ALL BY MAH-SELLLF (Bonus Chapter)

**ALL BY MAH-SELLLF** is a Halloween special bonus chapter written by Roshani Chokshi. It is a chapter from the second book in the *The Pandava Quintet*; *Aru Shah and the Song of Death*.

It follows Aru, Mini, Brynne and Aiden as they go to an Otherworld Middle School Halloween Dance.

## Plot

### Beginning

The story opens up with Aru Shah thinking about all the things that she would've chosen over Halloween middle school dance, which included:

1. An encounter with a rabid demon.

2. Her mother’s “vegan special” dinner.

3. Dismemberment.

Afterwards, she recalled the last middle school dance she had gone to and the last few Halloweens she had spend with her mother.

### Blue Monkey Scandal

While recalling a few of her last Halloweens, one incident Aru remembered her second last Halloween, wherein she had dressed as a flying blue monkey. Her costume had taken three whole weeks to put together and she had been pretty proud of it. Unfortunately, her costume hadn't dried in time for Halloween, and in an attempt to do something for it, Aru may have gotten paint all over the patrons. Aru had argued, countering that those people didn't understand real "art", despite being a bunch of art people. This costume debacle would forever be known in the museum as the 'Blue Monkey Scandal'.

### Costumes

Aru really thought that she had the perfect Halloween costume. She, Mini, and Brynne had decided to coordinate their costumes. They would go to the dance, dressed as the three *Sanderson Sisters* from *Hocus Pocus.* Aru dressed as *Winnie*, Mini would go there as *Sarah* and Brynne would be dressing up as *Mary*. Unfortunately, Mini and Brynne thought that Aru was joking and dressed up as an unicorn and a saltshaker respectively. Aiden, on the other hand, hadn't dressed up at all and showed up wearing his usual green jacket and dark jeans. When questioned by Aru, he said that he'd dressed up as "Incognito Peter Parker" and defended himself by saying that "*Half of the genius was efficiency"*.

### Otherworld Decorations & Food

Unlike all the other middle school dances that Aru had been to, the Otherworld decorations were magnificent.

For one thing, the decorations had been done by the Ritus. Pre-winter and Winter had been responsible for the dance floor which was made of smooth, sparkling ice. Enchanted ice sculptures, shaped like skeletons were doing the Macarena on the sides of the dance floor. Someone had hauled a moon straight out of the sky and set it spinning over the dance floor as a disco ball. Its light glinted off the arena. The effect was beautiful. Spring had been responsible from the greenery around the edges of the dance floor. Huge, thick vines had formed the border, and more crisscrossed into a flower-studded dome over the middle of the rink. To the left was a banquet table, and to the right loomed the nosy enchanted kiosks and tents that were spying on the party. Monsoon had conjured the leaping fountains that lined the paths from the various portals to the dance floor, and Summer, who hated everyone, must have made the great banner waving over the dome: ENJOY THIS BRIFE RESPITE FROM YOUR CRUSHING MORTALITY.

As for the food, just like the decorations, it was certainly better than all the other middle school dances Aru had been to.

There were shimmering chocolate fountains, fragrant disks of dosas, silver dishes piled with pomegranates, and delicate pumpkins made of spun sugar that hopped down the length of the golden banquet table.

### At the Dance

Aiden went to get some shots for the Council of the Guardians' newsletter to the dance floor with his trusty camera Shadowfax. Mini didn't want to be within the coughing distance of people and dancing, and so she went off to get some punch. As for Brynne and Aru, both of them went to the banquet table to examine the different treats there. From the banquet table, it was impossible not to hear the music. They were playing Top 40 hits, but through Otherworld speakers, the sounds were richer. The tunes were filtered through a sieve of magic so the very rhythm sparkled on Aru’s skin like scattered starlight.

Sometime later, Brynne, through a mouthful of chocolate, adviced Aru to go dance, since she knew that Aru danced really well. After some disagreements and coaxing, Aru, kinda begrudgingly, went into the dance floor to find Aiden. On her search for Aiden, she turned in a circle on the dance floor, but all she saw were flashing scales (real or fake, she wasn’t sure), kids awkwardly slow-dancing, and kids awkwardly not slow-dancing. In that moment, the music felt too loud, like it was bursting from inside her chest. Even though the dance floor was cool thanks to the enchanted ice, her cheeks felt hot. Just as she was going to give up pn finding Aiden, Aiden found her. He offered to teach her how to waltz, since he knew it. (Which made sense to Aru, considering he was the child of an apsara)

The surroundings were eerily quiet to Aru. She put her hands in Aiden's. She was anxious and nervous, all at the same time and walked into the shine of the stolen moon.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment that the music changed. A flurry of emotions which included relief and disappointment at the same time, flowed through Aru. Strangely enough, Aiden's face was completely blank. A few moments later, he smiled and said, "Another time?" to which Aru assented.

### Ending

As the story closes up, Aru saw Mini and Brynne walking towards her, holding glasses of punch. Vajra leaped from ball form to bracelet form, buzzing warmly against her wrist. The ice floor felt even more slick from all the dancing. Aru sent a message through their mind link to her sisters:

*This floor is so smooth, I could zip back and forth and my cape would billow behind me! Who wants to join?*

To which, Mini instantly replied saying that it sounded dangerous and Brynne replied, saying that sounded amazing, at the same time. Laughter bubbled up inside Aru, and the story ended with *"See you guys soon."*

## Characters

* Aru Shah
* Mini Kapoor
* Brynne Rao
* Aiden Acharya

## Trivia

* Like the many other books in *The Pandava Quintet*, the bonus chapter makes a handful of cultural references, which includes *The Sanderson Sisters* from *Hocus Pocus* and *Peter Parker* from *Spiderman*.

## Link

https://www.readriordan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Aru-Shah-Halloween.pdf

To read the short story, please click the aforementioned link which will lead to the PDF file of the story.