It was my first Halloween on Hamby Street and I was wearing to go.

I just moved into the neighborhood the week before and I was hoping to meet some of the kids on the street as I filled my bag with treats.

Mom hadn't set out to move this close to Halloween, but, you know, when your dad decides he needs the house for his mistress and her kids, you have to pick up and go pretty quickly.

The court had made him buy mom out of half the house, but, I mean, that wasn't too difficult for him.

We had found a very nice house on Hambry Street, street packed with families and little cracker box houses,

but unpacking hadn't left me a lot of time to make friends. So now, standing on the front stoop in my homemade ghost costume, I was ready to find some friends.

The costume had been last minute, my mom had honestly forgotten about it in the move. And when I had reminded her an hour

ago, she had realized there was no time to buy one. So hunting around, she found some old sheets,

cut a couple of eye holes, and there we go. Classic ghost costume. It looked kind of lame,

next to the superheroes and cartoon characters that were tromping up and down the street, but I liked it. It reminded me of Charlie Brown from the storybook that I had in my

bookshelf, and as I set out, I wondered if someone might actually give me a rock. I didn't get a rock,

but I did get a lot of looks from those around me.

I'd expected some laughs, maybe some questions about why I didn't have a real costume,

but what I got was something between fear and scorn.

People stepped out of my way. The adults looked down at me with disbelief, and a lot of the kids looked scared.

I had to look at the front of the sheet a couple of times to make sure that there weren't any stains or something.

No one wanted to talk to me.

Most of the children turned away from me, and the people of the houses refused to give

me candy.

They slammed the door in my face almost immediately, some of them telling me that I should

be ashamed of myself before doing it.

That's how I came to be sitting on the sidewalk, trying not to cry, and wondering why I had bothered to come out at all.

...