Chapter Four: Surprise!

"Okay, are you ready?" she said. He nodded. "All right. Open your eyes."

Artemis did, and was immediately shocked and horrified.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"

Artemis screamed. He was…no, this was too awful to believe. His costume was a clown!

Holly laughed. "Like it?"

Artemis looked at her, his eyes wide, and showed his feelings for once. Horror, supreme, shocked, awful horror, registered on his face. "Like it?" he exclaimed. "I should say not! I am not a clown!"

Holly grinned. "Oh, but you will go trick-or-treating with me."

And he did. They went trick-or-treating, and Holly took him with her (after dressing up as a fairy, to avoid suspicion, she said, and so everyone would think she was his little sister, at which point he groaned and submitted). It worked just as planned, and when they finally came back, tired but happy (well, that was Holly, Artemis was just tired), Artemis expected to be able to go right to sleep, and showed Holly to a guest room. But she said no, there was one more thing they had to do.

Artemis moaned. "What now? You've woken me up early, bought me some totally unnecessary clothes that I will likely never wear again, and made a fool of me by making me go out in public dressed as a clown. What else could there possibly be?"

Holly smiled mischievously. "Well, let's see. I've woken you up early, bought you some totally unnecessary clothes that you will likely never wear again, and made a fool of you by making you go out in public dressed as a clown. Okay, there's one thing left to do."

"And what might that be?" he inquired, steeling himself for jack-o-lantern carving or something else just as bad.

"Well," Holly told him. "We have to eat some candy. It's traditional."

Artemis made a face, but at least that was better than what he had already done.

"All right, fine. Just one piece. I hate candy."

Holly sighed, but agreed. "Okay, fine. One piece. I'll leave the rest with you to do what you like with."

"No, please take it to Foaly or someone."

"All right. Foaly will like it. He likes Mud Man stuff."

Artemis reached into his bag (since he was playing the role of older brother, Holly had carried the plastic pumpkin container and he had used a brown bag, thank goodness) and pulled out a piece of candy. There was one problem, though. It was a lollipop. He pulled out another one. They were all lollipops.

"Um, Holly?" he said. "These are all…well, anyway…I think we accidentally switched bags or something."

"No," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"They're all like that."

"Why?" he said.

She looked at him in astonishment. "Don't you know?"

"No."

"You were a good boy."