It was fun at first, but my shakes and shouts made my antennas fall off, under the light, of all places. All of a sudden, who picks them up but Dylan Beaman dressed up as Batman. It was my first time ever seeing Dylan outside of school. I hope he didn’t hear me say “I’m a dude.” It was actually the first time Sofie and I were being seen doing anything together outside of school, and our costumes didn’t exactly cover up who we actually are. We were totally busted.
Dylan stepped into the circle of light. He was there with his whole family. His little brothers were dressed as a hunters in bright orange and army colors. Their mom and dad were Houghton High School football players with black lines under their eyes. They were probably feeling super confident because Houghton kicked butt at the Copper Bowl against Hancock High this year. The Beaman family all wrinkled their noses in the exact same way when they caught me singing and dancing. Dylan Beaman handed me my neon antennas with a laugh and said, “What are you supposed to be?”
Before I could say anything back, he and his whole family walked away and disappeared down that hill. In that moment, I made a promise to myself to never sing in front of people again. Ever. I just wish I knew what the Beamans were thinking when they walked away. I hope they didn’t think my confident walk was too weird. Do you think I’m weird? Maybe I take back what I said about getting excited for the winter concert.
I don’t think Sofie heard what happened with Dylan. She just kept on dancing that whole entire time he was there. I waited for her to notice, but I don’t know. I stopped singing and she finally paused to look at me with big eyes. I swallowed and imagined my whole voice going down with it. For the rest of the night, Sofie put her pop star microphone up to her mouth every time a grown-up asked her what kind of candy she wanted. It sounded like she really knew the answers too. I hate that I couldn’t feel the same confidence anymore.
Sofie asked, “Do you want to try holding my mic?” as we left the cool-looking, purple strobe-light house. I scrunched up my nose and said, “No, thanks.” I did the exact same thing when Richard sang about sharing his Kit Kat bar with me. I know the two of them didn’t deserve those faces, but I was half expecting the Beaman family would show up again any minute. I hardly said anything for the rest of our trick-or-treating time. I never thought I would say this, but I just wanted to go home. I wanted to take my moth costume off as soon as possible.
I decided to go back to my house a few blocks early, I threw my wings on the floor of my room and emptied out the candy in my pillowcase into a big plastic bowl. Now I can’t sleep. It’s way past my bedtime and I’m thinking way too much. I don’t know. Why is it I can get a whole pillowcase of candy and still get so stuck on that one look, that one laugh? It’s too late to take back my singing and dancing and whatever else I did out there for Dylan and everybody in the world to see. To undo it, I think I will have to become a paper-football champion or learn how to burp out the alphabet. I might have to become really pretty somehow. Something like that, I don’t know. All of these things will take way too long, though. Do you have any ideas for me?
I just know that next time I will try my very best to keep away from the light, even though that’s not what a moth would do. Gosh, or maybe there will be no next time at all because middle schoolers probably can’t go trick-or-treating anyways. Who knows?
Sorry, I should go to bed now. Good thing it’s not a school night.
Sincerely,
Me
PS, Okay. Hi. I just came up with the perfect plan, and I am already feeling so much better. I am going to share my trick-or-treat candy with Dylan Beaman. Maybe if I pick very, very carefully what I share with him, he will think that I am cool. If Dylan Beaman thinks I’m cool, then I will for sure be invited to Mary’s birthday party. Even if they don’t think I’m cool, my old friends like Dylan’s opinion more than their own. I’ll just make sure to leave my antennas at home, maybe hide them in my drawer with all my other stuff. How does that sound? Actually, no, don’t tell me. I know it’s a good idea.
Good night again,
Kye
Monday, November 3, 1997
Hi,
I hope someone tells you that you are good every single day, even on days when you’re feeling like you made a mistake under a streetlight or whatever. I was wishing someone told me that today. It was parent-teacher conferences and I had to go with my mom because it was also errands day.
To be honest, it was hard even before we left the house. Mom found my Picture Day pictures. She finally found them while going through my drawers. She said, “God help us” and “Ellie, you could really be beautiful if you tried a little bit harder.” I just nodded my head. I know I’ve heard that before somewhere. Mom’s worried that Dad is not gonna know what happened to his “pretty little girl.” I hope she knows that she’s the only one who actually calls me that. She threw my Picture Day pictures in the wastebasket. She didn’t even see what name I put on my form. Afterward, Mom made me put on a purple dress and plastic headband. She put on her nice shirt from Dad’s store that says MICHIGAN, THE SUPERIOR STATE in rhinestones.
I know that we don’t know each other, but do you think I’m beautiful? I’m just wondering if there is anything I can do to be beautiful that doesn’t mean wearing that purple thing. That dress doesn’t even fit me anymore. Either way, I probably complained about it too much. Mom told me “You’re being too sensitive,” and gave me an animal-themed coloring book from the Dollar Tree at Copper Country Mall. Doesn’t Mom know that fifth graders aren’t supposed to have coloring books? I hardly touched it in the car, and instead watched her smoking lots of cigarettes through the rear-view mirror. I bet she wanted a cigarette for parent-teacher conferences too, but everybody knows there is no smoking allowed at school.
I felt like everybody noticed me and Mom when we walked into the school gym. The room was full of echoes and we had to pass by a bunch of people waiting in gray folding chairs. I sat in the farthest corner I could find as Mom got in line to talk to Mr. B. I get kind of scared when I know that people are talking about me. If parents and teachers were saying good things, you would think that they want us kids to be there for the whole conversation so we could feel good about ourselves. Now that I think about it, there should be a place for us to go review our parents. Then again, I’m not really sure what I would be allowed to say about mine.
I was so nervous that I barely looked at the coloring book while Mom stood in line. She put on her lipstick and looked around the room. She hardly waved to anyone, just a lady from church and my old Girl Scouts troop leader. The only other kid there was that quiet boy with the VH1 binder from my class. I half smiled at him to be nice. His name is Nathan Lucas. He lives all the way in Calumet, and looked just as nervous as me. I saw Mr. B smile and nod a lot while talking to his dad. Nathan Lucas must be smart even though he doesn’t talk. I just crossed my fingers for Mr. B to give my mom the exact same smile.