BlackBeary stands in front of the vanity mirror, the only full-human-length mirror in the house, the only mirror low enough for her to admire herself, and something is wrong. Very wrong.

Her silly, clumsy human apparently got too frisky with the grooming shears, and now BlackBeary has half a whisker staring back at her like some neon sign flashing a warning about how crazy things get at her house, and it’s not just any whisker. It’s one of her stately, white whiskers.

Will it never end, BlackBeary asks herself. Will these things she has to put up with, the degradation, the disgrace, will it never end?

How embarrassing!