Spooky Sister Night

‘’But Mum, I was going to Janes party tonight’’ I say, before slamming the door of the living room ‘’excuse me young lady but, me and your father and going out to Samantha’s for a Halloween drink , you are staying here to look after your sister’’ my mum says, we both look over to my sister Beth, playing with her Iron man action figure, also wearing an Iron man costume, he’s always been her favourite. ‘’That is final and please don’t try to argue with me ’’ mum says walking out the room ‘’we’ll be back around 10 tomorrow morning probably’’ she closes the door. ‘’ugh well, that’s my awesome party thrown out the window’’ I say as I sit down across from Beth

‘’You could take me with you, I hear Jane has the cutest Labrador puppy’’ Beth says

‘’no way am I taking you to a part full of sixteen year olds, many things happen, that your tiny innocent mind wouldn’t understand’’ I say with a great convincing tone ‘’anyway aren’t you supposed to be at Steph’s Halloween party?’’ I ask her, picking up her Spiderman action figure. ‘’They said I couldn’t go’’ Beth Replies, her face sunk into sadness.

‘’what, why not?’ I ask

‘’it’s a princess party, only princesses are aloud, and I wanted to go as iron man’’ She replied holding her tiny tony stark up to my face. Emotions fill my head from confusion, anger to sadness as I feel sorry for my cast out little sister. ‘’oh well, hey maybe we can do something cooler than parties….we could go sleep outside, where its dark and spooky.’’ Beth didn’t perk up to my suggestion ‘’nah that’s lame, hmm just let me think for a minute ok ‘’ while I babbled on about where to spend our Halloween night Beth discovered some newspapers on the table and actually made me jump out of concentration ‘’what about here?’’ she asks passing me the paper. I look at the front page to find a photograph of the town cemetery ‘’hmm that’s good , you don’t think it’s too scary for you’’ I tease her ‘’no I’m Iron man, I’m not scared of anything’’ she put her hands on her hips to look like a true super hero. ‘’Well ok then, this is on you if we get told off, go get your bag and I shall put my spiderman shirt on’’ I say rolling up the newspaper ‘’YAY!!’’ She yells, running out the room, finally giving me something to smile about.

Thank god the cemetery was not far away, If Beth found the abandoned chocolate factory on that newspaper we would be on the other side of town. We walked up the hill to the entrance of the cemetery, an open archway with cracks full of moss, the words Macey Cemetery nearly ceasing to exist. We carried two bags each, I was hoping for one each but this is my little sister ‘’when I said pack your bags I didn’t mean put you whole room in here’’ I say dragging the bag up through the main isle of tombstones. ‘’I needed important things, boardgames, flashlight, teddies and action figures see….IMPORTANT’’ Beth says in quite a moody manner but it just makes me snigger to myself ‘’alright whatever you say’’ I say, not interesting in creating a pointless conversation with Iron man. ‘’Well I think this is a perfect spot, look we have great views of the town and at 10 we get fireworks, plus we can look down the hill to see any zombies coming out their graves, didn’t bring MJ’s THRILLER tape did you?’’ I joke with her, but she gives me that look to say oh come on. I do the thriller dance to see if her smile would pop up but nothing ‘’ok then let’s set our sleeping bags up then.’’ We set out everything that would make it an awesome night, a battery lamp to give us sight of each other, Beth’s superhero action figures to protect us from the living dead and two bags of Halloween candy. Everything was spooky and well, just perfect, I honestly think I’d pick this over partying any day. We both tucked into our candy, me skipping on the Bounty’s, the strong flavours of coconut never caught my taste buds. Beth pulled a board game out of her bag ‘’really? You literally brought everything with you’’ I say taking the game from her, Marvels guess who game Is what reads on the box. ‘’well thank god it’s not Operation, we would be waking the whole cemetery up’’ I say

‘’will you stop making zombie jokes’’ Beth says smiling ‘’lets play’’ she flicked up all her hero faces as I did mine and we played the game.

An hour had passed, I looked at my watch to find it was 9:30 ‘’ooh half an hour till the fireworks Beth’’ I say with great excitement.

‘’Yay’’ Beth said throwing her arms in the air, then taking a nougat bar out of her bag.

We were on our 4^th game and Beth was full on winning, she was in the zone and I knew I wasn’t to have any glory. Throughout the game however I noticed that something was troubling her, its like her thoughts drifted somewhere else, away from the game. It’s that party, the one she wasn’t aloud to go to, I know it ‘’so tell me….everyone to there own but who has a fairy princess party on Halloween?’’ I ask Beth, in deep confusion

‘’the girls in my class don’t really like the whole scary, gruesome blood side of October, they never have last year they had a jacuzzi party and we had to wear swimsuits, mine has skulls on and they just stared , like that stare where they think it’s weird’’ Beth speaks as if she’s sorry for who she really is. ‘’When I said I’m going as Iron man, they said you can’t come’’ she stops for a second and whimpers a little ‘’because I’m acting like a boy’’. Unbelievable I thought, my eyes widened and filled with light from the lamp, Beth nearly in breaks to tears so I move over and put my arm around her ‘’hey ….there is nothing wrong with acting like a boy sometimes, well there is a little bit because boys smell and leave their underwear on the floor’’ I say, which gains a grin from the 8 year olds face ‘’but you leave your underwear on the floor’’ Beth says with no hesitation and giggles straight afterward. ‘’ok yes I do that, but that’s not the point, the point is that you don’t have to be the same as everyone else. If you want to be a tomboy and love superheroes and ghosts then you do that, those princesses down there, they’re probably going to grow up liking the same stuff and to be honest that’s pretty boring’’ I stop to see if she has anything to say, she stayed quiet, but surprised me with a hug. ‘’When you be yourself, you’re so much more, you’re my sister and your are your own unique person’’ my voice was suddenly overcome by a big bang of a firework and the coal coloured sky disappeared behind a bright pink crackle. ‘’Woah’’ Beth says quickly standing to her feet, amazed by the colours exploding in the open air. I walked to her side and put my arm round her shoulder ‘’Thanks Alex, this was so cool, you’re the best big sister ever’’ Beth says hugging my waist tight ‘’Happy Halloween Beth’’.