Not a Halloween chapter, but a kind of literal take on how everyone has skeletons in their closets. This does take place a year or so before Confronting Thy Father.
"Aaron William McQueen, what do you think you're doing?" He cringed, he knew he was in trouble now.
He had been trying to find his birthday present, but instead had found something much more interesting.
Buried in his mom's closet he had found a large box filled with articles on the Piston family and Jesse Hudson, the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.
At the top were fairly recent articles, some that he had read himself from some of the magazines he'd read and the further he got into the box the older the articles got.
At first he thought that maybe his mom had been saving them for him, but they weren't all racing related so he threw that idea out the window, especially once he started to get near the bottom.
There were articles from when he was a baby and before he was born, and there was no way his mom could have predicted his love of racing then. So, they had to be for her; which didn't make sense, as she didn't like racing. She had told him watching the cars race around the track made her motion sick.
She had caught him when he was finishing the last article that was on the top of a locked box.
"Nothing." He didn't think that'd work, but it didn't mean he couldn't try.
"That doesn't look like nothing. You've got papers strewn across my bed. If you were looking for a certain something, I haven't gotten it yet." She was standing in the doorway still, hands on her hips. She sighed as she entered her bedroom, coming towards him.
"When are you going to learn to keep out of other people's things Aaron? You wouldn't like it if I went through your stuff and as your mom I have every right to do so if I felt like I needed to. I don't go through your stuff you shouldn't go through mine."
He was right, he was in trouble for snooping, again. He didn't know how he was always found when snooping, but he was almost every single time. This time though, he wanted answers about what he found.
"When will you tell me about who my dad is?" He knew that was a jump, but maybe those articles or that locked box had something to do with him. Maybe the clue to who he was, was in those boxes.
"We're talking about you and your snooping right now, not that. Don't change the subject."
"Fine, then why do you have all these articles about Jesse Hudson and the Pistons?" He gestured to all the articles he left on her bed.
"Mind your own business Aaron, one day that will get you in trouble if you don't." She said sharply.
"Why do you always keep everything so secretive mom? What would be so bad about letting me know about who my father is? Or why you've kept all those articles from the time you were pregnant with me? Could you at least tell me why my first name is the same as Jesse Hudson's middle name? Is there a connection there? I just want to know!" He was wining, but he was tired of not knowing.
"What if I just happened to like that name Aaron? Not everything is connected like that." She sounded exasperated now.
"Then why did you name me after great grandpa? Why give me a middle name with meaning but not a first name?"
"I had thought about naming you William Aaron, but grandpa was still alive when you were born, and I had always liked the name Aaron, seeing those articles with that name in them just brought to the front of my mind how much I liked it. And I didn't have a birthday gift for you yet if that's what you were looking for. Now out, while I clean up the mess you made." She shooed him out of her room.
He left, still no closer to finding out who his father was or what his birthday present was. Plus, he now had a new mystery, he wanted to know what was in that locked box.