Read Online Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure by Hannah Johnson - Free Book Online

says. “I don’t want to be
the person who leads those poor little triplets into the chainsaw
murder biz because they find me so dazzling that they can never
come up with a superior role model.”
     
    “Well, I think we all know that’s not going to
happen,” Arthur says.
     
    “Uh, first: It could happen; I’m very charismatic
with a chainsaw, probably,” Howie replies defensively. “Second: I
have an idea.”
     
     
    +
     
     
    And thus, the divide between upstairs and downstairs
is born. Like on that one show that Mom and Amber—and only Mom and Amber—like to watch.
     
    Upstairs, they transform Arthur’s office into an
adorable orange-toned haven for gentle Halloween revelries. There
are coloring books! Three Halloween themed gingerbread house-making
kits! Enough chairs for one rousing game of musical chairs! A
costume contest with enough categories for everyone to win a
makeshift construction paper medal! (Kristy is, it comes as no
surprise, really good at coming up with myriad ways to praise
people.) Bobbing for apples! If they actually get around to buying
apples, that is. And candy—a magnificent bounty of candy.
     
    Downstairs, who even knows.
     
    Since Tyler Fabray didn’t actually provide any ideas
for activities, they finally come to the conclusion that they
should make the kids weave through the aisles like a maze. If they
make it out the other end, they get a bag full of candy and a
twenty-percent-off coupon for any store purchase. (Not much of a
thrill for the kids, maybe, but Arthur figures it might appeal to
the parental demographic.)
     
    The lights will be off, the fog machine will be
fogging, and there will be monsters lurking at every turn, just
waiting to freak peeps out.
     
    “Ideally,” Arthur says, “to the extent where someone
pees their pants. Tyler’s suggestion,” he adds, off everybody’s
less-than-enchanted looks. “Not mine.”
     
    He consults the clipboard holding the list of Tyler’s
demands.
     
    “We still need blood, guts, and vomit,” he
reports.
     
    “ Do we, though?” says Howie.
     
    “We could cut you open and use yours,” Cora says
sweetly. “You’d probably vomit from shock.”
     
    “It might be less painful than this evening,” Arthur
says.
     
     
    +
     
     
    By five o’clock, all of the aisles have strips of
gauze hanging at both ends, from ceiling to floor. In order to
actually walk through the aisles, you have to push your way through
the gauzey bits first.
     
    Howie can’t help thinking that it just looks like the
real poor man’s alternative to a bead curtain.
     
    “In the dark, it’ll be creepy,” Cora swears, lovingly
sticking little plastic spiders into the gauze.
     
    Arthur comes in, back from his panic run to the
grocery store. Out of his canvas bag, he pulls ... a bag of apples,
a bottle of ketchup, and a line of link sausages.
     
    “Bobbing for apples, for upstairs,” he says, of the
apples. Then he points to the ketchup and sausages. “Blood and
guts, for downstairs.”
     
    Kristy wrinkles her nose. “What are we supposed to do
with the sausages?”
     
    “I don’t know. Just scatter them around? No ketchup
on the carpet, please.”
     
    “I think wasting sausages is against my religion,”
Howie says.
     
    “Arthur,” Cora says coyly, “would you say Howie knows
how to worship a sausage?”
     
    “Don’t be crass,” Arthur replies, “and yes.”
     
    Howie punches the air victoriously.
     
    “Did he mean that in the naughty fun way or the
breakfast way?” Cora muses.
     
    “Either way,” Howie says, “this is a proud moment for
me.”
     
    Cora laughs, then turns to Kristy to make sure she’s
in on the fun. For once, she isn’t.
     
    “You okay, KQ?” Howie says.
     
    “Just tired,” Kristy replies wistfully.
     
    “When all this is over,” Howie says, slinging an arm
around her shoulders, “we’re gonna watch all the Channing Tatum
movies your heart could desire.”
     
    “Even Dear