(OCTOBER 2010)

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RICH MUTATIO

Once we arrived at Charlie's place on Saturday afternoon, we began working on our costumes. I finished my outfit first, with Zoey finishing hers not long after. We tried them on to see how we'd looked while the others continued working on theirs.

I posed with the dual swords I made. "How do I look?"

Bond stopped carving the boomerang he was making to observe me. "You're missing the scar."

"It's a waste of effort if I put it on today."

"Then help us make our costumes so we can get the candy Charlie's mom asked us to buy."

"If I help with your costume, it's my costume at that point. Not yours."

"Isn't that Mr Cranston's quote from the other day?"

"You realized that I was right and now you're accusing me of stealing quotes? That's rough, buddy."

"Shut up!"

Zoey exited the washroom in her Toph costume, tripping on something.

I helped her up, chuckling. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it feels like I'm actually blind while wearing these contacts."

"You feel like you're blind?" I grabbed the box of contacts. "Can I try one on?"

"Sure, go ahead."

I put one on one eye and shut the other. Zoey was right, it was like staring through a tiny straw and everything that wasn't the hole was a cloudy blur.

"You're actually crazy if you're gonna wear these at night," I told her while taking off the contacts.

"I'm crazy? You're the one who forced me to get them!"

Mallory tried one on, blinked a few times, and looked around. "Yeah. Maybe just wear them during the picture and that's it."

"Definitely. I don't wanna be blind during my first trick-or-treat."

"Hold on, you've never been trick or treating?"

"No, we don't really do that back home. Except for the super-rich folks."

Once everyone finished making their costumes, we headed to the grocery store to buy trick-or-treat candy for tomorrow. We filled an entire cart with boxes of candy with the total coming to around a hundred dollars.

"How is this cheaper than the costumes?" Charlie complained.

When we got back to his place, his parents told us to leave the boxes by the door and they'd do the rest.

"Where's Conan and Bond?" Charlie's mom asked.

"They went to Conan's to grab a few games. Don't worry about waiting for them, they're gonna enter through the side door."

"Alright. We ordered pizza."

"Yeah, pizza is good. Thanks."

Bond and Conan weren't really at Conan's house. None of us wanted to hold bags and none of us wanted to bring a cart back to the store, so ditching it at the nearby park was the reasonable answer.

We headed back to Charlie's domain; the basement. This may be his parent's house, but when we were over, it was his basement.

Bond and Conan were practically banging on the side door. It was hard to ignore so we let them in. They rushed inside and locked the door, collapsing on the floor out of breath.

Mallory tossed both of them a water bottle.

"What's up with you two?" Charlie asked.

Conan stopped chugging. "Remember the Tomato Lady?"

"Yeah."

"Tomato Lady?" Zoey questioned.

I leaned into her ear. "She's a woman around here that goes around complaining about kids and teenagers. It doesn't matter what we're doing. She always finds something to complain about."

"And what's the tomato for?"

"Because she's fat and she always wears a red jacket that makes her look like a bloated tomato."

Zoey giggled. "That's mean."

I raised my hands in defence. "Woah, I've got nothing to do with coming up with that nickname. That's what everyone chose to call her."

Conan continued explaining: "We didn't see her, but she was watching us ditch the cart. She started screaming something and came after us."

"Geez, that's terrifying. What did you guys do?" Charlie asked.

"We were scared so we ran straight here."

Charlie jumped to his feet. "You guys came straight here?! Why on earth would you come straight here? Why didn't you try to lose her?!"

"We got scared."

Charlie took deep breaths to calm himself. "Okay, being scared is fine. At least tell me you lost her before coming here."

"We don't know. She was sprinting really fast."

"She was sprinting? She was fricking sprinting?! She looks like she hasn't run in a decade. How do you provoke her into sprinting?" Charlie grabbed his walkie-talkie and ran upstairs to his bedroom. "Stay here, I'll provide an eagle's view."

I took out my walkie-talkie. "Mama bird. Come in, Mama Bird."

Mallory tssed. "Can we stop with these stupid callouts?"

"Never. Because it's so much fun."

Everyone gathered around me as we waited for a response.

Charlie's crackled voice responded, "Mama Bird has landed on a perch. Can you hear me? Over."

"Bird's Nest can hear you. What do you see? Over."

"Everything seems normal so maybe--Wait, I've spotted her. I repeat: I've spotted the Tomato Lady. Shoot. She's walking into the roundabout. Over."

"What's her body language? Over."

"She's out of breath. That must've been her first exercise in years. Yeah, I think, we're good. She's looking around the houses. Crap!"

From the sound of it, Charlie dropped to the floor.

"Mama bird, what happened? Over."

"Mama Bird's been spotted. I'm flying back."

"The crazy lady is coming here, Mom," Charlie said as he made his way to the basement.

The doorbell rang just as we regrouped. It went off a few times before turning into hard knocks followed by banging. After holding the fort for a couple of minutes, it sounded like she'd given up.

"Phew." Charlie switched his walkie off and tossed it in his bag. "Oh yeah, Zoey, I forgot that you don't have one."

He searched through a nearby box and tossed a walkie to her.

She offered it back. "It's okay, I'll buy my own."

Charlie pushed it into her chest. "It's okay, keep that. I have nine extra. And you have to remember, Charlie provides."

"Please don't refer to yourself in the third person," Conan begged.

Zoey inspected it. "How does this work?"

"It's like a cellphone; but you can't call or text; and it has a limited distance; and whoever's on the same channel can eavesdrop on your conversation. But other than that it's a cellphone."

Zoey pressed the talk button. "Hello?"

Silence.

"Sergeant Pepper, there's a kid on the line. Over," a deep voice answered.

"Channel five!" Charlie screamed. "Go to channel five!"

"Turn the dial!" I yelped. "You have to be on the same channel as us."

Zoey changed the channel and spoke. My walkie went off. "Testing. Testing. Can you hear me?"

"Sounds good," I told her. "It's either you talk or you listen; you can't do both at the same time. So say 'over' once you're done talking"

"So something like this? Testing. Testing. Can you hear me? Over."

"Yup. And once you're done, you say over and out."

"Over and out."

"Perfect."

After some back and forth, we ended up agreeing to play Mario Kart on Charlie's Wii.

The doorbell rang in the middle of our fifth game. Charlie paused it and we sat there listening. The door creaked open and footsteps made its way towards the basement door, opening it.

It was Charlie's dad, who came to drop off four boxes of pizza and a bucket filled with pop and ice.

We relaxed, slumping into the couch.

Charlie wiped his brow. "Phew."

"Why were you guys so tense?" he asked.

"We thought you were the crazy lady."

We decided to watch The Blair Witch Project so we don't get Charlie's controllers greasy.

The movie was tame early on, but once the characters got lost, everything became eerie. We finished eating but instead of resuming Mario Kart, we watched in silence, huddling together under blankets.

Once the movie was done, we had a fifteen-minute intermission trying to decide on the next movie to watch.

Bond read the DVD case. "Apparently this is based on a true story. The filmmakers found the footage and just edited it."

"Stop lying."

Bond tossed me the case. "Read it yourself."

I began reading. "Nevermind. You're not lying."

"That new zombie show is premiering tomorrow," Charlie pointed out.

"What's it called again? It looks cool, but I'd rather go trick-or-treat," I said.

"The Walking Dead I think. If everyone's sleeping over tomorrow, I can record it."

"We're all staying for the weekend. Zoey, what about you?"

"Yep. I'm allowed."

"Then that's that."

Since we kept arguing about which movie to watch, our fifteen-minute break became thirty minutes. In the end, we settled for The Shining.

We were too tired, full, and scared of the movie to finish and ended up stopping halfway through to get some sleep.

At about noon the next day, Charlie printed out maps of the area, put them around the table, and gave us each a marker.

Charlie spoke, "Time to plan Operation... I'll come up with the name later. Okay, people, I want ideas, ideas, ideas."

We debated with each other about what our path should be. Charlie and Mallory wanted to take the shortest route while Bond, Conan, and I wanted to take the longest route possible to maximize the houses we loot. Since Zoey was new to the area and this was her first trick-or-treat, she just watched us plan, pretending she knew what we were talking about.

Once we all agreed on a path, I drew it on a map. We would start in the rich neighbourhood, make our way to the regular neighbourhoods and take a rest at the school. Then we'd take a street near the forest where our hideout was and head back to Charlie's place.

Charlie photocopied the map I drew on and handed each of us a copy.

Zoey read the title written on top of the map: "Operation... Bonbon?"

"Bonbon is French for candy," Mallory explained.

We slept over Charlie's house every Halloween and his parents would always take pictures of us and share them with our parents.

Charlie's mom came downstairs, reminding us to start getting ready.

The hardest part of my costume was Zuko's scar. I prepared the prosthetic yesterday so all I had to do today was apply it and even the seams. Glueing the piece took a couple of tries, but I figured it out.

Zoey and I then went around assisting everyone.

Conan was struggling with Uncle Iroh's beard so Zoey helped him out. I promised Charlie on Tuesday that I'd aid with the bald cap and tattoos so that's what I did. While he waited for the liquid latex to solidify, I had him sit still while I painted on Aang's tattoos.

"You're not gonna paint my legs?" he asked.

"You're legs will be covered. There's absolutely no point in adding arrows there."

Charlie's mom knocked on the door. "It's starting to get dark."

We looked at ourselves in the mirror once we finished.

"Wow," Bond said. "We actually look like them. You know. Except for the fact that we're all white. Except for Rich and Zoey."

Since Zoey was wearing the opaque contacts, I held onto her arm as we ascended the stairs. I could sense her heart racing through her wrist.

Charlie's mom shrieked when she saw us. "These costumes look really good. What's the theme this year?"

"Avatar: The Last Airbender main characters."

Charlie's dad typed away at his laptop and spun it around. "Ha! Their costumes are actually on point."

The photoshoot took place in the backyard. It was a simple group photo at first, but we got way into character. I'd say 10% of the pictures were usable. The other 90% was just us fooling around.

We headed inside and packed our bags. Each of us was equipped with two bottles of water, our walkie-talkies, and flashlights for after dark.

"Are you guys okay with Chinese for dinner?" Charlie's dad asked.

"Yep. We'll radio when we're close."

The sun began to set, shedding an orange glow throughout the neighbourhood. Little kids and toddlers accompanied by their parents were already going from house to house.

I blinked and the next thing I knew, we were on a completely different street. It was dark too. The Food Basics bag in my hand was filled with candy and my backpack had some weight to it. My head was also spinning like someone struck it with a war hammer.

Flashforward. No doubt about it.

Bond, Mallory, Charlie, and Conan were sprinting ahead while I trailed behind them, tugging Zoey by the wrist.

Even though I had no clue what we were fleeing from, I continued just behind the others. All of a sudden Zoey and I were grabbed by a pair of hands. I closed my eyes, attempting to wiggle free and when I opened them, I was back in front of Charlie's house at dusk.

Bond shook my shoulder. "Hey, Rich, you good?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You were just staring off into space."

"Nonsense. Why are we standing here?" I pointed ahead. "Commence Operation Bonbon!"