Free Good Girls Do by Cathie Linz Page A

day at the library only to be almost mowed down by a mini-Cinderella tearing down the front sidewalk as if the hounds of hell were after her. She appeared more aggravated than frightened, however.
    “What are you doing?” Julia asked Angel the minute she reached the front door.
    “Greeting the trick-or-treaters.”
    “Where’s the candy I asked you to hand out?”
    Angel shuddered. “I threw it away, of course.”
    “Then what are you giving the kids when they come to the door?”
    “Knowledge and organic apples.” She held out the bowl so Julia could check it out.
    But Julia wasn’t that interested in the fruit at the moment. “What kind of knowledge?”
    “That witches aren’t bad. And you’d be amazed how many children don’t know the real story about Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.”
    Julia sighed as she removed her coat and put it on one of the wooden pegs on the wall. “None of them know it, because you made it up.”
    “So did the male chauvanists who wrote the fairy tales in the first place.” Angel planted her hands on her hips, which were covered by one of the filmy skirts she favored in colorful Indian cotton. “They made it up, so why can’t I? Especially since I’m improving on the original story, which only perpetuates the myth of a woman’s dependency on a man for happiness.”
    “The trick-or-treaters didn’t come here for a lecture.”
    “I know.” Angel beamed. “So it’s a special treat for them to get one.”
    “Not really.” Julia rubbed her forehead. She had a major headache drumming in her head. Halloween was always a wild day at the library, and today was no exception.
    A glance in the mirror provided her with a revealing mental snapshot of herself standing there wearing a white blouse and brown pants and her mother who was wearing a colorful array of scarves wrapped around her upper body and a fluid skirt.
    You couldn’t find two more opposite females. Angel represented everything loose and flowing in the universe and Julia . . . well, she represented control and order.
    Yet her mother looked happier than Julia did. What was with that?
    Sure, Angel looked happier. She never worried about anything.
    Wearing different clothing wouldn’t change the way Julia felt inside. Would it?
    Julia looked away, wondering if this newfound sense of dissatisfaction was a result of her mother’s stay in her house.
    The reality was that fashion choices were the least of her worries at the moment. “Why is there a spinning wheel in the front yard?”
    “Because your sister is demonstrating how it’s used.”
    “And the fire pit next to her would be . . . ?”
    “For light. It gets dark so early here. But getting back to the spinning wheel, it ties into the Sleeping Beauty story. You remember how she started weaving and developed SB Designs, right?”
    “How could I forget?” Her mother had rewritten all the classics and made up a few of her own.
    “What’s Toni supposed to be?” Julia asked as her niece waddled by.
    “An organic vegetable.”
    That explained the strange, bulbous look. “What is she, a rutabaga or something?”
    “No, a yam. But the design didn’t come out quite right. I was sewing it in a hurry because I couldn’t decide whether to have her dress as a druid the way I am, or as a protestor from the sixties, or maybe as a tarot card. I was just bombarded with so many creative ideas that it was difficult deciding which one to choose.”
    Julia belatedly registered something she should have noticed first thing. “Why was there a sign on the front door about llamas spitting?”
    “Well, I thought it might be nice for some of the older kids to see the llamas. After all, they probably haven’t had the opportunity to see llamas close up before. But I didn’t want you to get upset in case Ricky and Lucy spat at someone, so just as a precaution I put up that sign. Totally for your benefit.”
    “I’d have preferred that you leave the llamas out of the Halloween