Absolutely Almost(31)
change
of plans.
There was a storm on Halloween. A big one. So big that Erlan’s family couldn’t go to the Halloween Parade in the Village like they’d been planning, because all the camera equipment might get soaked.
“Too bad,” Erlan said. But I could tell he wasn’t really upset about it.
So that was the good part—that Erlan couldn’t go to the Halloween Parade and instead got to go trick-or-treating with me and Betsy.
The bad part was that the storm was so terrible that Mom called from work and said she was going to be late getting home, because of the subway being flooded. She also said that she didn’t think we should go out trick-or-treating on Columbus Avenue like we always did.
“Buh they hah the bess candy!” I shouted into the phone. I was already dressed up in my zombie costume—Calista had even put some gross scabby makeup on my face before she went home—and I knew I sounded like a baby, but I didn’t care. I popped my zombie fangs out of my mouth so I could talk better. “That’s where we go every year.”
On the couch, Betsy looked down at her boots. She was dressed like a rock climber, with a rope around her waist and a headlamp and everything. She was pretending not to listen to me on the phone, but I knew she really heard. Erlan was listening too. He was dressed like a pirate, with an eye patch and a fake stuffed parrot elasticked to his arm.
“Your father can take you trick-or-treating in the building,” Mom said. “Plenty of our neighbors will be handing out candy. Put your dad on, okay?”
I didn’t want to, but I did.
• • •
After that, I was sure Halloween was going to be awful, but it turned out it wasn’t. I was sure Dad wouldn’t wear a costume to help us trick-or-treat, but it turned out I was wrong about that too. Even if I didn’t get what it was he was supposed to be.
“I’m a pencil pusher,” he told us, stretching out the cup of pencils in his hand in front of him again, like that would make it make more sense.
Betsy giggled, but Erlan just said, “Huh?” which was what I was thinking. I didn’t really care what Dad’s costume was, though, as long as I got candy.
We went trick-or-treating all over our building, starting on the first floor and going door to door, to every apartment with a pumpkin sticker outside. We zoomed up the stairs because that was faster than the elevator. Tons of people had candy. There were tons of other kids too, from all over the building. Some of them I’d never even seen before. Everyone loved my zombie costume and said how great and scary it was. “Brains!” I told them, which meant “thank you” in Zombie. Erlan started shouting “brains!” too, even though that’s not what pirates say. And Betsy said “trick or treat” twice with no stuttering. I heard her.
We trick-or-treated for over an hour, even after the lights went out when we were on the ninth floor. Betsy lit the way with her rock-climbing headlamp, and people opened their doors holding candles. And one guy said he didn’t figure he’d see any more kids the whole rest of the night because of the power, so he dumped his whole bowl of candy between our three bags and told us, “Enjoy!”
The whole bowl!
After the trick-or-treating, we went back to our apartment, and we sat on the floor with candles all around and split up our candy. Betsy and me loved loved loved chocolate, but Erlan wanted mostly fruit candies, so that was good for splitting. There were lots of Smarties, and Erlan got a record-high nine-Smarties tower on his tongue before Betsy made him laugh and they all spilled on the carpet. Dad couldn’t do any work on his computer because of the power being out, so he stayed in the living room, not in his office. And when Mom finally got home, dripping and soaking from having to walk the whole way from her office in the storm, she let us eat on the floor, on a blanket, like a picnic. We had macaroni and cheese—the kind from the box that was only for weekends—and Mom put some peas in it because “at least we can pretend to be healthy.” And when we were done with dinner, we told ghost stories, even Dad, and Betsy kept screaming and hiding her face in her sweatshirt, but she was laughing too, so I think she was having fun.