Invisible Inkling

It’s Good to Embrace Joy

Before Nadia leaves, she puts an arm around me. “You were awesome,” she says. “I can’t believe you planned that whole thing out. You really got revenge for me booing you those times.”

I don’t correct her.

“I guess I deserved it,” Nadia goes on. “And thanks for saving my dangerous pumpkins last night at school. I wasn’t that nice about it, I know.”

“That’s okay.”

“I was mad at Jacquie more than you,” she says. “It’s like I’m always mad at Jacquie these days.”

“I’m sorry about breaking those first four pumpkins,” I tell her. “Really.”

“I know you are,” she says. “That’s why I made you the faint-banded sea snake.”

“What?”

“The faint-banded sea snake? Wake up, Hank.”

Oh.

The dragon pumpkin—was not a dragon. It was a faint-banded sea snake! “That was for me?” I squeak.

“Yeah,” Nadia says. “I looked it up on the internet so I could carve it correctly. Turns out it’s a really cool kind of snake.”

“But you were mad at me.”

“Yeah, but there I was, wanting to scoop your eyeballs out and snap your fingers off, when I started talking to Dad. He told me this thing about families. He thinks they’re like—”

“Vanilla ice cream,” I say.

“Yeah.” Nadia laughs. “He gave you that talk, too?”

“He gave it to my entire class.”

“So I tried to think of your smashing my pumpkins like a bit of salt that makes our family good,” says Nadia.

“I thought of you as slimy egg,” I tell her.

Nadia goes upstairs with Max and Gustav. I am going to walk down the block to the ice-cream shop to hang out with my parents. Chin talks to her mom through the apartment intercom and gets permission for all the dead ballerinas to go with me. Inkling’s still on my back.

We push through the front door of our apartment building. Out on the street, the neighborhood feels like a party. Sidewalks are crowded with kids and adults in costumes, babies in strollers. Trees shine with orange holiday lights. Jack-o’-lanterns glow, and front steps are covered with fake cobwebs. Our neighbors sit on their stoops in costume. They have bowls of candy for trick-or-treaters.

People walking toward us are holding small paper cups full of ice cream, eating it with thin wooden spoons. Suddenly, there is Patne. He’s wearing a fuzzy blue monster suit and holding a cup of ice cream. His dad is somewhere behind him.

“Happy Halloween,” he says to me. “You get anything good?”

I open my bag to show my candy.

Patne starts talking about how his parents let him go trick-or-treating, but he’s not allowed to eat any of the candy. His dad makes him use it as building blocks. Together they do a big architecture project.

This year, though, he’s hiding a bunch of candy inside his monster suit. That’s why he picked this costume. There’s a pocket that goes right across the tummy, and Patne’s pretty sure his dad hasn’t noticed.

Then he starts talking about how my dad talked to his dad about how dessert brings such joy into the world and it’s good to embrace joy wherever you can find it, as long as you eat a balanced diet.

He tells how my dad said his dad should let Patne try just a tiny cup of Big Round Pumpkin’s special Halloween ice-cream flavor.

I stop listening, even though Patne is acting like he wants to be friends.

I stop listening because I am staring at his paper cup.

Of ice cream.

From Big Round Pumpkin.

It’s the special Halloween ice-cream flavor.

And no way is it candy crunch.

The ice cream is red. Blood red. In it are chunks of what look like—

“Patne!” I shout. “Are those white chocolate chunks?”

“Huh?”

“What’s that ice cream?”

“I was just telling you about it,” he says. “My dad said I could have some. I think he was just trying to be polite to your dad, but who cares? I ate one cup there, and your father gave me a second for the road!”

“No,” I say. “What’s the name of the flavor? Do you know the name of the flavor?”

“Sure, I do,” he says. “Who could forget? It’s loose tooth.”

Loose tooth!

Loose tooth!

“My dad made loose tooth!” I cry, grabbing Patne’s furry fake paws and jumping up and down.

Patne doesn’t know why I’m so happy, but I don’t take the time to explain. Instead, I run over to where Chin is chatting with the other ballerinas. “It’s loose tooth!” I shout nonsensically, throwing my hands in the air.

Loose tooth!

Loose tooth!

I skip-dance down the block, whooping and hollering.

Chin catches up to me, doing some kind of fancy ballet-type leap. Locke, Linderman, and Daley are following us, twirling and laughing and yelling, “Loose tooth! Loose tooth!”—even though they don’t know what it means.

“You’re giving me a stomachache,” complains Inkling, in my ear. “With all this dancing around.”

“Oh, be quiet,” I tell him, but I slow to a walk. “You know you’re happy for me.”

“I’m just happy Halloween’s nearly over,” he says. “People will be throwing out their jack-o’-lanterns tomorrow, don’t you think?”

“They certainly will,” I promise. “I’ll help you raid the trash.”

We get to Big Round Pumpkin. Both my parents are dressed as cows. They are holding trays filled with small cups of loose tooth. A large blackboard next to them reads:

Sample our special Halloween flavor:

LOOSE TOOTH,

invented by Brooklyn’s own HANK WOLOWITZ.

And then at the bottom:

PS: Made with all local, organic ingredients!

I throw myself at Dad, nearly knocking him over. “Loose tooth!”

“I got your notebook,” Dad says, squeezing me. “I hope I picked a good flavor.”

“You what?”

“All those recipes you had! They must have taken a lot of work.”

I step back and frown at Dad. I don’t know what he’s talking about.

“It was an awesome surprise,” Dad goes on, “you leaving the notebook in my coat pocket. I was like, What’s this? And then I was like, Oh wow. A whole notebook of flavors.”

Oh.

I haven’t seen my notebook since I scrawled “beet juice” in it, the day Chin brought me the vegetable present. “You read my notebook?” I say stupidly.

“That was a clever place to leave it. No way I’d miss it.”

I didn’t leave my notebook in Dad’s coat pocket.

Inkling.

Inkling must have.

“Mom cooked the beets at home this morning,” Dad says. “She said she thought you figured out what we were making.”

“No.”

“The deep red is what puts it over the top, don’t you think? I added just enough beet for a good bloody color, mixing it in with raspberry mash. Then I stirred all that into the custard base, added the white chocolate squares, and here ya go, little dude! Your first flavor. Are you surprised?”

I am.

I am.

“Thank you,” I whisper to Inkling.

“Think nothing of it,” he says, patting my hair.

Dad bends over the portable freezer he’s got outside and scoops cones for me and all four dead ballerinas. We sit on the bench in front of the shop, five in a row. Locke takes out her fangs. We lick the loose tooth ice cream and chew the white chocolate teeth we find inside.

“A ghost stole Hank’s top secret squash project,” Chin tells my parents. “It stole my jack-o’-lantern, too.”

“What?” Mom looks puzzled.

“There’s a ghost in the elevator,” says Chin. “Ask anyone. It demanded the squash project for a sacrifice.”

“Okay, Sasha,” says Mom, distracted by the line of people asking for sample cups of ice cream. “Hank, I hope you’re not too disappointed. I would have loved to see your project, after all your hard work.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

Chin’s mom stops by, wearing red lipstick and regular clothes. She stands chatting with my parents.

Locke’s parents come over, too, on their way home from being lawyers. They shake hands with Dad and ask him about the shop.

Nadia, Max, and Gustav wave from the other side of the street. They’re on their way to the party.

Without Mara and Jacquie.

Chin is making jokes with Linderman. Locke is asking my dad questions about making ice cream. Daley is sorting through her stash of candy.

Inkling taps my knee, and I give him my waffle cone. A soft crunching comes from under the bench.

Nobody notices. I scratch his neck the way he likes.

It is a beautiful, beautiful night.

The best Halloween, ever.