Rejects

Chapter Six - Halloween (Part One)

It's Halloween!  I love Halloween!  When I was a young boy, Halloween was pretty much the only time I left my property.  I liked to play outside in the backyard, on the swingset and monkey bars and in the trees, but I never really left the house.  Except for on Halloween. 

I would always go trick or treating with Mikey and his friends.  Granted, I never spoke to them and they never spoke to me, and when we went up to people's houses I would be at the back of the group and the last to collect candy before leaving, but I didn't really want to be talked to anyway so I was fine with it.  In fact, I loved it. 

When Mikey entered fourth grade and I fifth, I stopped going with his friends, but when he came back later that night just the two of us would walk around our own street going to our neighbor's houses.  That I might have loved even more, because there weren't as many people.  It was just me, my brother, and my dad.  Mom stayed home to give candy to the kids that came to our house. 

We never stayed out later than 9:30, maybe 9:45, because sadly Belleville isn't the safest neighborhood and it was a bad idea to be out at night.  If you were alone, it was a bad idea to be out at all.  But to us that just meant starting sooner, maybe around 6:00. 

When I began 8th grade I stopped trick or treating, but still liked to dress up.  Mikey stopped trick or treating in 8th grade also, but instead of staying home like me he hung out with friends.  His first year of highschool, he stopped going out as well, which I now know is because he lost all his friends.  So the two of us made a tradition of staying up really late watching horror movies. 

Other than all the candy, I think one of my favorite parts about Halloween is setting up decorations.  Hanging spider webs, digging plastic skulls into the ground, putting bat stickers on all the windows, and everything else we do.  There's also carving pumpkins, what I always like to do is carve a square on the front of the pumpkin, put in straws to make it look like a jail cell, and then put a little skeleton figurine inside, leaning against the "bars" and make a pumpkin prison. 

So yeah, I really like Halloween. 

This year it happened to fall on a Friday too, so I don't have to worry about school tomorrow!  Speaking of school, Mikey and I actually have to leave for it right now.  I banged on our bedroom door.

"Ready yet?  Mikey, we have to leave now!"  I yelled through the wood.  He came out wearing black pants, a black and white striped shirt and a black hoodie.  His socks were white, but he was wearing black shoes.  Basically every part of his outfit alternated white and black.

"Aww, look at my baby brother, showing his emo side!"  I said, grinning.  He chuckled and sighed.  "It's Halloween, the only day of the year my outfit will actually resemble yours."

"Whatever, let's just go."

We said goodbye to mom, but dad already left for work.  Mom is trying to find a job now, since I'm not being homeschooled anymore she doesn't have to stay home all day, but she's not working just yet so she's still home in the mornings.  Mikey and I walked to school, talking about what we were going to do after school.

"Maybe we could invite Frank over for the movie marathon,"  Mikey suggested.  "Maybe..."  I mumbled absentmindedly.  I wonder if Frank likes horror movies.  It occurred to me at that moment that I've never actually met with Frank outside of school.  I see him a lot during the day, but then I go home and don't leave.  We text each other, but don't actually hang out.  Maybe today he could come over.

Once we reached the school, before we could get lost in the crowd a short black flash darted over to us and you'll never guess who it was.

"MikeyGeeMikeyGeeMikeyGeeMikeyGee!" Frank yelled over-energetically.  And when I say over-energetically, I mean really over-energetically, even for him.  He seems happier than usual, it's probably because it's Halloween. I noticed that in addition to his usual black outfit, he was wearing fingerless black gloves with the design of a skeleton hand on the front, so his hands looked like skeleton bones.