Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure (11 page)

The post-dance silence drags on.

And on.

And on.

Once upon a time, Howie thought he would never
experience a tenser silence than the one that happened after Arthur
kissed him out of freaking nowhere in the fake flower aisle those
many, many moons ago.

Turns out, nope.

This is so much worse.

Then Cora erupts into a round of severe, Citizen
Kane-style applause.

Shockingly, it does not lessen the weirdness of the
situation one iota.

No one joins her in the clapping.

“Thank you, thank you!” Howie says, grabbing Amber’s
hand and dipping into a seriously awkward bow. Then, because he
figures it might be fitting, or something, he throws in a hearty,
“Aroooooooooo!”

“Why are you a werewolf?” Amber hisses.

“Because the werewolf is the only one who likes our
dance moves, and I’m showing solidarity!” Howie snaps.

Amber opens her mouth to snarl something back, but
she’s interrupted by a new sound.

The sound of a poignant and delicately soulful piano
intro.

Everyone in the room seems to gasp in unison.

“Is that ...” Howie whispers, almost not daring to
dream it.

“The soundtrack,” Amber breathes.

“She’s saved us,” Howie says faintly. “She’s saved us
all.”

Kristy steps into the room, dressed in sparkly blue
and rocking the most heroic side-braid Howie has ever seen. And
he’s watched
all
the Hunger Games movies, so that’s saying
something.

That little miscreant Tyler is next to her,
beaming.

All of the kids start cheering rhapsodically. Howie
wasn’t aware it was even possible for kids to feel this much
happiness about something besides candy.

And just like that, it’s like the dance never
happened. Everything is suddenly, surreally okay as Kristy and her
tiny admirers all start to sing.

Mitch comes over, jolly as ever. “Hey, super
dancers.”

Amber groans. “Please forget you just saw that.
Mitchell, please.”

“No way,” Mitch says cheerfully. “It was the best.”
He grandly offers his hand. “May I have this dance?”

Amber stares at him, wary. “No monster moves?”

“No monster moves,” he promises, crossing his
heart.

“Then you may, good sir.” Amber curtseys and takes
his hand. He twirls her around. Amber looks so happy that even her
horrendous Jane Eyre (Austen? No, Eyre) ensemble isn’t quite so
freaky anymore.

What a pair of adorable in-denial goofs.

This time, Amber isn’t judged for her dancing queen
ways. A bunch of the kids start swaying back and forth as they sing
along.

Happiness, happiness everywhere.

Arthur shuffles over to Howie.

“I am an ass of the higher caliber.” Arthur leans
down slightly to rest his head against Howie’s.

“True story,” Howie says sagely.

Arthur sighs.

“You also
have
an ass of the highest caliber,
if that makes you feel any better.”

Arthur considers it. “It does, a little.”

“Good man,” Howie says, and kisses his cheek.

Meanwhile, the kids lift up their voices in rapturous
song. They’re all looking at Kristy like she’s the bitchinest fairy
godmother of all time. Which, actually, is supremely accurate.

“Nice save,” Annie Fabray says dryly, breezing past
them.

“I assure you, this was the plan all along,” Arthur
replies.

Annie Fabray scoffs. “Right.”

“Oh my
God
, she’s scary,” Howie whispers as
soon as she’s out of earshot.

“Right??” Arthur says, his eyes widening with
adorable distress.

“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you from her.”

“You say that now that she’s across the room.”

“Well, yeah. You think I’m actually gonna start
something with
that
? I love you, but not that much.
Jeez.”

Arthur laughs, warm and relaxed—Howie’s favorite
sound in the world, no question. Finally, at long last, the
Halloween season is looking to be really and truly awesome.

+

Arthur doesn’t know quite how to apologize to
Kristy.

He decides to err on the side of delicious baked
goods. Howie seems to think that’s the way to go. (Although Howie
also eats three cupcakes fresh out of the oven and licks all the
frosting off the mixing beaters, so Arthur isn’t sure if his
boyfriend counts as an entirely disinterested third party.)

He shows up on Kristy’s doorstep the afternoon after
the haunted house debacle, box of repentance cupcakes in hand.

“I made you cupcakes,” he says when she opens the
door. “I think it might have been partially post-traumatic stress,
on account of the fact that a little girl dressed like a cupcake
kicked me and now I have a giant bruise on my leg, but mostly, I
just thought—hoped—you would like them.”

“They’re so pink!” Kristy says admiringly.

“I’m so sorry. I’m as sorry as they are pink. Which
is—a lot, I think.”

Kristy leans against the doorframe. “I know you
are.”

“I should have listened to you. I know that sometimes
I can be too set in my ways. I just—I get an idea in my head of the
way things are supposed to be, and it’s hard for me to let go of
that. But that was no excuse. You’re the one who has actual
experience working with children.”

“Yes,” Kristy says, not unkindly. “I am.”

“It just sounded ... too easy, and too good to be
true. And I suppose I have a habit of making things more joyless
than they need to be.”

Kristy laughs a little.

“And have I mentioned,” Arthur finishes, “that I’m
sorry?”

Kristy looks down at the cupcakes, smiling at the
tiny ghost-shaped sprinkles. Secretly, Arthur does think those were
a nice touch.

“I’ll forgive you,” she says then, “if you stay and
eat cupcakes with me.”

“Gladly.”

“While we watch a movie.”

“Certainly. What m—”

Kristy stares at him pointedly, her blue eyes all
sparkly with triumph.

Ah.

“Oh, all right.” Arthur concedes after a moment,
smiling. “I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

“Exactly,” Kristy says, pleased. “You have to trust
me on this stuff.”

Arthur knows better than to argue with that.

+

They gather around the computer in Arthur’s office
the next Wednesday morning. The Yarn Yarn always puts up new posts
on Wednesday mornings.

And sure enough:

“It’s up! It’s up, it’s up, it’s up!” Kristy
exclaims.

“I hate that I’m actually really fucking nervous
right now,” Cora says.

“You know what,” Arthur says with great poise, “I
don’t think I want to know what it says.”

“Yes you do,” Howie says.

“Yes I do,” Arthur admits glumly.

Kristy clears her throat, then starts to read.
“‘Where to begin with locally owned business Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N
Crafts? Sometimes its employees don reindeer antler headbands for
no discernible reason ...’”

“What what!” Howie says, deciding to embrace his five
minutes of fame.

“‘—but that doesn’t change the fact that the store is
perfectly capable of selling quality crafting supplies, and does so
without coddling cheapskates with overly generous discount
sales.’”

“Did someone just
compliment
us for being too
expensive?” Arthur says dazedly.

“Ooh, now she’s talking about the haunted house
event!” Kristy says.

The room goes quiet. A very antsy kind of quiet.

“... and?” Arthur bravely says.

“And I’m not going to read all of it,” Kristy
replies, “because it gets kind of mean.”

“Mean?”

“She did not like the Monster Mash dance very much,”
Kristy says delicately.

“Didn’t like it,” Howie says, “or didn’t
understand
it?”

“The latter for sure,” Cora says. “That shit was
transcendent.”

“Thank you, milady,” Howie says.

“I’m so jealous!” Kristy exclaims. “I wish I could
have seen it!”

“There’s always the hope of a repeat performance,”
Cora says devilishly.

“There really is not, actually,” Howie replies.

“Also, Heather totally filmed it on her phone.”

Kristy squeals.

Howie yet again inwardly curses the name of Heather
Grimsby.

“I’m just gonna skip to the end,” Kristy says, after
the squealing ceremony has passed. “Because it’s actually kind of
nice. I think.”

“Let’s hear it, then,” Arthur says.

“‘Artie Kraft’s Arts ‘N Crafts is an establishment
full of strange behavior. But the staff is clearly well-meaning in
their desire to help customers, and they haven’t broken a child’s
arm yet. Recommended as a preferable alternative to Holly’s until
an arts ‘n crafts store of true quality comes to town. Three and a
half out of five pincushions.’”

Everyone takes a minute to think about that.

“Well, okay!” Arthur says jauntily then. “I’ll take
it.”

“Aw yeah!” says Howie.

There’s an enthusiastic round of high fiving. A few
victory dance moves—none of which are inspired by Halloween
monsters, thank God.

“You guys know what this means, right?” Cora says in
the height of the merriment. “We used magic for evil and we totally
got away with it.”

“This is our supervillain origin story,” Howie says,
awed.

“Can we not?” Arthur implores.

“Oh, come on, Arthur!” Kristy teases. “Life is all
about accepting the magic inside you.”

“Yeah, Artie!” says Howie. “Have you learned nothing
from this glorious misadventure?”

Arthur sighs at their antics, not unfondly.

The End