Invisible Inkling

You Are Easy Prey

“I’ve decided I want a Halloween costume,” Inkling announces that afternoon.

“Good luck with that.” We are in my room, paging through my venomous reptiles pop-up book.

“I’m not too old, you know,” says Inkling. “I may be an adult in bandapat years, but I’m younger than you.”

“You are?”

“I’m not even nine.”

“You’re invisible,” I say. “The problem with your Halloween costume is not how old you are. It’s that no one can see you.” It’s true. Once Inkling puts something on, the thing goes invisible. I’ve done it with Band-Aids.

“I could see myself in the mirror,” says Inkling. He spends a lot of time sitting on the sink in the bathroom, admiring himself when I’m not around to get a look at him. He likes to get his fur as fluffy as possible.

“That’s not the point.”

“You’ll see.” Inkling shuts the pop-up book. “I’ll figure out a costume. You’ll be totally impressed.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“What are you dressing as?” he asks.

“Something mega-scary,” I say. “I have to be. Otherwise Nadia and her friends will get me again.”

“Get you again? What do you mean?”

So I explain. Even though I hate talking about it.

See, my parents always work on Halloween night. They dress in costumes and stand outside the shop, giving away samples.

That means Nadia brings me trick-or-treating.

Now, Nadia and I usually get along. She takes me out for pizza and sometimes loans me money. When my parents are working at the shop, she makes mac and cheese from a box and lets me watch science videos while I eat dinner.

But Halloween? It brings out the evil in her.

I was seven the first year. She was fourteen. This was long before Inkling came to live with me.

I was dressed as the Empire State Building.

Nadia was a vampire.

Vampires were very in that year. In fact, all Nadia’s friends were vampires, too. Dark wigs, pale skin, blood dripping out of their mouths.

I could barely keep up with them. It was hard to walk in my Empire State Building costume.

Suddenly, the street seemed empty.

Had Nadia turned a corner? Gone off with her friends?

A tall guy walked by in a skull mask, carrying what might have been a baby dressed as a lobster.

Or what might have been a lobster pretending to be a baby dressed as a lobster.

I wasn’t sure.

Did lobsters come that big?

What would a jumbo lobster do if it got loose on the streets of Brooklyn?

Would it try to climb an Empire State Building?

I have an overbusy imagination, it’s true. I was trying to calm it down by eating a Milky Way when—

“Boo!”

A vampire leaped at me from behind a mailbox.

“Boo!”

Another leaped out, baring bloody fangs.

“Boo!” Another.

“Stop!” I cried. “Leave me alone.”

“Vy should ve? You are easy prey.”

“Nadia!” I called out. “Your friends are booing me!”

“Boo!” Nadia herself jumped from behind a trash can.

I reeled, stumbled, and fell sprawling onto my back. Candy spilled everywhere.

Stupid costume. In case you are wondering, it is nearly impossible to stand up again in an Empire State Building suit, once you’ve fallen down.

I lay there, legs flailing. Trying not to cry.

Nadia stood over me, half laughing. “I got you good, didn’t I?”

The back of my costume was crushed. Five hours of work building and painting this thing, and now I looked like the Empire State Building after an earthquake.

“I can’t believe you booed me,” I told Nadia.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a baby.”

I managed to stand up, and I followed the vampires for the rest of the night, but only ’cause I was too little, then, to find my way home alone.

After what happened, you’d think my parents wouldn’t send me out with Nadia again.

Wrong.

The next year, I was eight. Nadia was fifteen.

I was a hobbit. Nadia was a zombie.

Zombies were very in that year. In fact, all Nadia’s friends were going to be zombies, too. Bald patches; pale, rotting skin; blood dripping out of their mouths.

At least my best friend, Wainscotting, was going with us. With him there, you’d think, no zombies were going to boo me.

Wrong again.

This time, there were boys along. Boys Nadia thought were cute.

Turns out, Nadia will not defend her younger brother in front of cute boys. She will not explain that Wainscotting and I are hobbits, not twin Robin Hoods. She will not help when a cute boy says, “Let’s leave the twin Robin Hoods here. We’ll check out this party I heard about. Just for a minute.” Nadia will tell the hobbits to sit on a park bench. She’ll say they’re not to move one inch under penalty of having their eyeballs scooped out with a teaspoon.

She will make them swear never to tell their parents how she left them alone.

She will let the big boys take the hobbits’ trick-or-treat bags, too.

Then she will leave the hobbits alone in the park, without candy, and she will go “check out” the party.

For more than an hour.

The hobbits will be far enough from home that they’re not sure of the way back.

They’ll be on a park bench.

In the dark. On Halloween.

Wainscotting and I ran out of things to talk about.

Then we held hands.

People walked by in scary rubber masks.

A cat meowed.

A twig snapped.

“Boo!” Zombie Nadia leaped from behind our bench.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” Wainscotting and I ran screaming across the park.

The stupid boys came out. Nadia’s friends Jacquie and Mara did, too. They were laughing and pointing, their zombie teeth gleaming in the dark.

“Don’t boo me!” I yelled at Nadia. “I can’t believe you’d boo me after what happened last year.”

“Oh, come on, Hank.” Nadia put on lip gloss. “I brought you each a pack of gummi spiders.” She walked toward me and Wainscotting, holding out two packages.

“I don’t want your stupid spiders,” I shouted. “Where’s all the rest of our candy?”

“I think we left it at the party,” Nadia said. “But we can get more. It’s Halloween.”

“You left it at the party? I had Toblerones in there.”

“Wolowitz, take the spiders,” whispered Wainscotting. “Those are hard to get.”

“Take us home!” I barked, snatching the spiders out of Nadia’s hand. “And don’t ever, ever boo me again!”

“If you tell Mom and Dad I left you in the park,” Nadia whispered in my ear, “I’ll do a lot more than boo you. You can be sure of that.”