Page 39 of Heaven Leigh’s Little Halloween

“I was just checking to make sure the cake pops were okay.” Not a lie. She had been slightly concerned that the weight of the sprouts would cause them to slide down the stick, or the chocolate could crack exposing the vegetables underneath—but so far everything was fine.

Angel gave her a fond smile. “Nervous about getting back into things, huh?”

She was nervous about a lot of things at the moment, so she just nodded. “They all look okay. The front two trays are for tonight. The back trays are for tomorrow.” The back trays were the real cake pops, of course. They wouldn’t be needed today.

He laughed. “I have done this before you know. Now, get going to dinner before you’re late. You don’t want to get in trouble again. Ándale, chiquita.” He stepped out of the doorway and waved her through.

She hurried by him and went straight to the cafeteria like a good girl. Except, of course, she’d been anything but good. She settled down at the table next to Hayleigh, who raised an eyebrow in question, but Heaven just shook her head.

Dinner proceeded as normal, and as usual there was a round of complaints from the Ranch Littles when the Brussels sprouts were brought out. Everyone got a heaping pile on their plate. The whining about it had been a constant for the last few days. This time Heaven had to hide a grin as she waited.

She had expected most of the Littles to put off the sprouts as long as possible. But not every Little procrastinated on the bad stuff. She watched as Callie sighed, and reluctantly started with the yucky part first—presumably that way she’d have the rest of dinner to wipe away the taste.

Heaven nudged Hayleigh and leaned in. “Watch,” she said, jerking her chin at Callie.

Callie used her fork to stab the sprout and brought it up to her mouth. Her nose was already scrunched expecting to taste sprout as she bit in. Her eyes flew open, and a look of confusion flew across her face. She looked down and stared in shock.

She said absolutely nothing. She looked up quickly, her gaze flying around the room, as she tried to figure out what was going on. Heaven waited until Callie looked in her direction, and then gave her a sneaky little thumbs-up.

Callie looked down at the sprout, then back up at Heaven. She mouthed “you?” soundlessly across the room. Heaven nodded and grinned.

With a look of absolute delight, Callie devoured the rest of her “vegetables” until there wasn’t one crumb left. And then she leaned toward the left and whispered in Brittany’s ear. Brittany let out a small squeal, before quickly covering her mouth.

Luckily that kind of excitement from Littles at meals wasn’t unusual and no one really looked at her. Within a few minutes there was whispering everywhere. The only gaps were where there were Bigs to stop the flow of information, but she saw the Littles getting around that in various sneaky ways.

Hayleigh looked confused. She hadn’t made any attempt to touch her sprouts, and would delay that as long as possible, so she wasn’t sure why there was a low flutter of happy excitement racing around the table.

“You should eat your sprouts,” Heaven said, smirking.

“Ugh. I hate them. I’m so mad about having to eat them when I didn’t do anything.” Hayleigh’s bottom lip rolled out in a pout.

Heaven rolled her eyes. “Just… try them. Trust me.”

With a suspicious look, Hayleigh picked up her fork and a butterknife to cut one in half. She blinked, cocking her head as she examined it. “That’s not…”

“Just put it in your mouth, Hayleigh!” Heaven was looking around furtively to make sure none of the bossy people were watching.

A few seconds later her friend was staring at her with a look of wide-eyed admiration. “What did you do… how did you… I can’t…”

“Shhh. Just eat them.” Heaven Leigh picked up her fork and speared one of her own, eating it with slow, obvious enjoyment. Prank number one had gone down perfectly, and best of all so far no one in authority seemed to have figured it out.

In a silent pact of mutual cooperation every Little around the room was doing their best not to expose the treat. Probably because they didn’t want to lose it and have it be replaced with actual vegetables, but it was perfect. Some were even pretending to be upset and whining about it as they ate each one.

Considering that Heaven never did pranks, she was perfectly happy to consider it a major success. Now, if only the second phase went as well.

Chapter 15

Angel had heard about the strike after the fact. Even though it didn’t affect him at all, news did tend to travel quickly around the Ranch, especially when a group of Littles all got in trouble at once. Then the order came down from Derek. No desserts for any of the Littles who ate in the main building.

Instead they’d all be getting Brussels sprouts. He could only imagine how well that had gone over. Heaven, at least, hadn’t really seemed to mind. The one time he’d mentioned it, she just shrugged. “I like sprouts anyway,” she’d said and that was that.

He suspected that if Halloween hadn’t been coming up, Derek wouldn’t have made a blanket punishment like that, but toning down the sweets and upping the nutritious vegetables right before Halloween was probably just good thinking anyway.

It was Heaven who had suggested the cake pops, and he hadn’t thought, until he’d already agreed, that it might not be the best kind of dessert to plan when the people who would enjoy them the most couldn’t have any. But she was so excited to make them, he didn’t have the heart to backtrack.

And they came out perfectly. Better than his own, and he wasn’t bad at making the simple dessert. He’d done it often enough now that he had it down. But once they were done, it occurred to him that he couldn’t just lay them out for people to serve themselves as he normally would have.

It was one thing to tell the Littles they couldn’t have any, and another to put cute Halloween cake pops out in front of them and expect them to just look at them. It was almost guaranteed that at least one would try to sneak them—and honestly, he wouldn’t have been upset if they did.

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