One Day At A Time

Chapter Six: Halloween - Part #1

Day by day, October slips past them.
They've reached the end, today is Halloween.
The day they have all been looking forward to.

The universe has blessed them with the fact that Halloween this year is on a Friday.

During lunch, Ava and Lucas are practically jumping out of their seats with excitement.

"I'm gonna get the most candy, because my costume is the best!" Lucas gloats.
"My costume has a sword, Lucas! I'm gonna get the most candy!"

They're all juniors in high school but Halloween fills all of them with childlike joy over costumes and candy.

"She's got a point. Swords get you extra candy, it's a fact." Rose jokes. "But both of you will be proven wrong when you see my costume for this year."

Ava thinks hard for a moment, trying to figure out what Rose's costume could be.
When she can't figure anything out, she asks,
"Does it come with a sword?"
"No."
"Dangit, that would've been cool..."

"What're you going as?" Rose asks, looking at Lilly.
"You'll have to wait to find out."
"Why?"
"Just for the hell of it." Lilly says, smiling.

Lilly knows what Ava's costume is, but it'll be a fun surprise to see what everyone else's are.

The last two periods of the day go by agonizingly slow, but soon enough, Ava gets dropped off at her house and runs into her room, buzzing with joy.

It's still light outside and her friends aren't supposed to be at her house to go trick-or-treating until six o' clock, so she does anything she can to distract herself.

Her mom, Donna, comes home at around five o' clock and at five-thirty, she tells all of her kids to get their costumes on.

Anne and Andy are quick with their costumes, getting them on as fast as they possibly can.

At five-forty, Ava stands in front of the bathroom mirror while her mom works on braiding her hair for her costume.

Ava grimaces at her hair being pulled and twisted, but it's worth it when she looks at herself in the mirror with a huge grin.

She eagerly sits by the front door, when six o' clock rolls around and Lilly arrives first, right on time.

"You can let your friends in. I'm going to go check on the little rugrats." Donna says, walking down the hallway.

Ava opens the door for Lilly and greets her with a hug.

When she lets her go, she takes a second or two to look at her.

She's dressed in ripped jeans, a plain navy blue t-shirt, a faux leather jacket, and a pair of star-shaped sunglasses.

"You look really nice!" Ava compliments with a smile.
"Thanks. I was going for a rock-star kind of look."

She doesn't even listen to rock music, but it was the best idea she could come up with.

Lilly takes her own few seconds to look at Ava.
Her costume is as she described it, a knight in shining armor.

Her original plan was a character from "Skyrim", but since she couldn't find one, being a knight was her backup plan.

The armor isn't shining at all, it's made of thin, crappy foam, but the point still gets across.

She looks pretty dressed as a knight in "shining" armor.
Lilly tells her this and Ava's heart beats happily in her chest.

Besides her candy bag, Lilly has an overnight bag, since Ava asked her to sleep over after trick-or-treating, because it's a Friday.