Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure Read Online Free PDF

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