Henry and I wanted to trick-or-treat by ourselves, of course. And my mom promised that we could go alone as long as we stayed together and checked in with her in exactly one hour. Renee was thinking of meeting us too, but that might not work. Her dad was still deciding. And Zack, well, we didn’t ask Zack. He was going with this big group of obnoxious boys who all played soccer together.
I felt pretty confident about the whole thing. I had a really cute canvas bag (orange to match my black-and-orange witch tights), and I told my mom that I understood that some of the candy would have to go into the freezer. (This would not be a problem, really, because I could always get it back from my grandmother later, piece by piece, or hide a little under my bed.) I was all set.
Henry, however, was not prepared. It wasn’t his fault, really. It was Sophie—as usual. She was afraid that if he wore vampire makeup, he would scare little kids. But (a) being scared is the whole point of Halloween. Plus, (b) she clearly underestimates children. Does she really think we are so easily terrified?
Sophie doesn’t understand anything about what’s scary. She works at the zoo. What does she have to be afraid of? Except maybe getting bitten by a lion, if they ask her to feed one. I’m sure she has training for that. And it seems pretty easy. I’ve seen trainers go inside the cages. It happens all the time on television.
Anyway, I was prepared to solve Henry’s costume problems whether Sophie liked it or not. Inside my canvas Halloween bag was a little fake blood. Just a small tube, not too dried out, from last year. I’d snagged it, when my mom wasn’t looking, from the face-paint bin she keeps in the crawl space for when she’s in charge of the school carnival.
The plan was perfect except for one thing: Alice.
As soon as my mom and I got to Henry’s house, and she saw Alice in costume, she started to gush. “Oh, look, Alice in Wonderland! Are you going along too?”
Henry looked like he was going to be sick, but Alice just put on her sweetest face, smiled at my mom, and said, “If they let me.”
Honestly, sometimes she is such a phony.
So of course we were stuck with her. Henry’s dad and my mom reviewed all the rules about staying together and how long we had (one hour timed out on Henry’s watch) and where we had to meet (the new coffee place, on the corner, down the hill).
“How could you let this happen?” I asked Henry as soon as we got away from my mom.
“Me?” Henry asked. “Your mom is the one who started it.”
“Well, your sister is the one who asked.”
“Look,” Henry said. “Do you want to spend the whole time fighting, or do you want to get some candy?”
He had a point, I suppose. And it probably isn’t a good idea to complain too much about a guy’s sister. Even if the guy is your best friend.
“I can keep up,” Alice said. (I guess she had been listening the whole time.)
And then we were off.
“Oh, wait!” I said as soon as Henry, Alice, and I reached the bottom step at the first house.
“We have to hurry!” Henry told me.
“This will only take a second. I brought you something.” I pulled the tube out of my canvas bag. Henry stared at it.
“Come here,” I said. Henry was being obstinate, so I pushed his head to one side a little bit, stood on my tiptoes, and went to work.
“What are you doing?” Alice asked.
“Vampire blood.”
“Sophie said we can’t use that,” Alice said.
“Just leave it off,” Henry said.
“Henry, it doesn’t look right without it,” I said. “I’ve got this.”
Then I bent down on one knee and said, “Alice, we’re letting you come with us, which is really nice of us, and you’re going to keep a little secret about the vampire blood so your brother can have some fun for once in his life. GOT IT?”
“Fine!” Alice said. “You win.”
“See?” I told Henry. “Problem solved. I’m very good with children.”
“You’re scarier than anything else out here,” Henry said. But he had a little smile on his face, and there was no hiding it. Henry wanted to see the fake blood, but we had no time and no mirror, so I said, “It looks perfect. Just trust me.” And we knocked on the front door.
The first few houses went great. We even got a regular-sized candy bar at one stop and a whole fistful of candy at another place, where somebody was throwing a party.
“We’re lucky,” Henry said. “I bet not a single kid in there gets to go trick-or-treating like this.”
“Yep. Too dangerous,” I said.
“As if our parents aren’t going to check every piece,” Alice said. “And Sophie will probably turn half of it in to the dentist.”
“Biniam,” Henry and I said at the same time, and then laughed.
“You can make a lot of money giving candy to the dentist. They pay you by the pound!” Alice said as we passed a low shrub. And as soon as the words left her mouth, a dark shape leapt in front of us.
“Give me your candy, kid!”
I jumped about a foot in the air. Alice screamed and dropped her plastic pumpkin.
Henry said, “Put down the axe, Zack. We know it’s you.”
“You’re no fun,” Zack said.
Henry collected Alice’s fallen candy from the ground and took her by the hand.
“We gotta go, Zack,” I said. “We’re kind of in a hurry.”
“Can I come?” Zack asked.
“I thought you were going with your soccer friends,” Henry said.
“He can come if he wants to. It’s a free country,” Alice announced before Zack could even explain. She was getting to be so sassy.
The four of us had a pretty good system going. Henry led the way and rang the doorbells and always said that his little sister was on her way. If you go in a group, you don’t want the oldest kid to show up first because sometimes you get a crabby old person who says, “Aren’t you kind of big to be trick-or-treating?” You’d think they’d be sympathetic about the whole age thing, but no. First, they complain. Then they toss in something large, like an apple, that smashes all of your stuff.
Anyway, we were almost finished, and we were having fun, Zack or no Zack. I thought maybe I’d tell them a few fun facts about Halloween. “Did you know that Halloween started out as a type of begging? For these things called soul cakes?” I asked.
Zack groaned. “Not now, Barbara Anne.”
“We’re trying to hurry,” Alice said.
“Yeah,” Henry said. “We’re begging. Begging you not to tell us!”
“Fine!” I said. “Remain ignorant. You’re the ones losing out. I already know this stuff.”
It was dark out, but I’m pretty sure I saw Alice roll her eyes at me. Alice!
Soon we were back where we’d started, with only a few houses to go before the coffee place. One of them was right across the street from Henry’s house. It was old and creepy, with vines twisting up around the porch and no decorations out front. A dim light glowed in an upstairs window, but the whole bottom portion of the house was dark. The place was spooky. Super spooky. Like Dare you to go up there spooky.
“Maybe we should skip this one,” I said.
“We can’t skip this one,” Alice said. “It’s Miss Leary’s house. Sophie will be mad.”
“Miss Leary?” I asked Henry. “The old lady from the parade?”
“Yeah,” he said.
I pictured her staring at us with her horrible ruined eyeball, dipping her ancient, gnarled fingers into our bags and touching all our candy.
“But her house isn’t decorated or anything, Alice,” I said. “I don’t think she’s participating in Halloween.”
Zack snorted. “Participating? It’s not a field trip. Knock on the door, you chicken.”
“Why don’t you do it?” Alice asked. (Maybe it wasn’t entirely bad having her along.)
“Yeah, why don’t you go? You’re the one carrying a weapon,” Henry said.
“That’s true,” Zack said. “I do look way scarier than any of you.”
That’s what he said, but he didn’t exactly rush up to the door. In fact, he didn’t take one step toward the door.
“He’s not going to do it,” Alice said. “Big talk. No action.”
“Listen, Alice in Wonderland,” Zack said. “I’ve got this. Just give me a minute, okay?”
In the dark, it was hard to see his face, but his voice wavered just enough to let us know he was scared. It was horrible to watch, but it wasn’t like we were going to stop looking. So I pushed Alice behind me, and we took a few steps back. Then we waited on the sidewalk, eyes glued to Zack. Time slowed.
“Henry, I don’t think this is a very good idea after all,” Alice said.
“Shhhh!” Henry and I told her, but maybe Alice was right. I mean, who knew who was inside? I mean, I knew who was inside, but who knew who she was? Well, her name. Yes. Constance. But…
“Henry—” I started to say, but then he shushed me too. And the three of us watched as Zack rang the bell.
Nothing.
We waited. The door remained shut, but somewhere another one opened. We could hear it: a long, slow eeeeeeeeek sort of sound. And that was all it took to terrify us.
I know we should have been braver. There were four of us: Death (in the lead), then a witch, a vampire, and Alice in Wonderland. But we just stood there, mesmerized, as Zack stared at the house. We were waiting to see who—or what—would emerge from that dark, awful place. We held our breath. And then a loud, metallic CLANG broke the silence, followed by a heavy thud.
“Run!” Henry shouted.
And we did.