Another Life

38

"Mace, take your shoes off please." Jay asks the moment we all step through the door. Everyone else removes their shoes and Kevin quickly disappears down the hall to grab some towels from the closet.

Macie rolls her head over her shoulder and lets out a very audible noise, disapproving with what Jay had told her to do. "Don't wanna."

Jay grabbed her shoulders to stop her from running into the living room without taking off the very damp shoes. "Well you need too because they're muddy."

Kevin returns and hands a small one to each of the kids, telling them to dry off. Everyone but Macie did it without hassle, Mae being the only one to put up a fight about drying off but eventually she does it with a jiggle and an infectious laugh after seeing Olivia do it the same way. Once they're all dry they're released into the living room, their bags clutched tight in their hands filled with everything they had gotten on their rounds.

After the kids left, Kevin passed out the remainder of the towels he had grabbed to everyone else stood in the hall. We were all still in slight shock, and midst drying off we all fall into a laughter.

"I have never seen a puddle make that much mess." Kevin says first, looking around to the rest of us.

Adam shook his head. "It was like a fricken bomb was thrown in there. That thing exploded and I didn't know that was possible."

Kim makes a point to front door, the window beside it and the raindrops falling fast and heavy against it. "That and the rain. There was no warning, just fine one minute then cats and dogs the next."

As I was drying off the strands of damp hair off my face I look down to the floor and notice the real damage to Macie's shoes, as well as Olivia's. Their once pink and white shoes were now coated in rain puddle and mud.

In the crowd of people standing in the hall, I look over to Natalie and Will. "I will clean those." I say, referencing to Livvy's shoes, that had been destroyed in Macie's exploration into how deep the puddle was.

One by one we all walked into the living room, immediately noticing the destruction with all the candy wrappers. It was unbelievable to me that a collection of four kids could make that much mess but here we were, and despite being the two who hadn't been keen on the idea of going trick-or-treating, claiming to be "too old", Makayla and Owen seemed to be the ones enjoying it the most.

We all joined them, sitting on the couch and Kim suggests putting on a movie and after a long time searching for a movie that is Halloween themed but kid-friendly we end up putting on the cartoon version of 'The Addams Family' but it just becomes background noise as the kids run around the bottom floor of the house when the sugar kicks in.

On their third trip around the ground floor, Jay leans forward and goes to grab some candy from Macie's pile she had left on the coffee table. I swat his arm away from the bundle, calling him out.

Jay snaps his head up to me, shrugging his shoulders. "What? She won't notice."

I don't say anything, just stare at him with a hooked eyebrow for being so naive. Macie would know the moment she walked back into the living room, she was clever like that.

"Who am I kidding, of course she will but she's sharing with her brother," he says, picking up a couple pieces and handing over one of the lighter ones to Alfie, who was sat on my lap and he takes it with a grin and shoves the chocolate into his mouth, getting it everywhere but his mouth. "And for her dad, it's Halloween tax, it's necessary." He adds quickly as he sits back into the couch.

Adam and Will pipe up from the other side of the room, agreeing along with Jay and it makes me roll my eyes.

Like I had thought, the moment Mae walks back into the room she narrows her eyes and takes a slow walk over to the coffee table before looking around. Her gaze stops dead on Jay, and the empty wrappers he had left on the couch. Jay gives her a smile but she just glared to him. At this point everyone in the room had silenced and was watching to see what she was going to do, as was I, hoping it wasn't anything bad.