Frank Wiener wanted the beast-kingdom's costume feast to crown him its most beloved performer. Tonight the crowd would fill the underground hall. And Frank had nothing to show them but a red hot dog costume with a mustard stripe down the middle. He crouched behind the old converted stand and practiced a bow. A bow was not an act. A stray in a bun would earn laughs, then get forgotten by dessert. "You're going to wear a groove in that floor," said a voice behind him. He turned. It was Greta Wolfsbane, the gray old wolf who ran the stand and had fed him scraps since he first wandered down here. She wore her flowered dress and her round glasses, and she carried a lantern that made her shadow huge on the tunnel wall. She looked at his costume the way she looked at burnt bread. "They want a performer," Frank said. "I've got a sausage suit and nothing else." Greta set the lantern down. "You've had something else the whole time. You just kept hiding it." She tapped his chest, where the costume bulged. "That squeaker." Frank flushed under his fur. Sewn inside the bun was a cheap toy squeaker. He'd stuffed it there to muffle the sound. Every step he took made a faint honk, and he hated it. "That's the embarrassing part," he said. "That's the act," Greta said. "A talking hot dog that squeaks when it dances. No one else has legs, boy. You've got a joke built into your bones. Use it before someone laughs first." Frank stared at her. Then he pressed his own chest. The costume honked. He stepped left. Honk. He spun. A run of squeaks poured out like a busted accordion. It sounded ridiculous. It sounded like something a crowd would repeat all night. He worked fast. He tore the muffling cloth loose so the squeaker rang clear. He mapped a routine to the honks, a stomp on each beat, a wobble, a slow melting bow at the end. Greta clapped the rhythm with her gray paws and told him where the timing sagged. By the time the horns called the feast, Frank had an act. He walked into the packed hall and let his first step honk loud. Heads turned. He danced the squeak. The crowd roared, then started stomping along, honking his name in time. He finished on the melting bow. The hall shook with cheering. Frank Wiener was no longer an ordinary stray. He was the squeaking hot dog everyone wanted more of. But cheering has a hunger to it. A large beast near the front, a past crowd favorite by the look of the crown pinned to his cloak, stopped smiling. He rose and pointed at Frank. "One dance," the beast said. "Let's see the stray do it again. Better. Or the feast forgets you by morning."

The crowned beast sat down, satisfied. He had thrown his challenge, and the hall waited. Frank Wiener wanted one more dance to prove himself. But when he lifted his arm to wave, he heard a rip. A seam along his side had split. The dancing had done it. His flimsy red costume was tearing at the middle of the mustard stripe. One more routine would burst it open in front of everyone. Frank backed toward the old converted stand. His paws shook. "I can't dance again," he whispered. "The whole thing will fall apart." "Then we sew it," said Greta Wolfsbane. She was already there, the gray old wolf who ran the stand and had helped him build his act. She pulled a needle and thread from the pocket of her flowered dress. Her paws moved fast, but the tear was long. "Hold still. This won't be pretty." "Pretty won't save me," said a new voice. Frank turned. A strange creature stepped out of the crowd's edge. She was part wolf, part sheep, with broccoli sprouting from her head and a hot dog scarf at her throat. Frank had never seen anything like her. She looked at his split seam the way a builder looks at a cracked wall. "You're leaking stuffing," she said. "I'm Dara Tuck. I stitch costumes for the losers back here." She jerked her chin toward the shadowed performers. "Thread won't hold that. You need patches. Overlapping ones. They flex when you move." Greta looked up, needle raised. "And you'd help him? He's your competition." Dara shrugged. "I like a good act more than I like winning." She knelt and pulled strips of cloth from a bundle at her hip. "But you decide fast, hot dog. That beast won't wait." Frank looked at the tear, then at the two of them. Greta's thread would hold for one gentle bow, no more. Dara's patches might let him dance full out. He chose. "Patch it. All the way. I'm doing the whole routine." Dara grinned. She and Greta worked together, one stitching, one layering cloth. Patches went over the split, bright mismatched squares across the mustard stripe. It looked strange. It looked like nothing else in the hall. Frank stepped back into the light. He pressed his chest. The squeaker honked, clear and loud. He stomped. Honk. He spun, and the patches held tight against his body. No rip. The crowd leaned in. Then they saw the wild patchwork and laughed, and the laugh turned to cheering. He danced the full routine, harder than before, and finished on his melting bow. The hall roared. The crowned beast did not smile. Frank had won the round. But as the cheers faded, the beast stood again. "Costumes can be patched," he said. "Talent can't. Tomorrow you perform on my stage. My rules."

Frank Wiener climbed to the beast's stage at dusk. He carried his patched hot dog costume under his arm. A guard stopped him at the door. "New rules," the guard said. He pointed at a board nailed to the wall. "No patched costumes. No stitched seams. The crowned beast banned them. Yours breaks three rules." Frank's stomach dropped. The costume that won him the last round could not take the stage tonight. Frank slumped against the wall. His act was the squeaker. The squeaker lived in the costume. Without a costume, he had nothing. "Then I can't perform," he said. "You can perform." The voice was low and steady. Kira Thornpaw stepped from the crowd. She was his friend, the lynx who had cheered loudest at both his wins. She held a bundle of fabric against her chest. "You just need a different skin. I pulled this from a trader's cart." She unrolled it. It was a plump sausage body with a wolf's head, soft and round, a hot dog shaped like a wolf. "One piece. No patches. No seams to find." Frank touched it. His paw found no stitches. "The squeaker," he said. "I need the squeaker inside." "Then we move it." Kira worked the toy loose from his old costume. She tucked it into the chest of the new one. Frank pressed. It honked, clear and loud. He grinned. But a shadow fell over them both. It was a hulking figure, part wolf, part tiger, with a horse's build and curved horns. Frank had seen this one judge the floor before, never kind. Amarok Stridemane folded thick arms and stared down. "That's a new costume," Amarok said. "The rules say no repairs. They say nothing about a new one." A slow nod. "Clever cat. But the beast watches close. One wrong honk and he'll call it a trick." "It's not a trick," Frank said. "It's just me." Amarok studied him. "Prove it. Go up now, before they change the board again." Frank pulled the wolf-hot dog body over his shoulders. It fit snug, no tear, no bright squares. He walked onto the stage. The crowd murmured at the strange round shape. He pressed his chest. Honk. He stomped. Honk. He spun, and the one-piece body moved with him, tight and whole. The crowd leaned in, then roared. He finished on his melting bow. The crowned beast rose from his seat. He did not smile. "The costume is legal," he said. "I have no challenge to the cloth." The hall quieted. "So tomorrow the cloth stays home. You dance my stage in no costume at all. Only you. Then we see if the wolf has an act, or only a toy." Frank stood in his new skin. He had taken the stage tonight. But now the squeaker, the thing that made him, was banned too.