I am the Skeleton in the Closet

Halloween

Halloween was my favourite time of year. I always had wanted someone to do group costumes with, but I really didn't know anyone well enough. Mom never allowed me to dress up as anything scary either, so I didn't have many good options. In first grade I dressed as an angel. Second I had dressed up as a devil/angel where half of the costume was bright white and sequined with a white wing on the back and the other half was red with sequins, a horn, and a red mangled wing on the back. In third grade I really wanted to dress up as a devil, like I had made the full transformation. However, since I was never allowed to dress up as anything scary, I couldn't dress up as a devil, even the childlike interpretation. So I decided To hell with it. and just dressed up as weird as I could for every other Halloween. Third grade was the start of this. For third grade I dressed up as a bottle of Ketchup. You read that right, Ketchup.

Every house I went to asked the same question. "Aww! You're ketchup! Did you leave your mustard behind? Where'd they go?" They would lean out with the candy bowl trying to see the yellow outline of a mustard bottle in the distance or on another porch step.

"Nope just me!" I'd excitedly thrust my sack forward waiting for the extra pity candy.

Once I met Natalia though. We dressed up together every year. She even helped me get Jo into it. Fourth grade we were breakfast food. I was bacon, Natalia was milk, and Jo was an egg. Fifth grade we were all different kinds of candy. I was a chocolate kiss (also known as some sort of space costume), Natalia was a peanut butter cup, and Jo was a chocolate wafer bar. We had all hand crafted our costumes for both fourth and fifth grade years. My chocolate kiss was some silver fabric and some pool noodles. Natalia's peanut butter cup and Jo's chocolate wafer bar were cardboard boxes with felt glued over the top.

Sixth grade we switched it up a bit. We were getting to the age where the school would hold assemblies and hire mimes or clowns to entertain us. Natalia, Jo, and I were obsessed. We would practice our mime routines every chance we got. So in sixth grade for Halloween we dressed up as mimes. Both Jo and Natalia had gone to the dollar store to pick up supplies for the costumes. Mom didn't want to take me so I dove into my closet and found a white shirt and black pants. We all met up at Jo's to get ready.

"Where's your costume?" Jo was surprised.

"Mom never ended up letting me go to the dollar store to get anything so I was going to see what you had." I explained.

"Let's see what I got..." She signed out leading me up to her bathroom for makeup. "Here. You've got the black and white, ok, but these'll add color to it." She handed me some rainbow suspenders and started getting out her makeup kit for the mime face.

"Thanks." I squirmed trying to get them to sit right on my pants.

Natalia showed a few minutes later to get all mimed up. "Alright. Now. Once I draw this line in fully you cannot talk anymore ok?" She explained finishing up the white on my face and grabbing the black.

"Alright." I said breathing out as if readying myself for silence as she etched the line in.

"You're turn." She grabbed Natalia and pushed me back.

Once she was done the trick or treating had started and we ran from house to house.

"I'll give you the whole bowl if you make us laugh with your routine!" Hollered out one of the neighbors in the less kid populated part of the neighborhood. So we tried our best. I stood there astonished as Natalia dragged Jo with an imaginary rope. I frantically tried to get out of an invisible box that was shrinking in on me as Natalia ran into the side of the box trying to help. Needless to say we got that entire bowl from them.

Natalia was much closer to me than she was Jo. After that Halloween the group sort of split up. Jo started hanging out with the more prissy clickey crowd and Natalia absorbed me into her normal friend group. Most of her other friends were her age and she had a bunch of them. They were all just as nerdy and quirky as she was. After a bit though, I started getting alienated. She just simply hung out with the others more since they were just more typically in her life than I was. We knew all of the words to a comical spy movie and all the choreography and lyrics to a few animated children's movies. In the end though I didn't see her like the other girls did.