Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

5

HONEST TO GOD, THERE IS nothing better than Halloween on a Friday. All day in school, there’s a kind of charged feeling, and it seems to make the work less boring and the teachers funnier. I’ve got felt cat ears duct taped to my hoodie, and a tail pinned to the butt of my jeans, and kids I don’t know are giving me smiles in the hallways. Laughing in a nice way. It’s just an awesome day.

Abby comes home with me, and we’ll walk over to Nick’s later so Leah can pick us all up. Leah’s already seventeen, which makes a difference in Georgia with your license. I can drive one other person at a time besides Nora right now, and that’s the end of the story. My parents aren’t strict about a lot of things, but they’re evil mad dictators when it comes to driving.

Abby collapses to the floor to cuddle with Bieber as soon as we walk into the kitchen. She and Leah may not have much in common, but they’re both obsessed with my dog. And Bieber is now lying pathetically on his back, belly exposed, staring up at Abby dreamily.

Bieber is a golden retriever, and he has these big, brown, kind of manic eyes. Alice was way too pleased with herself when she came up with his name, but I’m not going to lie. It seriously fits.

“So where is this thing?” Abby asks, looking up at me. She and Bieber are intertwined in an eternity embrace, her headband sliding down over her eyes. A lot of people did the toned-down school version of Halloween today—animal ears and masks and things like that. Abby showed up wearing a full-on, head-to-toe Cleopatra costume.

“Garrett’s house? Somewhere off Roswell Road, I think? Nick knows.”

“So it’s going to be mostly soccer people?”

“Probably. I don’t know,” I say.

I mean, I did get a text from Monkey’s Asshole confirming he’d be there. But I don’t feel like bringing him into the conversation.

“Well, whatever. It’ll be fun.” She tries to extract herself from the dog, and her costume rides almost all the way up her thigh. She does have tights on, but really. I guess it’s funny. As far as I know, everyone thinks of me as straight, but already Abby seems to have figured out that she doesn’t have to be self-conscious around me. But maybe that’s just how she is.

“Hey, are you hungry?” she asks. And I realize I’m supposed to have offered her something.

We end up cooking grilled cheese in the toaster oven and bringing it into the living room to eat in front of the TV. Nora is tucked into her corner of the couch reading Macbeth. I guess that’s kind of Halloween-ish. Nora never really goes out. I catch her eyeing our sandwiches, and then she slides off the couch to make one for herself. I mean, if she wanted grilled cheese, she really should have just told me. Our mom gives Nora crap about being more assertive. Though I guess I could have asked if she was hungry. I have a hard time getting into other people’s heads sometimes. It’s probably the worst thing about me.

We watch some random shows on Bravo with Bieber stretched between us on the couch. Nora comes in with her sandwich and goes back to reading. Alice, Nora, and I tend to do our work in front of the TV or with music playing, but we all get good grades, regardless.

“Hey, we better get dressed, right?” Abby says. Abby has an entirely different costume for the party, because by now everyone has seen Cleopatra.

“We don’t have to be at Nick’s until eight.”

“But don’t you want to dress up for the trick-or-treaters?” she says. “I always hated it when people weren’t in costume.”

“Um, if you say so. But I promise you, the kids here are all about the candy, and they seriously don’t care where it comes from.”

“That’s a little concerning,” says Abby.

I laugh. “Yeah, it is.”

“Okay, well, I’m taking over your bathroom now. Time for the transformation.”

“Sounds good,” I say. “I’ll transform in here.”

Nora looks up from her book. “Simon. Eww.”

“It’s a dementor robe over my clothes. I think you’ll survive.”

“What’s a dementor?”

I mean, I can’t even. “Nora, you are no longer my sister.”

“So it’s some Harry Potter thing,” she says.

Garrett bumps fists with Nick when we walk in. “Eisner. What. Is. Up.”

And there’s this throb of music and random bursts of laughter and people holding cans that aren’t Coke. Already, I’m feeling a little out of my depth. So, here’s the thing—I’m used to the other kind of party. The kind where you get to someone’s house and their mom shows you down to the basement, and there’s junk food and Apples to Apples and a bunch of people randomly singing. Maybe some people playing video games.

“So, what can I get you to drink?” Garrett asks. “We have beer and, um, vodka and rum.”

“Yeah, thanks, no,” says Leah. “I drove.”

“Oh, well, we have Cokes and juice and stuff.”