October 31, 1993
We’d finally convinced the uncles that we were old enough to trick or treat alone.
Jason and I were ostensibly in charge, since we were the oldest (barely). Jason looked the part, in his wolfman costume. It commanded authority.
I’d been assured by my classmates that 5th grade was too old to dress as a ballerina, but I sort of didn’t care. My costume was awesome, and I looked gorgeous and graceful, surrounded by yards and yards of red tulle. The only drawback was trekking along the sidewalk in pink bedroom slippers (that looked close enough to ballet shoes). I could feel every rock. I might as well have gone barefoot.
While I limped behind the pack, Derek was leading the charge, dressed as half cheerleader, half football player. He had half a blonde wig on his head, and his jersey had been split down the middle and painstakingly sewed to half a cheerleading uniform. At the time, I was just impressed that he was managing to stay several yards ahead of the rest of us while wearing one football cleat. By the time I got my candy, he was usually already ringing the next doorbell.
“Nobody’s home,” he was already announcing as the rest of us arrived at the 10th or 11th house. Timmy didn’t believe him, and rang the doorbell several more times for good measure as the rest of us climbed the stairs and huddled on the stoop.
We were already heading back down the steps when two teenage boys emerged from a car parked at the very back of the house’s long driveway. “Are you trick or treating?” One of them asked us.
They were talking to us. We all paused in our tracks. “Yes,” I answered, speaking for the group.
“That’s our house,” the other boy said. We didn’t respond, staring at them owlishly from our little huddle.
“Nobody’s home,” the first boy continued, “but we’ve got some candy here in our car.”
Jason, Timmy, Andy, and I all looked at each other. “No thank you,” we said almost in unison (polite, even in the face of stranger danger.)
Derek started marching toward the car.
“Derek,” I warned. “No.”
“You guys,” Derek called over his shoulder as he approached the car, “they’ve got candy!”
My brother, who was only 8, was already facepalming at 12th grade level. “Derek,” he said, in a voice that was world-weary beyond its years, “that’s a really bad idea.”
But Derek was already to the passenger side of the car, where the older boy was leaning in to get something. The rest of us began inching nervously away.
In an instantaneous blur, the older boy spun away from the car, and there was a wet, smacking noise. White foam splattered all over the grass, and Derek’s magnificent costume.
Shaving cream!
“RUN!” Jason yelled.
Instantly, four of us turned and sprinted for the end of the block, leaving poor Derek as cannon fodder for the enemy. I heard another splattery, wet smack of shaving cream hit him as I ran, and briefly mourned our casualty in the trick-or-treating trenches.
I was managing to keep up with the boys, despite every step being agony on my practically-bare feet. I could hear someone gaining on me and risked a glance over my shoulder, my heart pounding in terror that I would be the next victim. To my surprise, it was Derek, making full use of adrenaline and the extra traction from his single football cleat to put distance between himself and our attackers.
Little and quick as we were, we were easily outpacing the older boys, and as we rounded the corner we had enough of a lead that Jason, sprinting in front of the group, decided to take a risk. Veering into the alley, he pointed to some trash cans about 20 yards ahead. “Hide!”
It was far. I wasn’t sure we could all make it into hiding before the older boys caught up to us, and I didn’t think we could outrun them a second time. I yelped as my feet hit the gravel ground of the alley–the rocks stuck right through the foam padding of my slippers and stabbed the soles of my feet. As the boys disappeared behind the trash cans, I glanced back, certain that doom was upon us and the teenagers would be looming in the mouth of the alley, shaving cream cans brandished menacingly in their hands. Mercifully, they weren’t there, and I dropped into place next to Jason, Derek sliding into hiding right behind me, smearing shaving cream on my tutu.
The timing was terrifyingly close. The moment Derek pulled his legs in and disappeared from view, the teenagers’ car sped past the alley, engine revving. They had giving up catching us on foot and decided to pursue us in their car. We all looked at each other grimly. If we’d stayed on the sidewalk, we would have been done for.
With our momentary reprieve, we surveyed the casualties. Derek was a gruesome sight. Shaving cream was matted in his blonde wig, splattered on his shoulder, smeared across his torso and dribbling onto his pants. I suppressed a shudder.
“They’re gonna come back and get the rest of us!” Timmy wailed.
“We have to get to Grandma’s!” Jason said resolutely, helping us all to our feet and taking off down the alley. I limped after the boys, filled with dread. Any moment now, the car would be coming around the other side of the block. If they glanced down the alley…
Time seemed to slow down, distance seemed to stretch in defiance of the laws of physics, and it felt like we were running in slow motion, but after an excruciating, terrified sprint we arrived, gasping for breath, at Grandma’s back gate. Andy struggled with the latch while Timmy and I watched the ends of the alley, terrified that at any moment we might hear the roar of an engine and see headlights appear…
“It’s stuck!” Andy yelled. Without hesitation, Jason clambered up the fence and somersaulted over into Grandma’s yard. We heard a loud ripping noise as his costume caught on the fence and tore. Moments later, the gate swung violently open, and we all rushed though to the safety of Grandma’s yard.
We survived.
As the gate slammed shut behind us, Jason mournfully looked over the damage to his costume: two long, ragged tears down the side.
“At least you’re a wolf man,” I said, trying to see the positive. “Torn clothes are kind of their thing.”
Morose and bedraggled, we trudged toward the house to report our harrowing escape to the grown-ups.
This is probably a good time to mention that my dad is one of eight brothers, and on hearing our tale, every single one of them became very, very angry.
“Show us the house!” They boomed, and moments later, the boys were leading them down the street, with Derek, Exhibit A, leading the pack to present the grisly evidence.
Well, the boys were leading most of them, I should say. Two of the uncles briefly stayed behind to arm themselves with shaving cream.
I stayed behind with the aunts, feeling victimized and slightly helpless.
“Should I be there, too, mom?” I asked after sitting and fretting for a few minutes.
“If you feel like it, sweetie.”
I stood up resolutely. “I’m gonna go.”
My confidence waned as I strode down the block. A small crowd was gathered in front of the offending house. Granted, most of them were my male relatives, but I picked out the two grim-faced teenage boys, looking remorseful and splattered with shaving cream. Standing in front of them, though, was a lady in full Mama Bear mode. I worried that the uncles might have met their match.
“I’m calling the cops!” She shouted.
“Good!” Bellowed an uncle. “In fact, we’ll call them for you!”
“GOOD!” She shrieked. “Tell them you attacked my kids!”
“First,” an uncle got right in her face as he said this, “we’re gonna tell them your kids attacked our kids!”
The lady switched gears pretty quickly. “No one got hurt! It was just boys having fun! They were just playing a prank on the younger guys!”
At this moment, I tentatively approached the group. “I, um…”
All eyes were suddenly on me, shivering in my ballerina costume, stuttering my words…a single dollop of shaving cream splattered daintily on the edge of my tutu.
The mother spun around to face her sons with murder in her eyes.
“YOU SHAVING CREAMED A GIRL?”
A man I didn’t recognize, apparently the boys’ father, stared daggers at the two teenagers and then turned to face the uncles.
“They’re all yours,” he said.
The rest of the evening was a blur of grown-ups rushing in and out of the house, grumbling angrily, talking to the police, and deciding not to press charges because, thanks to my timely arrival, those two punks are probably still grounded 24 years later. I was later informed that upon seeing the angry, shaving cream-wielding mob approach, one of the teens had tried to escape over their property’s back fence. The eldest of my uncles had, in a dazzling display of speed, made a magnificent sprinting leap to catch the hooligan just in time and drag him back to face justice. To this day, the cousins agree that no feat of Uncle Rick’s, before or since, has ever equalled such magnitude.
Thus ended our Nightmare on Northwest Circle, and as Derek tried not to get shaving cream on any of Grandma’s furniture, we battered survivors sat in silence, chewing our candy in a haunted manner, waiting with dread for the sequel, where we would face a new threat–perhaps a TP-ing, maybe even an egging, and probably set in space for some reason.
At least I didn’t trip.
Laura Writes 