Trick or Treat

“Want some candy?”  Kurt said.

I looked around to see who he was talking to.  Those three words were the first I ever remember him saying to me. 

Kurt came to our house on the day after the Fourth of July, so his Mother could say Happy Birthday to my Mother.  I guess Kurt got bored and my Aunt Lisa told him to go outside and play with his little cousin.  I stood on the front lawn, in my new red, yellow and blue striped bathing suit, cooling off in the sprinkler.  He watched, from the top of the front porch, sitting with his legs in his blue jeans stretched down the steps.  He had a grin on his face, below his narrow blue eyes and curly black hair.  He always had that grin, like the cat Alicemet in Wonderland.  I saw the grin when he opened Christmas presents, when his Dad slapped him for talking back, and when he threw our cat as high as our house, yelling, “Now let’s see if you land on your feet.”  He had the grin while he talked to me.  I kept running through the spray, jumping, squealing, and dodging the pin-needle drops of cold water.

“Do you?” Kurt shouted at me.

I tried my best ballet leap, legs straight out, hands over my head, in the fifth position.

He stood, walked over, and turned off the sprinkler.

“Hey, why did you do that?”

“Are you deaf, or just special?”

“Special, I think.” 

The grin was gone.  “Do you want some candy?” he growled.

“Do you have some?”

“I got an idea,” he said.

            Kurt told me to go in the house and get a big shopping bag.  He said to hide it from my Mom and his Mom.  “Get two,” he added.

            When I came back, Kurt said we should take a walk. 

            “Where?  I can’t leave my block,” I said, looking at my front door.

            “It’s okay.  I talked to your Mom.”

            I slipped on my pink flip flops and Hello Kitty t-shirt.  I followed him across the lawn to the sidewalk.  We hurried down my street and turned at the Olsens’ house on the corner. 

            “This is as far as I can go.”  I stood on the sidewalk, in the middle of the Olsens’ driveway.

            Kurt walked back to me.  “Guess you don’t want any candy.”

            “Guess I do.”

            “Well, I know where it is.  I’m taking you there.”

            “But why is it so far from my house?  My Mom told me not to go farther than here.”

            “Don’t be such a baby.  I told you, your Mom said it’s okay.  I’ll show you the way and then I’ll take you home.”  Kurt said, with the grin.

            “Okay.”  I picked up the shopping bags.

            “You’ll have so much candy, you won’t have to buy any for a month,” Kurt added, as he started down the block.  “We’re talking about the best, the biggest chocolate bars you’ve ever seen.”

            “And Skittles?”

            “Plenty of Skittles.”

            “I love Skittles.”