The Goal Of All Life

What can possibly happen next?

The salad is thrown out, along with the beetle?

Of course not.

The salad is thrown out, along with the sticky red avocado.

We can't keep this beetle, says mum. Did you say it was Arthur's?

Yes, says Irma.

It's going right back, says mum. Reg, you take the girls out for pizza. Irma, what's Arthur's address?

Hotel Kyriad, says Irma. I was going to take it back in the morning.

I was going to go with you, says Emma.

Too bad, says their mother. I'm going now.

Don't argue with your mother, says Reg.

He didn't need to say that. They hadn't.

So Reg, Emma and Irma head out for the nearest pizzeria, and mum heads in the opposite direction with the disgraced Scarabée, in his specimen jar.

Mum has a name. It is Edith.

Which is why when she knocks on the door of the room in the Hotel Kyriad, and the door is opened by Gaius, he says:

Edith! How nice to see you. I trust Irma arrived home all right?

Gaius! says Edith, looking around the room. Yes she did, but she seems to have accidentally picked up your beetle.

Come in, come in, says Gaius. You are lucky to have caught me. I was just going out to dinner.

Oh, says Edith, disappointed.

Have you eaten? asks Gaius.

No, says Edith. Long story. It's because of this beetle.

Gaius peers at the Scarabée.

It is strangely silent.

Perhaps it is dead.

........

Les Embruns.

Sartre is enjoying his seafood risotto.

Saint Roley is filling up on moules frites. His ideal dinner.

Belle, Sweezus and Arthur are finishing their grilled sole and lobster.

Terence and Baldy are under the table playing Not Yet Founded.

A fun game. So far they have not yet found anything.

Gaius arrives with Edith, and the dead Scarabée.

Greetings all round.

Here's the bad penny, says Gaius, plonking the specimen jar on the table.

Dead! says Sweezus.

Oh dear, says Belle.

My fault, says Edith. I sat him on top of our salad. He wanted so much to live the rest of his life as a beetroot.

Freud said, observes Sartre, (chewing a particularly hard chunk of squid ring), that the goal of all life is death.

A comforting thought, for everyone but the beetle.

He also said, replies Edith, that time spent with cats is never wasted.

Sartre swallows his squid ring rather too quickly.

Is she countering his quote in an intelligent and humorous manner?

Or is she a cat lover?  Does she know that he also likes cats?