by Veronikitty

VERONI: Well, everything ready?

TUGGER: Well, let's see.... in the five minutes you gave us we kinda had to improvise.

MISTO: (walks by carrying armfulls of empty rolls of ductape) Hope you like the silvery gleam of the handyman's secret weapon.

VERONI: (sighs) I guess it'll have to do.

(At last check, Belle had accidentally murdered Mr. Pinchley. Word quickly spreads and we find our heroine locked up behind bars.)

LEC: (running through the aisles of the theater, tossing newspapers around) EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it! Girl guns geezer! "I didn't do it", says well-built teenager! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!

(The lights come up on the stage and a jail-stripped Belle peers out through the bars of her cell. All appears lost, but suddenly her salvation appears in the form of----)

DEM: (looking out from the wings) Two used car salesmen?

VERONI: NO! They're the Munksbaum Brothers.

DEM: They sell used cars?

VERONI: Alright, so their suits are kinda tacky---

MUNKU: (staring at his tweed suitcoat) KINDA?

SKIMBLE: (wearing a similar outfit) Stop complaining! After everything I've already been through in this show, this is tame in comparison....

(--- the Munksbaum Brothers, vaudeville bookers.)

MUNKU: Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin' Bennie?

SKIMBLE: I'm thinkin' what you're thinkin' Bernie!

(They walk over to her cell)

MUNKU: Ms. Bombfurt--

SKIMBLE: ---how do you do? We're the--

MUNKU: --Munksbaum Brothers.

DEM: Oh goody. Not even a minute out onstage and these two are already getting on my nerves.

SKIMBLE: Shhhh! It took more practice than you can imagine to get this annoying! (jumps back into character) I'm Bennie!

MUNKU: And I'm Bernie!

BOMB: (shaking her head) Lawyers?

SKIMBLE: No!

MUNKU: Bookers--

SKIMBLE: Yes!

DEM: Any more of this and I'll start ramming my head into the wall---- JUST SING ALREADY!!!

BOTH: How would you like to be a star?

MUNKU: Vaudeville circuit!

SKIMBLE: Top booking!

MUNKU: Fancy salary!

SKIMBLE: Spick and span dressing rooms!

BOTH: Like a star!

DEM: (screams along with the rhythmic bang of her head against the doorframe)

BOTH: (sing) So resulting from a few illegal capers,

You are starring in the papers.

Just go over with the jury and in jig time,

Join the Munksbaums in the big time!

So you'll try a little trill from "Traviata"--

La-la-la! La-la-la!

BOMB: (terribly flat.... voice that is) La-la-la?

BOTH: So it's not your style, sonata.

When a queen has got what you have got a lotta

You know what you got,

You got something hot!

JEM: How many jokes about bosoms can there be in one show?

LEC: Don't ask... DON'T ask.

MUNKU: So here's a good tiding--

SKIMBLE: If toms, you are killing--

MUNKU: A talent, you're hiding

To be a performer!

BOTH: So be a performer,

And soon you'll be riding,

Everlasting Cat, willing--

The crest of your life!

LEC: (tapping her watch) How long can this go on?

VERONI: It's only been a minute or two.

LEC: Hah. Silly me.... guess it must have just FELT like eternity.

MUNKU: So listen to Benny--

SKIMBLE: And listen to Bernie--

BOTH: Forget the attorney and be a performer---

POUNCE: Something Al Gore should have taken to heart and saved us all this recount stuff--

VERONI: No politics here!

(The next morning, the trial begins and Belle is aquitted on all charges thanks to a quick appearance by the always timely Noble Skimbleson, who is currently attending both Yale and Harvard-- hoping someday to be a Legal Doctor.)

SKIMBLE: (tosses off his tweed jacket and rushes onstage, pulling on a letter sweater) Belle Bombfurt is the sweetest and kindest queen I ever met. I love her! And a tom as good as I am could NEVER love a murderess!

DEM: Aurgh! Obnoxious much? I have yet to see one of his characters which I LIKE.

(The scene changes to a tacky vaudeville stage)

MUNKU: Queens and Gentletoms! The Munksbaum Brothers proudly present, direct from her triumphant two-week trial, Ms. Dimples Bombfurt and her chain gang!

(Bomb, in a pink and black striped outfit clanks out onstage, tethered to a ball and chain, and flanked by a chain gang of four toms.)

BOMB: (Betty Boop-esque) Oh! Dem doggone dimples!

Oh, dey did it again!

Tell me why a little indentation

Should start a criminal investigation!

Oh, dem doggone dimples!

If I ever go to da pen--

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Dey do it again!

POUNCE, CORI, MISTO and TUMBLE: In '88 he seemed a fatherly kind,

You wouldn't think, that it would enter his mind!

But sure enough, his shining armor corroded.

As she expressed it when the gun exploded! BOOM!

BOMB: Oh, dem doggone dimples!

Oh, I neve know when--

GUYS: Oh!

BOMB: Oh!

GUYS: Oh!

BOMB: Uh-oh!

DEY DID IT AGAIN!!!!

DEM: Well, that was---- odd.

BOMB: (walks out to the lip of the stage as the set is changed) Well, sir, I was the toast of the town! One critic said that "after hearing Ms. Bombfurt sing, one wondered why she used a gun." But fame is a fickle thing. The Munksbaum Brothers dropped me like a cold potato. I was down, but not out. I took a job as head cigarette queen at the Skylight Roof Hotel.

(While in her new job, Belle unluckilly manages to bump into Noble and his mother.... along with his fionce, Jemona Vandergeld.)

BOMB: Your fionce? Oh, Noble! How COULD you? You promised you'd wait forever!

SKIMBLE: Oh, I will! I'll just be married while I'm waiting.

(She runs off crying)

VERONI: Favorite song coming up! And we all know what that means---

CATS: (reciting) No side comments unless we want to be pushing up daisies.

SKIMBLE: (rushes by to change clothes) Moveitmoveitmoveit!

JELLY: This show is going to ruin his nerves.

POUNCE: Nah. If he's made it through nineteen of 'em already without cracking, he's pretty much set for almost anything.

MUNKU: Queens and Gentletoms, the Skylight Roof is proud to present, the toast of all eleven continents-- Skimbal du Val and his Skimbal du Valettes.

VICKY, EXOTICA, CASS: Messeurs and Madams, the Skylight Roof is proud to present--- Skimbal du Val!

SKIMBLE: Zank you! Zank you! Zank you! Or, as you say in English-- Thank you!

BOMB: Tacky frenchtom. Just when I thought things had reached their lowest.

DEM: I like this guy!

BOMB: And yet, I should have seen THAT coming from a mile away.

SKIMBLE: And now I should like to introduce to you my assisTANT, Colectette!

LEC: (struts out with a bass drum strapped to her chest)

BOMB: Sounds like some kind of long distance service....

DEM: Ain't he dreamy? (swoons)

SKIMBLE: And these are her three sisters, Marie Antoinette, Bernadette, and Jonte Allouette! And now, I should like to sing AT you about love. Not the little love that goes clinkey-linkey-linkey-link.... but the French love that goes BOOM! BOOM!

LEC: (hits two drum beats)

SKIMBLE: My famous Boom Boom song:

(sings) Poor Pierot, I hear him yet,

In persuit of his Pierrette,

With the same old urgent message to impar-r-r-r-rt,

BOMB: Tacky, tacky, tacky...

DEM: Ahhhhhh, a french tom iz for me!

MUNKU: (sitting in the corner, grumbling)

SKIMBLE: Whaaaaat it was, we never found out,

For ze point was always drowned out,

By ze violent cannonading of his heart!

LEC: (*boom*, *boom*)

SKIMBLE: He'd say: (gurgles in his throat) "Pierette"

And clear his throat. *hock* Pteuey!

Lest we forget... And here I quote:

If ze queen BOOM, BOOM!

And ze tom BOOM, BOOM!

And zey get togezzer an' zey both BOOM, BOOM!

C'est le grande, BOOM, BOOM!

Et le grande, BOOM, BOOM!

Zat zey one BOOM BOOM for me!

TUMBLE: (tapping his feet) Kinda catchy.

CORI: And liable to get stuck in your head FOREVER.

TANTI: Worse than "It's a Small World Afterall"?

CORI: Yuh-huh.

TANTI: AHHHHHHHH!!!!

ALL: Oh a stray BOOM BOOM,

Occasionally may, prove a gay BOOM BOOM

And carry you away,

But to dream, BOOM BOOM

Zat supreme BOOM BOOM

SKIMBLE: Is for two, kitties who, like a team

BOOM BOOM!

What I mean is, my sherrie!

ALL: Save le grande BOOM BOOM

FOR ME-E-E-E-E-E-E!

(As Skimbal clears the stage for the next show, he catches sight of Belle, who is about to throw herself out the window of the hotel, distressed over the apparent loss of her love, Noble.)

SKIMBLE: Why you do this crazy thing?

BOMB: You don't understand! The tom I love is going to marry someone else!

SKIMBLE: Love. I thought so. Let me tell you a little story. There was once a French tom who was in love with a french queen. Zey were very happy togezzer.... and zen one day ze french queen met another young french tom. He was handsome, dashing an' debonair. So ze young queen left with her new love an ze first boy was crush-ed.

MUNKU: So much worse than being plain crushed. He had to be crush-ED.

DEM: Don't make fun of the accent! I like it!

MISTO: Yes, we know! We know! As if you hadn't made that obvious enough the first seven times you said it. Yeesh!

SKIMBLE: (continues) And now I have Colectette and we are very happy.

BOMB: How sweet! When did you meet Colectette?

SKIMBLE: I just told you! When I took her from that French tom in the village!

CATS: (groan)

(A tall, muscular tom walks out shuffling a deck of cards)

TUGGER: Second show, Skimbal.

SKIMBLE: Zank you! Oh, and keep an eye on her. She likes to jump.

TUGGER: No problem. (waves) Hey snookums!

VERONI: Character! Get in it and KEEP it!

TUGGER: Anything I can do for you ma'am?

BOMB: Oh no, sir. I'm better now.

TUGGER: Remember what I always said to you Belle, if you ever need me all you have to do is--

BOMB: (realization) Snap your fingers! LUCKY! Lucky Malone! Gosh, you really did grow up since Drifter's Row! What are you doing here?

TUGGER: I own this club, baby!

TANTI: The sad thing is, he doesn't really have to "act" much for this scene.

LEC: Type casting.

VERONI: Sorry I didn't have time to be creative! I was a little preoccupied with other things----

LEXIE: Like the penguins catering the post-show gala who opened up the freezer around "Deep Down Inside" and are now slip sliding their way around the kitchen?

VERONI: (groans) You're kidding....

BOMB: YOUR club?

TUGGER: Yep. And I've got a cozy little apartment right downstairs---

(Just before this interesting situation can go any farther, Skimbal struts back on the stage to make two very important announcements.)

SKIMBLE: Ze first announcement is zat zere will be a very special New Year's show for $6 a couple, including cute little noisemakers! Oh.... and ze second is zat World War I is declar-ed.

(The ensamble floods the stage, running and screaming, followed by a long line of penguins, being chased by Lexie, who is toting a... flame thrower?)

LEXIE: Take that you evil ice-creating fiends! That'll teach you to turn the backstage into the Ice Capades! MWAHAHA!!

VERONI: Whoa-oa! ASPCA line one! Lexie! Leave the catering service alone!

LEXIE: But they froze my tail to the floor!!

VERONI: Get over it!

LEXIE: I don't annaw!

VERONI: (rolls her eyes) Break time!

SKIMBLE: (still using his bad french accent) But we just declar-ed World War I!!

VERONI: We have to calm Lexie down before EVERYTHING starts coming out backwards!

LEXIE: I HATE SNIUGNEP!!