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“Sang,” Kota said, pulling me out of my dazed state.
Before I fully focused, a wet dollop of pumpkin touched my nose.
The coolness shocked me, and I stared, wide eyed, mouth open, at Kota, who held his slimy, pumpkin-gut covered finger at my face. He grinned, his green eyes lighting up.
Nathan laughed deeply, jolting me and I started giggling and ducked my head out of Kota’s reach, patting his hand away. “Why?” I asked in a playful whine.
“Wake up, goofy,” Kota said, smiling. “You haven’t touched your pumpkin yet. Don’t you want to carve it?”
I wiped at my nose. “I don’t think I’ve done this before. Maybe in second grade...well, no. It really was the teacher doing it and a few volunteers from class, but the rest of us watched.”
“God, Peanut,” Nathan said. He reached for a roll of paper towels nearby and started wiping his hands. “If I hear any more sad stories like that, we’re going to have to go to Disney World or something to make up for it all.”
I was about to say we didn’t have to when Kota talked over me. “Maybe in the summer,” he said.
Were they serious? I didn’t say anything, and neither seemed like they were joking.
Nathan dried his hands and then picked up a knife, passing it to me. “Cut the top,” he said.
I took the knife, and Nathan and Kota took turns showing me how to cut open the pumpkin. I used the gloves at Kota’s request, especially after he mentioned Gabriel would kill us all if I ended up with orange under my fingernails.
With the pumpkins scooped out, Kota held out patterns for us to get started on the carving part. Seeds and guts were all over the table. The tangy smell was overwhelming.
“Okay,” Nathan said, going through the guide book on how to draw various shapes like witches and spiders. “Peanut, you want a ghost or a graveyard?”
I was just about to point one out when there was a rapid knock, rattling and shaking at the windows.
Both of them.
I jumped, rocking back into Nathan, the book falling out of my hands and crashing to the floor. Nathan grabbed my waist, moving me behind him. Kota turned fully toward the windows, spreading out his arms, protecting us both.
Thunk, thunk, thunk!
Giggling sounded, male.
“Shh,” came a whisper from beyond the windows.
More knocking, intense and quick.
Kota groaned, and dropped his arms, stepping back. “I know that’s you, Luke!”
“Nuh uh,” said a voice, clearly Luke. The knocking stopped and there were more giggles and laughter on the outside.
“Nathan,” Kota said, looking at Nathan with a fixed stare. He gave a short nod and the slightest lift of his lip in silent communication. I caught the signals from his face, but not the meaning.
“On it,” Nathan said. He nearly skipped as he rushed toward the front door.
The door opened and Luke shouted in the distance, “Wasn’t me! He did it!” There was a thud and a groan and then laughter. “No, seriously!”
I stood, staring at the wall as if I could see through it. From the thumping, I wondered if there was punching or tackling.
Kota quietly stepped up behind me. He had the gloves off now and his hand went around my waist, his palm resting above my belly button. He held firm there, his mouth at the back of my head, his lips and cheek pressing against my hair. “Watch Luke,” Kota said, his moving lips making my hair slide against my head. “He’ll have more tricks planted in places. He does it every year.”
“He just got here,” I said. “And we’ve got a lot to do. Wouldn’t that slow him down?”
“He’ll have planned this out for weeks,” Kota said. He drew me in closer, until my butt was up against his hip, and squeezed gently in a backward hug. “Stay near me. Trust me. He’ll be targeting you a lot. The rest of us are used to it and don’t fall for the old tricks anymore.”
I sucked in a breath, almost leaning into him at the thought. I turned my head slightly, intending to ask something else.
His lips met with my temple, close to my eyebrow. He kissed me quickly, the move making my brain malfunction and I forgot my question.
Thudding footsteps echoed in the hallway. Kota started to release me, but a second later, something crashed into me and I tripped forward.
Kota fell backward. His leg moved out, and I twisted to avoid him and got tangled.
I landed on top of him, half on the floor and the rest on his stomach.
Another body crashed on top of me. I caught a waft of ginger and citrus. It surprised me, because it wasn’t a scent I often caught, and in the scrambling confusion, I turned, trying to look behind me to identify the source.
Squeezed between him and Kota, I cried out in a squeal and choked when my voice box couldn’t handle the higher, louder notes.
Laughter filled my ear. “Pookie,” Dr. Green held me at the waist and tried to pull me off of Kota. “Sorry. I was being chased.”
“You’re fucking fast,” Nathan said somewhere behind him. “I got Luke, though.”
“I was trying to run around you and use you both as a shield,” Dr. Green said. He positioned himself on his knees, drawing me into him. He wore jeans, and from what I could feel, a track jacket. He squeezed his arms around me. I was dizzy, blinking, letting the wash of colors in front of my eyes fade and pressed a hand to my temple to stop the spinning. “You move too fast, Kota.”
“Never was a problem before,” Kota groaned, but he hadn’t moved yet. He remained on his back on the floor, his knees up and looking at the ceiling. He coughed and covered his face with a palm. “It is way too early for tackling.”
“You started it,” cried out Luke as he came around the corner. His jeans were splotched with grass and mud stains, his hair disheveled. A hair clip hung from his head, barely gripping at a few locks. The moment he was in the kitchen, he stripped off the T-shirt that was also stained and draped it over his shoulder. He was breathing heavily, and there were red marks across his stomach and chest. He bent over, grabbing at his knees and then placed a palm over one of the splotches on his chest. “Nathan pinches hard, dude.”
“Don’t try to scare us next time,” Kota said. He rose, adjusting the glasses on his face. He turned toward me. “You okay?”
“She’s fine,” Dr. Green said. He pulled away from me so he could stand and then reached down for my elbow to help me up. Once I was standing, he brushed at my back and hip. “You’re good, right?”
I smiled, choking on a giggle. I was hanging onto Dr. Green just to feel stable. Too many scares in the morning. Dr. Green’s touch chilled me through the material of the pajama pants and my shirt. They must have been outside for a while. A tremble started inside of me at the pit of my stomach, both from his cold hands and the excitement.
He reached up and clasped his hand around my mouth, the chill seeping into my cheeks. “Hold on there,” he said. “No giggling.”
I tapped at his cold hand over my mouth, mumbling that it was Halloween and he couldn’t possibly have a reason not to laugh today.
“We’re about to cut up our pumpkins,” Nathan said, smiling. His chest was still heaving a bit as he breathed heavily. He pointed to his pumpkin. “I think I want the zombie, but this alien guy looks really sick.”
Dr. Green released my mouth but hung his arm around my neck and drew me back to the table. “What’s Sang’s going to be?” he asked. He tilted his head, looking at my pumpkin between Nathan’s and Kota’s.
“She has to pick one,” Nathan said.
Dr. Green reached up, touching his cold fingers to my neck, enough to make me squirm and pull away. He grinned, his light green eyes lighting up and a wave of his sandy hair falling across his forehead. “I was trying to warm my hands. I can’t have them this cold if I’m doing pumpkin surgery.”
“You’ve got to gut yours first,” Nathan said. He pointed to the row of other pumpkins.
“I have to change my clothes,” Luke sa
id. “And maybe take a shower now.”
“Do your pumpkin now while you’re dirty,” Kota said. “Then you can shower.”
“Good idea,” he said. He snagged one of the pumpkins and then a second one. “I’ve got Gabriel’s. He’ll want this one.”
My mouth fell open, and I looked at Kota for confirmation if that was okay. I wasn’t sure if it was one of Luke’s tricks.
Kota didn’t miss a beat. “Luke,” he said, the command in his voice rising. “If you mess up his pumpkin...”
“No way,” Luke said with a grin. He took the shirt off his shoulder and dropped it onto a chair, scooting the chair away from the table to make room. “He’ll just kill me if he gets one of the smaller pumpkins. You know him, he’ll want a big surface to work on.” He placed his and Gabriel’s pumpkins on the table, reaching for one of the knives and starting on carving open the top. “Sang, want to gut Gabriel’s pumpkin for him? He’ll want to help you with your carving, anyway. Might want to wait until he gets here.”
It sounded like a good idea, since I still hadn’t chosen one of the stencils from the book. I got to work next to Luke, using Kota’s scoop this time and pulling guts from Gabriel’s pumpkin.
While Kota and Nathan were setting up their stencils, and Dr. Green went back outside to the car to grab some more supplies, Luke leaned in and whispered to me, “Okay, Sang, you ready?”
