A Halloween Story: The Ruse

[Bill Floyd]

Laura's daddy was what we'll call the protective sort, especially since his daughter had turned thirteen and hit her growth spurt, so, despite the fact that most of the kids in the neighborhood were too poor to carry their own cell phones, he'd bought her a cheap model and paid extra for the GPS tracking feature.

When she handed the cell phone off to Katy Daly just after dark on Halloween night, Katy was suspicious.  "You can use all the minutes you want," Laura assured her, knowing that Katy would be in the neighborhood along with the rest of the kids for most of the night, "and if my dad calls, you just let it go to voicemail and then text him back and tell him everything's cool."

Katy wanted to know where they were going, and Laura gave her some jive about being invited to a high school party and meeting their ride out on the shoulder of the highway, but when Katy saw Burke standing there in his shabby costume and Theo looking downright ridiculous in his Iron Man outfit, she shook her head and said, "I hope y'all find whatever it is you're looking for over there."

Owen Nelson had been Laura's first real kiss; her heart still did a hyper little skip whenever she thought about it, and she thought about it a lot.

They crossed over the highway into The Acres with the music from the Gilmour's party echoing behind them, the running footsteps of trick-or-treaters along the sidewalks and chiming doorbells and flickering streetlights, Burke in front, Laura behind him tall and striding, Theo waddling along with his heart and his throat, knowing he wasn't cut out for this, knowing he was very, very scared to be breaking the rules about going into The Acres, much less after dark, much less on this haunted night, but also knowing that Burke was his best buddy and that beautiful Laura Gilmour maybe wasn't as tough as she thought, and Theo wasn't the kind to turn his back on his only friends.  

[Gita]

I like the euphemism "growth spurt" and you took me back to a time when kissing was an end unto itself.  The more you make these characters real, the more the fear factor grows. Please don't let harm come to any of them. That goes for Jamie, too.

[Angela]

I got a little vicarious tingle from your Laura character.  She became awfully real in a very short time.  Fine job.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

I have always said that giving a mobile to your child was false security! Good touch!

[Joey Delgado]

This is like 80s era coming-of-age story a al Speilberg. I am enthralled by every sentence. They can't come fast enough.

[Paul de Denus]

I feel like this threesome - sneaking off from work to comment- the last line echoes the silence of what they've left behind as they go forward- dark things coming!!

[Jamie Hogan]

"...the protective sort..." he said. Never ceases to amaze me how well you know your characters, how you give them quirks and backgrounds and their own world in so few words. The final sentence is such a sad and colorful picture, the perfect sendoff into this night.