Grandma's 'Spicy' Secrets

My grandma, bless her pointy hat, had a habit of labeling things. Like her prized collection of eyeball-shaped teacups: "For Special Guests Only (and Anyone Who Asks Nicely)." Or her petrified bat, Reginald: "Do Not Poke. Seriously." But her most legendary labeling job was reserved for the dusty, leather-bound tomes hidden deep in the attic, behind a tapestry depicting a surprisingly cheerful-looking kraken. Those books? They were marked, in her most dramatic, spidery script, as "Too Spicy for Amy."

"Too spicy," I’d mused to Bartholomew, my pet pumpkin who, at that very moment, was attempting to balance a miniature witch hat on his stem. "What does that even mean? Like, too much cinnamon? Too many ghost peppers?"

Bartholomew, with a rustle of his leafy tendrils, scoffed. "Amy, darling, your grandmother wasn't referring to your questionable baking skills. 'Spicy' in her lexicon usually meant 'capable of turning you into a newt,' or worse, 'capable of turning *me* into a newt.'"