Free Toil & Trouble: A Know Not Why Halloween (Mis)adventure by Hannah Johnson Page A

surrounding friends all let out frenzied, Lord
of The Flies -esque war cries.
     
    “No one has been castrated!” Arthur cries.
     
    “How did you not see that one coming, honestly?” Cora
says to Arthur.
     
    Arthur considers quitting life, here and now.
     
    “They’re breakfast sausages,” Kristy says from where
she stands behind the cash register, her voice ringing clearly
through the room. “Be careful. The monsters that lurk within the
maze love to eat breakfast ... almost as much as they love to eat
children! And they don’t clean up after they eat.”
     
    Kind of odd, but she makes it work. Arthur feels
desperately grateful.
     
    “Sweet!” one of the boys shouts. “Sexy mummy!”
     
    “Told you!” says Tyler.
     
    Kristy’s smile becomes very fixed.
     
    “Now—go forth into the maze!” she says.
     
    The kids consider it.
     
    “Is that blood?” Tyler asks, touching the gauze.
     
    “You scared?” one of his friends asks.
     
    “No!” Tyler exclaims indignantly.
     
    And with that very promising proclamation, they
venture forth through the ketchupy gauze of doom.
     
    “Not off to a very good start, are we?” Annie Fabray
mutters as she breezes by.
     
    Arthur gulps and goes to fetch his guitar.
     
     
    +
     
     
    This, Howie decides, is the worst.
     
    Everything is foggy, loud, and pulsating with hideous
flashing light. Howie can hear Arthur’s mournful singing, but he
can’t see him, which makes the whole “ghostly troubadour” thing
more effective than Howie had anticipated.
     
    He lurks in the scrapbooking aisle, trying to decide
the most intimidating way to wield a chainsaw ... while
simultaneously making it clear that you don’t want to chainsaw
anybody’s junk off.
     
    Honestly, with the lights flashing all crazy, it
doesn’t take much to be creepy. He swooshes it experimentally
through the air, pressing the little button that makes it go Rrrrrrrr! , and jumps. It’s fuckin’ creepy.
     
    At that moment, a hand clamps down on his
shoulder.
     
    “SHIT!” Howie cries.
     
    “Where is he?” snarls—Amber??
     
    Amber as he’s never seen her before.
     
    “Uh,” Howie says, “what?”
     
    “That little misogynist in training. Where is
he??”
     
    “What are you??” Howie asks, taking in the
horrendous sight of her.
     
    Her dark hair is frizzed out and flying everywhere,
like she stuck her finger into an electric socket on the way here.
She’s wearing a white nightgown artfully splattered in what Howie
hopes to God is more ketchup. That, coupled with the zombie makeup,
makes for one freaky Amber.
     
    “Bertha Mason,” Amber proclaims. “Avenging angel of
feminists everywhere. Straight out of the attic, and ready to
school some little boys on objectification.”
     
    Mitch, also all zombied-of-face, grins. He is wearing
a t-shirt that proudly proclaims in swirly puff-painted
letters:
     
    DON’T BE A ROCHESTER.
     
    “Check it out.” Mitch jumps around, showing the back
of the shirt.
     
    It says, FEMINISM! BOO YAH.
     
    “What does any of this even mean??” Howie is pretty
sure his brain is going to start melting any second.
     
    “I thought it was pretty self-explanatory,” Mitch
says. “The ‘boo’ is underlined ‘cause, ya know, Halloween.”
     
    “Nice touch,” Howie says to Mitch, “but you’re
supposed to have brains all over your shirt, not ... feminism!”
     
    Mitch shrugs, all, What can ya do?
     
    Howie returns his attention to Amber. “I repeat: WHAT
ARE YOU?”
     
    “Oh my God, Howie, when are you just going to read
Jane Eyre already??” Amber cries. “I’ve been asking you to for the
past ten years!!!!”
     
    “It’s on my to-do list!” Howie howls. (Like, it’s on
his to-do list after ‘Write a rap about Henry David Thoreau’s
glorious neckbeard,’ which comes in at about number 127, so it’s
not a priority , but.)
     
    “I can’t believe you complied to this little jerk’s
stupid demands about sexy