Halloween

An excerpt from “6 Blocks Home”

Sam could practically hear herself gulp when she saw him. He looked so dashing as a pirate. The costume came with a tricorn hat, but Tobias had opted to simply wear a red bandana tied around his scalp. Sam thought the pirate boots and red waist sash belt really sold it.

They stared at each other for a moment.

“Nice costume,” Tobias said. “It’s cute.”

Cute? What did he mean? Cute, like a little kid? Or cute, like attractive?

“Thanks,” Sam said. “I like yours, too.” She hesitated, but decided Halloween was a good cover to make her next comment seem innocent enough: “You make a very handsome pirate.”

“Thanks.”

They were caught in a kind of spell then. Sam wished she could think of something more to say to keep him talking to her — Tobias wasn’t often so civil lately, and she didn’t want to waste the opportunity. But her big brains had evidently taken the night off. She could think of nothing. So they just stared at each other.

Tobias was the one to break the spell.

“I’m sorry I was a such a jerk about trick-or-treating,” he said.

She hadn’t expected an apology, and she didn’t know how she should respond. She shrugged. “I didn’t really want to go anyway.”

“You don’t like trick-or-treating?” Tobias asked.

“I’ve never had friends to go with.” Sam’s own answer surprised her. It sounded pitiful, and she didn’t want Tobias’s pity. To make it less pitiful, she continued, “And you know, we moved around so many times, and we didn’t always live in nice neighborhoods like this one.” It was getting worse, not better. “And my parents never really liked Halloween, so they never liked taking me trick-or-treating, even when we did live in nice neighborhoods.” Stop talking! She wished she had a piece of duct tape to put over her own mouth.

Tobias listened. She could see the pity in his eyes. But all he said was, “Well, you didn’t miss much. Trick-or-treating is totally overrated. Unless you like candy and fun, of course.”

Sam couldn’t help but smile. She didn’t often hear Tobias make jokes — he usually left it to the more boisterous people around him. And she was grateful that he’d spared her the pity party. Seeing her smile gave him permission to smile.

Sam clung to this moment, treasured it — the two of them standing by the front door in their ridiculous costumes and grinning at each other.

She took a snapshot of it in her mind and tucked it into a safe place in her brain so she could take it out later and remember that, once upon a time, a dashing pirate had called her cute and made her feel a little less pitiful.