This story develops many themes over the course of the story. The most important themes are the ones of deception and lying. Deception is the action of deceiving someone. When you deceive someone, you are taking advantage of them. When you take advantage of someone, you are making a bad person out of yourself and those around you. The impression that gives off is that you are a bad person and don’t appreciate other people’s feelings or values. In the story, the little girl uses deception to help scare away Mr. Nuttel. She starts by saying, “"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon.” This begins to tell us that she may be trying to mess with him to see if he is intelligent enough to see through her disguise.
