Jokes and laughter

Previously

…The Elmwood picnic, and its accompanying talent show, had indeed reached its grand finale, and it was a fiasco of the most wonderful kind. Arthur, for the first time that day, felt a genuine, unforced laugh bubble up from his chest, a sound as warm and comforting as a perfectly brewed cup of tea, even if it had been delivered with a side of kazoo and a cartwheel gone wrong. The perfect cup of tea might have eluded him, but in the joyous disarray, Arthur Pendelton had found something far more satisfying: a shared moment of pure, unadulterated joy.