Trick or Treat Read Online Free PDF

supplied, sir!’ He saluted, looking unbearably cute in white overalls and cap and shining morning face.
    We were being naval this morning, it appeared. ‘Carry on, Midshipman,’ I said wearily, flipping open the order book. Jason took the Evil scissors and went to attack the flour sack.
    It’s just a whimsy. Everyone has heard the cry ‘Where are the good scissors?’ echoing through the house or school or workplace. Daniel, in a theological discussion we had drifted into one night, opined that if there were Good scissors there must be Evil scissors, this being a Manichean universe, and I had to agree. The Good scissors were used for cutting cloth and nothing else. The Evil scissors were used for opening sacks and snipping bacon rind and cutting out recipes from Good Weekend .
    Orders were bearing up. I sell most of my bread to cafes and restaurants. I don’t really need a shop. But I liked having one and I resented being outbid by a hot bread shop. Some of them are doubtless excellent, but my reports of Best Fresh had not been encouraging.
    Machines on, rye bread on, I heard Jason ripping away at the top of the rye flour sack for the big order. I was just wondering how I could have used so much cream when he said, ‘Captain?’
    ‘Yes, Midshipman?’
    ‘There’s something crappy about this flour.’
    I really must teach Jason some more descriptive words when we have a spare moment, I thought. I rose with a groan to inspect it. He was right. I buy rye flour in smallish paper sacks, as even in the heaviest bread it is an addition, not the main ingredient. Jason was right. The opened sack smelt mouldy and slightly acid, not the right scent at all. Rye ought to smell sour. I damped a small amount of it and the smell was marked, enough to make the Mouse Police sneeze, and the flour was greyish and slightly greasy, not the fine dry meal it should have been.
    ‘Quite right, well spotted, that man. Damn. Where are we going to get another sack of rye flour at this hour of the morning?’
    ‘We could go and ask Best Fresh,’ he suggested, ducking out of cuffing range.
    ‘Over my dead body.’
    ‘Well, we can’t use this stuff, Cap,’ he told me. He was right. ‘And we’ve only got enough rye to cover the standing orders,’ he said, ‘not the new one.’ Right again. And I would hate to disappoint a new big order, which might then go over to a lesser baker. As it might be, just down the lane.
    ‘Where did that sack come from, sailor?’ I asked. Now that I looked at it, it wasn’t the usual supplier. Their lettering was red, this was black.
    ‘Just says “rye mixture”,’ read Jason.
    I am going to need glasses soon and I am resisting firmly. It’s not that I am getting short sighted, it’s just that the rest of the world wants its print too small. ‘Wait a tick. Aha,’ said Jason triumphantly.
    ‘Do you know what the penalties are for saying “aha!” to a superior officer?’ I demanded.
    ‘No shit, Corinna, look,’ he urged, dropping the naval affectations. He hoisted the sack onto the bench. ‘It’s not for us, anyway. It’s for Best Fresh. The van must have mixed them up.’
    ‘So they’ve got my sack of unrefined special organic rye flour,’ I said. ‘Expensive unrefined organic rye flour. And we’ve got...’
    ‘Their crap,’ said Jason with admirable nicety. ‘I’ll just seal it up again and go over and get our flour.’
    ‘Tell them there’s something not right with it,’ I said.
    ‘After I get our rye flour back,’ he replied. So young and so cynical.
    He sticky-taped the sack, lifted it into his arms, and I opened the alley door. The Mouse Police rushed out and Jason followed, walking easily away in the darkness with his load. I went back into the bakery and put the coffee machine on. Today was not going to be a good day, I could tell.
    But it improved when Jason came back with our flour, which had not even been opened.
    ‘They were going to send it back,’ he told me,