Millie did. “Okay, I’ll just come back and knock quietly if something happens.”
“But nothing will! This is all just for contingency’s sake. I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.”
“Okay.”
A flash of remembering crossed her mother’s face. “Oh! And I forgot the most important part of your costume.” She went to the closet and retrieved a long white cardboard box. Inside was a cutlass with a tarnished brass basket guard in a worn leather scabbard. When she pulled the blade out a few inches, it gleamed steely and cold.
Millie could barely believe her eyes. “Whoa, is that a real sword?”
“It’s a costume sword, but it’s still pretty sharp, so don’t go waving it around. Can you believe that this was actually cheaper at the thrift store than a plastic pirate’s cutlass at the toy shop? Prices these days! Anyhow, this looks better with your costume, and you’re mature enough to leave it sheathed so nobody knows it’s dangerous, aren’t you?”
Millie nodded vigorously. Her own real sword! “I’ll just tell people it’s wooden.”
Her mother smiled again, looking relieved. “Good girl. I have one more thing.”
From the pocket of her apron, she pulled out a silvery flask, the kind Old West gamblers and gangsters put liquor in. “I know you don’t really like Cosmic Cola, and that’s practically the only thing they’ll be serving at the party. This way, you can take something else to drink. Just, try not to let anybody see you with it, or they might think you have something you shouldn’t. And that would have … consequences.” She paused, rubbing her throat lightly. “Don’t tell your stepfather about the flask. Or the sword. He wouldn’t approve.”
“I won’t.” Inside, Millie glowed with pleasure at her mother taking her into such confidence. Her own sword and a flask? This wasn’t just the kind of cool boy stuff she’d previously been forbidden from on the grounds it wasn’t ladylike; this was actual grown-up stuff! She was treating Millie like she was an adult! Finally!
Her mother smiled. “Well, it’s an hour until your bedtime … want to go outside and carve a pumpkin or two?”
“Ooh, yes!” This was going to be the best Halloween ever!
On Devil’s Night, Millie’s stepfather had some kind of meeting he had to go to, so he wasn’t around when her mother helped her get dressed in her pirate costume for the party.
“There.” Her mother adjusted the red wig, which was much heavier than Millie had expected, as was the lemonade-filled flask in the inside pocket of her vest. Even the brass compass rested more heavily than she expected in her right hip pocket. And the brass-hilted sword hanging against her left hip—Millie had spray-painted it in brown Rustoleum so it looked a little less suspiciously real—was heaviest of all. “Perfect. Turn around and take a look.”
Millie did. The wig and her mother’s makeup job to give her a proper Caribbean tan made her look much older, but more important, she looked like a real pirate!
“This is so cool! Thank you!” She hugged her mom.
Her mom hugged her back tightly. “You know I love you, right?”
“Of course,” Millie mumbled into her mom’s shoulder.
“I love you bunches and bunches. I know that, sometimes, I do things that don’t seem fair, and I’m sorry about that. I just can’t change how some things are. Steve and I have to worry about what’s best for the twins, and … well, let’s get you to the party.”
By the time Millie’s mother dropped her off at the school stadium parking lot, the twenty-nine other kids were clustered under a tall light, giggling and horsing around as they waited for the Cosmic Cola chartered bus to pick them up. Fifteen boys, and fifteen girls. Seven of the girls were dressed up as different kinds of witches; three were fairy princesses, three were black cats, and one was dressed as Princess Leia. The boys had a more diverse set of costumes; Millie figured it was because they had more movie characters to pick from. There was a Han Solo, an Indiana Jones, a cop, two Karate Kids, a Captain Kirk, three Ghostbusters, a Rocky Balboa, a Batman, a Superman, a solider, a masked slasher … and a pirate captain, who she was dismayed to realize was the old blood kid with the limp and crooked teeth. It made her feel weird that they’d chosen similar costumes. She felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment when he looked up at her and grinned and waved.
The Cosmic Cola bus rolled up, and a pretty woman in a mini-skirted black-tie magician’s costume stepped out onto the pavement. The boys whispered she was dressed like a character named Zatanna from the comics, and once again Millie was annoyed that her parents had forbidden comic books, because she hated knowing less than the others.
“Hey, kids!” Zatanna beamed at them all. “Are you ready for the party?”
The crowd exploded in “Yeah!” and “Woo!”
“Well, everybody get on! Your party awaits!”
Millie was swept up in the boiling wave of seventh graders and shoved onto the bus. She stumbled into a row and plopped down on the plush red velvet window seat … and her heart dropped when the weird kid sat down beside her.
“Hey.” He extended his hand. “My name’s Hubert.”
She awkwardly took his hand and shook it. “I’m Millie.”
“Yes, I know. Your father’s the new executive. He must be so proud that you got chosen.”
Millie squirmed in her seat; Hubert was looking at her so intently, and … it was all just so weird. “Yeah, I mean, I guess.”
“My father’s super proud.” Hubert gave her a snaggle-toothed smile. “He was always so disappointed that I was born with my legs messed up, and the doctors couldn’t really fix them, but now I get to do something really good for the whole family tonight.”
“Why is this party such a big deal?”
“Well, it’s the thirty year, and …” He paused, wincing a little, seeming to realize that maybe he’d said something he shouldn’t. “Well, it’s just going to be something special. You’ll see.”
Zatanna went up and down the aisle with a narrow serving cart laden with apple cider donuts, popcorn balls, bags of chips, frosted Halloween cookies, and of course cans of Cosmic Cola.
“They’ll have pizza at the party, too.” Hubert grabbed double-fistfuls of donuts. “You want something?”
“No, thank you; I’m saving room for pizza.” Feeling unsettled, Millie turned away to watch the Marsh Landing Lighthouse and the rest of the dark landscape pass outside the bus windows.
They reached Marsh Mansion just before 9:00 pm. It was a huge old place, built on a low cliff above the ocean, all covered in Victorian gingerbread and wrought iron balconies and railings.
Zatanna and the bus driver—a gruff, heavyset man who’d been silent the entire trip—ushered them all off the bus and into the mansion’s vaulted foyer.
“Last year, we had the party in the second-floor ballroom, but there was a leak and some of the ceiling came down last week,” Zatanna said brightly. “So this year, the party is in the downstairs grotto.”
She opened up a pair of double doors at the side of the foyer that revealed wide stone steps with a wrought iron wall railing that coiled downward. The bass line of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” boomed faintly from below. “Everybody, follow me!”
The kids all jostled down the stairs. Millie gripped the iron railing, partly to avoid getting knocked over, but partly to still her nerves, which had been jangling ever since Hubert’s comment. She felt badly for judging the boy on his looks, but it wasn’t just his looks that made her recoil, and her instincts told her that anything he liked, she should be wary of. But that was silly; everyone said this party was a huge honor. Everyone. Her stepfather, her mother, the vice principal, the other kids. It wasn’t possible that everyone could be wrong.