I was judged before the ten top chieftains. I was judged guilty and led into a bright hut. Brightness is a form of torture, as beasties hate light. My trial was short. There were not many facts from the crime scene. I was accused of stealing sheep that were to be eaten. The tribal leader accused me himself; therefore the top ten chieftains were prejudiced against me. Life is miserable.
That was the manuscript of Beastie Jail Inmate Cowamak Milered, who lived the rest of his life under parole. He hoped to get the manuscript published by some kind of prestigious beastie publisher, but instead he was accused of slandering the top ten chieftains and torn to pieces.

An Introduction To
The Research Journals
Beastioligists Kept

We will begin with an excerpt from The Book of Soront, a huge volume which Soront wrote himself. It was translated into more than twenty different languages but stopped printing in 1890.
It must be concluded that all beasties are gentle, civilized peoples, who are hospitable and kind, and if one was to meet a beastie, then one would find my writings most correct. Beasties have based their society upon our civilized human life, and they are most like us in appearance and character. If one were to see a beastie one would probably mistake a beastie for a human at the first glance, however after careful observations one would be able to see that the beastie really was a beastie.
Beasties worship His Lordship God, his son Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Mary. Beasties have nothing whatsoever to do with carnage, hunting, or other disgusting activities, despite what the crazy beastioligist Toraday thinks. Beasties eat the same foods as we do (breads, dairy products, etc.) and we have peace between ourselves.
Soront’s writings were proved incorrect by one of Toraday’s most brilliant followers four years after the publishing of the book, but there have still been arguments about Soront’s work. We will now have a look at the journal of Toraday while he was studying beasties in Mexico:
Morning, eight ‘o clock, June 14, Mexico
So far I have seen three beasties. This beastie was devouring a thin carcass, presumably a snake; this only goes to show that beasties will kill the most innocent of creatures. I moved on to observe another one of these despicable animals, with the same results. The third, however, was snoring; however, I am sure that it was dreaming of eating humans and snakes and frogs, and, of course, the other two having been quite wild and disgusting, I say that my theory that the nature of all beasties is vicious and crafty is true.
Toraday and Soront each criticized each other for composing “slanderous writings” “contradictory documents” and “lying treatises”. The beastie debate finally became so heated that the annoyed pope in Rome had them burned alive as heretics.















AFTERWORD ON BEASTIE
INFORMATION AND
COPYRIGHT
Any scientists, beastioligists, reference librarians, taxidermists, teachers, students, or any people who dare copy this manuscript and sell it for a profit above fifty cents without my consent will be fined double the amount of profit by the Beastie Copyright Protection Patent Office Law Firm, founded, managed, and operated by one person. Myself.

THE END.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

New Beastie Update

The Young Folks’ Guide to Beasties
By Willard Mardi
(Alias Adora Svitak)

An Introduction
To the Beastie
Debate

The history of beasties has long been debated over by the famous archaeologists Soront and Toraday. While Soront’s theory was that beasties were calm, innocent, and tame until proven otherwise, Toraday vehemently disagreed.
‘The nature of all beasties’ Toraday said in his lecture at Thormin Hall to quite a number of eager college students, ‘is always vicious and crafty. Wait and strike, wait and strike. This is how beasties find their food.’
However, a new paper from Soront’s private collection of beastie research, kept hidden behind a rusty toilet for over a decade, brings things to a new light.
‘This paper from Soront,’ the Licensed Beastie Philosopher of Cambridge College in England said, ‘is perhaps the key to one of the greatest questions in history – are beasties tame or wild? This paper describes one of Soront’s personal experience meeting a calm beastie named Asilefa, who welcomed him into her dwelling and gave him tea.’
However, there is living proof to defend Toraday’s view on the subject. Felisa Rogers, a direct beastie descendant of the twelve ruthless beasties who lived before the dawn of time, is a teacher at Seeds of Learning school in Redmond, Washington, USA, and often bares her teeth and sharpens her claws when a student does something wrong. Controversy, puzzlement, and simple confusion has followed ‘the deal on beasties’ since 1159, when a beastie was discovered off the coast of Africa by shipwrecked Arabians, and I do not think that we are about to break the mystery right now.

An Introduction
To Beasties’
Habits and
Hobbies


Beasties tend to be gentle WHEN PLEASED. [Study suggestion – use a model of a beastie to test your skills – not a real one!] Meeting humans is not exactly pleasing, but eating one can turn the wildest beastie into a gentle, humble creature.
“Once upon a time there lived a beastie named Hurra-Hurra who liked to eat little children. After eating children she would be very nice.” That is an example from the hidden afterward of Hansel and Gretel, which was excavated from Utopia Bestia Malvada, an inhabitable ‘city of the beasts’ near the Bermuda Triangle. This gives credence to Toraday’s theory that the nature of beasties was vicious and crafty. Soront’s theory is still approved by those who feel safer thinking of beasties as the make-believe antagonists of nursery stories, but Toraday’s descendants and disciples are scattered about the world. Fights often broke out between the two beastiology enemies, one of the most famous being the Thomas vs. Samuel duel in 1789.
We shall now do a bit more of talking about the ‘habits and hobbies’ of beasties. The habits of beasties include:
· Washing after dinner, not before. This seems to be because beasties tend to get more blood on their paws/claws/monster hands after devouring the unlucky victim.
· Circling trees before scraping. Scraping trees is another habit because it tends to give the eucalyptus traymin, or energy vitamin, to the beastie after eating.
· Pulling up any violets, roses, hyacinths, tulips, etc, before creating a new lair. This is probably because weeds are the preferred “decoration plant” for beastie homes.
Hobbies of beasties are much harder to discover; the only way to study hobbies of beasties in the early 1800s was to get in close-range with one, and of course that meant there was a danger of the beastie eating you. However, when Don Juan Ramon Coré de Calla, a rich hacienda owner in Mexico, invented the Beastie Binoculars Model 1000, using up the rest of his slowly draining inheritance, the following beastie hobbies and games were revealed:
· Fishing with one right hand paw and one left leg paw.
· Leaving food from the day’s hunt by the river where other beasties raced to steal it. If another beastie stole your food, that was too bad. If you managed to successfully guard your food, the beasties who had dared try to steal your food were forced to give their hunting day food to that beastie.
· Knitting with shark fins and twigs, which, if actually finished, will create a huge robe of twigs, covering most of the face (except for the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth) and all the rest of the body. Wearing this robe is a sign that you are hard-working, or a “peasant beastie”, so most do not deign to finish their knitting.
· Reading Beastie Runes, which are a mix of Viking runes, Chinese characters, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The only people who are allowed to read Beastie Runes are those who have passed a special Beastie tribe test.
Many people have disagreed with this treatise, but all our information has been proved, disproved, proved again and searched thoroughly. Guaranteed.

An Introduction
To the Anatomy
Of Beasties

The anatomy of Beasties is complicated enough to be considered college level; however it is simple enough to suit the beasties, who like to spend their time thinking on complicated plots to capture rabbits instead of spending their time thinking about complicated bodies.
Drs. Tremerson and Tillerton, licensed Beastiotoligists, both agree that the anatomy of beasties consists of one huge skeleton and a tiny heart, with a lot of other stuff. The heart is tiny because both the stomach and the brain take up most of the body. These are kept tightly inside by two ribcages, which first circle inside and then circle outside, on the fur. There are four long, thick bones for the limbs, and huge muscles. Only the legs of a beastie can bend, however, due to a problem with the arms of Beastie Bob who was the ancestor of all beasties.
Beasties have three sets of nerves. One is for the “back body” (beastiessius ellgirarum), one is for the “middle body” (beastiessius mellgirarum) and the “front body” (beastiessius sellgirarum). If hit in the back, middle, or front body, beasties will first feel excited, then happy, and finally melancholy. Total it lasts about three seconds.

An Introduction To
The Personal Life
Of Beasties

Beasties tend to have many children (by the R.B.S, or Regular Beastie Standards, ten a year), and it is very difficult to keep more than five children under your paw. Or hand. Humans already have a hard enough time with it. Therefore, beasties tend to rule their household through fear as to keep the children obedient and docile. When beastie children grow to the age of ten, they are taken to view their first hunt. This is generally done in packs. This gives beastie mothers/matriarchs a chance to spank, scold, and etc, while the rest of the pack does a war dance involving antlers, shoving, and smelly fishes. To probe farther into the personal life of the beasties is regarded as impolite, but what do I care? Let us begin studying a beastie’s personal life.
Teenage beasties tend to be rebellious, bossy, and independent. This is the age where beasties become obsessed with carnivorous diets, trimmed fur, and other such things. They are influenced by the cultures of the tiger, the lion, the leopard, and the jaguar.
The greatest ambition of a teenage beastie is to be chosen for the once-in-a-century coming-of-age ceremony, probably because this particular ceremony offers much free refreshment. A teenage beastie must first be nominated by their parents, however, and not many parents are that eager to nominate their rebellious offspring. Therefore teenage beasties force themselves to act obedient and entirely respectful towards their parents in hopes of tricking them into nominating them. This strategy does not often work, however, and most of the time earns the teenage beastie the severest punishment that can lawfully be inflicted upon any beastie—going to bed without supper.
Older beasties are more private and often hire beastie lawyers to protect their personal information. However, it can be easily concluded that these senior citizens of the beastie community dote upon their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on, perhaps because they feel that they were too harsh with their own children when they were younger. There was even a gift-giving beastie holiday these old beasties created to be able to give gifts and receive gifts without being laughed at, which you can read about in the next chapter.

An Introduction To
The Holidays of
Beasties

One of the major holidays of the beastie community is “grrgarglewachadfdfmelldam”, or grrgargwachdfmedam in shorter terms, better known as Christmas. The Christmas the Beasties celebrate is somewhat different, however. For instance, there is no Santa Claus, simply the Potato-Bellied Devil Who Steals Gifts from Humans and Gives ‘Em to Beasties. A popular gift in an average beastie household would be something like a new hunting device, warm pawsulls (flat shoes made of dried leaves and mud, tied by a strap of leather), or a new raft. Like us, beasties put up stockings, except they call them Trrgrrgrowls and decorate them with thorns. This is basically the only holiday on the beastie calendar except for The Meatteargrrgrowl, a grand event which is mainly made up of dancing and eating. For more information go to www.spaces.msn.com/adorasvitak, add a comment saying you wish to learn more about beastie holidays, and I will get back to you shortly.

An Introduction
To Beastie Religion
And Culture

Beasties are divided into tribes, each tribe worshiping its own god. For instance, a more aggressive tribe, a band of beastie hunters, might worship the Hunter God Gralvirgoreessiunmeat, while a more agricultural tribe might worship Aterroya, Goddess of Rain and Sun and Crops. Beasties create new deities by the minute, so there is no real official religion.
As for culture, most beasties like to hunt, but some like to farm. Those who farm are usually beasties shunned from the hunting groups because of lack of swiftness, smartness, or other qualities a good beastie hunter needs. Over time these farming groups multiplied and multiplied until there were two groups; the Hunters and the Farmers. There were also Explorers (who worshipped the Sailor Spirit Samorrissail), but they hardly came up in the history books. Farmers held festivals to show their appreciation of Aterroya or whoever they worshipped, where there was more joyful dancing and much consuming of alcohol, whereas the Hunters did more serious dancing and worshipping.

An Introduction To
The Hunting Strategies
Of Beasties

Beasties are expert hunters and have many different hunting strategies to catch their prey. One of the most important strategies is one every beastie child learns at the age of ten:
TREAD CAREFULLY AND POUNCE. The “Tread carefully and Pounce” strategy involves much tiptoeing, and will get food for a beastie any time. Basically a beastie must hide, advance, and strike. A more complicated hunting strategy beasties use is the:
FLATTER AND DEVOUR strategy. The Flatter and Devour strategy involves complimenting the “talent” of your prey. Beasties tend to compliment most often the looks or voice of the prey, this causing the prey to get more cocky and daring and then, well, into the beastie’s mouth for them. One of the Beastie Teamwork strategies is the:
SURROUND AND ATTACK strategy. Surround and Attack needs to have at least twelve cooperative beasties, with practice in the Tread Carefully and Pounce strategy. These beasties will form a circle around prey and attack from all sides. This is only used, however, with packs and only if the prey is something large or is in great number. A strategy used for teaching child beasties to hunt is the:
RUN QUICKLY AND DO IT strategy. The hunter beastie only needs to run quickly and sink its teeth into the neck of the prey, and does not have to worry about hiding or anything else. This is not actually used very much in real beastie hunting, but it is a handy strategy to use in strategy practice because it helps beastie children run faster. It is also a last resort strategy, and beasties will think badly of your hunting skills if you have to use it. More arrogant beasties like to hunt using the:
HIDE AND DROP strategy. The Hide and Drop strategy is very easy (although the arrogant beasties say otherwise to build up their hunting reputation) because you only need to hide in a tree and drop down on the animal.

An Introduction To
Humans’ First Reaction
To Beasties

The first sight a human got of a beastie was when Captain Tollincice brought back a ‘curiouse animale’, as he wrote in his journal, ‘with the thin taile of a rat and skin of a snake.’ He brought it to his employer who observed it, declared it a badger, and sent it into the wild. Beasties do not all look the same on the exterior part of the body, however, but the reaction of Tollincice’s employer might just have been reasonable if you consider the fact badgers looked quite a lot different back then. Over time people became more paranoid, thinking that any wild animal would attack at anytime.

An Introduction To
Beasties In
General

Beasties in general can be classified as cunning predators and enthusiastic eaters. They do, in general, have large bunches of fur and narrow slits for eyes. They are strict with teenage offspring, and keep a mostly carnivorous diet. This is the kind of “general” most people identify with. We can delve a little deeper into “general”, however, just to keep this from repeating what has already been written in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters.
Beasties are not what you would call prone to disease, when one beastie gets sick everybody else just moves away. That’s all I can put in here without going into “specific”. Look at the next chapter for that.

An Introduction To
Beasties In
Specific (Featuring Beastie Disease)

As soon as a beastie starts coughing/sneezing or showing any signs of sickness, the rest of the beasties move away to leave the ill beastie to its own devices. It is considered a sign of weakness to die from disease in beastie packs, or even let it enter your body, so there are no mourners to weep and sob for the death of a beastie struck with disease, and there is nobody left to take care of the ailing beastie. This may be considered uncivilized by other creatures, but by the beasties it is considered perfectly normal.

An Introduction To
Beastie Society

Beastie society is controlled by ten top chieftains. The chieftains get to their high seat by battling their opponents; the victor becomes one of the ten top chieftains. If an opponent challenges one of the ten top chieftains to a battle and wins, he becomes one of the ten top chieftains. Below the ten top chieftains are the tribal chieftains, who control their own tribes and carry out orders of the ten top chieftains. Below the tribal chieftains are the tribal chieftain deputies, who carry out the orders of the tribal chieftains. Below the tribal chieftain deputies are the tribal war organizers, who arrange everybody in their proper position when battling with other tribes, and below the war organizers are the beasties of the tribe, who mostly eat and drink and brawl amongst themselves and with other tribes. Below the beasties of the tribe are the beastie slaves of the tribe, who are either captured in battle or born into slavery. By the way, female beasties are as eligible to these positions as are male beasties.

An Introduction To
Law and Order
Among Beasties

“Order” among the beasties is not very severe; it’s common to get into a brawl with another beastie over some name-calling or stealing or false accusations, but do not let that make you think there is no order among the beasties. A beastie who bothers everyone and does annoying things will be gagged with grass and restrained by ropes of fur, and beasties who act disrespectful to a tribal chieftain or one of the top ten chieftains will be tied up and left without a meal for the entire day in solitary confinement, in the “jail-hut”. It’s not actually written in beastie law that you cannot do annoying things, but beasties punish people for doing it anyways. Law is more of a set of beastie runes which form statements which say what you can and cannot do, what is tolerable and what is intolerable. Here is an excerpt from the Beastie Encyclopedia of Law, translated with Beastilite44:
Beasties of all stature and rank are henceforth requested to follow the beastie laws as directed by one top ten chieftain, tribal chieftain, etc., strict punishments will follow those miscreants who dare disobey the great and invincible divine law of the beasties, this has been ordained by the committee of the Grrgrowlruffbark, or the official committee of law and order for the beastie community, and the following laws are to be the guide of every beastie in the beastie community.
Never speak of the top ten chieftains with disdain, contempt, or a superior air, all of which mean practically the same thing. One will only be allowed to speak of a top ten chieftain in this way in a battle for the high seat.
Never do anything that will taint the reputation of your beastie tribe, beastie tribal leader, beastie tribal leader deputy, or etc.
Never show any signs of cowardliness, loss of valiance, or heart attacks during hunts.
Never betray your beastie tribe secrets to beastie enemies and those whom we hunt.
These laws will be enforced throughout beastie land and territory belonging to beasties.
This was written by the famous top chieftain Mopri, who defeated every opponent for the high seat until his death in 1304. Mopri’s set of laws were put into the Beastie Encyclopedia of Law, which still remains a guidebook for the society of beasties today.
EXTRA: Beastie children who break the law or act disrespectful towards the top ten chieftains will be put into a juvenile beastie correctional facility, basically a place where beastie children are tied five hours a day and then sent out to hunt. The fruit of their hunting is given to the people who run the juvenile beastie correctional facility, while they must eat only vegetables and water, which is torture. A beastie’s regular diet is meat and blood.



An Introduction To
The Judicial System
Of Beasties

Only one who is equal to the rank of a tribal chieftain deputy may become a judge. There is one judge for every tribe, and in winter all the judges for all the tribes will come with all the defendants and the top ten chieftains will come and one person will list their grievances against the defendant or a tribal chieftain will say what law he has broken. Then the judge lists the facts from the investigations in a boring, droning tone and the top ten chieftains decide amongst themselves who is guilty and who is innocent. This can go on for a whole day, two days, or even a week if there are a lot of beasties to be tried.






AFTERWORD ON BEASTIE
INFORMATION AND
COPYRIGHT
Any scientists, beastioligists, reference librarians, taxidermists, teachers, students, or any people who dare copy this manuscript and sell it for a profit above fifty cents without my consent will be fined double the amount of profit by the Beastie Copyright Protection Patent Office Law Firm, founded, managed, and operated by one person. Myself.

THE END.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Update on the Beastie Deal

The Young Folks’ Guide to Beasties
By Willard Mardi
(Alias Adora Svitak)

An Introduction
To the Beastie
Debate

The history of beasties has long been debated over by the famous archaeologists Soront and Toraday. While Soront’s theory was that beasties were calm, innocent, and tame until proven otherwise, Toraday vehemently disagreed.
‘The nature of all beasties’ Toraday said in his lecture at Thormin Hall to quite a number of eager college students, ‘is always vicious and crafty. Wait and strike, wait and strike. This is how beasties find their food.’
However, a new paper from Soront’s private collection of beastie research, kept hidden behind a rusty toilet for over a decade, brings things to a new light.
‘This paper from Soront,’ the Licensed Beastie Philosopher of Cambridge College in England said, ‘is perhaps the key to one of the greatest questions in history – are beasties tame or wild? This paper describes one of Soront’s personal experience meeting a calm beastie named Asilefa, who welcomed him into her dwelling and gave him tea.’
However, there is living proof to defend Toraday’s view on the subject. Felisa Rogers, a direct beastie descendant of the twelve ruthless beasties who lived before the dawn of time, is a teacher at Seeds of Learning school in Redmond, Washington, USA, and often bares her teeth and sharpens her claws when a student does something wrong. Controversy, puzzlement, and simple confusion has followed ‘the deal on beasties’ since 1159, when a beastie was discovered off the coast of Africa by shipwrecked Arabians, and I do not think that we are about to break the mystery right now.

An Introduction
To Beasties’
Habits and
Hobbies


Beasties tend to be gentle WHEN PLEASED. [Study suggestion – use a model of a beastie to test your skills – not a real one!) Meeting humans is not exactly pleasing, but eating one can turn the wildest beastie into a gentle, humble creature.
“Once upon a time there lived a beastie named Hurra-Hurra who liked to eat little children. After eating children she would be very nice.” That is an example from the hidden afterward of Hansel and Gretel, which was excavated from Utopia Bestia Malvada, an inhabitable ‘city of the beasts’ near the Bermuda Triangle. This gives credence to Toraday’s theory that the nature of beasties was vicious and crafty. Soront’s theory is still approved by those who feel safer thinking of beasties as the make-believe antagonists of nursery stories, but Toraday’s descendants and disciples are scattered about the world. Fights often broke out between the two beastiology enemies, one of the most famous being the Thomas vs. Samuel duel in 1789.
We shall now do a bit more of talking about the ‘habits and hobbies’ of beasties. The habits of beasties include:
· Washing after dinner, not before. This seems to be because beasties tend to get more blood on their paws/claws/monster hands after devouring the unlucky victim.
· Circling trees before scraping. Scraping trees is another habit because it tends to give the eucalyptus traymin, or energy vitamin, to the beastie after eating.
· Pulling up any violets, roses, hyacinths, tulips, etc, before creating a new lair. This is probably because weeds are the preferred “decoration plant” for beastie homes.
Hobbies of beasties are much harder to discover; the only way to study hobbies of beasties in the early 1800s was to get in close-range with one, and of course that meant there was a danger of the beastie eating you. However, when Don Juan Ramon Coré de Calla, a rich hacienda owner in Mexico, invented the Beastie Binoculars Model 1000, using up the rest of his slowly draining inheritance, the following beastie hobbies and games were revealed:
· Fishing with one right hand paw and one left leg paw.
· Leaving food from the day’s hunt by the river where other beasties raced to steal it. If another beastie stole your food, that was too bad. If you managed to successfully guard your food, the beasties who had dared try to steal your food were forced to give their hunting day food to that beastie.
· Knitting with shark fins and twigs, which, if actually finished, will create a huge robe of twigs, covering most of the face (except for the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth) and all the rest of the body. Wearing this robe is a sign that you are hard-working, or a “peasant beastie”, so most do not deign to finish their knitting.
· Reading Beastie Runes, which are a mix of Viking runes, Chinese characters, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The only people who are allowed to read Beastie Runes are those who have passed a special Beastie tribe test.
Many people have disagreed with this treatise, but all our information has been proved, disproved, proved again and searched thoroughly. Guaranteed.

An Introduction
To the Anatomy
Of Beasties

The anatomy of Beasties is complicated enough to be considered college level; however it is simple enough to suit the beasties, who like to spend their time thinking on complicated plots to capture rabbits instead of spending their time thinking about complicated bodies.
Drs. Tremerson and Tillerton, licensed Beastiotoligists, both agree that the anatomy of beasties consists of one huge skeleton and a tiny heart, with a lot of other stuff. The heart is tiny because both the stomach and the brain take up most of the body. These are kept tightly inside by two ribcages, which first circle inside and then circle outside, on the fur. There are four long, thick bones for the limbs, and huge muscles. Only the legs of a beastie can bend, however, due to a problem with the arms of Beastie Bob who was the ancestor of all beasties.
Beasties have three sets of nerves. One is for the “back body” (beastiessius ellgirarum), one is for the “middle body” (beastiessius mellgirarum) and the “front body” (beastiessius sellgirarum). If hit in the back, middle, or front body, beasties will first feel excited, then happy, and finally melancholy. Total it lasts about three seconds.

An Introduction To
The Personal Life
Of Beasties

Beasties tend to have many children (by the R.B.S, or Regular Beastie Standards, ten a year), and it is very difficult to keep more than five children under your paw. Or hand. Humans already have a hard enough time with it. Therefore, beasties tend to rule their household through fear as to keep the children obedient and docile. When beastie children grow to the age of ten, they are taken to view their first hunt. This is generally done in packs. This gives beastie mothers/matriarchs a chance to spank, scold, and etc, while the rest of the pack does a war dance involving antlers, shoving, and smelly fishes. To probe farther into the personal life of the beasties is regarded as impolite, but what do I care? Let us begin studying a beastie’s personal life.
Teenage beasties tend to be rebellious, bossy, and independent. This is the age where beasties become obsessed with carnivorous diets, trimmed fur, and other such things. They are influenced by the cultures of the tiger, the lion, the leopard, and the jaguar.
The greatest ambition of a teenage beastie is to be chosen for the once-in-a-century coming-of-age ceremony, probably because this particular ceremony offers much free refreshment. A teenage beastie must first be nominated by their parents, however, and not many parents are that eager to nominate their rebellious offspring. Therefore teenage beasties force themselves to act obedient and entirely respectful towards their parents in hopes of tricking them into nominating them. This strategy does not often work, however, and most of the time earns the teenage beastie the severest punishment that can lawfully be inflicted upon any beastie—going to bed without supper.
Older beasties are more private and often hire beastie lawyers to protect their personal information. However, it can be easily concluded that these senior citizens of the beastie community dote upon their grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on, perhaps because they feel that they were too harsh with their own children when they were younger. There was even a gift-giving beastie holiday these old beasties created to be able to give gifts and receive gifts without being laughed at, which you can read about in the next chapter.

An Introduction To
The Holidays of
Beasties

One of the major holidays of the beastie community is “grrgarglewachadfdfmelldam”, or grrgargwachdfmedam in shorter terms, better known as Christmas. The Christmas the Beasties celebrate is somewhat different, however. For instance, there is no Santa Claus, simply the Potato-Bellied Devil Who Steals Gifts from Humans and Gives ‘Em to Beasties. A popular gift in an average beastie household would be something like a new hunting device, warm pawsulls (flat shoes made of dried leaves and mud, tied by a strap of leather), or a new raft. Like us, beasties put up stockings, except they call them Trrgrrgrowls and decorate them with thorns. This is basically the only holiday on the beastie calendar except for The Meatteargrrgrowl, a grand event which is mainly made up of dancing and eating. For more information go to www.spaces.msn.com/adorasvitak, add a comment saying you wish to learn more about beastie holidays, and I will get back to you shortly.

An Introduction
To Beastie Religion
And Culture

Beasties are divided into tribes, each tribe worshiping its own god. For instance, a more aggressive tribe, a band of beastie hunters, might worship the Hunter God Gralvirgoreessiunmeat, while a more agricultural tribe might worship Aterroya, Goddess of Rain and Sun and Crops. Beasties create new deities by the minute, so there is no real official religion.
As for culture, most beasties like to hunt, but some like to farm. Those who farm are usually beasties shunned from the hunting groups because of lack of swiftness, smartness, or other qualities a good beastie hunter needs. Over time these farming groups multiplied and multiplied until there were two groups; the Hunters and the Farmers. There were also Explorers (who worshipped the Sailor Spirit Samorrissail), but they hardly came up in the history books. Farmers held festivals to show their appreciation of Aterroya or whoever they worshipped, where there was more joyful dancing and much consuming of alcohol, whereas the Hunters did more serious dancing and worshipping.

An Introduction To
The Hunting Strategies
Of Beasties

Beasties are expert hunters and have many different hunting strategies to catch their prey. One of the most important strategies is one every beastie child learns at the age of ten:
TREAD CAREFULLY AND POUNCE. The “Tread carefully and Pounce” strategy involves much tiptoeing, and will get food for a beastie any time. Basically a beastie must hide, advance, and strike. A more complicated hunting strategy beasties use is the:
FLATTER AND DEVOUR strategy. The Flatter and Devour strategy involves complimenting the “talent” of your prey. Beasties tend to compliment most often the looks or voice of the prey, this causing the prey to get more cocky and daring and then, well, into the beastie’s mouth for them. One of the Beastie Teamwork strategies is the:
SURROUND AND ATTACK strategy. Surround and Attack needs to have at least twelve cooperative beasties, with practice in the Tread Carefully and Pounce strategy. These beasties will form a circle around prey and attack from all sides. This is only used, however, with packs and only if the prey is something large or is in great number. A strategy used for teaching child beasties to hunt is the:
RUN QUICKLY AND DO IT strategy. The hunter beastie only needs to run quickly and sink its teeth into the neck of the prey, and does not have to worry about hiding or anything else. This is not actually used very much in real beastie hunting, but it is a handy strategy to use in strategy practice because it helps beastie children run faster. It is also a last resort strategy.


AFTERWORD ON BEASTIE
INFORMATION AND
COPYRIGHT
Any scientists, beastioligists, reference librarians, taxidermists, teachers, students, or any people who dare copy this manuscript and sell it for a profit above fifty cents will be fined double the amount of profit by the Beastie Copyright Protection Patent Office Law Firm.

THE END.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

A Short History of Beasties

The Young Folks’ Guide to Beasties
By Willard Mardi
(Alias Adora Svitak)

An Introduction
To the Beastie
Debate

The history of beasties has long been debated over by the famous archaeologists Soront and Toraday. While Soront’s theory was that beasties were calm, innocent, and tame until proven otherwise, Toraday vehemently disagreed.
‘The nature of all beasties’ Toraday said in his lecture at Thormin Hall to quite a number of eager college students, ‘is always vicious and crafty. Wait and strike, wait and strike. This is how beasties find their food.’
However, a new paper from Soront’s private collection of beastie research, kept hidden behind a rusty toilet for over a decade, brings things to a new light.
‘This paper from Soront,’ the Licensed Beastie Philosopher of Cambridge College in England said, ‘is perhaps the key to one of the greatest questions in history – are beasties tame or wild? This paper describes one of Soront’s personal experience meeting a calm beastie named Asilefa, who welcomed him into her dwelling and gave him tea.’
However, there is living proof to defend Toraday’s view on the subject. Felisa Rogers, a direct beastie descendant of the twelve ruthless beasties who lived before the dawn of time, is a teacher at Seeds of Learning school in Redmond, Washington, USA, and often bares her teeth and sharpens her claws when a student does something wrong. Controversy, puzzlement, and simple confusion has followed ‘the deal on beasties’ since 1159, when a beastie was discovered off the coast of Africa by shipwrecked Arabians, and I do not think that we are about to break the mystery right now.

An Introduction
To Beasties’
Habits and
Hobbies


Beasties tend to be gentle WHEN PLEASED. [Study suggestion – use a model of a beastie to test your skills – not a real one!) Meeting humans is not exactly pleasing, but eating one can turn the wildest beastie into a gentle, humble creature.
“Once upon a time there lived a beastie named Hurra-Hurra who liked to eat little children. After eating children she would be very nice.” That is an example from the hidden afterward of Hansel and Gretel, which was excavated from Utopia Bestia Malvada, an inhabitable ‘city of the beasts’ near the Bermuda Triangle. This gives credence to Toraday’s theory that the nature of beasties was vicious and crafty. Soront’s theory is still approved by those who feel safer thinking of beasties as the make-believe antagonists of nursery stories, but Toraday’s descendants and disciples are scattered about the world. Fights often broke out between the two beastiology enemies, one of the most famous being the Thomas vs. Samuel duel in 1789.
We shall now do a bit more of talking about the ‘habits and hobbies’ of beasties. The habits of beasties include:
· Washing after dinner, not before. This seems to be because beasties tend to get more blood on their paws/claws/monster hands after devouring the unlucky victim.
· Circling trees before scraping. Scraping trees is another habit because it tends to give the eucalyptus traymin, or energy vitamin, to the beastie after eating.
· Pulling up any violets, roses, hyacinths, tulips, etc, before creating a new lair. This is probably because weeds are the preferred “decoration plant” for beastie homes.
Hobbies of beasties are much harder to discover; the only way to study hobbies of beasties in the early 1800s was to get in close-range with one, and of course that meant there was a danger of the beastie eating you. However, when Don Juan Ramon Coré de Calla, a rich hacienda owner in Mexico, invented the Beastie Binoculars Model 1000, using up the rest of his slowly draining inheritance, the following beastie hobbies and games were revealed:
· Fishing with one right hand paw and one left leg paw.
· Leaving food from the day’s hunt by the river where other beasties raced to steal it. If another beastie stole your food, that was too bad. If you managed to successfully guard your food, the beasties who had dared try to steal your food were forced to give their hunting day food to that beastie.
· Knitting with shark fins and twigs, which, if actually finished, will create a huge robe of twigs, covering most of the face (except for the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth) and all the rest of the body. Wearing this robe is a sign that you are hard-working, or a “peasant beastie”, so most do not deign to finish their knitting.
· Reading Beastie Runes, which are a mix of Viking runes, Chinese characters, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The only people who are allowed to read Beastie Runes are those who have passed a special Beastie tribe test.
Many people have disagreed with this treatise, but all our information has been proved, disproved, proved again and searched thoroughly. Guaranteed.

An Introduction
To the Anatomy
Of Beasties

The anatomy of Beasties is complicated enough to be considered college level; however it is simple enough to suit the beasties, who like to spend their time thinking on complicated plots to capture rabbits instead of spending their time thinking about complicated bodies.
Drs. Tremerson and Tillerton, licensed Beastiotoligists, both agree that the anatomy of beasties consists of one huge skeleton and a tiny heart, with a lot of other stuff. The heart is tiny because both the stomach and the brain take up most of the body. These are kept tightly inside by two ribcages, which first circle inside and then circle outside, on the fur. There are four long, thick bones for the limbs, and huge muscles. Only the legs of a beastie can bend, however, due to a problem with the arms of Beastie Bob who was the ancestor of all beasties.
Beasties have three sets of nerves. One is for the “back body” (beastiessius ellgirarum), one is for the “middle body” (beastiessius mellgirarum) and the “front body” (beastiessius sellgirarum). If hit in the back, middle, or front body, beasties will first feel excited, then happy, and finally melancholy. Total it lasts about three seconds.


AFTERWORD ON BEASTIE
INFORMATION AND
COPYRIGHT
Any scientists, beastioligists, reference librarians, taxidermists, teachers, students, or any people who dare copy this manuscript and sell it for a profit above fifty cents will be fined double the amount of profit by the Beastie Copyright Protection Patent Office Law Firm.

THE END.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Best of Food

February 08
A List of My Favorite Things
THE BEST OF...
FOOD

Ice Cream -- cold slabs of frozen, milky, sugary unknown, which some kids tend to have an addiction to. Some adults may dislike it and scold children for eating it. Some adults may also find this offensive. I like it because to me, when shaped correctly, it resembles a large pile of mud. Only if chocolate ice cream.
(Dessert)
Pizza -- Vegetable, Pepperoni, Cheese, Combo, and many more -- how could anyone resist these pizza flavors? My favorite is cheese, but don't think it's too cheesy! Excuse the bad joke. Well, I've never dared oppose this popular product, and I don't think anyone else has!
(Regular Food)
Cookies -- sometimes tough as rock (or tougher) and sometimes light and fluffy, cookies have always remained one of my favorite foods. Oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, I like most of them anyways.
(Dessert)
French Bread -- Are French Fries French? Is French bread French? Is French Toast French? Well, I like French Bread whether it's American or French or Chinese or Russian or whatever. Perfect to dip in French Toast, good with oil and vinegar, and wonderful with butter, French Bread is a treat to me every time!
(Regular Food)

Best of Food

February 08
A List of My Favorite Things
THE BEST OF...
FOOD

Ice Cream -- cold slabs of frozen, milky, sugary unknown, which some kids tend to have an addiction to. Some adults may dislike it and scold children for eating it. Some adults may also find this offensive. I like it because to me, when shaped correctly, it resembles a large pile of mud. Only if chocolate ice cream.
(Dessert)
Pizza -- Vegetable, Pepperoni, Cheese, Combo, and many more -- how could anyone resist these pizza flavors? My favorite is cheese, but don't think it's too cheesy! Excuse the bad joke. Well, I've never dared oppose this popular product, and I don't think anyone else has!
(Regular Food)
Cookies -- sometimes tough as rock (or tougher) and sometimes light and fluffy, cookies have always remained one of my favorite foods. Oatmeal cookies, chocolate chip cookies, I like most of them anyways.
(Dessert)
French Bread -- Are French Fries French? Is French bread French? Is French Toast French? Well, I like French Bread whether it's American or French or Chinese or Russian or whatever. Perfect to dip in French Toast, good with oil and vinegar, and wonderful with butter, French Bread is a treat to me every time!
(Regular Food)

Something Other Than Writing

I'm going to go to Europe soon and I think of it in my mind as probably any other American who never went there would--I think of cathedrals, and castles, with high towers on top. I think of lush green grass and crowds of people who speak a different language. I think of an entirely different place.

But how the Europeans would feel about their continent I'm not sure. I'd bet they'd be proud about all the rich history and everything, but to them, they might be more at home with all this grandeur. To them, maybe America is dream vaccation destination.

Weird Thought

I just realized that I always think of the sun as masculine and the moon as feminine, for no real reason. It's sort of the same with ages -- I think of one as masculine, two as feminine, three as neutral, four as masculine, five as feminine, six as feminine, seven as masculine, eight as neutral, nine as neutral, ten as feminine, eleven as masculine, and so on in no particular sort of pattern. Maybe it's becuase I know more girl people who are two or five or six or ten or whatever. My sister is ten, my classmate is ten. I'll be ten soon. Actually, to be more exact, two years. But I've been one year old, I've been four years old, I've been seven years old. I think it might be the sound of the number which makes me think of them of masculine or feminine, but I'm not sure. Oh well. I suppose I'll leave this mystery to rest.

Adora