THE MONSTER HEAD THAT DIDN’T SPURT BLOOD
“Mom, Ben needs a good Halloween costume,” Angelina said. “That will cheer him up. A really scary one, not one for babies. Right, Ben?”
I didn’t want to admit that she was right. But it wasn’t a bad idea. I had been asking my mom for a Halloween costume for weeks, and Mom just kept saying that I should wear one of my old ones. These included the Timmy the Train that I wore for three years straight, a Ninja Rabbit, and a robot. None of these were acceptable, not to mention that they were all too small. But of course Angelina had an ulterior motive. “Can Monkeylad and I get one?” she asked with a head roll and jump in the air. Twinkle and Amanda Panda, who were with her as usual, followed suit.
My mom rubbed her temples. “Can you and Monkeylad get one, too?” she said in her usual stressed, question-mark way. But she agreed as long as Angelina took me.
Great, I had to go costume shopping with my sister? But at least she’d gotten my mom to fork over the money.
Monkeylad came skidding across the wood floor and jumped up, trying to lick off Angelina’s freshly applied lip gloss. He had demon eyes. Angelina and her friends ran away from him, screaming.
My mom asked me to throw a ball with Monkeylad in the backyard, but I didn’t want to when his eyes were rolling around like that.
* * *
Angelina didn’t like taking me costume shopping, but she did like to go to Bull’s Eye, our favorite neighborhood store, especially when she had cash from Mom. We went straight to the Halloween section. It was well picked through, but among the stupid animal suits and pirates and wizards and vampires that Angelina said were “totally uncool,” I saw the perfect costume.
It was a monster with a head that had been split in half so that part of the brain showed. Blood squirted out and ran down the inside of the mask when you squeezed this attached pump. The chest had been split open to reveal a large, bleeding plastic heart. The costume was SICK! I knew I had to have it. But by the time Angelina bought her pink catsuit with ears and tail, there was only enough money to get a monster head that looked like the cool one except it didn’t squirt blood.
“You owe me, Ben Hunter,” she said. “I got Mom to get you a new costume, and she made me take you instead of going with Twinkle and Amanda Panda. Plus, before you were born, I didn’t have to share my costume money with anyone.”
So I had to settle, as usual. Monkeylad didn’t get a costume at all, but we figured he wouldn’t really care that much and he could wear his hot-dog bun from a few years ago.
Angelina likes to play the older-sibling-who-didn’t-used-to-have-to-share card. Sometimes it makes me feel bad that I came along and ruined her life. This time it made me mad, because 1) this wasn’t her money, it was Mom’s, and 2) when Angelina was one and two years old, she couldn’t have really cared about how much her tiny pumpkin and Hey! Bunny Rabbit! Halloween costumes cost. Still, I let her get away with her shenanigans this time because if I were her, I would probably resent having me as a little brother, too.
The story goes, when I was born, Angelina was really mad at my mom and me. Mom bought Angelina a purple teddy bear and had my grandma give it to her and say it was from me. That didn’t fool my sister. She knew that a new-born baby can’t go out and buy a teddy bear.
When my mother brought me home, Angelina took one look at me and ran outside holding a plastic spoon. My mom followed her and took the spoon away. Angelina had bitten off a piece of it. My mom freaked out and made sure there weren’t any pieces of spoon in Angelina’s mouth. Then she asked why Angelina was so upset.
“I’m having a hard time, Mommy,” two-year-old Angelina said. “I’m afraid the baby will take you away from me.” She had started speaking in long sentences when she was nine months old. I, on the other hand, took a long time to speak. Mostly I just liked to listen to my sister. Since we didn’t have TV, she was the best entertainment I could get.
My mom tried to comfort Angelina, but my sister never seemed to have recovered from the trauma of me being born. She would pull my shirts up and poke my fat belly, saying, “Touch, baby! Touch! Touch!” When my mom told her to stop, she said she was just trying to teach me words. No wonder it took me so long to talk.