Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure (4 page)

After a moment, Arthur pushes a bowl of candy across
the desk. He put it there this morning. Halloween candy has always
struck Arthur as sort of exotic. His parents used to give out
little boxes of raisins to trick-or-treaters.

“Help yourself. It’s nice to meet you, Tyler. I’m
Arthur.”

“Blood,” Tyler replies, after helping himself to a
giant fistful of candy.

“Pardon?” says Arthur.

“There should be blood. And guts. And monsters. And a
chainsaw. Do you even
have
a chainsaw?”

“Do you?” Arthur asks, flummoxed.

“I’m ten,” Tyler says, rolling his eyes. “How old are
you?”

“Twenty-seven,” Arthur says.

“When I’m twenty-seven,” Tyler says, “I’m gonna have
a chainsaw.” He gives Arthur a look that plainly states that
somewhere along the line, Arthur’s life went very wrong.

Clearly his mother’s child, then.

“You should also have some Taylor Swift music,” Tyler
adds generously. “For the girls.”

“All right,” Arthur says. That, at least, seems
doable. “We have a staff member who’s quite the Taylor Swift
expert, in fact.”

He doesn’t know why he expected Tyler to be impressed
by that.

Tyler is not. “I don’t care. It’s not for me. It’s
just for the girls.”

“Of course,” Arthur says.

“But it can’t be happy music though, that’s stupid.
It has to be
creepy
.”

“So only the creepiest Taylor Swift music,” Arthur
says slowly.

“And DJ Snake and Lil Jon!” Tyler says.

“Who ... are those people?”

“You haven’t heard ‘Turn Down For What’?”

“That’s a song?” Arthur says faintly.

“Yeah! It’s awesome! It’s all like,
BEEP BA DEEP
BA BEEP BOOP – BA BEEP BA BEEP BA BEEP
!!!!” Tyler thrashes his
head enthusiastically in time to ... whatever music he is poorly
trying to replicate.

(Or maybe it’s spot on. With pop music, who
knows?)

Arthur has no idea what to do with that information.
“Is that really what kids listen to these days? Have you ever heard
of Raffi?”

“What?” says Tyler.

“Never mind,” Arthur says sadly.

“So you should have a guy who’s a chainsaw murderer,
and he can run around the party and chainsaw people, and then you
should also have a werewolf who bites everybody.”

“Chainsaw murderer,” Arthur says. “Check. Werewolf.
Check.”

On his notepad, he writes down,
Possibly a
psychopath.

“And zombies who just ate somebody’s brains and have
brains all over their shirts!”

“Great,” Arthur mutters.

“And a sexy mummy!”

Oh dear.

“What’s a ... sexy mummy?” Arthur asks weakly.

“What it sounds like. Not a real mummy, though. Just
a girl dressed like a mummy. But, like, her bandages should just be
like a swimsuit, instead of all over. You
do
have hot girls
who work here, right?”

“You’re awfully young to be objectifying women,”
Arthur says.

“What’s that?” Tyler frowns curiously.

Well. Arthur hadn’t anticipated teaching this lesson
today. “It’s treating women like they’re things for you to look at,
instead of treating them like people just like you. Which they
are.”

“But they have vaginas,” Tyler protests, wrinkling
his nose.

“Not all of them,” Arthur says.

“Huh?”

“Well, the idea that there’s a strict gender binary
is really a harmful fallacy more than—”

Tyler looks totally lost. “What’s a phallus?”

“Falla
cy
,” Arthur says, enunciating the last
syllable with more fervor than enunciation has ever known before in
history. “Fallacy. An untrue thing. And, um, never mind. Never
mind. You should probably ask your parents about this later. The
point is, this store is not in the habit of doing ‘sexy’ Halloween
anything. If you’d like a regular mummy, we can do that.”

Tyler stares at him for a long time.

“I’ll tell my mom a shelf fell on me here,” he says
then.

“What?”

“If you don’t get me the sexy mummy. I’ll tell her
one of your shelves fell right on me. Like at the other store.
She’ll sue you for sure. She’s sued before. Lots of times.”

Arthur stares into Tyler’s eyes. Tyler stares gamely
back.

Arthur takes a deep breath. “So you’d like ... a
mummy entitled to her own autonomy and dressed for summer
weather—”

“No, a
sexy
mummy.”

“—a werewolf, and a chainsaw murderer. Lots of
blood.”

“And guts!”

“And guts.”

“And barf!”

“Why barf?”

“Because it’s cool,” Tyler says. “Can it be bloody
barf?”

Arthur cannot, cannot do this. His Macbethian
instincts have died in the face of sheer horror. Desperately, he
asks, “Tyler, what do you think of ... of singing snow queens and
friendly snowmen? And—oh, I don’t know—an opulent ice palace?”

Tyler’s face hardens. “No way. That’s for
babies.”

“All right, then,” Arthur says regretfully. “Blood
barf it is.”

“The party has to be scary enough that somebody pees
their pants,” the little zealot continues. “Like, at least one
person. But it would be better if it was five. And they’re not
allowed to change their pants, either.” He starts giggling
diabolically.

“You aren’t afraid to dream big, are you?” Arthur
observes.

Tyler shakes his head, grinning. “I bet
you’ll
pee
your
pants.”

“I may very well,” Arthur agrees bleakly.

+

“Has an agreement been reached?” Annie Fabray asks
when she comes back for her son.

“Yep,” Tyler says. He tries to grab all the remaining
candy in his hands, fails, and then decides to just take the bowl
instead.

Arthur likes that bowl.

It’s such a calming shade of sage green.

“That’s ... my bowl,” Arthur whispers as Tyler
wanders out of the office.

“Did you say something?” Annie Fabray asks
sharply.

“Um. No.” Arthur clears his throat. “So, er, Tyler
explained to me what he’d like at the party. Would you like me to
run it by you as well, or—”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Are you sure?” Arthur says meekly.

“Mr. Kraft.” Annie Fabray gives him a look that can
best be translated into,
You simple, pitiful idiot.
“Who
knows what ten year old children would like more than a ten year
old child?”

It is time, he decides, to reveal to her the full
gravity of the situation.

“Chainsaws were mentioned,” Arthur says.

It doesn’t have the effect that he had hoped for.

“It’s Halloween,” she says mercilessly. “Are you some
kind of All Hallow’s Puritan?”

“Okay then,” Arthur says, bested. “The point is, I’m
not sure if Tyler’s ... vision will necessarily appeal to all of
the local children, and it is open to everyone.”

“I’m sure you’ll find some way to satisfy everyone,”
Annie Fabray answers. After a moment’s ominous pause, she adds, “If
that’s really your priority.”

You simple, pitiful idiot,
says the lingering
silence.

“It is,” Arthur says after a moment, a little
squeakily. He clears his throat. “Tyler didn’t offer any specific
ideas in terms of activities, and I know that these kinds of events
usually go smoothest with an agenda, so do you think—”

“For God’s sake, Mr. Kraft. Do you really expect a
ten year old to do everything for you?”

Fine then.

This is clearly a fight that can’t be won.

“Of course not,” Arthur says diplomatically, hoping
his tone conveys the proper amount of polite but insistent
please go away now
vibes. “I’ll take Tyler’s suggestions
into account and begin planning.”

Annie Fabray raises a terrifying eyebrow.
“Suggestions?”

“Specifications,” Arthur corrects. “You have a nice
day.”

“Thank you,” Annie Fabray says.

Well,
Arthur thinks wearily as he watches her
go,
at least we have a plan.

+

“Nope,” Kristy says. “None of that is gonna work. We
definitely have to stick with happy haunted ice palace.”

“I can swear to you,” Arthur says, “that it’s the
last thing this boy is interested in.”

Poor Arthur. This is one of those times, Kristy can
tell, where he’s dangerously close to losing all perspective.

It’s a good thing she’s here to help.

“But it’s not just
for
this boy, Arthur,” she
reminds him. “This is open to all the local kids, right?”

Arthur looks torn. “Of course. It’s just—his opinion
might matter slightly more than everyone else’s.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Do you want another negative review from Annie
Fabray? Because I promise you, that’s what we’ll get if we don’t
comply to that child’s every demand.”

“Well, I promise you.” Kristy crosses her arms
stubbornly. “Tyler Fabray loves that movie.”

“There’s no way,” Arthur says.

“He loves it,” Kristy says firmly.

“Did you not hear any of the horrific things I just
described to you?”

“I heard, and they sound
horrible
.”

“I think that might be the point.”

“And shouldn’t the point be to make everybody happy?
Because there’s only one thing that every single kid in my
classroom loves, and it’s—”

“Kristy,” Arthur says gently. “Please, please drop it
for now. It’s a lovely idea, but it’s just not realistic. I have to
figure out how to fill all of these preposterous demands. Starting
with ... a sexy mummy.”

“A what?” Kristy says with a shocked laugh.

“Oh, Tyler made it very clear that he’ll find some
way to claim he suffered grievous bodily harm here if there’s no
sexy mummy. He insists that his mom will be all too happy to sue.
Funnily enough, I don’t have a hard time believing that.”

Okay, that is pretty bad. “Yikes.”

“I suppose Cora might go for it. It seems like her
brand of strange, right?”

But Kristy knows for a fact that Cora has been
planning to dress up as a werewolf since like August. (“Not a sexy
werewolf. A scare-your-balls-off werewolf.”) There’s an elaborate
mask with a snout and bloody fangs and everything. Kristy can’t
bear to take that away from her.

“I’ll do it,” she says abruptly.

“What?”

“She really has her heart set on being a werewolf.
That’s fine! I don’t mind. I’ll totally be a sexy mummy.”

Arthur seems tempted to collapse from relief.

“Bless you, Kristy,” he says, wrapping his arms
around her. It’s sweet. He’s not usually a big hugger. “You are the
world’s kindest person.”

“No problem! Some of the costumes must be kind of
cute, right?” Kristy lies, and pats his shoulder.

+

Kristy doesn’t mean to be upset about this.

Really she doesn’t.

She’s the one that said she would dress like a sexy
mummy. She didn’t have to. Arthur wouldn’t have forced her. It’s
just that keeping people happy feels like an instinct sometimes,
and she’s really bad at fighting it.

So it’s probably a good thing that she agreed to do
this.

But there’s something really depressing, she quickly
discovers, about online shopping for a sexy mummy costume.

She had kind of hoped they wouldn’t exist.

They exist.

A lot.

Kristy sighs and decides to give it a rest.

She gets that when you act perky and earnest all the
time, people are going to start thinking that you’re kind of a
fluffbrain, and sometimes that means that they’re not going to
listen to you.

But it’s one thing when it’s just people, and it’s
another when it’s your best friends.

She must be doing a lot of melancholy sighing by
accident, because Cliff stops flipping through channels and comes
over to where she’s sitting at the kitchen table. “What’s up,
Kristybee?”

“Nothing,” Kristy says. Then she realizes she’s
totally not telling the truth. “Just—that haunted house thing at
the store is getting a little out of hand. Annie Fabray’s little
boy wants it to be all gory and disgusting and horrible, and I
know
it’s too far for a public family event, but nobody
seems to be listening to me. And I know they’re just going to dig
themselves into this terrible hole, and it’s really super important
that we get this right.”