My Miserable Life (5 page)

So I had to settle, as usual. Monkeylad didn't get a costume at all, but we figured he wouldn't really care that much and he could wear his hot-dog bun from a few years ago.

Angelina likes to play the older-sibling-who-didn't-used-to-have-to-share card. Sometimes it makes me feel bad that I came along and ruined her life. This time it made me mad, because 1) this wasn't her money, it was Mom's, and 2) when Angelina was one and two years old, she couldn't have really cared about how much her tiny pumpkin and Hey! Bunny Rabbit! Halloween costumes cost. Still, I let her get away with her shenanigans this time because if I were her, I would probably resent having me as a little brother, too.

The story goes, when I was born, Angelina was really mad at my mom and me. Mom bought Angelina a purple teddy bear and had my grandma give it to her and say it was from me. That didn't fool my sister. She knew that a new-born baby can't go out and buy a teddy bear.

When my mother brought me home, Angelina took one look at me and ran outside holding a plastic spoon. My mom followed her and took the spoon away. Angelina had bitten off a piece of it. My mom freaked out and made sure there weren't any pieces of spoon in Angelina's mouth. Then she asked why Angelina was so upset.

“I'm having a hard time, Mommy,” two-year-old Angelina said. “I'm afraid the baby will take you away from me.” She had started speaking in long sentences when she was nine months old. I, on the other hand, took a long time to speak. Mostly I just liked to listen to my sister. Since we didn't have TV, she was the best entertainment I could get.

My mom tried to comfort Angelina, but my sister never seemed to have recovered from the trauma of me being born. She would pull my shirts up and poke my fat belly, saying, “Touch, baby! Touch! Touch!” When my mom told her to stop, she said she was just trying to teach me words. No wonder it took me so long to talk.

 

CHAPTER 5

THE HALLOWEEN FAIRY IS EVIL

The night after the Candy Corn Carnival, I heard shouting and knocking. I went to the door and looked through the peephole. The Grump from next door was standing there. Monkeylad was next to him with something gross in his mouth.

“That dog stole my cake,” said the Grump. “This is the last straw. If you don't do something about that dog, I will call the authorities.”

“I'm so sorry, Mr.…,” my mom said. I didn't feel so bad about calling him the Grump if she didn't even know his name.

I felt like a Grump, too. Monkeylad had tried to help me, but I couldn't eat that piece of cake he'd brought. It had dog teeth marks all over it.

Angelina and her friends were going to have a Halloween party at Twinkle Knoll's house. Twinkle Knoll has five brothers and sisters who all look just like her, each one year older and one head taller than the next, with big, perfectly round blue eyes and long blond hair.

Their parents let them have parties, watch TV all the time, and eat as much candy as they want. Obviously their house is a perfect place to hang out at on Halloween. There's no so-called Halloween Fairy there to steal your hard-earned Halloween candy. Not like at my house, where she lurks in the corners, ready and waiting with her dreaded Lurning Bush school-supply store gift certificates to trade for your candy.

First of all, you can't make up for stolen candy with school supplies, and second of all, why would you misspell the name of a place where kids were supposed to go to learn? The little buddies would get confused. And what did that name mean, anyway?

Just then, my mom came out of her room wearing THE WINGS.

One Halloween she'd dressed up as a fairy with these big wings that looked like the feathers came from real pigeons, a wreath of fake pink flowers on her head, and an old lace dress that kept getting tangled and torn on the branches when she took me out trick-or-treating. She had to turn sideways to let the kids pass her on the sidewalk because the wings were so huge. One year she was an angel wearing the same wings. One year she was a butterfly. Yep, same pigeon-feather wings.

And this year she had on an orange-and-black outfit with orange-and-black-striped stockings and the same wings.

“Guess who I am?” my mom asked.

She was the Halloween Fairy, but I couldn't bring myself to say it.

“Are you ready?”

I didn't want to go trick-or-treating with her, but it would have been worse to stay home and give out candy to Rocko Hoggen and Leif Zuniga and Serena Perl, who were probably all trick-or-treating together dressed in matching zombie outfits. So I made my mom promise to keep her distance and pretend she wasn't with me if we ran into anyone I knew.

Before we left, Monkeylad was having one of his demon possessions. His eyes were rolling up in his head and had turned blue.

“We need to exercise the demon so he doesn't attack trick-or-treaters at the door,” I told my mom.

“You mean exorcise?” she said, laughing.

“That's what I said,” I said.

She bent down really slowly, holding out a Chix Stix treat, caught Monkeylad, and Velcroed on his hot-dog bun. As soon as it was on, he sat down and looked up at her with twinkling black puppy eyes. It was like magic.

“This hot-dog bun was worth the investment,” my mom said. Monkeylad had worn it a few times already, but it was harder to put on now since he'd gotten a little chubby around the middle.

I had to admit, he did look kind of cute as a hot dog. And it would be much harder for him to escape and steal meat while wearing that thing.

Our neighborhood was lit up with orange jack-o'-lantern lights, and there were vats of dry ice and dangling skeletons and blow-up witches and cobwebs getting caught over my mouth, and it was all pretty cool, in spite of my mom's wings and my dog in his too-small bun.

As I was walking along the street, I saw Joe Knapp from school. Joe Knapp wears big glasses with thick lenses. His name is embroidered on his jackets and his backpack. His lunch box and backpack match; they are both in the shape of books. So I wasn't surprised to see that for Halloween he was dressed as a dictionary. His dad was dressed as a giant baby in fuzzy footsie pajamas. I didn't feel as embarrassed about my mom's wings after that. Joe waved to me but then ducked his head, maybe when he realized that I was looking at his dad.

I filled a pillowcase with candy and was really excited to go home and eat some. I figured my mom might be nicer this year, because of all the hardship I had recently endured, and maybe let me eat a few extra pieces and keep the rest for the following weekends. Actually, if we followed her two-pieces-per-weekend rule, the candy would last me for a year's worth of weekends. I could almost taste the hard sugar crackling against my teeth and the chocolate melting on my tongue.

But when we got home, Mom said, “Time for the Halloween Fairy.”

I looked at her with dread.

“You can keep three pieces for tonight, okay?” she added, smiling like she was doing me a big favor.

“Seriously, Mom? Seriously? You've got to be kidding me, Mom?” I was so upset I was talking in question marks like she did.