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

spirits.
     
    “Okay,” says Arthur.
     
    A butternut squash, a bushel of kale, a bag of
brussels sprouts, and five brightly colored bell peppers later,
Arthur is seeming more cheerful. Mostly because Howie promised to
eat a brussels sprout, which was a total shameless lie, but
still.
     
    You do what you gotta do in this ride or die haunted
house life.
     
     
    +
     
     
    If there’s one thing Cora is fucking sick of, it’s
watching Heather Grimsby be Frankenstein’s monster.
     
    Like, watching someone writhe in agony around a stage
dressed in nothing but bandages should not be sexy. Watching
someone teach herself to walk should not be sexy. Watching someone
shake her fists at heaven and curse the stars should not be sexy.
Watching someone murder innocent women and children? Again: no no
on the sexy.
     
    Why the fuck is Heather acting like she’s starring in
50 Shades of Frankenstein??
     
    Meanwhile, Cora just gets to stand up real straight
and monologue about science and despair a lot.
     
    It’s such a drag.
     
    She’s extra sick of the scenes that she and Heather
have together. For some reason, Tasha the director (who Cora has
loved for years, and who might now be dead to her) keeps making
them clasp each other’s faces with tender intensity and shit. She
says it is to convey “the fraught parent-child tension inherent
within the relationship.” Whatever. Cora has been plenty tense with
her own parents, and never once has that involved tender
face-clasping. If Cora bites off Heather’s annoyingly perfect nose
one of these days, it’s not going to be her fault.
     
    Cora doesn’t get what Heather is even doing here.
This isn’t high school drama club, where every once in awhile the
pretty popular girl from the dance team decides she wants even more
attention and hangs out with the nerds so she can show off what a
totally adorable Eliza Doolittle she is or whatever.
     
    In a post-high-school existence, people like Heather
Grimsby shouldn’t even exist. At least not in Cora’s orbit.
     
    And yet.
     
    “I heard you’re having some big freaky haunted house
at your store,” Heather says one evening. Rehearsal’s over and the
two of them are in front of the green room mirror. Heather’s
touching up her blush.
     
    Meanwhile, Cora is drawing a spider on her own cheek
with eyeliner, mostly just to hog mirror space. At this point,
Heather Grimsby needs some thwarting at every turn, god damn
it.
     
    “Yep,” Cora says flatly.
     
    “I could drop by after rehearsal. It’s the first time
we’re practicing with full makeup, so I’ll be hella scary. I’ll
totally be a part of your little thing. I bet it will be really
cute. Like, gross-cute. Whatever. The kids will love it.”
     
    “Yeah, uh, hella no thanks,” Cora deadpans.
     
    Heather starts brushing her hair in silence. Thank
God.
     
    “You know, I think you’re a pretty fierce Dr.
Frankenstein,” Heather says. God, what is up with her? “You do such
a good job with all those boring monologues and stuff.”
     
    “You know, I think you’re, like, really good at
writhing all over the floor like you’re trying to hump it,” Cora
says. Her Heather-mocking cadence is spot on, if she does say so
herself. “Like, who cares about an authentic portrayal of human
suffering when you can sexualize the shit out of it and show
everyone what a total hottie you are, right?”
     
    Cora glances at Heather’s face in the mirror. Heather
looks kind of stricken. Uh oh. Big bad bitchface is gonna throw a
tantrum.
     
    “That is so not what I’m doing,” Heather says
frostily.
     
    “Uh, okay then.”
     
    “I can’t help it if I have a good body or whatever. I
am seriously committed to my yogalates. And I’m sorry that the
script calls for me to be mostly naked at first, but that wasn’t my
decision—”
     
    “Please! It’s not that, and your body isn’t that
great, Miss Humble.” (Kind of a lie, but an extremely necessary lie
considering