KNOCK, KNOCK, WHO’S DEAD ANYWAY?
Scientists may think that June 21st is the longest day of the year. Male scientists. Male scientists without children. Male Scientists without children who work late on October 31 and don’t have to a) dress up like idiots while they walk their youngsters around the block in the rain collecting candy that they will be forbidden to eat, and then b) continue to answer the door for hours pretending that they don’t know who the children behind the masks are.
Mothers know better.
Excuse me a minute.
“Alyssa,” I say, knowing that my six year-old isn’t the only one having a sugar reaction and trying to keep my temper under control. “There’s a reason that pumpkin is on top of the refrigerator where you can’t reach it. It’s so that you can’t reach it. Leave the chair where it is. You’ve already had more candy than. . .did you brush your teeth?”
Mothers know that Halloween is twice as long as the summer solstice, especially when there is school the next day.
Excuse me again.
“Jesse!” Oh, I can hear that last bag of Sugar Babies in my shrill, shrill voice. I take a deep breath and ask sweetly, “Did you do your homework?”
Maggie May, the Bichon Frise I stole from the very first paying client I had as a decorator – whose dead body I found on the new floor I’d just had installed for her – starts to bark at the door while Jesse tells me how his sister Dana is still out with her friends and how life isn’t fair. This from a child who now has more free candy in his room than the average Seven-11 carries.
“She stayed here with a crazed dog and answered the door while you trick-or-treated with your friends and I took Lys around,” I remind him. His choice, and now he’s got to live with it. “Sorry,” I add, noticing he still has on the cop’s hat and badge that Drew Scoones, Detective Drew Scoones, brought him to use. I think Jess was ready to give up costumes for Halloween, but he didn’t want to disappoint Drew.
Truth be told, neither of us likes to disappoint Drew.
Outside somewhere tires squeal and I hold my breath for a minute hoping that all the teenage trick-or-treaters who don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain are safe. Maggie throws herself against the door with a vengeance just as the doorbell rings – for the millionth time today. I’ve got enough candy for three more trick-or-treaters before I have to start raiding Lys’s haul, which I can’t do until I’ve got her tucked into bed.
Flinging the door open, I expect to see, again, Damian Fisher and his little brother, whose name I can never remember because he’s the seventh Fisher kid and I’ve limited each family to six remembered names. The Fishers adore the drama of Halloween. Last year, Damian was Patrick Henry and his little brother stood threateningly with an old musket, while Damian pleaded for liberty or death on everyone’s doorstep.
This year Damian has already come to the door six times as Dracula, dragging poor what’s-his-name with him, making the kid lie on the steps so that two fang marks dripping red “blood” are clearly visible.
While the front door opens in, the storm door opens out, which I explain to the children lying against it when I can’t get it open. “Besides,” I complain, “I really think you’re over your limit.”
The kids don’t move. Maggie, hoarse from all her barking, paws at the door while I shove it a little harder, nudging them.
“And I can’t see your blood, Little Fisher,” I say.
And I’m tired and I want to get Lys to sleep and I really have always found the whole idea of Halloween kinda creepy with its witches and goblins and George Bush masks. And even if I am dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West, I still think . . .
“Fine.” The tone of my voice alone should tell them they are on shaky ground. “So don’t move.” And I push the door a little harder than I should, only now the bundle doesn’t seem so much like two little kids anymore, but one bigger one, and he kind of rolls over and looks up at me . . .only he isn't a kid and he isn’t blinking.
And, because I’ve seen a dead body before, I know what I’m looking at. And of course, the blood on the stoop is a –pardon the pun–dead giveaway.
And all I can do for a second is mutter a curse word I don’t want my kids to hear, which of course they do, because of that selective hearing kids have that enables them to be deaf to your requests but to hear everything they aren’t meant to.
“What?” Jesse asks, coming toward the open door.
“Take Lys upstairs,” I say in that pseudo-calm voice that announces an emergency.
“Why? What’s the matter?” Jesse asks, and he’s right behind me while I’m shutting the door and thinking that any minute now a trick-or-treater could come to the steps and find the trick of his life.
I order Jesse to get me the phone and get his sister up to her room.
“And shut the door behind you!” I tell him.
And then, dreading what they’ll say when they hear my name, I dial the police.
