“James Bond, hell! You’re the biggest loser ever, Colton Brisby.” By the end of the day, I had bounced back. I’d have plenty of chances to try again. Four years’ worth, in fact, before Elizabeth graduated and fled Saint Claire forever.
Halloween arrived at last. As soon as the sun went down, the doorbell started ringing. Dad handed out candy, while Mom and Melissa prepared to join the painted throngs haunting the sidewalks. Of course, my little sister dressed up as a Barbie doll. The mermaid version of Barbie. I started to tell her that she looked royally dumb with her feet sticking out of her pink fishtail, but Dad thumped me upside the head and kissed his Barbie-mermaid-princess on her rouged cheek and sent her off with a wave. “You look great, honey. Y’all be back in an hour, hear?” While he waited for the doorbell, he watched the early evening news, and I purloined Mom’s carton of eggs from the fridge and slipped out the door. Under the vampire cloak I wore last year, I was decked out in black.
Jimmy and Tyrone had agreed to meet me at the Elementary playground.
They were hanging out under an oak tree when I got there. We ditched our costumes and Jimmy passed around the black shoe polish. Smearing it all over his face, he said, “We’re gonna get creamed.” At least tonight he sounded excited about it. Tyrone had brought a paper bag full of egg cartons.
His mom raised chickens and sold the eggs to nearly everybody in town. “If she knew I took these,” he said, handing us each a carton, “she’d skin me.”
“It’s just once a year, Ty,” I said, tucking eggs into the pockets of my sweat suit alongside the love potion. I never knew when I’d run into Elizabeth and get the chance to slip it to her. Maybe tonight. Please, God, make it be tonight.
We started off up the street, a carton apiece stuck under our arms.
“How does this work, anyway?” asked Tyrone. “We just start throwing ‘em?”
“Ain’t you ever watched the big kids go egging?”
“Always had to go home too early.”
In truth, we betrayed our inexperience by showing up with our eggs before it was fully dark. In the meantime, we rang a few doorbells for lack of anything better to do, and while I munched a Tootsie pop (letting the stick hang out of my mouth like it was a cigarette), I began to notice that the number of trick-or-treaters was dwindling. The moon glowed bright above the oak trees; lights on front porches started flicking out. The time had come.
I heard Tyrone gulp in the dark. “We should go back to my place and watch scary movies.”
“Yeah . . . ” Jimmy began. That’s when we heard the roar of trucks and shrill war cries in the distance. At the end of the block, a pair of shadows slunk between crepe myrtle bushes.
Half crouching, half running, we hurried up the sidewalk, looking for cover.
Randy Tillman’s flaming dragon of a truck sped around the corner.
The two shadows sprang up, shrieking bloody murder, and flung little white bombs as it passed. The eggs shattered on the side panels, some sailed through the open windows, and whoever rode inside flung eggs right back, hollering for revenge. Neither Jimmy, Tyrone, nor myself dared throw eggs at our archenemies. We ducked behind the trees lining the street and waited for the truck to disappear. We could hear it roaring for several blocks, so we knew when we were safe. We tore after the shadows who fled into the night.
Turning onto Ranch Avenue, we stopped and stared at the math teacher’s house. Every tree and bush in Mr. Jamison’s front lawn was draped in toilet paper. “Math sucks,” written in whipped cream, slipped down the large front windows.
Tyrone cried out. “Something hit me!”
An egg sailed past my head. Across the street, a voice cried, “Get
‘em! Smear the little shits!”
I palmed an egg and lobbed it at the shadows running toward us. In the light from the streetlamp I watched it strike home. The shadow doubled over, squealing and grabbing his bruised forehead. His fingers strung with egg yoke. Jimmy tugged my sleeve and off we ran, stopping every few feet to lob eggs at our pursuers. God, it was fun. Just like a war film.
Eventually, we joined forces with a gang of eighth graders and a couple of Freshmen. They weren’t exactly the cool kids, but we weren’t in a position to be choosy. The major drawback was that Rebecca Duckett lurked on the outskirts of the group. Though she was a Junior, only the younger kids would let her tag along. She wore a gray sweatshirt instead of black and appeared to be everyone’s favorite target. Her matted hair was wet with egg, and yoke smeared her clothes. She didn’t carry a single egg to defend herself, but followed us around with a scowl on her face and her arms crossed over her copious chest. Her presence was a threat to our budding reputations, so we stayed as far from her as possible without sacrificing our safety inside the crowd. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Selsie had suffered the same sort of ostracizing when she was in school and finally offered Rebecca an egg. After that she stuck to me like a wad of gum on my shoe.
When I rolled my eyes in Jimmy’s direction, he chuckled and said,
“You shoulda known better. Feed the cat and it keeps coming around.” I was about to suggest we ditch this party, when an old blue sedan pulled around the block, paused in the street and revved up, challenging us.
“Hey, that’s full of cheerleaders!” Tyrone cried. “Get ‘em!” Cheerleaders! Elizabeth. What were the chances? The windows lowered and eggs started flying. Rebecca ducked behind me like I was her knight in shining armor. I gave her a shove. “Go pick on somebody else!” I shouted. Then, as I turned back to the battle, hands full of ammunition, an egg caught me under the left eye. I dropped like a stone. For a minute I didn’t know which way was up, which was down. I feared my eye had burst out of the socket, but it was only yoke I scraped off my face. Groaning, I rolled over on the pavement and for a moment I was sure I was dreaming: Elizabeth McDuffy leaned over me, red curls tumbling from under a black stocking cap. “You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I grunted, sat up, and declared more exuberantly, “Yeah!”
“Sorry,” she said, squeezed my arm, then jumped back into the sedan.
It sped off, taking my heart with it.
I was so enraptured that I’d forgotten the love potion. Nor did I hear the growl of Tillman’s dragon approaching. Tires squealed, rubber burned, and those headlights chased us down. Jimmy dragged me to my feet and we dived clear. Eggs smashed all around us, so we returned fire. “Brisby!” I heard as the truck roared past. The driver hit the brakes.
“Shit! Here they come,” shouted Jimmy. We scattered, but Trev Reynolds was our best running back. I stood no chance. In an instant he had the hood of my sweatshirt, and my collar jerked tight as a noose. I kicked and swatted just like those cats under the bridge. Trev dragged me back toward the truck where Joey Osborn and Randy Tillman had collected a handful of others and were smashing eggs over their heads. Rebecca Duckett took the abuse in stoic silence. Jimmy and Tyrone were not among them. I feared they’d abandoned me until eggs flew from around the nearest oak.
Randy and Joey hurried after them.
“Pat ‘em down!” Trev ordered. “Don’t you little girls know it’s dangerous out here?” Joey confiscated our eggs, while Randy gathered the candy from Tyrone’s paper bag and added it to their stash in the truck. How many other kids had they robbed tonight?
Trev searched my pockets. Clucking his tongue, he broke every egg he found over my head. With slime dripping down my face, I vowed to cheer for every football team but ours.
“Hey, what’s this?” He held up the love potion.
“No!” I cried, grabbing for it.