An entry in the 19th fortnightly challenge...
Trutham-And-Ly, you may remember, is a small town in the north of Logistan. It is divided into two districts, Trutham and Ly, separated by a small stream. Truthamers always tell only the truth, and Lyers only tell lies.
Years ago, the people of Ly had an interesting disability. But the Trutham-And-Ly of today is populated with roughly equal numbers of residents in both districts, all of whom can and do express themselves quite readily in all the same ways as people anywhere else might — talking, writing, emailing, texting, and so on — except that they all unfailingly either only lie or only tell the truth, in accordance with the district in which they live.
You are a resident of Trutham-And-Ly, and it is Halloween night. You are in a room of your house some distance from the door as you hear the doorbell ring, your first trick-or-treaters of the night!
As you begin walking to answer your door, from outside you hear a girl's voice say, "I hope they're not giving away gum, I hate gum."
A boy's voice responds, "You're such a liar. You were chewing gum earlier!"
A girl's voice—you can't tell if it is the first voice or not—says, "Shut up, Fred—there are no Lyer girls in this group."
"Ignore her, Fred. You can't believe a single thing these girls say," says another boy.
"You shut up too, E--"
Yet another boy cuts her off. "Quiet, all of you be. Coming to the door, they are."You arrive at the door and open it to see a clown, Dracula, an angel, a cowgirl, Yoda, and a zombie, holding out their bags and shouting out a loud chorus of "Trick Or Treat!"s.
The cowgirl gestures at your Halloween décor and says, "I really like your decorations!"
The clown, the tallest of the group, tells the others, "Don't crowd the doorstep!" as he pulls them back slightly. He asks, "Is it ok if I pick for everyone? We all like different candy and I know what everyone would want."
Two boys start saying in unison, "Don't forget ...!"
The clown interrupts them. "Yes, I know all about your allergies! Sheesh!", he says.The clown starts rustling through the candy in your bowl. "Oooh, Snickers are my favorite, I'll take one of those. And... let's see... something with toffee for Anne; no nuts of any kind for Edward; and no chocolate for Fred...."
"I'd love a Butterfinger if there are any," moans the zombie zombiely.
"Do they have any Almond Joys?" asks the cowgirl.
"If they do, give one to Edward!" smirks the angel, sticking out her tongue at Yoda.
"Now, now, let's not kill anyone tonight," the cowgirl chuckles.
Dracula snorts, "Edward's such a Lyer anyway. Would we even miss him?" earning him jabs and playful swats from the angel, the zombie, the cowgirl and Yoda.Meanwhile, the clown selects a Snickers bar, a Heath bar, a roll of Smarties, a Butterfinger bar, a packet of Gummi Worms, and an Almond Joy bar from the bowl.
He drops the Snickers into his own bag.
Into Yoda's bag, the Smarties he drops.
The Gummi Worms go into Dracula's bag.
You hear three more swishes as the clown turns around and deposits the remaining goodies into the other three children's bags.
He says a cheery "Thank you!" to you, and the others add their own over-sugared thanks to his.The group turns and starts walking toward the next house.
"Thanks, Billy," you hear a girl's voice say as they move beyond the light of your front door.
"There's some 'chocolate' on your nose there, Cowgirl," retorts one of the boys.
Another girl's voice says, "I can't believe you got me an Almond Joy. Nobody under, like, 60 even eats those. I think they're disgusting!"
A boy's mock-exasperated voice responds, 'Oh hush, ya big Lyer. Seriously, why do we even hang out with you?!"
"You tell her, Billy!" a girl giggles in response, her voice barely carrying back to reach you as the group moves out of earshot.You close your door with a smile and a shake of your head, and head back inside.
HINT because this is leading people astray:
"Do they have any Almond Joys?" is a simple question, nothing more.
The cowgirl never says she likes them or that she wants one — nor the opposite.
be mad if you want; this was intentional misdirection, but I guess it went a little too far.
- What candy did David get?
- Did the cowgirl really like your Halloween decorations?
(Please provide an explanation for your answers!)
A few assumptions you can make:
- You can safely assume the cowgirl is a female.
- You can also assume names are gender-normal.
- Nobody is ever called by an incorrect name (nor interrupted before doing so.) Whatever other peculiarities they have, both Truthamers and Lyers call each other by their right names. (But saying "Your name is Foo." or "You are a Lyer" would fall within their truth-telling or lying standards.)
- Questions (and requests) are not statements, so are neither true nor false and thus unrestricted.
——CORRECTION——
The line of the story in bold was accidentally omitted when this was originally edited for posting. With this line missing, the accepted answer was the only answer possible to give. With the line restored, the puzzle can now be fully completed to arrive at my intended solution. Other answers arrived at an incorrect solution for which this line's presence or absence should not have mattered, but I apologize for the error in any case; I should have caught it.
Thanks to Anon for the original conception of Trutham-And-Ly.
