Eager Beaver

Chapter Thirty-Eight - Halloween

I don't know why I let Laurie and Alex talk me into wearing an otter costume for Halloween. We were having so much fun at one of the meetings making these reindeer antler headbands for the Christmas play, and Laurie had piped up to suggest that we should all do a group costume for Halloween. It seemed like a fun idea at first. I never know what to wear for Halloween. On more than one occasion back in California, my costume had landed me in trouble. One year, I think it was in third grade, my Mom had gone through all this trouble to make me an Apatosaurus costume so I could be Littlefoot from Land Before Time. I'd been pretty excited, and I'd told the kid who sat next to me in class, but he'd just sneered that those movies were for babies. In the end I'd refused to wear it.

With a group costume though, I'd have safety in numbers. It was Alex who suggested we should all be our Beaver animals - like the ones from Friends of the Forest. I wasn't so sure about the idea. It was a little silly. Of course Charlie and Alex were okay with it. They had pretty cool Beaver animals, and ones which would be easy to find costumes for - especially on Halloween. Alex was just wearing a mysterious black mask for her raccoon, and Charlie got to dress like a fierce hawk complete with a similar pointed-beak mask and a resplendent fluffy brown cloak made up to look like feathers. Meanwhile, I was stuck with a goofy chubby-cheeked otter.

It wasn't just my Beaver animal though.When I told Mom about our plans she went all out. She always did on Halloween. Apparently, she used to help make costumes for the theater department when she was in high school, and she always relished the opportunity to make something special. This time she had sewn a whole outfit. I was covered from my neck to my ankles in a fluffy faux fur jumpsuit colored to look like an otter with dark brown fur and a white belly. For my feet, Mom had found me some slippers that perfectly matched the fur and were shaped to look like paws. The real creative part were the hands. Rather than simple mittens, she'd found these webbed fingerless gloves and sewn them to the sleeves of the jumpsuit. They let me write and use my hands like normal, but I couldn't take them off without removing the whole suit.

Luckily, the costume didn't have a head. Mom thought it didn't need one.

"You've already got some fluffy otter fur up here." she'd teased, ruffling my tangled mop of brown hair.

She'd promised she would do my face up with makeup properly for trick or treating, but she didn't have time before school. Still, she wouldn't let me leave without something on my face, painting on just a nose and whiskers like you might for a cat costume.

I thought the outfit was a little too cute to be honest. Halloween costumes were meant to be frightening, but a cuddly little otter isn't scary in the least. It wasn't until I got to class however that I learned that I was one of just a couple of kids in the fifth grade who had dressed up. Even the others that had bothered were only wearing simple unassuming accessories like witch hats or cat ears. No one seemed to mind though. Two months in, and just about everyone in Miss Miller's class was still convinced I was some kind of genius five year old. I guess that's why no one teased me. I actually got a lot of compliments, Sarah in particular gushing between every class about how "cute" I was, but it was very awkward being the only one dressed up. Everyone was staring at me.

"You okay?" Zach asked me curiously. I had been slowly getting more and more nervous as the day went by. I had never actually been trick or treating before.

"Uhh, yeah I guess." I said. "I just thought other people would be dressed up."

Zach nodded. Somehow, Laurie had actually convinced him to be part of our group costume - dressing up as the silver beaver Keeo from the story - but he'd told me he didn't want to wear it to school. Instead, he'd opted for a suspiciously nice button-up shirt and beige pants. He looked sharp. "Why don't you change?"