Springfield Halloween- When You Give a Dinosaur Sugar

In retrospect, the sundae had been a bad idea.
A very bad idea.
Timothy was normally a ball of energy, and on a good day, Seth could keep up with him without much trouble. But with sugar thrown into the mix, along with the natural high of a celebration, the second grader was practically bursting at the seams with hyper, hey look a shiny thing can we go over there please please please oh wait another one that way let's go that way come on Seth energy. The teen found himself practically running from one booth to the other, holding onto Timothy's candy with the hand that wasn't being dragged across the square. Luckily, the boy hadn't had any of that yet; that had been the deal for the sundae. He could only have the dessert if he promised not to eat any candy, at all, until tomorrow, when with any luck he'd be too tired to care.
Seth knew that was a little much to hope for. But in any case, the deal had been struck, and now Timothy was an inch away from literally bouncing off walls. He wondered, not for the first time, how the second grader seemed to have a sense for picking the food item off of any menu with the highest sugar content. It was like a superpower or something, and considering Timothy was the town's youngest superhero, it very well might have been.
“Hey Seth, facepainting! Come on come on come on!” Seth almost lost his purple wizards hat as Timothy switched directions, this time headed for the pet shop.
“Slow down!” Seth tried to reign in his charge, with little luck. “It's not going anywhere.”
“Come on!” It was like trying to stop a freight train one handed. Timothy dragged his babysitter across the street to the pet shop's multicolored windows, which this month featured a family of black cats on a series of successively smaller pumpkins, with the message “Happy Halloween” scrawled across the scene in big, jagged letters. A scarecrow with a crooked hat sat outside the door in a folding chair, holding a sign labeled “Free Face Painting” in a similar font. Timothy pulled to a stop in front of him, and glanced around. “Where's Mr. Chase?”
The scarecrow shook with silent laughter, and Seth smiled. “I see him.”
“Where?” Timothy looked around again, dragging his supervisor around in a circle as he inspected the scene. “I don't see him.”
“Miles, stop that.” Allie Chase, the town's veterinarian and co-owner of the pet shop, stood in the doorway, trying not to smile as she looked down on her husband. She was dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, with her hair pulled back in two brown pigtails on either side of her head and a blue dress that came down to just below her knees.
The scarecrow turned his head upwards to face his wife with a grin. “He would've figured it out!”
“Oh!” Timothy looked startled. “Hi, Mr Chase!”
“Hey!” Miles looked back down at Timothy, dropping the pretense of lifelessness with a smile. “Want some facepainting?”
“Yeah!” Timothy jumped up and down at the offer. “I want a dinosaur!”
“Aren't you already a dinosaur?” asked Allie, leaving a trail of red glitter from her shoes as she stepped down onto the sidewalk.
“Yeah, but dinosaurs are cool!”
Miles picked up a three ring binder full of pictures and flipped to a few. “How about that one?” he said, pointing to a yellow Stegosaurus.
“That one's better!” insisted Timothy, pointing to the T-Rex next to it. “Cause it's a T-Rex, and they were meat eaters, and the king of the dinosaurs, and they had all sorts of teeth and walked around like this!” Timothy proceeded to do his best T-Rex imitation, high stepping in a circle around Seth with his arms pulled in tight to his chest, roaring as the tail of his dinosaur suit dragged along behind him. “I'm a T-Rex!” he roared. “I'll eat you, Rar!”
“I see that!” Miles laughed. “Alright then, T-Rex it is.” He motioned to the folding chair that sat opposite him. “Have a seat!”
Timothy did as he was told, bouncing up and down until Seth put a hand on his head. “You've gotta hold still, or it'll be a zig-zag Rex.”
“That'd be cool too!”
Allie watched in amusement. “Just out of curiosity,” she remarked to Seth, “How much sugar has that one had?”
“...An entire ice cream sundae,” admitted Seth sheepishly.
Allie looked at him like he was insane. “You let him have the whole thing?”
“We made a deal,” Seth explained. “If I let him have the sundae, he won't eat any of his candy tonight.”
“Oh.” Allie watched as Timothy started bouncing again under Seth's hand. “Right.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” Miles put down the green face paint and reached under his chair. “I have candy I need to get rid of. Want some?” He pulled out an orange plastic pumpkin filled to the brim with the neon colors of candy wrappers. “I have Smores-n-more, Smackers, these really good peanut butter things...”
“Miles,” Allie scolded, taking the pumpkin out of his hand. “I'm giving out healthy food this year, you know!”
“Yeah, I know.” Miles grinned. “But I'm not!”
“Oh good grief, you silly owl...” She rustled through the pumpkin, examining the contents. “Jawbreakers, licorice bites, candy-covered-chocolate-covered-peanut-brittle-covered lollipops? Miles, can you actually eat those things?”
“They're not half bad, really.” Miles mused as he took advantage of Timothy's awestruck fixation with the pumpkin to finish painting the dinosaur's tail. “I think you'd like the peanut brittle things.”
Allie glared at her husband for a moment before taking advantage of his distraction to stuff three in her dress pocket. “Might as well call them bricks of sugar,” she muttered. “Oh good grief, this one is actually called brick-o-sugar!”
“Now those are good!”
Allie sighed. “Ok, fine.” She turned to Seth. “Here. One for you, one for Timothy.” She held out the pumpkin with a victimized air. Seth took the candies, almost feeling guilty about it, then Allie grabbed her own wicker basket off the doorstep. “And healthy food,” she said, shooting a look at her grinning husband, “for the both of you.” Seth dropped two boxes of raisins into their baskets.
Miles finally finished the dinosaur, and handed Timothy a mirror. “There you go. Pretty good dinosaur, eh?”
“Awesome!” Timothy examined the dinosaur on his cheek with a grin. “Can you make it breathe fire?”
“Um, ok!” Miles grabbed the orange facepaint and did a few quick strokes. “There. A fire breathing T-Rex.”
“Great!” Timothy hopped up from the chair, then grabbed Seth's hand again. “Thanks, Mr. Chase!”
“You're welcome!”
Miles and Allie waved at the pair as Seth was once again dragged unceremoniously across the square, headed this time for a plastic duck pond. Then Allie turned to Miles with mock severity. “So you bought candy, eh?”
“Um, yes.” Miles smiled, trying not to look guilty, but failed. “Am I in trouble?”
“Well, maybe.” Allie browsed through the pumpkin again. “That depends entirely on how much of this you're willing to share.”

Love for Sale

Atticus, suffice to say, was not having a good day.
If it had just been the lawnmower breaking, it might have been fine. If it had just been the dog tracking mud across the freshly mopped floor, it might have been fine. Or if it had been the invasion of mice, or the car not starting, or having his flowers eaten by something (might have been rabbits. They will die), or blowing the back tire on his bike, or even accidentally locking himself out and having to break in through a window, it might have been fine. Well, maybe not fine. Tolerable, at least.
Atticus was not even having a tolerable day.
The small man projected a cloud of sheer frustration as he walked down the town's main street, so much so that passersby were consciously avoiding him. His fists clenched around two grocery bags filled with canned food and spaghetti (as he'd never managed to cook much else on the fickle gas stove of the little house, even after three years of trying) and the glower on his face was not offset in the least by Ben's three-year-old backpack that he'd been forced to borrow, which featured, much to both his and his charge's embarrassment, glow in the dark dinosaurs. The backpack had been full of overdue library books, was currently full of the third bag of cans, and in a moment would be full of thirty pounds of dog food, which had been eaten that morning by the mice.
He rounded the corner and stared down the block, realizing, almost too late, that he would have to walk directly by the barbershop. He turned around. An extra two blocks was not what he needed right now, but better than having to deal with Eugene.
To top it all off, the pet store was run by one of the most helpful, cheerful people Atticus knew, one Miles Chase. This of course meant that Miles was also one of the most annoying people Atticus knew. He didn't try to be, to be sure. He just was. And Atticus had no intentions of spending any longer in that shop than was physically possible.
The brightly painted windows fast approached as Atticus rounded the final corner, featuring a giant chameleon with its eyes pointed two different ways, along with some colorful birds in the foliage of a green jungle, aka series of giant leaves. “Sale on all cats and kittens!” it said, in total disregard of logical correlation. “These prices will disappear fast!” He stared disapprovingly at the big orange letters the size of his face. “Come in today!”
With a sigh, he set down the two bags of cans on the bench outside, along with the third from the backpack, and stepped in. The door jingled merrily as he stepped onto the smooth tile, glancing around for the shop's proprietor. Not in at the moment, thank goodness. He walked hurriedly to the back of the store where the bags of food were kept, ignoring the chatter of the budgies and the odd glance of the snake. The resident parrot that nobody wanted politely said “hello,” as he passed. He ignored it.
“Hey there!” Atticus flinched as Miles walked up from behind him. “How's it going?”
“Fine, thank you.” The older man turned, almost mechanically, to face the shopkeeper.
“How's Dragon doing? Still running you ragged?” Miles stopped a few feet away, smiling cheerfully.
Atticus made a rather forced. attempt at smiling back. “She's fine, thank you. I need dog food.”
“Oh, well, you know where that is! We've gotten some new stuff in that you might like to try though.. Or she might like to try, rather.” The younger man laughed. “Unless you're not telling me something.”
“What we've been getting is fine, thank you.” Atticus turned back to the shelf of dog food, trying to find a size of bag that would fit in the small backpack. “Yellow bag, yellow bag...” he muttered. Behind him, Miles turned to the rack of empty animal spaces that were normally used to house the strays people brought in to the adjoining clinic's humane society, and opened one of the little doors. Atticus ignored him mostly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Miles reached in and pulled out a tiny white ball of fur. The little ball stretched, and yawned, and as Miles massaged it with gentle hands, it opened its eyes and looked up. Atticus found that he was rather unabashedly staring, and quickly looked away.
“She's a stray.” Miles was more observant than Atticus gave him credit for. “She and her brother were found last week under someones deck. They said that the mother was hit by a car.”
“Is that so.” Atticus tried not to look back at the kitten again, and failed rather miserably. “What's her name?”
“Doesn't have one yet.” Miles rubbed the cat's ear gently, and she purred. “Do you want to hold her?”
“I, uh...” Atticus looked away, then sighed. “Well... why not.” He took a few steps over to Miles, and the younger man carefully deposited the kitten in his palm.
“Careful not to drop her. She's fragile.” Miles reached into the box and lifted out the other kitten, a little black one.
“She's beautiful.” Atticus held the kitten up near his face, and watched her as she examined him with brilliant green eyes. He was shocked to be able to feel her heartbeat through his hands. “And neither of them have names?”
“Well, they're not very old.” Miles carried the other one over to the register and set him down on a towel as he pulled a bottle of milk from behind the counter. “Only about four weeks, we think.”
“...What is that in cat age?” Atticus followed him over, still carrying the white one.
“Definitely not ready to leave their mother.” Miles held the milk away from the cat, and watched as it struggled to stand and move towards the bottle. “They can walk, barely, and they're about ready to start eating solid food, though they'll make a mess about it. Not litterbox trained, yet. And of course,” he said, as the little black one toppled over. “Their balance will be off until their tails become flexible.” He let the black one get it's feet under it again, and it once again started moving towards the food bottle.
“Goodness.” Atticus examined the little cat in his hands. “So basically, they're not cats yet.”
“Well,” Miles shrugged. “No, not really. But see her eyes?” He barely paused before continuing. “They're developing their permanent eye color right now. That one actually seems to be almost done; it hasn't changed at all over the past few days. That's the color her eyes will be for the rest of her life.”
Atticus went a long moment without saying anything, gray eyes roaming from white kitten to black kitten to brilliant green eyes that stared up at him, until the little bundle of fur in his hands started purring.
“...That sale you have on cats.” He never once looked at Miles as he spoke. “Do these two count?”
“You don't want to wait until they're a little bigger?” Miles finally let the black one get the bottle. “They'll make a mess.”
“I know.”
“They'll take a lot of looking after.”
“I figured.”
“You know...” Miles looked up at him, carefully. “Kittens need a lot of love.”
Atticus met his gaze with steel resolve, softened by a genuine smile. “I know.”
“Then yes.” Miles returned the smile. “They count.”
Atticus left the shop having a considerably better day than when he'd gone in.
After all, he'd never been able to say no to a sale.